By CHRIS POWELL
No issue in Connecticut generates more comment with less effect than public education, and now Governor Lamont is doubling down. He is arranging the appointment of the Governor’s Blue-Ribbon Commission on K-12 Education Funding and Accountability, which, in the hope of making education funding fairer and more effective, will study state government’s main mechanism for financing local education, the “education cost sharing” grant, which distributes nearly $2.5 billion to municipalities every year.
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Of course every year the General Assembly discusses state funding for municipal education and the resounding conclusion is only that everybody who gets education money wants more. No special commission is likely to receive a different response, not even one with a reporting deadline as far off as the one the governor is establishing — Jan. 15, 2027, nine months away.
Announcing the commission last week, the governor acknowledged that it wouldn’t help anyone for a long time. So he added that he will work with legislative leaders to find extra money, as much as $500 million, to throw at local education this year. Like most education money, most of this money will end up in the pockets of members of teacher unions, the state’s most influential special interest. After all, this is a state election year, the governor and legislative leaders are Democrats, and the unions are the party’s largest component, slightly ahead of the state employee unions, for which the governor also has just arranged generous raises.
But at least the governor last week specified one huge unfairness in education funding — the burden of “special education,” the extra expense of schooling children with learning and physical disabilities and behavioral problems. These students come disproportionately from impoverished households in the cities and inner suburbs.
There is no fairness in requiring municipalities to bear most of the expense of “special education.” These are general societal costs. Indeed, the “education cost sharing” grant was established nearly three decades ago with the aim of distributing over the whole state the higher costs of educating the poor.
For three reasons it hasn’t succeeded.
First, equalization of school funding burdens contradicts a higher principle of education in Connecticut: local control. Wealthier towns will always be inclined and able to spend more on their schools — unless state government takes control of local education. That will never be possible politically. Even liberal Democrats in the suburbs would never stand for it.
Second, school performance is only slightly, if at all, a matter of per-pupil spending and almost entirely a matter of per-pupil parenting. Single-parent households are disproportionately poor and on the whole their children get much less parenting. Only less welfare and more fathers in the home can fix that.
Third is that equalizing education would require frequent measuring of and accountability for results, which is also politically impossible. Public education in Connecticut operates almost entirely on social promotion. Proficiency tests are minimized and discouraged and even when administered carry no consequences for students, teachers, and schools. In Connecticut student performance simply doesn’t matter at any level. Any requirement for would spark comprehensive revolt — including revolt from voters and legislators.
It would be shocking if the governor’s new commission approached these issues.
But the commission still could strike a small blow for fairness in educational taxation if it recommended that state government assume responsibility for all “special education” costs. Lifting those costs from the cities would give them a theoretical chance to reduce their excessive property tax rates.
Of course the governor’s commissionis hardly necessary for such a policy initiative. Instead of throwing another $500 million at members of teacher unions this year, the governor and legislature could use the money to start having state government cover all “special education.”
While the teacher unions might be sore about this, there still would be some political consolation, since the state Education Department would have to hire dozens more employees to administer the new “special education” system, and they’d all be unionized and vote Democratic.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)
Chris Powell column 