Next Meeting: Thursday January 20, 2011 at 7 pm

TOWN COUNCIL

AD HOC STRATEGIC INNOVATION FOR FINANCING TEACHING

WINDHAM TOWN HALL AUDITORIUM

THURSDAY, JANUARY 20, 2011 7:00 PM

Agenda

1. Call to order

2. Presentations and Special Reports

a. Alex Johnston, ConnCan

3. Future Agenda Items

a. Tuesday, January 25, 2011 – Chris Barbic, founder of Houston’s Yes Prep schools, via phone **special meeting to include teleconference**

4. Citizens and delegations

5. Adjournment

About ConnCan : Available at http://www.conncan.org/aboutus/history

The ConnCAN story.

In the tradition of Connecticut’s great advocacy movements – from the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association to Harriet Beecher Stowe and the abolitionists – the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now (ConnCAN) was founded in January 2005.

Education entrepreneurs from around the state joined together to found ConnCAN on the fundamental belief that closing the achievement gap requires not only innovative educational models, but also issue-based advocacy that secures systemic change.

Today, ConnCAN has a staff of 10 employees working in offices in New Haven and Hartford and is hailed as one of the nation’s leading state-level education reform organizations.

About Alex Johnston: Available at http://www.conncan.org/aboutus/staff

Alex Johnston is Chief Executive Officer of ConnCAN. As ConnCAN’s first employee, Alex launched what is now regarded as one of the nation’s leading state-level education reform organizations. In the five years since, he has led ConnCAN’s effort to advocate for state policies that will ensure every Connecticut child has access to a great public school. In 2009, ConnCAN achieved three major legislative victories through its ‘Mind the Gaps’ campaign: overhauling the state’s teacher certification rules, opening up stores of longitudinal student achievement data to the public and securing $8 million of funding for the expansion of high-performing public charter schools in the midst of an $8 billion state budget deficit.

Before helping to found ConnCAN, Alex Johnston directed operations at the New Haven Housing Authority, working as a member of the management team tasked with turning the agency around from the brink of receivership. A graduate of Harvard University, Alex received a D. Phil. in politics from Oxford’s Lincoln College on a Rhodes Scholarship, where he studied the impact of government funding on nonprofit service providers. Alex serves on the state commission charged with developing Connecticut’s P-20 data system, is a member of the National Charter School Resource Center Advisory Board and sits on the New Haven Board of Education.