Building a Better Bridgeport

Finch: Education reform, job creation are city's greatest challenges

Education reform and job creation are the city's greatest challenges in the coming years, Mayor Bill Finch told local and regional business leaders during his address at the Bridgeport Regional Business Council's annual luncheon.

Finch challenged business owners to assist the city by providing real life work experiences for students so they could become better prepared for an increasingly technological world.

"You have the opportunity," he said, "to make a difference in a student's life, the future of your business and our local economy," by making room for student work-study assignments or apprentice positions through local unions, giving students the opportunity to gain real experience while still in high school.

In contrast to previous years' speeches, Finch focused this edition of his annual speech on the two issues — education reform and job creation — that he feels are necessary to continue moving the city forward, and to bring "the continued economic revival" of the state's largest city.

"We are in this effort together," Finch said, "I need your involvement and your investment on these two fronts."

The mayor, the father of four public school students, defended his decision to support the state Board of Education's decision to appoint a new local board.

"I believe that decision has given us more civility, more progress, more accountability and more focus on the students than we've even seen before," Finch said. "I made that decision and I stand by it now.... I made that decision because I believe it was the right decision for the students of Bridgeport."

As a result of his decision, he said, the schools are "now run by a nationally renowned Superintendent — Paul Vallas."

"Reform is within our reach, but I believe that without an overhaul of our current system, we risk allowing real, sustained progress to slip away," said Finch. The mayor's recent charter reform initiative would call for more mayoral accountability for the city's schools in much the same way Hartford, New Haven, Boston and New York, among others, now have.

Finch thanked new business owners, such as Columbia Elevator and Bridgeport BioDiesel, and long-established businesses like Schwerdtle Stamp for believing in Bridgeport. Looking to the future, he described the economic development opportunities which will be available when the former GE manufacturing site is demolished and Remington Woods is cleaned, bringing a vast tract of developable land in Bridgeport's East Side and East End.