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Connecticut has made great strides in reducing youth crime and costly juvenile incarceration, but those gains are in jeopardy.

That was the message shared by state and national leaders at a forum yesterday at the Legislative Office Building. Juvenile crime has dropped to record lows in the past decade largely because of a shift to community-based services that address the root causes of and often prevent delinquency. But the programs that have made Connecticut a national model are threatened in the current state budget battle.

(More information on Connecticut’s outstanding juvenile justice reforms can be found here).

“This is not the time for you to stop,” said U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut), who said that Connecticut reforms were not only saving money in the state but were creating national momentum for reform.

“Positive results as a function of Connecticut’s initiative are undeniable: the average daily population in its juvenile corrections facility was reduced by more than half in the period between 1993 and 2011,” Senator Toni H. Harp (D-New Haven) said. “We’re considering all options with a goal of maintaining adequate funds in the budget to continue these worthwhile and cost-effective programs.”

“We are in a crisis,” said Rep. Toni Walker (D-New Haven). Walker has been a prime supporter of juvenile justice reform and is co-chair of the Appropriations Committee with Harp, which is facing a battle over the state’s statutory spending cap. Some legislators are calling for $400 million in budget cuts to offset money that shows up as a state expenditure though it is covered by federal funds under the Affordable Care Act.

State Sen. Danté Bartolomeo (D-Meriden) outlined a list of measures before the legislature that would continue the downward trend in incarceration spending, including new school-based health centers, which are the setting where kids are most likely to get mental health treatment. She also touted a measure to help pediatricians identify and help children with mental illness. Walker made a pitch for increased spending for after-school programming to decrease the amount of unsupervised time children have.

Multiple speakers emphasized that children should not have to enter the juvenile justice system to access mental health services.

The forum was sponsored by the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance, the Tow Foundation, Harp and Walker. The event examined a decade of impressive improvements in juvenile justice, including a 6-percent decrease in the recidivism rate for juveniles and drop in the census at the Connecticut Juvenile Training School. Some communities have made huge gains in cutting the number of public school students who are referred to court for non-violent misbehavior. In Hartford, for example, the number dropped by 79 percent in a single year.

The gains are especially significant considering the crisis state Connecticut’s juvenile justice system was in a decade ago, when it was the target of a federal lawsuit over the poor conditions in detention and lack of mental health care children received there.

“It’s been a real magical time in Connecticut,” said Robert Francis, co-chair of the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance.

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The greatest collection of works by Winslow Homer (American, 1836–1910) assembled by one person since the artist’s death—and one of the leading collections of any art museum in the United States—will be featured this summer at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Winslow Homer: Making Art, Making History explores the artist’s career with a special focus on his role in chronicling scenes of American life. The exhibition is complemented by the first complete catalogue of the Clark’s Homer collection, Winslow Homer: The Clark Collection authored by Homer scholar and exhibition curator Marc Simpson. Simpson examines Sterling Clark’s decades-long pursuit of Homer’s works and his passion for creating what is now one of the most important collections of the artist’s work.

“Sterling Clark considered Winslow Homer one of the greatest artists of the nineteenth century,” said Michael Conforti, director of the Clark, noting that Clark purchased his first Homer painting in 1915 at a time when he was living in Paris and focusing on purchasing Italian Renaissance art. “From that moment on, he maintained a passion for the artist throughout his collecting career, creating an archive so rich and varied that it provides us with a unique foundation upon which to build this consideration of the many sides of Winslow Homer.”

On view June 9 through September 8, 2013, Winslow Homer: Making Art, Making History showcases some sixty oil paintings, watercolors, drawings, and etchings, as well as approximately 120 rarely seen wood engravings. Drawing upon the resources of the Clark’s own holdings of nearly 250 works by Homer (dating from 1857 to 1904), the exhibition provides a variety of distinctive perspectives on this important American artist.

“Our visitors will be immersed in Homer’s works, considering his aesthetic achievements in all media, as they examine the changing critical perspectives of his work over the last one hundred and fifty years,” Conforti said.

