The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Panel talks future of education in state
A bipartisan panel Wednesday agreed the brunt of education decisions are made at the state level.
HAMDEN >> Discussing the future of education in the state, a bipartisan panel of legislators and education professionals Wednesday agreed the brunt of education decisions are made at the state level.
“A right to education is not a federal constitutional right, but it is a state constitutional right,” said Senate Republican President Pro Tempore Len Fasano, R-North Haven, one of seven panelists hosted by the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, an education advocacy group, Wednesday at Hamden Middle School.
On the state level, the panelists had much to discuss already: moderator Paul Bass, editor of the New Haven Independent, did not take long to bring up Superior Court Judge Thomas Moukawsher’s ruling in CCJEF v. Rell, in which he ruled that the state legislature must revisit the way in which it distributes school finance to municipalities.
Rookie Sen. George Logan, R-Ansonia, said he believes the legislature, not the courts, is the appropriate venue to fix funding discrepancies. The Education Cost Sharing grant funds, for which a distribution formula was devised but eventually disregarded, became “politicized” he said. Fasano concurred that disproportionate funds went to the districts represented by the legislative leadership of committees overseeing the fund distribution.
As for what a more fair model would look like, Katie Roy, the founder and director of the Connecticut School Finance Project, said she believed the best funding formula would be one that is equitable and the state legislature can agree upon.
“I really think that an important place for the legislature to start is for the legislature to really begin to understand how the finance system works,” she said. Currently, she said, there are multiple streams of funding distribution that complicate the system.
Rep. Michael D’Agostino, D-Hamden, a former chairman of the Hamden Board of Education, said a major flaw in the original formula is its focus on overall per capita wealth, and a future model should emphasize the student population and a municipality’s financial ability to contribute to local education.
“Instead of just looking at the free and reducedprice lunch population, you look at how many families are on SNAP, how many on government assistance, how many students are characterized as homeless, how many are special education, how many are (English language learners); you look at those metrics of a school system, and second should be town ability to pay, not per capita income. Things like the grant list. Also the mill rate,” he said.
Logan said that, of some of the wealthier areas he represents, he does not expect constituents to resist having education money go to poorer rural and urban areas because “it’s a matter of fairness.”
Justin Boucher, executive director of pro-teacher organization Educators 4 Excellence, argued that linking funding to test scores could create a system in which teachers are even less inclined to teach in school districts with historic disadvantages.
“It’s more than simply how a student does on a test; it’s is a student coming to school or their participation in music programs,” said Hamden Superintendent of Schools Jody Goeler.
Goeler’s preference, he said, would be to prioritize growth models over proficiency models.
State Sen. Gary Winfield, D-New Haven, said that if the conversation about education funding were to continue in good faith, there would need to be discussions on whether the legislature was treating symptoms instead of problems.
“The legislature right now is looking at the issue of housing, but what we’re looking to do on the issue of housing is limit access to opportunity,” he said of his opposition. “We’re actually working in reverse.”
D’Agostino shared that he feels magnet schools are also an example of treating symptoms in lieu of larger problems, specifically school segregation as a symptom of housing discrimination.