Except for State Rep. Tammy Nuccio’s proposal to eliminate a state law guaranteeing lunch breaks for teachers in Connecticut schools, the 2023 Connecticut legislative session began with great promise as hundreds of bills were introduced by legislators wanting to show that they have a finger on the pulse of their constituents – the key word here being “show.”   

However, just as Americans avoid paying attention to the making of their sausages, so too do they avoid paying attention to the process of introducing, crafting, and passing legislation.  Thus, a legislative update is required to find out exactly what state lawmakers are feeding people.  As legislators from across Connecticut finished their elected duty and headed back to their real jobs, some without flipping their vehicles over on Capitol Avenue while exiting Hartford, what did they do and what didn’t they do for education in Connecticut?

HB5003 was billed as a school funding savior.  The season’s biggest education bill was going to correct inequitable school funding calculations which the legislature had previously put into place and would rescue indebted districts which spent federal COVID relief money like it was a yearly grant which they would receive in perpetuity (Hartford received and spent $155 million over three years). What went into the final passed version of HB5003?

• According to the state, the net impact on Hartford Public Schools will be an increase in $34 million a year in state funding (this year HPS had a $26 million deficit).

• Hartford will no longer have to pay tuition for students who choose to attend magnet schools, saving the district about $100 million.

• Public school districts will not receive a yearly cost-of-living increase in the base funding amount per student under the Education Cost Sharing (ECS) formula (this amount was raised to $11,525 per student in 2022 and will remain at this amount until at least 2026).  Non-district magnet schools and charter schools will receive a yearly cost-of-living increase in their base amount.

• This school funding bill creates a commission to study school funding.

Many different things were sausaged into SB1, An Act Concerning Transparency in Education, which include but are not limited to the following:

• The State Department of Education will be required to publish each school district’s yearly “receipts, expenditures, and statistics…in a format that allows financial comparisons between school districts and schools.”

• “Newly elected” school board members will be required to take training on the “responsibilities and obligations” of being a school board member.  A study of the Hartford Board of Education would have revealed to legislators that this training ought to be required of appointed board members as well.

• HPS will receive state grants to “embed a professional chef” to administer a “wholesome school meals” program, which students at Hartford High and Bulkeley should take note of.

• The State Department of Education will be required to study the use of virtual reality in grade 9-12 classrooms, yet it does not require superintendents to publicly report on the reality of their districts.

• HPS and Office of Talent Management Chief Tiffany Curtis must submit to the state by March 2024 a minority educator recruitment plan, which at the moment consists of hiring out-of-city white folks to come into Hartford to recruit folks of color.

• This bill reduces the maximum annual grant amount for the minority teacher candidate scholarship program from $20,000 to $10,000, yet it funds the hiring of four more staff members to administer the program.  Apparently, folks of color have not been entering the teaching profession because they have been offered too much scholarship money to do so.  Great.

•  Minority students must from this day forward be referred to as “diverse” students.  This bill mentions no change to calling students “beautiful and capable,” nor does it mention referring to students who confess to calling in bomb scares as “little shits.” 

• Cursive writing and world languages are to be added to the state’s model K-8 curriculum.  Does this mean that HPS must now finally adopt an elementary school world languages curriculum, a curriculum which calls for meeting more than once a week?

• Allows districts to award high school graduation credit for students who complete an “education commissioner-approved” credit recovery program.  Has HPS been operating a fraudulent credit recovery program?  Say it ain’t so!

• Allows school districts to partner with local businesses to provide aerospace and aviation apprenticeship training programs to students and orders the study of the feasibility of opening an aviation and aerospace high school.  Meanwhile, some legislators and local powers favor closing Brainard Airport and its aviation training programs and facilities.

• Requires the education commissioner to develop a model paraeducator training program for high school students.  A companion resolution should have been added to this whereby district human resource directors would be required to receive training on how to retain paraeducators.

• School Climate: The state will develop school climate standards “based on national guidelines” (guidelines which work so well with everything else).   Each school district must have a school climate coordinator, a school climate specialist, and a school climate committee and the committee must administer an annual school climate survey.  In other words, more out-of-district folks will be coming in and telling principals and teachers how to repeat the phrase “beautiful and capable students” until even Sesame Street puppets vomit. 

Passed bill SB1165 makes financial literacy a graduation requirement.  Thereby making even Connecticut school children aware that they live in the highest taxed state in the nation.  The bill also removes the state requirement of a “capstone” credit for graduation, leaving it to the “discretion” of the local school boards to continue the requirement.  Thinking of the HPS board of education and the word “discretion” in tandem is a scary thought.  And the bill now makes a world language class a student took only as a 5th grader count toward that student’s graduation requirement seven years later as having taken a world language class.  Brilliant!

Passed bill HB6762 requires civics and media literacy instruction be added to public school social studies programs so that school children will be able to spot fake news.  Just as colleges may no longer consider race as an admission factor, this bill also prevents charter schools from considering a student’s “need for or receipt of special education” services as enrollment criteria.  This bill also prohibits districts from disciplining any school employee who discusses or makes recommendations about student services during a 504 plan meeting.  This bill states that from this day forward “English learners” will now be referred to as “multilingual learners.”

Passed bill HB6880 states that districts are now required to conduct exit surveys of teachers leaving the district and teacher attrition rates must be added to the districts strategic school profile report.

Passed bill HB6882 lowers the eligibility age of children for the state’s school readiness preschool programs to birth, rather than age three.  The state wants to adopt your babies.

The legislature’s education committee received 285 bills during this year’s session (see them all here).  Of that number, only 9 received the signature of the governor and became state law.  Yes, there were some that were rolled into one of the passed bills, but some good meat was left on the butcher room floor, such as HB5064 which would have required school boards to submit their superintendent evaluations to the state and make the evaluations a public document. 

The state legislature plays a critical role in how education systems in Connecticut function.  With the amount of bills left to die on the education committee’s floor, and with the significant nature of some of these bills, your duly elected legislators failed to step up and play an active role in defining Connecticut’s school systems.  It’s about the ‘show’ rather than action, which creates less than effective, less than equitable, less than transparent, and less than accountable school systems.  Which in turn creates the need for another ‘show’ next year.

Here is a video showing how sausages are made.