Will New Haven choose school choice?

DeStefano and Schiavone face off on magnet, charter, neighborhood schools.

BY MATTHEW FERRARO

If you want to get Joel Schiavone, SM '58, angry, ask him about school busing. The real-estate broker and Republican candidate for mayor despises the idea of "sending kids all the way across town to send them to school at the age of five, six, or seven," a policy he calls "a stupid, out of fashion, old fashion idea."

To his Democratic opponent, incumbent Mayor John DeStefano Jr., the educational buzzword is "choice," which means—among other things—building more district-wide magnet schools. Schiavone is quick to retort that this brings false hopes to parents who really just want reliable, good "neighborhood schools."

Not surprisingly, the incumbent claims that schools have improved under his eight-year tenure, while Schiavone asserts the opposite: "Everybody in New Haven knows that the major reason people leave the city is because of the schools. The schools are terrible."

Whether the focus is on how to build on the past's successes or make up for its mistakes, the issues are salient, the camps are divided, and the differences between the candidates' positions for the Tues., Nov. 6 general election are clear. "Schools have been the central issue in the campaign, both in the primary and the general election," Managing Editor of the New Haven Advocate Paul Bass, JE '82, said. And because all of the members of the Board of Education are appointed by the mayor, whoever wins the upcoming mayoral race will essentially have the power to design the New Haven school system as he wishes.

AS IT STANDS NOW, NEW HAVEN'S
school system is "one of the most diversified programs in the state," according to Thomas Murphy, a spokesman for the Connecticut State Department of Education. But not everyone interprets this as a good thing.

"The schools are terrible because they have no coherent educational philosophy," Schiavone said. The variety of schools that a New Haven student may attend runs the gamut from public schools, to magnets, to private or parochial schools. Within the system, a student may go to the public school in his neighborhood, apply for a spot in one of the city's many magnet schools, or attend one of New Haven's three charter schools. Elementary-school-age students may also attend the inter-district Wintergreen school in Hamden, which takes both Hamden and New Haven students and is managed by the privately owned, for-profit Edison Schools. Wintergreen is the only such school in the state.

University President Richard C. Levin, GRD '74, said that New Haven has "tried to create a variety of options through the public system. The school board and the superintendent have tried a couple of options in New Haven, and Yale has been quite involved." He specified that Yale played a "significant role" at two local magnets: Yalies have taught arts at Cooperative High School and science and medicine at the Hill Regional Career High School.

However, of New Haven's 21,836 enrolled students, most do not attend schools similar to those Levin mentioned. Most attend "normal" public schools that are neither magnets nor charters. Schiavone's vision of the future of the New Haven school system revolves around a neighborhood school model, where students would attend small schools in their neighborhoods that would keep them close to home and teach the basics. "We don't want any of this crazy wild experimentation [in kindergarten through 8th grade]," he said. "Trying to bus kids, magnets this, choice this, this is all just words. We just need basics."

The three charter schools in the New Haven area cater to a much smaller number of students; they had a combined enrollment of 392 during the 1999-2000 school year, the most recent year for which statistics were available. The schools—Amistad Academy (a junior high school), Common Ground High School, and Highville Mustard Seed Charter School (a pre-kindergarten through 8th grade school)—were all opened in the last four years and granted state charters that must be renewed every five years by the state Board of Education. "The state charter really means that the school is eligible for a state subsidy," Murphy said. While the charters must meet state curriculum guidelines, they have a certain amount of latitude when

designing a specific program. Common Ground, for instance, operates on a working farm. Charter schools "attract more or less a fringe population," Patricia Lucan, President of the New Haven Federation of Teachers, Local 933 union, said. "Maybe [the parents] think out of the box."

On this issue of charter schools, DeStefano and Schiavone are in rare, if mild, agreement. Both support them, but for different reasons. Although he acknowledges that the State of Connecticut—rather than city government—supervises the students, DeStefano appreciates the "recruit[ment] of New Haven school kids and...certainly supports the idea of charter schools." This is hardly surprising: DeStefano's philosophy revolves around more choices.

While impressed with the attitude of the students at Amistad—"It's a totally different school," he said—Schiavone wants first to improve the normal public schools through an emphasis on community-based schools with enrollments limited to 350 students. But, "if we can't do that because of all this bureaucracy I've inherited, then we're going to have to go the exact opposite way and try to encourage more charter schools and vouchers," he said.

