This is ironic. While many readers of the blog question Hillary Clinton’s sincerity in her recent criticism of charters (all of which was true), the Wall Street Journal accuses her of selling out to Randi Weingarten. The editorial offers Eva Moskowitz’s charters as an example of charter excellence, even though they typify what Hillary was describing. I seem to recall that the owner of the WSJ, Rupert Murdoch, is a generous contributer to the Success Academy network.
Anyone who sells out would certainly find far more money on Wall Street than in the coffers of the AFT and the NEA.
The editorial says:
“Hillary Clinton has moved to the left of President Obama on trade, energy, immigration, student loans, health care and entitlements. But even we’re surprised by her latest move, which is to turn against charter schools as an engine of education opportunity.
“Most charter schools, they don’t take the hardest-to-teach kids, or, if they do, they don’t keep them. And so the public schools are often in a no-win situation,” Mrs. Clinton said last weekend in South Carolina. She also acknowledged that “for many years now” she has “supported the idea of charter schools,” though “not as a substitute for the public schools.”
“Well, as Mrs. Clinton used to appreciate, charter schools are public schools—albeit freed from bureaucracy and union work rules. In her 1996 memoir, “It Takes a Village,” she wrote that “I favor promoting choice among public schools, much as the President’s Charter Schools Initiative encourages.” In 2007 she told a teachers-union conference in New York that “I actually do believe in charter schools.”
“Why the sudden change? Her press assistant explained to Politico that “Hillary Clinton looks at the evidence. That’s what she did here.” Sorry, that quote is from Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.6 million-member American Federation of Teachers that endorsed Mrs. Clinton in July, 16 months before Election Day. The National Education Association followed. Unions loathe charter competition, and Mrs. Clinton is returning the favor of these early endorsements.
“If Mrs. Clinton had looked at the evidence, she’d have seen a different story about charters and “the hardest-to-teach kids.” Charters don’t exclude difficult students. Like other public schools, they aren’t allowed to discriminate. Nearly every state requires a random lottery to choose students if there are more applicants than openings. The reason some charters turn away students is that they lack the resources to accommodate every desperate family trapped in a teachers-union compound.
“Charters serve some of the most troubled students, including a higher percentage in poverty than all public schools, according to Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes. In urban centers in particular, charters serve mostly minority students and include more who are learning English than do public schools as a whole.
“Mrs. Clinton knows these basic facts, so she may be tapping into the recent political melodrama over New York City’s Success Academy charter schools. Founder Eva Moskowitz runs tight ships, and students who misbehave can expect the once typical response called discipline. Ms. Weingarten has been running a political and media campaign against Success Academy, though its attrition levels are lower than district averages in the Big Apple. If you want to see public schools that really don’t tolerate disruptive students, go to your average rich suburban school.”
Peter Greene educated himself about “social impact bonds” and has graciously taken on the task of explaining what they are and how they work.
He writes:
Here’s the basic structure of a Social Impact Bond. Note: I am not an economist, banker, or investment counselor, nor do I play one on TV, so I may cut a few corners here.
My house is drafty. My windows leak and my heating bill is $10,000 a year.
My landlord goes to the bank. She says, “Banker, I would like a bond of $4,000 for new storm windows. I think they would reduce my annual heating bill by $3,000.”
And the investor issues a bond for the program costs, in return for which he gets a healthy cut of the $3K saved by installing the new windows. My landlord’s savings from the successful Stop Freezing My Butt Off Social Program become the bond holder’s profit– but only if our goals are met.
Typically a third party will come in to judge the result, making sure that I didn’t just turn the thermostat down or it wasn’t just a warm winter or my landlord didn’t actually save $6K and hide it from the bondholder. Also, it’s worth noting that bonds generally come with negotiated maturity dates, at which point the original loan amount is to be paid back. And remember kids– bond holders are different from investors. An investor owns part of the company, but a bondholder is just a fancy debtor, and as such has legal priority for being paid back.
In this example, the government is, more or less, my landlord. For a more thorough explanation, we can look here. Here’s the shortened version of their explanation:
In the classic… social impact bond, a government agency sets a specific, measurable social outcome they want to see achieved within a well-defined population over a period of time. …The government then contracts with an external organization—sometimes called an intermediary—that is in charge of achieving that outcome. … The intermediary hires and manages service providers who perform the interventions intended to achieve the desired outcome. Because the government does not pay until and unless the outcome is achieved, the intermediary raises money from outside investors. These investors will be repaid and receive a return on their investment for taking on the performance risk of the interventions if and only if the outcome is achieved.
