{"id":3736,"date":"2012-11-28T11:54:04","date_gmt":"2012-11-28T15:54:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/mdaly3\/?p=116"},"modified":"2012-11-28T11:54:04","modified_gmt":"2012-11-28T15:54:04","slug":"is-there-hope-for-hartford-the-inclusive-zoning-policy-of-montgomery-county-has-had-dramatic-impacts-on-the-educational-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/2012\/11\/28\/is-there-hope-for-hartford-the-inclusive-zoning-policy-of-montgomery-county-has-had-dramatic-impacts-on-the-educational-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Is There Hope for Hartford? The Inclusive Zoning Policy of Montgomery County Has Had Dramatic Impacts on the Educational System"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Education is often regarded as a primary means of social mobility in the United States. \u00a0This disregards that some children have opportunities to top schools, while others\u00a0do not have this advantage. \u00a0The opportunity to attend high-achieving schools depends on what kind of neighborhood a family lives in. \u00a0Most of these schools reside in affluent neighborhoods, so only children whose families can purchase expensive housing are about to attend; therefore segregating children by economic status. \u00a0By integrating low-income housing into wealthy areas, it can improve children of low-income\u2019s opportunities for economic mobility and help stop future poverty by providing them with a higher-achieving school. \u00a0Montgomery County, Maryland has implemented integrated zoning plans that provide an example for other counties struggling with segregation in schools, such as Hartford County, Connecticut. \u00a0Communities, low-income families, and students benefit from economically integrated neighborhoods and schools.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Study<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The Century Foundation study,<\/span> Housing Policy Is School Policy<\/a>, conducted by Heather Schwartz of the RAND Corporation, explores the effects of two educational reform strategies implemented by Montgomery County, Maryland. To date, these strategies have exhibited encouraging results for their district public schools\u2014results so promising that the schools are nationally acclaimed for both their academic excellence and equity in education (Schwartz 14).<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the educational reform strategies entailed investing extra resources into approximately sixty of the district\u2019s \u201cmost disadvantaged\u201d elementary schools\u2014regarded as being part of the \u201cred zone\u201d (the remaining 131 more \u201cadvantaged\u201d schools are deemed as belonging to the \u201cgreen zone\u201d). \u00a0The improvements would include full-day kindergarten, a reduction in class sizes, a greater emphasis on literacy and math, and extra professional development to the teachers (Schwartz 14)<\/p>\n

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Subsidized Housing Unit – Clarksburg, MD<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The other strategy implemented by the county is an \u201cinclusionary zoning\u201d housing policy. First employed in the mid-1970s, the policy has enabled children of low-income families in public housing to attend the more-affluent \u201cgreen zone\u201d (higher-scoring) district schools (Schwartz 15). The housing policy requires developers of large subdivisions to reserve 12 to 15% of units for less affluent families. Additionally, the public housing authority is able to buy up to one-third of the apartment units (Schwartz 15).<\/p>\n

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Heather Schwartz<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

.<\/p>\n

The study follows the academic progress of 850 elementary school students living in public housing between 2001 and 2007 in Montgomery County. \u00a0These children came from some of the most impoverished families\u2014the average income was $21,000\u2014and approximately 72% of the children were African American (Schwartz 16).<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

The Effects of \u201cInclusionary Zoning\u201d (Economic Integration)<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Heather Schwartz: Click to enlarge<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/strong>The graph below illustrates the average math performance of children in public housing that attended Montgomery County\u2019s \u201cgreen zone\u201d schools from 2001 to 2007 (Schwartz 18). As made evident by the graph, after two years in the district, children in public housing performed comparably on standardized math tests despite the poverty level of the respective schools. However, by the fifth year, considerable statistical differences (p < 0.05) arose between the performance levels of the children that attended the most affluent schools and those that attended the moderate-poverty schools (Schwartz 19). Most significantly, by the seventh year, children that attended the most affluent schools performed approximately eight normal curve equivalent (NCE) points higher than children that attended the higher-poverty district schools (Schwartz 19).<\/p>\n

The Effects of Allocating Resources to \u201cRed Zone\u201d Schools<\/strong><\/p>\n

