Hartford Schools' Attempt at Needs Based Equity

In 1954, when folks still respected what the Supreme Court had to say, the Court said separate was not equal. In 2023, Hartford Schools CFO Phillip Penn said, equity in spending does not mean equal. Since school districts are funded according to needs, spending by the district is done on a needs basis. Leaving some schools, some students, with separate funding, isn’t that not equal according to the Court? I’m sure District Counsel has weighed in on this to the Superintendent’s liking, so Hartford Schools is going about their selective spending habits, or, spending according to needs.

In December, the Board of Education approved a contract with CTForum, who will develop a “Youth Talks!” program in the magnet school, Sports and Medical Sciences Academy. The contract is for two years for $140k, and funded by the federal government’s COVID relief funds (ESSER). This begs the question, in two years, with the district’s budget in the crapper and with the ESSER funding now a distant, but loving, memory, what happens to the program? Looks like a poor sustainable investment to me, said the blind man. The program brings high school students together to discuss present and emerging social issues, often connecting the groups with experts or guest speakers who charge up to $15k per talk. The “Youth Talks!” program is an offshoot of the CTForum’s “Youth Forum, which you can read about at this link.

During the upcoming January 17^th Board Regular Meeting, members will approve a contract for the buildout of an Esports lab at University High School, another Hartford magnet school. Well, the smart money says they will approve it, since they are on a 106-0 streak on approving whatever the Superintendent asks them to approve, and everything put before them is from the Superintendent, so, you do the math. You can read more about the Esports issue in the Hartford Schools Report Archive section.

These two programs are examples of needs-based spending. Apparently, the fact that they are only being implemented in one school apiece is fine with everybody involved. They will go into schools where the district is attempting to entice Karen and Craig to come in from the suburbs, leaving the rest of Hartford students texting, “WTF?!” And they will.

These two magnet schools will be receiving these new programs due to the fact that the need is greatest there, so goes the tale. The question is, who’s needs are they trying to service? Is it the needs of a special group of students, or is it the needs of the district, attempting to entice out-of-town tuition money into Hartford to band-aid a broken budget? It’s kind of paradoxical. A school district found guilty of giving minority students unequal access to an equal education, is now blatantly ignoring neighborhood minority schools with these contract funds, and directing it at schools where they need white folk to enroll. I’m becoming a bobblehead.

Let’s see where the “need” lies by comparing the two magnet schools, SMSA and University High, with the three neighborhood high schools, Hartford Public, Weaver, and Bulkeley. The table below, using data from school profiles obtained at the State’s Education data hub, EdSight, shows 9 areas where the need may lie, and the latest data available for that area for each of the 5 high schools. The highlighted green areas, the 2020 per pupil expenditure for the two magnet schools, is the only area included where the magnets are deficient when compared to the 3 neighborhood high schools. Despite spending less per pupil, the two magnet schools are outperforming the 3 neighborhood schools in areas related to academics.