Lawmakers look to increase education funding
Call for spending transparency
HARTFORD — State lawmakers began their final push on a host of educational initiatives on Thursday, including a measure that would require Connecticut’s school districts to reveal more data about their spending priorities to the state’s Department of Education.
With just a few days remaining in the 2023 legislative session, both the House and the Senate passed separate education packages that contained new pilot programs, curriculum additions, changes to disciplinary policies and a docket of new studies to be undertaken in the coming year.
The two-year, nearly $51 billion state budget that is in the final stages of negotiations between lawmakers and Gov. Ned Lamont will include an additional $150 million toward education, particularly in under-performing urban schools, legislative leaders said this week.
To go along with the boost in funding, Democratic leaders pledged to increase their focus on school spending, including an annual review of each district’s spending on salaries, support services, maintenance and transportation.
While school officials are currently required to report financial data to the state through a “chart of accounts,” lawmakers have complained that the data is not collected in a standardized fashion, making it difficult to compare spending practices across the state’s 172 public school districts.
“We are interested in finding out where our tax dollars, and how our tax dollars are being spent in public education,” said state Sen. Douglas McCrory, D-Hartford, who serves as co-chair of the Education Committee.
In addition to increasing financial reporting requirements for school districts, the Senate’s education bill would also al
low Commissioner of Education Charlene M. Russell-Tucker to designate new “alliance” school districts whose share of state educational cost sharing funds is contingent upon developing a plan to improve student performance.
Republicans, while praising some aspects of the bill, bristled at other items including a measure that would mandate training sessions for newly-elected members of local education boards, as well as limitations on the duties of school resource officers.
Ultimately, the Republicans argued that the legislation did not go far enough toward addressing a decline in students’ math and reading scores during the pandemic, and offered several unsuccessful amendments before the bill was passed on a party-line vote.
“[Schools] don’t need more responsibility which the state isn’t paying for, they don’t need more bureaucracy and red tape and administrative functions,” said Senate Minority Leader Kevin Kelly, R-Stratford. “What we need, quite frankly, is more teachers in the classroom.”
The House education bill was met with more bipartisan support, and included provisions to study a potential end to the use of seclusion in schools, the addition of civics and media literacy to the state’s curriculum, and a policy change allowing early childcare providers to carry epinephrine, a drug used to treat allergic reactions.
The bill also mandated the Department of Education to conduct an audit of the effectiveness of Connecticut’s Mastery Test program, as well as other local standardized tests.
“I think we’ve heard time and time again, year after term that we are potentially testing our students too much and allowing for too much instructional time to be eaten up by test prep, all for tests that don’t truly give us a clear and accurate picture of where our students are succeeding or where they may need assistance,” said Education Committee Co-Chair Rep. Jeff Currey, D-East Hartford.
The House voted 129 to 19 to send its education package to the Senate. Both chambers will still have to act on the other’s legislation before the legislative session adjourns at midnight on June 7.
Among the more controversial items in either bill was the Senate’s proposal to limit the ability of school resource officers — which are essentially extensions of local police departments — to respond to “challenging behavior” by students that does not rise to the level of violence or some other crime.
That proposal was borne out of an earlier effort this year to limit the use of force and arrests by SROs by training other school faculty to take on some of their duties.
That idea was swiftly condemned by both law enforcement and school staff, and ultimately amended to the present language limiting SROs’ disciplinary duties, and requiring schools to publish policies related to officers’ use of force.