3 minute read
Letter From The Executive Director & CEO
There are 119,000 at-risk and disconnected youth in the State of Connecticut. I want to say that again, there are 119,000 at-risk and disconnected youth in the State of Connecticut. That number has been at the forefront of my mind for the past year. When Dalio Education gave us their report “Connecticut’s Unspoken Crisis,” we had to decide whether we as leaders in this state were going to simply bemoan this crisis or act. You all, our brave municipal leaders decided to act, and thanks to you we have “Young People First,” a bold plan that won’t just help young people, but will help every single person in our stat, let me tell you how.
Right now, with 119,000 young people at-risk or disconnected from school and from employment, we are in a vicious cycle. My friend Andrew Ferguson at Dalio Education often talks about the economic impact of this crisis. We have about 90,000 open jobs in Connecticut and while it’s not a one-to-one match, filling those positions will have a great economic impact on our state. And what about reconnecting those students to education - getting degrees, certifications, apprenticeships. They could be our next architects, nurses, and plumbers. We simply cannot have a community without any of them. Reconnecting these young people will create a virtuous cycle.
But there are also other benefits. Implementing many of the report’s recommendations is what you can call “targeted universalism.” Think about how sidewalks have curb cutouts at corner - those were targeted at helping people with disabilities access public infrastructure, but it helped people on bicycles, people carrying groceries in carts, and parents pushing strollers. In the same way, we hope that by taking the bold actions we propose in “Young People First,” we can make public education better for the at-risk and dis- connected, and along the way, every young person in this state - in an urban city, rural town, and the suburbs in between.
Public education is a right - but for too long we have not lived up to the ideal of a good public education. In fact, Connecticut has reduced in real-dollars the commitment to students by an average of $400. And in 2024, graduation rates are declining, youth homelessness is on the rise, and more and more young people are telling us that they are not getting anything out of school.
In his write-up of our report release, Dan Haar of CT Insider said we are calling for “Transformational Change.” And I like to close with one of his observations: “We all love change as long as it doesn’t require us to do anything differently.” “Young People First” doesn’t just require us to do things differently, it declares in the clearest terms what will happen if we don’t do things differently.
As with so many bold plans, convincing people to make these changes will not be easy. The non-partisan, bi-partisan 119K Commission knew that as testimony from experts, the public and young people themselves came pouring in. And what “Young People First” does is distills those voices into a message: Act. Act Now. I hope you join us in support of this cause. Together we can help see our State’s full potential.
