REd Apples Highlights Key Issues for Candidates

The following is an opinion piece by Lisa Thomson of REd Apples, a community coalition that supports education reform in Norwalk.  REd Apples along withe the League of Women Voters sponsored last week's education debate for Norwalk's legislative candidates. 

 I want to thank all the State Senate and House candidates for participating in the Education Debate last Thursday night.


While our city, state and country for that matter, face many challenges with the economy, hopefully the debate highlighted the need for a well- managed and high performing educational system. As one of the largest cities in the state, if elected, candidates should consider the following:

• Education accounts for nearly two-thirds of Norwalk’s City Budget

• Everyone in the city contributes their tax dollars to the budget whether they have children in the school system or not and therefore has a vested interest in its operation

• Connecticut has the largest achievement gap in the country, and as a district, Norwalk has been on the NCLB list for many years

• Students who do not graduate with the necessary skills for either college or a trade, drive up our city and state unemployment rolls

• It becomes harder to attract businesses that need skilled labor to Norwalk or the Greater Norwalk Area

• Norwalk’s desirability as a place to live is greatly impacted by the effectiveness of its school system

I do not envy the tough choices that our politicians will have to make regarding how best to balance a state budget of uncontrolled spending versus investing in education for the next generation, so as ensure that Connecticut has a future economy. Hopefully, they can find a thoughtful, collective, non-partisan, pragmatic, and strategic path when it comes to funding and leading legislative reform in Connecticut.

Two education funding initiatives that should be near and dear to all residents of Norwalk are: Race to The Top federal funding, designed to positively drive the operational changes needed in our school system and the blatantly unfair and partisan ECS (Education Cost Sharing) formula in Connecticut which returns only .08 cents on the dollar back to Norwalk.

The future vibrancy of our city requires businesses that want to invest in a City with an educated employment base and families who want to send their children to the local schools. I hope that our politicians keep that in mind when they get to Hartford.

Thank you to everyone who participated Thursday night and good luck to the candidates.

Sincerely,
Lisa Thomson

redapplesnorwalk.org

This post reflects the views of the author and not NorwalkNet.