Plaintiffs' Post-Trial Brief with Appendix and Certificate of Service

    CVvV89-0360977S 

  

  

MILO SHEFF, et al. SUPERIOR COURT 

Plaintiffs 

JUDICIAL DISTRICT OF 

HARTFORD/NEW BRITAIN 
AT HARTFORD 

Ve. 

WILLIAM A. O’NEILL, et al. 

Defendants April 19, 1993 

  

PLAINTIFFS’ POST-TRIAL BRIEF 

      
 



  

    

II. 

    

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

- INTRODUCTION © © © © © © © oo ® © & © © © © @ © © oo oo ® © © © © © © © © © © © ® ® O° O° 0° 0 

HARTFORD SCHOOLS ARE RACIALLY AND ECONOMICALLY 
SEGREGATED AND EDUCATIONALLY DEFICIENT ..c..ceco.. .o 

A. Students Suffer Harm as a Consequence of the 
Condition of Racial and Ethnic Segregation 
In the PUBLIC BONOOLB.. i eerie rrr vanes inecssa 

B. The Concentration of Poverty and Other Socio- 
economic Factors Have Detrimentally Affected 
Hartford’s Students and Placed Overwhelming 
Burdens upon Hartford’s SchoolsS.....cccoou.. .'s 

C. The Hartford Public Schools Have Inadequate 
Educational Resources to Meet the Needs of 
BL UABINI EE. vc eee ie cininlls eine sis veins snne sno slieiintalaga ss 

p JE Overall resources in the Hartford school 
Aistrict are deficient... coun vive onium 

2. The Hartford School District is inadequate 
in many specific aspects of its educational 
PrOGYaMes oo sat vin vces vine o din were aie ele w ete nn bin "a 

a. Staffing and Curriculum ........ ore’ 

b. Textbooks and Instructional Supplies. 

Sc. Library Books and Periodicals ....... 

d. Plants and Facilities ..e..eoesvereins 

e. Bilingual EQucation .. i.e hove sie, 

t. Special Needs Programs ........e.ce.. 

3. The Effects of Recent Budget Cuts ........ 

4. Cumulative Effects of Deficient Resources. 

5 Outcomes of Hartford’s Students Are 
Deficient ou dain te vr 

a. Connecticut Mastery Tests ........... 

b. MAT ,..cvve NR RETR EY La Cee ER 

14 

26 

26 

28 

28 

30 

32 

34 

36 

39 

40 

42 

43 

43 

bd 

  
   



  

Ce SABE ® © © ® & © © © © © © © © © © © © © ® ® © ® ® © O° 0° oo ® eo 45 

d. Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) ...... 46 

e. Graduation and Drop-Out Rates ..... 2) 46 

D. Interdistrict Comparisons Demonstrate Enormous 
Disparities Between Hartford and the Suburban 
SCNOOXS evans sieinsssinnssovivavnossnssssssnessnneiese 47 

1. The Comparative Need for Resources ........ 48 

2. Resources for Educational Enterprise ...... 50 

a. Staffing and Curriculum ....c.cceeeei 51 

Do. Pupil and Instructional Services .... 53 

C. Textbook and Instructional Supplies . 53 

ol Library Books and Periodicals ....... 54 

e. EBUADMEONE % oioe vn sinivia » is Wntn die inio o vis vin vs 55 

E. Plant. OPRration .iu.c.eihieeie ees vie sitive 57 

g. The Hidden Contribution of Parental 
RESOWLCEOSD lessens von enies veonivivie sss vin 58 

3. Outcome CalLEOgOries i. uve svevisinsasiosnesin 59 

| a. Connecticut Mastery Tests ........... 59 

| b. Credits Earned ...... tis es tiuineis uma 61 

Ce Scholastic Aptitude Test Scores ..... 61 

a. Patterns of Post-Secondary Education 
and: Work Activities. ..c.oveice suns swine 62 

III. THE STATE HAS BEEN AWARE OF THE HARMS OF RACIAL AND 
ECONOMIC ISOLATION IN THE SCHOOLS, AND HAS 
REPEATEDLY FAILED TO TAKE ACTION TO ADDRESS THE 
PROBLEM..... Seb emeiven nines eve oni seis hee Sevres enenerieie 64 

A. A History of Inaction. ......coaivses itis ule eine, 65   
B. The Inadequacy of Existing Interdistrict 

Programs as vs vss sis easier ben denies vies eninis 81 

ii 

      
 



      

IV. THE SEGREGATED AND UNEQUAL CONDITIONS IN HARTFORD 
AREA SCHOOLS VIOLATE THE CONNECTICUT CONSTITUTION .. 

A. The Segregated and Unequal Conditions in 
Hartford Area Schools Violate Plaintiffs’ Right 
to Equal Educational Opportunity...c.cccecceeceeee 

B. The Racial and Ethnic Isolation of the Hartford 
and Suburban Public Schools Violates the School 
Children’s Right to be Free of the Conditions 
OF Segregation. vs sis secnsssssssemansiosessseeess 

Cc. Connecticut’s Failure to Provide the Children 
of Hartford with Basic Educational Resources 
Violates Plaintiffs’ Right to an Adequate 
BAUCAT LON isi ten sno cnsnnwes sie binets ds viensnnsendos 

D. Connecticut’s Failure to Comply with C.G.S. 
§10-4a, Which Mandates an Equal Educational 
Opportunity and Minimally Adequate Education 
for all Students Deprives Students of Due 
PrOCEeSS eta ec ve siosninsionintssmenovsnnensvioesaniessicenes 

INJUNCTIVE AND DECLARATORY RELIEF IS APPROPRIATE TO 
REDRESS CONSTITUTIONAL VIOLATIONS. .:.cccceecccccccccscs 

A. Plaintiffs Meet the Standard for Issuance of 

Declaratory Rel1Ief ou. .uciccocsnvssrcseveseechsoin 

B. Plaintiffs Meet the Standard of Issuance of an 
Injunction..... aininin ace o.dlninis oo ales v alein v siniviaieie wees 

C Components of a Remedial PlaN...ccceceeecccoonns 

1. The Remedial Plan Must Be Interdistrict 
IN TLS DESIGN vwvnsine vs sevens snaesssninnsives 

2 The Plan Must Include Mandatory and 
Voluntary ProViSiONS ue ve vesicles sions 

3. Reduction of Racial Isolation and Poverty 
Concentration Must be a Major Goal........ 

4. Bilingual Education Programs Must be 
Preserved......... snisiinisle u sininivie vin aie ois sis wns 

5. Educational Enhancements Must Supplement 
Any Desegregation Goals............ EE. 

$id 

87 

90 

96 

100 

105 

107 

107 

108 

109 

112 

113 

114 

116 

  

  
 



      

Housing and Other Components Must be 
Addressed in the Plan......... Part ay gs “ue sin. 

Timetables Must be Strictly Enforced...... 

Monitoring and Reporting Requirements Must 
be INC IMAGO. aso dsb c ev vssinemeieoeninness eal 

Vy>. CONCLUSION «co 6 vias soos v0 nine sssaseeoiniesoineesnicensenen 

APPENDIX 

Alphabetical Index of Witness Testimony........ Al 

iv 

118 

119 

120 

121 

  
  
 



  

I. INTRODUCTION 

The constitutional issues to be decided in this case are crucial 

to the future of the State of Connecticut. "[E]ducation is perhaps 

the most important function of state and local governments." Brown 

v. Board of FEducation, 347 U.S. 483, 493 (1954). On this, there is 

no dispute. What is at stake in this case is the nature of the 

fundamental right that the Connecticut Constitution protects in 

ensuring all children an education. Plaintiffs contend that it is 

the right to receive not just any education, but an equal education, 

a quality education, and an education unencumbered by racial, ethnic 

or economic isolation. Plaintiffs have demonstrated through 

admissions, trial testimony, and the state’s own documents: 1) that 

the educational system in Hartford and the surrounding suburbs is 

segregated on the basis of race, ethnicity and economic status; 2) 

that it fails to provide the equal educational opportunity to which 

each and every student in Connecticut is entitled; and 3) that it 

fails to provide Hartford students a minimally adequate education. 

The defendants have not attempted to deny the underlying facts. They 

cannot. As Governor Weicker candidly admitted in his State of the 

State message on January 6, 1993: 

The racial and economic isolation in Connecticut’s school 
system is indisputable. Whether this segregation came 
about through the chance of historical boundaries or 
economic forces beyond the control of the state or whether 
it came about through private decisions or in spite of the 
best educational efforts of the state, what matters is that 
it is here and must be dealt with. 

(Pls’ Ex. 90 at 7).! 

      1 References are to plaintiffs’ exhibits introduced in evidence 
at trial, as set out in plaintiffs’ Second Revised List of Trial 
Exhibits (revised March 3, 1993). 

  
 



  

The defendants nevertheless repeat the same legal argument that 

this court has twice rejected: that the court lacks the power to 

address the inequities and inadequacies in the public schools. 

Despite a strong constitutional mandate and this Court’s prior 

rulings, defendants contend that this "court has never before 

injected itself into the process of addressing social and educational 

problems in this way." Defendants’ Pretrial Memorandum at p. 6. They 

protest that there are "no clear cut solutions." Id. at p. 1. 

Stripped of its verbiage, the defendants’ answer to the 

unconstitutional conditions in the schools is that either they are 

not able to, or they are not required to, address this situation. 

But, contrary to defendants’ assertions, solutions do exist for the 

pressing educational problems of Hartford, and this Court has the 

institutional responsibility to ensure that these conditions are 

eliminated. 

What happens to a child in the classroom can have a profound 

impact on his or her entire life. No child can "reasonably be 

expected to succeed th life if he is denied the opportunity for 

education." Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. at 493. Witness 
  

after witness, on both sides, testified that schools can make a 

difference in student outcomes (Carter p. 51; Davis p. 88; Orfield I 

p. 138, Slavin pp. 10-14).° Each child is entitled to an equal 

educational opportunity, the right "to be provided with the 

educational experiences necessary to ensure that his or her 

      2 
References to the trial transcript are listed by witness name 

for plaintiffs’ witnesses. See Appendix for index to transcript 
dates. 

  
 



      

intellectual ability and special talents are developed to the 

fullest" (Pls’ Ex. 39 at 1). 

Plaintiffs, eighteen white, African American and Latino 

schoolchildren in the Hartford and West Hartford public schools, have 

brought this lawsuit to vindicate their personal rights under the 

Constitution and laws of the State of Connecticut. They challenge the 

racial, ethnic and economic isolation in the Hartford metropolitan 

area schools as infringing on their fundamental right to education 

and their right to equal protection of the laws. 

The remedy plaintiffs seek includes a declaration by this Court 

that the defendants have failed to provide all plaintiffs an equal 

educat long opportunity, a non-segregated education, and a minimally 

adequate education. Plaintiffs also seek an injunction requiring the 

state to provide: (1) an equal educational opportunity; (2) a non- 

segregated public education; and (3) a minimally adequate education. 

Moreover, plaintiffs request this Court to order a court-supervised 

planning process forthwith to remedy the constitutional inadequacies. 

  

 



II. HARTFORD SCHOOLS ARE RACIALLY AND ECONOMICALLY SEGREGATED 
AND EDUCATIONALLY DEFICIENT 

oT 

Z 

The daily reality faced by many Hartford children is one of 

poverty-concentrated classes in racially isolated schools with 

inadequate resources, substandard achievement levels, and gross 

educational disparities relative to suburban school districts. Even 

for high achieving students, the system’s inequities have harmful 

effects; for the average child, the consequences can be devastating. 

At trial, plaintiffs presented evidence from both school staff and 

national experts about how these layers of inequity work together to 

deprive students of equal educational opportunity and a minimally 

adequate education. Plaintiffs presented evidence on the short and 

long-term harmful effects of racial segregation; the detrimental 

effects of poverty concentration on schools, classrooms, and student 

achievement; the plainly inadequate levels of resources and outcomes 

in the Hartford schools; and the educational inequities separating 

Hartford and its neighboring districts. In the discussion that 

follows, plaintiffs will separately summarize some of the evidence 

presented on each of these points at trial. However, as plaintiffs 

have emphasized, these facts must also be considered as they exist 

together in the schools, working in unison to deprive students of 

their fundamental rights. 

A. Students Suffer Harm as a Consequence of the Condition of 
Racial and Ethnic Segregation in the Public Schools 

Witnesses for both parties acknowledged, and the evidence 

clearly demonstrated, the extreme degree of racial and ethnic        



  

segregation in the schools of Hartford and the surrounding suburbs.?3 

The Hartford schools have more than 92% minority enrollment, and 

African Americans and Latinos alone constitute more than 90%, or 

23,283, of the 25, 716 students in the Hartford public schools (Pls’ 

Ex. 219 at 2). Fourteen of Hartford’s twenty-five elementary schools 

have less than 2% white enrollment (Defs’ Exs. 23.1-23.25). In 

contrast, only four of the 21 nearby school districts (Bloomfield, 

East Hartford, Manchester and Windsor) have more than 15% African 

American and Latino student populations (Pls’ Exs. 209-230). 

Thirteen of the school districts are less than seven percent African 

American and Latino. Id. The extent of Latino isolation is even 

more dramatic. 

The effect of a segregated student body is worsened by 

segregation in the professional and teaching staff. Only two 

districts, Hartford and Bloomfield, have more than five percent 

African Americans and Latinos on their professional staffs. Most of 

the districts hover in the two percent range (Defs’ Exs. 14.1-14.22) 

(Strategic School District Profiles). 

Finally, the racial and ethnic segregation in the schools 

is compounded by the parallel segregation among the communities. The 

general population in Hartford is more than 69% minority while 

  

    3 see, e.g., Lemega, February 11, 1993, p. 28; Pls’ Exs. 209 - 
230 (Strategic School District Profiles); Pls’ Exs. 231 - 289 
(Strategic School Profiles); Pls’ Ex. 85 (Minority Students and Staff 
Report). 

  

sixteen suburbs have less than 3% Latino enrollment (Pls’ Exs. 
209-230). Connecticut also ranks among the ten highest states for 
intensity of school segregation for Hispanic students, and exhibited 
the most rapid increase in Hispanic school segregation in the 1980s 
(Orfield p. 16; Pls’ Ex. 457). 

  

 



  

eighteen of the surrounding suburbs have less than 10% minority 

population and ten of the surrounding suburbs have less than 5% 

minority population (Pls’ Ex. 137 at 1, 7).° 

The Harms of Racial Segregation 

As early as 1967, the United States Civil Rights Commission 

noted that racial isolation in the schools 

fosters attitudes and behavior that perpetuate isolation in 
other important areas of American life. [Black] adults who 
attend racially isolated schools are more likely to have 
developed attitudes that alienate them from whites. White 
adults with similarly isolated backgrounds tend to resist 
desegregation in many areas =-- housing, jobs and schools. 

(Pls’ Ex. 11 at 110, "Racial Isolation in the Public Schools"). 

Several Hartford teachers and principals described the 

continuing sense of isolation that segregation inflicts on children 

today. Norma Neuman-Johnson described her 5th grade students’ 

disbelief that Blacks and Latinos comprise only 20% of the 

population: 

they have no sense that, you know, half a mile from our 
school is an entire, virtually, white West Hartford. They 
just, they don’t believe it. So how can they go out into 
the world, you know, and just apply for a job at CIGNA, 
someday, or, you know, not to another state or something, 
but just in a larger society. It’s going to be total 
culture shock. They have no sense of what’s there. 

(Neuman-Johnson II p. 14). Suburban children face a similar 

isolation in that they are unprepared to deal with the demands of a 

multicultural world (Neuman-Johnson II pp. 15-17; Dudley pp. 129- 

133% 

      5 Significantly, 18 out of the 21 suburbs have less than 4% 
Black population, and 12 towns have less than 2% Black population 
(Pls’ Ex. 138; Steahr pp. 99-101). 

- 6 - 

  

 



      

One Hartford teacher spoke for many plaintiff witnesses as 

she described the negative impact of racial segregation on young 

minds: 

I think that children can overcome the stigma of 
poverty.... [b]lJut what they cannot overcome is the stigma 
of separation. That is like a damned spot in their being, 
in their self image, a spot that, no matter what success 
you have, you can’t wipe it out. 

(Hernandez p. 42). Children see and recognize the inequities in 

their world. Their self-esteem is permanently damaged when they see 

a whole other "world that doesn’t belong to [them]" (Hernandez p. 

64). As another teacher explained, "[T]hey don’t have anything to 

strive for. The expectation level gets lower and lower and lower" 

(Cloud p. 101). Even the "very, very bright students" are affected 

by staying in a "negative environment" (Cloud p. 105). "They just 

don’t grow." 14. As former Hartford superintendent Hernan 

LaFontaine testified, the racial isolation "made it difficult for 

[students] to see around them the diversity of the world" (LaFontaine 

I pp. 129-130). All agreed that a segregated educational experience 

was not a complete educational experience (see Hernandez p. 48). 

Given our multi-ethnic society, no child can receive a 

quality education in a segregated environment. Dr. Badi Foster 

described how all children are handicapped when they do not get to 

know each other: 

In the case of white students, they come across with a 
false sense of arrogance because they’ve just assumed that 
the black is automatically inferior. And in reverse, you 
find black kids coming across with not as much self- 
confidence and an enormous amount of suspicion. 

  
 



  

. 

(Foster p. 144). Individuals growing up in these circumstances will 

be ineffective in the world beyond the classroom: 

We know that, in fact, the work place is going to become 
increasingly diverse. Those organizations made up of 
people who are more competent in managing diversity will 
have an advantage in changing their organizations so that 
they continually transform. 

(Foster p. 143). 

In human terms, plaintiff Elizabeth Sheff described the 

benefits of being brought up in a diverse environment: 

I was able to learn and grow with people of different 
perspectives. And it afforded me the opportunity to be 
able to look at people as people.... My son is not being 
afforded that opportunity, and I think that is not good. 

(E. Sheff p. 195).° 

Defendants have often acknowledged that racial and ethnic 

isolation is detrimental to students, particularly to minority 

students, and that integration is beneficial to all children and 

continues to have positive impacts long after the children have left 

the school setting (see, e.g., Pls’ Exs. 50, 60). Both defendants 
  

Commissioner Vincent Ferrandino and former Commissioner Gerald 

Tirozzi acknowledged the harms of racial segregation (Pls’ Ex. 493 at 

35, 39, 138-139; Pls’ Ex. 494 at 11-12), and Commissioner Tirozzi 

admitted that both he and the State Board of Education had been aware 

of the harmful effects of racial segregation during his tenure as 

Commissioner (Pls’ Ex. 494 at 11-12). ee also testimony of Elliott 
  

      ¢ Ms. Sheff’s son Milo testified that he had had only one white 
classmate in nine years (M. Sheff p. 149). He described how hard it 
was when he first went away to church camp -- where he was the only 
black person -- because "[i]t was hard to relate to other people." 
Id. at 150, : 

  

 



  

Williams, Chief of the Office of Urban and Priority School Districts, 

State Department of Education, February 4, 1993, at pp. 81-82. See 

generally, infra at §III. 
  

Significantly, the State of Connecticut has admitted that 

"segregation is educationally, morally and legally wrong" (Defs’ Ex. 

12.5; Pls’ Ex. 50) and that "a multicultural environment is an 

irreplaceable component of quality education" (Defs’ Ex. 12.29; Pls’ 

Ex. 60). For over two decades the defendants have been aware of the 

growing racial, ethnic and economic isolation in the Hartford area 

schools and the need to change this pattern. See infra at §III. 

The defendants have also been aware of the immediate and 

long-term: effects of maintaining racial isolation. Recently, for 

example, the state commissioned a major review of the research on the 

effects of integrated education that found that integrated education 

had positive impacts on achievement, school dropout rates, and 

college attendance rates, and also had positive long-term social and 

economic consequences (Defs’ Ex. 12.25; Pls’ Ex. 58). And in its 

major 1988 report on the need for school integration, the Department 

of Education strongly emphasized the importance of preparing students 

for "living and working in a multicultural society": 

  

    
7 Janet Ward Schofield, "Review of Research on School 

Desegregation’s Impact on Elementary and Secondary School Students," 
December 8, 1988. In addition to broad educational benefits of 
integration for all racial groups, Professor Schofield also found 
that the achievement impact of integration for African American 
students was consistently positive. For Latinos and whites, the 
results were positive or neutral. Schofield’s review was cited as 
support for the recommendations of the 1989 State Department of 
Education report Quality and Integrated Education: Options for 
  

Connecticut (Pls’ Ex. 60).   
 



  

[S]eparation means that neither [minority children] nor 
their counterparts in the more affluent suburban school 
districts have the chance to learn to interact with each 
other, as they will inevitably have to do as adults living 
and working in a multi-cultural society. Such interaction 
is a most important element of quality education, and it 
benefits both minority and nonminority students alike. 
Like their counterparts in predominantly minority schools, 
children in suburban districts lack cultural diversity as 
they are educated and prepared to be members of society. 

(Defs’ Ex. 12.5; Pls’ Ex. 50 at 7). These conclusions are borne out 

by testimony of witnesses from both urban and suburban schools who 

described the development of racial stereotypes among Blacks and 

whites due to lack of integration (Pitocco pp. 76-80; Dudley p. 129). 

Dr. Jomills Braddock, an expert in equity and social 

justice, ?® testified concerning the long-term effects of racial and 

ethnic isolation. Dr. Braddock characterized the documented 

phenomenon that segregation in school years leads to segregation in 

later life as the "contact theory" (Braddock p. 18). This is the 

"tendency of individuals from different backgrounds to avoid 

interactions with one another unless [there is] prior contact" 

(Braddock p. 18). Thus, early segregation experiences of students 

perpetuate themselves in adult life for all racial and ethnic groups. 

In contrast, opportunities for children of different groups to 

interact tend to lead to integrated workplaces, integrated schools, 

integrated neighborhoods, and mixed-race friendships (Braddock p. 

20). 

      8 Dr. Braddock has been either performing or supervising 
educational research for 15 years. He specializes in studies to 
"assess the effect of desegregated schooling on long term outcomes of 
students" (Braddock p. 8). 

-iY0 - 

  

 



  

For minority students, segregation has an additional 

detriment. Dr. Braddock testified that minority students are often 

excluded from the employment networks which are essential for success 

in later employment and other beneficial life outcomes. Desegregated 

experiences allow minorities to break down these systemic barriers to 

equal opportunity, provide access to important networks and overcome 

the stigma sometimes associated with minority institutions’ (Braddock 

p. 22). Given the racial and ethnic composition of the Hartford area 

schools, Dr. Braddock’s opinion was that racial isolation will 

perpetuate itself over the students’ life cycles as they pursue 

employment and other adult outcomes (Braddock p. 31). 

This testimony was reinforced by that of Dr. William Trent, 

an expert in the sociology of education. Dr. Trent testified about 

studies he had done that illustrate these long-term impacts on 

students in segregated school situations. Utilizing two different 

nationally recognized longitudinal databases,' Dr. Trent was able 

  

    
° The State was already well aware of these facts through Janet 

Schofield’s 1988 review (Defs’ Ex. 12.25 at 18-19). Some of the 
long-term benefits of desegregation described by Schofield included: 
(1) access to useful social networks of job information; (2) 
socialization for entrance into "non-traditional" career lines with 
higher income returns; and (3) development of interpersonal skills 
useful in interracial contexts. Former Commissioner Tirozzi also 
stated that during his tenure he was aware of, and agreed with, 
research findings on the long term benefits of integration for 
minority children (Pls’ Ex. 494 at 65-67). 

1 The first database, "High School and Beyond," was sponsored 
by the United States Department of Education and followed the 
progress of a national sample of 1980 high school seniors at two year 
intervals. Dr. Trent analyzed the third follow-up survey, i.e., data 
collected in 1986. This database had extensive information about the 
students sampled and the schools they attended. There was sufficient 
information to enable Dr. Trent to separately analyze effects for 
Puerto Ricans, African Americans and whites. The second database, 

- 11 = 

|   
 



  

to determine the relationship between the kinds of isolation in the 

Hartford area and various life outcomes. His analysis demonstrated 

that, for all students, regardless of racial or ethnic group, 

independent of the individual socio-economic status of students, as 

the racial and ethnic isolation of a school increases, there is a 

statistically significant negative impact on later employment in an 

integrated workforce. The converse was also true: as racial 

diversity in school increased, there was a significant positive 

effect on later employment in an integrated workforce.!! Dr. Trent 

testified that these results were consistent with the "perpetuation 

theory": 

[Olne of the benefits of experiencing racially diverse 
schools is that it has perpetuating effects across context; 
students who experience racial diversity early on are more 
likely to favorably experience racial diversity later. 

