Memo from Stone to Counsel with News Clippings; Notice of Filing; First Request for Production; Correspondence from Lado to Hershkoff and Rivera

    FOUNDATION 
ThirtyTwo Grand Street, Hartford, CT 06106 

203/247-9823 fax 203/728-0287 

es 

TO: Sheff Lawyers 

FROM: Martha Stone 

RE: Articles 

DATE: March 31, 1992 

Enclosed are articles of interest from the Hartford Courant 

and from Education Week. 
  

  

The Connecticut Civil Liberties Union Foundation 

 



  

  

Bl 2 Wednesday, March 18, 1992 *1 

The Hartford Conrant : 
Established 1764 
  

THE OLDEST CONTINUOUSLY PUBLISHED 

NEWSPAPER IN AMERICA 

. RAYMOND A. JANSEN 

Publisher 

® 

MICHAEL E. WALLER 

Editor 

JOHN J. ZAKARIAN 

Editorial Page Editor 

@ 

DAVID S. BARRETT, Managing Editor 

HENRY McNULTY, Associate Editor   
  

EDITORIALS 

  

The battleground of the schools 
I. one Hartford elementary school last year, 
three children tried to commit suicide. Two of 
them were 9 years old; one was 11. 

School psychologist Priscilla Vargas says that 
all three were from broken families and were born 

to teenage mothers. Their families shared such 
problems as alcoholism, drug abuse and fathers in 
and out of jail. 

Mrs. Vargas is one of four Spanish-speaking 
psychologists in the Hartford school system. Her 
workload includes responsibility for five schools. 

“I don’t think we can do much unless we can really 
provide family therapy for these people,” she says. 

  

vate place to sit with students 
and try to give them a vent for 

    
As it is, she must spend endless hours testing chil- 

their rage and fear.   

said. “And he immediately got this big smile on his 
face. He wanted so badly to say something good 

about his father. He said: ‘He loves me.” ” 
There is no doubt in Mrs. Vargas’s mind that 

schools have to be helped to help these children. To 
many of them, President Bush’s idea of school 
choice is a joke. These children, along with their 

families, are barely surviving. 
Mrs. Vargas doesn’t ask for much. A room 

where she can regularly meet with students would 

be wonderful. 
A more ambitious wish list would include 

smaller classes, and teachers trained to cope with 
the peculiar emotional problems of inner-city kids. 

Who's Now, Mrs. Vargas says, there is 
minding too much emphasis on testing 
the the children because this is the 

children? route to getting troublesome 
seventh Students out of the classroom. 
Sona Fifty percent of school psychoi- 
OCCASIONAL ogists do nothing but test chil- 

  

dren and has little time to de- 
vote to listening. Often the best 

she can do is listen, and even 
then she has to scrounge a pri- 

Last summer, Mrs. Vargas 
was worried about a 12-year-old whom she fears is 
suicidal. In her interview with the child, “he cried 
from the beginning,” she says. “For a 12-year- 

old boy to cry in front of a woman, that is very - 
hard.” 

In order for these children to receive proper 
therapy, they must be referred to outside agencies. 
Many are latch-key kids. It’s asking too much to 
expect a depressed 12-year-old to leave home 
alone and take a bus across town to an appoint- 
ment in a strange place. 

In Mrs. Vargas’s work, one touching theme 
emerges: No matter how bad the parents, the chil- 
dren want to love them. She recalls an interview 
with a child who had attempted suicide: “I asked 
him to tell me a good thing about his father,” she 

SERIES dren, she says. 
And if Mrs. Vargas could have responsibility 

for children in only two schools instead of five, and 
really get to know her clients, to be able to inter- 

vene before they become suicidal . . . But now she 
is in the realm of fantasy. Years ago, budget cuts 
eliminated counselors from elementary schools, 
and cut the number of psychologists in half. 

Mrs. Vargas is careful to emphasize that the 
system is not at fault. Everyone knows what the 

problems are, and how to solve them. The biggest 
problem is the lack of resources: money, time, an 
adequate staff. 

Meanwhile, on her own time, she has started a 
workshop in self-esteem for parents. Three have 
showed up. Not many — but you have to start 
somewhere, she says. 

  

  

  

 



  

Judge rejects bid 
against lawsuit 
Continued from Connecticut Page 

tion. 
Typically, school desegregation 

cases have been fought in federal 

courts, where lawyers have been re- 

quired to prove that segregation is | 

intentional and constitutes a viola- | 

tion of the U.S. Constitution. 