THE CANDIDATES' SIMILARITIES, THOUGH, DO NOT extend much further. When it comes to magnet schools, DeStefano and Schiavone's differences become clear, and their rhetoric turns hostile.

"The problem with magnet schools is that they're not working—just like every other school in New Haven," Schiavone's Campaign Manager Ted LeVasseur said. "Magnet schools aren't any better [than regular publics]," he added.

"That's a blatant lie," Julio Gonzalez, CC '99, DeStefano's Campaign Manager, said. "Magnets schools perform as well if not better." DeStefano added that the Schiavone campaign's claims "fly in the face of substance...and I just think illustrate [Schiavone's] lack of familiarity with the public school system and with New Haven generally."

The magnet school system, which elicits such vituperation from the candidates, has grown substantially under DeStefano's administration. In what the New Haven Public Schools Communications Director Catherine Sullivan-DeCarlo calls an "evolution," the percentage of students in the city's magnet schools has nearly doubled in the last six years. In the 1994-95 school year, nine magnet schools enrolled almost 18 percent of the district's eligible students. Last year, twice as many magnet schools enrolled 34.4 percent of New Haven students. "We are the largest inter-district magnet school program in the state by far," Sullivan-DeCarlo said.

New Haven runs magnets for both high school and elementary students. Each magnet has a core program that meets state curriculum standards, but each also has a special curriculum or theme. For example, the Hill Regional Career High School—where Yale offers internships in the Medical Center and School of Nursing—focuses on science and medicine. According to the New Haven Inter-district Magnet Schools' website, "The unique characteristics of each school are intended to attract parents and students who find these features responsive [to] their individual needs and interests. The regional magnet schools strive to have a staff and student body that is reflective of the rich cultural and ethnic diversity of the Greater New Haven Region." Unlike neighborhood schools, some magnets take students from around the city and some from neighboring suburban areas. According to Murphy, any student can attend a magnet as long as there is space. If the school is oversubscribed, the student enters a lottery, standard practice throughout Connecticut.

Citing the mayor's most recent State of the City address, Gonzalez defined DeStefano's educational priority as expanding school choice and "moving away from geographically based districts." For Schiavone, that's just the problem. "What he's saying is it doesn't make any difference if [students] go to school in their own neighborhood or not...That concept is totally discredited [by statistical studies]; it makes absolutely no sense at all."

DeStefano feels that parents and students are showing their preference for magnets outside of their neighborhoods with their feet; the fact that there are long waiting lists to get into the good magnets is a sign to the mayor that the city needs more of them. According to Sullivan-DeCarlo, this past year 2,000 more students requested seats in magnets than there was room, and 700 came from New Haven's suburbs. "These are good places for our kids," DeStefano said, "and parents are voting that choice each and every day in New Haven in numbers that total thousands and thousands."

To Schiavone's campaign, these statistics illustrate not the parents' affirmation of the mayor's policy, but their desperation in the face of a failing system. "Parents look at magnet schools and say: `Maybe this will be better.' And it's not," LeVasseur said. "[Magnets] may convince parents that they have some say in their kids education, but what [they have] done is destroy every neighborhood school in New Haven, except for one, the [Worthington] Hooker School. And they're working on destroying that one as we speak.

Mayor John DeStefano, Jr. is in favor of school choice. REBECCA ROSENTHAL/YH

ACTUALLY, SCHIAVONE SUPPORTS "CHOICE" IN THE abstract even if he doesn't use the same word. A small number of magnet schools for sincerely gifted or interested students appeals to him. "A magnet school in most school districts is a school with a certain reputation for excellence." Schiavone believe that magnets for artists, for example, "are wonderful ideas for high schools because at that point kids can diversify." He derides the city's current magnets for overusing the idea as a gimmick. Magnets don't make sense at the K-8 level, he said, "except as an excuse to bus kids and to create false hopes and expectations."

Schiavone has asserted throughout his campaign that New Haven magnets belie their true intentions because they have such a liberal admissions policy. "There needs to be an application process that's fair," LeVasseur said, adding that the strength of magnets is diluted because any student who wants to can apply to go any magnet, even if he does not have a particular interest in that magnet's specialty.

