Melinda Tuhus Photo
Ex-teach Florence Tomasini.
As Mayor John DeStefano made yet another pitch for his New Haven Promise program, one former teacher asked: How do we help students who aren’t college material?
The exchange Tuesday night occurred at the Quinnipiac East Management Team meeting at Ross-Woodward School. It was at least his fourth visit to a management team to lay out the challenges he sees in the upcoming budget in addressing an estimate $57 million gap and to plug school reform. (Click here for a story about his visit to East Rock.)
As part of his spiel, DeStefano handed out a four-pager that started with a City Statement of Public Interest. The first item was “Academic Success of Public School Children,” which included support for the New Haven Promise program to help high school graduates pay for college. Under Promise, New Haven is guaranteeing public school students who do well up to a full in-state college tuition, a program paid for by Yale and the Community Foundation for New Haven. It’s one hallmark of DeStefano’s school reform drive; read about it here and here.
DeStefano.
The mayor spoke for about 40 minutes, then invited questions “on anything.” He ended up addressing questions about not just the people fully covered by “Promise,” but those who might not fit in.
The first question came from Florence Tomasini, who said she taught in public schools (not New Haven’s) for 37 years.
Not all students can make it in college, she said. She asked if there will be financial help for students to pursue well-paying but non-academic jobs like plumbers and electricians.
DeStefano responded that the jobs of today and tomorrow will require a higher level of schooling than in the past — even for people in the trades. He said the former Sargent lock company on Sargent Drive (now Assa Abloy) “doesn’t make locks anymore. They make high-tech security equipment,” for which even factory workers need education and training. That said, he agreed that there should be some accommodation for non-college bound students. But he emphasized the importance of instilling the aspiration for higher education in all New Haven school students.
A number of speakers, including DeStefano, mentioned that they are second-generation Americans whose families came from Italy. Lee Fermo (pictured) picked up on theme to say that the aspiration to college used to come from the family.
In response, DeStefano spoke of how today’s immigrants face new barriers to college that government can help remove. He told a story of a family he’d met at Mayor’s Night In just before coming to the management team meeting Tuesday.
The family consisted of a mother, a father, a 17-year-old senior at a city high school, and two much younger siblings.
“He [the son] brought his report cards to show me. Over his high school career he’d had 25 As and a few Bs. ‘I want to go to college,’ he said.
“His mother didn’t speak English, and he was translating, but she started crying and he couldn’t translate because then he started crying. I asked him where he was from. He said, ‘I’m American.’ He didn’t even know until then that he was undocumented.”
Minors brought illegally to the U.S. are not eligible for in-state tuition at most schools, including in Connecticut, unless and until some version of the DREAM Act passes at the state or federal level which would make such minors eligible for in-state tuition and put them on the road to citizenship after attending college or joining the military. From the city’s perspective, such students would be eligible for New Haven Promise help, but they would have to pay out-of-state tuition unless the law changes; and the Promise covers only the much lower cost of in-state tuition. Local leaders like DeStefano and state legislators Gary Holder-Winfield and Martin Looney have called for changing the state law; read about that here.
“I’m going to find a way to get that kid into college,” DeStefano vowed, “so he can come back here and pay taxes, because I know he will.” In other words, with some support the young man could be a contributing member of society.
"I'm going to find a way to get that kid into college," DeStefano vowed, "so he can come back here and pay taxes, because I know he will."
That is absolutely the right attitude, and I am proud that New Haven & the Mayor are at the forefront of this issue nation-wide.