Coalition Starts Campaign for Education Funding, Justice

The New Britain Racial Justice Coalition held a kick-off event to press for education funding and changes in the school system.

The Coalition said that the event, held in the cold on December 21, 2020, the longest night of the year, was the beginning of a larger campaign to press for greater education funding from City Hall for New Britain schools, as well as for systemic changes in the school system, itself.

The Coalition had earlier said that,

New Britain has neglected public education for years. The city consistently ranks second-to-last in per student spending. Meanwhile, the city government continues to underfund students and school administrators fail to directly challenge institutional racism in the public school system. Marginalized staff and students are forced to endure this reality.

The Coalition says that it plans to continue organizing around its #FundtheFuture education campaign.

The New Britain Progressive reported in 2019 that, despite New Britain receiving, “the fifth highest state Education Cost Sharing grant funding of all of the cities and towns in the state,”

New Britain’s own local commitment to education, on the other hand, is among the lowest municipal school districts in the state. Only Bridgeport allocated less local funding per student than New Britain in the 2015-2016 state data.

While New Britain residents have less money than the state average to fund local services, the New Britain Progressive reported that, even looking at a percent of the city’s ability to pay, the city of New Britain still appeared to allocate to its schools, “the second lowest among municipal school districts in the state.”

Hartford’s contribution was not in that data and may have been lower, still, which would have made New Britain third lowest.

Republican Mayor Erin Stewart has been criticized for repeatedly flat-funding the city’s funding for the operating budget of New Britain schools.

The New Britain Progressive also reported that,

Comparing the amount of local support for education, using the 2015-2016 data, to the most recent academic test scores appears to show a general correlation between how much a city or town provides in local funding for their schools and the test scores of the students in their schools. The comparison appears to show New Britain’s place near the bottom of both local education funding and test scores as part of a larger pattern, with New Britain near the low end of the scale.

The New Britain Progressive reported that it would appear to take a $14 million per year local education funding increase from the city to get the city up to the average amount cities and towns spent as a portion of their local ability to pay four years ago, apparently leaving New Britain’s city commitment to annual school operating budgets far behind the benchmarks that appear correlated with higher educational outcomes.

The current two year state budget increases state Educational Cost Sharing Grant funding for New Britain schools by $8,146,298, according to the nonpartisan legislative Office of Fiscal Analysis. Democratic State Senator-Elect Rick Lopes (D-6), at State Representative at the time, as well as, Democratic State Representative Bobby Sanchez (D-25) and Democratic State Representative Peter Tercyak (D-26) voted to approve that budget. Sanchez is chair the legislature’s Education Committee.