Category: Blog

Source: Sheff plaintiffs memo, 2018.

Over the last few days, I have discussed a number of aspects of the State of Connecticut’s efforts to racially desegregate schools. In short, the State uses voluntary school choice programs, such as magnet schools to create racially diverse educational settings. But over the past several years, a number of groups have launched a campaign against school desegregation. This post will break down the new Robinson case attempting to undo the civil rights gains made by the Sheff v. O’Neill case.

Earlier this year, parents that reside in Hartford, CT filed a federal lawsuit against the State of CT and Hartford Public Schools claiming that the State’s magnet lottery and reduced isolation definition were racially discriminatory and violated the 14th amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The parents and their lawyers allege that because their children have not been accepted to any of the State’s magnet schools, the State has discriminated against their children. To be clear, these are allegations and there is no actual evidence of racial discrimination in the documents, only a certain interpretation of State law. The parents are represented by the right-wing Pacific Legal Foundation that works to protect, “private property,” “economic liberty,” and “individual rights” (990 tax form).

This Robinson et al v. Wentzell case has been a focal point in the discussion about the State’s effort to desegregate schools. Through their lawyers, they are asking the federal court to stop the State magnet school lottery as currently designed and stop the use of a definition of reduced isolation used to deem magnet schools racially diverse or not. In other words, the Robinson case seeks to ultimately end the Sheff v. O’Neill school desegregation remedy as we currently know it in Hartford, Connecticut.

In response, the plaintiffs in the Sheff v. O’Neill school desegregation state case filed a motion to intervene in the Robinson federal case. Basically, the Sheff plaintiffs want to intervene because the Robinson case, poorly handled, could gravely impact the Sheff lawsuit. Also, the Sheff team believes that the State is a poor defendant of school desegregation remedies given that Governor and Legislature do not and did not want school desegregation in 1996 or in 2018.

The Sheff plaintiffs are represented by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, which is a wing of the oldest civil rights organization in the U.S. that defends educational, economic, and racial justice (990 tax form). The Sheff plaintiffs argue that the Robinson case should be dismissed based on many incorrect facts and poor interpretation of the law. Furthermore, the Sheff plaintiffs believe that some of the issues raised in the Robinson case should be resolved in the Connecticut court in February 2019 when it takes up the State’s failure to comply.

Here it’s important to separate the people from the goals and arguments. As far as I can tell, the parents in the Robinson case are sincere in their concern for their children. They also show concern that magnet schools have limited enrollment. They aren’t alone in feeling frustration with the State’s efforts to deliver equal educational opportunity in all schools in Hartford and elsewhere.

However, the Sheff lawyers make a strong argument that the Robinson case argument is wrong on the facts and the law. The lottery for magnet schools is race-neutral and the State defines a racially diverse school through a benchmark rather than direct mandates or limits of students of any particular race. These facts about the system make sure that the State develops racially diverse schools to counteract the effects of school and residential segregation without specifically using racial categories to make that happen. There are no “racial quotas” and children aren’t being denied magnet school enrollment on the basis of race.

So if the magnet lottery is race-neutral and the State only has a benchmark for racially diverse schools, then why is the Robinson group suing the State in federal court over the magnet system?

In the past, the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) that represents the Robinson parents has promoted charter schools and the elimination of school desegregation orders that are “race-conscious.” The PLF group has submitted court briefs defending private charter schools use of public facilities in California and other states and it was heavily involved in dismantling school desegregation in places likes Seattle in the Parents Involved case, for example (Sandberg, 2011).

In addition, the CT Parent Union has facilitated Pacific Legal Foundation’s work in Connecticut over the past weeks. In the past, the CT Parent Union has lobbied for a “parent trigger” bill that would allow parents to vote to turn their school into a charter or other privately-managed school.

As the New Haven Independent recently reported, Pacific Legal Foundation is still trying to find other clients beside the Robinson group to help them dismantle school desegregation in Connecticut. As the Independent reported, Pacific Legal wants to find parents in New Haven, ‘”in order to file a suit that could bring down the entire magnet program statewide.” According to the article, CT Parent Union is assisting that effort.

As a side note, it is helpful to look at where these organizations get revenue using public tax form data. It’s unclear where Pacific Legal Foundation gets its funding, but there are some hints that their money from corporations and foundation related to fossil fuel industries, plus other big businesses (No sources listed on 990 tax form). Similarly, it’s unclear how CT Parent Union is funded (no 990 tax form, might not be a 501(c)3 non-profit). The NAACP Legal Defense funds primarily obtains revenue through fundraising, investments, and grants from other civil rights organization. (990 tax form, 2017). The Shelf Movement is a 501(c)3, but does not yet have a 990 tax form.

