School funding on trial: Some things to know

Case takes deep dive into the conditions in lowest-performing districts, including NL

A trial has begun in Hartford that is taking a deep dive into the conditions in the state’s lowest-performing schools, including New London.

Here are some things to know as the five-month proceeding unfolds. What is this trial about? Students are taught in closets and locker rooms in Windham Public Schools.

Teachers in Bridgeport don’t have enough pencils and copy paper.

Math textbooks in East Hartford middle schools are 24 years old.

And in New Britain, aides for kindergarten teachers with large classes have been eliminated.

This is just some of the testimony attorneys suing the state in the landmark school-funding lawsuit promise to offer over the coming months in an attempt to prove that the state is failing to provide enough funding to enable students to receive the education they deserve.

“Knowing every day you are not able to equip your students with the things they need, it’s sad. It’s sad there are that many kids in New Britain who are not getting their needs met,” a teary- eyed Sharon Locke testified in Hartford Superior Court.

Locke worked for years in top leadership positions in New Britain before becoming the superintendent of Naugatuck this school year.

She described years where the district couldn’t afford even basic instructional materials, such as calculators.

But the attorneys representing the state say this evidence is not enough to prove the state is failing to meet its constitutional obligation to provide a sufficient education for school-aged children.

“In this case, plaintiffs apparently plan to proceed with a trial by anecdote, which is an equally unreliable way to find the whole truth about our 542,000 students in over 1,000 schools,” Associate Attorney General Joseph Rubin said during his opening remarks in the trial.

While pointing out that state funding has increased in recent years — and per-student spending statewide is among the highest in the nation — Rubin also says additional money will not necessarily improve student outcomes.

“Test scores are not getting better as money goes up. They are not getting worse as money goes up. They are just staying the same,” he said. “It doesn’t change in any discernible way depending on how much you’re spending.”

A divided Connecticut Supreme Court nearly six years ago ruled that the state is responsible for ensuring that public schools are of a certain quality, but left it up to a lower court to determine what that standard is and whether it is being met.

What type of education is being provided in public schools throughout the state will be up to Judge Thomas Moukawsher to determine — a decision that all parties say will be appealed.

An unlikely coalition is bringing this case against the state.

That group — the Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, or CCJEF — includes the leaders of the two statewide teachers’ unions, city mayors, superintendents, parents and students.

The army of attorneys representing the coalition is from Debavoise & Plimpton, a large law firm in New York City.

It has significant name recognition from representing high- profile clients, such as prisoners being held without trial at Guantanamo Bay and the producers of Grand Theft Auto V when Lindsay Lohan claimed the company improperly cast her in its video game.

The case was first filed in 2005, and the trial began in January 2015.

Students at Yale Law School are also helping build the case against Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, his education commissioner and the State Board of Education.

The trial will focus on schools in six of the worst-performing districts in Connecticut — Bridgeport, Danbury, East Hartford, New Britain, New London and Windham.

Of the 65 people on the plaintiffs’ witness list, nearly one-third are teachers.

Two parents — one from Go online to read a longer version of this story.

Windham and another from New Britain — will testify.

Superintendents from East Hartford and New Britain testified during the first week of trial, and leaders from the oth- er districts are slated to share their stories in the coming weeks.

The attorneys representing the state have regularly tried to get the coalition kicked off the case, saying only students and their parents, none of whom are voting members of the coalition, have the right to sue the state.

The state also maintains that school boards, mayors and other municipal officials cannot sue the state because they are essentially representatives of the state and therefore cannot sue themselves.

None of these groups enjoy the constitutional rights in question, the attorneys said.

“These groups, so often at odds with each other, share only one goal: more money,” said Rubin during his opening remarks.

The trial has been long awaited. The lawsuit was first filed 10 years ago and most of the 15 children included in the complaint are no longer school-aged.