Okay, Watch Carefully Now
From New York Times coverage of a SIB program that failed. “Social Impact Bonds offer a strikingly different way to pay for social programs. Governments, rather than tapping taxpayers, can turn to outside investors and philanthropists for funds, and reward them only for programs that work.” If the program fails, the taxpayers are off the hook. If it succeeds, the bond holders are paid off with what would have been taxpayer savings of taxpayer dollars.
But the finances get muddier because in the couple of years we’ve been trying this, we’ve learned a useful insight:
“The tool of ‘pay for success’ is much better suited to expanding an existing program,” Andrea Phillips, vice president of Goldman’s urban investment group, said in an interview on Wednesday. “That is something we’ve already learned through this.”
But issuing bonds for existing programs means we’ll have public and private money swimming in the same pool.
For the rest, and the links, open the article.
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf is locked in a budget impasse with the legislature. For five months, the state has been without a budget, and social services–including achools–are suffering. Apparently, he and legislators may reach a deal by Thanksgiving Wolf wants to increase funding for education and to tax the fracking industry; the legislature doesn’t. After four years of Republican Tom Corbett, the legislature thinks it is acceptable to allow schools to go bankrupt (the easier to privatize them) and that the fracking industry must never be taxed to pay for the natural resources it extracts.
The voters don’t agree. A recent poll shows overwhelming support for taxes on gas drillers. 67% agree that the industry should be taxed.
Governor Wolf is a bright light in Pennsylvania, fighting for students and the future. For that matter, he is a bright light in the nation.
If you want to stay informed about Pennsylvania, sign up for the regular news summaries from the Keystone State Education Coalition.
Please vote today to support and fund the public schools of Mississippi.
Vote for Act 42. Do not vote for the alternative intended to confuse voters.
Read this to understand why Initiative 42 matters. It was written by a kindergarten teacher in Mississippi.
In 1997, the Mississippi Legislature passed a law promising to provide each public school district in Mississippi enough financial support to furnish an adequate education to every K-12 student. That law is called the Mississippi Adequate Education Program (MAEP), and has only been followed twice since it was passed. This has resulted in a shortfall of over a billion dollars since 2009. That is a billion dollars that would have provided textbooks, technology, and certified teachers. Instead, Mississippi’s students have just had to do without.
In 2014, nearly 200,000 Mississippians from every county and both political parties took a stand and signed petitions to have Initiative 42 added to the ballot on November 3, 2015. This would amend the state constitution in a way that makes public education a priority instead of an afterthought. Initiative 42 closes a loophole that has allowed the Legislature to break the MAEP law for so long.
If you want to have a better future in your state, invest in education now.
Ben Spielberg is a blogger who is knowledgeable about budgets and economics. In this post, he refutes the arguments of StudentsFirst leader Dmitri Mehlhorn that how money is spent matters, but we spend enough now. Spielberg works at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. He knows whereof he writes. He says Mehlhorn is wrong, and he backs it up with “The Truth About School Funding.” Read his article to find and follow the links.
Spielberg marshals an impressive array of facts and data to show that we are far from achieving equitable or adequate funding of the neediest schools:
But what is adequate and equitable school funding? Researchers Bruce Baker and Danielle Farie and civil rights lawyer David Sciarra, who produce a National Report Card on school funding fairness, discuss this question at length in their 2015 report. One of the most important principles they note is that, because “[v]arying levels of funding are required to provide equal educational opportunities to children with different needs[,] finance systems should provide more funding to districts serving larger shares of students in poverty.”
School funding in the United States doesn’t come close to meeting this criterion; as Baker, Farie, and Sciarra show, fourteen states have regressive school funding systems, meaning they allocate less money to schools serving disadvantaged students than they do to schools serving more affluent student populations. Nineteen other states have roughly equivalent funding between the two types of schools. Only four states – Minnesota, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Delaware – score high enough across all of the researchers’ criteria (funding level; funding distribution; effort, or funding as a share of the state’s economy; and coverage, or “the share of school-age children enrolled in public schools and the degree to which there is economic disparity between households in the public versus private education system”) to have their funding systems deemed “fair.”