“Winslow Homer: Making Art, Making History is first and foremost an opportunity to see and enjoy the achievement of this great artist,” said exhibition curator Marc Simpson. “It also explores how Homer’s work inspires different stories—about him, his place in the art world, the impact of an expanding art market, and the quest for a national style.”

Winslow Homer: Making Art, Making History presents the full range of the Clark’s Homer collection, including works on paper that are rarely on view due to their light-sensitive nature. In addition to works from the Clark, a selection of loaned works is also presented.

The paintings in the Clark collection are recognized as being among Homer’s finest and offer insight into Homer’s thematic and technical development throughout his career. The presentation of

Undertow (1886), along with six preparatory drawings accompanying it, gives an intimate look at the artist’s design process and offers insights into how Homer developed one of his most important figural works.

Among the best-known of the Clark paintings is

Two Guides (1877), depicting two identifiable Adirondack guides in the wilderness. Another visitor favorite,

West Point, Prout’s Neck (1900) was deemed by the artist in 1901 as “the best thing I have painted.” Panned by one New York critic who called it “simply the worst picture” in that year’s Society of American Artists exhibition, it is now considered by most art historians to be one of his greatest achievements.

The wood engravings included in the exhibition, designed by Homer for such periodicals as Harper’s Weekly and Appleton’s Journal, illustrate news of the day: the Civil War, the rise of various leisure activities, changing fashions, the shifting role of women in society. The transformation of some of these engravings from ephemera to valued artworks is evident throughout the galleries.

Although rarely shown, the Clark’s watercolors by Homer are among the most popular and appealing works in the collection; they help illustrate not only the collecting priorities of founder Sterling Clark, but also the rise of the status of watercolors in the American art world. Highlights include the simple but enigmatic

Lemon (1876),

the glowing but ominous Adirondack scene

An October Day (1889),

and the whimsical but powerfully abstract Fish and Butterflies (1900).

The Clark’s watercolors are supplemented by

Children on a Fence (1874)

and Four Boys Bathing (1880) on loan from the Williams College Museum of Art,

as well as four works on loan from a New York private collection, including

a Key West scene of schooners at anchor.

A group of etchings, heliotypes, and chromolithographs by or after Homer reveals the methods in which the artist used to make his art more accessible to the collecting public.

Among the high points of these is the etching

Perils of the Sea (1887), which hangs beside the Clark’s

watercolor of the same subject from 1881.

The exhibition also features some of Homer’s illustrations of popular literature and poetry, including The Courtin’ by James Russell Lowell (1874). Another “marketing strategy” Homer developed was to work up drawings—generally seen as preparatory studies—into finished, saleable works.

Two of these fully realized drawings,

Fisher Girl with Net (1882)

and Schooner at Anchor (1884),

are included in the exhibition.

The exhibition is organized by the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute and is curated by Marc Simpson, associate director of the Williams College Graduate Program in the History of Art. Winslow Homer: The Clark Collection will be published by the Clark and distributed by Yale University Press in conjunction with the exhibition. More than thirty entries in the catalogue discuss the role of individual works in Homer’s oeuvre and their larger significance to the art world. An illustrated checklist provides information on titles, dates, and media for the entire collection.

“Winslow Homer: The Clark Collection is a long overdue history of Sterling Clark’s rich collection of the artist’s works,” Conforti said. “Making Art, Making History celebrates this important achievement.”

About the Clark

Set amidst 140 acres in the Berkshires, the Clark is one of the few major art museums that also serves as a leading international center for research and scholarship. The Clark presents public and education programs and organizes groundbreaking exhibitions that advance new scholarship. The Clark’s research and academic programs include an international fellowship program and conferences. Together with Williams College, the Clark sponsors one of the nation’s leading master’s programs in art history.

The Clark is located at 225 South Street in Williamstown, Massachusetts. The galleries are open Tuesday through Sunday from September through June (daily in July and August), 10 am to 5 pm. Admission is free through June8, 2013; free year-round for Clark members, children 18 and younger, and students with valid ID; and $15 June 9, 2013 through September 8, 2013. For more information, call 413 458 2303 or visit clarkart.edu.

