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75 Percent Of Our Top Kids Leave CT Within 3 Years

As measured by the CAPP testing program. The top scoring kids, leave Connecticut within 3 years.

We are educating the top performers for the rest of the country.

Dr. Fred Carstensen of the University of Connecticut gives a chilling account how our state is re-arranging the deck chairs while the economic ship sinks.

If you care about this state please follow the link and watch the testimony of Dr Carstensen. It’s shocking.

“Connecticut is in a long term serious decline”. “Connecticut has fewer businesses now than we had 20 years ago. Only state in the country.”

Watch Video Here

I’ve been quiet lately, I have become a statistic. My Aerospace company is closing. I’d like to start my own business, first step? I went to the state’s websites that are intended to invite or promote business growth in CT. The sites look nice, are visually pleasing but are paper thin in content and real information. Information that is duplicated a thousand places on the net and of little use. After clicking down several layers the state’s website suggested I consult a lawyer.

Listen up sparky, if I have to consult a lawyer to start a business, guess what? I’ll do it in another state! Have you ever tried to figure out what is taxed and not taxed in this state? And at what rates?

The state taxes engineering, data processing, web hosting and web design all differently! What if I’m designing a web service for engineers that involves data processing and is hosted in Utah? Actually really true. Can you imagine me calling up the state tax help line and explaining this to them?

Which illustrates another point many new businesses involve new business models, business models that the central planners did not think of. How do these new business models fit in to the taxation / regulation scheme of things? Many times they don’t and many times they cause the business innovator to give up or leave or spend considerable amounts of money hiring lawyers and tax accountants to give opinions, which may or may not be shared by the central planners. This is friction to the engines of growth. It hurts us all.

Somewhere around 2:00 AM I gave up, I’ll need to consult with a tax lawyer or accountant, there’s that requiring high priced help to navigate the state’s byzantine regulations again. Be cheaper and easier to move.

I have no desire to push the envelope or even find the edges of the envelope when it comes to dealing with our state’s Department of Revenue, but for crying out loud guys, give me a fighting chance!

I tried locating a list of all the manufacturing companies in CT, yes it is available for the “reasonable” cost of $1,500. And this is from a semi-public-private organization that is charged with helping and promoting business growth in CT. Guys, don’t do me any more favors.

I’d be willing to bet that list came from our Sec of State office. I’ve paid for that list already why should I pay for it again?

I am a citizen of Connecticut and I’m trying to start a business in Connecticut, why are you making this hard?

Please watch the video, it’ll raise your blood pressure.

Thanks for reading.

2 Responses to “75 Percent Of Our Top Kids Leave CT Within 3 Years”

1. taxpayer Says:
   June 20th, 2008 at 12:46 am

   Cost and Quality in
   Connecticut’s Government Schools

   This year’s local-budget battles featured some of the most bitter fighting in recent memory. And the spring of ’09 will likely produce even nastier conflicts, given the “vote yes” lobby’s inability or unwillingness to accept two simple yet incontrovertible facts.

   The first is that Connecticut taxpayers spend bushels of money on the state’s government schools. The second is that the return on this “investment” is poor.

   The numbers on spending are stunning. Several years ago, a legislative investigation found that between 1981 and 2001, Connecticut ’s government-school expenditures, adjusted for inflation, more than doubled. Enrollment growth was less than 10 percent.

   The teacher-student ratio in Nutmeg State government schools is lower than the national average. The share of non-instructional staff in the system is high — 13 percentage points above average. And with educrat earnings and benefits in the exosphere, spending per student ranks near the top. (Only New Jersey and New York spend more.)

   It’s likely that many “do it for the children” activists aren’t aware of these figures. A recent opinion survey discovered that Americans have little understanding of how much revenue funds government-run schools. The average answer to pollsters’ query about per-pupil spending in respondents’ local districts was $4,231 — less than half the accurate sum. In addition, respondents underestimated average teacher salaries in their states by over $14,000.

   Researchers William Howell and Martin R. West concluded: “Americans think that far less is being spent on the nation’s public schools than is actually the case. The vast majority of the public thinks we spend amounts that can only be described as minuscule, and almost 96 percent of the public underestimate either per-pupil spending in their districts or teacher salaries in their states.”

   On the rare occasions when Connecticut ’s educrat lobby concedes that taxpayer support of its empire is vast, we’re told such spending is the cause of the state’s high-performing students.

   But the outcomes of Connecticut ’s government schools aren’t as stellar as defenders of the status quo would have us believe. Skeptics cite Nutmeg State students’ performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The test, first given in 1969, is a rigorous examination of elementary students’ competency in core subjects.

   Connecticut’s NAEP scores are unimpressive. In 2007, 53 percent of the state’s eighth graders were “proficient” in writing. A mere 37 percent were proficient in reading. And only 35 percent were proficient in math.

   Those figures don’t quite jibe with the far-less-demanding Connecticut Mastery Test (CMT), which unlike the NAEP, is not overseen by a bipartisan panel of experts from across the nation, but by the state’s Department of Education. CMT scores show that those same eighth graders are doing terrific: 83 percent proficiency in writing, 76 percent in reading, and 81 percent in math.

   A 2006 analysis by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation found that the quality of Connecticut ’s academic standards was pathetic — only seven states did a worse job setting criteria for command of basic subjects. ( Connecticut ’s math and English standards both received grades of “F.”)

   Other states aren’t satisfied with dumbed-down assessments and weak academic benchmarks. The American Legislative Exchange Council’s annual “Report Card on American Education” agglomerates states’ performance on a number of tests, including the NAEP and SAT. In 2007, 17 states — including places Nutmeg State bluebloods would surely consider backwaters, such as Virginia , North Dakota , Nebraska , Ohio , Wyoming , and Montana — scored higher than Connecticut .

   But the ultimate measure of any school system is whether it produces individuals who are skilled enough to earn their way in the world. By that standard, Connecticut ’s in deep trouble. Here’s one example: A 2007 survey by the Connecticut Business & Industry Association found that state manufacturing firms believed 48 percent of job candidates lacked “basic math, reading, writing and problem-solving skills.” Only 36 percent of employers were satisfied with the quality of graduates from the state’s non-technical high schools.

   It’s clear that Connecticut ’s government schools have reached the point of diminishing returns. Shoveling greater amounts of money into the system over the last few decades hasn’t worked, and continuing to do so would be madness. Sweeping reforms that impose greater accountability and offer parents choices are essential.

   But try telling that to the “vote yes” troops. Duped by decades of educrat spinning, their blinkered devotion to ever-higher spending doesn’t help the cause of student achievement in Connecticut . Quite the contrary. It offers aid and comfort to an expensive and ineffective system that fails to meet either the educational needs of children or economic challenges of taxpayers.

   D. Dowd Muska is a writer, commentator and public-policy researcher. His website is www.dowdmuska.com.

2. cttaxed Says:
   June 22nd, 2008 at 10:11 pm

   The NEAPs are a double edged sword. Last time I looked at them, CT was average at best. But parsing the data further revealed our top half kids (the ones that leave) beat out all other state’s top half kids.

   Clearly there is no relationship between money and achievement. If there was, the top spot would be shared by Avon and Hartford, and neither are there.

   At what point do we say, “our kids do not have the right to bankrupt us! Or more accurately, at what point does our neighbors’ right to raise our taxes stop? Most budget meetings are crammed with parents demanding higher and higher spending for their kids. “The education our kids deserve!” That radio spot makes my skin crawl.

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