Education advocates are calling on state lawmakers to increase funding for Connecticut school districts. They say it is necessary to help at-risk youth succeed.
New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker said the state can do more.
“The reality is, we in Connecticut, our state as a whole, is not doing enough, and much of today is about calling on the state, who 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,” Elicker said.
Elicker is also a member of the 119K Commission, a bipartisan group of local and state officials, advocates and educators, which recently released a report calling for millions in additional state funding for a variety of resources designed to help youth at risk of dropping out of school or being unemployed.
The report called for the state to give an extra $545 million to local school districts. Doing so would mean revising what is known as the Education Cost Sharing formula, which takes into account poverty levels, the wealth of the municipalities school districts serve and other metrics.
But officials like New Haven Superintendent Madeline Negron say those metrics are now outdated, as the formula hasn’t been updated since 2013.
“In 2024 that it would be wise to look at the formula again number one, to raise the weight again on the poverty level, raise the weight on the multilingual level, and also add the special education, which doesn't even it's not even accounted for that by doing that, it will be more equitable across the state, because all of us are dealing with those needs,” Negron said.
Negron called for more funding to help struggling students, including students who lack fluency in English. Elicker said more funding would mean being able to hire more administrative and support staff.
Many students utilize English as a Second Language (ESL) courses, but one student said there are shortages of ESL tutors.
18-year-old Jaqueline Rosales attends the ESL program at James Hillhouse High School. She says it can be challenging for her classmates.
“Sometimes the kids use the Google translator because they don't have nobody to translate them,” she said.