So how does the Robinson case fit into the Pacific Legal Foundation and CT Parent Union agenda?

The Shelf plaintiffs have advocated  “race-conscious” school choice policies as a means towards numerical school desegregation. Or, put another way, Sheff plaintiffs have advocated for school choice as a means towards a broader societal goal of racial integration. On the other hand, both Pacific Legal Foundation and CT Parent Union advocate for “school choice” as a goal by itself. They believe in “colorblind” choice that doesn’t specifically promote school diversity.  The Robinson case would not require or guarantee the State to place more students in racially diverse magnet schools, but it could open the door for more charter schools, the “colorblind” version of school choice that PLF and CPU like more.

So, here’s a hypothesis.

In Hartford, the Sheff case has used magnet schools as a way towards voluntary school desegregation. Connecticut’s magnet schools are racially diverse through a regional lottery, funding incentives and supports, plus their regional design. Diverse magnet schools in Hartford have thwarted racially segregated and privately-managed charter school growth in the city.

These privately-managed charter schools have grown in Hartford, but not as fast as in places such as New Haven and Bridgeport that do not have a court-ordered desegregation plans. Today, nearly all of the publicly-funded, privately-managed charter schools in Connecticut are racially segregated, lacking the rules and standards for racial diversity used as benchmarks for magnet schools.

If the Robinson case can dismantle the regional magnet school lottery and the reduced isolation definition in Hartford and New Haven, then that paves the way for more “school choice” without racial equity and other safeguards (UCLA Civil Rights Project, 2010). Down the road, that could mean more charter schools in Hartford. In other words, if the State doesn’t have to keep making racially diverse magnet schools in Hartford because of the Sheff remedies, then it would be free to open more racially-segregated, privately-managed charter schools.

Labor rules and public funds are in the background, but important issues too. Magnet schools are public schools that also have unionized teachers. Charter schools typically do not have unionized staff and teachers. Pacific Legal loves charter schools and is not too fond of unionized employees. For example, PLF submitted a supporting brief to undermine unions and working people in the Janus case. Without teachers unions and the same stringent rules for spending public funds as magnet and public schools, there is money to be made in segregated, privately-managed charter schools in a way that is not possible in public schools.

And, while it could just be a coincidence, it’s important to note that one of the plaintiffs in the Robinson case was a founding member of the Board of Directors for a charter school in Hartford that attempted to obtain state approval last year. The State of Connecticut rejected the application, for now (See the Community First Charter School Application to CT SDE, 2017).

This Robinson case is not happening in isolation. There is a broader campaign to dismantle school desegregation in Connecticut that has been brewing for a number of years. To be sure, this campaign exploits frustration by parents with poor implementation of school desegregation by the State of Connecticut and counter-productive education reforms over the last decade. Next, we will take a look at this campaign.

Views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Trinity College.

 

Over the last several years, school desegregation as a result of the Sheff v. O’Neill case in Connecticut has been under attack from a variety of corners. In particular, the race-blind Regional School Choice (RSCO) lottery used to assign students to interdistrict magnet school and the Open Choice program has come under attack. So how does this lottery work?

First, a quick bit of background. In 1996, the State of Connecticut Supreme Court sided with the Sheff plaintiffs that the state’s laws about town and district lines (e.g. West Hartford Public Schools only corresponds to town of West Hartford) and attendance laws were to blame, in part, for racial segregation of schools. The Court found this to be unconstitutional according to Connecticut’s constitution. The Court left it up to the legislature to decide how to undo the State’s illegal racial segregation of schools. The Court found that students must at least have the opportunity to attend a racially desegregated setting, but did not specify the remedy.

Rather than eliminate the district lines, the Legislature and then-Governor Rowland chose to expand the use of earlier magnet school and Project Concern “choice” reforms to allow students to voluntarily select schools across district lines in order to create racially diverse schools. The idea of magnet schools was to create schools of sufficient quality and with interesting themes so as to attract a racially and socioeconomically diverse group of people across town and city lines, voluntarily. This was a limited remedy to the core problem of town-district lines that the Legislature and Governor refused to touch.

