Ed. 4, 01.30.25

Edition 4 of our monthly newsletter: The latest trends in news, policy, and current events; bringing you the inside scoop from partners in Connecticut and beyond.

A New Year Run Down:

Out of the Gate, CT Session Focuses on Ed

Yesterday, the results of the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) were announced, and the Connecticut State Department of Education (CSDE) contrasted a nationwide decline in reading with Connecticut’s stable performance on that subject. Nevertheless, students from low-income families and English learners still performed below their peers nationally in various grades and subjects. There’s lots of work to do for students this legislative session, and the legislature’s Education Committee is already on the job.  

Under the leadership of co-Chairs Senator Douglas McCrory and Representative Jennifer Leeper, the Committee met for the first time earlier this month—with Rep. Chris Poulos noting the "rising number of educators on this committee." The group voted to draft S.B. 1, An Act Increasing Resources for Students, Schools, and Special Education. They then heard from the legislature's Special Education Task Force, which had both a press conference and a presentation before the Select Committee on Special Education this week. According to CT Insider, some of the task force’s recommendations focus on increasing special education funding through changes to the Education Cost Sharing formula and the Excess Cost Reimbursement; incentivizing increases to in-district capacity, to reduce special education outplacements; and addressing teacher shortages through salary increases and caseload reductions.

Predictable Chaos Convenes on the Federal Level

On the national stage, it’s looking like a new era for federal education policy. Back in November, President Donald Trump had announced that Linda McMahon, former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, was his pick to head up the US Department of Education. (Throwback to Education Week’s reporting on her limited education policy experience.) One of her key tasks as Secretary of Education could be to deliver on President Trump’s pledges to dismantle the Department. In an interview, Amy said that under President Trump, she expected, "a number of initiatives or proposals that seek to dismantle norms, and this is one of them." 

Indeed, the Trump administration has already prompted quite a bit of chaos this week by yo-yoing on federal funding—freezing all federal grants and loans and then rescinding that freeze after a federal judge stayed it. The President additionally signed a series of new executive orders yesterday, designed to punish schools for teaching about race and gender, promote school choice, and crackdown on some foreign students who participated in pro-Palestinian campus protests. 

Can a Fairer Pension System Free Up State Dollars for Ed?

Earlier this month, Equable Institute had an op-ed in the CT Mirror that uses a case study (comparing Danbury and Ridgefield) to illustrate how the state's teacher pension payments (paid on behalf of school districts) reinforce educational inequities. The op-ed refers to Equable's November report—titled "Who Benefits?"—which identifies that although districts set their own teacher salaries at the local level, the state pays for the entire cost of teacher pensions, without any municipal obligation. By financing teacher retirement benefits in this manner, Equable writes, the state is, “impeding the ability of the highest need districts to recruit and retain effective teachers.”

This month, the group followed up with a new brief, covered today in CT News Junkie, which shows a link between the state's investment in teacher retirement and the percentage of disconnected youth in Connecticut public school districts. Equable’s findings are that the state’s pension contributions are lower in towns with higher rates of disconnection—meaning that the resource inequity reinforces unequal educational opportunities between towns. 

Notably, the solution Equable proposes to address this unfairness in teacher pension allocations could also serve to free up hundreds of millions of K-12 dollars—exactly what the state needs in order to address disconnection. Worth a read!