Issue Position: Public Education

Issue Position

The single most important factor affecting the strength of a community is its school system. An academically strong and diverse school system attracts resident and business and provides the foundation for property values. Whether you have children in the system or not, all residents have an interest in supporting and maintaining the quality of Hamden public schools.

For decades, the only method of funding our schools was through property taxes. This led to increased tension and discrepancies between financially strapped urban communities and "wealthy" suburbs. In an attempt to alleviate the burden on local property taxes, the State provides additional funding to municipalities. It has not worked as well as it should.

In my twelve years on the Hamden Board of Education, I have seen first-hand the impact of ineffective and inadequate methods of funding public education on our communities. The State's "Education Cost Sharing System" was intended to equalize State aid for public education but it has fallen well short of that goal. Indeed, Hamden has been denied tens of millions in expected education aid over the years -- leaving local taxpayers to fill the funding void. Making matters worse, the ECS formula for awarding such aid actually penalizes school districts that improve: the worse a district performs over time, the more funding it receives.

My goal as your representative will be to preserve aid to our communities and reform the public school funding system. We can start by providing relief from the slew of "unfunded mandates" imposed by the Legislature. These mandates, while often well intentioned initiatives, only serve to multiply the administrative and financial burdens on our communities. If the State is going to require communities to take certain actions, it needs to provide funding for towns to implement those requirements. On a more global level, the ECS formula should be entirely recalibrated, so that it provides an incentive for improvement, rather than simply funding failure.

Read further about cost-effective solutions to improve public education.

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