Well it’s here. Not just in Norwalk; not just in Connecticut. The nationwide education cliff has arrived. How did we get here nationally?
Chronically underfunded public education programs were finally able to (temporarily) dig out of untenable financial circumstances due to generational national underfunding with the devastating, disguised “blessing” of COVID-19. Finally, national attention was put on the fact that schools not only were ill-equipped to handle an international pandemic but were very often ill-equipped to meet even the most basic needs of their students. This spotlight and national anxieties for our children opened up funding opportunities that were never there.
States and particularly municipalities such as Norwalk used this surge of funds as an offramp to avoid sustained support of the programs that were enacted to finally begin to properly educate and support our children. The argument is, well, don’t rely on that funding. The counter-argument is: you should’ve funded it in the first place…