In response, Gonzalez posed a hypothetical question: "What additional benefit do you get having children going through an application process? You can make the argument [that students are going to schools they don't want to go to], but can you show me proof?"

Schiavone also criticizes K-8 magnets because he claims busing young children long distances out of their neighborhoods is detrimental to their welfare. DeStefano defends this practice by saying that the resulting schools are racially, ethnically, and economically diverse and interesting. "What [an either inter- or intra-district magnet] does is provide the opportunity for kids coming from different neighborhoods and different sets of life experiences to go to school with one another. It provides them the opportunity to not only learn academics but to learn about each other."

While recognizing that the sentiment sounds good, Schiavone believes the current system remains dubious. For one thing, he claims that busing students to magnets to achieve racial diversity is somewhat moot because "80 to 90 percent of the kids are minorities, so why would you bus minorities all over the city? Is there a point to that? The answer is, of course, no, because the schools they go to are just as bad as the schools they left." He added that the idea that a black student needed to be bused to a predominantly white school in order to achieve is a "totally racist configuration." "[My opponents claim that] these kids can't learn by themselves, that they must be moved to a white school in order to learn," Schiavone said. "It has nothing to do with race [and] everything to do with attitude."

As for the idea that students be placed in schools to achieve economic integration, he admitted, "I know it sounds nice if you're a sophomore at Yale, but when you get out into the real world and you're a parent, it doesn't sound nice if you want your kids to go to a school with people who are like you."

"If you have too many magnet schools," Levin said, "you erode the strength of your traditional neighborhood schools. You need to strike a balance."

Republican mayoral candidate Joel Schiavone, SM '58, believes schools are the primary concern of the upcoming election. COURTESY SCHIVONEFORMAYOR.COM

WITH THE RHETORIC SURROUNDING THE MAGNET school issue as charged as it is, it is easy to overlook another proposal that has crept into the debate. Now at least both DeStefano and Schiavone support the idea of contracting Edison Schools to manage at least one public school in the future in much the same way Edison administers Wintergreen in Hamden.

"We will at some point in the future entertain the idea of one of the magnets being run by an organization such as Edison. I think that will introduce another level of an opportunity for choice in this district and we're interested in having that kind of complimentary activity in the district," DeStefano said. He was quick to point out that such a move would in no way abdicate the government's role to oversee education.

Edison, which operates in 136 schools, was co-founded by former Yale President Benno Schmidt, TC '63, LAW '66, in 1992. The company could, among other things, help design the curriculum and administer the school, but would always act under the purview of the district Board of Education, Manager of Communications at Edison Aparna Prasad said.

Schmidt, who is getting married on Fri., Oct. 26, was unavailable for comment.

For his part, Schiavone has supported the idea of bringing in a private company to manage a school. "We should try whatever we can, whatever we have to do to get these kids out of the total mess they're in now." While still skeptical of Edison's track record, Schiavone said he would judge the company by its academic results. He added, "If [a company] should happen to make some money providing a great service, so be it."

The strongest opposition to the plan comes from the teachers union. "I know we would be putting up a big stink about it," Lucan, the union president, said. "Edison Schools exist for profit, and I don't think that kids are a business." She mentioned that now that schools contract Aramark Inc. to run the cafeterias, "We sell our kids junk food—we do that to balance a budget." Despite their opposition to the plan, Lucan said the approximately 1,450-member union will not endorse either candidate.

DeStefano said that he hoped to work with the union members if and when they decide to moved ahead with Edison. "We would want to talk to the union about doing this in a cooperative and mutually supportive fashion."

DESPITE THE AGGRESSIVENESS OF THE CAMPAIGN, in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans 13 to 1, DeStefano's reelection is very much assumed, if not assured. "No one believes this is a competitive race," Bass said.

If DeStefano wins a fifth term, he will have the ability to transform his campaign promises into a continuing policy. What that most likely means for New Haven is more inter- and intra-magnets, more "choice," and quite possibly an experiment with private management. Regardless of who wins, however, in the words of Schiavone, "The future of New Haven depends solely on the future of our schools."

Graphic by Gene Smilansky. Photos of Amistad Academy and Worthington Hooker School by Rebecca Rosenthal. Justin Chen contributed to this article.

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