Desegregation. For most people, the word brings to mind vicious court battles, marches, and parents rioting against forced busing. Rare is the person who associates desegregation with voluntary redistricting, educational regionalism, and intra-district magnet schools. In New Haven, the latter is the surprising reality as the battle over the meaning of equal education moves into the 21st century.
The history of segregation in New Haven, as in many other northern cities, is one of quiet and unprovable discrimination. White flight and urban decay are two regular occurrences in these cities. White flight is supposedly triggered by declining property values, an occurrence which, incredibly enough, always seems to follow on the heels of a minority influx.
The Annex, the easternmost region of New Haven, has been caught up in a movement to secede ever since the city introduced a scattered public-housing program. White flight and urban decay have created an overwhelmingly minority school population-83 percent in a recent state survey. The hyper-segregation which has emerged in New Haven's schools over the past 20 years is a visible reminder of the failure of the North to match the forced desegregation of the South and Midwest.
Sheff sparks segregation fears
This state of affairs began to change in 1989 when the parents of Milo Sheff, a student in the Hartford school system, accused the state of failing to provide equal education. The charge, which centered on the charge that an all-minority school district does not ponder an environment of equal education any more than an all-white school district does, was laid out in Sheff v. O'Neill, a case which raised significant questions for Connecticut and the nation.
The Sheff case lit a fire under what had been, for many, a cold issue. Desegregation and forced busing had dropped out of the headlines long ago, and the people of the state, especially anxious parents, wondered how the state would respond.
In fact, desegregation had been an issue among educators for years. In fact, the Connecticut Department of Education had proposed that the state look into voluntary desegregation in 1987 and 1988, before Sheff even came to trial.
Two Connecticuts: separate, not equal
"It had been discussed before," Gerald Tirozzi, assistant secretary of elementary and secondary education in the federal Department of Education, said. Tirozzi studied desegregation as the former superintendent of New Haven schools and the commissioner of education in Connecticut. "We had studies done and the information we got back was pretty clear. Eighteen of 162 school districts contain 82 percent of the state's minority students and 80 percent of those were in the cities. That's where the phrase 'Two Connecticuts, Separate and Unequal,' came from," he said.
Two Connecticuts, one poor and urban, the other wealthy and suburban, were the focus of the Sheff case. How much is the state responsible for bringing those two worlds together?
The Sheff case made this an important question for legislators. In an attempt to head off a possible court mandate, Governor Lowell Weicker, TD '52, called on the state to enact a voluntary desegregation law. In June 1993, a mandate was approved. The mandate broke the state into 11 regions, each of which was required to present a tentative desegregation program to the state by Dec. 1, 1994. The state law did not require concrete proposals nor did it specify penalties for regions that failed to comply. Funding for magnet schools and other (continued from page one) proposals was suggested, but there were no guarantees. The result was a law that "had no teeth," according to one source who did not wish to be identified.
Not in my backyard
The law, teeth or no, did generate action. Regions formed boards, or, as in the New Haven region, called for forums. The New Haven forum involved 13 towns and worked to come up with a plan that would be approved by the entire region. A majority of towns needed to agree to the plan before the state would accept it.
New Haven Alderman Esther Armmand was the mayor's representative at the forum. "We made the statement that a mixed, diverse environment enhances the educational process," Armmand said.
The proposal called for numerous changes in the current educational system, including teacher training in diversity and cultural issues, parent involvement, student exchanges, and inter-district schooling. The group finally agreed on a plan that was brought before the various town councils and boards of education throughout the region. The proposal was rejected; although New Haven approved the plan, many local communities refused to vote in favor.
Despite the failure of the region to enact a plan for change, Armmand spoke positively of the experience. "The plan itself was pretty mild, but it was a start. It was a first step in moving people another level. At its best it can be seen as a model for bringing people together," she said.
New Haven was not alone in rejecting the plan. Eight of the 11 regions failed to approve their plans. When Jan. 1, 1995 rolled around, voluntary desegregation had failed, and it appeared that the courts would be the final arbiters of the future of education in Connecticut when Sheff was ruled on in April 1995. Judge Harry Hammer ruled in favor of Hartford, saying that the state was not responsible for the housing patterns that led to segregated schools. The ruling did not claim that the schools were not segregated, nor that the education offered in Hartford schools was equal to that of the suburbs. The ruling was appealed, and the language left everyone wondering, "What now? One city's solution
The decision left New Haven in the lurch. Without a regional plan, there would be no state funding for new projects, and the city would have to address a growing problem-increasing isolation and segregation of a poor urban school system. Plans were made to take steps in a new direction. New Haven had a vital group of magnet schools to draw on, and educators were turning their eyes to this type of alternative schooling.
