[Youth-list] SHeff Lawsuit update

[JMRab at aol.com]

     (http://www.courant.com/)    
____________________________________
 
_http://www.courant.com/news/education/hc-sheff0128.artjan28,0,6674491.story?coll=hc-headlines-education_ 
(http://www.courant.com/news/education/hc-sheff0128.artjan28,0,6674491.story?coll=hc-headlines-education)  


Sheff Backers Want Progress 



By  ROBERT A. FRAHM
Courant Staff Writer

January 28 2007

Milo  Sheff was 10 when he became a symbol of the legal battle for racial  
integration in Hartford's public schools. On Saturday, the day he turned  28, 
supporters issued a failing report card on progress so  far.

Although they won a court order in 1996 requiring the state to  alleviate 
racial isolation in the mostly black and Hispanic public schools  in Hartford, 
backers of the Sheff vs. O'Neill case said efforts are  falling far short of 
goals.

"It took us 18 years to get here, and  it's probably going to take a few more 
years to get where we want to be,"  city Councilwoman Elizabeth Horton Sheff, 
Milo's mother, told about 50  supporters who met at city hall Saturday 
morning.

Organizers of the  meeting called for a lobbying effort to urge state 
lawmakers to step up  progress toward the goals of a 2003 court-approved settlement 
of the  case.

That four-year agreement, calling for new racially integrated  magnet schools 
and an expansion of a program allowing Hartford children to  enroll in 
suburban schools, will fall far short of its goals by the time  it expires this 
summer.

The plaintiffs in the Sheff case are in  negotiations with state officials to 
extend the agreement, but a report at  Saturday's meeting said the state must 
come up with substantial increases  in funding for magnet schools, busing and 
school choice programs to  increase the pace of integration.

In what they called a "Sheff  Movement Report Card," supporters gave a 
failing grade to the state for  its financial support at inter-district magnet 
schools, saying the $6,500  per pupil state allotment falls far short of actual 
costs, placing an  additional burden on towns that pay tuition to send students 
to magnet  schools and putting those schools in a financial crunch.

In  addition, the report gave the state a failing grade for its busing 
subsidy  for inter-district magnet schools, saying the $1,300 per student annual  
figure is as much as $450 below the actual cost.

Later Saturday,  one key legislator disputed the conclusions of the report.

"To say  we should get a failing grade - I don't think that's fair at all," 
said  state Sen. Thomas P. Gaffey, D-Meriden. In opening new magnet schools  
under the Sheff agreement, "the state is pretty much on track," he  said.

Since the Sheff agreement in 2003, Hartford has opened or  reclassified nine 
schools as magnets, but some of those schools remain  almost entirely black 
and Hispanic.

Gaffey, co-chairman of the  legislature's education committee, said racial 
isolation cannot be solved  by schools alone but is the result of "housing, 
jobs, language barriers, a  whole host of demographic issues." Those issues, he 
said, are "the reason  for that isolation to be as persistent now as it was when 
the [Sheff] case  was brought."

Contact Robert A. Frahm at rfrahm at courant.com.  
Copyright 2007, _Hartford Courant_ (http://www.courant.com/)    
____________________________________
      

Janice M. Gruendel, Ph.D.
Governor's Senior Advisor on Early  Childhood
Co-Chair, CT Early Childhood Education Cabinet
Senior Youth  Consultant
United Way of CT & Office for Workforce  Competitiveness
Home office: 203-481-9940
Blackberry: 203-824-4766
Mail  to: 28 Juniper Point
Branford, CT 06405

"...I hope  you never fear those mountains in the distance, Never settle for 
the path of  least resistance..And when you get a chance to sit it out or 
dance, I hope you  dance..." Lee Ann Womack. I Hope You'll Dance
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