It’s a reading education emergency in Connecticut

More than 400 educators gathered Thursday, November 29, 2007, in Waterbury, Connecticut, for the state’s first reading summit. They got a bleak introduction to the topic. When it comes to reading levels, the gaps between black or Hispanic and white students in Connecticut are the widest in the nation. So is the gap between poor and non-poor students, state Department of Education officials said. Statewide, there are 12,834 third-graders at or below basic levels on the reading portion of the Connecticut Mastery Test—enough to fill 178 school buses. “It’s an emergency. Education is an emergency and we have an emergency going on in Connecticut,” state Rep. Beth Bye, D-West Hartford, said of the test scores and achievement gaps. Bye directs early childhood education for the Capitol Region Education Council. Read more in The Hartford Courant.