Malloy proposes separate board to run tech schools

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - Connecticut legislators will soon be asked to create a new oversight board for the state's technical high schools under a plan intended to make their training align with skills needed by the students' potential employers.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said Friday he will ask the General Assembly to create the 11-member appointed board to operate separately from the State Board of Education, which currently runs the 16 technical high schools.

Malloy announced the proposal as part of a series of education reform ideas he plans to pitch to lawmakers, who convene to start their 2012 legislative session Wednesday. Education reform is expected to be the main focus of the session, which runs through May 9.

Malloy's proposal for a new board to oversee the technical schools is similar to an idea proposed by a task force that was created after Malloy proposed, then withdrew, a contentious plan to turn over the state-run schools to the control of the municipalities in which they sit.

He said Friday that the technical schools' training should reflect the job skills in demand nationally and globally, and that putting a new oversight board in place would help accomplish that. He also wants $500,000 allocated to the technical school system to boost their supplies and training equipment.

"Turning the corner on decades of economic decline means we have to prepare our students for a successful future in the high-tech workforce and we have to create the skilled labor that Connecticut companies need to compete globally," he said in a written statement Friday.

The new 11-member board, if established, would include four business executives nominated by business groups, four members appointed by the state school board and a chairman appointed by the governor's office.

The commissioners of the state's education, labor and economic and community development departments would also sit on the board as non-voting members.

About 11,000 students attend the 16 technical high schools. The schools offer regular high school degrees in a college prep curriculum and training in 38 technical fields ranging from aviation maintenance to culinary arts, diesel repair, masonry and hospitality management.

About 5,500 adults also take apprentice training part time at the schools.

In addition to the 16 schools, a 17th school — J.M. Wright Tech in Stamford — has been closed since summer 2009 for restructuring but is expected to reopen in 2014 in a new building.

State figures show at least one student from every Connecticut town and city attends a technical high school, even students from rural corners of the state who travel lengthy distances to their regional schools.