Goldson Targets Magnet ​“Hustle”

Darnell Goldson went to a racially segregated school, then a racially integrated school. He’s not sure that either was the deciding factor in whether he received a good education.

Decades later, Goldson (pictured) is the president of New Haven’s Board of Education. In that role, he is hearing from African-American parents concerned about whether Connecticut’s main effort at desegregating public education, attracting suburban students through regional magnet schools, has put local families at a disadvantage without solving the problem.

Now Goldson is helping lead a charge to press — and maybe even sue — the state to allow New Haven to fill more of its magnet school slots with city rather than suburban children. He is looking as well at whether to charge suburban districts tuition for the students they send to New Haven magnets.

These are complex issues; read about them in more depth here, here, here, here, and here.

They touch on broader questions about how best to achieve equity in American public education. Amid a renewed debate, Goldson took on those broader questions during an interview on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program.

Following is an edited transcript of the discussion:

WNHH: I’m hearing reassessment from some African-Americans in town who say, ​“We didn’t benefit from this magnet school thing.” Are we getting ripped off?

Goldson: I’ve been on this board for three and a half years. From almost the first meeting I attended I’ve been complaining about the magnet school program, because that was the biggest complaint we were getting from people in the community. We have families who have four kids who are going to four different schools.

That’s because we have intra-district choice as well [within the city school system]. I remember the DeStefano-Looney mayoral race in 2001, that was a big issue. Martin Looney said: ​“We need good neighborhood schools.” And John DeStefano, ​“What I actually hear from people” — and he did; parents said: ​“We like to send our kids wherever we want in the district, where I think they’re going to get the best education.”

It created this crazy quilt of busing challenges. And this isn’t the busing that Joe Biden was against, that integrated schools. This is kids who live in Fair Haven Heights spending two hours a day on the bus to go to school in West Rock. It’s not about racial integration. Another kid in the family goes somewhere else. We’re spending all this money. And the kids are spending hours on the bus. What’s it getting us?

Our schools used to be the center of our neighborhoods. That’s how kids get to know each other. That’s how families get to know each other.
We don’t do that anymore.

I have a bus stop at the corner of my house, at Strong and West Hills. It’s like four or five buses come by there every day and take kids all over the city.
They don’t know any of their neighbors. They don’t spend time with each other in school. Never have.

Those people saying they wanted to see this thought they were going to have a choice. They don’t with this magnet program.

When I first got on the board they changed the lottery to a ​“choice” program. It’s not a choice. It’s a lottery. It’s a crap shoot. You don’t know what you’re going to get, except the guys that have connections.

Isn’t the fundamental problem that no matter what you think about magnets and charters and inter-district choice, people feel that there aren’t enough good schools? Parents are desperate.

That’s where I was going.

They feel they’ve got to enter a lottery, [put] their kids hours a day on a bus, not for integration, not for anything except they don’t feel the school two blocks away from their house is good enough.

That’s correct. And that’s the fundamental problem. We have to figure out how to make all of our schools great.

When magnet schools started out — like charter schools — the idea was small. Experimental ideas. Try something new so that all schools can incorporate those ideas. We had West Hills School. That’s how that started, right? There weren’t many seats. Although it was an elite school — you had a quorum of the Board of Aldermen when it was parents’ night …

But it has become the way we funded the renovation of [many of] our schools. We got the money with this bargain that we were going to then reserve the seats for other kids. Can you turn back the clock and make all neighborhood schools so you don’t have to rely on magnets and charters?

I don’t think we have a choice. We have to do it. We just have to figure out how to do it and the political will to do it. Because it’s not going to be an easy task. We’re going to get pushback from suburbs. We’re going to get pushback from the state.

And from your own parents who say, ​“I want to send my kids to Jepson. I really want to send my kids to Betsy Ross; they have a great arts program.” Are you going to say no to those parents?

I think we have to do what’s best for the entire system. I think we have a lot more families that would rather have their four kids go to the same school down the street. And they tell us that. Let’s give them that option.

Some people say, ​“We rebuilt our schools for $1.7 billion. The state paid between 80 and 95 percent of the cost of building those schools, in some cases because we made them a magnet. In return, we had to reserve spots for suburban kids.” Are we breaking our word and going back on a deal?

This was the biggest hustle that was ever pulled on any school system in the country. What they did was convince us to help desegregate their schools. Then they gave us money that was really ours in the first place and told us, ​“You have strings attached to this money.”

The fact is, 56 percent of our property in this city is nontaxable. They don’t reimburse us [fully] for that. And it’s nontaxable because of state laws, because of the constitution, not anything that we have decided. Yet they don’t reimburse us totally.

I’m hearing the basis for a lawsuit here.

We are talking about it.

To get out of our commitment?

We’re already partially there. We convinced them not to fine us for the next two years for not reaching those goals. We’re going to look to expand it.

The other part I think is whack: They assume that suburban means ​“white” and city means ​“black and Latino.” The Hyde School [Creed] had to turn away black kids from suburbs because they had to meet those goals. A school in Hamden [Shepherd Glen] is the most integrated school in the western hemisphere — because it was a half of a percent less white than it was supposed to be, it was considered segregated and had to close.

It’s getting worse every day. It’s not getting any better. It’s not like suburban kids are knocking on our doors to come to our schools. We’re leaving seats open — neighborhood seats open — just so we can make that percentage [of white suburban students]. It’s just not there.

Some people say magnet schools were funded to create integration. Why attack integration? Both the white and nonwhite students in integrate students do learn more and have a lifetime of success, according to studies. What do you say about that, that integration does help everybody, and it’s under attack in this country?

I went to a very integrated junior high school, Sheridan. I did very well there. I went to a non-integrated school, Hillhouse, which I think was 85, 90 percent black. I did very well there.

You’re saying it’s not about integration or non-integration — it’s about how good the school is?

It’s more about poverty.

We have some of the poorest neighborhoods, and problems associated with poverty come into the classrooms …

We have to give supports to the children that have those issues. The way to give them support is by having more money. It’s not a coincident that Darien funds their kids and Weston funds their kids at $22,000, and they have better outcomes than we do, OK? We do $15,000.

I remember a study in West Rock. It was another generation ago. It said that half the students went home to a home where at least one parent was abusing drugs or alcohol.

I did. I understand that.

Yet you still got this good education.

I went to Ulysses S. Grant. I went to a program up at UConn; I had a tutor year-round. I had a good support system to get me through that.

Would you like there to be no magnets?

No, no, no. I would just like to see there be a different relationship between magnets and the city.

I thought you said the answer was all neighborhood schools being good.

I would love to see there be a return to neighborhood schools. But magnets are not bad. I just think there need to be changes in the system.

Listener Kam Cooper writes: ​“Our new schools look great. The look of the schools don’t improve performance. It’s passionate educators that have the most impact.” Is it really either/or? Isn’t it nicer to be in a school where there aren’t rats running around?

Before we had equal rights for African-Americans, they went to schools that had rats running around. They produced a lot of great people.

You’re not saying, ​‘Bring back the rats”?

I’m absolutely not saying bring back the rats. I’m saying: Schools don’t make the education in the schools. It’s the educators and the resources we are able to provide the kids. The physical structure isn’t the most affective or effective cause of children getting an education.

Following is the full interview with Darnell Goldson on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program, on which he also discussed the fate of Superintendent Carol Birks, among other public-school topics.

Previous stories on New Haven’s inter-district magnet schools:

• Suburbs Profit Off New Haven’s Magnets
• Magnet School Tuition Back On The Table
• Magnet Lottery Rigged For Suburbanites
• Suburban ​“Pushback” Feared On Magnets