You can't expect New Haven schools to reach state goals when they're "grossly underfunded," charged Dianne Kaplan deVries, project director for the Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, at a public meeting at City Hall. With the city's financial backing, her advocacy group is suing the state over "inadequate" funding for public education.
Meanwhile, deVries butted heads with Alex Johnston, director of the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, over the best way to redistribute the "pittance" in existing funds.
DeVries and Johnston were invited to the August 28 aldermanic Education Committee meeting to talk about funding for public schools. The issue's been popping up this summer: City business leaders have been lobbying the state for more charter school funds, and recent outcry also arose when the State Board of Education cut food funds to two city charter schools. Governor Jodi Rell has called for a task force to revamp the Education Cost Sharing (ECS) formula, which determines how state funds are divided between cities. She, like many education advocates, has called the ECS formula "unfair."
DeVries turned the focus off charter schools, which she sees as draining resources away from the 99.5 percent of public school students who go to other types of school. Seizing the air with her hands and filling the aldermanic chambers with an effusive, sweeping call for reform, she focused on state education funds. Connecticut is one of the lowest state-government contributors to public education, paying less than 40 percent of its public school cost. That leaves a heavy burden to cities and towns, said deVries.
The Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding is an advocacy group seeking equal opportunities for students and "adequately" funded schools. DeVries sees funding as crucial to closing Connecticut's gaping achievement gap between low-income minorities and their richer, white counterparts.
Town by town, the Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding has determined just how much each district needs for "adequate funding" – enough money to enable kids to reach state goals in reading and math. In New Haven, about $13,000 is spent on each of the city's roughly 20,000 pupils, reckoned deVries. About $6,500 per pupil – roughly half the cost – comes from the state. "It's not enough to do the job."
DeVries advocates an increase of one third: $17,450 should be spent on each child (not counting transportation or food costs), she said.
CCJEF's lawsuit, CCJEF v. Rell, doesn't specify a dollar request from the state. But New Haven "could stand to gain millions and millions" if the coalition wins, she said.
New Haven has been aboard from the get-go. The city supported a similar earlier effort, Johnson v. Rowland, which folded in 2003 due to lack of financial support. The city agreed to give the legal battle for state funds another whirl, becoming a plaintiff in CCJEF v. Rell at the cost of $20,000 per year, said deVries. CCJEF v. Rell is supported by pro-bono work from the Yale Law School and backed by two major unions and cities across the state.
While the Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding fights a protracted legal battle (deVries predicted it'll take at least another two to three years), some, like New Haven-based education advocacy group, the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now (ConnCAN), are calling for more immediate reform. Johnston agreed the state property tax system needs a major overhaul. He welcomed the prospect of extra state funds. But he focused on what reform could be done in the meantime.
One possible model for reform Johnston proposed: The Pilot School Network in Boston, where 20 schools run on a revamped system of per-student funding and localized control of curriculum. Each school gets a lump sum according to the number of students it attracts. Per-student funds are weighted: A school gets more for those students who are costlier to educate, such as English as a Second Language, special ed or low-income children.
The system encourages schools to compete with each other to attract students, especially from those costlier-to-educate groups, said Johnston. While he said his group was not "uniquely committed to one model," he praised the Pilot program for "incentivizing teachers to be there" and for "rethinking the way we're funding schools."
The idea stirred up skepticism among aldermen, especially when they got the idea that certain groups of students might be attracted to one school, rather than dispersed throughout the city. "I'm worried that we don't separate communities, rather than unite them," said Fair Haven Alderwoman Migdalia Castro.
The notion of parent choice – a percentage of each Pilot school is reserved for students outside the school's neighborhood, said Johnston – was also met with skepticism.
"So, poor little black kids in poor neighborhoods could go to white schools? And white people will be what about that?" asked Beaver Hill Alderwoman Babz Rawls-Ivy. Johnston acknowledged there might be "outcry in affluent communities." But he praised the Pilot program for building specialized programs, for example, for refugees learning English as a Second Language.
Fair Haven Heights Alderman Gerald Antunes joined in with doubt: "If you have a system that's working, it should serve your kid" in that child's nearest neighborhood school.
DeVries derided student-weighted, per-pupil funding as a "backpack approach" where students could just "take their funding allocation to whatever school wherever." Giving schools control over curriculae erodes central control and accountability, she said.
Instead, she said, the district's magnet schools, which she reckoned require an extra 20 to 30 percent funding due to extra staffing needs, should be awarded more cash: "The performance of your magnet schools could be doubled if adequately funded."
Whatever the solution, public school funds remain in the center of debate at the Capitol this year. "The topic on the top burner is school funding, and we're going to keep it there," said deVries.
