Free Daily Headlines :

  • COVID-19
  • Vaccine Info
  • Money
  • Politics
  • Education
  • Health
  • Justice
  • More
    • Environment
    • Economic Development
    • Gaming
    • Investigations
    • Social Services
    • TRANSPORTATION
  • Opinion
    • CT Viewpoints
    • CT Artpoints
DONATE
Reflecting Connecticut’s Reality.
    COVID-19
    Vaccine Info
    Money
    Politics
    Education
    Health
    Justice
    More
    Environment
    Economic Development
    Gaming
    Investigations
    Social Services
    TRANSPORTATION
    Opinion
    CT Viewpoints
    CT Artpoints

LET�S GET SOCIAL

Show your love for great stories and out standing journalism

School funding reform: Three tough questions facing lawmakers

  • Education
  • by Jacqueline Rabe Thomas
  • June 22, 2017
  • View as "Clean Read" "Exit Clean Read"

Jacqueline Rabe Thomas :: CtMirror.org

School bus outside state Capitol

Leaders at the state Capitol agree that changing how the state distributes public school aid is necessary – but that consensus quickly crumbles when specific changes are floated.

This stalemate is happening at a critical juncture: the state’s finances are in crisis and the Connecticut Supreme Court will soon hear arguments in a lawsuit over whether the state is spending enough to educate students in its most-impoverished school districts.

So will Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and the General Assembly, controlled by Democrats by the slimmest of margins, overhaul how the state funds public schools?

Here are the three major questions they face.

Make changes now or do a study?

A coalition of statewide organizations that represent principals, parents, school boards, superintendents and teachers – heavyweights at the state Capitol on education policy – gathered in Hartford Wednesday to call for a task force to study education financing and come up with recommendations for the 2019 legislative session.

They said such a study, which has been done in numerous other states, is necessary to determine just how much it actually costs to educate children in different circumstances.

“We want to make sure that money follows the needs, and children have different needs. Schools may have different kinds of programming, so what are the needs of our schools and the needs of our kids in those schools,” said Karissa Niehoff, the leader of the Connecticut Association of Schools, which represents principals. “We need a cost study to first understand what it really costs to educate children based on their needs.”

Jacqueline Rabe Thomas :: CtMirror.org

Karissa Niehoff, who leads the association that represents school principals, talks about the need for a task force. Behind her are the leaders of associations that represent school boards, superintendents and teachers.

Hogwash, says Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.

“I don’t know what the hell they are thinking about, to tell you the truth,” the Democratic governor said when asked whether it makes sense for a task force to study the cost to educate students. “We have school systems that don’t have the money necessary to educate their children. The idea that we would wait makes no sense at all. It’s a stupid idea.”

Legislative leaders agree that changes need to be made this year.

“The question is do we still have education funding reform in our budget? The answer is yes. And we are certainly going to be pushing education funding reform,” Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, said during a recent interview. “We need to keep the pedal to the metal on the issue.”

Duff pointed to a scathing critique in a Superior Court judge’s ruling last fall, which found the current formula for allocating school aid “irrational” and thus unconstitutional. It is an appeal of that ruling that the Supreme Court will hear as early as September.

“The clock is ticking. So we need to make sure that some major reform is incorporated,” he said. “We need to get the job done this year.”

House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz, D-Berlin, expressed a similar sentiment.

“We are still committed to attempting to do it,” he said during an interview. “I would hope that within the budget discussion that we will be able to come up with some changes…. What we need to do is all get into a room and come up with something that we can all agree with.”

Related links

When poverty permeates the classroom

Troubled Schools on Trial: A Seven-Part Series

The broken formula for school aidA building boom & pensions lock in big costsWho’s in charge? State vs. local controlWhat does a high school diploma prove?Special education driving costs and controversiesWill a scathing court decision lead to action?

A long line of task forces have studied how schools are funded in Connecticut. (See here, here, here, here, here and here.) Malloy during his first month in office six and a half years ago pledged “to fix this formula once and for all,” and set up a panel to send him recommendations. Those recommendations included doing a cost study, but the governors’ subsequent proposed legislation overhauling the funding formula did not include one.

The group of parents, teachers and municipal officials suing the state over school funding – the Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding – supports a cost study being completed.

The legislature has made incremental changes when it comes to funding schools, but not the kind necessary to meet constitutional obligations, Malloy has regularly said.

“Our state constitution doesn’t say take another two years to placate somebody who doesn’t want to take the big steps,” Malloy said. “The time is now.”

Spend more or redistribute existing funds?

If it were up to Malloy, he would redistribute the state’s existing pool of education funding to give more to municipalities with the lowest-achieving school districts and let them decide whether to spend the money on education.

Currently, two-thirds of the Education Cost Sharing Grant, the state’s principal vehicle for distributing school aid, goes to the 30 lowest-performing districts. Malloy has proposed giving them 78 percent of state education aid. To do this, he proposes providing no education aid to 31 more affluent municipalities.

To justify his pitch that local taxpayers in towns like Greenwich should pick up their entire education cost, Malloy on Wednesday pointed to the huge disparities in tax bases throughout Connecticut – from an average $777,000 per household in Greenwich to $50,000 in New Britain.

