Magnet Schools Come Under Fire
By Chris Seymour | Correspondent at February 4, 2024 | 6:15 pm | Print
In recently published remarks, the former head of the Capital Region Education Council (CREC), which oversees nearly 20 magnet schools in the Hartford-area, said the construction of magnet schools should cease for the time being—and at least one New Britain education official agrees.
“I believe there should be a moratorium on construction of magnets and funding for additional charter enrollment,” observed Board of Education President Sharon Beloin Saavedra.
In an interview with The Hartford Courant, published on Jan. 25, recently retired CREC Executive Director Bruce Douglas observed that, “We can’t go on with this business of magnet schools forever. We have as many as we could possibly use right now.”
During Douglas’ 18-year tenure in charge, CREC opened 16 new magnet schools in the Hartford-area in an effort to satisfy the settlement in the Sheff v. O’Neill desegregation court case, according to The Courant. “Every time you build a magnet school, you take children out of the Hartford public schools,” Douglas told The Courant. “Every time you engage in Open Choice, you’re taking children out of the Hartford public schools.”
However, many feel, as Beloin Saavedra pointed out, that “Hartford is not the only city dealing with segregated schools. The state should be morally concerned with the segregation of children in any and all school districts.”
In New Britain, she noted, all but three schools meet the state definition of racial/ethnic segregation (75 percent or more minority student enrollment, according to Beloin Saavedra).
“Couple this statistic with our poverty rate of 80 plus percent,” added Beloin Saavedra.
“The state has focused on magnet school development in an attempt to help desegregate Hartford Public Schools,” she said. “The unfortunate consequence of this tiered system has given rise to increased segregation of students from the sending communities and has rerouted essential resources away from the traditional public schools which educate the majority of our state’s children.”
Magnet schools, through both state aid and local tuition payments, spend more per pupil ($17,000 on average) than New Britain does ($13,036), according to the BOE president.
The BOE President also agreed with Douglas’ remarks that the lottery system that is currently used to determine entry to the magnet schools is “a very immoral way of approaching public education,” according to The Courant.
“The lottery system and unfair funding structure sets up a system of haves and have-nots,” observed Beloin Saavedra. “This inequality between the systems creates the illusion of one type of academic environment being better than another.”
Beloin Saavedra thinks that school choice only works if every student has the ability to freely make a choice.
“A lottery system is not choice—it is the luck of the draw … having perceived winners and losers,” she explained.
“Children who enter ‘choice’ options can and are counseled out and sent back to their local public school,” Beloin Saavedra continued. “Local public schools accept everyone—no counseling out, no lottery. The public school system programs for a continuum of services from the struggling learner, special education, bilingual to gifted. Here is where America’s majority minority are educated. We must support public schools.”
Beloin Saavedra also feels there must be a focus on the development, recruitment and retention of certified minority staff. “Teachers and administrators need to increasingly reflect the student body they serve,” she said.
Looking ahead, Beloin Saavedra said she does not feel that the state’s achievement gap can be solved via “creating expensive limited lottery driven options.”
“We can tackle the achievement gap by leveling the academic playing field for students in urban environments by funding reduced class size, intervention specialists, extended day, full year programming,” she stressed. “To desegregate schools we must desegregate neighborhoods and desegregate communities.”