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by Jon Pelto from Wait, What

While it’s true that Malloy’s Commissioner of Education, Stefan Pryor, has failed to fill some of the most critically important administrative positions in his agency that actually serve Connecticut’s schools and children, such as a Bureau Chief for the Special Education Division, Pryor’s dedication to retaining corporate education reform consulting companies and corporate education consultants is impressive.

Yesterday Wait, What? explored a $123,930.00 taxpayer-funded payment to Mass Insight Education, an education reform consulting company that has been retained to help develop Commissioner Pryor’s “Turnaround Network.”

Although the total magnitude of the consulting contract with Mass Insight hasn’t been reported, that initial six figure payment is chump change compared to the amount of taxpayer money that is being spent on the salaries and benefits of the consultants and education reformers who have been hired to surround Pryor at the Department of Education.

Leading the way is Chief Turnaround Officer, Debra Kurshan, who is pulling down $149,000 plus benefits. The former head of School Portfolio Development for Mayor Bloomberg’s school privatization efforts also served as a consultant to the superintendent of the Louisiana Recovery School District in New Orleans.

Meanwhile, another hire, Talent Officer, Shannon Marimon, is collecting $110,000 plus benefits. She joined Pryor’s operation after working for the TNTP, an education reform group.

Then there is the growing list of Pryor’s “education staff assistants,” beginning with his chief of staff, Adam Goldfarb who followed him from New Jersey. Hired at $75,000, Goldfarb is now making $106,000 despite the fact that he has no professional education experience other than serving on the Board of a Charter School in Newark.

There is also Mark Day, the Director of Performance Management, who is getting $105,000. He joined the state payroll after working as an employee of McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm.

Add to that the two $95,000 education staff assistants who are interns from the Broad Foundation’s Residency Program, Gabrielle Ramos and Katina Grays. The Broad Foundation is one of the three largest pro-education reform foundations in the nation. Their motto is that they are “Transforming K-12 urban public education through better governance, management, labor relations and competition.”

Despite the fact that the Broad Foundation has assets of $2.1 billion, the state of Connecticut is paying these two so they can work on Pryor’s education reform agenda while they are doing their Broad Foundation Residency.

And then there are the two law school students/TFA graduates, Andrew Ferguson and Collin Moore. One of whom is working as another one of Pryor’s education staff assistants, while the other is working in Pryor’s “Turnaround Office.” Thanks to Commissioner Pryor, both are enjoying $80,000 incomes.

The list goes on and on…

While there are a record number of essential unfilled vacancies and the core work of the State Department of Education isn’t getting done in a timely manner, the sign on the door reads:

Only education consultants and those have taken the corporate education reform pledge need apply.

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by Jon Pelto from Wait, What

According to the Hartford Courant’s Vanessa De La Torre, Governor Malloy joined former Hartford Mayor Thirman Milner yesterday in the library of Jumoke Academy at Milner to celebrate the success of Malloy’s “education reform” proposals.

Milner explained, “You walk in the school, you can see the difference.”

And Malloy was all too happy to take credit for the changes claiming that it was the privatization effort of his administration that accounted for the changes.

But of course, the truth is far from that.

In fact, neither Malloy nor Milner admitted that the changes aren’t due to the fact that the local elementary school was handed over, last year, to a private charter management organization but is directly attributable to the fact that the State of Connecticut and the City of Hartford are finally making a real financial investment to support the school.

Malloy and Jumoke Academy’s CEO, Michael Sharpe, would have us believe that it is the $345,000 annual contract to hire the FUSE/Jumoke Academy charter school management company that is responsible for “turning around” the Milner School…

However, the facts reveal a very different truth;

First, it wasn’t until AFTER the Milner School was added to the “Commissioner’s Network” and turned over to Jumoke that the state added well over $1 million in additional operating funds for the school and the City of Hartford provided more than $2 million in new funds to fix up the school. (Insiders report that while some of the funds have been used for cosmetic changes, the school continues to have a fairly significant rodent issue.)

