Educators, municipal leaders, and other advocates gathered Thursday at Hillhouse High School to demand that the state government adjust its Educational Cost Sharing formula to provide more funding for public schools to help reach disconnected youth and meet the increased needs of students.
“In New Haven and in so many municipalities around the state, we are doing everything we possibly can to support our kids,” said New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker. “But the reality is, our state as a whole is not doing enough and much of today is about calling on the state, which has already done a lot for our kids, to do significantly more. In particular dramatically changing the funding so that we can ensure that all of our kids have an opportunity to thrive.”
The gathered leaders called on state government to update the state’s Educational Cost Sharing (ECS) formula to provide more equitable funding for schools across the state that they say are contending with overstretched municipal budgets due to the state not funding ECS fully, its strict fiscal guardrails which hamstring funds and a resistance to tax increases that has put a greater burden on municipalities to make up funding shortfalls.
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The report from the 119K Commission, titled “Young People First: A bold Plan to Address Connecticut’s Statewide Crisis,” makes several suggestions for how state leaders can review and revise the ECS formula, including an inflation adjustment to per-student foundation, the addition of weights for students with disabilities, and an increase in economically disadvantaged and concentrated poverty and multi-language learner weights when determining funding for districts.