Public Act 12-116 created the Alliance District program with the goal of providing new resources to the districts in greatest need – provided they embrace key reforms to position their students for success.

To achieve this, the law establishes a process for identifying 30 Alliance Districts – the districts with the lowest district performance index scores statewide – and allocates to these districts $39.5 million in increased Education Cost Sharing (ECS) funding in the upcoming fiscal year.  Each district’s receipt of its designated allocation is conditioned upon district submission, and Connecticut State Department of Education approval, of an Alliance District Plan for the expenditure of the new increment of conditional funds in the context of the district’s overall strategy to improve academic achievement.

Alliance District Plans are locally conceived, evidence-based reform plans that propose detailed initiatives for improving student achievement. Plans will describe reform activity over the entire five-year period of the Alliance District designation and include specific, multi-year objectives and performance targets. The CSDE will review each Plan on an annual basis, and approve plans that align with the goals of the program. Approval of plans in years two through five will be predicated upon progress towards the described performance targets, among other factors.

Proposals for the use of Alliance District funding will be considered in the context of the quality of the overall strategy for reform proposed in the Plan, as well as the degree of alignment between the proposed use of funds and the overall strategy.