Dear Editor;
Recently, there seems to be a lot of focus on education domestically. However, it’s become much more quiet in New Britain since the budget conflict earlier this year.
The Citizen’s Property Owners Association (CPOA) recently invited Board of Education President Sharon Beloin-Saavedra and Board Member Paul Carver to speak to us. Mr. Carver chairs the facilities and finance committee within the board.
President Beloin-Saavedra and Chairman Carver gave a great overview of the school system as requested by CPOA. A myriad of high-level snippets gave our members pertinent information backed by facts; not the messages broadcast by the union and other parties during the budget fray. Further, the confirmation that this year’s budget will be fairly transparent; being submitted in a line item format; allows for greater scrutiny by all.
Bottom line however, CPOA confirmed what we have known for some time. You can’t get blood from a stone. New Britain taxpayers are the stone. Approximately 62% of the city budget is for education.
The legislative delegation representing New Britain; as well as the government of the State of Connecticut has failed in returning adequate dollars and solutions for the funding of education. New Britain taxpayers, along with other large cities and towns are unfairly penalized by poor funding methodologies and reliance on the property tax system for funding of education.
If you look to Senator (Assistant President Pro Tempore) DeFronzo’s website he lists a sampling of his achievements; education and property tax reform are missing. If you look to Representative O’Brien’s website you see he is “an advocate for”. A review of Representative (Deputy Majority Leader) Tercyak’s website failed to find anything on property tax or education funding equality. The “legislation” link on Representative Geragosian’s (Chair, Appropriations Committee) website was non-functional.
All of these leaders hold positions of power within the legislature; yet have not delivered to us, the resident taxpayers, any quality solution for property tax equity or education funding.
President Beloin-Saavedra and Chairman Carver indicated to CPOA that funding for education next year will most likely be reduced by the state. Additionally, they pointed to more and more unfounded state mandates as a drain on what funding we may have.
The thinking behind the Sheff vs O’Neill lawsuit which was allegedly supposed to give equal education to disadvantaged residents apparently has not reached New Britain; as we as an urban community lack the proper funding. If you review the City of Hartford’s budget numbers you’ll see they are getting thousands of dollars more than New Britain does; per student! Communities such as Avon, Simsbury, and Greenwich do not have the issues we do. Perhaps we need to sue. Any law firms out there that want to represent New Britain pro bono?
Something must change quickly as we will find ourselves back at the tax table in March discussing the 2011-2012 city budget. Will the State step up? Not unless we have our legislative body represent our interests immediately; or we replace them this November because they can’t get the job done.
Let’s stop the run-around camouflage talk and get some action to protect New Britain taxpayers. Give New Britain children the education and opportunities they deserve.
Show us the money!
Michael W. Wanik
President, CPOA
New Britain
Monday, October 4, 2010
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5 comments:
Mike is right. It is our legislative members elected to represent us in Hartford that have the ability to work hard to bring home the dollars for the City of New Britain. But what are they doing?
Tim O'Brien, spent the better part of a year campaigning to be mayor of the city when he should have been focused on securing funds for education and capitol improvements.
He also worked really hard on helping elect Obama and getting ACORN and the WFP greater presence in the city to round up voters. At the end of the day, taxypayers here are left holding the bag.
Tercyak, well we know from this blog what he does with his time. He is busy on the picket line in Hartford pushing for more UNION mandates and getting himself arrested. And, it is still reported that he really doesn't live in the district?
DeFronzo, he once had a pretty good reputation of being a fair guy, honest, but over the years he is just a yes man for political favors and self serving purposes.
Wake up folks, the voters in New Britain go to the polls and choose this disaster time and time again and then spend another two years complaining and blaming.
Vote all democrats out in November.
This is the best letter on the subject in years!
Mike Wanik points out what anybody can access from the websites of our state legislators, namely, in all the years that they have been in office, DeFronzo, Tercyak, O'Brien and Geragosian have done NOTHING about: unfunded education mandates, binding arbitration laws, property tax reform and equitable funding for education especially for New Britain.
Our Democrat contolled NB Board of Education has done nothing either.
If you have seen the movie "WAITING FOR SUPERMAN" our school system suffers dramatically from the "Dance of the Lemmons" because of tenure and the fact that a teacher is guaranteed their job for life no matter what he/she does or doesn't do.
If you want to fix the school system, get rid of tenure which even Barrack Hussein Obama agrees with because he just called for the end of tenure in America and a new policy of holding teachers accountable.
COME ON YOU GUYS.
I LOVE THOSE DEMOCRATS. BLUMENTHAL CLAIMS HE IS A FIGHTER FOR US TO REDUCE THOSE ELECTRIC RATES THAT ARE THE HIGHEST IN THE NATION. HE'S DOING SUCH A GOOD JOB. HE'S FIGHTING FOR JOBS BY SUING THE COMPANIES. ACCORDING TO THE COURANT HE HAS OVER 36,000 (!!!!!!) CASES PENDING. 36,000!
O'BRIEN IS FIGHTING FOR US TO REDUCE PROPERTY TAXES. WE HAVE SOME OF THE HIGHEST IN THE STATE. TIM REALLY IS SOLVING THIS PROBLEM.
TERCZAK LIVES IN HARTFORD BUT FEELS OUR PAIN IN NEW BRITAIN. AND HELL HE EVEN GOES TO JAIL FOR THE UNIONS. IMAGINE IF HE SUPPORTED NEW BRITAIN?
YEP..KEEP ON PUTTING THESE GUYS IN OFFICE AND COMPLAINING THAT NOTHING CHANGES.
" The Dance of the Lemons said...
If you have seen the movie "WAITING FOR SUPERMAN" our school system suffers dramatically from the "Dance of the Lemmons" because of tenure and the fact that a teacher is guaranteed their job for life no matter what he/she does or doesn't do."
While I agree with the general premise of this letter, it is just not true that teachers have a job for life once they achieve tenure, unless ...
What is true is that most teacher supervisors - principals, department heads, directors, etc. - do not have the requisite experience and know how in classroom supervision for the improvement of instruction. When supervisors are really not conversant with how to do that part of their job, they also can't develop the cohones to do the job. Most important, most school systems do not have effective and workable teacher evaluation models/procedures.
Lacking any of these qualifications, spectators (non educators) always blame tenure laws when they should be blaming a lack of the necessary anatomical attributes of administrators. You think there is a lot of "dead wood" in teacher ranks, try taking a critical and objective look at administrators.
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