Second, despite the fact that Malloy’s education reform law required that turnaround schools maintain the same entrance requirements; Jumoke was allowed to introduce a provision that prevents students from transferring into school after October 1st. This change significantly reduces the number of more transient students coming into the school, students who often arrive with a variety of educational and language challenges during the school year.

Third, an audit conducted by the State Department of Education in December revealed that Jumoke at Milner still hadn’t filled a vital bi-lingual position and that teachers were unaware or confused about whether the school’s English language development program was based in “pushing into” the classroom or “pulling” children out of the classroom for the extra help they needed

Fourth, while Jumoke CEO Sharpe told Malloy that student attendance was up and only 15 have left Jumoke at Milner to date, Sharpe failed to admit that while the school is getting significantly more resources, the total population is down significantly since last year.

And finally, as parents at Milner know, there have been significant communication problems at Jumoke Academy at Milner including a disastrous lock-down drill in which students were marched into the gym and cafeteria rather than required to stay in their rooms behind locked doors. As one parent on the scene put it, children were told to sit on the side of the gym, “in front of the inside gym windows, in plain sight.” The drill left parents and children shaken and extremely worried about whether the Jumoke Administrators were capable of handling a real emergency.

So while Malloy and Jumoke congratulate themselves about their education reform achievements, parents in every other Hartford school would do well to remember, smaller class sizes, having a teacher and an instructional assistant in every classroom and providing more support services is not a result of Malloy’s education reform efforts but a result of Malloy, the State of Connecticut and the City of Hartford actually stepping forward and providing the resources necessary to make appropriate changes —- changes that should be being made at every Hartford School if only elected officials would address the broader issue inadequate funding for Connecticut’s schools.

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The dangerously high salt levels in processed food and fast food remain essentially unchanged, despite numerous calls from public and private health agencies for the food industry to voluntarily reduce sodium levels, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study conducted with the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

The study, which will be published May 13 in JAMA Internal Medicine, assessed the sodium content in selected processed foods and in fast-food restaurants in 2005, 2008 and 20011. The main finding was that the sodium content of food is as high as ever.

“The voluntary approach has failed,” said Stephen Havas, M.D., corresponding author of the paper and a research professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “The study demonstrates that the food industry has been dragging its feet and making very few changes. This issue will not go away unless the government steps in to protect the public. The amount of sodium in our food supply needs to be regulated.”

Excess sodium prematurely kills as many as 150,000 people in the U.S. each year. About 90 percent of the U.S. population develops high blood pressure and high salt in the diet is a major cause. High blood pressure increases the risk of developing heart attacks and strokes, often resulting in death or disability.

“High salt content in food benefits the food industry,” Havas said. “High salt masks the flavor of ingredients that are often not the best quality and also stimulates people to drink more soda and alcohol, which the industry profits from.”

A typical American consumes an average of almost two teaspoons a day of salt, vastly higher than the recommended amount of three-fifths of a teaspoon or no more than 1,500 milligrams, as recommended by the American Heart Association. About 80 percent of our daily sodium consumption comes from eating processed or restaurant foods. Very little comes from salt we add to food.

“The only way for most people to meet the current sodium recommendation is to cook from scratch and not use salt,” Havas said. “But that’s not realistic for most people.”

The FDA needs to begin regulating food processors and the restaurant industry — as has been recommended by the Institute of Medicine and others –- as soon as possible, Havas said.

Havas noted that our taste buds rapidly adapt to less salt. “If it’s reduced by 20 percent a year, no one would know the difference,” he said.

The study found that between 2005 and 2011, the sodium content in 402 processed foods declined by approximately 3.5 percent, while the sodium content in 78 fast-food restaurant products increased by 2.6 percent. Although some products showed decreases of at least 30 percent, a greater number of products showed increases of at least 30 percent. The predominant finding was the absence of any appreciable or statistically significant changes in sodium content during six years.

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by Jon Pelto from Wait, What

File this one under the headline; Connecticut Republicans reiterate dedication to snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory…

Faced with the reality that Governor Malloy has spent the last two years alienating just about everyone and every group that was part of the coalition that put him into the governor’s office, the Republicans could be facing an unprecedented opportunity to beat an incumbent governor.

