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Money Should Follow City Kids To Suburbs
By Rick Green
Courant Staff Writer
November 9, 2007
We've got over 100,000 seats in public school
classrooms in suburbs around Hartford and there's room for just
1,000 city kids.
One percent.
That's so pathetic it's embarrassing to even
say.
But as the Sheff school desegregation case is
again in Superior Court this week, it's a failure we have to confront.
Sure, Hartford schools must improve. Perhaps
we need more regional magnet programs. But can't we do better than
the 1,070 children currently in the 40-year-old Project Choice voluntary
school busing program?
Our affluent and middle class towns say they
don't have space for more than this. Fine, but there are consequences
here - be prepared for the day when we can't find enough skilled
workers or bunks in our prisons.
There are hundreds of children on the waiting
list for this proven program that disperses poverty and opens opportunity.
Suburban superintendents will tell you these children invariably
succeed and end up in college. Isn't this what the Sheff case -
and public education - is about?
As it turns out, there's a reason for this limited
success: Most of the money doesn't follow the kid to the suburbs.
"The grant that follows the child is woefully
insufficient," said Bruce Douglas, director of the Capitol Region
Education Council, which runs Project Choice.
So, for example, the state of Connecticut -
which is under a court order to desegregate metropolitan Hartford
schools - gives Avon about $2,500 for each of the 41 children it
takes. The district, however, spends about $11,000 per child.
Meanwhile, Hartford keeps most of the money
it would have spent educating this child. Much of that money comes
from state taxpayers.
This is no education crisis, it's a taxpayer
rip-off.
"There isn't enough of an incentive," said
Avon Superintendent of Schools Richard Kisiel, in comments repeated
to me by other superintendents.
There are a million bureaucratic reasons why
the legislature set the $2,500 amount. The idea that taxpayers'
money should follow the student is a radical notion in public education,
where failure is almost never penalized.
Meanwhile, because "my parents are screaming
about class size," Kisiel said, Project Choice becomes "an issue
I try to keep it as low-profile as I can."
The Sheff plaintiffs say the state should have
the authority to order districts to take more kids. State Education
Commissioner Mark McQuillan told me he doesn't want to strong-arm
districts to take more Hartford kids, but he has commissioned a
study to look at how much space they really have in their classrooms.
"Some of this is about will," McQuillan told
me. But it's also about hiring teachers and expanding classrooms
for children who don't live in their town - not to mention overcoming
worry that city kids will lower test scores. Just look at the numbers:
Glastonbury accepts 42 kids, while Wethersfield has a woeful 13.
Two decades ago, West Hartford had 267 students
coming from Hartford; now it has 77. School Board Chairman Jack
Darcey told me his district is now 34 percent minority and schools
have grown more overcrowded.
"We can probably do a little more," Darcey
said. "You send the money with the kid, you will see a different
response."
One percent. We need a judge, a governor or
an education commissioner with the backbone to tackle this.
Rick Green's column appears on Tuesdays and
Fridays. He can be reached at rgreen@courant.com.
Copyright Hartford Courant
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