The state’s latest legal move, a 

motion for summary judgment, had | 

sought to avoid a long and costly | 

trial by sending the issue directly to 

the state Supreme Court to resolve 
conflicting questions of law. 

Horton said Hammer’s ruling | 

should prevent further delays be- 

  
cause “there is no further procedur- | 
al tool the state can file to avoid a | 

trial.” 

E
R
   

suit alleging 
segregation 

By ROBERT A. FRAHM 
Courant Staff Writer 

A judge rejected the state’s challenge to a major 

school desegregation lawsuit Monday, clearing the way 
for the 3-year-old case to go to trial. 

Hartford Superior Court Judge Harry Hammer 

denied a motion by state attorneys to block the suit, 

rejecting their argument that the case raises social 
issues too complex for the courts to decide. 

It was the second time Hammer has rejected an 

effort by the attorney general’s office to derail the suit, 

which challenges Connecticut’s longstanding practice of 

operating separate — and largely segregated — city and 

suburban school systems. 
“We're on! We're on! God bless Harry Hammer,” 

said Elizabeth Sheff, the mother of one of the 17 Hart- 

ford-area children who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit 
against the state. L 
“I am excited, ecstatic. . . . Finally, the trial,” said 

Sheff, whose son, Milo, the lead plaintiff, is a seventh- 

grader. He was in the fourth grade when the suit was 

filed in April 1989. 
Assistant Attorney General John R. Whelan said, 

“We're disappointed with the ruling, but we are going to 

proceed on to trial.” 
‘No trial date has been set, but Wesley Horton, an 

attorney for the plaintiffs, said he hoped a trial would 
begin within the next few months. 

In Hartford public schools, more than 90 percent of 
"the students are members of minority groups, and many 

are from low-income families. Many of the city’s sub- 

‘urbs are predominantly white. The suit contends that 

racial segregation, along with the heavy concentration 

of poverty in city schools, violates state constitutional 
guarantees of an equal education. 
~The state’s motion, filed in July, contended that 

Connecticut had no role in creating racial segregation 
-and, therefore, could not be held liable. 

However, in his 12-page ruling, Hammer cites a 
1973 U.S. Supreme Court case involving the Denver 
public schools, which said that whether the segregation 
was created by the state or not is irrelevant to the 
determination of the constitutional issue. 
-=- “That’s our whole case,” Horton said after reading 
Hammer's decision. “It is a very important part of our 
case.” 

* Whelan, however, said, “I don’t see anything in the 

decision that indicates one way or another how [the 
judge] will rule when he looks at the facts of the 
situation. 

“The essence of the opinion is the judge sees a 
dispute he feels needs to be resolved by a trial.” 

Both sides have agreed that the lawsuit charts new 
territory in school desegregation cases because it does 
not allege intentional segregation. Also, it alleges viola- 
tions of a state constitution rather than the U.S. Constitu- 

Please see Judge, Page B7 

  

  
 



  

D 

   NUL NEIP BlYDUUY o Lato, ai ati 

Testing Waivers 

At issue in the dispute is the un- 

Aly va : 

trict officials. 

Some c.n.M. members charged 

that the delay has come about be-   

In addition, the policy pernniuiea 

schools in which the median score on 

the criterion-referenced test was 

  

LIL malo al Ll, 

In response to the action, the 

union filed a grievance, asking the 

  

their actions is detrimental, to their 

children and to other students.” 

  
  
  

Murphy Unveils Plan To End Forced Busing in Charlotte 

By Peter Schmidt 

John A. Murphy, the superinten- 

dent of the Charlotte-Mecklenberg, 

N.C., public schools, has proposed 

that the district end its forced bus- 

ing program and establish several 

new magnet schools. 

Asserting that the district's cur- 

rent busing program results in “a 

disproportionate amount of busing 

for young black students,” Mr. Mur- 

phy said he had asked a consultant 

to develop a new pupil-assignment 

plan “more in keeping with the de- 

gires of the community.” 

In public hearings on the plan last 

week, however, some African-Ameri- 

can parents expressed fears that the 

proposed plan would resegregate 

schools or again place the burden for 

integration on black children. 

Kathleen R. Crosby, a former 

principal in the district, called the 

plan “very unfair and insensitive.” 

