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State seeks to delay education-funding trial until after
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Judge rejects state's request to delay
school funding trial
January
16, 2014 CTMirror.org
By Jacqueline Rabe Thomas
Hartford
Superior Court Judge Kevin Dubay summarily rejected
the state's request Thursday for a lengthy postponement of an education-funding
lawsuit over whether the state is meeting its constitutional responsibility of
providing a "suitable education" for every child in Connecticut.
The attorney
general's office had asked the judge to reschedule a trial
now set for July 1 until October 2015, a move that the
plaintiffs, the Connecticut
Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, claimed was intended to delay
the proceedings until after the 2014 gubernatorial election.
"Fortunately,
it didn't work, and nine years from the time CCJEF filed this case,
schoolchildren will finally have their day in court," said Dianne Kaplan deVries, the founder and executive director of the
coalition. The attorney general's office had no comment.
The trial
could reflect on the efforts of Gov. Dannel P.
Malloy, a first-term Democrat up for re-election this fall, and his Republican
predecessor, M. Jodi Rell, to address the issues raised in a lawsuit filed in 2005 by parents, students and
officials in 16 towns.
In 2010,
which was Rell's last year as governor, the state
Supreme Court ruled that the fundamental
right to public education under Connecticut Constitution guarantees students
the right to a minimum qualitative standard and "suitable"
educational opportunities.
The Supreme
Court returned the case to the trial court to determine whether the state has
met that standard and, if not, what remedies should be ordered.
While
rejecting the request for a 15-month delay, the judge reserved the right to
order a more modest postponement until September 1, to accommodate summer
vacations.
Dubay said he was not happy with how the case has proceeded to
trial and the lack of adherence to the deadlines leading up to the July start
date.
"The
court order it looks in some respects it was ignored," he said. "Both
motions to modify the schedule order are denied."
The state
argued that the date needed to be pushed back because the allegations in the
lawsuit are outdated and need to be updated to reflect the state's current
education landscape.
"It's
the state's view that a trial date as early as September is unfair and
unreasonable to the state," Associate Attorney General Joseph Rubin told
the judge minutes before the ruling.
Among the
scholastic problems listed in the lawsuit are large class sizes, high
dropout rates, students who are not ready academically being promoted to the
next grade, low performance on standardized tests and not enough money
available to the districts to resolve these problems.
While the
state has increased funding for education over the
last three fiscal years by 2 percent, or $101 million, education advocates say
it has not been enough.
"The
last two [school funding] tasks forces created formulas that were woefully
underfunded -- by about $700 million. The latest formula promised a phase-in of
full funding that could last decades for most of the state's districts,"
Kathy Guay, a former state budget official now with
the business-backed Center for Education Reform, wrote to the advocacy group's
followers on Wednesday.
By Guay's calculations, it would take districts years to be
fully funded. For example, the state funding formula has West
Hartford currently eligible for $55 million a year from the state
based on student need and a town's ability to pay for education through local
revenue. However, West Hartford will get just
$17 million this fiscal year. West Hartford will get the same
amount the next year, less than 2 percent the difference what they are eligible
for.
"Phase-in
is a gloriously optimistic term," Guay said.
"The phase-in is not working... Wealthy communities are still spending
more on a per pupil basis than low-income communities on a per-pupil
basis."
Here's a
town-by-town interactive map of how much the Center for Education Reform
reports towns are due if the state's main education grant were fully funded
this year.
Funding shortfall by district
Estimated gap between what school districts are receiving in
their FY 2013-14 ECS grant (the state's largest education grant) and what the
formula suggests they should get. Data was provided by Kathy Guay, a former state budget official now with the Center for Education
Reform, a business-backed education-reform group.
CHECK OUT YOUR TOWN AT http://www.ctmirror.org/story/2014/01/16/judge-rejects-states-request-delay-school-funding-trial