As previously stated, the Montgomery County school district divided its 131 respective elementary schools into two zones\u2014the \u201cred zone\u201d and the \u201cgreen zone\u201d\u2014in 2000. Approximately one half of the district\u2019s students attend the \u201cred zone\u201d elementary schools, while the other half attend the \u201cgreen zone\u201d elementary schools. During 2001 to 2007 (the years this study was conducted), the district invested greatly into improving the \u201cred zone\u201d schools. These improvements entailed \u201cextend(ing) kindergarten from half- to full-day, reduce class sizes from 25 to 17 in kindergarten and first grade, provide one hundred hours of additional professional development to red zone teachers, and introduce a literacy curriculum intended to bring disadvantaged students up to level by third grade\u201d (Schwartz 23).<\/p>\n

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Heather Schwartz: Click to enlarge<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The graph to the right shows the average reading scores of the students that attend the \u201cgreen zone\u201d and \u201cred zone\u201d schools, and the graph in the previous section shows average math scores (Schwartz 24). As illustrated, by the end of the study, the children who attended \u201cgreen zone\u201d schools significantly outperformed their peers that attended the \u201cred zone\u201d schools\u2014approximately nine points higher in math and eight points higher in reading. This is most interesting, because at the beginning of the study, both groups of students started out with relatively similar achievement levels (Schwartz 24).<\/p>\n

\u00a0So, what have we learned here?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Montgomery county realized that in order to improve their schools, solely giving schools more funding and resources does not help. \u00a0Schools cannot have concentrated poverty within their classroom walls, because that limits their access to parental involvement, retaining prepared teachers and administrators, and ultimately giving students a reliably advantageous education. \u00a0By economically integrating housing, Montgomery county has provided an example for school districts–such \u00a0as Hartford\u2019s– that \u00a0are attempting to improve school quality through means of desegregation.<\/p>\n


\nSegregation in Connecticut<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Source: Missing the Goal: A Visual Guide to Sheff v. O'Neill School Desegregation; from the Cities, Suburbs and Schools Website.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Connecticut has a large wealth disparity (the highest income per capita in the United States, but also has 3 of the 20 poorest cities in the united states). The more affluent residents in Connecticut drive up real estate costs, leaving little affordable housing for the poor (Fink). \u00a0Although 10% of housing stock must be affordable in Connecticut municipalities, only 31 out of 169 have 10% or more of their housing stock is affordable. This large percentage of areas with low amounts of affordable housing stock creates isolated pockets of extreme poverty. \u00a0With segregated neighborhoods, comes segregated schools, a problem that Montgomery county also encountered. \u00a0The schools within large areas of poverty become the lower achieving schools, and the schools with wealthy attendees are the highest achieving schools in the state. \u00a0This segregation creates a difference in opportunity that many Connecticut residents protest about. \u00a0Certain wealthy communities, such as those in the surrounding Hartford area have the resources and \u201cpathways to opportunity\u201d needed for an individual to succeed and achieve social mobility in modern day society, whereas others do not. \u00a0These opportunities start at age five–a child\u2019s first day in kindergarden–and if they are placed in a high achieving school, their prospects for a better future are much higher than those children placed in low-achieving schools. \u00a0Due to this difference in opportunity, Connecticut citizens want change. \u00a0Hartford has tried many different programs to try and give its students more opportunities; however, their attempts have only been temporary solutions that merely brush the surface of the underlying problem.<\/p>\n


\nHartford\u2019s Attempt at School Integration<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Parents must search for what school they want. Source: http:\/\/smartchoices.trincoll.edu\/<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Hartford has tried many solutions to give students in the area more choices on where to attend school. \u00a0Future students can apply to magnet schools, charter schools, and any other public schools they would like to attend, within Hartford or in the suburbs. \u00a0Instead of integrating housing, Hartford metropolitan area decided to try and just integrate schooling, by busing children to the schools they wish to apply, and going home to their segregated communities after. \u00a0This solution is not as promising as Montgomery County\u2019s housing integration plan for many reasons. \u00a0First, students still remain widely segregated since the demand for schools outside of Hartford\u2019s public schools is much higher than the number of students suburban schools are willing to take, and the number of students that magnet and charter schools have space for. \u00a0This leaves many students as \u201closers\u201d in this system because after applying to more integrated or better performing schools, they still remain in segregated and\/or low-performing schools. \u00a0In addition to this, those students who do get into alternative school choices often have a long bus ride to their respective school. \u00a0This not only is hard for the student to bus a long way every day, but also creates a divide within the school between those students who have to bus a long way and those who can walk or take a short bus ride. \u00a0As Heather Schwartz says, \u201chousing policy is school policy\u201d, where poor students who attend an affluent school and live in an affluent neighborhood do better than those who just attend an affluent school. \u00a0So, although Hartford has made some attempts to integrate their schools, they are far away from their potential of a more equal school system. \u00a0This will not happen until children of different racial and economic backgrounds can not just have the possible option of going to school outside of their district, but have the definite future of attending a school with a diverse student body consisting of kids from their neighborhood.<\/p>\n


