On Wednesday governor Dannel Malloy announced that the budget proposal he will deliver to the legislature next week will in fact include the $1.9 billion Education Cost Sharing program for 2011-12--the same funding level provided this fiscal year. Surrounding the Governor at the press conference were the mayors of three of the state’s largest cities, Pedro Segarra of Hartford, Bill Finch of Bridgeport and John DeStefano of New Haven. Three cities with some of the worst school systems in the state in terms of test scores, achievement, and just about any other yardstick you care to use.
Don’t get me wrong gentle reader, I neither bemoan nor begrudge these school systems getting the resources they so desperately need but I absolutely do have a problem with where those resources too often end up which not with the students.
As a speaker I am regularly inside high schools throughout Connecticut and I see first-hand what some schools have and other schools lack.
As a reporter, I’ve stood inside a Board of Ed. meeting in Bridgeport and watched as a Superintendant’s assistant, (yes I said assistant) earning a six-figure salary explained to parents that their children might have to ride the city bus to and from high school because there was no money for transportation.
I applaud Governor Malloy for making sure that our schools do not face the dramatic impact that a loss of those funds would have surely caused. On the other hand it will be interesting to see where he pulls the money from and who ultimately ends up holding the frayed end, but that is a tale for another time.
When it comes to our traditionally underperforming schools (that’s political speak for urban schools by the way) the money keeps pouring in and the achievement gap keeps getting wider. At some point someone might want to look closer at how to best use the money not just how to get the money.
But hey, what do I know, I’m just Connecticut’s Conservative Capitalist
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