Commentary –

Pretending To Improve Our Schools

By William A. Collins

Get those poor kids,

Testing fine;

Long as they don’t,

Hinder mine.

Connecticut schools are clearly tops. Just look at our test scores. In fact, we rank high even though we let lots of our lousiest students take the exams. Most states tell those guys just to read a book, if they can, while everyone else is being tested.

But even as we bask in all this glory, we do admit to one awkward problem. It seems that while 41 percent of our white fourth graders meet high national standards, only six percent of our blacks do, and nine percent of our Latinos. This has understandably led to considerable public rending of garments by politicians, and serious concern by educators.

What it hasn’t led to is much action. Of course that’s understandable. Action costs money (Can you say “taxes”?) and taxes have a higher priority than education any day. Especially education for blacks and Latinos. Thus while our greatest educational need may be for universal Head Start programs beginning at age 3, we still don’t even have universal full-day kindergarten at age 5. And though we desperately need more school integration to equalize opportunity, in fact our schools are getting a trifle more segregated every year.

Nor is this situation likely to change anytime soon. Our political system is carefully designed to maintain conditions just as they are. For example, rich folks, who always have the most to say about politics, sensibly congregate in towns with other rich folks. That holds their taxes down but still provides plenty of revenue for terrific local schools. Who would want to change that?

The middle class, too, does pretty well. In their towns there’s often a lot of friction among parents, taxpayers, the school board, and the finance board, but the final product isn’t bad. Then it’s the zoning board’s job to keep poor people from elbowing in, and to attract pretty office buildings to help out with the tax base. Working class families who have earned an upgrade often do move in, just as mid-level workers who get promoted often move up and out.

In grittier towns, schools are poorer. Parents there want the best for their kids too, but just can’t afford it. Thus the schools struggle, services erode, and there is little time for teachers to spend motivating those kids who show real promise. Young middle class families who happen to be living there tend to move away when the first kid reaches either kindergarten or middle school. As might be expected, the really poor central cities get a lot of help from the state, but not the sort of Marshall Plan it would take to truly make a difference. Families who can afford to tend to move out, while immigrants and poor folks from elsewhere are forever being shunted in. Teachers, too, are motivated to leave for better pay and nicer facilities in the ‘burbs.

To make matters worse, self-serving politicians like Messrs Bush, Rowland, and Lieberman suggest school vouchers as a solution to this mess. Vouchers would clearly help some kids go to parochial school, but would let the rest of the public system rot. Other politicians promote testing, in order to find out once again that which we already know – and to offer the pretense of action. Still others, perhaps more sincere, want more poor kids bused out to the suburbs. That certainly helps a few, but drains off the cream of the urban crop, leaving the rest to stew in their own juice.

Needless to say, it’s time to think bigger. It’s time, say, for the state to take over paying all teachers and maintaining all buildings. That would mean increasing income taxes and lowering property taxes, but would be a giant step toward equalizing schools. Or we could follow Georgia’s lead and have the state pay for every child to begin public pre-school at age 4.

Alternatively, we could follow the European model and support every poor family with the basic needs of life, so their kids wouldn’t already be so far behind when they first reach the schoolhouse door. All these real solutions, however, are expensive to somebody. That’s why it’s a whole lot easier just to pretend that we’re doing something.

(Columnist William A. Collins is a former state representative and a former mayor of Norwalk.)