\nCould Montgomery County Provide a Model for Hartford County?<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to David Rusk\u2019s Commentary on Schwartz\u2019 article on Montgomery, \u201cRegion-wide inclusionary zoning policies…would produce major change\u201d. \u00a0Although creating inclusionary zoning is not an easy policy to enact, it is a clear, permanent solution for counties that wish to improve integration of their community and their schools. \u00a0In Hartford, they have gone a voluntary route in their integration efforts: children and their families can apply to the schools they want, and surrounding suburbs can choose to allow as many or as few inner-city students as they want into their schools. \u00a0This voluntary system does not solve the deeply rooted problem of segregation within the surrounding community. \u00a0Some even argue that it exacerbates this problem, arguing that typically those with more resources are the families that are more likely to apply to different schools, whereas those who do not apply are the families with less means to do so (Winterbottom). \u00a0By implementing inclusionary zoning and attempting to gentrify some of Hartford to integrate the metropolitan area will create an environment that not only integrates children in school, but out of school as well. \u00a0Schwartz highlights this out of school influence as an extremely critical part of the development of a student and their education. \u00a0This policy is the answer for Hartford\u2019s metropolitan area; however, the actual implementation would be difficult. \u00a0Most of Hartford\u2019s suburban towns remain under 10% for a reason–most of their residents have a \u201cnot in my backyard\u201d prospective, routinely rejecting integration of affordable housing in their area, and even proposals to just economically integrate their some of their low-poverty schools.<\/p>\n

Conclusion:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Montgomery\u2019s plan is an extensive measure to reform schools, but also very successful. \u00a0Hartford county needs a proposition to keep Hartford moving forward in its plans to integrate schools. \u00a0The programs that Hartford already implemented have helped give children more options; however, these options are a small improvement. \u00a0Montgomery provides an example of integration that areas such as Hartford should aim to strive for in the future. \u00a0Instead of dumping money and reforming poor-income heavy schools or building new schools and seeing minimal positive impact, Hartford should follow Montgomery\u2019s steps and focus on integrating the county, and inturn integrating its schools–this would show better improvements in students. \u00a0By implementing a desegregation plan in Hartford, the city and its surrounding area would not only improve its schools, but also, having a metropolitan area that is more integrated is a positive outcome by itself.<\/p>\n

________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

About the Authors:<\/p>\n

Mary Daly is a sophomore at Trinity College from Madison, Wisconsin. \u00a0She is majoring in Urban Studies and minoring in Hispanic Studies and Economics.<\/p>\n

Amanda Gurren is a sophomore at Trinity College from Weston, Connecticut. \u00a0She is double majoring in Urban Studies and Sociology.<\/p>\n

________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

Works Cited:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fink, David, Christina Rubenstein, and Amneris Torres. “Housing in CT 2010: The Latest Measures of Affordability.”Partnership for Strong Communities<\/em>\u00a01 (2010): n. pag.www.ctpartnershiphousing.org<\/em>. Web. 27 Nov. 2012.<\/p>\n

David, Rusk. “‘Housing Policy is School Policy’: A Commentary.”\u00a0Finding Common Ground: Coordinating Housing and Education Policy to Promote Integration<\/em>\u00a01 (2010): 21-30. Print.<\/p>\n

Schwartz, Heather. “Housing Policy is School Policy: Economically Integrative Housing Promotes Academic Success in Montgomery County, Maryland.”\u00a0Finding Common Ground: Coordinating Housing and Education Policy to Promote Integration<\/em>\u00a01 (2010): 15-20. Print.<\/p>\n

Winterbottom, Nancy. \u201cHollowing Out City Schools: It\u2019s Wrong to Blame Teachers and \u2018Failing Schools,\u2019 When Flight to Magnet and Charter Schools Leaves Neediest Students Behind (op-ed Essay).\u201d Hartford Courant, March 14, 2010.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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