The landmark
settlement in a school desegregation case against Connecticut survived
challenges to its cost and its educational merit as it won final
approval
in the state
legislature
Tuesday.
The House of
Representatives voted 87-60 to approve the out-of-court settlement in
the
Sheff vs. O'Neill case, an agreement that includes plans for eight new
integrated
magnet schools
in Hartford over the next four years. Some legislators objected
to
the estimated $135 million price for the plan, which also calls for
expansion
of a
suburban school
choice program for Hartford children, but the House could not muster
enough
votes to block the agreement.
"It was a good
day," said Philip Tegeler, one of the lawyers for plaintiffs in the
14-year-old
case, which sought to reduce racial segregation in Hartford's mostly
black
and
Hispanic public
schools. Attorney General Richard Blumenthal called the vote "a
historic
victory for Connecticut's children," saying it would help the state
make
"significant, solid steps toward diversity and perhaps become a
national
model."
The Senate could
still debate the agreement today, but a vote would be no more than
symbolic.
Under state law, the settlement automatically takes effect unless both
houses of the
legislature reject it by a three-fifths margin no later than today, the
final deadline for a vote. In the House, the most vehement
objections
came from
lawmakers representing
towns outside of Hartford. Their opposition to spending millions on
renovating
or building new schools in the capital city came against the backdrop
of a deepening
state budget crisis.
The legislature
is trying to close a $650 million budget gap this year and a projected
$1.5 billion gap next year - a crisis that threatens every area of
state
supported
programs, including
public schools. An analysis done for the legislature estimates the
settlement
would cost $45 million in operating funds and $90 million for
construction
over four years.
"The settlement does little but renovate buildings at the expense of
every
other town in the state," said state Rep. Toni Boucher, R-Wilton.
The agreement calls for at least 30 percent of Hartford's schoolchildren to be integrated into magnet schools or suburban schools by 2007, up from about 10 percent now. Tuesday's vote fell largely along partisan lines, with most Democrats supporting the settlement and most Republicans opposing it. "We will leave behind 70 percent of the children," said state Rep. Robert W. Heagney, R-Simsbury. "This isn't a solution. It's simply a patch."
State Rep. Lawrence
F. Cafero Jr., R-Norwalk, said the money would be better spent trying
to
close an academic achievement gap that finds black and Hispanic students
trailing whites
in towns such as Norwalk. "Not one nickel of that money is going
to help kids read better or write better or compute better," Cafero
said.
He added that the Sheff case could be the first of many coming from
other
communities where schools are heavily populated by black and Hispanic
schoolchildren.
"What's to stop ... parents in towns like Bridgeport or New Haven from
bringing the same kind of lawsuit, hoping to achieve the same kind of
result?"
he said.
The Sheff plaintiffs
had gone back to court a year ago, accusing the state of dragging its
feet
in complying with a 1996 state Supreme Court ruling ordering the state
to
desegregate
Hartford's schools. Superior Court Judge Julia L. Aurigemma had been
scheduled
to make a ruling until the two sides reached a settlement last month.
"I think it's
a good first step," state Rep. Kenneth P. Green, D-Hartford, said after
Tuesday's vote. He said the settlement marks the first time that a plan
includes specific provisions for measuring progress toward racial
integration.
As for the cost, Green said, "Education is an expensive endeavor. ...
If
we don't educate our children, what is the cost in prisons? What is the
cost in mental health services? In not having a workforce?"
After 14 years of court battles, political maneuvering and heated public debate, the two sides in Connecticut's historic Sheff vs. O'Neill school desegregation case signed a four-year truce Wednesday. Now comes the hard part.
The agreement between the plaintiffs and the state already is being hailed as a national model for voluntary school integration, but its success or failure will hinge largely on whether Hartford can attract hundreds more white suburban children into the city to attend proposed new magnet schools. A key provision of the agreement is the creation of eight new magnet schools in or near Hartford over the next four years - something both sides see as essential to changing a stubborn, longstanding pattern of racial segregation in schools in Connecticut's capital city.
Hartford
public schools, where more
than 90 percent of students are black or Hispanic, remain as segregated
today as they were when the Sheff lawsuit was filed in 1989.
Under the proposed settlement, the
state for the first time would establish specific goals for increasing
the number of Hartford children attending integrated magnet schools
or enrolling in suburban schools
under a voluntary transfer program.
The
inclusion of specific goals and
timetables was a key objective for plaintiffs, but the plan - which
depends
upon parents making voluntary choices - falls short of the
original vision of the plaintiffs,
which included the possible redrawing of boundary lines between city
and
suburban school districts. Even if the goals are met, 70 percent
of the city's children would remain in mostly segregated schools.
"Is it the vision we started with 14 years ago? No. Is it a giant step forward? Yes," said Elizabeth Horton Sheff, the mother of lead plaintiff Milo Sheff. "It's a good thing. This isn't the end of it. We'll come back and we'll see where we are in four years."
About
10 percent of Hartford's schoolchildren
currently attend integrated magnet schools or enroll in suburban
schools
under a voluntary choice program, but the new
agreement calls for raising that
figure to 30 percent - or about 7,000 students - by 2007, a challenging
target.
"Implementing
this [settlement] ...
is probably harder than agreeing to it," state Education Commissioner
Theodore
S. Sergi said moments before he and other officials
signed the agreement in a room packed
with TV cameras, reporters and plaintiffs. The plan calls for the
state to spend an additional $45 million over the next four years to
help
operate the new magnet schools, and to expand a program, called Open
Choice,
allowing Hartford parents to enroll their children in predominantly
white
suburban schools.
The
state now spends about $65 million
a year on magnet schools and other programs to promote racial
integration.
