Accusations Of Ineffectiveness Ax Reading Program

A battle is shaping up at the state Capitol over a decade-old early childhood reading program that targets underprivileged children.

Since 1998, the state Department of Education has administered the Early Reading Success (ERS) program to provide cities and towns with funding to hire reading specialists and buy text books to combat illiteracy.

However, $20 million in fiscal year 2009 funding for the program disappeared when the biennial budget was adopted last June.

Opponents of the program maintain that it has been mismanaged and ineffective, and has not improved the reading skills of Connecticut children, but at a recent appropriations committee hearing, Mark McQuillan, commissioner for the state Department of Education Commissioner, disagreed that the program had been ineffective. Rather, the data indicates that more strategies are needed to boost student reading skills.

“It’s an unclear picture, but a distressing one,” McQuillan said.

Uphill Battle

Although the program lost legislative support because there was the belief that the program had been mismanaged, McQuillan acknowledged that there was room for improvement in how the state administered the program.

“Things are very uneven,” he said. “It’s a bit of a murky picture and we want to take steps to better administer the program.”

One of those steps would require school districts to submit annual reports on the program’s progress and to increase standards for new teachers in the program.

As the economy continues to decline, proponents of the program face an even tougher uphill climb to convince legislators to restore funding.

“I think it’s fair to say it has been very difficult to get more funding in these times,” said Mark Waxenberg, director of government relations for the Connecticut Education Association and one of the association’s registered lobbyists. “I wouldn’t say it’s fallen on deaf ears, but we recognize what’s going on.”

Though full restoration is their goal, Waxenberg said that even a compromise of half the funding would be considered successful.
“We saw that it had been bumped and we were trying to figure out why,” Waxenberg added. “This is funding that goes to places like Norwalk, Bridgeport, the poorest of the poor.”

For example, Bridgeport and Waterbury receive about $3 million each from the program, a tab taxpayers would be unlikely to pick up.

Without restored funding, those school districts would almost undoubtedly begin layoffs, raising another issue — lost jobs.

The majority of the ERS funding doesn’t go toward books or school supplies; it’s used to hire reading teachers, reading coaches and paraprofessionals.

Teacher Layoffs Expected

“It’s tough right now because everyone is concerned and frightened about their jobs, about the economy and what’s going to happen,” Waxenberg said. “It’s the same problem with education that there’s more funding needed and not enough funding available.”

The absence of state aid will push the burden of education funding on to municipalities and cities to decide what to do.

“There’s a lot of talk about property tax relief for families but it’s turning into a lot of little
battles across the state about education,” Waxenberg said.

In general, education funding is likely to flatten out this session as both sides of the aisle at the General Assembly are preaching about frugality.