Education

Connecticut's commissioner of education is appointed by the state board of education for a four-year term. The commissioner directs the department of education. Many local school districts have combined into supervisory unions, in which several towns share a superintendent. School attendance is free and compulsory between the ages of 7 and 16.

Dame schools—primary schools conducted by women in their own homes—existed in 1651 at New Haven. A state board of education was established in 1838 through the efforts of Henry Barnard, who later (in 1867) became the nation's first commissioner of education.

The University of Connecticut at Storrs is a land-grant school established in 1881 as Storrs Agricultural School. Its present name was adopted in 1939. Regional campuses are located at Avery Point, Hartford, Stamford, Torrington, and Waterbury. The schools of medicine and dental medicine are at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Hartford; the school of law, at Hartford; and the school of social work, at West Hartford.