Educators for Excellence-Connecticut Reacts to Governor Lamont’s Proposed Budget

Educators for Excellence-Connecticut (E4E-CT), a teacher-led organization, reacted to Governor Lamont’s proposed budget at the 2023 Connecticut legislative session on Wednesday. Lamont’s plan, once again, does not go far enough to allocate sufficient funding to expedite the Education Cost Sharing (ECS) formula, preventing underfunded Connecticut schools from receiving the resources they so desperately need.  

Governor Lamont’s proposed budget presents a serious obstacle in passing H.B. 5003, An Act Concerning Education Funding in Connecticut. Without room in the budget specifically allocated to ECS funding, staffing, programming and mental healthcare in schools will suffer. 

“The $700 million racial funding gap that exists in Connecticut is by design, and without making room in the state budget to help reduce this gap, we are complicit in the inequities presented to students in our most underfunded districts,” said Daniel Pearson, Executive Director of Educators for Excellence-Connecticut. “We are disappointed to see that Governor Lamont’s proposed budget, once again, does not do enough to mitigate these issues. We have a unique opportunity to come together as a community and ensure all students, no matter their zip code, have access to a high quality education. By not making this a priority, what kind of message are we sending to our students?”

After passing the Children’s Mental Health bill in the 2022 legislative session, schools have had the ability to implement additional mental health programming, as well as to hire mental health support staff in schools. This was made possible due to the extra funding provided from the ESSER funds, but these vital services will run out in a few years if we don’t pass H.B. 5003. 

“With the much-needed help of the ESSER funds, schools throughout Connecticut have been able to implement mental health programming and hire mental health support staff that has been invaluable to students in recent years,” Pearson noted. “These need to be a permanent part of our education system. If we do not expedite the ECS formula before these federal funds run out, schools will not have the room in their budgets to keep this support staff on, or to keep these programs running, and our students and teachers have to bear the brunt of these consequences.”

With the immense racial funding gap between its affluent and high needs districts, Connecticut is not providing fair and equitable education to all students, and this budget proposal does not rectify the issue. Teachers will be on the front lines experiencing the effects of the looming fiscal cliff. 

“We talk about education creating citizens and allowing students to become future productive members of society, and we need to fully fund our schools and address the needs of our students to help them fulfill their potential for the future,” said Tiffany Moyer-Washington, a Hartford Public School Teacher. “If we don’t have the resources, or if we cannot take the time to address students’ mental health in the classroom, then we’re preventing our kids from being able to actually learn what we are trying to teach them, and we are preventing them from success.”   

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Founded by public school teachers, Educators for Excellence is a growing movement of more than 33,000 educators, united around a common set of values and principles for improving student learning and elevating the teaching profession. We work together to identify issues that impact our schools, create solutions to these challenges, and advocate for policies and programs that give all students access to a quality education. 
For more information, please visit e4e.org.