If it wins the approval of the state legislature, the
settlement would resolve at least
for four years a case that led to a state Supreme Court ruling in 1996
saying that racial isolation in Hartford schools violated the rights of
schoolchildren to an adequate education.
Following
that ruling, the state spent
hundreds of millions of dollars on magnet schools and other programs to
promote integration, but the Sheff plaintiffs returned to
court last spring, saying those programs
were making only minimal progress. The issue has been before
Superior
Court Judge Julia L. Aurigemma, who also will have to approve the
settlement.
Wednesday's agreement also includes state funding for additional after-school and summer exchange programs for city and suburban schoolchildren.
Gov.
John G. Rowland, who announced
the agreement Wednesday, predicted the legislature would approve it. "I
think there will be almost unanimous support for it," he
said. The plan could involve
the use of existing buildings, renovation of some classrooms or the
construction
of new school buildings - something Rowland estimated could
cost as much as $200 million in state
bond funds over several years. He called it a good decision,
saying
the state did not want to leave the matter to the courts.
In addition to doubling the number of city children voluntarily enrolling in suburban schools, the settlement calls for roughly tripling the number in integrated magnet schools by 2007. "We have a lot of work to do," Sergi, the education commissioner, said. "We have a very good chance of meeting that target, but it will be difficult."
In Hartford, where public schools have struggled to overcome a reputation as being among the worst in the state, skeptics believe magnet schools will be a difficult sell to suburban parents. Nevertheless, educators point to the popularity of magnet schools such as the Breakthrough Magnet School and Montessori School in Hartford and the Metropolitan Learning Center in Bloomfield.
At the University of Hartford Magnet School, more than 1,000 Hartford children and about 900 suburban children are on waiting lists, said Bruce Douglas, executive director of the Capitol Region Education Council, which runs that school and eight other magnet programs in greater Hartford. "There is definitely a great demand" for magnet programs, he said. State officials also cite the success of magnet programs in New Haven, a mostly black and Hispanic school system that draws hundreds of suburban students to city schools.
"There is every reason to believe Hartford can replicate our success," said Edward Linehan, supervisor of New Haven's magnet programs. Parents have choices to enroll in more than 20 of New Haven's 48 public schools. Among those are eight magnet schools and one regional vocational agriculture school drawing about 1,100 students from the suburbs. To attract parents, "there has to be no question about the quality of instruction in reading, writing, arithmetic," Linehan said. "If it's a high school, you have to have strong electives."
The agreement comes as schools in many states are becoming increasingly segregated. A Harvard University study released this week says that a growing number of black and Latino students nationwide are attending schools consisting mainly of minority groups while white students are increasingly likely to attend schools that have few minorities.
Gary
Orfield, a Harvard professor
who led the study, said the Sheff agreement is a compromise that
"really
expands opportunity for some of the kids in Hartford, but leaves
most of them behind."
"It's not the final solution," he said. "The issue will come back."
As officials signed the agreement Wednesday, state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said, "At a time when many are doing less to reduce racial isolation, we will do more."
State Rep. William Dyson, D-New Haven, called the agreement "a noble undertaking" but said many questions remain. The agreement may resolve the Hartford case but does not directly address problems of racial isolation and poverty elsewhere, he said.
"How do you deal with it in the context of all the other towns that have the same problems?" he said. "What do you say to Bridgeport? What about Waterbury?"
In Hartford, however, the families who filed the case in 1989 were clearly pleased even though the matter took more than a decade to reach Wednesday's resolution. One of the plaintiffs, Neiima Best, was 11 years old when the case was filed. She is 25 now, a college graduate and the mother of three children. "I knew when I got involved, she probably would not benefit personally," said Denise Best, her mother. Now Denise Best has a granddaughter who is on waiting lists at two different magnet schools in Hartford but has not been selected so far.
"Hopefully,
this plan will benefit
her," she said.
In 2001-02, 133 out of 166 school districts showed increases in the percent of minority students over the 1996-97 school year, according to the strategic school profiles each district submitted to the state. Another 30 districts showed declines in their minority population. Three stayed the same.
But in city school systems, where high concentrations of minorities prompted the filing of the landmark Sheff vs. O'Neill desegregation lawsuit 13 years ago, the situation has not improved. In both Bridgeport and New Haven schools, the minority percentages are higherin 2001-02 than they were five years earlier. Both have populations of racial minorities bordering 90 percent. In Hartford, the target of the Sheff case, the population of racial minorities has declined marginally, from 95.2 to 94.2 percent.
State education officials are in the process of compiling a report on efforts to reduce racial, ethnic and economic segregation. It is due in January. Information already provided by districts on strategic profiles, however, suggest an abundance of voluntary interdistrict programs and schools, diversity training and student swapping is going on both in the cities and the suburbs. But some say the increasing suburban diversity has as much if not more to do with immigration and pursuit of the American dream than efforts taken by the school systems.
"It's a little of both," said Thomas Murphy, a state Department of Education spokesman. "We're seeing more participation in magnet schools as well as housing patterns that reflect some migration of middle class minority families out to the suburbs." Others caution that a diverse district doesn't ensure diverse schools.
"Students don't attend districts, they attend schools. It's not uncommon to see a rapid increase in suburban segregation if districts aren't careful," said Gary Orfield, a Harvard University professor and desegregation expert who has testified on behalf of the Sheff plaintiffs. According to Orfield, the whole population of Connecticut, and much of the nation, is being driven by immigration and a growing diversity.
The net result is a swelling minority population in formerly all-white suburbs, while the cities remain segregated because middle-class black and Hispanics leaving the cities are being replaced by poor immigrants or no one at all.
Statewide, school diversity has increased to about 30 percent. Numbers on the strategic profiles show towns adjacent to big cities are seeing the biggest increases in minority students. Stratford's minority student population grew from 25.5 to a reported 32.4 percent in five years. Supt. of Schools Ray O'Connell thinks it's even higher than that this year.
