Protect our kids.
That’s the message thousands of teachers, parents, community members, elected officials, and others are sending across Connecticut today during CEA’s Champions for Public Education Day of Action, part of a national movement to support public schools.
As educators across the state walked into their schools wearing Red for Ed in a show of collective advocacy for public schools and public school students, the day officially kicked off with a morning news conference at the Legislative Office Building. (See media coverage.)
“I couldn’t be prouder to stand here with so many champions for public education, including legislators who come to this building every day and fight the good fight to fund and strengthen Connecticut’s public schools,” said CEA President Kate Dias. “We know how important that is to the 500,000 students in our schools, their families, their communities, and the 43,000 educators in their classrooms right now doing the important work of educating and caring for our students. Education is the investment we make in our communities, our workforce, and our economy. Every time we walk away from that responsibility, we walk away from the promise of Connecticut’s future.”
Dias noted that an estimated $330 billion in potential federal funding cuts threaten to have real and devastating impacts on public schools across the state and country.
Real consequences
“What that looks like is cuts to school lunches, services for students with disabilities, Head Start, and programs for our students who live with the consequences of poverty,” she said, “all so that millionaires and billionaires can get $4 trillion in tax breaks. For too long, we have asked teachers to close their doors and do the best they can with what they have. It’s time to open those doors and remind everyone that the money we spend on education is an investment in our future, and we shouldn’t be looking to cut it in any capacity, because cuts hurt kids.”
CEA President Kate Dias stands surrounded by public education supporters wearing Red for Ed at a news conference today at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford.
“Weakening public schools weakens our democracy,” said Fran Rabinowitz, executive director of the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents. “The attacks on public education in Washington are atrocious. Cutting federal funding, including Title I grants, endangers our most vulnerable children, and eliminating federal funding for best practice research is a major step backwards. We need to be national and international leaders in educating every child. How can we meet students’ needs if the rug is pulled out from under us? Today is a call to action for every one of us.”
Closer to home, the education community was deeply disappointed in Governor Ned Lamont’s veto of $40 million in additional special education funding that the General Assembly overwhelmingly endorsed to support students with disabilities this year.
Dias remarked that pressure from educators, as well as lawmakers willing to come back into session this week, has made a difference, with new talk of a compromise between the General Assembly and governor’s office.
“All those pressures do exactly what they’re supposed to do. That’s how a democracy works. People speak, we negotiate, and we get to an outcome we all win with.”
Overworked, undervalued
“I have a lot of close friends who have been teachers, most of whom are not teaching today because of the all the additional work thrust upon them,” said Rep. Ron Napoli Jr., a social studies teacher and CEA member. “It’s really imperative that we address teachers’ working conditions, and we know smaller class sizes allow teachers to be more efficient, to do more, to have more planning time and time for instruction, and make sure our students have the services they need.”
State Rep. Ron Napoli, a Waterbury social studies teacher, shared how cuts will affect Waterbury students.
As a lawmaker, Napoli represents Waterbury, the city where he teaches and whose schools stand to lose 23 million in federal dollars under the Trump administration’s plan.
“It is not efficient or effective to make cuts to public education,” said CEA Vice President Joslyn DeLancey. “It is in fact a degradation of all our services in all our cities and towns. Our public education system is phenomenal when we support it, when we pay for it, and when we recognize that there is no other greater investment. We have a moral and legal education to provide services for all of our students, and funding cuts in any one area trickle into every area. We need to stand together to say, ‘This is not OK, and we will not allow it.’”
Patrice McCarthy, executive director and general counsel for the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education, representing 1,400 volunteer school board members throughout the state, noted, “We depend upon our federal partners to provide support not only in terms of finances but also policy, so it is astonishing that funds for education could be slashed at the same time the federal government wants to interfere with the policy decisions we make at the state and local levels. We have wonderful laws in Connecticut to ensure that every student’s needs are met, and we look forward to working with our education partners and legislators to make sure those opportunities remain available in an era of great uncertainty.”
“When we strip away something estimated to be just shy of a half-billion dollars of federal funding for our schools, that impacts every child in every school,” said Rep. Jennifer Leeper, chair of the legislature’s Education Committee. “Here, at the state level, we are prioritizing getting every dollar we can into our Excess Cost Sharing formula, because that is how we manage class sizes and caseload and ensure every child has access to a high-quality public education, which is what everyone here is deeply committed to.”
See who else rocked the red today and share your own pics with the hashtag #ProtectOurKids on Facebook, Insta, and with CEA at info@cea.org.