{Trent p. 61). 

Dr. Robert Crain, an expert in school desegregation, urban 

politics and research methods, was able to apply the work of Drs. 

Braddock and Trent specifically to a study of Project Concern, a 

  

    
"PARNES" or National Longitudinal Survey of the Youth Labor Force 
Cohort, was sponsored by the United States Department of Labor and 
consisted of 1980 and 1981 follow-ups to a comprehensive 1979 survey 
of secondary school students. This database also had extensive 
information about the students and their schools. Dr. Trent was able 
to separately analyze effects for Latinos, African Americans and 
whites. 

! pr. Trent also analyzed the combined effect of an integrated 
educational experience and employment in an integrated workforce. 
For African Americans and Latinos there was a statistically 
significant positive impact on income from the interaction of these 
two variables. For whites, there was also a positive effect of both 
attending an integrated school and working in an integrated 
environment. 

- 12 =- 

  

 



  

small one-way interdistrict busing program established in Hartford in 

1966.1 The Project Concern study, conducted completely 

independently of the instant litigation, compared short and long-term 

outcomes between a segregated educational experience (the Hartford 

control groups) and a desegregated experience (the Project Concern 

students). 

Consistent with the work of Drs. Braddock, Trent and other 

experts in the field," Dr. Crain found long-term harmful effects 

resulting from segregated education. The reports prepared by Dr. 

Crain looked at the available data in different ways and controlled 

for the individual socio-economic characteristics of the students. 

Dr. Crain’s conclusion was that: 

[S]egregation proved to have long-term harmful effects in 
terms of encouraging students to drop out from high school, 
encouraging them to drop out of college, and in general 
discouraging them from having useful contacts with whites. 

(Pls’ Ex. 386; Crain p. 32). Dr. Crain also found that there were 

long-term effects on employment: 

[S]egregated students were more likely to work in public 
employment rather than in the private sector. If they did 
work in the private sector it tended to be in relatively 
low level jobs. In a nutshell, students from segregated 
schools were going into those kinds of jobs traditionally 
held by blacks. 

(Pls’ Ex. 387; Crain p. 33). 

The multiple harms of racial and ethnic segregation in 

Hartford, acknowledged by defendants and described in detail by 

      2 project Concern is described in Section III, infra. 
  

13 Dr. Charles Willie, an educator and expert on racial 
segregation in education also concurred on the detrimental effects of 
segregation on children of color (Willie p. 16). 

- 13   
 



      

plaintiffs’ witnesses, constitute a violation of the Connecticut 

Constitution. However, as plaintiffs will discuss below, the harms 

inflicted on Hartford schoolchildren are not limited to the effects / 
f 

{ 

of severe racial isolation. Hartford students are also subjected to 

( 

extreme levels of poverty concentration in the schools, as well as 

plainly inadequate resources that are insufficient to meet their 

needs, and which are sharply unequal in comparison with surrounding | 
a 

districts. 

B. The Concentration of Poverty and Other Socio-economic 
Factors Have Detrimentally Affected Hartford’s Students and 

i Placed Overwhelming Burdens upon Hartford’s Schools. 

Someone said to me this morning, "yeah, but your 
children are doing well compared to a third 
world country." We don’t live in a third world 
country. We live in the richest state in the 
nation. 

. 

(Negron p. 81). 

The educational environment of students in Hartford cannot 

be divorced from the social circumstances in which Hartford children 

find themselves. As they pass through the schoolhouse gates, they 

bring with them the overwhelming burdens of poverty and other socio- 

economic factors which place them at risk and cause them to "start 

the race behind the starting line" (Carso p. 141). 

It is axiomatic that poor urban children deserve the same 

educational opportunities as middle class suburban children. Each 

child is precious, and each is an important resource for our future. 

It is a profound responsibility of the public schools to help 

children overcome the disadvantages of poverty and achieve to their 

e 

  
 



  

potential. Yet in the Hartford region, under the present system of 

education, vast numbers of poor children are crammed together in a 

few high-poverty schools that cannot provide an equal educational 

opportunity. 

The significance of plaintiffs’ evidence on the 

concentration of poverty in the Hartford schools is, first, as 

defendants have officially stated, "those who need more must receive 

more" (Pls’ Ex. 39 at 1). However, in reality, poor children in 

Hartford actually are receiving less. Second, the concentration of 

poverty in the Hartford schools places an untenable responsibility on 

Hartford schools, teachers and administrators which they cannot meet 

given current funding and levels of resources. Third, the high 

concentration of poor students adversely affects educational outcomes 

for all students. Finally, the high concentration of poverty in the 

schools is closely linked to extreme racial segregation in the 

schools, which heightens the detrimental impacts of poverty 

concentration on Black and Latino students. 

The statistics are stark and depressing. Over 16,000 

children in the city live in poverty, giving Hartford the sixth 

highest child poverty rate among America’s 200 largest cities (Pls’ 

Ex. 456; Orfield I pp. 18-19). Sixty-three percent of the students 

in the Hartford school system participate in the free and reduced 

lunch program (Pls’ Ex. 219).' Thirteen percent of all children 

      Li This figure, while three times the state average, 
underestimates the numbers of children for several reasons. First, 
many high school students do not request free or reduced lunch 
because of their embarrassment in declaring their economic status in 
front of others (Forman p. 34). Second, in determining the 

- 15 = 

  

 



born in the city of Hartford are at low birth weight, 13% are born to 

drug-addicted mothers, and 23% are born to mothers who are 

> More than sixty-four percent of the households with teenagers. 

children under eighteen are single parent households. Forty percent 

of the adult population in Hartford lacks a high school education. 

Almost thirty-six percent are spending 30% or more of their household 

income on housing costs. Twenty-eight percent of the Hartford 

elementary school students do not return to the same school from one 

year to the next. Fifty-one percent are from a home in which a 

" Fifteen percent of the language other than English is spoken. 

population and 41.3% of the households have experienced crime within 

the year. Forty percent of the children are living with parent(s) 

with no labor force participation. See Table 2, Pls’ Ex. 163 at 38. 

The eloquent and often poignant testimony of teachers and 

staff laid bare the ramifications of these overwhelming burdens. 

Behind the graphic numbers the evidence showed the real faces of 

  

    
percentages on the school profiles, the numbers of kindergarten 
children, who were not at that time eligible for free lunch programs, 
were factored in, grossly deflating the percentage (Natriello I pp. 
66-67; Forman pp. 30-34). Using the McDonough School as an example, 
the actual percentage of children on free and reduced lunch would be 
94%, as opposed to the 77.6% reported in the Strategic School Profile 
(Pls’ Ex. 257 at 2; Forman pp. 30, 32). See generally Orfield I p. 
26. 

> This and other statistics in this section are taken from the 
Natriello Report, Pls’ Ex. 163. 

® This figure also underestimates the impact of mobility 
because it does not take into account the mobility which occurs 
during the school year (Natriello I p. 79). 

7 This figure is five times the state average (Natriello I p. 
84). 

- 16 =-    



  

 & » 

children who every day are attempting to beat the odds without 

success. 

Many children have language difficulties. Children enter 

school at five or six years old suffering from severe developmental 

and speech delays (Montanez p. 11; Negron p. 66). Some can’t form a 

sentence, understand cognitively how to ask a question or describe 

items, and articulate with appropriate vocabulary (Cloud p. 99; 

Hernandez p. 35). Latino children often enter the system unable to 

speak clearly in English or Spanish (Montanez p. 11; Hernandez p. 

36). Some children lag behind as much as two to three years at the 

time they enter school, causing additional challenges to classroom 

instruction (Montanez p. 11). A great number of students suffer 

from low self-esteem and poor social skills as a result of poverty 

and isolation (Montanez p. 13, Morris p. 139, Noel p. 25, Davis p. 

86). One of the main mental health issues they face is chronic 

depression (Negron p. 71). In one elementary school, there were 

three attempted suicides in the last three years. (Id.) Many 

children are born to teenage mothers. These teens are often in 

school themselves and ill-equipped to take care of a newborn (Noel p. 

30). For most single parent families, resources are limited. 

Parental involvement with the schools or assistance with homework 

often is non-existent (Cloud p. 96; Noel p. 28, Hernandez p. 38). 

Some children are from families which are dysfunctional (Montanez p. 

      ® As Dr. Natriello pointed out, many studies have shown that 
early experiences prior to entering school have a large bearing on 
the outcomes of the schooling process (Natriello I p. 58). 

- 17 = 

  

 



  

14). Others are victims of physical abuse (Montanez p. 14), and are 

being taken care of by foster parents (Morris p. 138).% 

Poverty also causes a tremendous number of students to move 

and change schools within the year. Mobility is an important 

obstacle which administrators and teachers face. Many students live 

in poor housing, including doubled-up quarters in the projects, and 

frequently move (Griffin p. 84; Negron p. 64). They have no place to 

call their own (Montanez p. 14; Noel p. 29; Hernandez pp. 39-40). 

Further, many students live in housing projects with high 

crime rates (Morris p. 140; Griffin p. 84). Some have watched their 

parents’ involvement in drugs (Morris p. 140; Cloud p. 97). Because 

many of the students witness so much crime and violence in their 

neighborhoods (Morris p. 140), they come to school with high levels 

of anxiety, as one teacher explained, "not ready to learn" (Montanez 

p. 12). Because adequate counselling services are not available, 

teachers must divert energies to dealing with the immediate mental 

health needs of the students before any meaningful teaching can occur 

(Montanez pp. 12, 14). Children may come to school "with a feeling 

that they need to fight" (Montanez p. 14), or with a feeling of not 

being safe (Montanez p. 15), "downtrodden with and overburdened with 

  

    
1 Many children also have serious health-related needs. Some 

children born as low birth weight babies or born to drug-addicted 
mothers themselves experience "concomitant learning disabilities" 
later as a result (Negron p. 67). Others come to school with such 
health problems as scabies, lice, flu, pneumonia and asthma ignored, 
turning the school into a place of last resort to meet children’s 
health needs (Morris p. 139; Hernandez p. 37). Some children attend 
class with ear infections and eye problems, impairing their ability 
to hear and see (Montanez p. 11). Dental needs have gone unmet, 
causing some students to have severe speech problems (Cloud p. 95). 

- 18 = 

  

  
 



      

that of facing crime during the course of their day or evening" 

(Morris p. 139). They desperately need to "know that there’s a life 

out there better than what they’re experiencing" (Montanez p. 15). 

Some students attend school with stomachaches due to lack 

of proper nourishment (Morris p. 140; Griffin p. 84). School 

breakfast programs try to ameliorate the hunger from which students 

suffer but it again takes time away from academic learning (Negron p. 

66). For the teacher it is like "putting out many fires on an on- 

going basis" (Morris p. 140). 

Students may come to school wearing inadequate clothing 

such as t-shirts in freezing temperatures (Montanez p. 13; Griffin p. 

84; Carso p. 91). Although the schools are not supposed to allow 

youngsters inside before the bell, they often open the doors early to 

get the children inside because they are inadequately dressed for 

winter (Montanez p. 13). 

High school students face an additional set of problems. 

Many are working all night long to support their families, so they 

show up at school tired and hungry (Griffin p. 85). Others have been 

thrown out of their homes and are living with extended family or 

friends, arriving at school without homework or text books. Id. 

The Effects of Poverty Concentration 

While each of these risk factors may increase the cost and 

challenge of educating an individual student, what makes the plight 

of Hartford’s school children so difficult is the high concentration 

of these factors in any given school at any given time. The 

"enormously high levels of these disadvantaging characteristics" 

- 10 = 

  

 



  

. @ 

directly impede the educational process (Natriello I pp. 89, 90-91). 

Schools in Hartford confront a problem unlike the problems of schools 

in other communities (Natriello I p. 90).%° Hartford has a "hidden 

resource deprivation" so severe that the disadvantage affects the 

entire system (Natriello I p. 92). See generally Pls’ Ex. 59 

("Poverty and the Department of Education"). 

Many Hartford teachers experience tremendous frustration at 

being forced to deal with obstacles that impede their delivery of 

academic instruction (Noel p. 29; Pls’ Ex. 479).2' The traditional 

academic program assumes a level of student experience which many 

Hartford students lack (LaFontaine I p. 132; Davis p. 86-87). 

Students do not have appropriate role models and peer groups to 

foster learning, and create high expectations (Allison p. 107; Cloud 

  

    
20 The degree of student economic segregation among Hartford and 

the surrounding districts is extreme. As Pls’ Exs. 209 through 230 
show, 16 of the 21 surrounding districts have less than 10% of their 
students on the free and reduced lunch program, and no suburban 
district exceeds 25% (12 districts have less than 5% of their 
students on the free and reduced lunch program). Hartford’s poverty 
is heightened by the wealth of the surrounding towns, giving the 
Hartford region one of the highest rates of city-suburban income 
disparity in the nation (Pls’ Exs. 531, 532). This "extreme 
variation" in the economic composition of schools was also confirmed 
on a statewide basis in a 1988 report by the Department of Education 
(Pls. Ex. 56 at 37). 

¢1 The high concentration of poor children in Hartford schools 
also places enormous demands on Hartford administrators (Forman pp. 
14-16) , who spend large amounts of time on non-instructional matters, 
leaving no time to assist faculty with professional development 
(Pitocco pp. 64-66). Routine tasks like arranging the annual PPT 
meeting for a learning disabled child can become extremely time 
consuming, where parents have no phone or car, and when there is the 
equivalent of one PPT meeting per day (Forman pp. 15-16). Such time 
demands also affect the ability of specialized staff to deliver 
services in a timely manner (Dudley p. 128) (rapid response to 
learning problems in Glastonbury; 6-month wait in Hartford). See 
also Pls’ Ex. 494 at 61-62 (Deposition of Gerald Tirozzi). 

- 20 = 

  

 



      

p. 101). Opportunities and experiences which are extensions of the 

curriculum are absent (Montanez p. 15). As one teacher so eloquently 

described, 

"my children all belong to one small subculture of 
mainstream society, and this is what they know and this is 
what they see. They go from the same group of children in 
school to the same group of children in the neighborhood. 
They do not have models to learn the rules of what the 
other parts of society are all about." 

(Anderson p. 124). As a Hartford principal aptly added, "[t]he 

concentration of poor students in my school by definition does not 

provide them with the kind of atmosphere and environment that would 

allow them to rise to their fullest potential" (Negron p. 16). Te 

firsthand accounts of teachers and administrators on the effects of 

poverty concentration was further bolstered by objective data. One 

important study introduced by plaintiffs measured the effects of 

poverty concentration on academic achievement. In a ground-breaking 

report on Chapter I services by the United States Department of 

Education, "Poverty, Achievement and the Distribution of Compensatory 

Education Services" (Pls’ Ex. 419), three significant conclusions 

emerged. 

First, there is an important correlation between an 

individual child’s poverty and his or her achievement. 

Second, the length of time in poverty status has an adverse 

additional impact on student achievement. Indeed, the study showed 

three times as many students fall behind grade level among those 

families who have been poor over time (Kennedy pp. 18-19; Pls’ Ex. 

419, Figure 2.1 at 17). For "each year the family lives in poverty, 

the likelihood that this student will fall behind grade level 

YY 

  

 



    

increases by two percentage points" (Kennedy p. 22). For example, if 

a family were poor for a continuous period of ten years, the odds of 

the student falling behind grade level would increase by up to 20%. 

Id. As a result, not only do these children face a more difficult 

burden when they go to school, but the school in turn faces "a much 

more difficult burden of finding ways to retain these children, to 

keep them interested in education and to keep them in school" 

(Kennedy p. 23). 

Third, and most important, the concentration of poor 

children in a school adversely affects student achievement (Kennedy 

PP. 16, 70). The Chapter I study convincingly demonstrates that the 

achievement levels of both poor and non-poor students are lower in 

high poverty concentration schools (Kennedy pp. 26-28), The 

disparities continue to grow over time and the children fall 

increasingly behind as they go through school (Kennedy p. 41). The 

impact of poverty concentration on the school system as a result is 

far-reaching (Kennedy p. 28). Conversely, reductions in poverty 

concentration can positively affect student achievement (Orfield I 

pp. 59-60). 

In 1989, the Department of Education acknowledged the 

effect of poverty concentration on achievement and other educational 

outcomes: 

Racial and economic isolation have profound academic and 
affective consequences. Children who live in poverty -- a 
burden which impacts disproportionately on minorities -- 
are more likely to be educationally at risk of school 
failure and dropping out before graduation than children 
from less impoverished homes. Poverty is the most 
important correlate of low achievement... The analysis 
also revealed that the low achievement outcomes associated 

- 22 -    



      
  

with poverty are intensified b eographic and racial 
concentrations. 

(Pls’ Ex. 60 at 1) (emphasis added). (See also Pls’ Ex. 455; Pls’ 
  

Ex. 70 at 17; Orfield I p. 59; Orfield II pp. 117, 121-122, 124-26.) 

The adverse relationship between poverty concentration and 

achievement has also been openly acknowledged by both the present and 

former Commissioners of Education (Pls’ Ex. 493 at 36; Pls’ Ex. 494 

at 58, 67-69) (Depositions of Commissioners Ferrandino and Tirozzi). 

Indeed, at a recent press conference on the 1992 mastery test 

results, which showed continuing poor performance by urban students 

(Pls’ Ex. 512), defendant Ferrandino stated, "[w]e believe that by 

breaking down racial isolation and by eliminating the concentrations 

of poverty we should see improved student achievement" (Defs’ Ex. 

514). See also testimony of Elliott Williams, February 4, 1993, pp. 

81-82). 

A study prepared by Dr. William Trent also examined the 

impact of attending an economically disadvantaged school on 

employment opportunities (Pls’ Ex. 481). Dr. Trent found "clear and 

discernible negative implications across groups, independent of the 

individual’s socioeconomic status, sex, or the region of the country 

in which they reside" (Trent p. 40). These negative consequences for 

occupational outcomes are significant for Latino students (Trent p. 

36) as well as white students (Trent p. 39). For Black students, 

disadvantaged school context has clear negative implications on 

income potential (Trent p. 45). And for Black, Latino, and white 

students, it has negative implications for long-term educational 

attainments (Trent p. 40; Orfield I pp. 28-29). 

- 23 = 

  
| 
| 

  
 



  

In seeking to determine the effects of concentrations of 

poverty on students, Dr. Trent used regression analysis to control 

for the students’ individual socio-economic status was thus able to 

test for the separate effect of concentration of poverty. For 

African American students, Dr. Trent’s analyses showed that 

concentration of poverty has statistically significant long-term 

negative impacts on occupation (Pls’ Ex. 481-c), income (Pls’ Ex. 

481-g), educational attainment (Pls’ Ex. 481-k) and ratings of co- 

worker friendliness (Pls’ Ex. 481-v). The analyses also showed that 

concentration of poverty had a negative impact on later working in an 

integrated workforce.? 

  

    
2 gimilarly, for white students, Dr. Trent’s analyses showed 

that concentration of poverty has statistically significant long-term 
negative impacts on occupation (Pls’ Ex. 481-d) and educational 
attainment (Pls’ Ex. 481-1; Pls’ Ex. 481-0; Pls’ Ex. 481-p). The 
analyses also showed that the concentration of poverty had negative 
impacts on ratings of co-worker friendliness (Pls’ Ex. 481-w; Pls’ 
Ex. 481-x) and later working in an integrated workforce (Pls’ Ex. 
481-aa; Pls’ Ex. 481-bb). 

For Latino students, Dr. Trent’s analyses showed that 
concentration of poverty has statistically significant long-term 
negative impacts on ratings of co-worker friendliness (Pls’ Ex. 481- 
u) and negative impacts on educational attainment (Pls’ Ex. 481-3; 
Pls’ Ex. 481-m) and on later working in an integrated workforce (Pls’ 
Ex. 481-y). 

For Puerto Rican students, Dr. Trent’s analyses showed that 
concentration of poverty had long-term negative impacts on 
occupational attainment (Pls’ Ex. 481-a), income (Pls’ Ex. 481-e) and 
on educational achievement (Pls’ Ex. 481-i). 

Dr. Trent testified that the overall consistency of these 
results, in either statistical or substantive significance, confirmed 
that concentration of poverty had a negative impact on students apart 
from any impact caused by their individual socio-economic 
circumstances. 

- A 

  

 



  

The Convergence of Racial and Economic Isolation in the Hartford 
Schools 
  

Racial segregation and poverty concentration each can have \ 

devastating effects on educational outcomes. Together, their | 

detrimental effects are magnified. Yet this pattern is the reality 

of many urban school systems, including Hartford, which exhibits "an 
/ 

/ / / 

extraordinarily strong relationship" between race and economic / 

segregation (Orfield I pp. 24, 20-25). What emerges from this dual 

pattern of isolation is "a totally different pattern of cpportunitide 

at every stage of life for kids who start out in low income isolated 

schools that are isolated by race and by economic level....They never 

have a fair chance at any level of school for an equal level of 

challenge and preparation, or for being prepared to transfer to the 

mainstream of the society" (Orfield I p. 28). 

In the section that follows, plaintiffs will outline the 

| systemic deficiencies in educational resources and outcomes which are 

tragically overlaid on this dual pattern of racial and economic 

isolation. 

  

3 The degree of concurrent racial and poverty isolation in the 
Hartford area is illustrated by Pls’ Ex. 513, which indicates the 
large number of elementary schools that are severely isolated both by 
class and by race. The state Department of Education has also 
confirmed the "joint concentration of both low economic status and 
minority enrollment" in Connecticut schools (Pls’ Ex. 56 at 37). For | 
example, for fourth grade students statewide, "[t]he schools with 
over 80% of their students in the free/reduced lunch category also 
had over 80% of their students in minority categories." Id. 

-i 0B -       
 



      

c. The Hartford Public Schools Have Inadequate Educational 
Resources to Meet the Needs of Students. 

1. Overall resources in the Hartford school district are 
deficient. 

The Hartford public schools lack the resources 

necessary to provide their students with an adequate education. 

Plaintiffs presented testimony from a number of leading Hartford 

educators and a nationally recognized education expert, who have 

examined the educational resources that are available in the Hartford 

schools, and have concluded that the schools fall short of 

educational adequacy. Dr. Gary Natriello, a professor of Sociology 

and Education at Teachers’ College, Columbia University, who prepared 

an extensive report on the resources available in the Hartford School 

District and other Connecticut school districts, testified at trial 

that the Hartford schools are "an inappropriate educational system" 

for their students and that the Hartford schools are "underresourced 

- « « . given the needs of those students" (Natriello II pp. 62-63). 

  

ee also Pls’ Ex. 163 at 79 (Natriello Report). 

As discussed above, the Hartford schools have large 

numbers of special-needs students who require extra resources to 

educate. Many Hartford students come from poor families. For many, 

English is not their first language. A disproportionate number are 

special-education students. Students with special needs of this kind 

require more resources than other students to receive an adequate 

education (Kennedy p. 28; Davis p. 86). 

Rather than having additional resources, as would be 

appropriate in light of its large concentration of special needs 

- 26 =   
 



  

students, the Hartford system has less than other systems in the 

state. Numerous Hartford educators testified that the Hartford 

School District’s resources are inadequate for the schools’ 

educational mission. For example, Hernan LaFontaine testified that 

resources in the Hartford schools were "not adequate" and "not 

sufficient," and that the Hartford schools did not have the economic 

and other educational resources necessary to meet the needs of the 

student population of the Hartford district (LaFontaine I pp. 124, 

146; LaFontaine II p. 145).2% 

Hartford’s current deputy superintendent likewise 

testified that in the eleven years he has held his position the 

Hartford schools have never "reached the funding and/or the other 

ingredients necessary for an adequate education" (Senteio p. 24). He 

stated at trial that the Hartford schools are afflicted by "municipal 

overburden" because of their need to provide their students with a 

range of special services that school districts with fewer poor 

students do not (Senteio p. 19). Mary Wilson, Assistant Director of 

Curriculum and Staff Development for the Hartford Public Schools, 

also testified that Hartford "lacks the resources it needs to provide 

a quality education" (Wilson p. 25). 

      24 Hartford Superintendent T. Josiah Haig also painfully 
described continuing deficiencies in the schools: loss of staff such 
as reading consultants and assistant principals; lack of computer 
technology; deteriorated buildings; elimination of talented and 
gifted program in high schools and athletics in junior high schools; 
and reduction of special educational enhancement programs (Haig pp. 
60-64). See generally discussion at §II(C) (3), infra. 