He also challenged Orfield's contention that suburban minorities might be kept segregated.
On the contrary, Stratford has several magnet programs that O'Connell said have helped increase diversity at all schools. Also, the graduates of some elementary schools have been redirected to make sure there is diversity at the middle and high school level in the north end of town. Where Bunnell High School used to have a 4 percent minority population, more than a quarter of the student body are now minorities.
"Any school that will serve as a microcosm of the broader society is preparing kids for the real world," said O'Connell. It was a lack of diversity coupled with appalling conditions in Hartford Public Schools that led the state Supreme Court in 1996 to rule that the racial segregation that existed between urban and suburban districts was unconstitutional.
The
court ruled segregation was denying
urban and suburban students the kind of education to which they were
entitled.
The court ordered the imbalance corrected but suggested neither a
timetable
nor blueprint for correcting the situation. The state has
wrestled
with the issue ever since, but not as earnestly as the Sheff plaintiffs
would
like. Twice plaintiffs have gone
back to court to ask the state be pressured to move faster. This time,
the two sides have also been meeting privately to negotiate a
settlement
without benefit of the judge.
This
week, Commissioner of Education
Theodore S. Sergi said the two sides are still close and still meeting.
"I'm still optimistic and hopeful. Other than that, I can't say
anything
more," he said. Every year, the state mandates that districts
report
what they are doing to promote diversity. It requires them to increase
their efforts annually.
Some districts are increasing their
diversity by accepting city students through the Project Choice open
enrollment
program. Four of Easton's 55 minority students, for instance, are from
Bridgeport.
Many districts list their contribution of students to state-funded charter schools as promoting diversity. However, statistics show some charter schools are as segregated as their host community. Racial minorities make up 96.6 percent of Bridge Academy in Bridgeport. At Amistad Academy in New Haven, 96.4 percent of the students are racial minorities. Ansonia, which has seen a steady increase in its minority population, said its biggest contribution to diversity thus far has been to open new schools.
"Before this, many students attended schools that lacked libraries, gyms, cafeteria, and technology and were not racially balanced," Ansonia officials point out. Now they are. Other districts admit diversification remains a challenge.
"There are relatively few minority children who attend the Seymour Public Schools, which prevents intradistrict activities," officials there wrote. The district reports more inter-district activities than ever, but says increases in enrollment have hindered efforts to participate in Project Choice. Of 2,874, students, 262, or 9.1 percent of Seymour students were racial minorities in 2001-02. A third of those were Asian.
Asians also account for a large percentage of minority students in Darien, Easton, Orange, and Trumbull. By the state's definition, minority students include black, Hispanic, Asian American and American Indian students. Orfield, the Harvard professor, said Asians should be excluded from minority counts.
"Asians are not segregated. They're the most integrated population in the country. Putting Asians in there is really very misleading, I think," Orfield said. Census figures, however, suggest Asians are one of the fastest growing minorities in the state.
The two sides in Connecticut's landmark school desegregation lawsuit could be closing in on a settlement as negotiations reach a critical stage, officials said today.
Parties
in the Sheff vs. O'Neill case
will meet again next week to try to reach a deal that could lead to a
significant
expansion of magnet schools and urban-suburban
student transfer programs in the
Hartford region.
“We're at a make-or-break point,” Mark Stapleton, the state Department of Education's chief legal officer, said as the state Board of Education held a brief closed meeting Wednesday morning to get an update on negotiations. “We're getting close to a decision on whether a deal is feasible.”
The settlement talks, which began earlier this year, are the first serious out-of-court discussions aimed at resolving the dispute since the case was filed 13 years ago.
Six
years ago, the state Supreme Court
ruled in favor of the Sheff plaintiffs and ordered the state to reduce
racial imbalance in Hartford's mostly black and Hispanic public
schools.
However, the plaintiffs returned to court two years ago and again
earlier
this year to contend that the state legislature has not done enough to
comply with that
ruling.
The state has spent millions of dollars in recent years building new racially integrated magnet schools in the Hartford region and throughout Connecticut, but black and Hispanic children continue to make up the overwhelming majority of students in Hartford and other major cities.
Superior Court Judge Julia L. Aurigemma was expected to rule on the case as early as this fall, but the two sides are expected to ask her for another extension of a deadline to file legal briefs while settlement talks continue. Although neither side will discuss details of the talks publicly, the negotiations are centered around a proposal by plaintiffs to create new integrated magnet schools in Hartford and open additional spots in suburban schools for city children over the next four years.
Aside from the potential cost of building new schools, the two sides are believed to be discussing matters such as deadlines, enrollment goals and transportation arrangements.
“We went into this with a 50-50 shot” of reaching an agreement, state Education Commissioner Theodore S. Sergi said after briefing the state Board of Education on the talks. “I still think there is [an even chance], and we're close.”
While officials remain hopeful, there is no guarantee that the matter will not wind up back in Aurigemma's courtroom.
“If something is going to happen, it's going to happen soon,” said Dennis D. Parker of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, a lawyer for the Sheff plaintiffs. “I'd like to think we can come up with something. We've exchanged a couple of proposals. I'm not going to say there isn't some distance between us because there is.”
The Sheff case surfaced two weeks ago as an issue in the governor’s race when gubernatorial challenger Bill Curry said the dispute could be resolved easily over lunch. Gov. John G. Rowland shot back that Curry’s remark “shows the lack of depth and understanding of the significant problems we're facing in . . .urban education.”
The CCLU has taken the lead in pulling together like-minded groups. The next planning date for Sheff v. O'Neill had been set for March 20th, at 6:00 p.m. at the CCLU Offices, 32 Oak Street. It is reported on the LWVCT WEBsite that in all likelihood there will be a town hall meeting on Sheff v. O'Neill on April 3rd or 4th and a candlelight vigil on April 15th at the State Capitol the day before Sheff v. O'Neill goes back to court.
