School Board Vice Chair: Education Under Attack, Fund City Schools

Joe Sokolovic, vice chair of the Bridgeport Board of Education, issued this testimony to the state legislature’s Appropriations Committee in an appeal for more funds for city schools.

Greetings, members of the Appropriations Committee.  I ask that you reject and amend the governmental budget proposal that not only shortchanges education funding this year but flat-funds education next year.  This is most important this year because we are living in tough times for public education; it is under attack like never before.

We have a wealthy leader wanting to dismantle leadership in education that is in place to look out for the needs of our most vulnerable, impoverished students. A leader more interested in supporting the status quo and protect the wealthy to the detriment of the poor.  A leader who supports transferring public education dollars to entities that do not service all students equally. A wealthy, out of touch leader who thinks investing more money in our urban education institutions is not going to help solve problems.  A leader who lives in a wealthy enclave where the children’s education is funded at a far higher rate than those people he looks down on.

Yes, I could very well be talking about Donald Trump and the United States, but, sadly, I am referring to Ned Lamont and the state of Connecticut.

We live in two Connecticuts: one where Ned and the wealthy reside and one where the rest of us live.  A Connecticut where the white patriarchy are interfering with the elected governance. A Connecticut  where  the boards of education in the two largest, impoverished districts, due to budgetary issues, caused by systemically, racist and biased way we fund our schools.  Through property taxes.

We live in a Connecticut where the Governor’s hometown and its restrictive zoning keep out those they deem undesirable and protect their school system. A school system that spends $27,093 per pupil compared to my hometown of Bridgeport which spends $18,565 per pupil.

We live in a Connecticut where the wealthy Governor dares to come to my hometown and say that money will not solve the problems of Bridgeport even though if funded at the same level as Greenwich, Bridgeport children would have an additional $165 million. A governor who pushes a false narrative that money is not getting to the classroom because it is all going to highly paid administrators.  Looking at the data, Bridgeport and Greenwich HAD the same number of administrators before Bridgeport started yet another round of layoffs, resulting in over 300 cuts in the last decade.

It’s time that we tear down the racist infrastructure of segregation in education between the rich and the poor. We have over $5 billion in reserve. We have millionaires and billionaires in Connecticut not paying their fair share of the tax burden and keeping our impoverished citizens from living in their neighborhoods. It is high time Connecticut institute a wealth tax and drop the fiscal guardrails.