By CHRIS POWELL
What does it mean that, as the Connecticut Mirror reported last week, Connecticut’s birth rate is the ninth lowest in the country and that the state’s public school student population has fallen steadily since 2006, from 578,000 to 498,000, down nearly 14% in 20 years?
Counterintuitively, it means bigger paydays for teachers and school administrators.
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Mere taxpayers might think such a big reduction in students would prompt school systems to economize, but they’d be wrong. For state government, always in thrall to the teacher unions, has enacted a law — the so-called minimum budget requirement — that virtually prohibits school boards from reducing their budgets even as enrollment declines. The law maintains that if a school system spent a certain amount this year, it must spend at least that much every year forever. Economizing is actually illegal.
The premises of the minimum budget requirement law are, first, that spending equals education, and second, that keeping government employees happy is government’s highest objective — that any efficiencies in government should flow not to taxpayers but to government’s own payroll.
Of course these premises are absurd. Connecticut has been increasing per-pupil spending for decades only for student achievement to decline. Higher spending has correlated with lower results.
If state residents were aware of the law’s contempt for them, they might express resentment to their state legislators and the governor and demand an explanation. That would be awkward.
But no one in authority wants people to be aware of the law. The majority party, the Democrats, is controlled by the government employee unions and particularly the teacher unions, and while the Republican minority in the General Assembly dares to complain about taxes generally and specifics like high electric rates, most Republicans are too scared of the teacher unions to criticize the law.
That leaves news organizations to pursue the public interest by publicizing the law and holding legislators and the governor to account for it. But their coverage suggests that most news organizations in Connecticut also think that money equals education, so they see no problem.
Hamden state Rep. Josh Elliott, challenging Governor Lamont in a primary for the Democratic nomination for governor, is the perfect representative of far-left educational ideology.
In an interview the other day with WTNH-TV8 in New Haven, Elliott outlined his platform: “The first thing we’re going to do is make sure that we fix our tax structure — that we have what Massachusetts did, a 4% surcharge on people making $1 million or more.” The extra revenue, Elliott said, would be “sent back to municipalities to make sure that the quality of your education is not dependent on the ZIP code you’re born in.”
That’s the school spending myth in action. Yes, student performance is terrible in certain municipalities, especially the cities, but it’s not because of a lack of spending. It’s because two-thirds or more of the children there are being raised by only one parent. Most lack a father in their lives and thus receive half or less of the financial support, guidance, discipline, and intellectual and physical stimulation children need.
The problem isn’t school spending but poverty and per-pupil parenting. But it can’t be discussed in polite company because, to the lefties, fathers and intact families are a mortal threat to the ever-expanding government that seems to want to make everyone dependent in generational poverty, not self-sufficient.
The other day U.S. Rep. John B. Larson, being challenged by former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin in a primary for the Democratic nomination in the 1st Congressional District, accelerated in his race to corner the lefties likely to dominate the vote.
Larson joined two leading national lefties — Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar — to introduce legislation to have the federal government finance free breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a snack for all students every day.
Why stop there? Why not also pay teachers to take their neglected and unfed students home with them at night, or at least start inquiring officially into the disintegration of the family?
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)
Chris Powell column 
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) had been doing from Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA) work. A casual pseudo-cohort analysis suggests that San Diego has been doing some interesting things that may (or may not) be applicable in Connecticut’s urban districts. Here is the ChatGPT summary of possibilities.
“What has San Diego been doing that Hartford might consider?
I’ll [ChatGPT] compare San Diego’s practices with Hartford’s likely constraints, focusing on things a district can actually borrow rather than demographics or California-specific funding.Thought for 16s
San Diego is not a simple model to copy, but it suggests several practical things Hartford could examine.
