By Melissa Bailey

Charter school advocates – including a member of the city’s Board of Ed – clashed with union reps Wednesday over a plan that would take $27 million from the New Haven public schools and give it to charter schools.

The action took place before the state Board of Education’s Legislation and Bylaws Committee, which convened Wednesday morning to consider a charter school funding proposal by the education watchdog group ConnCAN.

ConnCAN asked the committee to recommend legislation that would shift the state to a “Money Follows The Child” model over the course of four years, beginning in the 2011-2012 school year.

The charter proponents didn’t end up convincing the committee. But they ended up prompting a public debate over the course of public education—and they vowed to keep pushing their plan at the state Capitol.

ConnCAN CEO Alex Johnston (pictured above), who also sits on the New Haven Board of Education, said the proposal aims to give charter schools the equitable funding they deserve – and knock down a hurdle that’s holding Connecticut back from winning the federal “Race to the Top” competition.

Connecticut’s 18 charter schools receive a $9,300-per-student grant from the state.

ConnCAN’ proposes to replace that funding system with a new one. It would work like this: When a child leaves a public school district to attend a charter school, the district would pay the charter school to educate the child. The state would deduct the money from the town’s Education Cost Sharing (ECS) grant and send it directly to the charter school. The shift would be gradual: the state would cover the entire cost in year one, 60 percent of the cost in year two, and 40 percent in year three. In year four, cities would pay the full whack.

That would mean that in the 2014-2015 school year, New Haven would lose $27.2 million, or 19 percent of its ECS grant, to charter schools, according to ConnCAN. That figure assumes 103 New Haven public school kids will switch to charter schools by September 2014. State Department of Education staff called that a conservative estimate, meaning New Haven could stand to lose even more money.

The idea elicited “outrage” at Wednesday’s meeting from American Federation of Teachers President Sharon Palmer (pictured). Palmer said the state should not take resources away from public school kids. She balked at a contract between Hartford and Achievement First charter school that she said cost the city too much.

“There is not enough money to go around,” Palmer told the committee. She later added that the AFT endorsed the creation of the original charter school system—as an incubator for innovation that would then be shared with the public school districts. That sharing isn’t happening as was originally intended, she argued.

Mark Waxenberg of the Connecticut Education Association echoed her remarks. He called ConnCAN’s proposal an unfunded “local mandate” that serves only to further the agenda of charter school proponents, to the detriment of other public schools.

New Haven’s Dacia Toll (pictured) swung back at Palmer’s remarks. Toll is president of Achievement First, a non-profit that runs a network of eight charter schools in Connecticut, including its celebrated flagship Amistad Academy in New Haven. She said union opposition boils down to the fact that charter schools don’t tend to be unionized. People should focus on what’s best for families and kids, not for unions she argued.

“When parents have made choices and that’s where their children are going, we think money should follow the child,” Toll said.

Joe Cirasuolo, executive director of the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents, joined the union leaders’ opposition to ConnCAN’s idea. He said when a student leaves public school, it doesn’t save the school that much money – the school is still responsible for transportation costs, and still has to pay to keep up the facility. He warned against draining school districts’ budgets.

“If you go forward with this proposal,” he added, “it would create an adversarial relationship between us and charter schools.”

After a public hearing, the committee decided not to pass along the proposal on to the full Board of Education.

At the prompting of education Commissioner Mark McQuillan, the committee agreed not to pursue the specific proposal, but to outline basic principles that would inform a broader discussion about reforming funding for all types of schools, including magnets.

Johnston said ConnCAN isn’t giving up yet. He plans to submit written remarks to the full board before its meeting next week. Then he’ll take his case to the legislature, which reconvenes next Wednesday.

Foot in Both Camps

Johnston, a longtime critic of New Haven’s low-performing schools, was recently appointed to the city school board to provide a watchdog’s perspective as the city launches an ambitious school reform campaign.

He was asked after the meeting about whether he feels he has divided loyalties: On the one hand, he advocates for charter schools through ConnCAN. On the other, he’s on the governing body of New Haven’s public school district.

Johnston stressed that New Haven and other districts wouldn’t pay a dime under the Money Follows the Child proposal until the 2012-2013 school year. New Haven needs to look at its ECS funding anyway, he said. The current setup leaves the city “vulnerable” because he state has stopped using the ECS formula to divvy up ECS funds. It has kept ECS funding flat or made percentage increases, instead of going based on enrollment. New Haven’s enrollment has been dwindling, Johnston said, leaving it “vulnerable” to a loss in funding if the ECS formula is applied.

While the proposal he supported Wednesday would to drain millions of dollars from the district, Johnston said it would benefit New Haven in the long run. He said the charter school funding proposal is just part of a “comprehensive approach” that ConnCAN is pushing for.

There’s an “urgent need” to fix charter school funding now, he said, because a failure to make charter school reforms could cost the state 24 out of 500 points on the competitive Race to the Top grant application process. (Read more about that here.)

The charter school funding proposal can’t be viewed alone, Johnston said. ConnCAN plans to push for a broader Money Follows The Child system, where New Haven would be paid for the suburban students who attend the city’s many magnet schools. The group advocates weighting school funding to account for factors like poverty and English-as-a-second-language learners.

The full reform agenda is detailed in a recent ConnCAN report entitled, “The Tab: How Connecticut Can Fix its Dysfunctional Education Spending System to Reward Success, Incentivize Choice and Boost Student Achievement.”

If those reforms are adopted, Johnston said, New Haven would not have to rely solely on its own tax base to support the school system, because suburban students at magnet schools would bring in money.

“One of the best long-term strategies for New Haven,” Johnston said, is to set up a system of strong schools that “attract students from around the region.”