While the current focus is on career-connected programming, ReadyCT maintains a policy presence, advocating for policies and practices that advance academic excellence and career-connected learning for all public school students in Connecticut.
As the name ReadyCT implies, we are dedicated to preparing students to walk a path toward success – success in college, career, and life!
We’ve made strides, but there is still much more to do and we welcome your partnership.
For more information about our policy efforts, contact ReadyCT’s Deputy Director Sheryl McNamee at sheryl.mcnamee@readyct.org.
To ensure all students can thrive, we must recruit, prepare and support qualified and committed educators.
Examining how existing and proposed policies impact each other leads to meaningful progress.
Historically underserved/underperforming districts can benefit greatly from leveraging and scaling what has already been proven to have impact in successful school districts.
Optimizing existing resources as well as exploring new funding opportunities figure prominently in our policy pursuits.
As you may know, legislative work groups need time to explore complex issues and make thoughtful recommendations to solve problems. For 2025, ReadyCT continued its service on work groups dedicated to modernizing teacher preparation and certification, updating high school graduation requirements, and assessing Connecticut’s K-12 accountability index. In all instances, work group reports are expected to inform advocacy for the 2026 legislative session.
Leveraging legislative wins from 2024, ReadyCT has turned its attention to serving on the work groups we fought to create: modernizing teacher preparation and certification; updating high school graduation requirements; and assessing Connecticut’s K-12 accountability index. We look forward to sharing the outcomes of those efforts in the 2024-25 Impact Report.
For 2022-23, ReadyCT focused the bulk of its policy efforts on the educator workforce. Or, more pointedly, the lack thereof.
At the end of 2022, Connecticut reported over 1,200 teacher vacancies. Over 71% of the vacancies were in Connecticut’s Alliance Districts, the state’s lowest performing districts with large populations of low income students, disproportionately represented by students of color.
The onerous educator certification regulations, which haven’t had a significant update in over 25 years, have contributed to the issue, making it difficult to attract college students, career changers, and out-of-state certified teachers to Connecticut classrooms.
As one would-be teacher said, “I have a chem degree in my back pocket, so what am I doing trying to get my teaching certification? Getting across the finish line is hard.”
To this end, ReadyCT worked closely with other education organizations to bring this issue to the attention of lawmakers. As a result, lawmakers agreed that before any mandate on the matter, the CT State Department of Education (CSDE) should convene; accordingly, the Connecticut Council on Educator Certification (CCEC), which includes a ReadyCT delegate, was established.
The CCEC is currently working to modernize Connecticut’s educator certification processes so that the state can attract and retain the highest quality professionals for employment in its public schools.
Programming is most effective when supported by effective policies – or, when policies that create barriers to impact are strategically abandoned.
For this reason, ReadyCT has been working closely this past year in consultation with the Columbia University Center for Public Research & Leadership (CPRL) and other stakeholders to craft a path forward to modernizing educator preparation and certification regulations. As those regulations now stand, they are unwieldy and outdated, making it difficult for Connecticut residents – young talent and career changers alike! – to enter the education profession.
Because of this, Connecticut’s public school students are denied a diverse, and high-quality teacher corps, with some classrooms being “teacherless” for most or all of the academic year.
And that is all quite unacceptable.
Today, ReadyCT and other education advocates are working in collaboration to engage lawmakers on this important issue. The 2023 legislative session will put the 2022 prep work to use, with the ask of lawmakers to form a task force that will engage all key stakeholders on this increasingly important issue in a way that will replace existing regulations with a streamlined, easy-to-apply set of regulations offering multiple onramps into public education careers.
The 2021 Connecticut legislative session was an anomalous yet productive one. Lawmakers were engaged and eager for results despite the ongoing disruptions caused by COVID-19.
ReadyCT collaborated across sectors in favor of policies that advance academic excellence and career-connected learning for Connecticut’s public school students, including:
RIGHT TO READ: A broad set of early literacy instruction provisions was included in the Governor’s budget implementer bill requiring that all districts use evidence-based curriculum grounded in phonics and phonemic awareness. A $26M budget (over two years) will establish, among other things, a Center for Literacy Research and Reading Success to oversee curriculum choices and provide dedicated coaching at the district level.
EDUCATION + WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT: Provisions of this exciting legislation will: establish the Office of Workforce Strategy for better education-workforce alignment; support the design of a statewide plan to improve education, training, and placement in high-growth/high-demand industries; require school districts to increase family involvement in student success
planning; improve FAFSA completion rates; and give students a range of ways to earn a spot in advanced course enrollment (no longer just academic entry!).
These laws include much more. ReadyCT is available to speak on these and other policies, including what ReadyCT continues to advance, i.e., study and investment in remote learning, a statewide microcredentialing program, and expanding work-based learning programs for students.
In 2020, the pandemic offered little opportunity to work with legislators; however, ReadyCT Executive Director Shannon Marimón was tapped to co-lead the Education + Training Committee of the Governor’s Workforce Council. Her influence is evident in the Council’s Strategic Plan published October 2020, particularly in Section 2.
The global COVID-19 health crisis fundamentally changed public education for a significant period, and ReadyCT partnered with other education thought leaders to explore whether remote learning could be leveraged beyond the pandemic period.
A model was ultimately developed with eight key principles summarized in this New York Daily News op-ed co-authored by ReadyCT Executive Director Shannon Marimón. The effort sought to advance the model as a workable solution for local educational agencies to use and adapt as best suits the needs of their students, teachers, parents, and overall school community. The Connecticut State Department of Education endorsed the use of the materials. More details and the guiding documents can be found here.
Computer Science Education: P.A. 19-128 expands students’ access to computer science classes and helps to better prepare teachers to teach the material. NOTE: ReadyCT is currently pursuing several opportunities to ensure all students are sufficiently exposed to this critical content area.
Opportunity Gap: P.A. 19-130 seeks improvements from underperforming districts in literacy, attendance, and chronic absenteeism while also directing these schools to use evidence-based practices. NOTE: Next session, ReadyCT will continue the opportunity gap conversation with an eye toward increasing funding transparency.
Teacher Performance: P.A. 19-139 mandates a workgroup to study issues relating to edTPA, and this was a compromise after some interested parties advocated for dismantling it. NOTE: ReadyCT will keep abreast of the workgroup’s activities.
Minority Teacher Recruitment: P.A. 19-74 requires the design and implementation of strategies to hire more minority teachers. NOTE: For the 2020 legislative session, ReadyCT will aim to leverage this mandate for policy that recruits and hires more minority school leaders.
Since our founding, we have collaborated with like-minded individuals and organizations to improve public education in Connecticut. Those collaborations have helped to:
We are committed to addressing all education policies as they pertain to our vision of a public school system that offers academic excellence, equity, access, and inspired learning.