Fast forward to 2018 and there are dozens of magnet schools that the State uses to reduce racial and economic isolation, which is now a fundamental educational interest of the State of Connecticut. In the Hartford area, these magnet schools are operated by the Capital Regional Education Council, Goodwin College, and the Hartford Public Schools. They are public schools and, in the case of Hartford, are part of the traditional school district. Because there are more students wanting magnet school placement than capacity for enrollment, the State uses a lottery for enrollment.

So how does the enrollment lottery work?

Put simply, any parent of any racial group in Connecticut can apply to an interdistrict magnet school or the Open Choice program in the Hartford area. Parents list up to five preferences of of magnet schools or towns to go for Open Choice, the inter district transfer program. Then the State uses a race-blind lottery to assign students to one of the programs that their parents preferred in their application without explicitly using race as a factor in their assignment. Parents must apply by a deadline to be considered in the yearly lottery.

Although we don’t have the exact mathematical equation of how it works (the State will not provide that info), we have some information scattered from various places available already. For better or worse, there is no one State written document that lists all of the possible factors used for the RSCO placement lottery. (If you find one, then send it along in the comments!)

Based on a variety of sources, we can deduce that the RSCO lottery uses a student’s town of residence (home address), school preferences, sibling attendance, and other non-racial factors to make a school placement (e.g. staff parent, zone or neighborhood, college-student). In the 2015 Sheff settlement, the plaintiffs also recommended that the State consider the use of bilingual education (e.g. ELL) status, disability status, and past application status (e.g. “applied many years, but did not get a spot”), as other factors in the lottery. It is unclear if the State ever adopted this recommendation.

Oftentimes, there are more students than available placements in a school. That results in a waitlist. In the case of a waitlist, students get a placement by their order on waitlist without using the student’s race as a factor.

As the Sheff plaintiffs write, “Sheff remedies involve no racial classifications…no individual student assignment decisions are made based on race. Instead, the lottery considers, among other factors, where applicants live. While the Sheff remedies are race conscious, the administration of the lottery “treats all persons equally” regardless of race. (Sheff et al, 2018, p. 13) “

There are at least three reasons that the State uses this race-blind lottery, which uses student residence as a factor. First, the State is trying to fulfill an important goal of creating racially diverse schools to counteract its own racial discrimination in the still-existing town-district lines that maintain school segregation. However, the politically conservative Supreme Court all but prohibited the use of individual student’s race in assignment to school in order to counter-act the effects of racial discrimination.* So, in response, the State of Connecticut must use a non-racial way of assigning students to magnet schools meant to be racially diverse.

In sum, the Connecticut lottery uses students’ town of residence, school preference, and other factors to assign student a placement at a magnet school.  Today’s RSCO lottery has been designed specifically not to use race as a factor in school placement because it’s not allowed by the Supreme Court. As the Sheff plaintiff in a recent brief attests, “The lottery system’s algorithm does not consider race, it instead considers geography as a factor to counteract the impact of segregated housing on school assignments (Sheff et al, 2018, p. 10).” The State uses this system to create racially diverse schools in a way that does not illegally use race as a factor in school assignment.

Next up: Understanding what the Sheff desegregation standard means. This is a separate concept that is not directly connected to the lottery.

Send your questions in the comments section.

* For more on the Supreme Court issues see Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 case. Race can be still used on a very limited basis for enrollment, but it’s beyond the scope of this post.

Views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Trinity College.

Below is a summary of a parent demonstration and explanation of why Milner School parents decided on this walk.

The Hartford Board of Education intends to close Milner School and force families to transfer to struggling schools in the North End such as Wish and SAND. Because transportation would not be provided for all students to the new schools because of grade and distance restrictions, Milner School parents showed what the walk from Milner to SAND is like on June 12, 2018. The streets between the schools are littered with trash, have open drug dealing, and gun violence even in broad daylight. They used the walk to highlight the fact that the Mayor and Board of Education will be forcing their children to walk through this part of the neighborhood everyday starting in 2019-20.

For this walk, parents had a police escort along the way. With police presence, the trip was fairly peaceful. However, shorty after the walk, the police escort was called to a crime scene one street next to where parents walked. It appeared that the SWAT team and at least five other police cars raided a house and there was talk of gun shots fired. This happened directly in between Milner and SAND school where students would have to walk to school everyday if Milner were to close and transportation not provided. This is precisely the parents point: closing Milner school without providing transportation for all kids to new schools is a dangerous policy.

See some photos from the walk here. You can read the Hartford Courant’s report here.

Views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Trinity College.