My passion to support education, children, teachers and administrators stems from my family. My father was a secondary school principal and mom was a home economics teacher in NYC for a combined 80 years. I have lived in the greater Hartford area for five years and through sports gotten to know many inner city youth as well as the schools they attend. We have known for sometime that CT’s schools and facilities are in terrible shape and some of the worst energy hogs in the US. (http://nutmeg.easternct.edu/sustainenergy/documents/CTSchoolEnergyEffici...) We also know that CT’s Education Achievement Gap (difference between test scores for high and low-income students) is the largest in the nation. If closing this gap is really a priority, there’s a broad and growing body of research that links achievement to the physical learning environment. Access to windows, indoor environmental quality (temp, humidity, air filtration) and acoustics are all important contributors to successful learning. The industry can provide the needed infrastructure renewal NOW, and use the associated energy savings to cover the costs over the next 10-20 years. No capital bonding required. (http://eetd.lbl.gov/EA/EMP/reports/lbnl-1202e.pdf). We are already spending the money that could be used to improve schools, raise test scores, retain the best teachers, and save energy! We cannot seem to get out of our own way to make it happen. In closing I’d like to share a quote from Matthew E. May in his book “In Pursuit of Elegance” “..we need some way to consistently replace value destroying complexity with value creating simplicity because we need to know how to make room for more of what matters by eliminating what doesn’t.” Bill Harris, VP Education Environments IR wharris@trane.com

Growing up in rural Ohio during the '60s and '70s, public schools meant a place where I was respected as an individual as well as a contributing member of a larger sociey. It was a place where interests were explored, essential skills developed, and intellectual horizons broadened. It was a place where more or less I left prepared for the next step. As a parent of two in Connecticut public schools during the'80s and '90s it meant a place of confusing mission statements leading to my local involvement at school board meetings. It meant arming myself with as much literature as I could find, and involving myself in editorial writing and public hearings. For our children's sake, it meant eventually choosing private schools for lack of a viable option in the public sector. As a teacher certified through the ARC program in 2003, it meant choosing to teach high school in an urban area where I sought out the lowest performing students and developed classrooms to address their lack of basic skills-reading, writing and thinking- in context of teaching history. It also meant turning myself inside out for teacher performance tests, BEST, which recently ended. This strange marriage lasted four years.

Working as a teacher in an urban area I witnessed the achievement gap first hand. It was my desire to make a difference to those students who needed help, which I did. On the one hand were students who with a solid foundation would leave public schools ready for the next level. On the other hand a growing number of students were exiting high school without a foundation of basic skills, and as a teacher you knew many of them would always stuggle. Literacy is the key difference between the two groups. And I agree, the achievement gap is the new civil rights issue of our time. My wish for public schools: 1.Close the achievement gap. This can only be done by focusing on literacy and math results. 2. Raise the academic bar for all students by insisting on higher academic standards. 3. School choice-charter schools- to move in the direction of accomplishing the first two objectives. Parents, teachers, and students need viable options.