Christopher Peak photo
Darnell Goldson.
(Opinion) Note: Darnell Goldson is president of the New Haven Board of Education.
New Haven doesn’t suffer from a spending deficit; it suffers from a funding deficit.
The achievement gap is a misnomer, an excuse to fund the testing industry and to use our students as test subjects for new experimental practices which go out of style as soon as the funding ends. What our students suffer is an opportunity gap, a result of a decades long severely underfunded school system.
Connecticut statutes state that “each local or regional board of education shall maintain good public elementary and secondary schools” and “implement the educational interests of the state.”
The statutes define the state’s educational interests as each child having an “equal opportunity to receive a suitable program of educational experiences,” and each district financing “at a reasonable level… an educational program designed to achieve this end.”
It is our constitutional obligation as members of the New Haven Board of Education to maintain good public schools.
It should be our MORAL OBLIGATION to provide the HIGHEST-QUALITY educational experience for our students.
That is the goal I have set for myself. I believe it is a goal that my fellow board members, the superintendent, the mayor and I hope most New Haven citizens would agree upon.
How do we become a top school system? I believe that when it comes to education, we don’t need to reinvent the wheel, but instead should be copying what seems to work and mimicking school systems which are considered more successful.
We know our teachers are just as good if not better than any others. Our administrators work hard and care about this system. Our board members fight hard for what they believe is best for the system. So, what is the difference between New Haven and those top schools?
I researched what are considered by many as some of the best schools in Connecticut—Darien, Weston and New Canaan. These schools typically rank in the top 5 of anyone’s list. What I found is that there is a major difference between these school systems and New Haven – and that difference is what resources are available to those schools.
Here is a simple primer on Connecticut education funding.
Connecticut provides funding to cities through a complicated formula which considers many factors, including town wealth and poverty levels, and then distributes those funds through the Education Cost Sharing (ECS) program.
New Haven ranks third in funding behind Hartford and Bridgeport.
Towns then may contribute locally to the state funds. This year, New Haven’s ECS entitlement of $157.8 million plus New Haven’s contribution of $30.4 million equals a total Board of Education allocation of $188.2 million. New Haven’s share of education funding was 16 percent of total city expenditures.
The taxpayers and political leadership of Darien, Weston and New Canaan have made a commitment to fund education, though they receive very limited state funding based on their town’s wealth. Education is by far the largest single expenditure for these cities, anywhere from 61 percent to 71 percent of their total budgets, and is overwhelmingly funded by local dollars.
Despite the lack of state funding, those towns expend an average of $22,000 per pupil, while New Haven is about $17,000. That $5,000 makes a huge difference.
Why such a stark difference in funding?
Connecticut’s Role
Despite herculean efforts by our local state delegation to provide additional supports to our schools, a substantial part of the funding gap can be laid on the shoulders of the state with its out of touch and unfair taxation system in Connecticut, putting constitutional and statutory restraints on the city’s ability to fully tax all properties, while at the same time severely underfunding education.
More than half (56 percent) of our grand list is exempt from taxes, equaling hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue to our city and our schools.
Additionally, 20 years ago the city thought it was getting a great deal when the state started to provide billions of dollars for school construction, in order to entice the cities to help with desegregation efforts caused by the Sheff lawsuit.
Now, we are paying dearly for those efforts. Our transportation costs have increased to $25 million per year, which is 13.5 percent of our budget, busing students to schools across town when many live a three-minute walk from schools in their neighborhoods. Moreover, we are threatened with financial fines every year for not being able to attract enough white students to our schools. Additional money diverted from our children’s education.
It would seem fair that if the state says we cannot collect those taxes, they should at least reimburse for those losses through a PILOT program (Payment in Lieu of Taxes). They only do a small percentage, and it seems to get lower every year. And they certainly should provide additional transportation reimbursements.
The state must do better by our students.
New Haven’s Role
New Haven also has fallen short in its responsibility. We just haven’t made education a priority.
Darien, Weston and New Canaan annually increase their school budgets to keep pace with cost increases. In the last three years their schools received boosts totaling between 4.5 to 7 percent, while n the same time frame New Haven received an increase of just .53 percent, one half of 1 percent.
All the while our annual school costs rise by 2 to 4 percent. Though the Board of Alders added $1 million to the schools last year, New Haven has actually contributed less in 2019 ($30.4 million) than it did in 2018 ($35.8 million) and 2017 ($33.2 million). While the state has increased its funding, New Haven has been able to reduce their contribution while maintaining level total funding.
New Haven must do better.
Money Makes A Difference
Now, there will be some who will yell from the mountaintop that money won’t solve the school problems or improve educational outcomes. I would yell back that if that were the case, why do these three towns and others devote so much of their spending to education?
Funding does make a difference. It determines whether there will be 15 students in a class or 25. It determines whether the students will have computers or 25-year-old textbooks. It determines how many AP classes will be offered.
It is not the New Haven school community’s burden that our schools are underfunded. The fault lies with a state government that is OK with funding the prison – industrial complex at $56,140 per prisoner while funding schools at $11,525 per student.
The fault lies with a state government which sets desegregation goals and then underfunds those goals, laying the burden on the very cities who can the least afford it.
The fault lies with a state government which disallows collections on 56 percent of the city’s grand list, and then doesn’t fully fund the PILOT program.
The fault lies with a city government and taxpayers who blame our schools for shortfalls in the annual spending, when they refuse to allow good financial governance to rule the day and fund annual budgets at realistic levels, like those other cities do.
As a board member I will no longer let the fault for deficits and lower testing scores to be laid at the feet of our students and teachers. I will no longer participate in discussions regarding cutting our student services because someone else has decided that students should be funded less than prisoners.
We as a board, as a school system, and as concerned citizens must redefine the issues and transform the debate.
New Haven has a funding deficit and opportunity gap.
New Haven is a good city. We are all in this together, we are bound by those connections which makes our city a diverse and vibrant mecca to raise a family. We should be aiming for greatness. Education is the last great hurdle to achieving that greatness.
I just pulled up the budget which is on thew school website. When you are paying schools administrators over or around $150k a year you lose the moral high ground to ask taxpayers for more money. You have too many administrators, you pay them too well, and your not spending enough money on the students directly. I suspect you would see really good results with more teachers and smaller class sizes...
What you need to do is to audit spending and determine where you can drive savings. It is unlikely you can do anything quickly about the number of administrators and their pay since they have a union contract. However you can reduce the number of administrators going forward through smart negotiations with their union.
What do you think will happen to rents and property taxes if you ask for 5, 10, 20, 30 million more from the tax payer? Do you really think people will stay in New Haven? They won't, you will see a reduction in the population.