New Haven Independent

Posted by: concerned in ct | February 19, 2007 10:02 AM

How original. All of these "great" minds get together to remind us of the problem, but don't suggest any real solutions past what we have already heard before. Was this really worth covering?

Posted by: Michele | February 19, 2007 2:48 PM

Every time these discussions come up they mention the need to recruit "great teachers". Well, CT doesn't make it easy to become a teacher at all. I want to teach at the elementary level - I have a doctorate in Educational Psychology and ample supervised classroom experience. After completing 6 years of doctoral studies, I had to enroll in a Masters of Education Program, retake classes that I took during my doctoral studies, and still student teach. They could have had a great teacher this year if they stop and take a look at the requirements. I have more experience and education than some of the professors I am taking courses from.

Posted by: Rob S | February 19, 2007 3:16 PM

Meanwhile, Gov Rell's "bold" education proposal guts funding for interdistrict magnet schools, the program that came out of Scheff. Interdistrict magnets actually are working at tackling some of these issues of segregation and performance, but since New Haven has been most successful at utilizing the program, they became a target. The MSM has ignored this - it'd be nice if the Independent could shine some light.

The Supreme Court said in Milliken that courts couldn't order desegregation across district lines (which was the turning point against effective desegregation because it made white-flight effective), but here in New Haven we have an steadily increasing 7-8-9% of our student body suburbanites that voluntarily attend NHPS. Good thing Rell is prepared to nip this in the bud...

Let's get some real education experts like Gary Orfield down here to talk about what CT should do.

Posted by: Jeff Klaus | February 19, 2007 7:57 PM

Michele, Call Emily Barton at CT. Teach for America. TFA has an alternate route to certification, and they might be able to guide you. You're right - the barriers in place for great potential teachers to be certified are ludicrous!

Rob S., Are you saying that Adamowski isn't a "real" education expert? During one of the panel discussions, Dr. Adamowski noted that while desegregation perhaps was a noble societal goal, there is no data that indicates that bringing suburban white middle class kids into an urban public school with a large minority population, actually results in increases in academic performance within the minority population. There may be some social benefits, but those don't seem to be translating into academic gains.

Perhaps you have access to data in New Haven's district that contradicts this conclusion. It would be interesting to know the level of performance gains among minority students at the city's inter-district magnet schools vs other public schools. Maybe the Independent could shine some light on this too.

Also, Dr. Adamowski said that when he first got to Hartford he was impressed by the Hartford high school graduation rate (something like 89%). But when he decided to run the numbers himself, he found that instead of an 89% graduation rate which the Hartford school district administration had been claiming for years, the actual graduation rate was less than 30%! Maybe we can add an analysis of New Haven's graduation rate onto the Independent's growing investigations wish list!

Posted by: CT Lawyer | February 20, 2007 5:51 PM

Mr. Klaus,
You often make solid points but then go way overboard. It is pretty well established that desegregated schools are a benefit to low income African-American children (you might check out the afterword of Susan Eaton's The Children in Room E4 - American Education on Trial for citations in this regard). Aside from that, desegregation is not just "some social benefits," it is one of the only things that is likely to end long term disparities based on race. We have segregated schools because of aggressive strategies by banks and real estate agents to ensure that African-Americans did not move out of cities like Hartford into the surrounding suburbs coupled with state law that gave each of those lily-white suburbs its own segregated school district. Eventually these schools would be segregated by both race and class. Connecticut banks, as you are no doubt aware still have pathetic track records in this regard.

Racial desegregation was never pitched, even by the lawyers who argued Brown vs. Board of Education, as primarily a method for increasing test scores. It is more fundamental. Separate but equal is inherently unequal. If children are raised separately they will figure out pretty quickly where they belong in America's pecking order. It is a moral vision of America to believe we should learn to share in its bounty and opportunity. Unfortunately it is one that has been under constant attack in education and elsewhere. The Courts have facilitated the dismantling of desegregation even in places where police with guns were used to keep African-Americans out.

Even if all you care about is test scores, it should not be surprising that Connecticut has some of the most segregated schools in America and also the worst achievement gap. It is hard to argue that desegregation would not help test scores when Connecticut's schools became inscreasingly segregated while the achievement gap grew. I do not know that small scale integration efforts at the scale you two are debating will have much impact until they grow dramatically.

Support great schools, attack failing administrators, but do not dismiss out of hand integration as some form of irrelevant "social benefit." Too many good people of all races gave their lives for the dream of integration. It behooves all of us not to confuse this with some nice but unimportant thing to get to later.

Posted by: great points | February 20, 2007 8:02 PM

Jeff makes some very important and valid points, and I appreciate Rob position.

I wish to ask one question, didn't I recently read that New haven is running classes that segregate and are for black males only? Don't the rulings cited here addres that?

Posted by: Jeff Klaus | February 22, 2007 12:45 AM

CT. Lawyer,

A diverse integrated community has enormous social benefits for everyone, not just students. Forgive me if I sounded dismissive of the concept. However, as it relates strictly to educational achievement, which in my mind is the great equalizer, there is scant evidence that shows that desegregation by itself raises academic performance of minority student populations. Nonetheless I will be happy to
read Susan Eaton's book (I was sorry to have missed her talk this evening).

On going "overboard", until we can guarantee that a significant majority of kids in New Haven will graduate from 12th grade, equipped with 12th grade skills, I think more folks need to go "overboard". Because we now have lots of high-poverty high-success schools that are effectively educating the poorest among us, we as a community have run out of good excuses as to why we don't urgently create more capacity to serve kids. It's pretty outrageous.

With respect to the banks, while the legacy of instutionalized discrimination in the form of red-lining is still with us, I disagree with your view that the banks in CT. still have pathetic track records. The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 saw to it that banks were graded on how they invested in low and moderate income areas. The larger banks in particular responded very well to the "encouragement" that the law provided because they had to demonstrate a good or "outstanding" track record of lending and investing in order to be approved for their pending mergers. It was a wonderful and very effective piece of legislation.

As to why CT. is one of the most segregated states in the country, the reason might be due to our stubborn notion of local rule. Lots of our 169 cities and towns over the years were allowed to erect impenetrable and discriminatory zoning walls keeping out affordable housing. However these laws weren't written and enacted by banks or real estate agents...they were the creation of a whole bunch of CT. lawyers.