  

-07 i= 

  
  
 



    

2. The Hartford School District is inadequate in many 
specific aspects of its educational program 

Staff, supplies, curriculum, and programs are the 

building blocks of an adequate education. The record shows that the 

Hartford school system’s inadequacies in these areas prevent the 

Hartford public schools from providing the city’s children with an 

adequate education. 

a. Staffing and Curriculum 

The Hartford schools lack the staff necessary to 

provide the students in the district with an atbgunle education. At 

trial, Hartford educators described a school district that cannot 

afford to employ an adequate number of staff in critical areas. For 

example, Assistant Superintendent John P. Shea, testified that 

schools’ "very valid" requests for additional teachers and other 

staff are routinely rejected because of lack of resources (Shea p. 

131). 

The Hartford School District is compelled to use 

a substantial portion of its limited funds to hire staff to address 

the special needs of Hartford’s students, rather than in the 

traditional parts of the educational program (Carso p. 97). Dr. 

Natriello found that Hartford’s schools employ on average more 

special education teachers and fewer general elementary teachers and 

content-specialist teachers than other districts (Natriello I p. 

103). 

The Hartford schools also lack an adequate staff 

of nurses, guidance counsellors, psychologists and social workers to 

- 28 =     
 



  

provide appropriate care for their students. Hartford has a large 

number of poor and emotionally troubled students. The available 

staff cannot adequately address these students’ problems and help 

them to succeed in school and afterward (Cloud pp. 91-93; LaFontaine 

I p. 129; Griffin p. 86; Hernandez p. 46). Additional social workers 

are needed to deal with the social problems that many children have - 

-= from homelessness, to lack of family resources for food and 

clothing, to emotional abuse -- that prevent students from learning 

(Negron I p. 71; Noel p. 32).%® Likewise, more psychologists are 

needed to properly treat the many children in the district who have 

emotional problems that interfere with their education (Dickens pp. 

154-55; Negron:l1 pp. 67, 81). The Hartford system also lacks a 

sufficient number of speech therapists. Teacher Diane Cloud 

described one child who waited almost five months to see a speech 

therapist (Cloud p. 92). Some students never received speech therapy 

(Hernandez p. 47). 

Due to shortage of staff and facilities, the 

Hartford School District is not able to offer its students an 

adequate curriculum. The curricular inadequacies exist in a broad 

range of courses and subject areas -- from science to art to foreign 

  

    25 The shortage of school social workers appears to be 
particularly severe. For example, at the Wish Elementary School, 580 
students are serviced by a single social worker (Morris p. 141). Of 
these students, over 80 are special needs students and over 60 are 
required by Individual Education Plans to see a school social worker. 
See id. At the Barnard-Brown elementary school, one social worker 
served 610 students in 1991-92 and did not have enough time to see 
all of the students who needed her help (Hernandez pp. 46-47, Pls’ 
Ex. 231). 

- 29 =- 

  

 



  

  

languages.?® Many Hartford schools offer only limited programs in 

physical education, music, and art. At one school, some students 

have gym class for only 20 minutes per month (Hernandez p. 45), 

students have art only every other week, and the program begins late 

in the school year (Hernandez p. 45). At another school, 

kindergarten children have no art, music, gym or library (Cloud p. 

104). 

b. Textbooks and Instructional Supplies 

The Hartford school system is unable to provide 

students with an adequate supply of the most fundamental educational 

components: textbooks and instructional supplies. With only half of 

the statewide average funding to spend on textbooks and instructional 

supplies (Pls’ Ex. 163 at 63), Hartford’s dramatic underfunding 

translates into inadequate educational opportunities for thousands of 

the district’s children. 

Numerous Hartford educators testified at trial 

that their schools cannot provide students with sufficient textbooks 

(Carso p. 101; Noel p. 28; Negron p. 73). Many teachers fill the gap 

with books that they buy with their own money (Montanez p. 20) 

(Anderson p. 119), or repeatedly reuse books that were made to be 

  

    2 For example, Principal Eddie Davis testified that Weaver High 
School is not able to offer laboratory science in biology, chemistry, 
or physics (Davis p. 79). The school also had to eliminate its 
Advanced Placement biology course this year. Id. Hartford High has 
no advanced placement courses in chemistry, biology, or human 
physiology (Griffin p. 89). Hartford also has substandard foreign 
language laboratory facilities (Natriello II p. 19). A valedictorian 
from Weaver was so ill-prepared in language arts that she was forced 
to take remedial English her freshman year at college (Noel p. 36). 

- 30 = 

  
  
 



      

used in one year and then discarded (Anderson p. 117). Many students 

have to share textbooks (Montanez pp. 19-20), and some bilingual 

students use textbooks that are approximately 20 years old (Montanez 

pp. 19-20). Superintendent Haig testified that the textbook 

appropriation has been reduced by 26-27% over the last few years 

(Haig p. 62). 

The Hartford schools also have serious 

inadequacies in educational equipment, including such deprivations as 

no chairs in the library (Carso pp. 103-04), lack of high school 

laboratory experiences (Davis p. 79; Griffin p. 89-90), and 

inadequate art supplies, which are "the backbone" of the kindergarten 

curriculum (Cloud p. 90). The high schools also have insufficient 

and old equipment in the life management, technology education and 

business departments (Griffin pp. 86-87, 89; Davis p. 77). This lack 

of functioning equipment not only impedes the ability of students to 

be prepared for the future (Griffin pp. 92, 114; Davis p. 79), but 

causes extreme frustration for the most motivated students and 

teachers (Davis p. 77). 

There are also substantial inadequacies in the 

avallability of computers and teacher training in computers. Mary 

Wilson, Hartford’s Curriculum Director, testified at trial that 

although the school district’s goal is to have eight computers per 

classroom, it does not even have one computer per classroom today 

(Wilson p. 15; Haig p. 60). Nor does Hartford have the funds to 

repair these computers or train staff in their use (Wilson pp. 15- 

16). 

- 3] = 

  

   



  

Inadequacies exist in very basic supplies such as 

paper (Hernandez p. 44). Some Hartford teachers spend hundreds of 

dollars of their own money to provide basic instructional supplies 

27 Hartford teachers routinely pay for xeroxing for their classes. 

(Pitocco p. 74; Neuman-Johnson p. 8). Many classrooms also have out- 

of-date maps, and there is almost no money available to upgrade them 

(Wilson pp. 21-22). The chronic lack of supplies in Hartford 

classrooms has a detrimental effect on teacher "effectiveness" and 

frustration level (Pitocco p. 74). 

Cc. Library Books and Periodicals 

Hartford students attend schools that are not 

able to offer adequate library facilities. The library collections 

of the Hartford public schools were studied by a district committee 

in 1989 (Pls’ Ex. 186). Using the American Library Association’s 

standards for school media programs, the committee found that the 

number of books per pupil in the collections of the Hartford Public 

Schools was 10.96, substantially below the recommended minimum 

standard of 17.32 books (Pls’ Ex. 186 at Table 11; Pls’ Ex. 163 at 

69). The committee found that only three of Hartford’s thirty-one 

  

    27 Mr. carso testified that one starting teacher had spent over 
$800 of her own money on school supplies between September and mid- 
December (Carso pp. 101-02). When he asked her about it, concerned 
because she was on the lowest level of the teacher salary scale, she 
responded that she had to buy the supplies because "’there was 
nothing here’" (Carso p. 102). Jean Anderson, a 5th grade teacher at 
the Betances School, testified that she spends an average of about 
$1,000 of her own money on school supplies each year (Anderson p. 
122). 

- 30 - 

  
  
 



        

schools had library collections that met the minimum recommended 

standard (Pls’ Ex. 186 at 2; Pls’ Ex. 163 at 69). 

Several Hartford educators testified about the 

poor conditions of their school libraries. Edna Negron, principal of 

the Betances Elementary School, testified that her library opened 

with only 4,000 books, although the recommended number for the school 

is about 16,000 (Negron p. 73). Mr. Montanez, principal of the 

Hooker Elementary School, testified that his school’s library is so 

substantially below the state’s recommended number of library books 

that if each child checked out two or three books, the shelves would 

be empty (Montanez p. 20-21; Davis pp. 75-76). 

. In addition to having too few books, the Hartford 

school libraries have collections that are extremely old (Cloud p. 

84). Twenty-three of Hartford’s thirty-one ‘schools had library 

collections in which at least half of the books were over fifteen 

years old (Pls’ Ex. 163 at 69; Pls’ Ex. 395 at 2). Six schools had 

collections in which a majority of the books were ten years old or 

older, and only two schools had collections in which a majority of 

the books were less than 10 years old. (Pls’ Ex. 163 at 69; Pls’ Ex. 

395 at 2). 

Most of Hartford’s school libraries are 

physically substandard and cannot even accommodate a full class of 

students (Wilson pp. 10-11). For example, at Hartford High, seating 

is available for only 81 students for a population of 2,200 (Griffin 

p. 91). The libraries are lacking important media equipment, or the 

equipment they have is broken (Wilson p. 11). The classroom 

- 33 = 

  
  
 



» 

libraries do not make up for these deficiencies (Cloud p. 90; 

Hernandez p. 44). 

Hartford students are also deprived of access to 

an adequate supply of periodicals, computer materials, microform and 

microfiche, and non-print media. The Hartford district committee 

found that: only one school in Hartford met the minimum standard for 

periodicals per student; only one school met the minimum standard for 

microfiche and microform materials; only one school met the minimum 

standard for computer programs; only seven schools met the minimum 

standard for video tape programs; and only ten schools met the 

minimum standard for non-print materials such as films, filmstrips, 

and audio tapes (Pls’ Ex. 163 at 69). 

d. Plants and Facilities 

The plants and facilities of the Hartford schools 

are marked by systematic inadequacy. Dr. Senteio, Hartford’s 

assistant superintendent, testified that of Hartford’s twenty six 

elementary schools, only four meet all state codes (Senteio p. 16). 

The Hartford schools are seriously overcrowded. 

There are approximately 115 portable classroom units in use in 

Hartford (Senteio p. 16).%® Throughout the system, rooms are being 

used as general-purpose classrooms that were not intended for such 

use (Senteio p. 17). The district has had to convert hallways for 

use by language, speech, and hearing specialists. Id. One teacher 

      8 Portables have a "terrible impact" upon the delivery of the 
education program in part because of the "enormous expenditure of 
class time in just physically moving" (Negron p. 71; Montanez p. 19). 

- 34 -     
 



      

testified that she spent her first half-year teaching a third-grade 

class in a hallway due to a shortage of classroom space (Neumann- 

Johnson I p. 160). 

Many Hartford schools do not have facilities that 

are basic to their educational mission. Many of the schools do not 

have cafeterias (Senteio p. 17). In many schools, specialized art 

and music classrooms are unavailable because schools have had to 

place regular classes in them (Senteio p. 18). The Betances school, 

for example, has no art room and no music room (Anderson p. 120-121). 

Some schools have no outside playground space (Montanez p. 17; Negron 

I p. 70), or they have a space where the children play among the 

garbage and rats, without any playground equipment (Cloud pp. 81, 

85). In several schools, because the gymnasium is used for other 

purposes, gym class is held in a classroom, a parking lot outside 

(Cloud p. 83), or a room in the basement called a "dungeon" (Montanez 

pp. 16-17). Outside basketball courts have been converted to parking 

lots (Griffin p. 92), or are non-existent (Davis p. 105). At 

Hartford High, an allied health class is held in a storage room 

(Griffin p. 88). 

The Hartford School District is also unable to 

provide an adequate level of maintenance and repair for its schools. 

Many of the district’s schools are in need of serious repair (Senteio 

P.. 16; Cloud. p. 81). Hartford is also frequently forced, for 

budgetary reasons, to defer major maintenance, such as roof repair, 

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until the problem becomes critical (Senteio pp. 14-15).% As a 

result, there is peeling paint, leaky roofs, antiquated bathrooms 

without doors on the stalls or toilet paper, broken sinks, rusty 

water, broken windows, and faulty electrical systems (Cloud pp. 81, 

103; Montanez p. 18) .% 

e. Bilingual Education 

The bilingual educational program being offered 

in the Hartford schools is not adequate. State funding for bilingual 

education is only a small fraction of what experts in the field have 

determined to be necessary, and Hartford’s bilingual program has 

widespread inadequacies in materials, staffing, and program. 

Adnelly Marichal, Coordinator of Bilingual 

Education for the City of Hartford, testified that Hartford is not 

providing a minimally adequate education for its bilingual education 

students (Marichal p. 35). The State’s funding of bilingual 

education is well below necessary levels. A 1987 task force that 

reported to the Commissioner of Education advised that $947 in state 

funding per pupil should be spent to implement state-mandated 

  

    
2 Mr. LaFontaine testified that when he was Superintendent, the 

Hartford School District "developed five-year plans constantly for 
renovation, capital improvement, and then we invariably had to modify 
those downward and reduce them and pick and choose and finally wind 
up selecting one or two projects out of a dozen that we really felt 
were necessary" (LaFontaine I p. 134). 

30 conditions in some Hartford schools expose the children to 
serious danger. Mr. Carso testified that the ceilings at the 
McDonough school have collapsed several times, in at least one case 
nearly injuring students (Carso p. 112). The ceiling in Mrs. 
Hernandez’s classroom at the Barnard-Brown school fell down on her 
class (Hernandez p. 44). 

- 36 = 

  

 



      

bilingual programs. But the current state contribution is only about 

$190 per pupil -- only 20 percent of the recommended level (Marichal 

p. 22; Pls’ Exs. 48, 416). Funding for the bilingual program has 

also remained constant, despite inflation and rising student 

enrollment (Marichal p. 26). 

The Hartford bilingual education program is 

marked by significant inadequacies. There is insufficient money to 

purchase up-to-date and appropriate texts and other instructional 

materials. Ms. Marichal testified that until 1992, some Hartford 

bilingual students were using Spanish basal readers developed in the 

1950s (Marichal p. 20). Mr. Montanez, principal of the Hooker 

Elementary School, testified that bilingual students at his school 

use textbooks that are approximately 20 years old (Montanez p. 19). 

There are also substantial inadequacies relating 

to bilingual teaching and administrative staff. Ms. Marichal 

testified that there is insufficient money available for teacher 

training (Marichal p. 20). About 50% of the bilingual classes are 

"combination classes," in which different levels of students are 

taught together, a condition that Ms. Marichal described as a 

considerable impediment to instruction (Marichal p. 17). There are 

also severe shortages of administrators in the Hartford bilingual 

program. The 1987 Task Force report recommended one full-time 

administrator with qualifications in bilingual education or ESL for 

every 15 to 29 teachers. But the Hartford bilingual program has only 

about one full-time administrator per 70 teachers (Marichal p. 32). 

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There are also substantial inadequacies in the 

kind of bilingual programs that Hartford is able to offer. Hartford 

has an inadequate program of remediation for its bilingual students. 

Between 30 and 35 percent of Hartford’s bilingual students are 

currently testing at remedial levels (Marichal p. 29). (See also 

Pls’ Ex. 439.) Yet there is currently no native-language remedial 

program for elementary school students (Marichal p. 30). And there 

is only a small program at the high school level, that serves 

approximately 70 to 80 students. See id. 

Ms. Marichal also testified that there are two 

kinds of bilingual programs: 1) the maintenance model, which allows 

students to maintain their native language as they learn English, and 

2) the transitional program, which switches students over to English 

as quickly as possible. Ms. Marichal testified that the maintenance 

model is preferable, and that students in it perform better in 

school, but that the Hartford district’s only maintenance model had 

to be closed because of lack of funding (Marichal pp. 12-14). 

As plaintiffs will discuss below, the state has 

been made aware of the deficiencies in bilingual programs in Hartford 

and other cities, and has failed to take appropriate action. See 

§III, infra. 

£. Special Needs Programs 

Hartford does not have the kind and quantity of 

special-needs programs necessary to provide its students with an 

adequate education. Dr. Robert Slavin testified that educators now 

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know that there are effective educational programs =-- like his 

"Success for All" program -- that have proven successful in educating 

special-needs students (Slavin pp. 14, 22). He testified that for 

students with special needs, effective programs of this kind are a 

critical component of an adequate education (Pls’ Ex. 474). But he 

also testified that they are not being provided to Hartford students 

who would benefit from them (Slavin p. 34). In addition, Alice 

Dickens testified that pre-school programs are important for 

preparing poor children to succeed in elementary school (Dickens pp. 

150-51). However, she testified that the number of Hartford students 

who are actually enrolled in pre-school in Hartford is small compared 

to the umber’ who would be eligible for it (Dickens p. 151) .% 

Hartford has, in the past, when funding 

permitted, demonstrated the effectiveness of such programs. Among 

the casualties of Hartford’s chronic underfunding by the state have 

been several successful but now defunct programs that helped to 

address the special needs of Hartford students: the Bridge 

Program, the "Abracadabra" program,’ the HESI program, the 

  

    
31 slavin indicated only 600 out of potential poor of 2,300 four 

year olds receive preschool (Slavin p. 36). 

32 ..In ‘the Bridge Dropout Prevention Program, the Chamber of 
Commerce and the Hartford school system literally created a bridge 
with counselling and jobs for the most at-risk seventh graders -- 
those either too old, or with many absences and failing grades -- to 
enable them to enter the 9th grade in a year and a summer and prevent 
them from dropping out of school (Morales pp. 19-20). Though 
successful, the school district terminated the program for financial 
reasons (Senteio p. 14). 

33 The Abracadabra program put additional teachers into Hartford 
classrooms, effectively reducing class size. The program was 
focussed on elementary language and math, and led to sustained 

-i30 = 

  
 



3 Higher Horizons program, and a special teacher training program for 

new teachers. 

3. The Effects of Recent Budget Cuts. 

In the past 2-3 years, the deficiencies of the 

Hartford school system have been exacerbated by budget cutbacks. In 

the 1992-93 school year, over 100 staff pecsitions were cut, including 

40 teachers, and a wide range of support positions, including nurses 

and other health staff, social workers and psychologists, 

administrators, and custodians (Pls. Ex. 423; Kennelly pp. 63-66). 

In the same year, over one million dollars in non-staff budgetary 

cuts were made, including reductions in planned maintenance 

expenditures, after-school programs, athletics, and textbook 

acquisition (Pls’ Ex. 424). Similar, but less severe cuts, were made 

in 1990 and 1991 (Kennelly pp. 71-72), none of which have been 

restored (Kennelly p. 73). 

  

    
student improvement (Wilson pp. 16-17). The program was terminated 
after 4-5 years due to lack of available funds (Wilson p. 17). 

3 The HESI program (Hartford Effective Schools Initiative) also 
showed success in addressing needs of Hartford students by providing 
teacher training and mentors in selected classrooms until it was 
terminated in 1985 for budgetary reasons (Wilson p. 19). 

Higher Horizons was an intensive program that worked with 
middle and high school students with strong potential but low 
motivation (Wilson p. 18). 

* This program trained teachers in classroom strategies that 
have proven more effective in working with African-American and 
Latino students (Wilson p. 10). This training was necessary to 
prepare new teachers to teach in the Hartford public schools, and it 
received high marks from the teachers who participated in it. See 
id. Nevertheless, the program was eliminated this year due to lack 
of funding. See id. 

- 40 -    



      

These cuts have occurred in a system that already had 

far fewer staff and resources than necessary to meet its students’ 

needs. The impact has been particularly severe in Hartford’s crucial 

reading programs, which have lost all 31 reading consultants in the 

system (Senteio p. 14; Haig p. 60). As a result, no one is available 

to test students or determine their reading level or the appropriate 

reading instructional materials for them (Carso p 105; Montanez p. 

22). 

Alice Dickens, Assistant Superintendent of Support 

Programs and Services, testified at trial that the Hartford School 

District has had to eliminate needed guidance counsellor positions 

(Dickens pp. 153-54). The loss of these counsellors has prevented 

the Hartford schools from providing the kind of day-to-day guidance, 

categorization of students, and career guidance that they should 

provide (Dickens pp. 153-154; Noel p. 31-32; Haig p. 60). 

Cuts in administrative staff have also created 

difficulties in coordination (Griffin p. 89) and supervision (Haig p. 

60; Shea pp. 121, 128). Professional development activities have 

also suffered from budget constraints (Montanez p. 23). Assistant 

Superintendent John Shea pointed out that the loss of teaching staff 

limits the options available to students (Shea p. 123). He also 

testified that the loss of paraprofessionals interferes with the 

ability of teachers to individualize instruction (Shea p. 124), and 

is harmful to the instructional process (Shea p. 125). Custodial 

cuts mean that grass grows higher and graffiti stays up longer (Shea 

pP. 125). Secretarial reductions pull teachers away from teaching and 

- 41 - 

  

 



      

make it more difficult for parents to contact the school (Shea p. 

127). 

Existing staff shortages in bilingual education have 

been made worse by layoffs that the system has had to make in the 

past year, including a reduction of six English as a Second Language 

teachers, and a reduction since the early 1980s from seven to three 

bilingual testers (Marichal pp. 23-24). 

4. Cumulative Effects of Deficient Resources 

The effects of the inadequate educational resources 

described above are made worse by the cumulative effect of deficient 

resources. This cumulative effect harms students in two ways. 

First, when a particular school is deprived of resources year in and 

year out, it experiences what Dr. Natriello called a "cumulative 

deficit" (Natriello I p. 126). For example, a school library that 

has inadequate money to purchase books over a number of years will 

develop serious deficiencies in its collection of books and 

periodicals. 

Second, individual students are affected by the 

cumulative effects of deficient resources. A student who attends 

schools with deficient resources will endure years of inadequate 

textbooks, educational supplies, and other educational inputs. Dr. 

Natriello testified that "over a cumulative career of a student, 

these kinds of things begin to erode the quality of the educational 

program, making it more difficult for students to learn and more 

difficult for teachers to teach" (Natriello I pp. 132-33). 

- 43 -   
 



      

5. Outcomes of Hartford’s Students Are Deficient 

There are a number of tests given to Hartford students 

to monitor their educational achievement and progress. The results 

of these tests, taken together, indicate that a majority of Hartford 

students are not achieving at adequate levels as defined by the 

state. 

a. Connecticut Mastery Tests 

The Connecticut Mastery Tests are the state’s own 

measure of the quality of education in the state (Allison p. 79). 

The state has created a number of benchmarks for achievement on the 

mastery tests, including the "state goal" and the state "remedial 

standard" (Natriello II p. 53). See discussion at §IV(C), infra. 

At trial, Dr. Natriello characterized the 

performance of Hartford students on the Connecticut Mastery Tests as 

a "tragic situation" (Natriello II p. 55). Enormous percentages of 

Hartford students fail to meet the "state goals." For example, 97% 

of Hartford students failed to meet state goals for the 6th grade 

holistic writing tests (Natriello II p. 54). In the fourth grade, 

80% of Hartford students fail to meet the state math goal, 86% fail 

to meet the state goal for the DRP reading test, and 97% fail to meet 

the state goal for the holistic writing test (Natriello II pp. 53- 

54). 

The tragedy becomes even more apparent when 

examining the remedial scores. Large numbers of Hartford students 

are not able to meet these standards, which indicate a need for 

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remedial instruction, and which Dr. Allison testified are the 

benchmark of whether students are receiving a quality education 

(Allison p. 82). For example, in mathematics, 41% of 4th graders, 

42% of 6th graders, and 41% of 8th graders in Hartford fail to 

perform up to even the state’s remedial standards (Natriello II p. 

55). In reading, the results are even worse: 64% not meeting 

remedial standards in 4th grade, 62% in 6th grade, and 55% in 8th 

grade. See id.¥ 

The situation is getting worse instead of better. 

While the Natriello report was based on 1991 mastery test data, the 

1992 results, available at trial (Pls’ Exs. 503, 512 a-d), 

demonstrated that the gap in performance "may, in some cases, be 

getting somewhat worse" (Natriello II p. 60). 

b. MAT 

Results from the Metropolitan Achievement Test 

(MAT) also indicate inadequacies in the education offered by the 

Hartford public schools. The MAT test scores show a pattern of 

performing below grade level. By the 10th grade, the average 

Hartford student performs 2.0 grades below grade level on the math 

section of the test (Pls’ Ex. 163 at 125). On the language section, 

      37 In particular schools and classes, the inadequacy as 
expressed on the Mastery Tests is even more extreme. At Hooker 
Elementary School, only 16% of students performed at above the 
remedial standard (Montanez p. 26). Jean Anderson, a teacher at 
Betances Elementary School, testified at trial that of her 18 
students, only 4 (22%) met the state goal for mathematics; only 2 
(11%) met the state goal for DRP reading; and none (0%) met the state 
goal for writing (Anderson p. 111). 

- 44 -~ 

  

   



      

the average Hartford 10th grade student performs 1.7 grades below 

grade level (Pls’ Ex. 163 at 127). On the reading section, the 

average Hartford student performs 2.9 grades below grade level (Pls’ 

Ex. 163 at 128). 

