Rosenthal Is New VP Of Statewide Education Initiative

By John Voket

Newtown’s former first selectman and Board of Education chair Herb Rosenthal has been elected to the post of vice president of the Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding (CCJEF).

CCJEF is a broad-based coalition of municipalities, boards of education, professional education associations, unions, parents, and others that in 2005 brought the CCJEF v. Rell school finance lawsuit against the state to enforce what the organization identifies as “the constitutional rights of all public school children to equal educational opportunity and to secure an adequate and equitable state aid system for schools.”  

Mr Rosenthal currently serves as an elected alternate on Newtown’s Board of Assessment Appeals elected official, a member of the Board of Health for the Newtown Health District, and treasurer of the Housatonic Valley Resource Recovery Authority. He previously served five terms as Newtown first selectman, and also as chairman of both the Newtown Board of Education and the Board of Education Connection, which serves 33 towns in northwestern Connecticut.

In addition, for two terms he served as president of the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities (CCM). Specializing in municipal benefit programs with a unique understanding of issues confronting towns and cities, Mr Rosenthal has been affiliated with Westport Resources since 1987, where his risk management portfolio includes life insurance, disability income and employer benefit programs, group insurance, retirement plans, and executive compensation programs.

In a release from the agency, Mr Rosenthal said, “In the difficult fiscal environment confronting our communities today, funding the constitutional right of all children to an adequate education is a challenge we simply must meet.”

Newtown’s Support

Mr Rosenthal told The Bee this week that he has been following the organization since he learned about it through his post on the CCM — some time before CCJEF filed suit against the state for its failure to adequately and equitably fund the public schools in late 2005.

He said at that time he advised then school superintendent Evan Pitkoff to consider joining the organization along with the town, but only the town moved forward with a commitment to support the organization and its effort.

Mr Rosenthal said that the idea at the time was to position Newtown to be among the communities that would benefit from any financial award if the lawsuit was eventually settled in favor of the communities involved. He said supporters of CCJEF would be first in line for additional funding distributions or awards before other Connecticut communities that failed to or refused to support the coalition’s efforts.

Newtown has remained a supporter, with Mr Rosenthal serving as Newtown’s appointee to the coalition throughout the tenure of his first selectman successor, Joe Borst, as well as during First Selectman Pat Llodra’s administration.

In 2010, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that under the Connecticut constitution all children are entitled to a quality (adequate) education and the state must pay for it. That landmark pretrial victory for schoolchildren allowed CCJEF v. Rell to proceed to trial on the merits of plaintiffs’ adequacy and equity claims.

The case is now in the discovery phase, with trial scheduled for July 2014.

Mr Rosenthal said he was proud to represent the town in his new capacity in the CCJEF’s leadership, while acknowledging he has come into the position of its vice president at a crucial time for the effort, as the CCJEF ramps up its work moving into the discovery phase.

“I’ve always had a strong interest in education,” Mr Rosenthal said. “For Connecticut and the nation to thrive, I think it’s in everyone’s interest to see that every child gets a good education. We can certainly see the costs [related] to those in prisons like Garner [Correctional Facility] who failed to get a good education.”

Defining ‘Adequacy’

Mr Rosenthal said that while most of Newtown’s children receive an excellent public education, it is detrimental to Newtown if children from other towns do not receive adequate educational support.

“Critics say that spending money doesn’t guarantee good educational outcomes, but I think a lack of funding certainly guarantees the opposite for a lot of children,” Mr Rosenthal said, adding that the utilization of funds is critical.

“We just need good people running the show,” he said. “Underfunded districts are probably not as successful as districts that are properly funded.”

He said the Supreme Court’s decision seems to concur — that every child in the state should get an “adequate” education.

“Now the case is back in the superior court to define what is adequate,” Mr Rosenthal said. “I’m sure [CCJEF officials] and I will be working hard on this along with Dianne Kaplan deVries [CCJEF project Director], who has worked on adequacy issues across the US.”

Mr Rosenthal sees his role and the strengths he can bring to his new post as similar to what he has brought to the CCM.

“This is a broad-based group with lots of members from towns to school boards to parents and some students,” he said. “My experience with CCM, which had 143 towns as members, will help me keep everyone on the same page in the areas where all parties involved share similar consensus.”

Ease Taxpayer Burden

Ultimately, Mr Rosenthal said his goal is to see the burden on Newtown’s taxpayers eased.

“For several years now, Newtown’s state reimbursement to its schools has remained flat, while demand is increasing,” he said. “You’d think once this baseline of ‘adequacy’ is formalized, the state will agree to settle with CCJEF and the towns involved.”

Regarding the pending case, on February 3, subpoenas were issued by the State of Connecticut to Bridgeport, Danbury, Hartford, New Britain, New London, Norwich, Plainfield, Stamford, Waterford, and Windham.

“The scope of the identical subpoenas is massive and unprecedented,” according to Dr deVries. “The 46 separate requests contained therein cover all facets of school district operations — finance, personnel, curriculum and instruction, pupil support services, instructional technology and materials, student outcomes, and facilities.”

She said “no district could be expected to comply with such an enormously onerous production order.”

Newly elected CCJEF President Frank Carrano calls the state’s subpoenas a clear example of harassment.

“In any litigation, one fully expects the plaintiff parties to get subpoenaed for the collection of pertinent facts directly related to the case,” he said in a release. “But these subpoenas go far beyond that. They constitute a punitive action brought to intimidate school communities that have the audacity to have finally drawn a line in the sand about the state’s failure to adequately and equitably fund their public schools at a level that ensures that every Connecticut PK–12 student has equal educational opportunity.”

Dr Carrano also pointed to the irony, “in that these subpoenas and their massive and duplicative reporting burden come just at a time that Governor Malloy has announced that reducing state paperwork and reporting mandates on school districts is a critical part of his education reform effort.”