This analysis likely represents an upper bound on the degree of school funding equity in the United States. While California appears to have roughly equivalent funding for low- and high-income schools in the report, for example, there are major funding discrepancies between some of the state’s “basic aid” districts, which serve affluent students, and districts that serve lower-income populations. Within-district variations in spending also go undetected in the report’s metrics, as may situations in which funding that is supposed to follow high-need students doesn’t reach them.
Spielberg shows that Mehlhorn’s comparisons of spending in charter schools and spending in public schools are inaccurate.
What I have always noticed is that the argument “money doesn’t matter” always comes from people who have plenty of money and whose children are in very well-funded schools. I have never heard it said by any parent or teacher in an urban school.
Spielberg concludes:
Finally, it’s important to remember that even if aggregate funding levels were higher, aggregate numbers don’t speak to the distribution of funding. We’ve yet to target and sustain increased funding in schools that serve our neediest students. Especially when it comes to low-income areas, America definitely can – and should – invest more in K-12 public education.
We Should Avoid False Choices and Invest in Kids’ Opportunities
Increased funding, to be useful, must of course be spent in smart ways. Money by itself isn’t a panacea. But it’s important to get the facts right: money matters, and it matters quite a bit.
It is incredibly counterproductive to pit increased funding and smart spending against each other (though Mehlhorn’s piece acknowledges “that money spent properly can be helpful in improving achievement,” it balks at the idea that schools need additional funding), especially when schools serving the most disadvantaged students tend to get the fewest resources. Giving schools more money and making sure they spend that money wisely are complementary, not competing, goals.
Pitting education funding against social insurance and safety net spending, as former Tennessee education commissioner Kevin Huffman did in a recent article, is also absurd. While it’s true that adequate income support and health care matter most for low-income students and that school-based reforms cannot, contrary to Huffman’s assertion, “be the lynchpin of social mobility in America,” schools are still very important. Those truly committed to an equal opportunity agenda should stop taking potshots at its components and start getting to work on raising the revenues necessary to implement it.
As David Kirp wrote recently about pre-K programs: “Money doesn’t guarantee good outcomes, but it helps…In education, as in much of life, you get what you pay for.”
In America right now, we unfortunately don’t pay for the education system our students deserve. Until we do, we won’t get it.
Ed Berger says that if schools are judged by who chooses them, the people of Arizona have spoken: 85% of the state’s children are in public schools. Yet the policymakers keep trying to find ways to funnel public money to private operators of charters and vouchers. The culprits are financed by the Koch brothers, encouraged by ALEC, and most are motivated by simple greed.
He writes:
Will our community be able to save our public schools? The election for a bond, and override funding is November 3. I could wait until the results are in, but here are the issues. Citizens be aware:
The overwhelming majority of parents want their children in public schools. Not charter schools, partial schools, religious schools, or schools which keep out parents, destroy the joys of childhood, and use force as motivation. Parents have choice and they have chosen. Over 85% of Arizona parents have chosen public schools.
The overwhelming majority of parents want their child exposed to many disciplines as well as math and reading. They want their children exposed to art, humanities, science, social studies, history , government, health, physical education, and languages. They want their child to love learning and love their learning community. Parents want their children prepared as interdisciplinary, self-directed learners ready for the future.
They want childhood’s magic honored with time to play and explore and do the things children must do to develop into healthy adults. They want pre-K through great K-12 programs.
Parents know that childhood is a critical developmental time for their child. They like and support the way public school classrooms and the curricula are developmentally appropriate. They know that foundation skills are acquired at different times for each child and that forcing learning to pass standardized tests or other inappropriate measurements damages children.
They want full services for their child. School safety. Safe transportation. A school nurse. Counselors and mentors. A good lunch program and breakfast and snacks for kids who would otherwise go hungry. They want school clubs, newspaper staff, annual staff, business clubs, science club and science fairs, and dance. They want field trips, assemblies, and Americanization.
They demand trained and certified teachers. Most parents know that today’s certified and experienced teachers are many times more effective than teachers in the past. The education profession is advancing and very effective. If there is a learning conflict, they have choice within the system.
The overwhelming number of parents and community members understand that the community has built and provided safe and well-maintained buildings – well-maintained that is until tax dollars they pay for schools have been taken away by a small handful of ideologues who are robbing our communities. In every community, these destructive people always vote NO to damage the opportunities of others.