Dr. Natriello found that these results -- 

disturbing as they are -- nevertheless considerably understate the 

problem. Dr. Natriello found that there are three factors at work in 

the MAT that lead to higher test results than the "true" achievement 

levels of the students: (1) the restricted sample of students taking 

the test; (2) the high proportions of Hartford students above age in 

grade; and (3) the common finding that national norms on tests of 

this kind enable all states and most districts using the test to 

claim that their students are above the national norms (Pls’ Ex. 163 

at 132). 

C. SABE 

The Spanish Assessment of Basic Education (SABE), 

a test administered to all Hartford students in grades two through 

eight in the Spanish/English bilingual program, also demonstrates the 

inadequacy of the Hartford public schools. By the eighth grade, 

Hartford students taking this test are 2.0 grades below their grade 

placement levels in the mathematics portion (Pls. Ex. 163 at 136). 

In the reading section, 8th grade students fall below the grade 

placement levels by 3.1 grades (Pls. Ex. 163 at 138). 

- 45 - 

  

 



      

d. Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) 

The results of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) 

also indicate that Hartford students are not receiving an adequate 

education. Hartford students do substantially worse on the SAT than 

other Connecticut students. The average score of Hartford students 

on the mathematics portion of the test was 354 -- 109 points lower 

than the statewide average of 463 (Pls’ Ex. 163 at 140). On the 

verbal portion, the average Hartford score was 314 -- 108 points 

lower than the statewide average of 422. Id. Hartford students also 

took the test at a far lower rate than students elsewhere in the 

state -- 56.7% of Hartford students, compared to a statewide average 

of 71.4% (Pls’ Ex. 163 at 141). Dr. Natriello concluded that "[i]t 

is likely that the lower participation rates for Hartford 1991 

graduates mask even greater differences in test performance than 

those revealed here" (Pls’ Ex. 163 at 141). 

e. Graduation and Drop-Out Rates 

Another measure of the inadequacy of the Hartford 

school system is its high dropout rate. Drawing upon three different 

sources, Dr. Natriello found that approximately one-third of the 

students in the Hartford high schools were dropping out (Pls’ Ex. 163 

at 142-143): 

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Year Mean Annual Annual Dropout Rates Cohort Study 
Dropout Rates (Guidance Department, Dropout Rates 

  

(Tirozzi Report) Hartford Public Schools) and Status in 
1991 (Larson 
Report) 

1987-88 +7 8.3 5.2 

1988-89 9.2 10.1 10.6 

1989-90 7.7 9.4 8.8 

(Pls’ Ex. 163 at 144-45, Table 12) 

Dr. John Shea testified that Hartford’s 

approximately 640 students who drop out in a year compare to only 

about 23 students dropping out of West Hartford’s high schools (Shea 

Pp. 117). Dr. Shea described the drop-out problem in Hartford as 

watartling. 14. 

Despite the dire nature of the problem, Hartford 

has inadequate programs to prevent dropping out (Shea p. 118). Dr. 

Shea testified that the Project Bridge program, which worked with 

students in grades 7-12 who demonstrated certain traits that made 

them appear likely to drop out, was eliminated and has not been 

replaced in any way. See id. 

D. Interdistrict Comparisons Demonstrate Enormous Disparities 
Between Hartford and the Suburban Schools. 

There is no evidence that the gap between the two 

Connecticuts is closing (Natriello II p. 60). Hartford students face 

severe disadvantages in their families and their community in 

comparison to suburban students (Natriello II p. 61; Williams, 

February 4, 1993, pp. 83-84). Because of this, a greater 

responsibility falls upon the school system to improve the 

- 47 -   
 



      

educational opportunities of Hartford’s students. Id. But 

Hartford’s school system falls far short of the mark. Not only are 

its resources "not appropriate to the needs of the students," but 

they also "violate the state’s guidelines regarding equal educational 

opportunity" and fall below the state and regional averages in key 

educational areas (Natriello II p. 62). For these reasons, witness 

after witness testified that students in Hartford were not provided 

an equal educational opportunity (Cloud p. 105; Noel p. 46; 

LaFontaine I p. 151; Carter p. 18; Hernandez p. 49; Davis p. 89; 

Montanez p. 28; Pitocco p. 84; Natriello II pp. 43, 50, 52; Williams, 

February 4, 1993, pp. 88-89). As Professor Orfield observed, 

disparities in educational resources represent yet another layer of 

inequity facing Hartford school children who are already burdened by 

racial and economic isolation: 

If a poor child is in a school of concentrated poverty, 
he’s usually in a school with many other children who have 
problems, with teachers that are overwhelmed and...as Mr. 
Natriello showed, a school that has a less competitive 
curriculum, a school that has fewer connections to the next 
level of education, a school that’s unequal in many ways 
that are systematically related to the concentration of 
poverty and of minority students. And they exacerbate the 
problems the child has from his background, from his family 
background, which are also considerable problems. 

{(Orfield I p. 138). 

1. The Comparative Need for Resources. 

Students in Hartford need more, not less educational 

resources, because their experiences are often reduced and they bring 

so many divergent needs to the classroom (Negron p. 74; Griffin, p. 

86) (see generally Kennedy). As teacher Gladys Hernandez said, "It's 

- 48 - 

  
     



  

as though they had a terrible sickness and they needed all the 

medicine in the world" (Hernandez p. 43). 

Hartford teachers testified how this very 

concentration of "at-risk" children in their classrooms overwhelmed 

the normal teaching process (Dudley pp. 126-27; Anderson p. 113). In 

comparison, the education process can be conducted with relative ease 

in non-poverty-concentrated schools (Pitocco pp. 65-66; Dudley p. 

128). (See Pls’ Ex. 494 at 61-62) (Deposition of Gerald Tirozzi). 

As former superintendent LaFontaine aptly observed in his 1991 

affidavit: 

These educationally disadvantaged students need more 
educational resources than the "average" student -- they 
need smaller classes, more one-on-one attention, more 
special programs, and more followup in the home and 
community, just to begin the learning process. In 
attempting to provide additional resources to these 
children, resources and attention are necessarily diverted 
from regular education. 

(Pls’ Ex. 479 at Y12).38 

Dr. Gary Natriello, in his report and testimony, 

provided 1 statistical comparison of the disadvantaging 

characteristics faced by Hartford students and their suburban 

counterparts.’ While 63% of Hartford students receive free and 

  

    
% see also Ys 8, 13, 14, 15, 16-19 of Mr. LaFontaine’s 

affidavit. Former Commissioner Tirozzi agreed with most of the 
points made in Mr. LaFontaine’s affidavit. See Pls’ Ex. 494 at 70- 
77. 

3 see also Defs’ Ex. 8.1 and 8.2 and testimony of defendants’ 
witness Douglas Rindone, Chief of the Bureau of Evaluation and 
Student Assessment, February 11, 1993, pp. 110-111 indicating 
Hartford’s last placement both in 1980 and 1990 on a list of socio- 
economic indicators such as percentage of non-English home language, 
percentage of high school diploma, percentage of managers or 
professionals, percentage of poverty, percentage of single-parent 

  

- 49 = 

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reduced lunch, only 4% in Farmington, 4.7% in Glastonbury, and 9.8% 

in West Hartford have a similar status (Natriello I p. 176; Pls’ Ex. 

163, Table ‘13, at 151). Hartford’s rate of poverty is in fact 

substantially greater than the rate among students in any of the 

twenty-one surrounding districts, and Hartford’s poor are getting 

poorer in comparison to these communities (Pls’ Ex. 163 at 152 and 

Figure 33, at 153; Rindone, February 11, 1993, p. 121) (See also fn 
  

20, supra). In addition, in an average Hartford classroom of twenty- 

three students, 9.4 students will have no parent participating in the 

labor force, in contrast to the three selected communities where the 

average number will be less than 1 student (Pls’ Ex. 163 at 150; 

Natriello I p. 176). Furthermore, Figure 25 in the Natriello Report 

(Pls’ Ex. 163 at 155), shows Hartford with the lowest stability rate 

at the elementary level in comparison to other districts (Natriello 

l p. 6). 

2, Resources for Educational Enterprise 

Comparisons between Hartford’s resources and those in 

the less needy surrounding suburbs, and in the state generally, 

demonstrate that Hartford has been woefully shortchanged. For 

instance, Hartford’s net current expenditure per pupil was $7,748 in 

1990-91, placing it twentieth among Connecticut districts. Using the 

state’s formula for determining expenditures when students’ need is 

taken into account, Hartford spent only $6,728.42 per pupil, placing 

it in the sixty-ninth position state-wide (Pls’ Ex. 163 at 157). If 

      families, and median family income. 

- 50 -   
 



  

special grants and federal impact aid are not considered, then 

Hartford spent $4,829 per pupil, ranking 133rd among Connecticut 

districts in pupil expenditures (Pls’ Ex. 163 at 158). The impact 

that this lack of funding has on Hartford’s ability to serve its 

students is dramatic. The surrounding suburban districts simply do 

not have the same kinds of needs as does Hartford. Yet, when the 

net current expenditures per "need student" of Hartford and the 

surrounding suburbs is compared, Hartford ranks fifteenth among the 

twenty-two Hartford area districts. In terms of regular program 

expenditures, excluding grants and federal aid, Hartford ranks at the 

bottom of the twenty-two districts (Pls’ Ex. 163 at 161-62; Natriello 

Il pp. 10), 

Examining these numbers more closely reveals a 

detailed picture of interdistrict disparities in the Hartford area. 

a. Staffing and Curriculum 

Although Hartford expends more than the 

surrounding districts and more than the state-wide average on 

staff, there is a significant question as to whether the Hartford 

teachers are more qualified in terms of level of educational 

  

    
“0 per pupil comparison figures alone are misleading (LaFontaine 

I p. 150). Hartford’s need to provide for the high number of special 
education students, the LEP program, health care, counseling and 
psychological services, all-day kindergarten and preschool programs 
greatly impact on the ability of the Hartford district to meet its 
students’ educational needs (LaFontaine I pp. 126-127, 133). 

“1 It appears that Hartford spends more on staff simply because 
it costs the school district more money to hire and retain staff than 
it does in the surrounding districts (Pls’ Ex. 163 at 178). 

- 5] =- 

  
  
 



    

. @ 

achievement (Pls’ Ex. 163 at 53, 166; Natriello II p. 13). Hartford 

also ranks at the bottom when comparing the numbers of teachers 

trained as mentors, assessors and cooperating teachers (Natriello II 

p. 14). 

As to the availability of teachers, Hartford 

schools have 1.26% fewer general elementary teachers than the state 

average and "over 4% fewer content specialist teachers" (Natriello I 

Pp. 103). 

Although Hartford falls in the middle of the 

twenty-two surrounding districts in terms of number of students per 

instructional specialist, counselor, social worker, or school 

psychologist, these figures are problematic given the number and 

degree of students in Hartford that have the kind of emotional and 

social problems this staff needs to address (Natriello II pp. 15-16). 

Hartford offers fewer hours of instruction than 

twelve other districts in the region at the elementary level, fewer 

hours than twenty other districts in the region at the middle school 

level and the fewest number of hours of any of the districts in the 

region at the high school level (Natriello II p. 16). After 

comparing instructional time offered in Hartford and the surrounding 

districts, Dr. Natriello found that Hartford students were receiving, 

5%-6% less instruction time by the time they got to high school than 

their suburban counterparts (Natriello I p. 122). 

  
  
 



      

b. Pupil and Instructional Services 

Expenditures for purchased personnel services 

that are not part of payroll (such as teaching assistants, medical 

doctors, curriculum consultants, therapists and psychologists) are 

dramatically lower in Hartford than in other districts in the region 

and lower than the state-wide average (Natriello II p. 18). Hartford 

spent $39 per pupil in this area for the 1988-91 school years. The 

average for the twenty-two surrounding suburbs was $101 per pupil and 

the state-wide average was $100 per pupil (Pls’ Ex. 163 at 164, Table 

14). Although staff on the regular district payroll may be providing 

some of these services, given the pupil to teacher ratios described 

above, having regular staff provide these services means that 

Hartford school children are being shortchanged in yet another way. 

Cs Textbook and Instructional Supplies 

Over the three years from 1988-89 through 1990- 

91, Hartford spent an average of $78 per pupil on textbooks and 

instructional supplies as compared to the state-wide average of $148 

during this same time period. The twenty-two surrounding districts 

spent an average of $159 per pupil, over twice as much as spent by 

Hartford (Pls’ Ex. 163 at 164, Table 14). 

These resource constraints play a significant and 

detrimental role in the quality of education offered. Dr. Natriello 

found that "having limitations on materials, in effect, curtails 

instruction, and so schedules begin to reshape themselves a bit, 

- 53 =   
 



      

depending upon the availability of those kinds of resources and 

others" (Natriello I p. 121). 

Differences between Hartford and suburban schools 

in availability of textbooks and supplies was also graphically 

described by suburban teachers and administrators (Pitocco pp. 71-72; 

Dudley p. 122). One typical example was xeroxing, which is freely 

available in many suburban schools but which Hartford teachers must 

pay for themselves (Neuman-Johnson pp. 8-9; Pitocco pp. 71-72). 

Witnesses also testified about the inability of Hartford students to 

take their textbooks home, as compared to the suburbs, and the re-use 

of consumable books and inability to implement new math series 

(Montanez p. 27; Anderson p. 117). 

d. Library Books and Periodicals 

Hartford spent an average of $5 per pupil over 

the three year period from 1988-91, in the category of books, 

periodicals and newspapers. The state-wide average is three times as 

much for the same period, and the twenty-two surrounding districts 

spent, on average, even more than that -- $18 for the three years. 

West Hartford, one of Hartford’s immediate neighbors, spent four 

times as much as did Hartford and Farmington spent seven times as 

much. Testimony from teachers bear out these dismal figures. For 

example, Norma Neuman-Johnson, a Hartford teacher and West Hartford 

parent, testified to a "dramatic difference" between the libraries at 

McDonough School in Hartford and Duffy School in West Hartford. 

While the McDonough library suffers from lack of space, lack of 

- 54 - 

  
  
 



      

books, and broken equipment, the library at the Duffy school is 

"rich" in resources, with "new titles coming, every, every week, it 

appears" (Neuman-Johnson II pp. 6-7). Yvonne Griffin similarly spoke 

of the inadequacy of the library at Hartford High School in 

comparison to the suburbs (Griffin pp. 90, 97), and Mary Wilson 

described libraries with inadequate collections, inadequate space, 

and inadequate equipment, concluding that "there’s some glaring gaps 

between what we have and what I see in some of the surrounding 

suburbs; in terms of automation, both quality and relevancy of the 

book collections" (Wilson p. 10-12). 

e. Equipment 

Expenditures for the acquisition by lease or 

purchase of equipment such as computers, microscopes and sewing 

machines also shows wide disparities (Pls’ Ex. 163 at 183-84). 

Hartford spent $25 from 1988-91 in this area; less than one-third of 

the $91 state-wide average and about one-fourth of the average of $97 

spent by the twenty-two surrounding districts. Adjacent and 

contiguous districts like Glastonbury and West Hartford spent in 

excess of $100 (Pls’ Ex. 163 at 164, Table 14). 

The disparities that these numbers reflect are 

illustrated in reference to the ratio of students to academic 

computer (Natriello II p. 22). In the elementary schools (K-6), the 

ratio in Hartford ranges from a low of 27.8 students per computer at 

the Clark school to an astounding high of over ninety students per 

computer at King (Pls’ Ex. 163 at 185, Fig. 51). In three districts 

- 55 = 

  
  
 



  

contiguous to Hartford -- Farmington, West Hartford and Glastonbury - 

- the ratio of elementary school student to computer ranges from a 

low of 13.3 at the Academy school in Glastonbury to a high of 44.4 

students at the Aiken school in West Hartford (Pls’ Ex. 163 at 186, 

Fig. 52). 

An example of these disparities was given by 

Clara Dudley of Glastonbury, who provided a striking account 

comparing the availability of computers at Glastonbury’s Hopewell 

School to their availability at Hartford’s Clark School. While her 

class of Hopewell fifth graders enjoy two frequently used computers 

with the latest in educational software and phone links to various 

computer networks, at her Clark sister class, there is only one 

computer, with a broken keyboard and a teacher who has not been 

adequately trained in its use (Dudley pp. 122-123).% similarly, 

Jean Anderson testified about receiving one computer for the first 

time this past year at Betances School but not receiving disks or 

software so that the unit could be used (Anderson p. 120; see also 
  

Griffin p. 98). 

Disparities in equipment affect students across 

the entire curriculum -- from the music program to basic science 

equipment. For example, Norma Neuman-Johnson described a "glaring" 

disparity in music equipment, comparing the full orchestra at West 

      2 Ms. Dudley also noted that 75% of her students have computers 
in the home (Dudley p. 124). As Hartford’s curriculum director, Mary 
Wilson, testified, Hartford students who do not have home computers 
have a much greater need to be exposed to computers in school (Wilson 
P. 15). Yet there is a chronic shortage of computer equipment, 
computer training and computer repair throughout the system (Wilson 
Pe. 15). 

- 56 - 

  

 



  

  

Hartford’s Duffy School with 12-15 aging instruments at McDonough 

(Neuman-Johnson II pp. 7-8). Clara Dudley’s 5th grade class at 

Hopewell School in Glastonbury enjoys an embarrassment of riches in 

science equipment, all supplied by a "central science curriculum 

center," while Hopewell’s inner-city sister school has virtually no 

science equipment (Dudley p. 122). Yvonne Griffin, a teacher at 

Hartford High School, testified that suburban schools have "far more 

and what they have is in good supply and good repair" (Griffin p. 

95). Her comparisons regarding the culinary arts equipment, science 

equipment, and computer labs (Griffin p. 95-96) are illustrative of 

disparities in equipment throughout the system. 

f. Plant Operation 

Plant operating expenditures reflect disparities 

in a number of different areas, including the size of physical 

facilities, the general quality of the physical plant and the 

availability of specialized facilities. Hartford spent an average of 

$162 per pupil on plant operation from 1988-91, while the state-wide 

average was $266 over the same period and the average for the twenty- 

two surrounding districts was $272 (Farmington spent $300) (Pls’ Ex. 

163 at 164, Table 14; Natriello II p. 23). Dr. Natriello’s report 

also indicates that Hartford has the least in terms of special 

facilities (Natriello IT p. 24).% 

      
4 schools that have a specialized room for each of five areas 

(art, gym, auditorium, music and cafeteria) were rated a five on a 
scale of one to five. Six of Hartford’s twenty-one elementary 
schools rated a three or below. None of the elementary schools in 
Glastonbury, West Hartford or Farmington rated below a 3.5 (Pls’ Ex. 

- B77 - 

  

 



» 

Even a chart such as Dr. Natriello’s, however, 

does not expose all of the disparities that are hidden behind the 

numbers. For instance, the Milner School’s nearly all concrete 

playground space (with only a small, mostly muddy natural turf area), 

is crammed with portable classrooms and teacher’s automobiles, and it 

lacks any playground equipment (Cloud pp. 81-85). Even worse, four 

dumpsters filled with lunchroom garbage attract rats, and the smell 

during warm weather prevents the use of part of the playground. Id. 

Another example is the music class at Betances, which is held in an 

auditorium where the acoustics are unsuitable for the teaching and 

creation of music (Anderson p. 121). Clara Dudley described stark 

differences in grounds, comparing a glass-covered asphalt playground 

at the Clark School and the ees farm, 17-acre outdoor classroom, and 

$40,000 playscape at the Hopewell School (Dudley p. 124) .% 

g. The Hidden Contribution of Parental Resources 

The cumulative effect of parental contributions 

to suburban schools only serves to heighten the disparities that are 

already present. Although most low income city parents may be just 

as deeply committed and concerned about their children’s education as 

suburban parents (Carso p. 88; Neuman-Johnson p. 12), their relative 

lack of resources, both educational and financial, hamper their 

ability to provide the kinds of enrichment that suburban schools 

      163 at 192-93, Figs. 55 and 56). 

“ See also Griffin pp. 96-97 describing comparisons in athletic 
facilities and grounds upkeep. 

- 58 =-   
 



      

enjoy. For example, Norma Neuman-Johnson described the services 

provided by 200-250 highly educated parent volunteers at a West 

Hartford elementary school, including xeroxing assistance, 

preparation of a school directory, school calendar, fundraising 

events, a "geography challenge," library assistance, weekly school 

paper, and other parent-initiated enrichment and fundraising 

activities (Neuman-Johnson II pp. 9-13). Clara Dudley described 

similar parental involvement at the Hopewell School in Glastonbury 

(Dudley pp. 127-128). There is nothing comparable in most Hartford 

schools. 

3. Outcome Categories 

The fact that Hartford students need so many more 

resources than do their suburban counterparts, coupled with the fact 

that they receive so much less, has had a dramatically negative 

effect on the achievement and educational outcomes of Hartford’s 

students in comparison to those outcomes for the students in the 

surrounding districts. Hartford performance levels are uniformly and 

substantially below that of the average performance levels of 

students in all other districts (Natriello II pp. 26, 29). 

a. Connecticut Mastery Tests 

Hartford students who took the Connecticut 

Mastery Test in math uniformly mastered fewer objectives than did the 

students in the surrounding districts. Students who took the test in 

the fourth grade averaged mastery in only 16.5 areas out of 25; the 

- 59 - 

  

 



      

suburban average ranged from a low of 21.3 to a high of 23.3 (Pls’ 

Ex. 163 at 198, Fig. 59). Sixth and eighth graders in Hartford 

similarly mastered far fewer objectives than the lowest scoring 

suburban district (Pls’ Ex. 163 at 179, 201, Figs. 60 and 61). 

Hartford fourth graders were able to master, on 

average, 3.3 of the nine objectives tested on the language arts 

section of the CMT. This compares unfavorably with the scores of the 

students in all the surrounding suburbs where the students’ mastery 

ranged from 5.9 to 7.7 (Pls’ Ex. 163 at 203, Fig. 62). Again, these 

disparate results were reflected in the scores in the upper grades as 

well (Pls’ Ex. 163 at 203-206). 

This pattern of poorer achievement on the CMT by 

Hartford students remains essentially the same for the reading and 

writing portions of the test. Hartford remained at the bottom of all 

twenty-one districts with the minor exception of the eighth grade 

writing portion, where Hartford tied for the lowest score with 

Windsor Locks (Pls’ Ex. 163 at 213, Fig. 70; Natriello II pp. 28-29). 

These systematically different achievement 

results are dramatically apparent when Hartford scores are compared 

to all other school districts in the entire state. Once again, 

Hartford ranks at the bottom (Pls’ Ex. 163 at 235-240; Natriello II 

pp. 44-46). What is particularly depressing about these results is 

their severity, consistency across grade levels and subjects, and 

their stability (Natriello II p. 60). Given current circumstances, 

there is not "much room for hope" or "much expectation that there’s 

  
  
 



      

going to .be improvement if conditions remain the way they are" 

(Natriello II p. 59). 

b. Credits Earned 

The number of credits earned in particular 

subject areas by recent high school graduates can indicate the 

outcomes of the schooling process as well as offer some insight into 

the course offerings of various school programs. Whether one 

examines the credits earned in Algebra I or English Literature, 

Hartford students consistently earn fewer credits than most of their 

suburban counterparts (Pls’ Ex. 163 at 214-223; Natriello II p. 32). 

Only 2.4% of Hartford’s students earn college credits in high school 

courses for college credit (Pls’ Ex. 163 at 222, Fig. 77). In the 

surrounding suburbs, as many as 43.7% of the students earn these 

credits, and the lowest, East Granby, has a rate more than three 

times that of Hartford. 

CS. Scholastic Aptitude Test Scores 

Student performance on the Scholastic Aptitude 

Test (SAT) offers another potent indicator of school performance and 

subsequent likelihood of success in post-secondary educational 

institutions (Natriello II p. 32). Hartford students score the 

lowest when compared to the performance of students in the 

surrounding districts. In math, eighty-two points separate the 

average score of Hartford graduates from the average score of 

students in the next lowest scoring district, East Hartford (Pls’ Ex. 

  
  
 



      

163 ‘at 225. Fig. 79). In the verbal section, seventy-six points 

separate the average scores of Hartford graduates from the average 

scores of students in the next lowest scoring district, again, East 

Hartford (Pls’ Ex. 163 at 226, Fig. 80). When reviewing these 

figures it should also be noted that only 56.7% of Hartford’s 

students actually take the exam, thereby increasing the probability 

that these scores are inflated and do not reflect the performance of 

the average Hartford student (Pls’ Ex. 163 at 228, Fig. 81; Natriello 

II pp. 34-35). 

d. Patterns of Post-Secondary Education and Work 
Activities. 

