This report from the State Department of Education| Open Choice Participation by District | ||
| School Year 2008-09 | ||
| 2008-09 | Open Choice | |
| Sheff Region Towns | Enrollment | Seats - 2008-09 |
| Avon | 3,559 | 49 |
| Bloomfield | 2,155 | 0 |
| Canton | 1,750 | 37 |
| East Granby | 898 | 26 |
| East Hartford | 7,222 | 0 |
| East Windsor | 1,427 | 38 |
| Ellington | 2,634 | 18 |
| Farmington | 4,189 | 93 |
| Glastonbury | 6,847 | 46 |
| Granby | 2,263 | 76 |
| Hartford | 21,649 | 1 |
| Manchester | 6,870 | 0 |
| Newington | 4,509 | 52 |
| Rocky Hill | 2,613 | 25 |
| Simsbury | 4,933 | 94 |
| South Windsor | 4,791 | 72 |
| Suffield | 2,535 | 25 |
| Vernon | 3,549 | 32 |
| West Hartford | 10,080 | 89 |
| Wethersfield | 3,811 | 31 |
| Windsor | 3,970 | 10 |
| Windsor Locks | 1,846 | 35 |
| Total | 849 | |
| Non-Sheff Region Towns | ||
| Berlin | 3,217 | 28 |
| Bolton | 861 | 22 |
| Bristol | 8,783 | 20 |
| Cromwell | 2,020 | 45 |
| Enfield | 6,288 | 75 |
| Plainville | 2,515 | 50 |
| Reg. School District 10 | 2,836 | 6 |
| Somers | 1,717 | 24 |
| Southington | 6,826 | 10 |
| Total | 280 | |
| Total | 1,129 | |
| All of the districts, except Hartford, Bloomfield, East Hartford, and Manchester received letters from the Commissioner asking for increased | ||
| participation levels for the 2009-10 school year. | ||
West Hartford receives $2,500 reimbursement for each Project Choice student. CREC kicks in some extra money too. We are now being told by the State to take in almost double the amount of students - many in middle school and high school.
West Hartford and the surrounding towns are being used to solve Hartford's education problems and who pays for this? Not the State and not Hartford.
In a Hartford Courant article it was reported that:
the state wants more control over the open choice program [which would be controlled by the State Department of Education under Gov. Rell's new plans] to try to increase the number of students enrolled. Under the Sheff v. O'Neill desegregation agreement, the state has to meet benchmarks for how many Hartford minority students attend racially integrated schools. Officials want to increase the number of students enrolled in open choice from about 1,100 to 3,000 to help meet those benchmarks.At tonight's meeting, Board of Education members Jack Darcy and Clare Kindall were not very happy about being told what to do by State Department of Education Commissioner McQuillan. They both expressed very strong feelings against the "request" from the SDOE.
We are already struggling with our budget and Hartford just wants to dump more kids into our system.
Harry Captain said he'd like to see kids come to us in the lower grades because the kids in the higher grades are too far behind our students by the time they are in Middle and High School (perhaps Harry, that is where they could use the most help though to prepare them for a meaningful graduation...but it's sort of like wanting to get the puppy instead of the older dog at the pound eh, Harry?) Bruce Putterman is just as happy to comply in order to "help solve" Hartford's problems, because he's just that kind of "regional sort of guy".
The fact of the matter is you can talk all day about how Project Choice, Open Choice, or whatever they call it these days, "adds to our school's diversity" blah, blah, blah, and how much our school system benefits from the injection of color into our schools, and Financial guru Chip Ward can spin all he wants about how we are not really losing money on this proposition, but the fact is we are bearing the brunt of Hartford's problems. Project Choice kids cost our system money and resources, especially if the kids require special education.
One very real fact is that we are "gently" being "dictated to" and it won't be long before we will be "mandated to".
The Board of Education indicated that "our Legislative delegation" should be directed to prevent further mandates regarding Sheff and Open Choice. Good luck with that. Education co-chair Fleischmann no doubt will be the first one to mandate more kids be shipped out of Hartford schools into our own. He is after all a Progressive first and foremost, and an advocate of regionalistic solutions to Hartford's problems. He will be the first one to claim that we are bound by the Sheff v. O'Neill lawsuit and so "his hands will be tied" by the court's rulings.
Of course TOWH's sympathy lays mostly with those unfortunate kids that have to travel by bus from Hartford to Canton or Ellington and back every school day. Perhaps we ought to make the "regionalists" do this every day and see how they like it. That's a lot to ask for kids whose own school district just doesn't give a damn enough to fix their own schools and provide a decent education, because quite frankly, the color of whom one sits next to in school is really not the issue here, nor should it be. Hartford's school suck, and with all the money thrown at them they still suck. Is anyone asking why?
Critics of Project Choice continue to be vilified as a bunch of racists. It's a convenient enough argument against them, but really has no truth to it at all. Frankly, it is more about money and resources. West Hartford Board of Education members were right to recognize and to say that we really ought to take care of our own kids first. That's not selfishness, that is why we fund our school system.
