Congratulations to Ridgefield High School for achieving a four-year graduation rate of 97.2 percent -- among the highest in the state -- with its Class of 2010. As a whole, high schools in Connecticut improved their four-year graduation rates from 2009 to 2010, the most recent year for which state statistics are available, exceeding 81 percent graduation in four years.
But what happens next for all of those high school graduates?
There continues to be a chasm between the economic realities many families face and the exorbitant cost of college. A quality education is well worth a long-term investment, but not lifetime indentured servitude to a student loan provider.
As high schools across the state do a better job educating and graduating young people, it is imperative for the state of Connecticut to keep its focus on academically valid, cost-effective educational options.
The state has made important strides in education, among them strengthening the affiliation between community colleges and the state university system. Students are applying to Connecticut's public universities in greater numbers. And there is an increased recognition of the real value of community colleges -- as an end in themselves and as a money-saving point of entry toward a state-college degree.
For many students, the critical choice is not among colleges, but among high schools.
Henry Abbott Technical High School in Danbury, whose Class of 2010 had a four-year graduation rate of 91.3 percent, does not send as many students on to college as some other high schools do. But graduates of Abbott Tech and the other state technical schools take real, employable skills with them, right out of high school.
We are glad that Gov. Dannel P. Malloy decided against recommending that the state's technical schools, including Abbott Tech, be placed under the direction -- and budgets -- of the schools' host municipalities.
The tech schools, community colleges and state colleges are all important parts of an educational big picture. They benefit not only enrolled students, but also the job providers poised to power economic recovery in Connecticut.