Schools

With Budget Crisis Handled, Thoughts Turn to Education

This year, at the governor's request, the state legislature will focus on education issues, including special education and education cost sharing grants.

 

Last year was a tough one for state lawmakers struggling to find the money to run the state.

But now, with that budget crisis hurdle overcome -- at least for now -- it's time to focus on education, Gov. Dannel Malloy has told members of the state House of Representatives and Senate.

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"I talked to the governor last week and he is very serious about this," House Majority Leader and Hamden Rep. Brendan Sharkey, D-88, told a group of residents and school officials Thursday at  where the Hamden PTA Council sponsored a legislative forum on school issues.

"We are going to be looking at a whole range of issues," he said, including the achievement gap between low-income students and their wealthier counterparts, ECS grants and charter and magnet schools.

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And he is hopeful the renewed emphasis will result in more funding for Hamden, Sharkey said.

"[Malloy] has emphasized Hamden as one of the towns identified as needing more resources for the needs we face," he said. "I think that bodes well for us."

"I think everyone agrees we have an achievement gap that is based on economics and race," said Rep. Gary Holder-Winfield, D-94, who as a result of the recent redistricting now represents the southern part of Hamden.

Malloy held a workshop Thursday in New Britain to talk about what education proposals might be part of this year's legislative session. 

"We all know it's an issue of funding -- the question is, what are we going to do about it," said Holder-Winfield, who attended the workshop. "There was no resolution but some good discussion."

Last November, Malloy appointed an ECS Task Force to address issues with those state grants doled out to each municipality.

"The task force is looking at the formula that has gotten skewed over time and is not fully funded," said state Sen. Martin Looney, D-11, who is the senate majority leader. "Parts of it are outdated and don't reflect the true basis of need."

Proof of a crisis in education can be found in a study done in 2010 of the status of students who graduated from Hartford public schools in 2004, Looney said. Only 14 percent of those students who graduated from high school that year went on to earn advanced degrees, including associates and bachelor's degrees, he said.

Also alarming, he said, is statistics that show half of students enrolled in the Connecticut State University System are in need of remedial courses and in the community college system, that figure is two-thirds.

"Students who need remediation like that have a large chance of never graduating," he said, and instead get side-tracked trying to get up to the level where they can take the required classes and end up giving up.

And the problem is clearly that those students aren't being prepared properly for college, indicating a failure of the municipal public school system, he said.

"We need to focus relief in the areas of greatest need," he said.

But often municipalities such as Hamden aren't seen as having that need, said Legislative Council member Scott Harris, who works for the non-profit Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now (ConnCAN).

"The problem I run into is that people think the achievement gap is only a problem in places like Hartford and New Haven and Bridgeport, but that's not the case," Harris said. "We have a problem here in Hamden but it gets glossed over because people think we're an affluent suburban community."

For example, the 2011 Connecticut Master Test scores show that only 28 percent of low-income third-graders -- mostly minority students -- met goal on the reading portion of the test, Harris said, while 70 percent of more affluent white students did.

"Hamden is getting better at education our non-low income students and comparatively worse at educating low income students," he said. "Good overall test scores mask a growing reality.

"It's a problem in a lot of communities," he said. "The achievement gap is not just a problem in the big cities but is an issue in every community."

One key, all agreed, is to make available preschool seats to low-income students, something that Hamden has not been able to afford to do.

It's frustrating, Board of Education chairman Michael D'Agostino said, because the big cities get so much money for preschool programs that they can't use it all. If municipalities like Hamden could gain access to those funds the big cities turn back, it would make a huge difference here, he said. 

In Hamden, there are waiting lists to get into the few pre-school seats the district can offer he said, while the big cities can't fill their open seats and end up sending the funding for those seats back to the state.

"Sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars go back, and we could use it," he said. "If you tweaked the process, it would free up dollars -- that's low-hanging fruit and if you could fix that, it would be a big help."

 

 

 

 


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