Preston Green, an educational policy professor at the University of Connecticut, says there is ongoing legal debate about whether charter schools are public or private institutions.

“Courts have had a very difficult time over the years making these distinctions whether charter schools are public or private because the laws may be different depending on the issue,” Green says.

Most board searches start off by trying to find someone who’s already had superintendent experience. But those preferences are not well matched to the current market, said Robert Villanova, a professor and the director of the executive leadership program at the University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education.

But as the first Black woman on the court, Jackson would likely be more attuned to issues of race and gender as reflected in school dress codes or restrictions on Black hairstyles like braids, and she might see “discrimination that maybe another justice might not,” said Preston Green, an education professor at the University of Connecticut.

Mansfield Public Schools (Neag School alumnus Peter Dart was named superintendent for Mansfield Public Schools)

Some legal scholars say that raises a new question. If a state can’t keep a private religious school out of its voucher program, can it stop a religious school from participating in its charter school program?

“Charter schools are the next frontier,” Preston Green, an education law professor at the University of Connecticut. Compared to school vouchers, “this could actually be more of a win for religious entities if they can get it.”

As UConn’s director of the H. Fred Simons African American Cultural Center (AACC) and affiliate faculty with the Africana Studies Institute, Willena Kimpson Price ’90 Ph.D. has been instrumental in supporting UConn African American students’ higher education experiences for the past three decades. Price has steered the AACC to be recognized campus-wide and throughout the United States as a university center that promotes an understanding and appreciation of the culture, history, and traditions of people of African descent.

DIBELS itself doesn’t involve a lot of reading, but helps to predict how well children develop literacy skills by testing how fast and accurately they identify words, explained Rachael Gabriel, an associate professor of literacy education at the University of Connecticut.

Casey Cobb, a professor at UConn’s Neag School of Education, has interviewed many families about what goes into them choosing whether to send their children to predominantly white suburban schools if they win the lottery.

“What we found was, yeah, race and socioeconomic status, that sort of diversity, does play a role in their decision making,” he said, pointing out that magnet schools are typically more diverse, and that was one of the reasons families tend to seek those schools.

Alan Marcus, a professor of education at the University of Connecticut, says in his state, there have been calls to remove statues of Christopher Columbus, in connection to the explorer’s violent mistreatment of Native Americans. Marcus said monuments can become “expired” as society’s values shift.

“What’s acceptable in one time period might not be acceptable in a different time period,” Marcus explained. These “expired monuments” can be repurposed to instead teach about “how we frame certain histories and whose perspective we learn about and whose perspective is left out.”

Three New Haven teachers were chosen for the Noyce Math Teacher Leader Program, a five-year professional learning and service program intended to expand Connecticut’s capacity to advance more equitable mathematics education, according to the school district. Program partners include the University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education and its College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Department of Mathematics, as well as the Connecticut State Department of Education.