Lauren Garrett
Our schools are short-changed by millions.
(Opinion) Educational Cost Sharing (ECS) is a funding mechanism that was intended to level the playing field in funding school districts. Instead, it has benefited majority-white schools.
ECS has historically given students in majority-white communities an excellent, well-funded education while robbing Black and Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) communities of an equitable education. This leaves these communities with exorbitant expenses that force majority-BIPOC communities to raise their mill rates to compensate. The high mill rates prevent BIPOC from accumulating wealth because they pay more for the services that majority-white communities can easily afford.
The above graph shows every municipality with where the student population is more than 50 percent BIPOC in the State of Connecticut. Every municipality except one is short-funded by millions of dollars. Changing this history must happen now.
ESC is supposed to increase every year until full funding in 2028. Gov. Ned Lamont’s budget holds ECS funding at 2021 levels during a time when students and families are at a breaking point.
Furthermore, ECS is not providing what districts need for equitable achievement. A report from New England Policy Center Federal Reserve Bank of Boston found that an additional $940 million, or an increase of 12.3 percent from statewide public K – 12 school spending, would have been needed to fully fund the predicted costs required to achieve the statewide average student test performance level in every district.
What can we do about it? Please support the following two bills to fund a more equitable ECS and pay for it.
Proposed bill HB 5798 would fully fund ECS by 2022 and increase the weight of poverty and English language learners in calculating the ESC formula.
Hamden’s delegation, Robyn Porter, Mike D’Agostino, and Josh Elliott introduced HB 6187, which would increase taxes on the rich as much as necessary to fully fund ECS.
Covid-19 has exacerbated racial disparities and brought them to the forefront. Educational justice cannot wait any longer. The achievement gap has grown over the last year and it will take meaningful funding to repair. You cannot say Black Lives Matter if you are unwilling to provide an equitable education to Black children.
The above chart draws from school district demographic data here and here, and pulls information on the ECS formula from here.
More info on related issues, organizations:
• Understand education challenges in Connecticut
• Understand education challenges in the U.S.
• Reasons The U.S. Education System Is Failing
• Get involved in improving New Haven education and community efforts
• Support nonprofits working to improve education in the US