It would take a history buff to recall when that last occurred in Connecticut.

So with that in mind, the Republican Party’s upcoming 35th annual Prescott Bush Awards Dinner provided the Connecticut Republicans with a special chance to showcase the type of leadership they’d bring to the state if Connecticut voters elected a Republican governor in 2014.

Given that reality and the opportunity to invite any person in the nation to serve as their keynote speaker, who did the Republicans turn to for their big annual gala event that is taking place next Monday night?

Scott Walker, the Governor of Wisconsin.

Call it colossal stupidity or a deep and abiding commitment to alienating the very voters that the Connecticut Republicans would need if they actually wanted to win the next, or any, gubernatorial election.

That’s right, the Connecticut Republicans chose Scott Walker, the wing-nut, tea-bagger, ultra-conservative, anti-teacher, anti-state employee, anti-union, pro-corporate education reformer to serve as their keynote speaker and the “face” of the biggest event the Connecticut Republicans hold each year.

The Governor Scott Walker who opposes abortion including in cases of rape and incest, supports abstinence-only sex education in public schools and opposes any state funding for services related to birth control and the testing or treatment of sexually transmitted diseases.

The Governor Scott Walker who supported Wisconsin’s Constitutional ban on same-sex marriages and, as governor, tried to undo the state’s domestic partner registry because it created, “a legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals.”

The Governor Scott Walker who returned $37.6 million in federal funds meant to set up a health exchange in Wisconsin because he thought it was related to President Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Walker also rejected $11 million in federal funding to improve the state’s Medicaid enrollment system because he claimed it would make it easier for the poor to get healthcare.

The Governor Scott Walker who was part of the right-wing effort to suppress voter participation by requiring that only government-issued IDs could be used before a person was allowed to vote.

And the list goes on…

Imagine the statement the Connecticut Republicans are making to the Connecticut voters who are yearning for new and innovative leadership…

The Connecticut Republican Party could have chosen anyone in the nation to showcase their ideals and principles and they chose Scott Walker.

The Connecticut Republicans have proven, yet again, their commitment to failure and have made the case, even more clearly, that if we are going to get the change in leadership our state needs and deserves it will have to come from a candidate that is running separately from the state’s two existing political establishments.

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The Museum of Modern Art announces Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926–1938, from September 28, 2013, to January 12, 2014, the first exhibition to focus exclusively on the breakthrough Surrealist years of René Magritte (Belgian, 1898–1967), creator of some of the 20th century’s most extraordinary images. Bringing together around 80 paintings, collages, and objects, along with a selection of photographs, periodicals, and early commercial work, the exhibition offers fresh insight into Magritte’s identity as a modern painter and Surrealist artist. In addition to works from MoMA’s collection, the exhibition includes many loans from public and private collections from the U.S. and abroad. Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926–1938 is organized by The Museum of Modern Art, The Menil Collection, and The Art Institute of Chicago. The exhibition at MoMA is organized by Anne Umland, The Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Curator of Painting and Sculpture, with Danielle Johnson, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Painting and Sculpture.

The exhibition travels to The Menil Collection, Houston (February 14–June 1, 2014), and The Art Institute of Chicago (June 29–October 12, 2014).

Beginning in 1926, when Magritte first aimed to create paintings that would, in his words, “challenge the real world,” and concluding in 1938—a historically and biographically significant moment just before the outbreak of World War II—the exhibition traces central strategies and themes from the most inventive and experimental period in the artist’s prolific career. Displacement, doubling, metamorphosis, the “misnaming” of objects, and the representation of visions seen in half-waking states are among Magritte’s innovative image-making tactics during these essential years.

Noted works in the exhibition include

The Menaced Assassin (L’Assassin menacé) (1927),

and Time Transfixed (La Durée poignardée) (1938).

The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue.

The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53 Street, New York, NY 10019, (212) 708-9400, MoMA.org. Hours: Saturday through Thursday, 10:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m. Friday, 10:30 a.m.–8:00 p.m.

For more on Magritte see here

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Lots of new listings and pictures:

Restaurants for Sale/Lease