"High School in the Community (H.S.C.) was opened in 1970," Ed Linehan, magnet schools coordinator for New Haven, said. "We never called H.S.C. or Westhill, or any of the other schools 'magnet schools.' Our effort was to establish excellent education but to be sensitive to desegregation. It was a conscious effort but not an aggressive one."
Since H.S.C. was opened, New Haven's magnet school program has expanded greatly. Today there are three magnet high schools and a growing number at the elementary level. This includes six schools that opened this past year with money from a federal grant.
"The federal money helps get things started," Linehan said, "but it takes local dollars to build on that foundation." These local dollars appeared to be lost with the failure of the regional plan, but the state has helped out. "We've doubled the amount of money in the budget for supporting these types of programs," Cam Staples, state representative and chairman of the House Education Committee, said. Magnet power, activate!
The program centers on New Haven's unique system of intra-district magnet schools. "The schools are designed to provide parents and students with choices," Linehan said. "There are two types of schools. City-wide magnets take students indiscriminately from the whole city, and attendance zone magnets take applications from the whole city but give preference to students within the attendance zone of the school. The attendance zone schools are former neighborhood schools that have been changed into magnets," he said.
The curricula of the magnet schools vary widely. "Each magnet chooses a theme or philosophical approach," Linehan said. "For example, Westhill models itself on Bankhill College in New York. The Betsy Ross Arts Magnet speaks for itself. The Sound School studies the Long Island Sound. The Jepson non-graded elementary school takes an alternative approach to education with developmental process grouping."
Magnet schools in New Haven are part of a larger effort toward increased regionalization. Connecticut has a unique educational system, which works with 162 autonomous school districts. The districts have their own boards, budgets, and curricula, and cooperation between the bodies is limited. In defense of this system, supporters met regional plans with opposition.
The state has set aside money to encourage inter-district activity. Currently, there are seven inter-district schools, and seven more in the works. New Haven is in the forefront of the plan, with four schools ready to be involved in the cooperative effort.
"High School in the Community is already accepting students from districts outside the city," Linehan said. "This year, H.S.C. took 17 students from the suburbs, and next year it hopes to increase that to 60 of 200 available slots. Next year, Cooperative, Career and the Jepson schools will be taking students from outside New Haven."
The question of desegregation is an important part of these efforts. "Controls are placed on student acceptance to ensure integration, but the idea is to have a school so strong educationally that it integrates itself," Linehan said. Tirozzi said that diversity is important. "We must be concerned with the social and moral fiber of our schools. We don't want to develop systems that are black and white."
No grades!
The Jepson School may prove to be a model for the future. Operating in its current form for five years, this magnet provides a rainbow environment and a true educational alternative. "We have a non-graded school," principal John Vigliotti said. "This means that children are allowed to adjust at their own speeds. The students are grouped in 5-6-7-year old, and in 8-9-10-year-old groups and will stay with their teacher for two or three years."
"Students develop skills around a theme. Each group has its own theme which is tied to every aspect of learning. We supplement the basic skills with hands-on activities. The school allows students to become comfortable with their environment, and that helps the learning process," Vigliotti said.
The Jepson School is an ideal magnet school in terms of ethnic diversity. "We are a third white, a third black, and a third Hispanic. This will change slightly because our new directive is to be representative of the racial makeup of the city, but I don't think the school will lose its diversity," Vigliotti said.
In addition to integration within the admissions process, Jepson also tries to integrate within its curriculum. "We try to celebrate all the different holidays, to teach about different celebrations and customs," Vigliotti said. "Our kids are very worldly because of our emphasis on learning about the whole world without over-emphasizing any part of it." The future: magnet mania?
The near future will bring an increase in models like the Jepson school-broadly multi-cultural efforts to improve education in Connecticut's cities and towns. Charter schools, schools that receive state funding to try new educational models, are a possibility, according to Staples.
According to Vigliotti, support is crucial to the success of such schools. "I think our school is a success because it is a fully democratic, cooperative effort at schooling. Having the government and the school system behind you is very important."
Careful planning is necessary since too much emphasis on programs and magnet schools can leave the other students behind. "Sometimes, too much emphasis is put on programs, and not enough time is spent looking at the physical condition of the schools," Staples said. Tirozzi also offered a warning. "You've got to be careful with magnets, to make sure they don't take the cream off the top of our schools," he said.
While need for further efforts is universally acknowledged, the outlook for the future is positive. "We've been working for a long time to get where we are," Linehan said, "but we're moving." As Armmand said, the first steps to that next level have already been taken. Now, New Haven is looking to lengthen its stride.
Copyright 1995, The Yale Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.
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