Danbury News-Times: A new way to count the poor

The governor’s budget proposal for 2017-18 drew headlines for channeling millions in extra education aid to needy urban school districts while reducing state assistance to affluent suburbs.

But another notable shift in Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s spending plan was a significant change in how Connecticut counts “low-income” children for purposes of allocating scarce state resources.

Malloy proposed that schoolchildren enrolled in Connecticut’s Medicaid program, known as HUSKY A, be included in the count along with those who qualify for federal lunch vouchers - a change that would count an additional 99,000 low-income students statewide.

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Malloy’s proposal was welcomed last week by an education finance think tank that has been lobbying for just such an expansion of the state’s low-income definition.

“We are always excited when the state takes steps to implement better policies,” said Katie Roy, executive director of the New Haven-based Connecticut School Finance Project. “If you are counting low-income students, a better way is with HUSKY A enrollment, which gives the state a more accurate picture of where the need is concentrated, so you can distribute the funding accordingly.”

Read the full article at http://www.newstimes.com/local/article/A-new-way-to-count-the-poor-10941373.php