“We’ve heard from numerous towns and stakeholders tonight about how we need to properly invest in our education system,” CEA Vice President Joslyn DeLancey told members of the legislature’s Education Committee. During a hearing that began yesterday afternoon and lasted into the early hours of this morning, more than 300 Connecticut residents shared their thoughts about how the state should fund its public schools.
Among the issues that CEA members raised in their testimony were the need to increase ECS funding, maintain state magnet school funding, provide stipends for aspiring educators, ensure all teachers have a voice in Teachers’ Retirement Board elections, and enhance the disability benefit through the Teachers’ Retirement Board.
ECS Funding
“The legislature has worked to fund the existing Education Cost Sharing formula to statutory levels,” DeLancey said. “It has updated how the formula accounts for students in poverty and English learners. However, the fundamental cost of education, the ‘foundation’ amount used to calculate formula grants has not changed in more than a decade. As a result, a school district that receives ECS full funding does so in 2013 dollars.”
“The Education Cost Sharing grant remains the primary mechanism for distributing state education funding. However, ECS funding has not consistently kept pace with inflation or with the actual cost of delivering mandated educational services,” said Westport teacher and Bridgeport resident Faith Sweeney. “The ECS base rate of $11,525 has not been increased since 2013. Over those thirteen years, cost-of-living adjustments have increased approximately 41 percent. Adjusting the ECS base rate to reflect inflation would bring the base rate to approximately $16,500.”
Bridgeport is Connecticut’s largest school district, serving more than 19,000 students. Bridgeport and other similarly underresourced districts are the hardest hit by out-of-date ECS funding, Bridgeport Education Association President Jeff Morrissey told legislators.
“In Bridgeport, the absence of funding has been catastrophic to our teachers and students,” said Morrissey. “Teachers are coming to work every day doing more with less. We have made cuts, shuttered programs and supplies, eliminated our librarians and some essential support staff, exhaustively attempted to balance a budget, and collaborated to secure additional funding. Unfortunately, we are still deep in the woods and our future remains precarious. We carry on on behalf of our kids, because they deserve the best education possible.”
“Our public schools need better funding,” said Groton teacher and East Lyme Selectman Jason Deeble. “The mechanism currently funding education in our state and in our nation have created artificial scarcity, and this artificial scarcity plagues our communities’ most vulnerable residents.”
He said that, despite the billions in the state’s budget surplus, as a selectman, he sees how towns tear at themselves fighting over every dollar. As a teacher, he sees how schools are asked to do more and more with inadequate resources, including providing a range of services that used to be addressed through other means.
“We can’t use outdated ideas about school funding to address very modern crises,” Deeble said. “Inflationary measures divert funds away from kids and often teachers have had to make up the shortfall out of their own pockets”
“Adjusting the ECS formula to include inflationary indexing and incorporating educator stakeholder input would help ensure that funding allocations reflect real-time classroom needs,” said Sweeney. “I respectfully urge the Appropriations Committee to prioritize raising the ECS base rate to reflect inflation, modernizing the ECS formula, strengthening special education reimbursement funding, allocating surplus resources toward stabilizing Connecticut’s public education system, and supporting funding initiatives that provide compensation for student teachers.”
Magnet school funding
“CEA opposes the governor’s proposed removal of $12 million in funding to Connecticut’s Regional Educational Service Center (RESC) magnet schools,” DeLancey said. “These programs were designed to expand access and opportunity, and they require consistent, reliable state support to fulfill that mission.”
“CREC magnet schools were founded on the promise of opportunity, access, and integration,” kindergarten teacher and CREC Education Association President Lisa Cordova told legislators. “Our educators work in specialized, theme-based programs that provide unique opportunities for students—STEM, arts, global studies, aerospace, literacy academies, and more. These programs succeed because the state has long recognized that high-quality, integrated magnet schools require consistent, predictable support. A $12 million cut will most definitely harm all of the programs.”
“Districts utilize ACES to meet the needs of students they cannot fully serve in-district,” ACES educator Eric Carson said. “Parents value the choice of enrolling their children in a program with one of our magnet themes. Cutting $12 million in state funding would undermine these programs and shift costs back onto already strained local districts. That means fewer supports for students, fewer educators in classrooms, and greater inequity across communities. Fully funding magnet schools is a commitment to every child in Connecticut.”
Stipends for aspiring educators
Tyler Dias, a graduate student at Central Connecticut State University and CEA Research and Policy Intern, co-authored testimony with CEA Aspiring Educators Program Chair and UConn graduate student Hannah Spinner who was unable to attend the hearing.
“We express our appreciation for the commitment to addressing Connecticut’s teacher shortage,” Dias said. “We are especially encouraged by the Governor’s proposed increased investment in the Connecticut Teacher Apprenticeship Program, which can strengthen our educator pipeline and expand opportunities for aspiring teachers. Nevertheless, the governor’s proposal still only reaches a fraction of the potential aspiring educators. There are currently about 1,200 students each year who devote a semester to full-time student teaching. This on-the-job work experience is unpaid and serves as a disincentive for college students to consider a career in teaching. We urge the Appropriations Committee to join with the 10 other states that fund student teaching stipends as a way to recruit new educators.”
Teachers’ Retirement Board improvements
“Thank you for maintaining your commitment to fully funding the teachers’ pension fund and continually paying down the state’s unfunded liability,” CEA-Retired member Lilian Perone, the former president of the Greenwich Education Association, told legislators. “I am also testifying to ask you to allow active teachers the same voting rights as retired teachers have in the election for any open seats on Teachers’ Retirement Board. As a recently retired teacher, I cannot support the idea of withholding voting rights for active teachers for any reason. Active teachers contribute 7% of their salary every year to the pension fund. Depriving them of their voice in the election of Board members who will vote on their behalf is undemocratic and ignores the important contributions they all make towards making sure that fund remains solvent. Allowing all active and retired teachers to vote in TRB elections ensures that active teachers have a voice in decisions that will affect them upon retirement.”
Recently, the legislature approved an inflationary catch-up to the retiree monthly healthcare subsidy that doubled the benefit for most beneficiaries of the teachers’ retiree health plan (from $220 to $440 per person). However, this change overlooked those who were receiving a disability benefit through the Teachers’ Retirement Board. Several retired educators, including CEA-Retired Vice President Gary Peluchette asked the Appropriations Committee to fix this imbalance.
“Correcting this oversight would cost less than $150,000 per year and would bring the benefit for those receiving a disability benefit in line with those provided to other retirees,” Peluchette wrote. “Retired educators with disabilities face especially high healthcare costs and have limited ability to supplement their income. Increasing their monthly TRB disability subsidy from $220 to $440 would provide meaningful relief and help ensure they can access the essential care they depend on. Doubling this subsidy is a simple, cost-effective way for Connecticut to support the health, financial stability, and dignity of some of its most vulnerable retirees.”
Upcoming hearings
The Appropriations Committee’s hearing is among the first of this legislative session with many more opportunities remaining for educators to make their voices heard. This Friday the Education Committee will hear testimony on legislation concerning funding, cell phones in schools, and other issues.
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