If you agree with the list of things children need – and parents and citizens demand – note that few are provided by the charter or partial schools. For example, qualified, experienced certified faculty and administrators. Publicly elected school boards. Financial accountability and academic accountability. All of the above are an integral part of our public schools.
IF the great majority of citizens do not want their tax dollars directed away from our students and schools why are they ignored?
BECAUSE those who want to destroy public education or rob kids to profit from our tax dollars have used their power in the Legislature and government to create a system where every charter or other partial school supported by our tax dollars must duplicate what the citizens are already paying for in public schools. Charters must use state dollars that follow the child to duplicate facilities, accounting, utilities, support staffing, libraries, computes, classrooms and physical education resources. The citizens end up paying twice for the same services. The money that citizens intend for children is not there for the majority of kids, teachers, building maintenance, books and supplies or the things children need. The irony is that as few as 10% of the students are enrolled in these partial schools, but they wreak havoc and have the potential to destroy quality education for the majority of students. This is not an accidental consequence. It is being done intentionally.
Center for Media and Democracy federal charter grant report RELEASED TODAY
http://www.prwatch.org/charter-school-black-hole
“Charter School Black Hole” – CMD Special Investigation Reveals Huge Info Gap on Charter Spending
Madison, WI (CMD) – Today the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) is releasing a special report on its year-long investigation into charter schools spending in the United States. You can access the full report “Charter School Black Hole” here.
CMD, a national investigative group that conducts in-depth investigations into the influence of corporations, trade groups, and PR firms on media and democracy, found that the public does not have ready access to key information about how their federal and state taxes are being spent to fuel the charter school industry since charters began almost 25 years ago.
Indeed, no one even knew how much the federal government had spent on its program designed to boost the charter sector. So CMD reviewed more than two decades of federal authorizations and appropriations to calculate the sum, which is now more than $3.7 billion—as noted in this new report. CMD also found that the federal government was not providing the public with a list of all the charter schools that received federal tax monies and how much.
CMD also found that many states have not provided the public with ready information about the amounts of federal funding each charter has received under the federal “Charter School Program” (CSP) for state education agencies (SEAs), and that most states have not provided the public with information about the amounts in state and federal tax dollars that have been diverted to charters rather than spent strengthening traditional public schools.
What is even more troubling is how difficult it is to find essential information on how some charters have spent federal and state tax dollars, even as governments continue to increase funding for charters while slashing funds for traditional public schools. Unlike truly public schools that have to account for prospective and past spending in public budgets provided to democratically elected school boards, charter spending of tax monies is too often a black hole.
This is the largely due to the way the charter industry has been built by proponents, favoring “flexibility” over rules. That flexibility has allowed an epidemic of fraud, waste, and mismanagement that would not be tolerated in public schools. Charters are often policed—if they are really policed at all—by charter proponents, both within government agencies and within private entities tasked with oversight as “authorizers” of charters.
In this investigation, CMD pursued numerous open records requests under federal or state law about how much federal CSP money had been given to charters and how that money was spent in 12 states. As a result, CMD found that public information about funds received and spent by charters is severely lacking. It also documented how little is known about spending by closed charters, and identified “ghost” schools, where federal grants were awarded to charters that never opened.
“The bottom-line is taxpayers know far too little about how much their federal tax dollars are being used to fund charters and there is far too little information provided by states about how tax monies are being spent by charters or by for-profit firms they are tied to,” said Lisa Graves, Executive Director of CMD. “Neither the federal government nor the states require charters to publish that information on their websites and neither the federal or state governments we examined publish that information themselves. Even aside from serious questions about academic performance by charters—especially online charters—the lack of real accountability remains a real problem for kids and families, as more and more people and corporations have sought to get a piece of pie, a revenue stream from taxpayer money, to operate or assist charters.”
Below are a few key findings from the report:
Michigan: In 2011 and 2012, $3.7 million in federal taxpayer money was awarded to 25 Michigan “ghost” schools that never even opened to students. The organizations behind these schools received at least $1.7 million, according to the state expenditure database. WestEd—a private company that contracts with the U.S. Department of Education to monitor how states comply with federal regulations—flagged this as a potential problem, but the agency did little to address the problem. After verbal assurances that this would not happen again, the federal agency assured the Michigan Department of Education “that there will not be any additional follow-up.”