“There’s your study,” he said, mocking the education heavyweights. “We have to get to closer parity or get to parity in educating our children, and that’s what our constitution says.”

Others disagree redistributing aid is the path forward and would prefer to simply boost support for troubled districts.

The proposed Republican budget recommends increasing funding for the state’s primary grants for education by about $30 million next year. But about three-quarters of that extra Education Cost Sharing grant spending would be paid for by rolling other state funding from numerous grants that go to the state’s lowest-achieving districts — money that pay for things like early reading interventions, extra services for English learners, after-school programs and extra staff in  struggling schools – into the ECS grant.

The changes to the various education grants proposed by the GOP are a mixed bag for some of the state’s lowest-achieving school districts. For example, Bridgeport and New Haven would each lose $2 million while Danbury and Norwalk would each gain just over $2 million.

Republicans have a bit more wiggle room in their budget for spending because they budget for an additional $340 million in labor savings over the next two fiscal years above what the governor has said is realistic in achieving.

Senate Republican Leader Len Fasano said the changes that his party is proposing to state employees benefits are achievable and dismissed the administration saying additional savings aren’t achievable.

“There is one reason why they are saying that: they have a deal on the table,” said Fasano. “You can certainly achieve the structural changes that we are proposing.”

The education stakeholders at the state Capitol Wednesday – many of whom also are members of the coalition suing the state  –  echoed the suit’s demand to spend more on state schools.

They argued against denying all aid to any district.

“There are poor children in every district. There are needs in every district,” said Joe Cirasuolo, the executive director of the Connecticut Assocation of Public School Superintendents. “The state has an obligation to fund people in every district.”

Duff, the Senate majority leader, isn’t convinced, and supports providing zero aid to some school districts.

This is a picture of Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff

CTMirror.org

Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff

“We are trying to navigate that and thread that needle. We are working to find a formula that is essentially flat but does take into consideration concentrated poverty and concentrated English language learners,” Duff said. “In the formula that we are now looking at, some of the towns and smaller communities would receive less than they would now.”

He said the minimum funding level would be set at zero for some towns under his revised proposal, but declined to say just how many towns would lose all general education aid. But, he said, funding for special education would be held harmless from state cuts.

Such a redistribution plan, however, almost certainly would not win enough votes in the House, where the Democrats have only four votes to spare to get a budget passed.

“A redistribution plan on its face is problematic. There’s more suburban legislators than urban legislators,” House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz told reporters on the last day of the regular legislative session. “So a straight budget redistribution won’t work.”

Dedicate a new funding source to education?

Many House Democrats want to set up a dedicated funding source to funnel money education. Aresimowicz said during an interview that his caucus has targeted a sales tax increase or a 1 percent retail food and beverage tax to go toward education.

“So we have options” in budget negotiations, the speaker said. “It really depends what happens at the table for where those options go.”

Keith M. Phaneuf :: CTMirror.org

House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz

Such dedicated-funding promises have been made before – and broken soon after by a subsequent governor or legislature.

For example, after a Rocky Hill student died in a school bus crash, the legislature increased the fee drivers pay to reinstate a suspended license to pay for seat belts on school buses. The $2 million the fee increase generates has been raided every year since, and no school buses have been outfitted with seat belts. Likewise, gas tax proceeds that are supposed to go entirely to transportation are often raided.

Legislators are well aware the public might not trust that earmarked money will go toward the stated purpose.

“For too many years, we’ve said, ‘Oh the casino money is going to go to education. Oh, the lottery money may go to education,’ And then we haven’t kept those promises. My caucus has spoken pretty clearly. If we are going to do those kinds of things going forward, we have to ensure that it is going toward the areas that we have said they would,” said Aresimowicz.

The education stakeholders also called for a funding source dedicated to education in low-achieving districts.

“If we don’t have that, we are going to get the solutions that are taped together with Scotch tape and string and Band-Aids. And if we look back at the [existing education fund] formula, not too many people will quarrel with the basis of the original formula,” said Donald Williams, the incoming president of the Connecticut Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, and former senate president pro tem. “The problem is that it was never fully funded and that it never had a dedicated funding stream.”

Malloy has regularly said, however, that the state’s overall fiscal picture cannot be driven by focusing on how to increase state revenue. On Wednesday, he reiterated that after a negotiating session with legislative leaders over the next state budget.

Kyle Constable :: CTMirror.org

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy addresses reporters outside his office Wednesday after budget talks with legislative leaders.

Sign up for CT Mirror's free daily news summary.

Free to Read. Not Free to Produce.

The Connecticut Mirror is a nonprofit newsroom. 90% of our revenue comes from people like you. If you value our reporting please consider making a donation. You'll enjoy reading CT Mirror even more knowing you helped make it happen.

YES, I'LL DONATE TODAY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jacqueline Rabe Thomas is CT Mirror’s Education and Housing Reporter and an original member of the CT Mirror staff. She has won first-place awards for investigative reporting from state, New England, and national organizations. Before joining CT Mirror in late 2009, Jacqueline was a reporter, online editor and website developer for The Washington Post Co.’s Maryland newspaper chains. She has also worked for Congressional Quarterly and the Toledo Free Press. Jacqueline received an undergraduate degree in journalism from Bowling Green State University and a master’s in public policy from Trinity College.

