School Superintendent David B. Erwin will retire in January, closing a 42-year education career that includes 23 years as school superintendent in five Connecticut districts, the last eight in Berlin.

As University of Connecticut professor Preston Green explains to me in an email, much of the malfeasance of charter schools comes from the entities that manage them. Called education management organizations (EMOs) or charter management organizations (CMOs), these outfits “create an agency issue with charter school governing boards that generally does not occur in traditional public schools,” Green explains.

Preston C. Green III, Bruce Baker and Joseph Oluwole’s article, entitled “Having It Both Ways: How Charter Schools Try to Obtain Funding of Public Schools and the Autonomy of Private Schools,” explains how charters use “their hybrid characteristics to obtain the benefits of public funding while circumventing state and federal rights and protections for employees and students that apply to traditional public schools.”

Norwalk Public Schools (Neag alum selected as school’s new principal)

Graduates of Bulkeley High School looked forward as they crossed the stage on Thursday, encouraged by peers and educators to never give up in the face of challenges. Principal Gayle Allen-Greene said she was at a crossroads, just like the students, as she is retiring this year after 20 years at Bulkeley, and 37 years in the Hartford public schools.

Sabin Loveland, principal at Global Experience Magnet School for the last six years, has accepted the principal’s position at Wamogo Regional High School, in Litchfield County.

A Redding principal will take over the top position at Noah Wallace School on July 1, Farmington public schools announced. Carrie Wessman Huber, current principal of Redding Elementary School, was selected at the end of a national search to replace Kelly Sanders, who served as principal of Noah Wallace for four years.

Congratulations to our Neag School alumni, faculty, staff, and students on their continued accomplishments inside and outside the classroom.

Led by Erik Hines, assistant professor in the Department of Educational Psychology, students and faculty advisors from University of Connecticut’s ScHOLA2RS House traveled to the Bahia region of Brazil this spring to learn about the low access rate to higher education among Afro-Brazilian adolescents. Hines is the faculty advisor for the ScHOLA2RS House Learning Community.

Casey Cobb said research overwhelmingly shows that wide-open school choice models like those in Florida and Milwaukee that use vouchers to allow parents to choose which school their children attend haven’t demonstrated improved outcomes.