Trumbull BEI and Legislators Tackle Education Challenges

It's not the mandates, but the lack of state funding that are troubling, Trumbull's lawmakers recently told Trumbull's Business Education Initiative.

The BEI recently hosted state Sen. Anthony Musto and reps. Tony Hwang and T. R. Rowe. The group is a 16-year-old business, education, community, and town government partnership  offering K-12 students in the town's public and private schools an introduction to the world of business. 

BEI raises money and awards grants to local students and teachers to learn about careers - an elementary school reading book program about fire fighting as a career, the start up of a store at a middle school and a trip to Massachusetts Institute of Technology for high school science students to learn about robotics.

Trumbull First Selectman Tim Herbst set the tone, saying that “the level of unfunded mandates is unsustainable” and telling the legislators “if you pass legislation, fund it or don't pass it.”

BEI's newly elected Executive Director Joann Tyborowski told an almost full Town Council chamber that the group had received 21 mini-grant applications during the last year and made awards of $16,000, and had awarded more than $175,000 in grants since its inception.

She said this year's objective is to “beef up the connection between the business community and the schools.”  She plans to attract new resource people, some to talk to a student group for a few minutes about a career, others to expand job shadowing programs that allow students to go to a workplace to learn first hand about a job of interest.”

The legislators then took turns talking about “what goes on in Hartford.”

Rowe echoed Herbst, saying there are “too many unfunded mandates foisted on municipalities,” adding that because communities don’t or won't create programs to their own specifications, the state creates one-size-fits-all programs.

He handed out a table showing that Trumbull receives only five cents in state school aid for every dollar of state income taxes paid to Hartford. During the last three years state aid has been flat, “a victory” he called it.

He said every year the legislature discusses changing the Education Cost Sharing formula used to allocate state funds to localities, and every year it remains the same. One observer commented that this is because funding is a zero sum game – total funding is flat, so if one community receives an increase, another gets less.

Rowe mentioned the importance of vocational-technical schools. These schools offer skills to students on career rather than college tracks, in areas from licensed practical nursing to culinary arts to electricians’ training.

Hwang told the group that “business and education are incredibly critical in today’s economy.”  He said the state must look at education that provides skills that prepare some of our students for work rather than for college.

He noted that Trumbull is one of the “rare towns with a public-private partnership.”

Hwang added that one of the most important issues is closing the achievement gap – the academic performance difference between higher income children compared with that of lower income children. He said this battle of the haves against have-nots has a “crippling effect in the marketplace.”

Speaking about special education, he asked, rhetorically, “what is the state’s responsibility in implementing its mandate to educate every child?”

He called curriculum design, which Hartford creates as a “one-size-fits-all” for all 169 cities and towns, too often gives no consideration for the differing needs in the variety of our communities.

Musto talked to the need to have some statewide mandates – a 180-day school year and a core curriculum - but with local control over others. 

Musto talked in favor of magnet schools, noting that the one now being constructed in state-owned, Bridgeport-controlled land incorporates partnerships with the Beardsley Zoo, Scared Heart and a number of area businesses.

"[It] will help students understand the relevance of education to the world outside school,” Musto said. Physics, he noted, becomes more relevant when it’s about how a helicopter flies rather than an abstract classroom problem.

He counseled care for Trumbull in seeking a change in the ECS formula, that the cities, which now receive the largest share of the money have far deeper problems than the suburban schools. For example, Danbury has a large Portuguese speaking population, and many cities have whole schools receiving free breakfasts and lunches. 

Meanwhile, cities rely on state money because they typically have substantial non-taxable property – hospitals, colleges, churches – much of which serves surrounding communities.

He said it is “great to see business and education coming together for our children and our country.”

John Annick, the recently retired BEI chairman, asked how the legislators tie education to economic development. Musto noted that Rowe had talked about vo-tech schools, and that relating math to real problems helps – he said his kids “respond to math when I tie it to money, particularly on Saturdays, when they get their allowances.”

He called on educators to respond.

Asst. Supt. Gary Cialfi began, saying mandates are not all bad, nor is one-size-fits-all. The real problem is that they’re unfunded, and that in addition to implementing them, there are often professional development and a research and development components that add cost.

He talked to some of the programs in the district is engaged in:

• The upcoming reaccreditation of Trumbull High School that involves enhancing certain parts of the curriculum;
• New standards-based report cards now being introduced in the elementary and middle schools;
• Anti-Bullying mandate passed this past summer, that may cost as much as $200,000 annually;
• Positive Behavior Intervention and Support program now being piloted in the middle schools that is a pre-cursor to the Anti-Bullying program;
• The Student Success Plan program, a mandate that requires the school to develop formal goals and a plan to achieve them for each grade 6 – 12 student, and that include academic, career and social/emotional goals, a time consuming and potentially costly new program.

Supt. Ralph Iassogna added that the state superintendents organization seeks to work with Stephen Pryor, the new Education Commissioner to balance the need for mandates against managing their costs.

Those interested in learning more about BEI should go to their website: http://trumbullbei.wordpress.com.