Address to Hamden Town Council & Audience

The Hamden PTA Council respectfully asks that the Town Council fully fund the Board of Ed’s budget request. We trust Superintendent Rabinowitz’s judgment implicitly and would ask the Council to do the same.

You know full well, as parents and grandparents, that education is an investment and a cornerstone of our town’s economic well-being. It is no co-incidence that Hamden is the 33rd best place in America to start a small business and our high school is ranked 32 out of 139 Connecticut public high schools. Education and economics go hand in hand and that balance must be handled with great care.

Thank you to all who have come with your PTA and family to speak truth to power. Showing your children how to be an advocate for others is one of the greatest lessons you can teach them.
However, your voice should not go silent after tonight’s hearing. The funding issues the Board of Ed and the Town are dealing with stem from the State and Federal level.

I encourage this audience and legislative body to continue to contact our state delegation. Ask them to keep their promise to send ECS funding, at or above last year’s level, which the Federal Stimulus Bill should allow them to do. Ask them to honor their commitment to Wintergreen by giving us a break on the 55% rule, which could mean a $2 million infusion to Hamden.

In addition, our Federal legislators, especially Rep. DeLauro and Sen. Dodd, will be instrumental in making dramatic changes in No Child Left Behind. They will be looking to hear from you, to guide them in crafting that legislation.

If we apply this same amount of pressure at the Federal level, when NCLB is reauthorized it will no longer be a punitive system aimed at dismantling public education, but a program that will enable all educators, students and schools to do their best work.

I have great faith in this vision; mere hours after the 2008 election the National PTA President, Jan Harp Domene, was called to meet with the Obama transition team. Change is definitely coming and PTA will be vital in making sure our elected officials keep their promises to us and our children.

On behalf of Hamden PTAs I’d like to thank the residents, parents and students, who have accepted our invitation to speak. Democracy is NOT a spectator sport and we appreciate your coming out to play.