Few of Hartford’s graduates go on to college, in 

marked contrast to the achievement of their suburban peers. Only 

East Hartford, with 28.3% of its students going on to a four-year 

college has a smaller proportion than Hartford, with 31%. However, 

if the figures for those Hartford graduates who are unemployed and 

who did not go on to college ("other" ) are added, Hartford, with 

12.4% of its graduates, has the highest number neither employed or in 

higher education (Pls’ Ex. 163 at 230, Fig. 82). 

In conclusion, the pattern is consistent. 

Hartford ranks at the bottom in community resources, educational 

resources and outcome measures (Natriello II p. 36). Yvonne Griffin, 

a teacher in the system, summed up the feelings of many of her 

colleagues: 

- 62 i=   
 



. » | | 
| 

  

But the easiest way of putting it is it hurts, 
and it hurts immensely because I’m out all the 
time seeing what other school systems have. And 
when I have to come back to my classroom and 
teach my students what I know they need for the 
future, I know from the depths of my heart that 
these students are being cheated. They do not 
have anything that compared on a logical level 
to what I see in other schools, whenever I visit 
another school. 

(Griffin p. 99-100). 

- 63 =       
 



III. THE STATE HAS BEEN AWARE OF THE HARMS OF RACIAL AND ECONOMIC 
ISOLATION IN THE SCHOOLS, AND HAS REPEATEDLY FAILED TO TAKE 

ACTION TO ADDRESS THE PROBLEM. 

For over 25 years, defendants have failed to respond to the 

growing racial and economic isolation of Hartford schoolchildren. 

Beginning in the mid-1960s, up to the present, the state has been 

repeatedly reminded of the harmful effects of racial and economic 

isolation on schoolchildren in Hartford and other cities, and urged 

to take strong action. Nothing was done (Gordon II pp. 79-81; 

passim). 

During this time, the state was well aware of the growth in 

racial and economic isolation in the Hartford schools (Gordon I p. 

1297 passim). Not only was the state faithfully documenting increas- 

4% put a number of ing racial isolation on an annual basis, 

independent reports also sounded warnings to state authorities on the 

ever-increasing growth of racial and economic isolation in Connec- 

ticut’s schools.“ Throughout this time period, "there was ample 

evidence presented to the state and generated by the state to the 

harm that was being done" by segregation (Gordon II pp. 4-5). 

In addition, beginning with the 1965 Harvard Report (Pls’ Ex. 

1), and continuing through the late 1980s, the state was made aware 

of a number of concrete, feasible proposals, which, if implemented, 

would have significantly ameliorated the growing racial isolation and 

      “° see Pls’ Exs. 6; 101-123; Gordon I p. 132. The official 
state collection of racial enrollment date began in the 1965-66 
school year, as reported in "The Distribution of NonWhites in the 
Public Schools of Connecticut," Connecticut State Department of 
Education, May 24, 1966 (Pls’ Ex. 6). 

“ ‘See, e.dg., Pls’ Exs. 17, 18, 319, 20. 
  

- 64 ~~        



    
  

educational disparities in Hartford and the surrounding suburban 

schools. None of these proposals was implemented. The state 

educational authorities themselves also repeatedly demonstrated 

extensive familiarity with the techniques necessary to achieve 

interdistrict school desegregation, but, again, chose to do 

nothing.’ 

Against this backdrop, it strains credulity to claim that 

Connecticut is a "leader" in addressing the problem of school 

segregation. As Dr. Gordon observed, Connecticut has been a leader 

in studying the problem of segregation, but has not been a leader in 

taking constructive action (Gordon II pp. 4-5). 

The state’s repeated failure to act, through both its 

legislative and executive branches, also underscores the compelling 

need for a court order to address the unconstitutional conditions in 

the Hartford schools. Purely "voluntary" approaches to desegregation 

and educational equity have not worked. 

In the discussion that follows, plaintiffs will summarize the 

30-year history of the state’s failure to act, as presented at trial. 

A. A History of Inaction 

The 1960s 

The 1965 report, Schools for Hartford, prepared by the 

  

Harvard Graduate School of Education (Pls’ Ex. 1), was the first 
J 

report to fully document the growing problem of racial isolation in 

  

  
47 The historical sequence of reports, studies, and 

recommendations created or received by the state is included in Pls’ 
Exs. 1-90, and represented graphically in Pls’ Ex. 488 (timeline). 

- 65 = 

  
  
 



      

the Hartford schools. The "Harvard Report" projected increasing 

racial concentrations in the Hartford schools in future years if 

strong steps were not taken to promote integration. Like many 

reports in later years, the Harvard Report also explicitly focused on 

the problem of high poverty concentration in the Hartford schools 

(Gordon II p. 14). The report also described the educational harms 

that result from segregation (Pls’ Ex. 1 at 10). 

The Harvard Report contained a feasible interdistrict 

proposal that would have significantly alleviated the growing problem 

of school segregation at the time it was proposed (Gordon II pp. 14- 

15). The report called for two students from the "poverty areas of 

Hartford" to be placed in each suburban classroom, up to a total of 

6,000 city students in suburban schools (Pls’ Ex. 1 at 12). At the 

time the Harvard report was issued, approximately 50% of Hartford’s 

schoolchildren were Black or Latino (Pls’ Exs. 101, 124). If the 

Harvard report had been implemented, the racial and economic 

composition of city and suburban schools would have been profoundly 

altered, significantly influencing school and housing patterns for 

years to come (see Pls’ Ex. 1 at 14). 

The only integration that resulted from the Harvard 

Report’s recommendations was the establishment of the small pilot 

program of 252 children known as Project Concern, which has never 

been adequately funded, and which continues to this day to fall short 

of its potential. The broader interdistrict education proposals 

contained in the report were ignored, although the impact of the 

Harvard Report continued to be felt throughout the 1960’s, and its 

- 66 - 

  
  
 



    

key recommendations often reappeared in state legislation and policy 

proposals (Gordon I p. 11).% 

In January of 1966, the Connecticut Commission on Civil 

Rights urged the State Board of Education to respond to the growing 

problem of "de facto" school segregation in Connecticut: "[it] is 

the view of the Commission that the failure to eliminate de facto 

segregated schools not only condemns Negro children to an unequal 

education but also tends to perpetuate a segregated society by 

presenting segregation to all children as an acceptable American way 

of life." The Commission also pointed out that "[t]here is evidence 

that Negro children show improved academic performance in integrated 

school situations" (Pls’ Exs. 7a & 7c). 

In response to the statement of the Commission on Civil 

Rights, the State Board of Education in December 1966 issued the 

first of a series of official policy statements defining the concept 

of equal educational opportunity and the role of racial diversity in 

a quality education. In its statement, the state Board stated that 

"the high concentration of minority group children in urban schools 

produces special problems in providing quality education. Isolation 

and lack of exposure to the mainstream of American society make it 

difficult for these children to achieve their full educational 

  

  “© one of the first examples of support for the plan is the 
joint "Proposal to Establish a Metropolitan Effort Toward Regional 
Opportunity" (METRO) (Pls’ Ex. 4), a 1966 grant proposal submitted by 
28 Hartford area superintendents and transmitted to the state, recom- 
mending implementation of the Harvard plan. The report was also 

relied on in Pls’ Ex. 27, a December 1969 report of the Connecticut 
State Department of Education, "Racial Balance and Regionalization" 
and several legislative and policy proposals from the late 1960s 
(Gordon II. p. 11). 

- iT - 

  

 



  

potential" (Pls’ Ex. 8). Rather than take any direct action, 

however, the State Board committed itself to "encourage cooperative 

efforts" among local boards -- a futile gesture that would be 

repeated frequently in the years to come. In response, the 

Commission on Civil Rights criticized the state Board’s failure to 

act: "We continue to believe that unless the State Board of 

Education addresses itself directly to these problems it contributes 

to their perpetuation" (Pls’ Ex. 7b) (emphasis in original). The 

Commission’s response also, significantly, addressed the harmful 

effects of segregation on white students, and, like the Harvard 

Report, emphasized the problem of segregation "by economic class and 

by race" (Pls’ Exs. 7b & 7d) (emphasis added) .“ 

| The documentation of racial and economic isolation in 

Connecticut schools in the 1960s was thorough and comprehensive. In 

addition to the state’s own official annual documentation, the 

University of Connecticut Institute of Urban Research and the 

University’s Educational Resources and Development Center conducted 

a series of highly detailed reports on school segregation in Connec- 

ticut’s major cities. See Pls’ Ex. 17, 18, 19, 20. These reports, 

  

    
“9 The state’s reluctance to take meaningful action was also 

reflected by remarks made by Education Commissioner Sanders at a 
conference in May of 1966 jointly sponsored by the Civil Rights 
Commission and the State Board (reported in detail in Pls’ Ex. 5), an 
event which was part of the ongoing dialogue between the two 
organizations. Although the Department of Education’s Research 
Director demonstrated the department’s familiarity with various 
techniques available to promote interdistrict desegregation (Pls’ Ex. 
5 at 38 et seqg.), and the importance of integration was openly 
discussed, the Commissioner only reiterated his position that 
"experimentation" with desegregation "should be provided through the 
leadership of local school boards, rather than by state or federal 
mandate" (Pls’ Ex. 5 at 61). 

- 68 - 

    
  
 



  

characterized by plaintiffs’ expert William Gordon as "excellent 

scholarship" (Gordon II p. 43) presented data and analysis on racial 

patterns in gtudent enrollment and staffing; disparities in 

educational resources and outcomes; the failure of intradistrict 

desegregation in Hartford; the presence of white opposition to 

integration; the harmful educational effects of school segregation on 

minority children; and the denial of equal educational opportunity to 

inner city children.?° 

The next series of recommendations to the state came during 

the 1967 Governor’s Conference on Human Rights and Opportunities, an 

event designed to produce a series of concrete "action proposals" in 

several areas including school desegregation. The Committee on 

Schools made a series of strong initial recommendations to the 

Governor, legislature, and the State Board, urging both educational 

enhancement and interdistrict school desegregation (Pls’ Ex. 12a). 

The final recommendations of the Conference as a whole included a 

  

    
50 See, ¢.9., Pls’ Ex. 17 at 1-8; Pls’ Ex. 18 at 121-123, 203-4, 

333-34; Pls’ Ex. 19 at 21-22; Pls’ Ex. 20 at 81-87. One report, 
prepared for and endorsed by the Connecticut Education Council (which 
included the Governor and Commissioner of Education), concluded that: 

De facto racial and economic segregation of families within 
the cities and of the suburbs handicaps both Black and 
white pupils in the development of mutual understanding and 
respect for those who differ in race or family income. 
Inequalities in educational opportunity exaggerate this 
handicap. Children from racially and socio-economically 
segregated schools are being denied an opportunity to 
associate with, and develop the necessary understanding of, 
children from backgrounds other than their own. This 
situation imposes cultural deprivation on the white child 
as well as the Black. 

(Pls’ Ex. 20 at 85) (emphasis omitted). 

- 69 =   
 



% @ 

call for interdistrict educational parks, and interdistrict 

transportation (Pls’ Ex. 12b). Unfortunately, none of these 

proposals was ever implemented (Gordon II p. 34). 

In response to these calls for action, and in response to 

a separate letter from the NAACP (Pls’ Ex. 13), the State Board soon 

revised and reissued its 1966 policy statement recognizing the harm 

of racial isolation. The Board again took no affirmative steps other 

than to "urge" local districts to act (Pls’ Ex. 14). 

One of the most important proposals to come out of the 1967 

Governor’s Conference, the interdistrict "educational park," was 

prepared as a formal legislative proposal in January 1969 by the 

Legislative Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities (Pls’ Ex. 

21) .%' According to Dr. Gordon, Connecticut’s unique conception of 

the educational park, as an interdistrict magnet school or cluster of 

schools attached to a university was a feasible proposal that would 

have made a "significant difference in Hartford with respect to 

desegregation" (Gordon II p. 45). Unfortunately, the educational 

parks bill died in Committee (a "slow strangling of the idea"), and 

a substitute bill to merely "study" educational parks was defeated by’ 

the legislature as a whole (Pls’ Ex. 22g). Another interdistrict 

education bill (see Pls’ Ex. 22e), was also defeated in the 1969 

      1 The deliberations on the educational parks bill and other 
interdistrict bills proposed during the 1969 legislative session are 
reflected in Pls’ Exs. 22 a-h. 

- 70 -    



  

session, effectively ruling out any prospect of legislative action on 

desegregation. > 

By 1969, the total enrollment of Project Concern had 

increased to a mere 755 students, less than 2.6% of Hartford’s total 

enrollment, and far short of the 6000 students called for by the 

Harvard Report. It was at this time, perhaps out of frustration with 

slow legislative progress, that the Hartford superintendent of 

schools called for an expansion of Project Concern to 5000 students 

(Gordon II p. 26), a recommendation that was never implemented. 

Instead, in 1969 the legislature passed the Racial 

Imbalance Act, an intradistrict desegregation law that had no benefi- 

cial effects whatsoever on racially isolated districts like Hartford 

(Gordon II p. 49), and was not even implemented until 11 years later 

(Gordon II p. 51).°3 

  

    
2 similar interdistrict education bills reappeared in the 

legislature in 1971 and 1973 (Pls’ Exs. 25, 26), but were never 
adopted (Gordon II p. 52). 

> The Connecticut Legislature knowingly adopted the Racial 
Imbalance Act, with its limited application to urban districts, 
despite warnings about the futility of this solution (Pls’ Ex. 23 at 
218-d) (Comments of Senator Barrows during the Senate Proceedings). 
Soon after the adoption of the regulations, the State Department of 
Education also reported the uselessness of the Act in the large urban 
districts with more than 75% minority students (Pls’ Ex. 37 at 1, 2) 
Under the regulations, which require racial balance in each school 
within 25% of the district racial population, a 99% minority school 
body could be in compliance while a 49% minority enrollment would 
violate the law. As the Hartford district stated flatly in a 1988 
report, "[a]s long as the boundaries of the attendance district of 
the Hartford schools [are] coterminous with the boundaries of the 
city, no meaningful numerical balance can be achieved, and it would 
be an exercise in futility to develop proposals to seek racial 
balance" (Pls’ Ex. 53 at 6) (Hartford was partially exempted from the 
Act during the 1980s). 

- 71 - 

  

 



  

The 1970s 

During the decade of the 1970s, following the defeat of the 

1969 interdistrict education proposals in the Connecticut 

legislature, much of the activity in the area of equal educational 

opportunity in Connecticut focussed on educational financing (Gordon 

II at p. 56).°* spurred by the filing of Horton v. Meskill in 1973, 

legislative and executive attention turned to the Sreblen of 

restructuring school aid formulas to satisfy constitutional mandates 

(See, e.9., Pls’ Exs. 30, 32). 
  

During the 1970s, although the need for metropolitan 

integration was largely ignored by the state, it had not been 

forgotten by Hartford officials. For example, in 1970, the city’s 

Community Development Action Plan (Pls’ Ex. 29) documented the severe 

challenges facing the Hartford schools at that time, including high 

concentrations of poor and at-risk students, increasing racial isola- 

tion, and some elementary schools that were already at a 100% 

minority enrollment level. In 1978, shortly after the Supreme Court 

decision in Horton, a Hartford state representative undertook a 

solitary, and ultimately fruitless, effort to persuade the state 

Department of Education’s "Task Force on Educational Equity" to 

include recommendations on racial integration in its final report to 

  

    ° One notable exception was the case of Lumpkin v. Meskill, a 
federal interdistrict school desegregation lawsuit filed in 1970 that 
was effectively dropped after the United States Supreme Court 
decision in Milliken v. Bradley in 1974 (Gordon II p. 53). The 
plaintiffs’ defeat in Milliken, along with the failure of the 
Connecticut legislature to take appropriate action in the late 60s, 
the continuing inattention of state education authorities, and the 
demise of the Lumpkin case, must have made the quest for school 
integration in Connecticut in the mid-1970s seem futile. 

- 72 =   
 



      

the legislature. His entreaties were virtually ignored by the 

Commissioner and the Legislature, and there was no mention of racial 

segregation in the final report of the Task Force (Pls’ Exs. 31b, c, 

d; Pls’ Ex. 32 at 60-74). Again, in 1980 Dr. Edythe Gaines, former 

superintendent of the Hartford schools, wrote a report to the State 

Department of Education in which she called for interdistrict 

approaches (Pls’ Ex. 33). Finally, in April of 1981, in its first 

report summarizing its efforts to "comply" with the racial imbalance 

act, Hartford sought to redirect the attention of the State Board of 

Education to the need for a metropolitan solution: 

The Hartford Board of Education is committed to providing equal 
educational opportunities to the students of this city. 
However, the task becomes increasingly difficult as the 
financial support for quality educational programs and services 
continues to decline. The plan developed by the Hartford Public 
Schools will ensure compliance with the Racial Imbalance 
Regulations. These regulations, however, do not address the 
existing demography of urban school districts which now serve a 
majority of minority students. Because of this phenomenon, the 
Hartford Public School System is a segregated system which will 
continue to exist until metropolitan remedies are included in 
strategies developed by State officials to reduce this 
isolation. 
  

(Pls’ Ex. .36 at 24) (eniphiagis added) . 

During this period, defendants’ involvement in school 

segregation was not only limited to oversight of a segregated system 

and knowing failure to act. In addition, defendants were actively 

engaged all through the 1950s, 60s, and 70s in a massive program of 

construction of segregated schools throughout the region (see Gordon 

I pp. 132-141; Gordon II pp. 105-110). As illustrated by plaintiffs’ 

exhibit 156, between 1950 and 1980 defendants approved and funded the 

construction of over 100 new schools in virtually all-white suburban 

-P 

  

  
 



  

communities, representing over 50% of the total school enrollment in 

the Hartford region (see Pls’ Exs. 150, 151, 112). During the same 

time period, defendants financed a major expansion of school capacity 

within the increasingly racially isolated Hartford school district. 

(Id.) Defendants had extensive approval authority over each of these 

schools (Gordon TAD, 133), and reimbursed local districts at rates 

ranging from 50% to 80% of total construction cost (Gordon pp. 135- 

36). (See also Pls’ Exs. 9, 144, 145.) To this day, defendants 
  

continue to fund the construction or expansion of segregated single 

district schools (see Pls’ Exs. 142, 143, 160).°° 

The 1980s 

The appointment of Gerald Tirozzi as state Commissioner of 

Education in April of 1983 marked a turning point in the history of 

equal educational opportunity in Connecticut. As former 

superintendent of one of Connecticut’s most segregated school 

districts, Tirozzi was aware of the harmful effects of racial and 

economic isolation, and placed the issue at the center of the state’s 

educational agenda. However, in spite of Commissioner Tirozzi’s 

efforts and despite the state’s increasing recognition and 

documentation of the inequities and isolation affecting its inner 

city school children, no progress had been made in addressing the 

problem by the end of Commissioner Tirozzi’s term. 

      > As plaintiffs have earlier pointed out, the state is also 
responsible for creating and maintaining coterminous town and school 
district lines pursuant to C.G.S. §10-240, (see Collier) and 
requiring that parents send children to schools within their town, 
C.G.S. §10-184. 

- 04 

  

 



    

In 1984, and again in 1986, the State Board of Education 

set out an official state definition of equal educational opportunity 

(Pls’ Exs. 39 and 43), focussing on eliminating disparities in 

educational resources and outcomes among districts and among racial 

and ethnic groups. Significantly, the state Board at this time 

emphasized the important relationship between racial and economic 

integration and equal educational opportunity, and reiterated its 

position that access to equal educational opportunity "is an issue 

that goes beyond local school district boundaries to the region and 

in some instances, the state as a whole" (Pls’ Ex. 39 at 84) 

(emphasis added). 

In a letter transmitting the 1986 policy to each 

superintendent in the state, Commissioner Tirozzi noted that 

"[n]Jothing in our business is more important than...equality of 

educational opportunity." "Every major study of educational 

opportunities in our state," wrote Tirozzi, "has identified two 

Connecticuts: one is remarkably advantaged, the other unfortunately 

disadvantaged. Experience shows that it is a constant battle just to 

keep that disparity from growing; and yet our goal remains the 

reduction of that disparity" (Pls’ Ex. 44). 

During this same time, the committee charged with making 

recommendations to the Commissioner on the racial imbalance law was 

moving toward the conclusion that increasingly levels of racial and 

economic isolation were educationally harmful to students, and that 

interdistrict desegregation was the only way to bring about construc- 

tive reform. In their 1985 "Interim Report" (Pls’ Ex. 41), the 

- 75 =     
 



    

"Advisory Committee to Study the State’s Racial Imbalance Law and 

Regulations" urged the State Board of Education "to declare that 

racially segregated schools are a barrier to quality and equality of 

opportunity in education." The Committee called for increased 

payments for interdistrict plans, magnet schools, and educational 

parks, and endorsed the Cambridge controlled choice approach, a 

combination of voluntary and mandatory student assignment. In the 

committee’s final report published the following year, the Department 

of Education documented increasing levels of racial concentration, 

and acknowledged the "strong inverse relationship between racial 

imbalance and quality education in Connecticut’s public schools" 

(Pls’ Ex. 42 at 1). The report concluded that racial imbalance was 

"coincident with poverty, limited resources, low academic 

achievement, and a high incidence of students with special needs" 

(Pls* ‘Bx. 42, at 1). 

In December 1986, another Department of Education 

committee, the "Committee on Racial Equity," began its work, which 

would eventually culminate in the first Tirozzi report in January 

1988 (Pls’ Ex. 50). The Committee’s working documents clearly show 

that the staff had full knowledge of available desegregation 

techniques (Gordon II p. 63), and quickly realized the need for 

mandatory interdistrict desegregation. As developed by the 

Committee, the concept of metropolitan "collective responsibility" 

(Pls’ Ex. 46) which would later reappear in the January 1988 final 

report had a strong coercive character: "should [local districts] be 

unable to affect a plan and/or successfully implement it in the time 

- TE -    



      

established in the plan, the State Department of Education (SDE) 

shall mandate a plan of action" (Pls’ Ex. 47 at 2) (emphasis added). 

The controversial January 1988 Report on Racial/Ethnic 

Equi and Desegqregation in Connecticut’s Public Schools ("Tirozzi 

    

I") (Pls’ Ex. 50) represents a clear acknowledgment of the pressing 

need for mandatory interdistrict school integration, and an admission 

that meaningful desegregation may not be achieved solely through 

voluntary cooperation of local districts (Gordon II p. 11). The 

report urged prompt action, noting that "[f]or Connecticut, the 

period of grace is running out" (Pls’ Ex. 50 at 4): 

First, it is recommended that the school districts 
affected, following state guidelines, would be required to 
prepare a corrective action plan to eliminate racial 
imbalance. Each school district in a region, including 
those deemed to be contiguous and adjacent, shall 
participate in the plan development and implementation. 
Boundary lines separating school districts, often perceived 
as barriers that prohibit or discourage the reduction of 
racial isolation, should not be allowed to defeat the 
school integration efforts. 

Second, it is recommended that solutions contained in the 
desegregation plan should initially be nonprescriptive and 
voluntary, such that the affected school districts might 
themselves find remedies appropriate to their own unique 
situations. Nevertheless, to ensure that solutions are 
found and progress is made, the State Board of Education 
should be empowered to impose a mandatory desegregation 
plan at such time as it might judge the voluntary approach, 
in whole or in part, to be ineffectual. 

(Pls’ Ex. 50 at 11) (emphasis added). 

After the report was released, Commissioner Tirozzi toured 

the state to "get the pulse of the citizens" (Pls’ Ex. 494 at 113). 

Hearing community protest, the state took no action on the Tirozzi 

report’s central recommendations, and to this day, none of the 

- PY - 

  

 



  

interdistrict recommendations of the report has been implemented 

(Gordon II p. 72) (Pls’ Ex. 494 at 101, 107, 113, 119-20).°% 

Instead, the Department issued a second report in April of 

1989, Quality and Integrated Education: Options for Connecticut 

("Tirozzi II") (Pls’ Ex. 60), which, as William Gordon observed, 

"retreats completely from Tirozzi I. It goes purely to voluntary 

strategies" (Gordon II p. 73). Gone from the Tirozzi II report is 

the strong state role envisioned by Tirozzi I, and the concept of 

"collective responsibility" (Gordon II p. 73). According to Dr. 

