New Haven Register: State legislators, education leaders talk future of Connecticut school funding

Discussing the future of education in the state, a bipartisan panel of legislators and education professionals Wednesday agreed the brunt of education decisions are made at the state level.

“A right to education is not a federal constitutional right, but it is a state constitutional right,” said Senate Republican President Pro Tempore Len Fasano, R-North Haven, one of seven panelists hosted by the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, an education advocacy group, Wednesday at Hamden Middle School.

On the state level, the panelists had much to discuss already: moderator Paul Bass, editor of the New Haven Independent, did not take long to bring up Superior Court Judge Thomas Moukawsher’s ruling in CCJEF v. Rell, in which he ruled that the state legislature must revisit the way in which it distributes school finance to municipalities.

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As for what a more fair model would look like, Katie Roy, the founder and director of the Connecticut School Finance Project, said she believed the best funding formula would be one that is equitable and the state legislature can agree upon.

“I really think that an important place for the legislature to start is for the legislature to really begin to understand how the finance system works,” she said. Currently, she said, there are multiple streams of funding distribution that complicate the system.

Read the full article at http://www.nhregister.com/general-news/20170118/state-legislators-education-leaders-talk-future-of-connecticut-school-funding