On big issues, state leaders are in no place to complain
It’s easier to imagine the most serious issues we face as a state are not just hard, but impossible. Doing so gives people in power an excuse to do nothing.
For example, school segregation. We’ve known for decades that schools in Connecticut are divided by race, with some districts overwhelmingly populated with white students and others predominantly Black and Hispanic. There are reasons for this, mostly about housing and affordability, but it hasn’t been a mysterious phenomenon. The only question is what we as a state are prepared to do about it.
Two recent items in the news reiterate what we’ve long known — we aren’t prepared to do a whole lot.
The first was a final settlement in the school desegregation case known as Sheff v. O’Neill. Much was made upon the announcement of the status of the named parties in the case — Milo Sheff, a fourthgrader at the time the suit was filed, is today 43 years old, while William O’Neill, the governor at the time, has been out of office for 30 years and dead since 2007. No one is going to accuse the state of acting rashly here.
In the years since the litigation was filed, an entirely different suit against a different governor — CCJEF vs. Rell — went through a years-long process aimed at equality in Connecticut schools.
The net effect, however, has been little in the way of real change.
The Sheff case has made and will make a difference for some students, primarily in the Hartford area through the expansion of magnet schools and statewide through the Open Choice program. CCJEF, on the other hand, saw the state Supreme Court in 2018 in effect say Connecticut was meeting its requirement to provide an adequate education, and anything beyond the basics in terms of equity was up to the state Legislature.
The aforementioned Open Choice program was the second desegregation policy in the news recently, as a divided Board of Education in Darien voted not to take part in the program. It would have entailed 16 kindergartners from neighboring Norwalk splitting up into four town schools, but that was too much to ask of one of the richest towns in the state.
It’s heartening, in a way, that so many in Darien realize what a disaster this is for the town’s image. The public reasons for denying participation — worries about money and space in a town with shrinking enrollment — don’t pass the laugh test, and so we’re left to guess there’s something else at play.
Three state senators whose districts encompass the region expressed dismay over the school board’s decision, with one, Democratic Majority Leader Bob Duff, sharing a number of messages sent to his office and others ranting about “troubled minority students,” “welfare recipients” and the like. We’re talking, again, about kindergartners.
But though this decision was local to Darien, it’s those state officials who have the power to make meaningful change. Open Choice is fine on its own, but it doesn’t make the kind of wholesale policy redirection Connecticut needs. Only state government can do that. And few would be better positioned to lead those changes than the Senate majority leader.
The state Legislature has vast powers to make major changes anytime it wants. Boundary lines could be redrawn today, and there’s no good reason why Norwalk and Darien shouldn’t be one district. Throw in New Canaan and Wilton and you’ve got yourself a plan.
The holdup, as always, is politics. You’re never going to reach the people ranting about “welfare recipients,” but there are enough others who put the issue more politely, talking about things like “local control” but who nonetheless don’t want anything to do with letting city kids into their children’s schools. Every politician lives in fear of a backlash, and so big change becomes that much harder.
It’s not just legislators. Gov. Ned Lamont, too, has shown signs he recognizes the issue. It’s ancient history now, but the biggest failure early in his term besides tolls was a school regionalization plan that would have required back-office mergers, not touching the classroom, that nonetheless provoked a huge uproar — from places like Wilton — and led to him abandoning the entire thing.
Research has shown that students in classrooms with racial and socioeconomic diversity enjoy a range of benefits, both cognitively and socially. They often have higher test scores, and they’re better prepared for life after school is over. It benefits students on both sides of the divide. Integration doesn’t solve every problem, but the effects have been meaningful in districts across the country.
Connecticut could have this. It could happen as soon as the next academic year. But nothing about school integration is on the legislative agenda.
Instead, we’ll likely spend the next few months arguing about small-bore issues that don’t on their own amount to a whole lot. Everyone wants to get reelected, after all. The question to ask of state leaders who know this is a problem and don’t want to tackle it is simple: Why did you even run for office?