The
LWVCT WEBsite advises for "...more
info you can call Teresa Younger at 247-9823, ext. 219 (Executive
Director,
CCLU)."
Sides
Seek
Sheff Pact; Serious Talks In School Desegregation Case
July 13, 2002 - By RACHEL GOTTLIEB,
Courant Staff Writer
For the first time in the 13-year history of the Sheff vs. O'Neill school desegregation case, lawyers for both sides are holding serious negotiations aimed at settling the landmark case.
The
state and the plaintiffs announced
Friday that they are seeking an extension of the deadline to file legal
briefs until after Labor Day to give them time to negotiate for a
settlement. They said they expect
Superior Court Judge Julia L. Aurigemma to grant the extension.
While
there is no guarantee the state and the plaintiffs will be able to
agree
on a way to end the case and the segregation that the state Supreme
Court
in 1996 ruled is unconstitutional, the announcement said they will take
July and August to try to craft a resolution. This twist in the case,
now
in its third round of hearings, was startling because both sides have
been
far apart for more than a decade.
Aurigemma, reached at her home Friday, said she had not yet received a motion requesting an extension. "They said it might be coming."
Aurigemma,
who ruled three years ago
that the state was proceeding as it should and granted more time for it
to comply with the state Supreme Court's desegregation
order, had asked both sides for suggestions
on how she should rule. She indicated in court that she may not simply
go with one side or the other, saying "It may well be
the court doesn't believe the [Sheff]
plan is the way to go or adopting the state's plan of leaving things
the
way they are is the way to go."
The
question itself, she said, could
be seen as gentle prodding for the two sides to work out a
compromise.
"Have I encouraged them?" she said, repeating a question put to her. "I
probably did." Rather, she later clarified, "I didn't encourage
them
to settle. I just asked for suggestions." Then she laid out what
both sides were facing. "If I
decided I wanted to take a middle
ground, I might be out on my own and that wouldn't be a good idea. If
the
plaintiffs and the state can find a way to live with a resolution, that
would be excellent," Aurigemma said. "It would be a good thing for
everyone."
There were talks about a settlement before the lawsuit was filed in 1989, said John C. Brittain, who was a principal lawyer for the plaintiffs in the first round of the case but who has shifted to being more of an informed observer since moving to Texas to teach law. The difference now, Brittain said, is both sides have shown their stamina and fully aired their legal theories, and judges have ruled on those theories. "The parties have once again seen each other naked, so to speak," Brittain said from Texas.
"The
plaintiffs realistically know
that the state is not going to do as much as they want no matter how
hard
they push. But the state knows the plaintiffs won't go away no
matter
how slowly they proceed," said Brittain, explaining that settlement
discussions
began around two weeks ago. Neither side will say precisely what
is being negotiated.
But in the latest hearings on the
long-running case, hearings that began in April, the plaintiffs
outlined
for the first time a remedy to end racial isolation of Hartford
schoolchildren that they could accept.
By
this September, six years after
the 1996 court order, the state will have 37 interdistrict magnet
schools
and 13 charter schools aimed at reducing that racial isolation. But
the Sheff plaintiffs returned to
court this year to argue the state still was not moving quickly enough
to comply with the order and that Hartford's schools were as segregated
as ever. The plaintiffs' plan, drafted by Leonard B. Stevens, a
national
consultant who has worked on desegregation cases in cities around the
country,
calls for a gradual but dramatic increase in the number of slots for
Hartford
students in integrated magnet schools.
Currently, just under 1,200 minority children - about 5 percent of Hartford's student body - attend magnet schools or suburban schools through the state's Open Choice program, formerly known as Project Concern. Plaintiffs argued for an increase to about 6,900, or 30 percent, by 2005. By then, according to Stevens' plan, more than 3,000 white suburban students would be enrolled in Hartford magnet schools.
The
plan would cost tens of millions
of dollars. One estimate in a legal deposition for the case put
construction
costs for the magnet schools - which the state pays for fully - at $87
million. The state also helps to pay for magnet school
operations.
Brittain predicted that Aurigemma will approve a settlement quickly if
one is put before her and that the plaintiffs may ask her to put her
approval
in the form of an order to give the agreement more legal heft.
Then,
it could require legislation, he said, particularly
since any agreement is likely to
require money.
"It's too soon to say what will be the outcome. It could be nothing," Brittain said. "But it's encouraging."
Greenwich has two weeks to decide whether to ally itself with four other Connecticut communities and a conservative think tank in the high-profile Sheff v. O'Neill school desegregation case.
Brookfield, Shelton, Middlebury and Beacon Falls, with the financial backing of the Hartford-based Yankee Institute for Public Policy Inc. and several private donors, plan to file a brief in state Superior Court later this summer to oppose the mandatory establishment of magnet schools and busing programs for desegregation.
The Board of Selectmen heard overwhelming public support for joining the fray yesterday at Town Hall, but decided to defer its decision until July 11. "I think it would very much be in the interest of Greenwich and its citizens," said William Tell Jr., a retired local attorney who is a member of the Yankee Institute's board of directors.
Desegregation is of particular importance to Greenwich, which was forced to convert Hamilton Avenue School into a magnet institution last fall after the state discovered a racial imbalance there. The school's 53-percent minority enrollment had exceeded the district-wide total of 22 percent. The state Supreme Court's 1996 ruling in Sheff v. O'Neill prompted the state to make racial imbalances of 25 percent or more illegal.
Elizabeth Horton Sheff, whose son Milo is the lead plaintiff in the 13-year-old case, is pressing her case in state Superior Court in New Britain. The plaintiffs have argued that the state is not cooperating with the Supreme Court order and are demanding stricter enforcement of the ruling.
