We also posted Jaime's letter at our website's Press Releases page, too, so it will be available after the Day's website restricts access to subscribers. Click on the envelope image in the upper right-hand corner of the page to forward the letter to friends, family, and co-workers and help circulate her reply to this latest assault.

Andrews' hit piece reads more like an executive summary of their latest so-called report, "How to Reduce Property Taxes with a Citizens Audit Committee." The study promotes a number of reckless cost-cutting measures in local schools, such as contracting-out food services -- a risky scheme we are fighting in Windham Public Schools, where the Board of Education is considering a move to outsource students' nutrition to the lowest bidder.

Andrews' Yankee Institute is part of the State Policy Network, a coalition of local conservative "think-tanks" that lobby a pro-business and anti-worker agenda in boards of education, town halls, and state capitols across the country. We have long opposed Yankee's efforts to drag down Connecticut's standard of living and responded when they have promoted ideology that puts quality public services at risk.

Jaime's letter shreds much of the misinformation that Andrews refers to from the Yankee Institute report in his commentary. She points out that claims made by the report's co-author, Armand Fusco, are based on a five-year old study of schools in Long Island, New York and are not even cited.

But another factor that demanded a response was Andrews' reference to the report's support from Susan Kniep, President of the Federation of Connecticut Taxpayers Organizations. Kniep has recently stepped-up her penchant for blasting public education and the dedicated teachers, instructors, and others that work with Connecticut's K through 12 students.

As Co-President of Chapter I22, which represents paraprofessionals working in Groton Public Schools, Jamie understands that this is the kind of reckless rhetoric that doesn't offer real solutions to our economic crisis. And that is what made her the right messenger to deliver such a strong rebuke to the Yankee Institute and their ilk with her letter.