HARTFORD — In the spirit of the jobs tour that marked his first year in office, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy launched a statewide Education Reform Tour this week, reiterating his commitment to “fixing what’s broken” in Connecticut schools.Malloy kicked off the new tour Thursday, March 1, at the Center for Community Life in Hartford, with stops planned for Tuesday, March 6, in West Hartford; Tuesday, March 13, in New Haven; and Wednesday, March 14, in Windham. Additional dates were expected to be announced in the coming week, with the tour likely to be at least as long as the 17-city-and-town jobs tour that took place last summer.“I met with thousands of people and answered hundreds of questions. What I liked most about it — what I heard back from so many people — was that it allowed people to be connected to their government in a way that just hadn’t happened before,” Malloy said in a statement Tuesday. “I think that’s really important; the people pay for this government, so they should have the ability to talk directly to it, ask questions and get answers.”There has been no shortage of information coming from the governor’s office in recent weeks regarding education in Connecticut, including a controversial 163-page education-reform bill that called for changes to the way teachers earn and keep tenure in public schools. Malloy promoted the package in testimony before the General Assembly’s Education Committee on Feb. 21, offering tough words for Connecticut’s educators.“Our public schools once led the nation, and now Connecticut leads in achievement gaps,” the governor testified. “Education is the civil rights issue of our time. This is our opportunity. The time is now to transform the status quo. We must provide our children with the opportunities they so richly deserve if we are to revive our state’s economy and lead the country once more.”Malloy’s bill called for increasing funding to low-performing schools that adopt comprehensive reforms, increasing the access to and quality of early childhood education slots; expanding slots for public schools of choice including charter schools; removing red tape and other barriers that stand in the way of local school districts; repositioning the state’s vo-tech schools to promote job readiness; and improving teacher preparation.Malloy called Connecticut’s achievement gap “unacceptable” this week and called for state legislators to act on his plan.“We already know the consequences of inaction,” he said. “Let’s use the chance we have before us today to change direction once and for all.”Though some of the Malloy’s proposals have been met with skepticism, the Democratic governor has been applauded by members of the Republican party for some of his initiatives. Last month, House Republican Leader Lawrence Cafero said he approved of making reforms to tenure and to providing financial support to low-performing schools, as long as additional reforms are adopted.“We applaud the governor for putting on the table bold initiatives that, if they become law, would result in significant improvements in public education,” Cafero said. “We have long supported changing the teacher tenure provisions that currently make it impossible to make needed changes in our classrooms and undermine the learning process.Cafero said a proposal to spend $50 million on low performing schools is “a step in the right direction” but that additional changes are needed, including creating a new Education Cost Sharing (ECS) formula for the state.Malloy said education reforms also make economic sense on multiple levels.“There has never been a time when education and jobs are more closely aligned,” he said. “I am determined to fix what’s broken in our public schools, so that every district is giving students the tools they need to succeed in the 21st century economy. If I have to go door-to-door to sell this package to Connecticut residents, then so be it.” To check the most up-to-date list of dates and locations on the Governor’s Education Reform Tour, visit https://governor.ct.gov/educationtour.
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Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.
“I was a library kid. I walked to the library after school,” she said.
For Sher, the library is as much about the people as it about the books.
“Part of the job I love so much is that running the library is such a community,” she said.
She treasures the relationships she has built, whether recommending books, celebrating accomplishments or helping patrons through difficult times.
“I am thankful that our community is so supportive of the library, unlike what is happening in some other places where librarians are villainized,” Sher said.
Sher takes pride in the Hunt Library’s reputation for being “open and welcoming to everyone. People come in and see things and get pulled into things they weren’t expecting. Our library is seen as a positive force.”
Sher came to Falls Village after being awarded a fellowship at Adamah Farm, then a program of the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center. She worked at pickling, in the greenhouse and later in the development office. She also worked as a nanny.
At the same time, “I was in the library all the time,” she recalled. “I’m a voracious reader. The library is where I met a lot of my first friends in Falls Village.”
She became assistant librarian at Hunt and worked in that position for almost a decade before becoming the executive director four years ago.
Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.L. Tomaino
Sher met her husband, Adam, while working at Adamah. They had their wedding there in 2012. He now emcees many events which she co-organizes with the Falls Village Recreation Commission.
Sher and her family live near the library.
“It’s an easy commute,” she said with a smile. “My kids run back and forth. I can go home to walk the dog if I need to.”
“My kids have grown up here.” Her oldest son, Eli, “loves volunteering. He helps with Augustfest and often helps set up chairs for ArtWall gatherings.” Her younger son, Noah, is often at events and was eager to taste cookies at last year’s holiday cookie swap.
When she is not at the library, Sher likes to hike with her family. Bella, their Portuguese water dog, often accompanies them.
Sher enjoys seeking out people to offer events at the library.