Cotdoh; the Tirozzi II report was neither a meaningful nor an 

effective set of recommendations to address the problem of racial 

isolation in Hartford (Gordon II p. 74). However, during this same 

period, the Department of Education was continuing to study and 

document the harms of racial and economic isolation and the glaring 

inequities between Connecticut’s urban and suburban schools. In a 

series of detailed research reports, defendants readily admitted (as 

they had in the first and second Tirozzi reports) a number of the 

points raised by plaintiffs in this case (see Pls’ Exs. 56, 58, 59, 

69, 70). Once again, defendants failed to take appropriate action. 

The Sheff v. O’Neill lawsuit was filed shortly after the release of 

the Tirozzi II Report. 

      6 The defendants’ capitulation to political opposition appears 
even more unfortunate in light of the support that Commissioner 
Tirozzi received from educators and religious leaders, with 
organizations such as the Connecticut Education Association (Pls’ Ex. 
65), the Christian Conference of Connecticut (Pls’ Ex. 64), and the 
Connecticut Federation of School Administrators (Pls’ Ex. 57) calling 
for action on school integration. See also Pls’ Exs. 81, 82. 

  

- 78 =   
 



      

Bilinqual Programs 

  

In the 1980’s, the state also acknowledged the deficiencies 

in inner city bilingual programs, but failed to implement its own 

recommendations. 

In June 1985, Commissioner Tirozzi appointed a statewide 

advisory group, the Bilingual Education Legislation Review Task 

Force, to make recommendations concerning education programs for non- 

English speaking students (Pls’ Ex. 48). In March, 1987, the Task 

Force issued a report which included 52 recommendations in six areas. 

Ia. The state did not act on the recommendations. Instead the 

report was reviewed by State Board of Education staff who issued 

their own report in January, 1988, evaluating the Task Force Report 

(Pls’ Ex. 52). Of the fifty-two proposals, the staff endorsed forty- 

three in whole, two in part and five with modification. Only two 

recommendations were not endorsed (Pls’ Ex. 52 at 62). 

The endorsement by the State Board staff was not translated 

into effective action: 

From my memory none of the issues that were of great need 
have been addressed in the area of funding, in the area of 
programs which we stress that there’s a definite need to 
mandate programs for all children. 

(Marichal p. 33). 

In 1992, yet another report, "Connecticut’s Limited- 

English-Proficient Students: A Neglected Resource" (Pls’ Ex. 86), 

detailed continuing state failure to address the needs of bilingual 

- 00 - 

  
  
 



  

students.?’ Predictably, the State Board of Education voted to adopt 

the recommendations in this latest report (Pls’ Ex. 86) while the 

inaction continues. 

The Governor’s Commission 
  

Shortly after the Sheff lawsuit was filed, the State Board 
  

and the Governor acted on one of the suggestions made in the Tirozzi 

II report -- the formation of a special blue ribbon panel, known as 

the Governor’s Commission on Quality and Integrated Education. 

Unfortunately, the Governor’s charge to the Commission was strictly 

voluntary in scope -- the commission was not empowered to recommend 

mandatory solutions (Gordon II p. 75; Pls’ Ex. 66a; Carter p. 38). 

As a result, the ultimate recommendations of the Commission -- which 

were not implemented -- were not sufficient to address the problems 

of racial isolation in the Hartford area (Gordon II p. 77). 

  

    
°’ Among the problems identified were: 1) Almost 2,400 bilingual 

students (15%) were not even in programs; 2) There was no special 
provision in the state statutes to protect the rights of LEP 
students; 3) There was no state funding to school districts for 
providing language assistance programs to LEP students; 4) Preservice 
training was not required for teachers in the bilingual programs; 5) 
No in-service training or course work was required; 6) The cultural 
and linguistics wealth of LEP students was not being recognized and 
was infrequently included in districtwide curricula; 7) LEP students 
did not always have the access to supplemental services or programs 
that English-proficient students had; 8) Reduced state funding for 
bilingual programs; 9) The State’s failure to conduct required annual 
evaluations of the bilingual program. (Pls’ Ex. 86 at 2-3, 12, 14). 
See also Pls’ Ex. 440, "Reaction of Bilingual Education Program 
Directors to Recommendations of Connecticut State Board of Education 
Report." 

  

8 The State Board of Education issued a resolution of support 
for the final report of the Governor’s Commission on January 8, 1991 
Pls’ Ex. 75}. 

  

  

 



  

There is a strong theme of urgency in the Governor'’s 

Commission report, echoing the urgency of Commissioner’s report two 

years earlier. Noting that "[a] number of Commission members are of 

the opinion that voluntary approaches are unlikely to be adequate and 

have sought to have the report include mandates" (Pls’ Ex. 73, 

transmittal letter), the Commission co-chairs in December 1990 urged 

59. Yet in spite of the quick action on their recommendations. 

report’s urgency, no significant progress has been made on any of the 

Governor’s Commission recommendations (Gordon II p. 77; Carter p. 29, 

41, 558; Williams, February 4, 1993, pp. 122-124). 

The inability of the legislature or state officials to make 

voluntary progress on desegregation is further illustrated by the 

failure to enact other integration bills proposed in the 1980s and 

1990s (Pls’ Ex. 80).%0 

B. The Inadequacy of Existing Interdistrict Programs 

Subsequent to the release of the Governor’s Commission 

report, the state has continued to document the harms of segregation 

and the need for action, but has failed to make progress beyond a few 

  

    
* wThis report represents a strong consensus that the issue 

requires prompt and positive action. Commission members feel a sense 
of urgency to reduce racial and economic isolation, a problem the 
enormity of which grows alarmingly with every passing moment" (Pls’ 
Ex. 73 at 1). 

9 In a series of post-Governor Commission reports, the state 
Department of Education has continued its pattern of identifying 
problems relating to minority recruitment of teachers (Pls’ Ex. 83), 
and the need to reduce the disparities in educational outcomes (Pls’ 
Exs. 77, 84). Few of the recommendations issued in these reports 
have been implemented. 

- 81 =   
 



token programs. The state’s limited interdistrict program, as 

defendants’ own witness admits, does not and cannot effectively deal 

with the racial and ethnic isolation and poverty concentration of the 

Hartford school system (Williams, February 4, 1993, pp. 94, 121). 

Not only does the program’s competitive nature make for uncertain 

future planning, but the state’s self-imposed cap on funding at 65% 

of the grantee’s request® inhibits all meaningful efforts to 

implement any metropolitan desegregation plan (Williams, February 4, 

1993, pp. 95-97). 

In the Hartford area, following a flurry of local planning 

a total of only two tiny interdistrict education programs, other than 

Project Concern, exist to Serve Hartford students during the school 

year (Pls’ Exs. 325-333; Williams, February 24, 1993, p. 101). The 

"Building Blocks" Montessori program, although planned for 200, has 

attracted only 35, 20 of whom are from Hartford (Pls’ Ex. 515; 

Williams, February 24, 1993, p. 115). The Greater Hartford Academy 

of the Performing Arts, a half-day program, has only 43 Hartford 

students participating (Pls. Ex. 516; Williams, February 24, 1993, p. 

116; Forman pp. 44-47).% In addition, a small interdistrict summer 

  

    
The level of state funding (much of which is spent on 

"planning activities") has remained extremely low, and has even 
declined slightly since the filing of this case (Pls’ Ex. 507; see 
generally Allison pp. 37-54). Although the state Department of 
Education asked for an increase in 1991-92, the Connecticut 
legislature failed to appropriate it. (Pls’ Ex. 507; Williams, 
February 4, 1993, pp. 98-99). 

  

2 John Allison indicated that these programs were too small to 
play a significant role (Allison pp. 46-47) other than as a 
"demonstration" (Allison p. 45 -- performing arts magnet). Note also    



  

school program, "Project Equal," serves 95 Hartford students for 6 

weeks during the summer (Pls’ Ex. 517) .9 Inclusive of Project 

Concern, therefore, only 838 of 26,000 students or 3.26% of the 

entire Hartford student body participates in any interdistrict 

program (Williams, February 4, 1993 p. 119). Dr. Williams had no 

choice but to concede that the state has not adequately funded 

programs to address Hartford’s racial isolation, poverty 

concentration, and poor performance on the mastery test (Williams, 

February 24, 1993, p. 136). 

Project Concern 

While many witnesses, including those from the State, have 

touted the virtues of Project Concern,® the program has continued 

to suffer from severe cutbacks for the last ten years. Despite the 

  

    
that the performing arts magnet does not receive state funding 
(Allison p. 44). A third interdistrict educational program, the 
small Glastonbury-East Hartford Magnet, is not designed for Hartford 
students, and two other proposals, the magnet language immersion and 
the University of Hartford Magnet have been over three years in the 
planning phase and have yet to be implemented (Williams, February 4, 
1993, pp. 100-101, 107; Allison pp. 47-50). Significantly, the state 
has imposed no timelines for their implementation (Williams, February 
4, 1993, ..p. 109). 

3 Some additional students participate in sporadic "Sister 
School" programs in a few schools, but even the best of these 
programs -- the Clark-Hopewell Sister School Program -- is inadequate 
as a means of integration (Dudley p. 130; Allison p. 42). 

# Project Concern was established in 1966 as a result of the 
Harvard Study, with one of its major goals to "desegregate the 
schools” {Carroll p. 6; Pls’ Px. 373). In 1991 the goals were 
changed (Carroll pp. 7-8). It operates pursuant to C.G.S. §10-2667 
which provides a statutory recognition by the state of the need to 
provide programs for those whose educational achievement is being 
restricted by economic, social or environmental disadvantages 
(Carroll p. 73). The long term advantages found by Dr. Crain in the 
1980's continues today (Carroll pp. 26-27). 

- 83 = 

  
  
 



  

call to expand it to 5,000 students in 1965, which the state 

acknowledged could have been a significant step to address racial 

isolation, program enrollment is at its lowest in fifteen years in 

numbers of participating students, and number of participating 

districts, (Pls’ Ex. 368; Carroll pp. 9-11).%°® reductions in staff 

and transportation have further impeded both the goals of the program 

and its expansion® (Carroll pp. 17-19; 22). Significant populations 

such as special education students and bilingual students continue to 

be ‘excluded (Carroll pp. 18; 33). Although the demand for 

67 participation is as strong as ever,® and the cries for state help 

well-documented,® the state watched the demise of the program 

  

    
¢ program enrollment reached an all-time high in 1978 at 1,175 

(Carroll p. 10). It is now only 680 students (Carroll p. 11). The 
program at one time had fifteen participating districts but now has 
only eleven (Carroll p. 12; Pls. Ex. 368). Even those participating 
have decreased their enrollment due to fiscal constraints or space 
limitations (Carroll pp. 13-14; Allison pp. 27-28). 

¢ The number of buses decreased from 48 to 14, forcing many 
students to ride on public transportation (Carroll pp. 23, 24). 
There are a limited number of activity buses (Carroll pp. 24, 30). 
Paraprofessionals, critical staff who were role models for the 
children and liaisons for them into the suburban community have 
decreased from 56 to 7 (Carroll pp. 22, 24) and remain insufficient 
(Allison p. 29). Outreach efforts into the Latino community to 
increase the 8% Latino participation rate have been thwarted due to 
lack of adequate staff (Carroll pp. 17-18). Remedial resource 
teachers assigned to the receiving districts have been cut (Carroll 
Pp. 32). There is no money available for in-service training for the 
receiving school staff (Carroll p. 33). Parent activities are 
linited. Id. 

67 For the school year 1992-93, there were close to 500 
applications for 85 openings (Carroll p. 11). Ms. Carroll indicated 
that the numbers could be tripled (Carroll p. 20). 

os See Carroll pp. 35-40; Pls. Exs. 376, 378. Mary Carroll 
testified as to her failed efforts with state officials in 1984, 
1988, 1989, 1990. CREC Director John Allison also testified 
regarding his unsuccessful efforts to increase funding for the 

- 84 - 

  

 



  

without providing the necessary funding to allow for its growth 

(Carroll pp. 21,% 41-42; Allison p. 29). 

As a result, the program in its current operation has neither 

adequately serviced the need, nor provided enough of a critical mass 

of Project Concern students in the suburban schools to alleviate 

their racial isolation (Carroll p. 30). Nor has it come close to 

meeting its goal of significantly impacting on the racial isolation 

of the 25,000 students left behind in the Hartford system (Carroll 

PP. 30, 40; Allison, pp... 29, 236). Although Project Concern is 

worthy, the state has never given it the resources to become an 

effective two-way busing program (Carroll pp. 34-35; Allison pp. 28, 

33-35; Pls’ Ex. 324), which could assist in accomplishing meaningful 

desegregation. 

Conclusion 
  

Looking back over the thirty-year history of Connecticut’s 

experience with racial and economic isolation in the Hartford 

schools, it is Andontrovarsibie that the defendants were fully aware 

of increasing level of racial isolation in the Hartford area; that 

they recognized the harms of segregation and the link between quality 

  

    
program (Allison pp. 29-30; Pls’ Ex. 341). Even this year the 
program received a shortfall of $40,000 from the amount requested, 
causing a reduction in two buses (Carroll p. 39). 

¢ Director of Project Concern Mary Carroll testified that at 
the time when the program suffered from its worst fiscal crisis in 
1982-83, the state decreased, rather than increased, its contribution 
(Carroll pp. 21; 23). She further indicated that the budget is at a 
barebones level now, having never recouped the losses from 1982. 
"It’s almost as though we’re now getting a glass of water after 
having been starved for so many years" (Carroll p. 25). 

- SE,   
 



      

education and integrated education; that defendants were aware of 

techniques available to achieve desegregation; and that they received 

recommendations that could have significantly ameliorated the 

problem. Yet, during this entire period, virtually nothing 

significant has been done. 

If, as plaintiffs contend, the state is under an 

affirmative obligation to provide equal educational opportunity to 

schoolchildren in Hartford, then it is abundantly clear from the 

evidence that the defendants have failed to act in a manner 

sufficient to meet the constitutional mandate. 

  
 



  

IV. THE SEGREGATED AND UNEQUAL CONDITIONS IN HARTFORD AREA SCHOOLS 
VIOLATE THE CONNECTICUT CONSTITUTION" 

The Connecticut Constitution guarantees the children of 

Connecticut the right to an education provided by the state. See 

Horton v. Meskill, 172 Conn. 615, 376 A.2d 359, 372 (1977) (Horton 

I). The defendants in this case "acknowledge that Article VIII, § 1, 

imposes an affirmative obligation on the state to provide free public 

elementary and secondary education and also makes education a 

fundamental right." Sheff v. O’Neill, No. 360977, (Ct. Sup. Ct. Feb. 

24, 1990), Memorandum of Decision on the Defendants’ Motion for 

Summary Judgment at 8-9. 

This case raises several distinct but related legal claims based 

on both Article VIII, §1 and on the state equal protection clauses, 

Article I, §§1 & 20. First, plaintiffs claim that the extreme levels 

of racial and economic segregation in Hartford, along with well- 

documented deficiencies and disparities in educational resources and 

outcomes, violate plaintiffs’ fundamental right to equal educational 

opportunity. Second, plaintiffs claim that the extreme levels of 

racial segregation in the Hartford area constitute a per se violation 

of Article I and Article VIII. Third, plaintiffs claim that the 

conditions in the Hartford schools violate plaintiffs’ right to a 

minimally adequate education. In addition, defendants’ failure to 

      7 plaintiffs incorporate by reference their briefs filed in 
Opposition to Defendants’ Motion to Strike and Motion for Summary 
Judgment. See Plaintiffs’ Memorandum of Law in Opposition to 
Respondents’ Motion to Strike, November 9, 1989; Plaintiffs’ 
Memorandum in Opposition to Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment, 
September 20, 1991. 

- BT. 

  

 



    

provide an equal and adequate education pursuant to C.G.S. §10-4a 

violates plaintiffs’ due process rights. 

The proper analysis of state constitutional provisions has been 

recently explained by the Supreme Court: 

In order to construe the contours of our state Constitution 
and reach reasoned and principled results, the following 
tools of analysis should be considered to the extent 
applicable: (1) the textual approach; (2) holdings and 
dicta of this court, and the Appellate Court; (3) federal 
recedent; (4) sister state decisions or sibling approach; 

(5) the historical approach, including the historical 
constitutional setting and the debates of the framers; and 
(6) economic/sociological considerations. 

State Vv. Geisler, 222 Conn. 672, 684-85, 610 A.2d 1225 (1992) 
  

(citations and parenthetical remarks omitted). This analysis 

supports plaintiffs’ interpretation of the provisions at issue. 

Connecticut has a long-standing concern for education and, since 

the founding of the colony, has recognized its duty "to provide for 

the proper education of the young." State ex rel. Huntington v. 

‘Huntington School Committee, 82 Conn. 563, 566, 74 A. 882 (1909). 

Accord, West Hartford Education Ass’n v. Decourcey, 162 Conn. 566, 

573 (1972) ("The state has had a vital interest in the public schools 

from the earliest colonial times.") Statutes requiring the 

establishment of public schools were passed as early as 1650 (1 

Colonial Records 555) and, as Professor Collier testified, 

Connecticut was a leader in public education throughout the colonial 

era (Collier p. 23). In 1818, the perpetuation of the School Fund, 

containing money that had previously been set aside for "the equal 

benefit" of the people, was guaranteed in the original Constitution, 

Article Eighth, §2 (now §4). As Horton I recognized, 172 Conn. at 

- 88 =    



      

647-48, this historically-based duty to provide public education for 

all students is now established in Article Eighth of the 1965 

Constitution. 

The federal Constitution establishes a minimum national standard 

for the exercise of individual rights. Cologne Vv. Westfarms 

Associates, 192 Conn. 48, 57 (1984). States remain free to afford 

higher levels of protection for such rights. The Connecticut Supreme 

Court has on numerous occasions stated that the Connecticut 

Constitution affords "our citizens broader protection of certain 

personal rights than that afforded by similar or even identical 

provisions of the federal Constitution." State v. Dukes, 209 Conn. 

98, 112 (1988); State v. Oquendo, 223 Conn. 635, 649 (1992). Broader 

protection is afforded a fortiori where, as in Connecticut, there is 

a right, as in education, not even mentioned in the federal 

Constitution: 

In the area of fundamental civil liberties . . . . our 
first referent is Connecticut law and the full panoply of 
rights Connecticut residents have come to expect as their 
due. Accordingly, decisions of the United States Supreme 
Court defining fundamental rights are persuasive authority 
to be afforded respectful consideration, but they are to be 
followed by Connecticut courts only when they provide no 
less individual protection than is guaranteed by 
Connecticut law. 

Horton I, 172 Conn. at 641-42. 
  

Under Connecticut equal protection analysis, racial and ethnic 

segregation demands the most rigorous scrutiny contemplated by the 

Connecticut Supreme Court for state equal protection challenges. 

Both the fundamental right to an education and the suspect 

classification of race are at issue. Strict judicial scrutiny not 

- 89 - 

    
 



      

6 : 

only shifts the burden of proof, requiring the state to carry the 

heavy burden of justifying the segregation in Hartford area schools, 

but also requires that policies contributing to the challenged 

segregation be justified by a "compelling state interest" and that 

the defendants show that there is no less offensive means to attain 

the state’s goals. Bruno v. Civil Service Commission, 192 Conn. 335, 

350 (1984); Frazier v. Manson, 176 Conn. 638, 645 (1979); Horton I, 

172 Conn. at 640. 

A. The Segregated and Unequal Conditions in Hartford Area 
Schools Violate Plaintiffs’ Right to Equal Educational 
Opportunity. 

Under the Connecticut Constitution, the importance of 

public education -- as a personal right, and as an affirmative state 

obligation -- is securely established, for it is "a fundamental 

right." Horton I, 172 Conn. at 645. Together, Article First, §§1 
  

and 20 and Article Eighth, §1 have been construed to impose an 

affirmative duty on the state to provide a substantially equal 

educational opportunity to every school child. Horton I, 172 Conn. 

at 644-49; Horton v. Mesgkill, 195 Conn. 24, 35 (1985) (Horton III). 

It is the scope of this duty which separates the parties in this 

case. 

Both the Horton decisions hold that any abridgement of the 

right to education must be strictly scrutinized. Horton I, 172 Conn. 

  

at 640; Horton III, 195 Conn. at 35. The strict scrutiny test, as 

modified in Horton III specifically for school finance cases, is as   

follows: 

  
  
 



  

First, the plaintiffs must make a prima facie showing that 
disparities in education expenditures are more than de minimis 
in that the disparities continue to jeopardize the plaintiffs’ 
fundamental right to education. If they make that showing, the 
burden then shifts to the state to justify these disparities as 
incident to the advancement of a legitimate state policy. If 
the state’s justification is acceptable, the state must further 
demonstrate that the continuing disparities are nevertheless not 
so great as to be unconstitutional. 

Horton III, 195 Conn. at 38. 

While the plaintiffs claim that the Horton I test applies 

to school desegregation, they clearly prevail under the Horton III 
  

test as well. As Chief Justice Peters stated in Horton III, "no such 

plan will be constitutional if the remaining level of disparity 

continues ‘to emasculate the goal of substantial equality’" 195 Conn. 

at 38. The continuing level of disparity proven at trial shows 

conclusively that the segregated and unequal system of public 

education in the Hartford area is unconstitutional under both Horton 

I and Horton III. 
—~ 

  

While Horton I was concerned primarily with financing, the 
  

court identified certain criteria which could be used in evaluating 

the quality of education in a town, including (a) size of classes; 

(b) training, experience and background of teaching staff; (c) 

materials, books and supplies; (d) school philosophy and objectives; 

(e) type of local control; (f) test scores as measured against 

ability; (g) degree of motivation and application of the students; 

and (h) course offerings and extracurricular activities. 172 Conn. 

at 634.7 

      n 

Education, 624 F. Supp. 1276 (S.D. N.Y. 1985), aff’d, 837 F.2d4 1181 
(2d Cir. 1987), agreed that equal educational opportunity must be 

- 01 w- 

a
 

J 

  
The district court in United States v. Yonkers Board of 

  
 



  

In 1984, the State Board of Education took the important 

step of officially defining the state’s obligation to provide equal 

educational opportunity. In "Guidelines for Equal Educational 

Opportunity" (Pls’ Ex. 39, adopted October 3, 1984), the Board 

defined equal educational opportunity as "the right of every 

Connecticut child to be provided with the educational experiences 

necessary to ensure that his or her intellectual ability and special 

talents are developed to the fullest." In the guidelines, the Board 

stated directly for the first time that "equity...does not mean an 

equal distribution of resources; rather, it implies that those who 

need more must receive more" (emphasis added). 

Two years later, in 1986, the Board again refined its 

definition of equal educational opportunity, in its "Policy Statement 

on Equal Educational Opportunity" (Pls’ Ex. 43, adopted May 7, 

1986), : 

"Equal educational opportunity" means student access to a 
level and quality of programs and experiences which provide 
each child with the means to achieve a commonly defined 
standard of an educated citizen. 

This goal will require resource allocations based upon 
individual student needs and sufficient resources to 
provide each child with opportunities for developing his or 
her intellectual abilities and special talents to the 
fullest. 

Evidence of equal educational opportunity is the 
participation of each student in programs appropriate to 
his or her needs and the achievement by each of the state’s 
student sub-populations (as defined by such factors as 

      evaluated by reference to other things besides funding. Among the 
factors identified by the court were: (1) Physical characteristics; 
(2) staff; (3) Students; (4) Educational programs and resources; and 
(5) Integration and Educational Opportunity. 624 F.Supp. at 1431- 
1444.   
 



      

wealth, race, sex or residence) of educational outcomes at 
least equal to that of the state’s student population as a 
whole. 

* %* %* %* * 

While equal educational opportunity is a dynamic concept, 
certain elements emerge as critically important to schools 
and students. Access to educational opportunities, staff 
and material resources, program offerings, assessment of 
student outcomes, remedial education and funding are major 
elements of equal educational opportunity, elements that 
must interact in systematic ways. In a broad sense, 
progress in...equal educational opportunity can be measured 
by the reduction of inter-district, intra-district and 
inter-pupil disparities in educational opportunities as 
defined by these six elements. 

(Pls’ Ex. 43 at 1) (emphasis added). 

In its 1986 policy statement, the Board went on to stress 

the importance of racial integration to achieving equal educational 

opportunity: 

The State Board supports racial integration in 
Connecticut’s schools and also recognizes the benefits of 
residential and economic integration in our state, as 
important to the quality of education and personal growth 
for all students in Connecticut. 

(Pls’ Ex. 43 at 1). Four years later, the Governor’s Commission on 

Quality and Integrated Education also concluded that "a quality 

education requires an integrated student body and faculty and a 

curriculum that reflects the heritage of many culture" (Pls’ Ex. 73 

at 11). a HE 

Based on the state’s own definitions, it is clear that 

Hartford students are not receiving equal educational opportunity. 

