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We Stand in Solidarity.

School + State Finance Project

June 03, 2020 - 2 minutes

This has been a week of immense pain and sorrow. Sadly, for communities of color, especially for the Black community in America, this pain and sorrow is nothing new.

What Connecticut, our nation, and the world have witnessed over the past week is the result of centuries of oppression and systems built on racism and discrimination. The murder of George Floyd last week and the killings of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor in recent months are just the latest examples of this oppression.

The School and State Finance Project was founded with the mission to mitigate inequity in school funding and provide opportunities to students no matter their race, ethnicity, community, or background. We recognize that within this work, systemic racism plays a powerful and harmful role in the creation of inequitably funded school systems and the outcomes of students. We also recognize that this same systemic discrimination is deeply intertwined in our state’s economic policies.

We will always stand with communities of color and emphatically support the fight for equity, justice, and equality. Racism or discrimination, whether overt or veiled, cannot be condoned and swept over by silence and complacency. This includes ignoring the ways systemic racism plays a role in our everyday lives and the policies of our federal, state, and local governments.

We are beyond inspired by the thousands of people across Connecticut and the country who have stood up to make their voices heard and help drive the change our communities and nation desperately need. We hear your chants for change. We see your frustration with the unacceptable status quo. We applaud the organizations and activists who have led the Black Lives Matter movement and raised their voices for years. And we are here to support you in any capacity we can so that we may reach the state of equality our nation has long promised and never delivered.

In the coming days and weeks, we will be working to be more explicit about how systemic racism and racial inequities intersect with the work our organization does to achieve equitable education funding and create fair state finance policies. We encourage you to join and help us in this effort. If there are resources, experiences, or ideas you would like to share, please feel free to get in touch with us. We value collaboration and want this to be an effort informed by the experiences and viewpoints of our communities of color.

We all have learning to do. We can all be better allies. It's past time we got started.

In solidarity and support,

Katie Roy
Executive Director & Founder
School and State Finance Project

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