Ohio: Out of the 88 schools created by planning and implementation grants under CSP between 2008 and 2013, at least 15 closed within a few years; a further seven schools never even opened. These charters received more than $4 million in federal taxpayer money. Despite this track record, Ohio landed the biggest one-year grant by far in the 2015 competition for federal funding: $32.6 million. CMD can reveal that part of the reason Ohio won the grant was a glowing endorsement from the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA)—an organization that had previously referred to the charter system in Ohio as “broken.” But NACSA was more than willing to take that back as long as the Ohio Department of Education signed a $40,000-a-year deal. The deal was brokered by former NACSA senior executive and lobbyist David Hansen only days before he resigned as head of the Ohio Office of Quality School Choice amid accusations of having manipulated charter school performance data.
California: More than $4.7 million in federal taxpayer money was handed out to create charter schools that subsequently closed within a few years. CMD’s investigation found that California’s record on charters is marked by continued failures, including squandering of taxpayer money, along with deference to unaccountable authorizers and resistance to federal efforts to mandate better state oversight.
Wisconsin: More than $2.5 million in CSP money was used to create charter schools that shuttered shortly thereafter. In addition to the school closings, at least one of the schools created by federal charter school money was a former religious school that has since “converted” to charter status so as to be eligible for funding, an audit obtained by CMD shows. There appears to have been no regular evaluations about whether such conversions in Wisconsin–and also Texas–affect the content of the instruction or not.
Indiana: At least $2.2 million was awarded to charters that either closed or never opened. In addition, emails obtained by CMD through a public records request to Gov. Pence’s office found troubling examples of how the private charter sector, notably for-profit chain Charter Schools USA, influences on policy-making.
New York State: CMD discovered that almost every single application for the New York subgrants was written by the same multi-million-dollar charter consultancy firm: Charter School Business Management. The nature of CSP funding competition means that charter schools relying on private contractors for services, such as grant-writing and budgeting, can gain a competitive edge.
Colorado: State leadership responsible for managing the federal charter school grants fought legislation that would have advanced charter school oversight and accountability, emails obtained by CMD show.
The report also reviews federal charter spending in Arizona, District of Columbia, Florida, Texas and Utah. Read the full report here. http://www.prwatch.org/files/new_charter_school_black_hole_report_oct_21_2015.pdf
Open the full report for a complete state-by-state list of charter schools that were created by CSP SEA seed money in the 2010-2015 grant cycle. Dozens of these “schools” never opened to students in the first place, and many of the schools that did open have since closed. For an updated tally of the $3.7 billion disbursed under the CSP umbrella since the inception of the program, click here. Click here for emails from Ohio’s Office of Quality School Choice, detailing the role NACSA and David Hansen, who resigned in July amid accusations of having manipulated data on charter school “success,” played in securing the biggest federal charter grant in 2015. –
See more at: http://www.prwatch.org/charter-school-black-hole#sthash.BG877tYw.dpuf
A few days ago, I wrote a post about the battle in Mississippi about adequate funding for the public schools.
The positive proposal is called Initiative 42.
The supporters of Initiative 42 are trying to get the Legislature to keep its promises. Their opponents are defending the status quo of underfunded schools, which will harm the children of the state.
If you want to help, please send a contribution:
You can donate here http://42forbetterschools.org/donate/
Amanda Koonlaba, an art teacher in Tupelo, Mississippi, explains here that Mississippi is in a pitched battle to fund its public schools adequately. The issue is joined in a political struggle over Initiative 42, which would require the adequate funding of public education. Initiative 42 is opposed by the forces of privatization, which prefer to open privately managed charters, hand out vouchers for religious schools, and block any increase in funding for the public schools.
Koonlaba writes:
In 1997, the Mississippi Legislature passed a law promising to provide each public school district in Mississippi enough financial support to furnish an adequate education to every K-12 student. That law is called the Mississippi Adequate Education Program (MAEP), and has only been followed twice since its was passed. This has resulted in a shortfall of over a billion dollars since 2009. That is a billion dollars that would have provided textbooks, technology, and certified teachers. Instead, Mississippi’s students have just had to do without.
In 2014, nearly 200,000 Mississippians from every county and both political parties took a stand and signed petitions to have Initiative 42 added to the ballot on November 3, 2015. This would amend the state constitution in a way that makes public education a priority instead of an afterthought. Initiative 42 closes a loophole that has allowed the Legislature to break the MAEP law for so long.
After citizens signed these petitions, the very first thing the Legislature did when they went back into session was to pass an alternative to Initiative 42.
