Lawmakers and educators on Thursday asked Gov. Ned Lamont to “keep his promise to students” and not cut funding earmarked for K-12 education finance reforms throughout the state.
The battle over the funding has been brewing since last week when Lamont proposed cutting $62.9 million from K-12 education finance reform funds, $48 million of which would be deducted from the $150 million that was appropriated as part of the two-year budget passed last year.
Cutting funding, which in turn leads to cuts to teachers and resources for students, is untenable to both lawmakers and educators who attended Thursday’s news conference at the Legislative Office Building.
Kate Dias, president of the Connecticut Education Association, said the state cannot pay for education “with a coupon,” and that budget cuts would result in the loss of valuable teachers for many districts. Education is an asset, she said, and should not be treated as a liability.
“If we don’t understand that, and if we continue to question the investment, we will never be the state that we could be,” Dias said. “Our children will never have the opportunities we want them to have, and our teachers will never do the things we want and know we can do.”
Sen. Doug McCrory, D-Hartford, said that this issue is a state issue, and that it is the state’s responsibility, not the towns or districts, to fund these state magnet schools. He said when you make a deal, as the legislature did in June by passing the biennial budget, “your word is your word”. These resources are vital, McCrory said, and students need them.
“These are the options that our students have, these are the options that our parents have,” he said, “and we need to fully fund them, and not pull the rug from them.”
Hartford Schools Superintendent Leslie Torres-Rodriguez said schools and children cannot continue to depend on one-time funding to support education, and that the burden of underfunding falls hard on urban school districts and students.
“Historically disadvantaged and marginalized communities should no longer face the financial burden of paying other school districts to educate their children,” Torres-Rodriguez said. The estimated $11 million that would be lost by Hartford Public Schools under the proposed cuts would amount to the loss of 100 educators.
In response, Lamont’s office released a statement Thursday afternoon reiterating his support for the early childhood care and education system.
“The ability of our K-12 education system to succeed depends in great part on the success of our early childhood education system, and we have a desperate need to expand these services, including through the hiring of more teachers,” the statement read. “There are thousands of families in our state who are unable to enroll their children in early childhood education because of a lack of resources. We have an opportunity this year to increase access to education for our youngest residents, and we should do it.”
Rep. Jeff Currey, an East Hartford Democrat who co-chairs the Education Committee and headed Thursday’s event, thanked Lamont for his original investment in K-12 and early childhood education but urged him to keep his promise to students. Trying to separate the two, Currey said, is not the right way forward.
“The appropriate path of least resistance is investing in both, [K-12 and early childhood] and building off of the two-year biennium budget that was negotiated, agreed upon, and signed,” he said.
More than 300 students, parents, and educators signed up to testify against Lamont’s budget changes before the Appropriations Committee on Thursday. The hearing is expected to last for hours.