SEE WHAT READERS SAID

RELATED STORIES
Senate confirms Miguel Cardona as U.S. Secretary of Education
by Adria Watson

Cardona was the youngest principal in the state of Connecticut.

Report: Twice as many CT high schoolers are in danger of being held back
by Jacqueline Rabe Thomas

Research released Monday confirms what many parents and educators already suspected — more students than ever are falling behind during the pandemic, a problem especially present among those learning entirely from home in some of the state’s larger districts. The RISE Network tracked about 12,000 students in nine high schools in historically struggling districts to […]

State’s largest teachers’ union urges educators be prioritized in vaccine rollout
by Adria Watson

Educators said teachers should be able to receive the vaccine immediately when the next phase begins.

Lamont’s education funding plans under fire
by Frankie Graziano & Ahjane Forbes | Connecticut Public Radio

As Gov. Ned Lamont rolls out his budget for the coming biennium, education funding seems poised to become a battleground.

CT budget debate heats up quickly over equity
by Keith M. Phaneuf

Urban lawmakers on the Appropriations Committee charged Gov. Ned Lamont's budget largely ignores inequities in education and health care.

Support Our Work

Show your love for great stories and outstanding journalism.

$
Select One
  • Monthly
  • Yearly
  • Once
Artpoint painter
CT ViewpointsCT Artpoints
Opinion The marijuana legalization debate must be based on facts
by Will Jones III

In response to my earlier piece on why Connecticut lawmakers should reject marijuana commercialization,  Brendan Ruberry wrote a rebuttal that, on its face seems scathing, but to be clear, the attempted rebuttal falls flat and well off the mark.

Opinion Equity for women and girls essential to rebuild Connecticut’s economy
by Jennifer Steadman and Michelle Riordan-Nold

As Connecticut’s economy seeks to recover and rebuild, our success as a state will depend on how we respond to the disproportionate adverse impact of the coronavirus pandemic on women and girls, particularly women and girls of color.

Opinion Connecticut immigrants deserve health insurance
by Brooke Lifland, MD; Tanner Bommersbach, MD; Marco Ramos, MD PhD; and Eden Almasude, MD

Connecticut should pass House Bill 6334 to expand health insurance to all immigrants regardless of status. Our state wisely chose to protect the immigrant community by using Emergency Medicaid funds to cover expenses associated with COVID-19 testing and treatment for residents who were excluded from Medicaid based on their immigration status.

Opinion Truth or consequences: The impact of lie-based politics
by Charles M. Ericson and Sedona Ericson

A radio show by the above name, emceed by a man named Ralph Edwards, became a big hit starting in 1940. It eventually became a TV show, and all told, it lasted for decades. The format of the show was to be asked a question, and if it was not answered truthfully, the contestant submitted to undertaking a silly stunt of almost any kind. The show seemed reflective of a culture that valued untruth for perceived rewards, however trivial.

Artwork Grand guidance
by Anne:Gogh

In a world of systemic oppression aimed towards those of darker skintones – representation matters. We are more than our equity elusive environments, more than numbers in a prison and much more than victims of societal dispositions. This piece depicts a melanated young man draped in a cape ascending high above multiple forms of oppression. […]

Artwork Shea
by Anthony Valentine

Shea is a story about race and social inequalities that plague America. It is a narrative that prompts the question, “Do you know what it’s like to wake up in new skin?”

Artwork The Declaration of Human Rights
by Andres Chaparro

Through my artwork I strive to create an example of ideas that reflect my desire to raise social consciousness, and cultural awareness. Jazz music is the catalyst to all my work, and plays a major influence in each piece of work.”

Artwork ‘A thing of beauty. Destroy it forever’
by Richard DiCarlo | Derby

During times like these it’s often fun to revisit something familiar and approach things with a different slant. I have been taking some Pop culture and Art masterpieces and applying the vintage 1960’s and 70’s classic figures (Fisher Price, little people) to the make an amusing pieces. Here is my homage to Fisher -Price, Yellow […]

Twitter Feed
A Twitter List by CTMirror

Engage

  • Reflections Tickets & Sponsorships
  • Events
  • Donate
  • Newsletter Sign-Up
  • Submit to Viewpoints
  • Submit to ArtPoints
  • Economic Indicator Dashboard
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Commenting Guidelines
  • Legal Notices
  • Contact Us

About

  • About CT Mirror
  • Announcements
  • Board
  • Staff
  • Sponsors and Funders
  • Donors
  • Friends of CT Mirror
  • History
  • Financial
  • Policies
  • Strategic Plan

Opportunity

  • Advertising and Sponsorship
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Use of Photography
  • Work for Us

Go Deeper

  • Steady Habits Podcast
  • Economic Indicator Dashboard
  • Five Things

The Connecticut News Project, Inc. 1049 Asylum Avenue, Hartford, CT 06105. Phone: 860-218-6380

© Copyright 2021, The Connecticut News Project. All Rights Reserved. Website by Web Publisher PRO