An Open Letter to

Connecticut Parents, Legislators, and Voters

It’s hard to believe 121 pink slips have been issued to Enfield teachers—a scene being repeated in cities and towns across the state—while the state sits on a projected $270 million surplus, after tucking $1.4 billion extra cash under its mattress.

It’s astonishing that year after year our state has refused to acknowledge the pandemic sacrifices of our teachers at the same time we’re sitting on a rainy day fund of nearly $6.6 billion.

With billions of dollars at our disposal, it’s unfathomable that Connecticut won’t fully fund special education or support the high costs of early childhood education, leaving Enfield, Danbury, Stratford, New London, and virtually every municipality in between to shoulder that financial burden even as their budgets fall far short of what’s needed.

Connecticut, what are we doing?

For decades, we’ve rested on the idea that our education system is one of the best in the country. But the reason that still holds true today is that we are essentially asking highly educated teachers to live and serve as martyrs. We refuse to provide a living wage for our starting educators, we allow damaging rhetoric to lead public comment on education, and we continue to micromanage and overregulate public education to the point that we are compounding the shortage of educators in our state. From our highest-needs cities to our wealthiest suburbs, we are seeing ballooning class sizes, students without the services they need, and classrooms going for months without a certified educator.

Thinking we can keep doing more with less is not a strategy for success.

What brings families into an area and keeps them there? Where do businesses locate and thrive? What do job seekers and job creators value?

For answers, let’s turn to our friends in real estate. What do they use to evaluate and sell property? The education system, access to healthcare, and public safety are all significant metrics. Each of those fields, however, is facing a workforce shortage. What happens without these key public service providers? I certainly hope we never find out, but to avoid that kind of crisis, we need intentional and visible support, meaningful and sustainable investment, and legislators who back up their pro-educator statements with action.

We need to take a hard look in the mirror and remind ourselves that government exists for the purpose of taking care of our communities, not to turn a profit. We look to our government to use its collective resources to grow our economy and serve our communities. It’s no accident that Connecticut’s education system has long been ranked among the nation’s best. Getting there took years of careful investment and the shared belief that our education system is only as good as what we put into it. Research bears out that educators matter more to student achievement than any other aspect of schooling and that a strong educator workforce is the single most important investment in student success.

And yet here we are, telling parents that their children will not have the benefit of a certified teacher or a school library media specialist; that the wait to see a school counselor—already enormously long in many districts, with a ratio of one counselor to 350 students—will be even longer; that the services their children are entitled to disappeared for lack of funding. All while our state’s surplus grows.

Withholding funds that would allow our education system and the cities and towns served by our schools to thrive is a move in the wrong direction. What took years of effort to achieve could take only a legislative session or two to dismantle.

Election season is around the corner, and educators are paying attention. Parents are paying attention. The 500,000 students and families in this state with everything to gain or lose are listening and watching. Make no mistake: in Connecticut, as elsewhere, education is always on the ballot.

It’s time to step up and support educators and students. Talk is cheap but a winning, high-performing public school system is not.

Sincerely,

Kate Dias
CEA President