The most important caveat: San Diego’s NAEP performance is not proof that any one program caused the results. In 2024, San Diego’s Grade 4 reading average was 223, well above the large-city average of 208, with 39% at or above NAEP Proficient and 67% at or above Basic. But San Diego also has a different student mix, state policy environment, funding model, and housing/economic context than Hartford. What Hartford might reasonably consider from San Diego
1. Treat literacy as a system, not just a curriculum adoption.
San Diego’s recent literacy work includes a districtwide Literacy Working Group, a “science of reading” primer for teachers, and a districtwide assessment of what schools are actually using and whether it is working. That last point matters: they are not just saying “use the curriculum”; they are trying to identify which school practices are working and replicate them. Hartford already appears to be moving in this direction by adopting Wit & Wisdom for 2024–25 and pairing it with Fundations in early literacy, but the San Diego lesson would be: adoption is only step one.
2. Build a clear districtwide measurement routine for early reading.
San Diego’s board calendar explicitly includes literacy interim goals: K–2 mCLASS DIBELS reading-difficulty screening and grades 3–8 iReady growth. Hartford should consider a similarly public dashboard: K–2 decoding/phonemic-awareness progress, Grade 3 reading, Grade 4 comprehension, chronic absenteeism, and intervention response. That would keep the focus on whether students are actually learning to read, not merely whether adults have implemented a program.
3. Combine structured foundational reading with knowledge-rich reading.
This is where Hartford’s current move is promising. Fundations addresses decoding, phonics, and spelling; Wit & Wisdom is a knowledge-building ELA curriculum. San Diego’s own shift has included adoption of Benchmark Advance to align with research-based practices, while also wrestling with how much school-level autonomy to allow. Hartford should avoid the false choice between “phonics” and “rich texts.” The stronger model is: explicit foundational skills in K–2/3 plus serious content, vocabulary, writing, and comprehension work.
4. Audit variation across schools.
San Diego’s officials began a districtwide assessment of curriculum and practice partly to see “what schools are doing” and whether it is working. That is very relevant to Hartford, which has many distinct school models, including magnet schools. Hartford should ask: Which schools are beating expectations for similar students? Are they using more intervention time, better small-group routines, stronger attendance practices, different coaching, or more stable staffing?
5. Put reading-support staff where the need is greatest, but evaluate the return.
San Diego used COVID funds for a Literacy Acceleration Plan with professional training, instructional materials, and reading-support teachers at 30 schools. Reporting suggests it helped some students but did not have the broad impact hoped for, and the district began phasing it out as funding expired. Hartford should borrow the idea, not necessarily the exact program: targeted intervention staff are valuable, but they need tight progress monitoring and a plan for sustainability.
6. Make board governance focus on student outcomes, not just operations.
San Diego has a “Student Outcomes Focused Governance” structure with scheduled board monitoring of interim literacy and math goals. Hartford is under heavy fiscal pressure, including reports of major deficits and possible state oversight tied to added funding. That makes outcome-focused governance even more important: the district needs to show which spending choices are connected to measurable reading gains.The Hartford-specific version
For Hartford, I would not say, “become San Diego.” I would say:
Create a 3-year reading compact around K–5 literacy, with public quarterly measures, school-by-school implementation checks, and a short list of protected practices:
The most transferable San Diego lesson may be cultural rather than curricular: keep asking which practices are working, measure them publicly, and replicate them deliberately. San Diego’s results are strong, but even there the reporting suggests the work has been uneven and slow. That is actually a useful warning for Hartford: curriculum adoption alone will not do it.
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This is not necessarily true. This link — https://law.justia.com/codes/connecticut/title-10/chapter-172/section-10-262j/?utm_source=chatgpt.com — displays in legal mumbo jumbo the various means in which a school can reduce spending. I’m not saying it is easy but it can be done and there are specific means in which to calculate the reduction available. “If a district experiences a net reduction in its resident student count during a period that may include any of the five fiscal years immediately prior to the fiscal year for which the budgeted appropriation for education is calculated, such district may reduce its budgeted appropriation for education in an amount equal to the number of such net reduction multiplied by 50% of the net current expenditures per resident student of such district, provided no district may use the resident student count for (A) any fiscal year that was previously used to reduce its budgeted appropriation for education, or (B) the fiscal year ending June 30, 2021, in any calculation of a net reduction of resident students for purposes of reducing its budgeted appropriation for education pursuant to this subdivision for any subsequent fiscal year.”
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