Proposal:
In our project, we wish to see how Reverse red-lining* in the Hartford area has affected racial composition of schools in the Greater Hartford area. We wish to show how this form of redlining drives the white population out, and how this affects housing values, test scores and school performance, among other things. Skin color is not the issue, here. The problem is that as the White population moves out, they take their money with them.
* “Reverse redlining occurs when a lender or insurer particularly targets minority consumers, not to deny them loans or insurance, but rather to charge them more than would be charged to a similarly situated majority consumer.” [Ehrenreich, Barbara; Muhammad, Dedrick (September 13, 2009). “The Recession’s Racial Divide”. The New York Times.]
The intended audience would be the students who attend these schools. Our main focus at this point will be either middle or high school students.
We will look at factors such as income, and closely examine the population of each school to determine how race may (or may not) play a factor in school performance. School performance will be defined as whether or not the schools are meeting CT standards for accreditation, test scores (CAPT & CMT) may be included as well.
We will look at CT standards and find articles from the Connecticut State Department of Education (http://www.sde.ct.gov/sde/site/default.asp) to back up our findings. We will also explore the City of Hartford Housing Authority (http://www.hartfordhousing.org/) as a possible reference and compare it to other housing authorities in other towns such as Bristol (http://bristolhousing.org/) to view how reverse red-lining affects towns differently.
We may include videos/written pieces from websites such as www.hartfordschools.org to profile the schools we highlight. If the material on the respective websites is copy written, we will request permission directly from the contact person on the website or from the respective districts, to ensure no violation of laws.
We want to highlight how these towns view their schools and how the schools view where they are located and use that as a beginning ground, and as a basis of how students perform in their respective schools.
Resources:
Defending Education @ HPHS http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDRMfTjdgSY
Strategic School Profiles: http://www.csde.state.ct.us/public/der/ssp
Carlos and Booker, as we discussed during our last seminar meeting, this is an interesting idea but one that needs more work before it’s ready for prime time. Here are some issues to consider:
1) Reconsider how you are using the term “reverse red-lining.” Barbara Ehrenreich’s definition is racial and economic: lenders charging people of color a higher amount for homes than white people would be charged. But in your first paragraph, you state that “skin color is not the issue,” which confuses me greatly.
2) Why do you claim that reverse red-lining drives out white people and their money? It doesn’t follow logically to me that this would happen, based on what is written above.
3) Selected suburbs in the Hartford region have seen a significant increase in residents of color over the past twenty years. You could certainly write an essay about this shift in housing and what it means for schooling, with or without “reverse red-lining.”