As summarized in detail in Section II above, not only are Hartford 

students exposed to the harmful effects of racial and economic 

segregation, but they are also subjected to inadequate and unequal 

-3 - 

  
 



    

educational conditions. Given the degree of segregation and the 

current state funding levels, the Hartford schools are simply unable 

to provide "access to educational opportunities" appropriate to their 

students’ needs. Furthermore, the sharp disparities in both 

resources and student outcomes between Hartford and the suburban 

districts exceed any definition of "equal" educational opportunity. 

Former Commissioner Gerald Tirozzi admitted that children 

in Hartford are not receiving equal educational opportunity, based on 

the state’s definition (Pls’ Ex. 494 at 89) (Deposition of Gerald 

Tirozzi). At his deposition, Commissioner Ferrandino agreed that 

Hartford students’ performance was substantially below that of 

schoolchildren in the suburban districts on several measures of 

educational achievement (Pls’ Ex. 493 at 136-137), that racial and 

economic integration would improve educational achievement in 

Hartford (Pls’ Ex. 493 at 138-139), and that the state was not making 

a sufficient effort to address racial and economic isolation of 

Hartford schoolchildren (Pls’ Ex. 493 at 84) (Deposition of Vincent 

Ferrandino, October 1, 1992 and October 6, 1992). 

Significantly, Dr. Elliott Williams, Chief of the Office of 

Urban and Priority School Districts for the State Department of 

Education, also admitted that Hartford’s schoolchildren, who are 

racially isolated in high-poverty concentration schools and who are 

performing poorly on the mastery tests, are not receiving an equal 

educational opportunity (Williams, February 4, 1993, pp. 86, 88-89). 

Plaintiffs’ expert witnesses also concurred with the 

state’s definition of equal educational opportunity, and concluded 

- 94 -     
 



      

that it was not being provided in this case. According to Dr. 

Natriello, "in terms of the state’s own standards and the state’s own 

definition, the data that I have looked at are quite clear in 

demonstrating that students in Hartford are not receiving an equal 

educational opportunity" (Natriello II p. 52). 

Similarly, for Dr. Crain, equal educational opportunity 

means "providing students with an education such that when they 

[become] young adults they had an equal chance to live economically 

and socially successful lives" (Crain p. 70). The Project Concern 

study shows, as does Crain’s other work, that it is "impossible to 

provide equal educational opportunities in a segregated school 

system" (Crain Pp. 71). 

Many Hartford teachers and principals offered their own 

definitions of equal educational opportunity, which mirrored the 

state definition (Cloud p. 103; Noel p. 45; LaFontaine p. 143; Carter 

Pp. 18; Hernandez p. 49; Montanez p. 28; Davis p. 89; Griffin pp. 99- 

100). These witnesses were unanimous in concluding that students in 

Hartford were not receiving an equal educational opportunity (Cloud 

p. 105; Noel p. 46; LaFontaine pp. 146, 151; Carter pp. 22-25; 

Hernandez p. 49; Montanez p. 28; Davis p. 89; and others). 

The Connecticut Supreme Court has recently characterized 

"the burden imposed on the state by our decision in Horton" as the 

obligation to "insure approximate equality in the public educational 

opportunities offered to the children throughout the state." Savage 

Vv. Aronson, 214 Conn. 256, 286-87, 571 A.2d 696 (1990). In light of   

the severe educational inequities imposed on a student population 

- 95 = 

  
  
 



      

already suffering serious harms from extreme levels of racial and 

economic isolation, it cannot be claimed that plaintiffs and other 

Hartford students are receiving an equal educational opportunity. 

B. The Racial and Ethnic Isolation of the Hartford and 
Suburban Public Schools Violates the School Children’s 
Right to be Free of the Conditions of Segregation. 

The clear language of the three constitutional provisions, 

Article First, §§1 and 20 and Article Eighth, §1, support the 

plaintiffs’ position that segregation of the public schools is per se 

unconstitutional. 

First, the duty to provide free public schools is 

mandatory. Second, this duty must be discharged by "appropriate" 

legislation. Third, all men are "equal in rights." Fourth, no 

person shall be "denied equal protection of the law." Fifth, no 

person shall "be subjected to segregation or discrimination." Under 

the textual approach to constitutional interpretation suggested in 

Geisler, supra, each of these words should be given separate weight.   

As the Supreme Court stated in State v. Lamme, 216 Conn. 172, 177 

(1990) "[u]lnless there is some clear reason for not doing so, effect 

must be given to every part of and each word in the constitution." 

Article I, Section 20 provides that: 

No person shall be denied the equal protection of the law 
nor be subjected to segregation or discrimination in the 
exercise or enjoyment of his or her civil or political 
rights because of religion, race, color, ancestry, national 
origin, sex or physical or mental disability. 

If Article First, §20 is analyzed carefully, it is clear that 

"segregation" and "discrimination" are treated as in addition to 

- 96 =   
 



  

"equal protection of the law," and that "segregation" is treated 

separately from "discrimination." 

The term "segregation" in §20 was specifically debated at 

the 1965 Constitutional Convention. Not only was it debated, but the 

word was actually deleted in Committee, and reinserted on the floor 

of the Convention after debate on its reinclusion. See "Journal of 

the Constitutional Convention" at 174. See also pp. 691-92 ("We have 

spent a lot of time on this particular provision . . ."). 

The debate demonstrates that the purpose of including the 

term "segregation" was "so that it [§20] would not be interpreted as 

an exclusion or [limit rights]" (p. 691) and to provide as broad and 

as expansive rights to equal protection as possible. See remarks of 

Mrs. Woodhouse (p. 691) (Constitution should "unequivocally oppose 

the philosophy and the practice of segregation"), Mr. Eddy (p. 691), 

Ms. Kennelly (p. 692) (equal protection clause "all inclusive" and 

"the very strongest human rights principle that this convention can 

put forth to the people of Connecticut") and Mrs. Griswold (p. 693). 

In his closing remarks, former Chief Justice Baldwin described §20 as 

"something entirely new in Connecticut" (p. 1192). The debate also 

expressly acknowledges that the new section, including the 

prohibition against "segregation," would apply to "rights of freedom 

in education" (p. 694). 

At the time the Constitution was adopted, the term 

"segregation" was consistently and uniformly used and understood’? 

      7” The term segregation has continually been used -- and 
understood -- to mean the actual separation of racial and/or ethnic 
groups, without regard to cause. Numerous studies and reports by, 

- 97 - 

| 
|   
 



  

to describe the actual separation of racial groups, without regard to 

cause. Thus, in the influential Coleman Report of 1966, segregation 

is described as a demographic phenomenon: 

The great majority of American children attend schools that are 
largely segregated -- that is, where almost all of their fellow 
students are of the same racial background as they are. 

Pls’ Ex. 11 at 2, quoting James Coleman et al., Equality of 

Educational Opportunity at 3. 

Furthermore, at the time the Connecticut Constitution was 

adopted, a number of federal and state courts were finding 

municipalities liable for purely de facto school segregation without 

any requirement of intentional segregation. ee Booker v. Board of 

Education, 45 N.J. 161, 168-71, 212 A.2d 1 (1965) (citations 
  

omitted). ee also Jenkins v. Township of Morris School District, 58 

N.J. 483, 279 A.2d 619 (1971); cf. Englewood Cliffs v. Englewood, 257 

N.J. Super. 413, 608 A.2d 914 (1992). Against this background, if 

  

the framers had sought to limit the meaning of the term segregation 

to "intentional" or "de jure" actions, they could have done so 

explicitly. Thus, section 20 is an appropriate and independent basis 

for the plaintiffs’ claims. 

Finally, the defendants have not demonstrated a compelling 

state interest to justify the constitutional violations. When a 

fundamental right is infringed or a citizen is denied equal 

protection of the laws, the state must carry the heavy burden of 

proving that the classification is justified by a compelling state 

      for and about Hartford area schools described them as "segregated." 
See, e.d0., Pls’ Ex. 36; ("Hartford Public School System is a 
segregated system."); Pls’ Exs. 50, 60. See generally §III, supra. 

  

- 08 = 

  

 



    

interest. Bruno v. Civil Service Commission, 192 Conn. 335, 349-350 

(1984). The use of school districts coterminous with town lines does 

not satisfy this burden. As early as 1890, in State ex. rel. Walsh 

v. Hine, 59 Conn. 50 (1890), the Connecticut Supreme Court indicated 

that local education authorities were creations and agents of state 

government: 

From the earliest period in the history of Connecticut the 
duty of providing for the education of children was 
regarded as a duty resting upon the state -- a governmental 
duty. Both before and since the adoption of the 
constitution, that duty was, and has been, performed 
through the instrumentality of towns, societies and 
districts, as the legislature from time to time saw fit. 
In so far as these subdivisions of the territory of the 
state were used for the performance of this duty, they were 
the mere agents and instruments of the state... 

59 Conn. at 60. There is no compelling reason to maintain district 

lines. They are neither long-standing nor necessary (Collier p. 48- 

49). The state has been aware at least since the 1960s that the use 

of district lines exacerbated the racial and ethnic isolation in the 

Hartford area and should not limit school assignments. See generally 

Section III, above. The state cannot discharge its constitutional 

duty by allowing conditions to worsen by its mandated assignment 

policies: 

Where [residential] segregation exists, it is not enough for a 
school board to refrain from affirmative discriminatory conduct. 
The harmful influence on the children will be reflected and 
intensified in the classroom if school attendance is determined 
on a geographic basis without corrective measures. 

Booker v. Board of Education, supra, 212 A.2d at 7. This is not   

simply a passive omission on the part of the state. Given the 

pervasive segregation in the Hartford area, "[a]ny failure to act can    



    

only be construed as an act of discrimination." Berry v. School 

District of Benton Harbor, 467 F. Supp. 721, 734 (W.D. Mich. 1978). 

Connecticut’s Failure to Provide the Children of 
Hartford With Basic Educational Resources 
Violates Plaintiffs’ Right to an Adequate 
Education. 

This Court has noted that this case raises the issue of 

"whether the state’s constitutional obligation under its Education 

Clause imposes ‘a requirement of a specific substantive level of 

education.’" Memorandum of Decision on the Defendants’ Motion for 

Summary Judgment at 6. If the right to education that Article 

Eighth, §1 provides is not an illusory one, it must also be the right 

to an education that is substantively adequate. Moreover, the 

common-sense interpretation of Article Eighth, §1 as containing a 

mandate of educational adequacy is the only one that is consistent 

with the history of education in the state, and of existing case law 

and statutes. 

Connecticut courts have long made reference to a 

substantive component to the education that the state is required to 

provide. As early as 1909, the Connecticut Supreme Court described 

the right of education in the state as the right not just to an 

education but to a "proper education." State ex rel Huntington, 82 

Conn. at 566 (emphasis added). More recently, this Court has noted 

that even the lone dissenting justice in Horton I 

in his dissenting opinion . . . . acknowledges that a minimal 
substantive level of education may be required in that "[a] town 
may not herd children in an open field to hear lectures by 
illiterates [but] there is no contention that such situations 
exist, or that education in Connecticut is not meaningful or 

-. 100    



      

does not measure u to standards accepted b knowledgeable 

leaders in the field of education." 

  

Memorandum of Decision on the Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment 

  

  

at 11 (emphasis added). 

The state’s education statutes also make reference to a 

baseline of substantive adequacy. Section 10-4a provides that: 

the educational interests of the state shall include, but not be 
limited to, the concern of the state (1) that each child shall 
have for the period prescribed in the general statutes equal 
opportunity to receive a suitable program of educational 

experiences; [and] (2) that each school district shall finance 
at a reasonable level an educational program designed to achieve 
this end . . '. is 
  

C.G.S. §10-4a (emphasis added). The requirement that students have 

an “opportunity to receive a suitable program of educational 

experiences" and the requirement that school districts "finance at a 

reasonable level an educational program designed to achieve this end" 

each contain the core idea that there is a substantive level of 

educational opportunity =-- "a suitable program of educational 

experiences" -- to which Connecticut students are entitled. 

Other state courts have held that their state 

constitutional provisions contain the guarantee of an adequate 

education. As this Court recognized in denying summary judgment in 

this case, the New Jersey Supreme Court in Abbott v. Burke, held that 

"the constitutionally mandated educational opportunity was not 

limited to ‘expenditures per pupil, equal or otherwise, but [was] a 

requirement of a specific substantive level of education.’" 

Memorandum of Decision on the Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment 

at 10 (quoting Abbott v. Burke, 575 A.2d 359, 368 (N.J. 1990)). The 

Abbott Court found that the proof adduced by plaintiffs "compellingly 

=i 10] ~-   
 



      

demonstrate that the traditional and prevailing educational programs 

in these poorer urban schools were not designed to meet and are not 

sufficiently addressing the pervasive array of problems that inhibit 

the education of poorer urban children." Abbott, 575 A.2d at 363. 

ee also Horton I, supra, 172 Conn. at 646, citing Robinson v.   

Cahill, 69 N.J. 449 (1976). 

There is considerable authority and expert opinion to guide 

this Court in determining the contours of an adequate education. The 

New Jersey Supreme Court has stated that it will employ an "evolving 

standard," which "manifests an awareness that what seems sufficient 

today may be proved inadequate tomorrow, and even more importantly 

that only in the light of experience can one ever come to know 

whether a particular program is achieving the desired end.’" Abbott, 

495 A.2d 376, 387 (1985) (quoting Robinson v. Cahill, supra, 69 N.J. 

at 457-58 (1976)). 

The Supreme Court of Kentucky, after holding that the 

Kentucky Constitution’s education clause guarantees the children of 

Kentucky the right to an "adequate education," Rose v. Council for 
  

Better Education, 790 S.W.2d 186, 210 (Ky. 1989), stated that this 

guarantee means that the state must provide students with at least 

the following "seven capacities": 

(i) sufficient oral and written communication skills to enable 
students to function in a complex and rapidly changing 
civilization; (ii) sufficient knowledge of economic, social, and 
political systems to enable the student to make informed 
choices; (1ii) sufficient understanding of governmental 
processes to enable the student to understand the issues that 
affect his or her community, state, and nation; (iv) sufficient 
self-knowledge and knowledge of his or her mental and physical 
wellness; (v) sufficient grounding in the arts to enable each 
student to appreciate his or her cultural and historical 

-:102 .~   
 



      

heritage; (vi) sufficient training or preparation for advanced 
training in either academic or vocational fields so as to enable 
each child to choose and pursue life work intelligently; and 
(vii) sufficient levels of academic or vocational skills to 
enable public school students to compete favorably with their 
counterparts in surrounding states, in academics or in the job 
market. 

The Connecticut Supreme Court in Horton I also enumerated 

a set of factors for evaluating the quality of education being 

offered in a town. The Court’s "criteria for evaluating the ‘quality 

of education’ being offered in a school district included 

"materials, books and supplies," "course offerings and 

extracurricular activities," "training, experience and background of 

teaching staff," and other factors. Horton I, 172 Conn. at 634. The 

Horton Court also included student test scores as an important 

measure of educational quality. Id. 

In his testimony, Dr. Gary Natriello testified that an 

adequate education is one that "help[s] to prepare students to 

participate in adult society" by making them "productive members of 

the work force, the labor sector, and . . . . participants in the 

civic processes of the society" (Natriello II p. 64). Dr. Natriello 

confirmed that the kind of criteria put forth by the Connecticut 

Supreme Court in Horton I are appropriate measures of adequacy. He 
  

testified that educational input measures, which look to the quantity 

and quality of educational offerings, as well as educational output 

measures, that look to student performance on tests, and rate of 

graduation, are also appropriate criteria for determining whether 

schools are providing an adequate education. 

-.103   
 



      

In Connecticut, two key documents that define a minimally 

adequate education are the Common Core of Learning and the 

Connecticut Mastery Test (Pls’ Ex. 494 at 82) (Deposition of Gerald 

Tirozzi). The Common Core of Learning (Pls’ Ex. 45) is a "series of 

expectations" representing "what we expect a citizen should know" 

(Pls’ Ex. 494 at 83, 82). The Common Core of Learning forms the 

basis for the mastery testing program (Pls’ Ex. 493 at 38). It was 

officially adopted on January 7, 1989 as the State Board’s "standard 

of an educated citizen" and its "policy on the skills, knowledge, and 

attitudes that are expected of Connecticut’s public secondary school 

graduates" (Pls’ Ex. 45). The Connecticut Mastery Test goes further 

-- it "not only represents what students ought to know, but 

represents a testing measurement by which you can ascertain the 

extent to which they know that" (Pls’ Ex. 494 at 83). The mastery 

tests can be used to evaluate whether a school or district is 

providing a minimally adequate education (Pls’ Ex. 494 at 86). Both 

Dr. Natriello and former Commissioner Tirozzi agreed that, based on 

the mastery test data, Hartford students are not receiving a 

minimally adequate education (Pls’ Ex. 494 at 90; Natriello II p. 

65) . 

By the measure of the input and output factors endorsed by 

the Connecticut Supreme Court, the State Department of Education, and 

Dr. Natriello, the Hartford schools are not providing their students 

with an adequate education. The inadequacy is made worse by the fact 

that -- as the New Jersey Supreme Court recognized in Abbott -- 

students in poor urban schools bring with them a "pervasive array of 

-.104" ~ 

  

 



      

problems that inhibit the[ir] education." Abbott, 575 A.2d at 363. 

Thus, Dr. Natriello concluded that judged by both input and output 

measures, "large proportions of Hartford students are not receiving 

a minimally adequate education" (Natriello II p. 65). 

D. Connecticut’s Failure to Comply with C.G.S. §10-4a, Which 
Mandates an Equal Educational Opportunity and Minimally 
Adequate Education for all Students Deprives Students of 
Due Process. 

The Connecticut due process clause "shares but is not 

limited by the content of its federal counterpart." Fasulo Vv. 

Arafeh, 173 Conn. 473, 475 (1977). In Connecticut, a fundamental 

right is impaired when the state fails to protect that right by 

removing or, at the very least, compensating for recognized 

impediments to its exercise, even if they are not of the state’s own 

making. In Fasulo v. Arafeh, 173 Conn. 473 (1977), holding that 

civil committees are legally entitled to periodic judicial review of 

their commitments and that these reviews must be state-initiated, the 

Court demanded more than the federal minimum. Central to the 

decision that patient-initiated review was constitutionally 

inadequate, and that the state had to act affirmatively to protect 

the patient’s liberty, was the Court’s acknowledgement of the 

"practical considerations. . . inherent in the mental patient’s 

situation." The Court, rather than dismissing these "considerations" 

as constitutionally irrelevant because they were not "of the state’s 

creation," held instead that they compelled affirmative governmental 

=. 105 ~   
 



action to ensure that liberty interests were not being unnecessarily 

infringed.” 

The failure to provide students with a right provided by 

C.G.S. §10-4a is a violation of due process of law. C.G.S. §10-4a 

provides that "each child shall have...equal opportunity to receive 

wn’ one of the basic a suitable program of educational experiences. 

guarantees of due process is that everyone is entitled to a benefit 

provided by "the law of the land," and that executive branch 

officials can be compelled to comply with the law. In re Application 

of Clark, 65 Conn. 17, 36-37 (1894), (recently cited in Perry v. 

Perry, 222 Conn. 799, 814 (1992)). As plaintiffs have amply 

demonstrated, defendants in this case are not providing an education 

that is "suitable" or "equal." 

  

    
similarly, in Doe v. Maher, 40 Conn. Sup. 394, 418-40 (1986), 

the Connecticut court held that denying funding for medically 
necessary abortions violates the fundamental right to privacy and 
therefore violates the Connecticut due process clause. Rejecting the 
reasoning of the United States Supreme Court, the court in Doe noted 
that the failure to protect a fundamental right might be regarded as 
a deliberate, active attempt to discourage exercise of that right. 
40 Conn. Sup. at 436-37. 

  

7% other statutes show that the state itself recognizes the 
significance of racial and economic isolation in depriving students 
of their rights under C.G.S. §10-4a. Regional educational services 
centers are provided for in C.G.S. §§10-66a et seq. Racial imbalance 
within a school district is prohibited in C.G.S. §§10-226b et seq. 
Limited "intercommunity contracts," such as Project Concern, are 
provided for in C.G.S. §10-266j. Such programs are "designed to 
improve or accelerate the education of children whose educational 
achievement has been or is being restricted by economic, social or 
environmental disadvantages." 

-.106 -      



  

  

    

Vv. INJUNCTIVE AND DECLARATORY RELIEF IS APPROPRIATE TO REDRESS 
CONSTITUTIONAL VIOLATIONS. 

A. Plaintiffs Meet the Standard for Issuance of Declaratory 
Relief. 

The purpose of a declaratory judgment action is "to secure 

an adjudication of rights where there is a substantial question in 

dispute or a substantial uncertainty of legal relations between the 

parties." Connecticut Association of Health Care Facilities Vv. 

Norrell, 199 Conn. 609, 613 (1986). 

The declaratory judgment procedure is "peculiarly well 

adopted to the judicial determination of controversies concerning 

constitutional rights." Horton I, 172 Conn. at 626. The relevant 

practice book provisions and statutes have been consistently 

construed "in a liberal spirit, in the belief that they serve a sound 

social purpose." Id. 

The harms plaintiffs face clearly necessitate the 

imposition of a declaratory judgment. Serious constitutional 

deprivations have been inflicted upon the children for too long. The 

evidence compels a remedy declaring the present educational system to 

be in violation of plaintiffs’ rights under Connecticut statutes and 

the Connecticut Constitution. It is only when the controversy on 

liability has been resolved that the parties can truly face the most 

challenging disputes in this case =-- the appropriate remedies to 

address the legal wrongs. 

- 107 - 

  

 



      

B. Plaintiffs Meet the Standard For Issuance of an Injunction. 

The requirements for the granting of a permanent injunction 

in this state are well-settled. The plaintiffs must show irreparable 

harm and the lack of an adequate remedy at law. Stocker wv. 

Waterbury, 154 Conn. 446, 449 (1967). In exercising its discretion 

whether to grant injunctive relief, a court must balance the 

competing interests of the parties, and the relief granted must be 

"/compatible with the equities of the case.’"™ Dukes v. Durante, 192 

Conn. 207, 225 (1984) (citations omitted). 

Because the harm that would flow from the absence of any 

injunctive relief is immense, this Court must grant plaintiffs more 

than merely a declaratory judgment. In Hartford alone, there are 

almost 26,000 children in a racially and economically isolated school 

system which is failing to provide an adequate education or 

opportunities equal to that of other children in this state. As 

plaintiffs’ witnesses at trial indicated, "something very dulling 

happens to them when they stay in a negative environment, where lack 

of expectation gets lower and lower every year. They just don’t 

grow, they don’t blossom" (Cloud p. 106). "They may not get a chance 

if we don’t provide the experiences" (Carter p. 30). As the detailed 

historical treatment of this issue has so repeatedly demonstrated, 

while the state has continued to talk, it has consistently failed to 

back its words with any significant action. But for the children who 

are failing, talk has come all too cheap. Task force report after 

task force report has failed to yield any concrete improvements in 

their educational experiences. Legislative proposal after 

-- 3108 =   
 



      

legislative proposal has failed to give them the education they 

deserve. They are "the poorest of the poor. ..achieving the lowest of 

the low...[having] the least of the resources...in the highest of the 

high racially impacted districts" (Natriello II pp. 67-68). Each 

child experiences the education system only once. Each month that we 

delay and each year that we put off action impairs the academic 

ability of these children and continues this "bifurcation of the 

haves and have nots" (Foster p. 152; see also Haig p. 65). As Badi 

Foster testified, "there are individuals we’re losing right now on 

the streets of Connecticut, losing simply because they’re losing 

hope" (Foster p. 55). This Court is a means of last resort to 

translate words into action (Carter p. 45; Noel p. 46). "The 

outcomes that Hartford has been producing year after year after year 

may be the best it can do given the current resources and 

circumstances, but if it is it really says something pretty terrible 

about ourselves as a society and government in the State of 

Connecticut" (Slavin p. 40). Injunctive relief is essential if the 

children of Hartford are to be rescued from their current fate. 

Ce Components of a Remedial Plan 

The state cannot fairly claim that it has taken significant 

action to address the problem of racial and economic isolation in the 

Hartford schools and the educational disparities facing Hartford 

students. In spite of almost 30 years of recommendations and 

reports, almost nothing has been done. Project Concern was never 

expanded to a level that would lead to meaningful desegregation, and 

= 100 =   
 



  

the remaining interdistrict education programs in the Hartford area 

serve only 62 Hartford students, and should not be taken seriously by 

this court. (See supra §III.) 

