In 1996, there was a case in front of the Connecticut State Supreme Court called Sheff vs. O'Neill. The case began in 1989, when Elizabeth Horton Sheff and other parents brought a case against then-governor William O'Neill. The issue was school districts: the way that lines were drawn meant that city districts were largely black, and suburban districts were largely white. The plaintiffs argued that this effectively amounted to discrimination.
The 4-3 decision handed down said that, in fact, the current educational districting policy was against state law. But it wasn't until 2003 that anything was done about it.
The 2003 settlement set a timetable for voluntary desegregation efforts, and provided state funding to meet these goals. By June 2007 (so they have another six months or so to do this), at least 30% of Hartford's schoolchildren, mostly at the bottom rung of the socioeconomic class structure, must be in racially desegregated schools.
However, Sheff vs. O'Neill could potentially run afoul of national law. There is a case in front of the Supreme Court where parents from Louisville and Seattle are arguing that the use of race to determine where students go to school is unconstitutional.
Let's step back to Connecticut for a moment. In July of this year, a report was published by the University of Connecticut Center for Education Policy Analysis and the Cities, Suburbs, and Schools Research Project at Trinity College evaluating the impact of Sheff vs. O'Neill thus far.
It is important to note that this decision only directly affects the Hartford area schools. The Hartford area is one of the most polarized in the state: the city is poor and black; the suburbs are rich and white.
The report reminds us of the three voluntary programs set down by the 2003 ruling:
1) Interdistrict magnet schools
By offering a more specialized curriculum than neighborhood schools, magnet schools are designed to attract students from residentally segregated urban and suburban districts.
2) Open Choice program
A voluntary program where city students may transfer to a suburban school district (or vice versa), modeled partly on the former Project Concern program.
3) Interdistrict cooperative grants
Support for part-time exchange programs between racially isolated urban and suburban schools. May count toward a maximum of 3% of the total goal if sufficiently funded.
Looking at the percentages for 1988-9 and 2005-6, all affected school districts had an increase in minority enrollment. That includes Hartford and Bloomfield, which were way out ahead of everyone else in 1989. So the redistributing seems to have at least -- partially -- worked, in terms of balancing minority enrollment.
Under the terms of the settlement, the state also agreed to fund the opening of two additional magnet schools per year. But to qualify under the Sheff desegregation standards, all magnet schools must not exceed a limit on the proportion of minority students by their third year of operation. According to the settlement, the limit is set annually to the percentage of minority students in the entire 22-district Sheff region (currently 43%), plus 30 percentage points, for a total minority student cap of 73% in 2005-06.
All right, so we've got ourselves a settlement. I'm young enough that, if I had lived in the affected area, Sheff would have had an impact on my high school career. However, my school district did not fall under the Sheff guidelines. But I do know what happened in my area.
Meriden, another city with a large minority population, built a science and technology magnet middle school. Again, the school was built too late to personally affect my school career. That doesn't mean that I don't know about it. I know that, at first, there was a lot of resistance to sending children from our area to the middle school 30 minutes away. Beyond the busing concerns, there was a sense that the middle school was just a way to relieve the pressure on the Meriden school system and get state funding for it. Parents were, in general, not pleased with the local school system, but didn't necessarily think Meriden's new magnet school would be any better.
So it's about halfway through the last school year before Sheff guidelines have to be met. Where do things stand? The report isn't optimistic about meeting the guidelines by next June. The 20 magnet schools which have been built in the past decade are, generally, more racially mixed than any part of the affected area. However, most of them are not meeting the 30% desegregation benchmark.
The Open Choice program has been somewhat of a disappointment, mostly because suburban (white) schools don't offer as many seats as students applying for those seats. Not everyone who wants to take advantage of this can.
But it seems pretty clear that there has been progress in this area. It's projected that in June 2007, the schools will be at best halfway (15%) to the benchmark set in 2003.
Why are we missing the goal? Some observers point to construction delays for new magnet school facilites, which they believe are essential to attract more white suburban families. Others question whether sufficient numbers of white suburbanites will ever voluntarily leave neighborhood schools to enroll in magnets in Hartford, or whether their suburban school districts will open up more seats for Hartford students. Still others challenge the premise that race matters with respect to the quality of a student's education.
Okay. So Sheff, while it has made grounds, is still falling short of the goals it set out in the first place. All of the viewpoints made are good ones. But Sheff might be stopped in its tracks with the case before the Supreme Court. From the Hartford Courant:
Seattle's system allows students to choose among high schools and then relies on tiebreakers - including race - to decide who gets into schools that have more applicants than openings.
In the Louisville case, a mother claimed her son was denied entrance to a neighborhood school because he is white. The metropolitan district was under a court desegregation order until 2001, but since then has continued to use an assignment plan using racial guidelines.
Some legal minds familiar with the Sheff case have argued that Connecticut won't be affected by the Supreme Court ruling because part of the State Supreme Court's ruling was of discrimination -- and race-based measures are allowed in cases of actual discrimination. Not everyone is convinced. Still, it does appear that Sheff vs. O'Neill will carry on, even if race is eliminated as a factor.
But what about elsewhere? The potential implications of this case are far-reaching, up to the higher education level.
A decision striking down the plans would mark a shift on the court and underscore the impact of President George W. Bush's two appointees, Roberts and Alito. The last time the court considered the subject of racial diversity in education, in 2003, it said universities could consider race in making admissions decisions.
So we have two big cities trying to balance racial quotas among schools, and two (sets of) parents suing to stop that. On the one hand, maybe it is discrimination and unconstitutional to use race as a deciding factor. On the other, getting into those schools may be just the boost that underprivileged students need to get a good education.
I don't think I lost anything by attending a high school with a sizeable minority population. That was not the issue. The quality of my education was. Yes, I come from a middle class white family. I still feel like my high school had a lot of things wrong with it, things that -- in many cases -- had nothing to do with the number of minority students there and everything to do with the quality of teachers and resources available to me. When racial imbalance is particularly notable, then of course there should be something done about it. But the public school system as a whole has some flaws that need fixing, starting with more and better teachers. All the racial equality in the world won't matter if one school has underpaid and overworked teachers and another doesn't.