Student-Centered Funding
We're working collaboratively with legislative, education, community, and municipal stakeholders across the state to create a student-centered funding system that will help address Connecticut’s educational inequities, fix the state’s current complex and disjointed way of funding public schools, and make significant strides in reducing racial and economic funding disparities.
Equitable Facilities Funding for All Public Schools
The condition of school buildings impacts students, but the facilities funding a school receives can depend on the location and type of public school. We're working to change this by implementing a single, needs-based facilities funding formula and process that provides equitable state aid for public school building projects and upgrades regardless of school type, operator, or location.
Improving Funding for Multilingual Learner Education
Connecticut public schools currently educate nearly 54,000 multilingual learners. In the last 10 years, Connecticut’s multilingual learner population has grown by over 19,000 students, while the state’s total enrollment has decreased by 33,700 students. Despite this growth, funding for multilingual education has not kept pace to meet the needs of Connecticut's students.
Modernizing Educator Preparation & Certification
Every student deserves to be taught by a qualified, effective, and passionate educator. Unfortunately, with over 1,000 teacher vacancies across the state, including over 700 in Connecticut's highest-need districts, this is not always the case. That's why we're working to modernize educator preparation and certification in Connecticut and reduce barriers to the teaching profession.
Strengthening Special Education Funding
We're working to fix Connecticut's broken system of funding special education and implement policies that support students with disabilities and their needs, offer districts and municipalities budget predictability, and ensure equitable, adequate funding for all students.
Transparency in Federal Education Funding
The influx of hundreds of millions in federal education dollars as a result of congressional COVID-19 relief and stimulus packages presents both unprecedented opportunities and challenges. One of these challenges is ensuring transparency around how the federal dollars are spent.