Tell argued that suburban communities such as Greenwich would be forced to foot the bill for the establishment of magnet schools in Hartford, New Haven and Bridgeport.
"That's the first place that it's going to hit," said Tell, who assured the board that the cost of participating in the brief would be minimal.
The mandatory busing of minority students to suburban schools also would financially harm communities such as Greenwich and possibly violate their rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution, Tell said, adding, "Our view was that it would be a costly mistake not to present that issue."
Federal, state and local governments cannot make laws that help one group at the expense of another under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Republican Selectman Peter Crumbine endorsed Tell's proposal before the group met behind closed doors to discuss the issue. Crumbine said he favors local control of schools. Richard Bergstresser and Penny Monahan, the other two selectmen, did not comment publicly on the proposal.
State Rep. Lile Gibbons, R-150th District, told the board that she will seek advice from the General Assembly's legal counsel before the group votes. The former school board chairman said she supported the idea of the town getting involved and was comforted that other communities took the lead.
"I don't think Greenwich wants to be the Lone Ranger out there, but now we'll at least be one of five," Gibbons said.
Board of Estimate and Taxation Chairman Peter Tesei was one of several others who spoke in favor of the measure.
A ruling in Sheff v. O'Neill could come as early as the fall, and many observers believe the case could make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Washington, June 27 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Supreme Court said Cleveland's tax-funded school vouchers don't violate the constitutionally required separation of church and state. The landmark ruling creates a legal road map for voucher advocates elsewhere.
The 5-4 court rebuffed arguments that 99 percent of the students using the vouchers, worth up to $2,250 per year, attend religious institutions. More than 4,000 students take part in the elementary-school program, the largest of its kind.
``The Ohio program is entirely neutral with respect to religion,'' Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote for the court.
The ruling may jump-start efforts to set up ``school choice'' programs in other communities and at the federal level, where the Bush administration is a supporter. Proponents say their efforts have bogged down in part because of constitutional uncertainty. Aside from Cleveland, vou chers are now used only in Florida and Milwaukee.
The justices overturned a lower court conclusion that the Ohio program amounts to an illegal subsidy for religious instruction. Lower courts had issued conflicting rulings on the constitutionality of vouchers.
Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony M. Kennedy joined the majority opinion. Justices John Paul Stevens, Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David H. Souter dissented.
The cases are Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, 00-1751; Hanna Perkins School v. Simmons-Harris, 00-1777; and Taylor v. Simmons- Harris, 00-1779.
NEW
BRITAIN -- Many of the magnet
school openings sought by minority parents in Hartford are going
instead
to black and Hispanic families from the suburbs, a school
desegregation expert testified Tuesday.
As a result, Hartford is not getting the full benefit of a 1996 state Supreme Court ruling ordering the legislature to reduce racial isolation in the city's public schools, Leonard B. Stevens said. Several regional magnet schools "are not operating at peak effectiveness as instruments of desegregation," Stevens testified in the latest hearing in the Sheff vs. O'Neill school desegregation case.
Stevens, a Florida-based consultant, was the opening witness as plaintiffs appeared before Superior Court Judge Julia L. Aurigemma to contend that the state has not moved quickly enough to comply with the court order.
Stevens,
who has worked on desegregation
cases in Cleveland, Milwaukee and other cities, outlined a plan that
could
open new spots in attractive magnet schools or in
suburban schools to thousands more
children in Hartford over the next four years. The Stevens plan
is
the first remedy ever outlined in such specific detail by the
plaintiffs
in the case, filed 13 years ago to reduce racial isolation in
Hartford's
mostly black and Hispanic public schools.
The plan avoids controversial measures such as mandatory busing, but urges a gradual expansion of magnet schools and of a voluntary program allowing Hartford children to enroll in predominantly white suburban schools. The plan is the centerpiece of strategy for the Sheff lawyers, who will emphasize its voluntary nature and its similarity to existing state programs as they urge Aurigemma to follow its blueprint.
"You will see how unradical our proposals are," lawyer Wesley W. Horton told Aurigemma during opening arguments.
However,
the state, represented in
court by Assistant Attorney General Ralph Urban, is expected to attack
the Stevens plan and to insist that the legislature, not the court,
should
pursue efforts to fulfill the court desegregation order. "Real,
measurable
progress has been made," Urban told Aurigemma, citing the legislature's
approval of several new magnet schools, the expansion of a voluntary
program
allowing Hartford children to enroll in suburban schools, and a state
takeover
of the troubled Hartford
school system.
"Are we satisfied? Of course not. More needs to be done, more is being done, and more will be done," Urban said. But, he added, "We must avoid top-down solutions."
The
Sheff case rests on the argument
that the state's efforts - particularly the magnet schools and the
voluntary
urban-suburban transfer program - reach only a small
proportion of Hartford students,
about 5 percent of the student body. The Steven's plan would
raise
that figure to 30 percent within four years. In addition to
calling
for construction of additional magnet schools, Stevens says that the
existing
magnet schools should reserve more of their openings for Hartford
children.
He said, for example, that the Metropolitan Learning Center enrolls more minority students from suburban towns than it does from Hartford even though more than 240 black and Hispanic students from Hartford are on a waiting list for the regional magnet, which moved into a new $32 million building in Bloomfield last fall.
"That's a very slow way" of going about desegregating Hartford, Stevens said.
The
plaintiffs offered no specific
figures Tuesday on how much their plan would cost, but Stevens said the
state could offset some of the cost simply by shifting state aid
among districts, allowing the money
to follow students to whatever schools they choose to attend.
During
cross-examination, however, Urban said the plan could affect the way
millions
of dollars are spent and asked Stevens who would be in charge of how
the
plan is financed.
