Hartford Public Schools Enrollment, Race, and Accountability Data 2015-16

Posted on Author Robert Cotto Jr.


A few people have asked me about enrollment, race, and accountability data for the Hartford Public Schools. The questions have been in the context of judging the merit of a proposal by the Hartford Board of Education to close a number of schools including Batchelder, Simpson-Waverly, and Milner school. So, here you go!

Each bubble represents a school. Magnet schools are in red and non-magnet schools are in blue. The size of the bubble corresponds to the number of students enrolled in the school.

In order to maximize the chart below, I took out the axis titles. The horizontal  axis (scale at bottom of chart) is the percent of all students that are Black are Latin@. The vertical axis (scale on left side of chart) is the school’s accountability index given by the State of CT Department of Education.

You can put your cursor above the bubble to see each school’s information. I have an example in the image above, which shows the data for Batchelder school.

A few things that are immediately noticeable are the two clusters of schools. On the one hand, there are the non-magnet schools on the left in blue between 85-100% Black and Latin@ students and generally lower accountability ratings. And on the right are (mostly) the inter district magnet schools in blue with relatively higher accountability ratings and fewer than 75% Black and Latin@ students, which is the Sheff case’s school desegregation standard.

This data comes from the State of Connecticut EdSight website. Here is the spreadsheet if you want to see the whole data table. There is no 2016-17 accountability data yet, but I can add enrollment data if folks are interested.

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Robert Cotto Jr.

Robert Cotto, Jr. is a Lecturer in the Educational Studies department. Before his work at Trinity, he was a Senior Policy Fellow in K-12 Education for CT Voices for Children where he published reports on Connecticut’s testing system, public school choice, and K-12 education data and policy. He taught for seven years as a social studies teacher at the Metropolitan Learning Center for Global and International Studies (MLC), an interdistrict magnet school intended to provide a high-quality education and promote racial, ethnic, and economic integration. Born and raised in Connecticut, Mr. Cotto was the first in his family to go to college and he earned his B.A. degree in sociology at Dartmouth College, his Ed.M. at Harvard University Graduate School of Education, and an M.A. in American Studies at Trinity College. He is currently completing his Ph.D. in education policy at the University of Connecticut Neag School of Education. Robert lives with his wife and son in the Forster Heights area of the Southwest neighborhood in Hartford. Views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Trinity College.

One thought on “Hartford Public Schools Enrollment, Race, and Accountability Data 2015-16”

  1. Thank you, Mr. Cotto for writing this for us. It helps us to see which schools schools might close, and their racial make up.
    It helps us to see a bigger picture. It also begs the questions of why predominately schools of color.
    I am wonder, if their is any data about the economic impacts on closing local community schools in communities of color. I have not study this, but I have heard some talk about negative impacts on local communities where schools were closed.
    If you can point me in the right direction please do.
    Thank you,
    Professor Jesse Turner
    Central Connecticut State University Literacy Center

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