However, given the plan being cooked up by the State we probably have little choice coming our way, and heaven forbid that Hartford should be made to reform their own school system to be one that kids will thrive and excel in. We all know how much money is being thrown Hartford's way and they still are too incompetent to get their stuff together to fix it. Maybe the solution is to close their schools all together and just ship their kids off to the burbs while gobs of tax dollars remain behind to pay Hartford administrators and "specialists". Perhaps that's the regionalism solution they are seeking after all.
Open your wallets West Hartford and prepare for yet another mandate.
4 WH Responses:
The BOE meeting started last night with parents complaigning about class size.
Later in the meeting the BOE talking about the request for us to take an additional 70+ Open Choice kids (inc the # to 159, that's 6.5 classes @ 24/class).
1st Question to answer are we crowded or aren't we.
The district likes to bunch the OC kids into a small number of schools because they get increased $$$ for this. Do we have schools this empty?
Last year we were on the verge of spending a horrendous amount of money on expansion of schools - money we don't have and as it turned out the expansion really wasn't needed. So was this expansion in anticipation of increased OC or regionalization?
As Chip said last night, they try to place the OC kids in under-utelized classes. But he can't gaurantee that those classes will not be crowded in 4 yrs.
Last year after being questioned by a resident. Chip discovered that we had not been billing Hartford for reimbursement for SPED services. He back billed $200K for 2 years services. This year he said that number was ~$125K. BTW are we correctly billing for IDEA and SPED reimbursement from the Fed and State for our own kids? Chip cliamed we were, at the Town Hall meeting, but in the budget the number for IDEA funds change from last year to this by $2mill (I believe that was the figure)with no footnoting as to why the difference. If they can't keep track of the spending how can they get reimbursed properly
Last night even Kathy Wilson is throwing her hands up in frustration over the budget problems.
I guess it comes down to Are we crowded or aren't we? Do we have financial problems or don't we?
Another question the Administraion won't answer. What is the effect of the OC kids on test scores? They claim not to know and can't tell. But when our Test scores come in at the bottom of our DRG they quickly blame the Minorities and poor. Since the Town is spending $300K+ for a DIP (Thank you Dr. List, heaven forbid you should follow Tom Moores policies at Conard that cost zip) you would think we have the right to know.
I need to set the record straight TOWH.
What I said was that I support the current district practice of admitting students early in elementary levels to ensure their success. This practice also ensures early interventions in student learning that significantly reduce more costly remedial needs and struggles of older students.
Another WH practice is to limit the enrollment of Open Choice students to classrooms where there is space - to not create class section brakes that require hiring additional teachers due to Open Choice. Where's the equity in WH taxpayers funding positions due to Open Choice when WH does NOT receive 100% of spending per pupil from sending districts? Funding needs to follow the student and not financially burden the receiving district.
TOWH - you can't have it both ways... bash us for what education costs in WH AND bash us for trying to ensure the success of Open Choice students while trying to control costs.
And your dog reference is repulsive and deserves an apology. Not to me but to Open Choice students and their families.
Harry, always good to hear from you.
I agree with you that starting early gives the Open Choice kids a better chance of success.
But, the problem of section breaks still exists, despite the attampt to place OC kids in less crowded schools. As Chip said, he does not know what will be in 4 years. Indeed, I believe that this is what happened at Duffy (I may have the exact school wrong)where there were class breaks due to OC enrollment.
The point you don't adrress is the question of test scores. The last number of years our performance on the State tests has been abysmal. And every year Chip brings out his dog and pony show w/ charts and graphs and the 1st thing he does is blame the minorities and poor for the poor performance on these tests. Yet the Administration refuses to release the data on the effect of OC on test scores.
The District is now in the process of spending $300+K for a DIP of questionable value to evaluate these scores. The 10th graders from '07 who were part of the reason for the DIP will be out of the system in 3 months and will have reeceived bo assistance because the DIP will only start to provide data by next September. The DIP did them alot of good.
The State is now asking us to almost double the number of OC students. The Board has a duty to demand the Admninistration release the data on the OC effect on test scores.
BTW Harry, for how many years did West Hartford eat the SPED reimbursement costs for Hartford before the Administration finally got around to billing Hartford for reimbursement?
The BOE needs to keep a tighter rein on the Administration!
Hey Harry - Woof!
(Yes - let's make this analogy into being about some sort of derogatory statement - clearly Harry just wants to turn a comment into an issue. What you really are saying Harry is that it is harder and more costly to teach an old dog new tricks, and taking kids in at a younger age is preferable in order to nip their problems in the bud...that is fine and TOWH is glad to see that you admit it.
So what about the older kids? we just let them go off into the world illiterate and ready for jail? Don't you want to help them too? Why should it be more costly to help these kids anyway? Perhaps educators ought to focus on that. It really shouldn't matter what age these kids come to us - or any other school system that helps to remediate them.
In any case, TOWH absolutely believes that if kids come to us from other school systems then we ought to be fully compensated for their education and not be expected to shell out the taxes and resources to pay for it. That being said, it's a pity that we have to look at this in terms of the age of the kids that come to us insofar as the effectiveness of our being able to educate them - so don't get your leash in a tangle Harry because in the end we agree)
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