"Is there anything in your plan that anybody gets to vote on?" Urban asked.
"The answer is no," Stevens replied. "The plan is in the hands of the court."
When civil rights activists accuse the state in court this week of failing to comply with a school desegregation order, they will cite the plight of parents like Hartford's Shari Miller.
Miller wants her daughter, Chelsea, who turns 5 this week, to attend kindergarten at the racially integrated University of Hartford Magnet School this fall, but Chelsea's chances are remote.
In the six years since the state Supreme Court ordered the legislature to reduce racial isolation in Hartford's public schools, Connecticut has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on new magnet schools, but those schools remain out of reach for many, including Chelsea.
The $21.5 million university magnet school, which opened last year, has nearly 1,700 applicants for fewer than 50 openings next fall. Chelsea, who is biracial, is on a waiting list.
"I don't anticipate her getting in this year," Shari Miller said. "Probably not next year, either."
When plaintiffs in the historic Sheff vs. O'Neill case return to court Tuesday, they will present a plan that could open new spots in attractive magnet schools or in suburban schools to thousands more children in Hartford. Miller is among the witnesses expected to testify in the case.
The new plan - relying on strictly voluntary choices for parents - is the first remedy ever outlined in such detail by plaintiffs in the case, which was filed 13 years ago to reduce segregation in Hartford's mostly black and Hispanic public schools.
The plan avoids controversial measures such as mandatory busing or reconfiguration of urban-suburban school district boundary lines. Instead, it proposes a vast increase in the number of children moving voluntarily between Hartford and its predominantly white suburbs.
Most magnet schools have long waiting lists, leaving families in Hartford and its suburbs to hope their children will be selected in annual lotteries.
The Sheff plan would be the most ambitious school choice program ever tried in Connecticut, requiring the creation of several new magnet schools - and a price tag reaching into the tens of millions of dollars.
The plan calls for more money and sets enrollment goals, but its central approach - the expansion of magnet schools and of a voluntary program allowing Hartford children to enroll in suburban schools - is the same path the state already has begun.
"Now the argument is more about the speed and the degree and the resources rather than the nature of the solution," said state Education Commissioner Theodore S. Sergi.
Whether the Sheff proposal will become part of a court order is a central question as hearings begin Tuesday in New Britain Superior Court before Judge Julia L. Aurigemma. She is the same judge who ruled two years ago that the state was proceeding properly and needed more time to comply with the state Supreme Court order.
Sergi and other state officials again are expected to testify that the state is meeting its obligation with the millions of dollars it has spent on magnet schools, the voluntary urban-suburban choice program, and various after-school and summer programs to reduce segregation.
Though the plaintiffs' plan relies on the kind of voluntary approaches already used by the state, many state lawmakers vehemently oppose the prospect of direct intervention by the courts.
"I continue to believe the court would be reluctant - as Connecticut courts have always been reluctant - to engage in the process of legislating a remedy," said state Senate President Pro Tem Kevin B. Sullivan, D-West Hartford.
House Minority Leader Robert M. Ward, R-North Branford, said he favors an expansion of school choice programs "to create opportunities for all kids, but particularly for kids in urban schools." But, he added, "I think the legislature should be the one making the decision - not the court."
The hearings are scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. Tuesday and are expected to run at least two weeks. A ruling could be months away. Whatever the outcome, an appeal to the state Supreme Court is likely.
Just under 1,200 black and Hispanic children, or roughly 5 percent of Hartford's student body, now attend racially integrated magnet schools or suburban schools. The Sheff plan would increase the number gradually to about 6,900, or 30 percent, by the 2005-06 school year.
The four-year plan was created by Leonard B. Stevens, a national consultant who has worked on desegregation cases in Cleveland, Milwaukee and several other school systems over the past 25 years.
Stevens'
proposal also calls for:
The stakes in the Sheff case are
high - $87 million in construction costs alone, by one estimate - as
the
legislature and Gov. John G. Rowland struggle with budget
constraints.
No solution is expected before Chelsea Miller starts kindergarten in
the
fall.
Shari Miller said she missed a deadline to apply for the Montessori Magnet School in Hartford but has put her daughter's name into lotteries for another magnet school and for the city-suburban choice program. She is thinking, too, about a parochial school, but the tuition would be steep, she said. If those options are unavailable, Chelsea will attend Hartford's Batchelder School in her neighborhood even though her mother is concerned about class sizes, the curriculum and the school's overwhelming racial imbalance.
Members of minority groups accounted for 94 percent of Batchelder's students this year, up from 90 percent in 1996, the year of the state Supreme Court ruling.
Hartford
Courant Editorial
August 12, 2001
Five years after the landmark Sheff vs. O'Neill decision, the
report card on classroom integration would have to say
"Incomplete."
The most substantial progress toward meeting that goal has
occurred outside the parameters of Sheff vs. O'Neill. Housing
patterns have changed in the Hartford region. The number of
minority students in suburban towns has increased. In
Wethersfield, for example, minorities now make up about 13
percent of the enrollment in town schools.
Still, the fact remains that most students in Connecticut's
cities continue to attend segregated schools. In Hartford,
more than 95 percent of the students are Hispanic, African
American or Asian.
Although there have been promising initiatives - notably
magnet schools - the state's response to the Sheff decision
has yet to result in substantial school integration. It probably
will take many more years for that to happen.
In a series of three editorials beginning today, The Courant
will examine models for urban-suburban integration and
suggest steps to bring Connecticut closer to compliance
with the Supreme Court's directive.
One hindrance in the quest for integration is the absence of
a clear vision of what compliance with the Sheff mandate
would entail. The court set no goals or timetables. And the
plaintiffs did not put forth their own yardstick to measure
success.
