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It’s Not Enough to Be Better than New Britain and Bridgeport

The 2015-16 Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) scores district-wide place Hartford’s Math and English Language Arts performance on par with Waterbury and higher than those in New Britain and Bridgeport. Why aren’t the results much higher?

Looking at the proportions of students who met or exceeded the SBAC proficiency standards for English Language Arts (ELA) and Math, respectively, only 26.9 percent of Hartford’s Grade 3-8 students met or exceeded the standard in English Language Arts (ELA), while just 16.6 percent did so in Math.

Several additional worrisome signs jumped out of the SBAC data:

On the English Language Arts tests, 14 schools had a lower than 1 in 5 percentage of students reaching proficiency.
On the Math tests, almost those same exact 14 schools had a lower than 1 in 10 percentage of students reaching proficiency.
From a cohort improvement perspective, in ELA both Sixth and Seventh Grade students posted gains over the previous year’s previous grades, while in Math, Fifth Grade was the only one to show growth over last year’s Fourth Grade.

So What Should We Think of All This?

Nothing can be gleaned from the SBAC results concerning the individual potential of our children, and many would argue that not much can be gleaned concerning their current level of aptitude given the fact that computer-based testing is still so new for Hartford children, compared to those in the suburbs.

But what can be gleaned is this: The opportunity gap our children in Hartford face is astounding. They enter school already grade levels behind, and they don’t get the intense support and time they need to catch up. This is an enormous problem that must be addressed fully in the next handful of years. Whether it be through school consolidation and reinvestment, student centered learning expansion, placement of students in higher-performing magnet, charter, and neighborhood schools, deeper coalition work, teacher training, individual student needs tracking, giving the Board of Education new mandates, or something else, our urgency must be greater. And for those who don’t understand what our city is up against, take a look at this picture of the opportunity gap throughout our state. Learn more about the calculation here.

No one wants to punish teachers or schools for the chasm that exists between the opportunities and level of preparation among students in surrounding towns versus those of our own children. It’s not about blame. But it is about the fact that we’ve known about the opportunity gap for a very long time and still have yet to address the problems in ways that are radical.

As we stated in our annual open letter, our reality is this: If the status quo does not change in ways that are FUNDAMENTAL to how education and supports are delivered to Hartford students, we are never going to close the opportunity gap, the achievement gap, or the expectations gap.

This means we have to do different work with the money we have and rely more on data to tell us what is working and what is not. Most people to this day still have no idea how good a job our magnet schools do with just our Hartford children. How is it possible that these data aren’t reported out by Sheff every year to evaluate performance? What does this say about our desire to even know what’s working?

The Bottom Line.

In Hartford, we have a coalition for Pre-K-3, called the Hartford Campaign for Grade-Level Reading. We have the Hartford Partnership for Student Success from K-12. And now we have the ALL IN! coalition for high school to workforce success. These coalitions must be tapped even deeply to ensure all supports needed by students, are given. We must find a way to squeeze more support from all of our assets in the region. Period.

Let’s use these latest SBAC state test results to light a sense of urgency about supporting radical change in education. The Student Centered Learning work at the high school level is innovative, is expanding, but is only a start. Why not push mastery-based promotion into all schools in Hartford, so that we don’t keep living by the one-pace-fits-all rule? There is incredible work happening in Hartford, yet so many of our chronically low-performing neighborhood schools remain that way. We must try to approach the problem differently. One book we’re looking at to jar our own perspective is called No Child Held Back™. Let us know if you want a copy.

Sheff Design Challenge Begins a Much Needed Conversation on Equity … But It Can’t Stop There

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the historic Sheff v. O’Neill decision mandating remedies for chronic and extreme racial isolation in Hartford public schools, leaders of the Sheff Movement brought a cross-section of community members to the Hartford Public Library to dream and design better schools for the city and region. Equity was the watchword; quality schools for all was the shared north star.

The purpose of the Design Challenge was to “promote meaningful public discourse and engagement that will ultimately strengthen Greater Hartford’s ongoing efforts to address racial and socioeconomic isolation and related inequities.”

As noted on the event announcement, it aimed to: 1) engage community members in a forward-looking process of generating new ideas for the Sheff plaintiffs, the State, and the City; 2) help our coalition envision a community-informed plan to meaningfully advance the goal of quality integrated education over the next three-to-five years; and 3) inspire innovation, alignment, and collaboration.

Teams came together to use the process of design thinking to imagine, beyond conventional approaches, how Hartford might address problems of dwindling enrollment and resources (compounded by growing need and competition). All of the solutions and action steps presented were captured by the presenters, with a promise to share all data as well as insights gleaned from the event with the greater public in weeks to come.

The Bottom Line. While the dilemmas presented were clearly too complex to solve in one day, profound questions, discussions and actions loomed:

Can the Sheff v. O’Neill case drive a movement to end institutional racism?
Can those outside the Sheff Movement be persuaded to truly believe integration is necessary for high quality education?
Can we change the definition of diversity to recognize the importance of socio-economic diversity, at least in conjunction with racial diversity?

Tackling these questions head on (or just continuing to tinker around the edges) likely will be the difference in either remedying gross disparities in students’ educational outcomes … or not. A restarted Equity 2020 process, post-Sheff negotiations, would be a great way to realize the unusual promise Hartford holds to solve the vexing school improvement problems that every metro area confronts. Greater Hartford actually has a chance to succeed in this paramount duty.

Getting past racial and socioeconomic isolation and related inequities means calling out the role institutional racism has played historically – and plays presently – in our school communities.

It is time to stop ignoring the impact magnet school construction has had in our city – and the ways long-term neglect of neighborhood schools has compounded the harm to families and communities throughout much of Hartford.

It is inarguable: Solutions must be sustainable in ways our current system is not.

Who Is Running Our School System? And Who Should Be?

A recent event hosted by the CT Center for School Change and the Nellie Mae Education Foundation brought together statewide education leaders to call into question how we organize our governance structure to ensure children are at the center and actually achieving academic goals. The questions raised included those as provocative as whether school boards are even necessary in urban education.

We take for granted the current structure of governance for Hartford Public Schools. And we are not alone. Local-, regional- and state-level leaders came together to listen, learn and discuss how school districts and boards of education might better organize so as to ensure all children get the quality education they deserve.

Using a case study of the innovative Say Yes! initiative in Buffalo as a jumping off point, attendees quickly brought to the table hard questions on leadership and effectiveness. How existing structures both help and hinder the shared goal of educating children is a worthy question. Perhaps tired of tip-toeing around the elephant in the room, someone asked the question: Are school boards still necessary in urban education? A follow-up question might be, what’s the legal alternative?

Other questions discussed: What can boards actually do to help under-resourced schools serve children better? And do board members even see themselves as having any power to change anything? Obviously, all of these questions apply to school improvement in Hartford – as well as to the issues bubbling in New Haven, Bridgeport, and so on, nationwide.

The Bottom Line. As we grapple with continuing leadership changes and all that is so unstable as a result, simply asking the questions is not enough.

For this reason, Achieve Hartford! will be hosting a forum to discuss models of governance in December, with the express purpose of identifying ways in which it could be restructured to better support needed change at the school and classroom level in Hartford, and better weather changes at the superintendent and City level. Stay tuned.

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