“I do a lot of different community programming. It is one of my favorite parts of the job.”
Augustfest, featuring food, music and an auction, is the library’s biggest fundraiser.
“This summer we had a record 152 attendees, which was pretty incredible.”
Yonah Sadeh, a filmmaker from Falls Village, inaugurated the VideoWall this year, Sher explained.
“I’ve known Yonah since he was two. It’s wonderful to work with him as an adult.”
The VideoWall complements the library’s ArtWall, which showcases a new artist each month. Sher praised the ArtWall committee for its work and highlighted December’s popular “12x12 Show,” featuring works by local artists, each measuring 12 by 12 inches and priced at $150.
Sher added that some of the artists who exhibit at the ArtWall offer workshops to students at Kellogg School, next door to the library. In September, artist Danielle Mailer worked with the children. Vincent Inconiglios taught a class last November.
Being next to the school, said Sher, is a great advantage.
“Kids are coming after school, to see friends, work on projects, find a great book. Kids that love the library end up using the library as grownups.”
This past year, in partnership with Adamah, the library and school created a garden, with excess produce made available at The Center on Main.
This year is Sher’s second year participating in the Troutbeck Symposium in Amenia with James King, director of the library at Salisbury School. The Troutbeck Symposium is “a gathering of a year of student historical inquiry across the region” in which students “uncover stories that have been overlooked, forgotten, or never recorded.”
Last year, Sher and King began a project with a group of students researching Irish immigrants in Falls Village, exploring ancestry and creating small magazines about their findings.
They continued this year, visiting St. Patrick’s Catholic Cemetery on Dublin Road, cleaning seven gravestones and even righting one with the help of stonemason and gravestone restoration expert Karl Munson. Paul Kozeazny, a representative of the Catholic archdiocese, helped secure access to the site.
A film documenting their activities will be shown at the symposium in spring 2027.
A full schedule of programs and events, ranging from tech help to ceramic mug-making, can be found on the library’s website.
Despite spending her days surrounded by books, and a busy schedule of programming, Sher still loves to settle in with a book at home.
For more information on library programs and events, visit huntlibrary.org
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Touré was born in northern Mali in 1981. His father, the renowned guitarist Ali Farka Touré, came from a family of soldiers and wanted his son to join the army. The younger Touré studied drums and the calabash and practiced guitar in secret. He earned his father’s blessing to pursue music shortly before Ali died in 2006, and they played two tracks together on Vieux’s debut album.
Touré is known for his deft, polyrhythmic playing, and his songs grow out of riffs that repeat and layer to hypnotic effect. He draws on rock, blues, Latin music and various African traditions. This distinctive blend builds on his father’s work adapting the sonic traditions of Mali’s arid north to the guitar.
Vieux’s album “Mon Pays” (“My Country,” 2013) honored Mali’s culture after Tuareg separatists and extremist groups seized the north in 2012. “Samba” (2017) was recorded before about 50 listeners in Woodstock, New York. In 2022 came “Les Racines” (“The Roots”), a return to his father’s desert blues, and “Ali,” on which he and the trio Khruangbin reworked eight of the elder Touré’s songs.
Touré leads the Ali Farka Touré Foundation, which focuses on cultural and educational work in Mali. Around the anniversary of Ali’s death, it holds a festival in Bamako, Mali’s capital. Bamako has been under blockade for much of the past year, besieged by JNIM, an al-Qaeda affiliate. Against this backdrop, Touré continues to carry the music of Mali to audiences abroad.
At the Nov. 5 concert, Touré’s desert blues will share the bill with Gnawa, the music LanGus plays, which developed in Morocco among West Africans who were brought north across the desert as enslaved people. Gnawa is religious music traditionally performed at all-night healing ceremonies called lila, intended to carry participants into trance.
Samir LanGusProvided
LanGus was born and raised outside Agadir, Morocco, and began learning Gnawa from its masters at age 8. He plays the sintir, a three-stringed bass lute made of wood and camel skin. The player strikes a low string with the thumb to create a deep, resonant pulse. Iron castanets clatter over the sintir’s bass line, and vocalists trade call-and-response refrains.
LanGus infuses the tradition with jazz and improvisation. In New York, he founded the ensemble Innov Gnawa. His first solo album, “Gnawa Love,” came out in February.
Touré and LanGus’s Nov. 5 concert is one of the last public events at Race Brook Lodge, which is for sale and ended full-service operations at the end of 2025. The lodge’s final scheduled event, on Nov. 6, is an evening of Rumi’s poetry with translator and vocalist Haleh Liza Gafori, cellist Isabel Castellvi and ceremonial bard James Bird.
For tickets, visit rblodge.com.
James FitzGerald is a student at Yale Law School, where he focuses on ecological restoration and international environmental cooperation. He splits his time between Lakeville and New Haven.
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