As Dr. William Gordon pointed out, Connecticut has been a 

leader in documenting the problem of segregation, but has done little 

to constructively address the problem. Unfortunately, the 

legislative and executive branches of government have not had the 

courage to correct what has long been acknowledged to be a situation 

which is "utterly unnecessary" (Slavin p. 34). Without court 

intervention, there can be no progress (Carter p. 45; Gordon pp. 24, 

64, 93). 

For more than three decades in the post-Brown era, 

communities have formulated successful school desegregation plans by 

engaging in a court-ordered and expert-assisted planning process.” 

Those school desegregation plans which have been developed under the 

close supervision and guidance of the court have been the most 

successful (Gordon III p. 24). Initially the court sets the end 

goals, defines the standards, issues timetables and then orders the 

  

    
Dr. Gordon testified that he knew of no metropolitan plans 

implemented without a court order (Gordon I Pp. 119). Another 
educational expert for the plaintiffs testified that he knew of only 
one city that has voluntarily sought to desegregate its schools 
without a court order (Orfield p. 31). A few successful plans 
identified by Dr. Gordon in his testimony include: Eastern Allegheny 
County, Pennsylvania (see, e.q., Hoots wv. Commonwealth of 
  

Pennsylvania, 703 F.2d 722, 724 n.1 (3rd Cir. 1983), for various 
cites); Benton Harbor, Michigan (see, e.q., Berry v. School District 
of City of Penton Harbor, 467 PF.Supp. 721 (W.D. Mich 1978); 
Louisville/Jefferson County, Kentucky (see, e.q., Newburg Area 
Council, Inc. v. Board of Education of Jefferson County, 583 F.2d 827 
(6th Cir. 1978). (Gordon III pp. 26-29). See also Orfield I pp. 46- 
47. 

  

  

  

  

  

«310 ~-   
 



  

groups in the planning process to design a plan (Orfield I pp. 44- 

46). 

Plaintiffs’ other expert witness on school desegregation 

planning, Professor Charles Willie of Harvard University, testified 

that successful plans have resulted from such a planning process 

(Willie p. 45). This process consists of two tiers: an oversight 

group and a working planning group (Gordon II p. 84; Gordon III p. 

24).7® These groups resemble the relationship between a homeowner 

and an architect. The oversight group consists of representatives of 

the plaintiffs, defendants (Board of Education, Commissioner, and 

Governor), and attorney representatives. Their purpose is to provide 

guidance and to evaluate plans submitted by the planning group. The 

planning group, which includes educational experts, desegregation 

experts, demographers, school board and superintendent 

representatives, teachers, parents and selected community 

representatives (Gordon p. 83),7 will actually draft a plan for 

submission to the oversight group for approval and eventual 

submission to the court. 

Once the groups are established, it is important to charge 

them with specific directions. As outlined below, any plan for the 

Hartford region must include the following seven components: 

      7 The court usually appoints an expert or monitor with the 
authority to summon the groups in the planning process until 
completion (Willie p. 45; Gordon III p. 24). 

7 professor Orfield also emphasized the importance of bringing 
together the remedy experts and the educational experts (Orfield I 
PP. 31,:57%7). 

-itlll.- 

  

 



    

The Remedial Plan Must Be Interdistrict In Its Design. 

The Plan Must Include Mandatory and Voluntary 
Provisions. 

Reduction of Racial Isolation and Poverty 
Concentration Must Be a Major Goal. 

Bilingual Education Programs Must be Preserved. 

Educational Enhancements Must Supplement Any 
Desegregation Goals. 

Housing and Other Components Must be Addressed in the 
Plan. 

Timetables Must be Strictly Enforced. 

Monitoring and Reporting Requirements Must be 
Included. 

These components are discussed more fully below. 

4 The Remedial Plan Must Be Interdistrict In Its Design. 

The planning process to achieve racial balance and 

quality education in the greater Hartford region actually began in 

1965 with the Harvard report (Gordon II pp. 11-12 and Pls’ Ex. 1). 

This report recommended a metropolitan plan of education for the 

school districts in the region within a fifteen mile radius of 

Hartford. 

With the isolation of African American, Puerto Rican, 

other Latino and poor students in Hartford, and the isolation of 

white students in an overwhelming number of suburban districts, an 

interdistrict approach remains today the only feasible method to 

ameliorate the disparate conditions in Hartford (Willie pp. 41, 42, 

49; Gordon II p. 14). Plaintiffs’ witnesses were quite unanimous in 

their conclusions that the plan must be "metropolitan wide" (Orfield 

-112 -    



  

p. 32), encompassing the entire urban community housing and 

economic area. Stability as well as academic progress have been 

achieved with metropolitan plans around the country (Orfield I pp. 

46-48; Oorfield II pp. 142-43). 

2. The Plan Must Include Mandatory and Voluntary 
Provisions. 

Certain mandatory components are critical ingredients 

of the planning process itself as well as of the actual plan (Willie 

Pp. 44). Voluntary participation by educational authorities in 

planning for desegregation will not work (Gordon II p. 125). Local 

school districts cannot be allowed to "decide" whether to participate 

in the desegregation plan. Even more important, any noncompliance by 

school districts with the goals of the plan should trigger a sanction 

process. The planning process needs the bite of enforcement to 

insure full participation by every district. All school districts 

must participate in the planning process, and they must also 

implement the final educational equity plan (Gordon II pp. 125-126). 

To achieve the goals of racial and educational equity, 

the plan may include some voluntary school selection options by 

parents” as well as "controlled choice" (Willie pp. 41, 42) and 

  

    78 Even one of the key defendants, John Mannix, the former 
chairman of the State Board of Education (until January, 1993) 
supported the plaintiffs’ position, favoring a metropolitan remedial 
planning approach ordered by the court to counter the detrimental 
effects of racial and economic isolation (Pls’ Ex. 495 at 18, 26, 30 
and 37) (Deposition of John Mannix). 

” In this respect, it is important to have parent involvement 
as part of the plan (Orfield I pp. 38-58). 

-'113   
 



  

mandatory "back-up" measures (Orfield I pp. 33-34). No standard 

method currently used in educational administration, such as 

mandatory student assignment, should be excluded from consideration 

in the planning process. 

3. Reduction of Racial Isolation and Poverty 
Concentration Must Be a Major Goal. 

An educational equity plan should be guided by the 

principles well established in Green v. New Kent County,® to focus 
  

on student assignment, faculty and staff assignments, curriculum, 

transportation, extracurricular activities and facilities. Commonly 

known as the six Green factors, they guide the court in the planning 

process to accomplish the ultimate goal of the elimination of racial 

identifiability in every school (Gordon II p. 149). In the end, 

schools full of children, who are eager to learn, should not be 

"identified as any racial [group] =-- shouldn’t be the poor school, 

the black school, the Hispanic school, the white school" (Gordon II 

p. 150)8 -- "put just Schools." Green, at 441. 
  

In the present case, which addresses the dual harms of 

racial and poverty concentration, the Green factors can be adapted to 
  

  

    
80; 391 U.S. 430 (1968). 

8 Adams v. Weinberger, 391 F.Supp. 269 (D.D.C. 1975); Diaz v. 
San Jose Unified School District, 633 F.Supp. 808, 814 (N.D. Cal. 
1985); United States v. Yonkers Board of School Directors of 
Milwaukee, 471 F.Supp. 800, 807 (E.D. Wis. 1979) aff’d 616 F.2d 305 
(7th Cir. 1980); Arthur v. Nyquist, 566 F.Supp. 511, 514 (W.D.N.Y. 
1983); Vaughans v. Board of Education of Prince George’s County, 574 
F.Supp. 1280, 1375 (D. Md. 1983) aff’d in part, rev’d in part on 
other grounds, 758 F.2d 983 (4th Cir. 1985); United States Vv. 
Charleston County School District, 738 F.Supp. 1513 (D.S.C. 1990) 
modified on other grounds, 960 F.2d 1227 (4th cir. 1992). 

  

  

  

  

  

  

  
  

-lld -   
 



  

eliminate both racial and poverty isolation in the region’s schools. 

Only a racial goal set by this court for each school offers the most 

effective remedy of removing all stigmatization.® Schools should 

mirror society and provide access to mainstream America (Orfield I p. 

30). In addition, to counteract the concentration of poor students 

in individual schools, the plan must contain specific goals to 

address the economic isolation (Gordon II p. 84; Orfield I p. 35; 

Kennedy p. 42). Unless deconcentration of poverty is an integral 

part of any court-ordered plan, the dismal Hartford outcomes 

described at trial will continue (Slavin p. 29).% 

The same goals equally apply to the integration of 

faculty and staff (Orfield I p. 44). Not only is it important to 

have a diversity in staff, but it is important to train staff for 

diversity (Orfield I pp. 31-32, 37). 

The curricula also must be evaluated and altered as 

necessary to adequately address the diversity -- racially, ethnically 

and socio-economically -- of the students in the Hartford 

metropolitan region. Special education, gifted, advanced placement, 

academic and vocational offerings must be designed so that no racial 

  

    
8 For example, the court may order the schools in Hartford and 

the surrounding districts to reflect the student racial ratio in the 
region of approximately 2/3 White and 1/3 children of color. Any 
magnet schools could have increased racial balance such as 50:50 
white and nonwhite African American, Puerto Rican and other Latino 
students (Orfield I p. 55). 

8 See generally, Haig pp. 66, 67 on the necessity to eliminate 
the high concentration of poverty. See also Pls’ Ex. 493 at 51 
(Deposition of Vincent Ferrandino). 

  

=-3115 ~ 

  
  
 



      

or economic group is disproportionately represented in any single 

area. 

Effective and equitable transportation must be a part 

of a desegregation plan (Orfield I p. 38) to get to and from school 

as well as to participate in all school related extracurricular 

activities (Orfield I p. 38). 

4. Bilingual Education Programs Must be Preserved. 

Hartford’s bilingual education program currently 

serves approximately 6,000 students per year (Marichal p. 11). The 

vast majority of these students are enrolled in a program for native 

Spanish speakers (Marichal p. 12). In order to successfully 

desegregate Hartford and its suburbs the programmatic needs of these 

limited English proficient (LEP) students must be addressed (Orfield 

I. p. 49). Addressing these needs appropriately entails the 

establishment of quality bilingual education programs in suburban 

schools. Since state law requires that bilingual education be 

provided only when there are 20 or more students with the same native 

language in a school building, consideration must be given to the 

numbers of LEP children who will attend a particular school. There 

must be careful planning in order to insure both the continued 

provision of bilingual education and the guarantee of ethnic 

diversity. 

Given the balances that must be achieved, the 

requirements of state law, and the pedagogy that has developed over 

the implementation of quality bilingual education programs, 

- 116 '- 

|   
 



  

participation of experts in this area is crucial to the planning 

process. 

5. Educational Enhancements Must Supplement Any 
Desegregation Goals. 

To enhance the quality of education in Hartford for 

all students, the plan must include educational enhancements? 

(Gordon II p. 113; Orfield I pp. 51-53; Haig p. 66).% These 

programs are designed around the assumption that all children can 

learn and that it is the schools’ job to insure that every child will 

be successful (Slavin p. 14).% A one-to-one early intervention 

tutoring program such as "Success for All" Gould be easily and 

quickly replicated in Hartford (Slavin pp. 37-38). Drop-out 

prevention programs, and Upward Bound programs (Orfield I p. 52) are 

  

    
8 Educational enhancements have been defined as programs which 

set a minimum floor for achievement of every child and which improve 
the overall achievement of all children (Slavin pp. 13-14). 
Enhancement includes upgrading the physical facilities and curricula 
to provide an extraordinary education in the inner city schools 
(Willie pp. 48, 49). 

85 The witnesses cautioned, however, that educational 
enhancements alone cannot achieve positive results. They must be in 
combination with the other components (Orfield p. 35), and cannot be 
substitutes for the need to reduce racial and economic isolation 
(Slavin pp. 37-38). 

8 There are several successful enhancement models. Dr. Slavin 
described in detail his model, "Success for All" which has been 
adopted in fifty-six schools in twenty-six school districts (Slavin 
pp. 14-26, 52-53), and is well-respected by educational experts 
(Orfield I p. 36). Other models with positive benefits include the 
"Follow Through" model (Orfield I p. 36), which Hartford had to 
eliminate in budget cutting measures (Hernandez p. 45), and the 
Reading Recovery and Comer Programs (Slavin pp. 32-33; Pls’ Ex. 473). 

- 117 - 

    
 



examples of the types of programs which could be used in upper 

grades. 

Enhancements to educational programs should take into 

account the cultural diversity of the Hartford area. Schools must 

reflect this diversity not only in students, faculty and staff, but 

also in curriculum. Green, supra. Dr. Morales summarized how the 

lack of a multi-cultural education for all students can cause 

continued difficulties. 

I think it’s essential that the teachers and the 
administrators be knowledgeable about issues relating to 
Puerto Rican culture and heritage and implications of the 
combination of poverty and ethnicity into the classroom. 
I think is also means teaching more about =-- all groups of 

~ people about the Puerto Rican experience. 

(Morales pp. 51-52). 

6. Housing and Other Components Must be Addressed in the 
Plan. 

As Dr. Orfield indicated, it is also important to 

include housing provisions in the educational plan® (orfield I PP. 

31, 40-43). School construction and housing construction -- an 

obvious link -- require comprehensive planning to prevent the 

perpetuation of segregation in neighborhoods, and regional housing 

mobility programs should be carefully considered.® 

      87 Housing components can be an integral part of a school 
desegregation order. See e.g. Denver; Palm Beach County; Louisville; 
St. Louis (Orfield I pp. 40-41). 

  

8 Regional housing mobility programs provide counselling and 
moving assistance to tenants who hold state and federal rental 
certificates (Orfield I p. 41). 

-318" =    



  

In addition, components relating to the health needs 

of students may be necessary (Orfield I p. 54). This is particularly 

true in this case given the health effects of poverty confronting the 

students and impeding their academic learning. Id. See also Section 

II(B), supra. 

7. Timetables Must be Strictly Enforced. 

For the planning process to succeed, the court must 

set firm timetables with sufficient time to develop a plan, but not 

so much time to further defer the dream of an equal educational 

opportunity for students in Hartford with the least and who deserve 

the most (orfield I p. 44; Gordon I p. 85). Unless rapid deadlines 

are set, racial polarization can also begin to occur in the community 

(Orfield I p. 44), and implementation will become more difficult. 

The plaintiffs cannot overly impress upon this Court 

the urgency to act to prevent further lost generations of youngsters. 

Dr. Orfield indicated a plan could be developed in a minimum of two 

to three months (Orfield I p. 61). Dr. Willie and Dr. Gordon 

indicated no more than six months was necessary to furnish an 

equitable plan for education (Willie p. 47; Gordon II p. 157). 

Within this time frame, the oversight and planning groups must be 

ordered to present the plan to the Court for approval.® 

      8 Dr. Orfield also suggested that interim measures could be 
ordered pending development of a plan, including expansion of Project 
Concern, an injunction against new school construction that is not 
racially integrated, training of teachers and staff, faculty 
recruitment, and development of dual immersion programs (Orfield I 
Pp. 61-64). Dr. Slavin indicated a remedial program could quickly be 
implemented (Slavin p. 38). 

-11l9 -   
 



  

8. Monitoring and Reporting Requirements Must be 
Included. 

In order to insure that the plan is successful, it is 

important to have a group of experts, independent of the school 

authorities, assess the plan and report directly to the Court and the 

parties” (orfield I pp. 50-51; Pls’ Ex. 455). In particular, the 

educational components of a plan must be carefully scrutinized to 

insure that academic progress is actually being achieved (Orfield I 

Pp. 50). In addition, drop-out data and college attendance rates 

should be monitored, as well as the numbers participating in pre- 

collegiate training (Orfield I p. 53). Districts should be required 

to monitor and report on such items as discipline, course 

assignments, guidance programs, special education/gifted programs as 

well as the Green factors. School districts must get court approval 

for school closings, attendance zone changes, new construction, new 

programs, and other modifications which might affect the plan’s 

goals. 

      0 Judges often appoint a bi-racial or bi-cultural committee to 
oversee problems in the implementation of the plan (Willie pp. 46, 
47). 

- 120 

  
  
 



      

VI. CONCLUSION 

This Court should not be deterred by promises of future 

voluntary actions by the defendants. The state has filled many 

documents with many visions and promises of quality and integrated 

education in the past, but nothing has been done. 

In the last five years, none of the key recommendations of the 

Tirozzi I Report have been implemented. Even worse, in more than two 

years since the release of the Governor’s Commission Report, none of 

the significant recommendations have been adopted. 

Decades of delay and neglect by state authorities have deprived 

the plaintiff children of their fundamental right to an equal 

educational opportunity. The continued concentration of the poorest 

students in the most racially isolated school district with the worst 

academic performance in the state creates a compelling and urgent 

need for this court to act. 

In order to obtain meaningful interdistrict desegregation and 

the educational enhancements that must accompany it, low income and 

minority parents have been forced to turn to the courts. As Dr. 

Gordon observed, based on more than twenty five years of his 

experience with desegregation, including direct experience in more 

than 80 cases, "I have never in my experience see[n] an interdistrict 

remedy that was put into effect that didn’t have some type of court 

order" (Gordon I p. 117). 

The state’s failure to act reminded one witness of a description 

of the "all deliberate speed" standard: 

....We use to take ‘deliberate speed’ and use it this way: 
we would say that the school systems want to be very 
deliberate and the plaintiffs want some speed, and neither 
has occurred, really. 

= 123. - 

  
  
 



      

(Gordon III p. 88). Dr. Carter, co-chair of the Governor’s 

Commission, aptly described the state’s inactions as "dynamic 

gradualism...much motion but no movement" (Carter pp. 41, 55). The 

time for judicial intervention is long overdue. 

- len 

  
  
 



V2 

J Brittain 
niversity of Connecticut 

School of Law 
65 Elizabeth Street 

  

  

  

Hartford, CT 06105 

Sandra Del Valle 

Ken Kimerling 
Puerto Rican Legal Defense 

and Education Fund 
99 Hudson Street 

New York, NY 10013 

  

  
  

Wr | 
Ronald L. Ellis | 
Elaine R. Jones | 
Marianne Engelman Lado 
NAACP Legal Defense & 

Educational Fund, Inc. 
99 Hudson Street 
New York, NY 10013 

| 

| 
| 
| 
| 

  

He leew Henshis)). [Adu Gohud 
/ Helen Hershkoff 

John A. Powell 

Adam Cohen 

American Civil Liberties 
Union Foundation 

132 West 43 Street 

New York, NY 10036       
 



lial Yl 
Wesley W. ‘Horton 
Kimberly A. Knox 
Moller, Horton & Rice 
90 Gillett Street 
Hartford, CT 06105 

  

Coe Stroich \ oo re) 
Wilfred\Rodriguez 0 eo 
  

Hispanic Advocacy Proje 
Neighborhood Legal Servites 
1229 Albany Avenue 
Hartford, CT 06112 

Mar Fa Stina 
Martha Stone 

Connecticut Civil Liberties 
Union Foundation 

32 Grand Street 

Hartford, CT 06106 

  

Ay Zz 
Philip D. Tegeler 
Connecticut Civil Liberties 

Union Foundation 
32 Grand Street 

Hartford, CT 06106 

  

Attorneys for Plaintiffs? 

      39 Plaintiffs also wish to acknowledge the able research | 
assistance of Richard A. Wilde, William Emmett Dwyer, Jason Morfoot, 
Marcia Brubeck, MaryKate 0’Neil, and Regina Mercedez, who assisted 
counsel during the trial and in ‘preparation of the posttrial brief.    



      

APPENDIX 

  

  
 



  

    

    

ALPHABETICAL INDEX OF WITNESS TESTIMONY 

PLAINTIFFS’ WITNESSES 

NAME 

John Allison 
(Executive Director, 
Capital Region Education 
Council) 

Jean Anderson 
(Teacher, Betances School) 

JoMills Braddock 
(Professor of Sociology, 
University of Miami) 

Mary Carroll 
(Director, 
Project Concern) 

Don Carso 

(Principal, 
McDonough School) 

David Carter 
(President, Eastern 
Connecticut State 
University) 

Diane Cloud 
(Teacher, Milner School) 

Christopher Collier 
(Connecticut State 
Historian) 

DATE 

January 7 

December 23 

December 22 

January 15 

December 17 

December 16 

January 15 

January 14 

Al 

PAGES 

2-111 

107-135 

5-118 

75-151 

79-123   
  
 



      

Dr. Robert Crain I 
II 

(Professor of Sociology 
and Education, Teachers 
College, Columbia 
University) 

Eddie Davis 
(Principal, Weaver High 
School) 

Alice Dickens 
(Assistant Superintendent, 
Hartford Public Schools) 

Clara Dudley 
(Teacher, Hopewell School, 
Glastonbury) 

Jeff Forman 
(Senior Assistant to the 
Superintendent, Hartford 
Public Schools) 

Badi Foster 
(former Vice President for 
Targeted Selection and 
Development, AETNA) 

William Gordon I 
II 

III 

(Professor of Educational 
Leadership, Wayne State 
University) 

Yvonne Griffin 
(Teacher, Hartford High 
School) 

January 5 
February 26 

December 21 

December 18 

January 14 

January 27 

January 27 

January 7 
January 8 
February 25 

January 14 

A2 

67-111 

148-166 

117-147 

112-181 

112-162 
3-168 
17-94 

81-116 

  
  
 



      

5 

Josiah Haig 
(Superintendent, Hartford 
Public Schools) 

Gladys Hernandez 
(Teacher, Barnard-Brown 
School) 

Mary Kennedy 
(Professor and Director, 
National Center for 
Research on Teacher 
Learning) 

Cathy Kennelly 
(Director of Financial 
Management, Hartford 
Public Schools) 

Hernan Lafontaine I 
II 

(Former Superintendent, 
Hartford Public Schools) 

Eugene Leach 
(Plaintiff Parent) 

Adnelly Marichal 
(Coordinator of Bilingual 
Education, Hartford 
Public Schools) 

Richie Montanez 
(Principal, Hooker School) 

Julio Morales 
(Professor, UConn School 
of Social Work) 

January 20 

December 21 

January 12 

December 18 

December 22 
January 12 

January 27 

January 22 

December 23 

January 20 

A3 

57-135 

32-65 

2-111 

55-112 

120-180 
111-148 

98-110 

  
  
 



  

Freddie Morris December 23 136-161 
(Principal, Wish School) 

Gary Natriello I December 30 43-177 
II December 31 5-69 
6p January 6 2-191 

(Associate Professor of 
Sociology and Education, 
Teachers College, Columbia 
University) 

Edna Negron I December 16 60-83 
II December 17 5-18 

(Principal, Betances 
School) 

Norma Neuman-Johnson I December 29 153-163 
II December 30 6-42 

(Teacher, McDonough School) 

Brad Noel December 17 19-78 

(Former Guidance 
Counselor, Weaver 

High School) 

Gary Orfield I January 28 6-158 
| 11 February 26 114-170 

| (Professor of Political 
Science, Harvard University, 
Graduate School of Education) 

Virginia Pertillar January 22 3-7 
(Plaintiff Parent) 

Robert Pitocco December 23 57-106 
(Principal, Suffield 
High School; Former 
Assistant Principal, 
Newington and Weaver 
High Schools)   

Ad 

      
 



      

* 

Charlie Senteio 
(Deputy Superintendent, 
Hartford Public Schools) 

John Shea 
(Assistant Superintendent, 
Hartford Public Schools) 

Elizabeth Sheff 
(Plaintiff Parent) 

Milo Sheff 
(Plaintiff) 

Robert Slavin 
(Principal Research 
Scientist and Co- 
Director, Early and 
Elementary Progranm, 
Johns Hopkins University) 

Dr. William Trent 
(Professor, Department 
of Educational Policy 
Studies, Johns Hopkins 
University) 

Dr. Charles Willie 
(Professor of Education 
and Urban Studies, 
Harvard University, 
Graduate School of 
Education) 

Mary Wilson 
(Administrator of 
Curriculum and Staff 
Development, Hartford 
Public Schools) 

December 18 

December 18 

January 6 

January 12 

January 21 

December 29 

January 13 

December 21 

AS 

113-145 

192-195 

148-151 

9-150 

2-131     
  
 



      

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE 

This is to certify that one copy of the foregoing has been 

mailed postage prepaid to John R. Whelan and Martha Watts, Assistant 

Attorney Generals, MacKenzie Hall, 110 Sherman Street, Hartford, CT 

06105 this 19th day of April, 1993. 

FA < 
  

Philip D. Tegeler