The alternative was intended to confuse voters, to protect the status quo, and to prevent any increase in funding for public schools.
The leaders of the opposition to Initiative 42 have ties to the Koch Brothers and Americans for Prosperity.
And ALEC, the enemy of the public good, is involved too.
This spring, the Legislature passed a school voucher bill straight from the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) playbook. ALEC helps corporations, idealogues, and their political allies pass legislation that privatizes schools. This legislation is written behind closed doors and then passed around from state to state. All a lawmaker has to do is fill in the blanks with the name of their particular state. It benefits large corporations and directs public tax dollars to private entities. ALEC is funded by the Koch Brothers. Interestingly, Jeb Bush, who is also closely connected to Americans for Prosperity, attended [Governor] Phil Bryant’s signing of this bill in Jackson.
The passage of Initiative 42 is crucial for the future of the children and public schools of Mississippi. It is a chance for the public to say NO to the 1% that rule ALEC and the other privatization advocates.
It is a chance for citizens and local communities to stand up for their public schools and stop the corporate assault on them.
Koonlaba writes:
Initiative 42 is a light in the darkness of this attack on Mississippi’s public schools. It is a chance for the citizens of Mississippi to stand up to the Legislature and remind them that they work for citizens not privatizers. Mississippians want their public schools to remain public and be fully funded.
However, Mississippians need help sorting through what the Executive Editor of the Clarion Ledger, Sam R. Hall, called “a load of horse crap” from the opposition to Initiative 42. Luckily, several groups are working to help Mississippians do this to get the initiative passed.
The Parent’s Campaign and the Mississippi Association of Educators have been working to educate the public on the initiative. 42 for Better Schools is the actual campaign to pass Initiative 42 and is a coalition of Mississippi public schools supporters and organizations. A grassroots group called Fed Up with 50th emerged to support school funding issues. They write on their Facebook page that
“We are law-abiding, tax-paying Mississippi voters—Republicans and Democrats—and we are FED UP! We are FED UP with failing schools, low graduation rates, poor teacher support, crowded classrooms, crumbling buildings, not enough textbooks or computers—all the things that make us 50th in education year after year. More than anything, we are FED UP that our legislators continue to BREAK THE LAW and underfund our schools, STEALING from our children and SELLING OUT their future to special interests.”
If Initiative 42 passes on November 3, Mississippians will have won a major battle but will have much work still left to do. If it doesn’t pass, the war will be lost.
Initiative 42 is a chance for Mississippians to tell the corporate entrepreneurs that their children and their public schools are not for sale.
If they stand together, the people of Mississippi can beat the 1%.
Jonathan Pelto reports the results of the latest Quinnipiac poll of Connecticut voters. Governor Dannell Malloy’s approval rating has dropped to only 32%. Malloy is known to readers of this blog as a chum of the charter industry and the Connecticut hedge fund managers who love them. Not even the embarrassing implosion of the Jumoke charter chain dimmed his ardor for deregulated, privately managed schools.
From the Quinnipiac University Public Opinion Poll;
Connecticut voters disapprove 58 – 32 percent of the job Gov. Dannel Malloy is doing, his lowest approval rating ever and the lowest score for any governor in the nine states surveyed this year by the independent Quinnipiac University Poll. The governor gets 4-1 negative scores for the way he his handling taxes and the state budget.
“Gov. Dannel Malloy’s job approval rating has plummeted to 32 percent, close to the historic 24 percent low hit by disgraced former Gov. John Rowland in January 2004, and Gov. Malloy is not in the middle of a corruption scandal,” said Quinnipiac University Poll Director Douglas Schwartz, PhD.
“Only 36 percent of voters are satisfied with the way things are going in the state, one of the lowest scores since Quinnipiac University started asking this question in 1997.”
Connecticut is a state with many affluent, well-educated voters. They may remember that Governor Malloy campaigned last year with a promise not to raise taxes or to cut the budget of vital services.
Pelto writes:
“But after being sworn back into office this past January, Malloy raised taxes, cut vital services and has turned his back on Connecticut’s state employees.
“Even after increasing taxes in the first year of his first term and the first year of his second term, when this present state budget cycle is over on June 30, 2017, Connecticut will be facing a two-year General Fund Budget Deficit of $1.6 Billion … YES, A DEFICIT OF $1.6 BILLION … [A deficit of $927 million in FY 2018 and $831 million in FY 2019.]”
Diane Ravitch's blog 