One certainty is that so-called forced busing, presided over
by judges-turned-school-superintendents, will not work. In
previous decades, the judiciary's assumption of direct
responsibility in running schools often proved to be a
disaster, and the federal courts have wisely abandoned it as
a remedy. Voluntary solutions are the preferred way. They
are likely to be slow moving and expensive, but less costly
in many ways than the busing alternative.
The long and tortuous Sheff journey began in 1989, when the
parents of 17 city and suburban children in the Hartford area
sued the state. During the trial, witnesses described a
Hartford school system on the verge of collapse, with
buildings in disrepair, a lack of textbooks and supplies and
abysmal student achievement. Educators testified in
depressing detail about the twin effects of poverty and racial
isolation.
Superior Court Judge Harry Hammer was not swayed,
however. He concluded that the state had not created school
segregation and, therefore, had no obligation to end it.
After the state Supreme Court reversed Judge Hammer's
ruling in 1996, Gov. John G. Rowland and the legislature
created the Educational Improvement Panel to find a
solution. The panel made many useful suggestions, but at
the present rate of implementation, it will take decades to
bring about significant school integration.
Meanwhile, the Sheff plaintiffs continue to express
frustration. They have returned to court twice, once in 1998
and again last December. After their first trip, Superior Court
Judge Julia L. Aurigemma ruled that the state was making
sufficient progress by promoting magnet schools and other
voluntary programs. The current motion will be argued later
this year.
A workable voluntary solution must have two major
components: vastly improving the quality of Hartford schools
and creating a system that gives urban and suburban
students far more choice of where they go to school. Even
the plaintiffs acknowledge that suburban families will not
enroll their children in Hartford schools as long as they view
them as educationally deficient and unsafe.
Hartford's schools haven't held great attraction for suburban
parents. After many years of failed leadership at the board of
education, the state assumed direct responsibility by
appointing trustees to run the school system.
The trustees' most important decision was the appointment
two years ago of Superintendent Anthony S. Amato, a
no-nonsense New York City school administrator. He was
given control and told to improve student performance. At the
time, Hartford students had the worst test scores in the
state. Mr. Amato vowed to change that.
He's kept his promise. The superintendent has emphasized
reading and math and helped create a sense of excitement
and achievement among teachers and students. Hartford is
no longer last in test scores.
Because of his position, Mr. Amato can play a key role in
finding a solution to Sheff, a court decision he accepts but
does not embrace. With missionary zeal, Mr. Amato is
pushing for educational excellence for city schoolchildren.
For him, integration is a secondary concern.
The superintendent's emphasis on high-quality education is
commendable, but his vision must include learning in an
integrated environment.
Teaching students in segregated schools, even if those
schools are academically excellent, still deprives them of an
integral part of a first-class education. Learning in an
integrated environment is necessary to thrive in an ethnically
and racially diverse country and world. That's true for
students attending mostly white suburban schools as well
as for students at mostly minority urban schools.
Despite the lack of progress in integrating Hartford schools, The Learning Corridor next to Trinity College offers a sterling example of what's possible. Some have suggested that the answer to the state Supreme Court's Sheff vs. O'Neill integration directive might be to clone the corridor and sprinkle 10 more such complexes around the capital city.
Located on a 16-acre campus between Broad and Washington streets, the corridor is home to four magnet schools that eventually will draw 1,600 students from Hartford and two dozen suburban towns. The magnet, or lure, for parents is the promise of academic excellence in integrated settings. The corridor opened only last September, so it is too early to measure educational achievement. However, the schools are offering students challenging courses in a clean and safe environment.
Included
are two specialized high schools, a middle school and an elementary Montessori school.
One high school, the Greater Hartford Academy of Math & Science, showcases integrated education at its best. The
school enrolled about 150 students last September, a
number projected to double in the next three years.
One-third of the first class came from Hartford, two-thirds
from 12 suburban towns. The racial-ethnic breakdown is half
white and half African American, Hispanic and Asian
American. Notably, the school has achieved the kind of
diversity envisioned in the Sheff lawsuit.
Top-notch instructors, including several college professors,
teach advanced courses such as endocrinology, astronomy,
robotics, bio-ethics and molecular genetics.
One drawback is that the academy is a half-day school.
Students spend the rest of the time at their home high
school studying English, history and other non-science
courses. Converting the academy to a full-day high school
should be a priority. It's wasteful for students to spend half a
school day in Southington, for example, and half in Hartford.
The second high school is the 16-year-old Greater Hartford
Academy of the Arts, which moved from its home in a former
funeral parlor into breathtaking new facilities at The Learning
Corridor. The school's commitment to quality integrated
education was on display in the spring when a diverse cast
of students from more than a dozen towns put on a dazzling
performance of "Oklahoma."
Of the school's 250 students this past year, 200 came from
more than 40 cities and towns outside of Hartford. The
racial-ethnic mix was: white, 75 percent; African American,
16 percent; Hispanic, 9 percent. Enrollment is expected to
grow to 320 this fall.
The two high schools and the Montessori school are run by
the Capitol Region Education Council, which also will take
over management of the middle school beginning this fall.
CREC has achieved a good record of building and running
magnet schools that draw students across town lines.
However, the regional agency has been struggling financially
and sending out alarms that it cannot continue to expand the
magnet programs without substantial new state aid. CREC
has no revenue source of its own, and depends on the state
and participating towns for money.
"Landlord" magnet schools such as those in New Haven
receive money from the local school budget because they
are part of the city school system.
CREC's newest magnet school, at the University of Hartford,
offers another striking example of what can happen when
schools hold out the promise of innovative integrated
education.
The school, which will open Sept. 4, received more than
1,400 applications for 276 slots in grades K-3. Half the
students will come from Hartford and the remainder from
Avon, Bloomfield, Farmington, Simsbury, Wethersfield and
West Hartford.
Magnets succeed because they offer a variety of courses not
typically found in regular schools.
This fall, CREC will manage eight magnet schools in the
metropolitan area, including five in Hartford.
It is significant that not a single magnet is run by the
Hartford public school system, which only recently has
embraced the concept.
One problem is that the city's school system has had so
little credibility that most suburban parents probably wouldn't
send their children to a magnet under Hartford's control.
Hartford School Superintendent Anthony S. Amato is
properly devoting his energies to turning around the city's
ailing public schools. He plans a gradual transition to
magnets. He will require that each elementary school adopt
a magnet theme by next spring (science, language and the
environment are possibilities). City students then will be
offered a choice of which Hartford public school to attend.
Over the next few years, some of those magnets will open
their doors to suburban students.
At the same time he tries to overhaul city schools, Mr.
Amato would do well to take a closer look at the success of
The Learning Corridor. It is the bright star in Connecticut's
magnet school galaxy. With the support of the state,
neighborhood groups, CREC and the city of Hartford, new
magnet complexes can - and should - be built in other parts
of the city.
Magnet schools are in a position to offer the best education
possible to all the region's children - and to meet the
constitutional mandate set by the Supreme
Court.
.
Hartford Courant Editorial
August 14, 2001
It has now been 12 years since several Hartford and
suburban parents alleged in state court that students in the
city and region receive an inferior education in segregated
public schools in violation of the state Constitution.
It has been five years since the state Supreme Court agreed
with the plaintiffs and ordered the governor and legislature to
come up with a plan to integrate the school systems of
Greater Hartford.
Although there has been progress, the core issue is
unchanged: Hartford schools remain as racially segregated
as ever, even while several suburbs have seen increases in
their enrollment of students from minority groups because of
changing residential patterns.
The Supreme Court understood that change will not occur
overnight. That's why it set no timetable.
Further, a consensus exists that coercion would be
unacceptable. So-called forced busing in other parts of the
country has not produced desirable results. The best hope
for breaking the back of segregation is to sell parents and
students on the idea that integration and educational
excellence must enter into a partnership. One cannot fully
thrive without the other in a diverse society.
Here is what it will take:
Committed leadership.
A major reason for the molasses-like pace of school
integration is a lack of committed leadership. It's as if
elected and appointed officials have not read the Supreme
Court's opinion. The governor, key legislative and suburban
officials, as well as Hartford's mayor, manager, city council,
school trustees and superintendent have for the most part
ducked the high court's ruling in the Sheff vs. O'Neill case.
Expanded magnet schools and sufficient funding.
Magnet schools in Greater Hartford are run by the Capitol
Region Education Council, which alerted legislators in the
spring that it faced a $5.6 million deficit for the fiscal year
that began July 1. As CREC noted, it makes little sense for
the state to have spent $200 million to build magnets, but
then scrimp on operating money. In the recently adopted
state budget, the General Assembly appropriated $2.8
million to offset a portion of the deficit.
In a letter to legislative leaders, CREC had asked a
compelling question: "Is Connecticut committed to magnets
as a means to incite regional cooperation, improve quality,
extend choice, enrich programs and achieve a widely
accepted response to Sheff vs. O'Neill?"
Under the current funding formula, the state gives CREC an
average of $4,700 per student, less than half of what it costs
to educate each child. Towns must pay another $2,000 for
every student they send to a magnet school. Some towns
have refused to participate because they don't want to pay.
Towns shouldn't have the option of refusing to send students
who want to attend the schools. To lessen the burden on
individual towns, however, the amount they are required to
pay should be capped at $1,000 per student.
It costs more than $10,000 per year to educate each magnet
school enrollee. The state, which has primary responsibility
for implementing Sheff, should pay 90 percent of that cost.
Expansion of the Open Choice program, which is
described in the editorial below.
Continued efforts to improve Hartford schools.
Earlier this year, two Hartford schools, Simpson-Waverly and
Kennelly, became the first urban elementary schools in the
state to win accreditation, after a rigorous two-year review.
Standardized test scores at both schools have risen
significantly in recent years.
Increased funding for inter-district programs.
State Education Commissioner Theodore S. Sergi had
requested $14.7 million for the fiscal year that began July 1
for a variety of programs that bring city and suburban
students together for activities in science, music and other
fields. Gov. John G. Rowland slashed more than $2 million
from the request, although the legislature restored a small
portion of the money.
Mr. Sergi deserves credit for wanting to expand these
programs so they eventually will accommodate half the
state's 270,000 elementary and high school students.
Although the exchange visits are not an alternative to
magnets and school integration, they are a worthwhile piece
of a broader response to Sheff.
Although the Sheff decision was directed at Greater Hartford,
it has implications for cities across the state that are not
under court order. Mr. Sergi is on the right track by
responding to racial isolation statewide.
An Attack on Hartford's social ills.
Hartford is one of the nation's poorest cities and is
surrounded by some of the state's wealthiest communities.
Hartford also has one of the highest rates of teen births in
the nation, as well as the country's highest percentage of
unmarried mothers.
As numerous witnesses in the Sheff lawsuit testified, social
factors involving unstable families and unsafe neighborhoods
have a profound effect on school achievement.
It would be a dangerous illusion, therefore, to think that the
answer to Sheff lies only in classrooms. Urban schools will
become integrated only as part of a package that includes
vibrant, safe, integrated neighborhoods of families drawn by
good schools and an array of cultural and civic attractions.
The challenges in honoring the court's broad mandate in
Sheff vs. O'Neill are huge. But so is the potential for payoffs.
The nation's wealthiest state should aspire to become the
most successful in providing a first-class education in
integrated classrooms.
No one should lose sight of the goal - and value - of having
children of all races learning together in excellent schools. It
can be done. It must be done.
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