Because the plan would place mag- 

net schools in predominantly black 

neighborhoods, she said, some chil- 

dren in those neighborhoods would be 

forced to go to more distant schools to 

make room for white students who 

voluntarily had transferred. 

The proposal “was not as I had ex- 

because we had made a lot of 

gains in Charlotte,” Ms. Crosby said. 

George E. Battle Jr., one of two 

black school-board members and the 

chairman of the board, expressed 

similar concerns. 

While calling the plan “excellent,” 

Mr. Battle said the district must 

avoid “one-way busing” of black stu- 

dents who live near but who do not 

enroll in the magnet schools.’ 

Agreeing with the superinten- 

dent's assertion that black students 

are burdened under the current sys- 

tem, James E. Ferguson 11, a lawyer   

  

  

who represented the plaintiffs in the 

district’s landmark desegregation 

case, said, nonetheless, that the pro- 

posed plan is “fraught with far too 

many inequities and dangers” to be 

adopted without major changes. 

A report in The Charlotte Observ- 

er characterized the debate at one 

public hearing on the plan last week 

as “intense,” with most white par- 

ents for it and most blacks against it. 

But Mr. Murphy, who developed a 

nationally recognized system of 

magnet schools during his tenure as 

superintendent of the Prince 

George's County, Md., schools before 

moving to North Carolina last year, 

gaid last week that he was “sur- 

prised by the positiveness” of almost 

all of the comments on the plan. 

“I am very excited about this pro- 

posal because it offers a voluntary 

plan of assignment which empowers 

parents,” Jan S. Richards, a school-   

board member, said, adding that 

“busing did not equate to excellence.” 

Mr. Murphy said he planned tore- 

vise the plan in response to the pub- 

lic comments. 

Magnet School Proposed 

The Charlotte-Mecklenberg 

schools were the focus of a landmark 

1974 U.S. Supreme Court decision 

holding that a federal court had re- 

mained within its powers in ordering 

the district, three years before, to bus 

children to remedy the school segre- 

gation once required by state law. 

The district currently buses 

12,000 of its 77,900 students in an 

effort to desegregate its schools. 

The author of the new proposal, Mi- 

chael J. Stolee, a professor of adminis- 

trative leadership at the University 

of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, described 

the current plan and its implementa- 

tion as “the cause of justifiable pride.”   

But, Mr. Stolee said, in general, the 

nation’s successful new desegregation 

programs “have been based more on 

voluntarism than on mandates.” 

Mr. Stolee described his proposed 

plan as designed to foster education- 

al excellence, maintain racial bal- 

ance, distribute good schools 

throughout the county, and shorten 

bus rides. He called for the plan to be 

phased in over five years. 

The proposal calls for an end to 

the “pairing” of elementary schools 

for racial balance and would estab- 

lish new magnet schools with no ad- 

missions requirements and enroll- 

ments ideally maintained at 40 

percent black and 60 percent white. 

If magnet schools received too 

many applications, the plan calls for 

students who live within walking dis- 

tance to be given priority and then a 

lottery to fill the remaining slots. 

The plan also calls for non-mag- 

net high schools to operate specialty 

programs that would help attract an 

integrated student body. | 

 



   FEBRUARY 19, 1992 EDUCATION WEEK 11 
  

Suburban Residency Shows Little Tie 
To School, Work Success, Study Finds 

By Peter West 

Cuicaco—A longitudinal study of 
student achievement in science and 
mathematics in both urban and non- 
urban schools indicates that enroll- 
ment in a suburban school system 
does not, in itself, appear to be a good 
indicator of academic or future ca- 
reer success. 

“Urban location, per se, makes lit- 
tle difference in the levels of student 
achievement and career interest,” 
according to the study, released here 
at the annual meeting of the Ameri- 
can Association for the Advance- 
ment of Science. “Public urban edu- 
cation does not have to be inherently 
second-rate.” 

The study was one of three related 
reports, including separate studies 
on the effects of curriculum and 
tracking and the influence of televi- 
sion on student achievement, pro- 
duced by the stall of the Social Sci- 
ence Research Institute at Northern 
Illinois University as part of the 
Longitudinal Study of American 
Youth, a project funded by the Na- 
tional Science Foundation. 

The study comparing the aca- 
demic performance of urban and 
non-urban populations, called “The 
Impact of Parental and Home Re- 
sources on Student Achievement 
and Career Choice,” was conducted 
by Jon D. Miller, the director of the 

longitudinal project, and by Her- 
man Green, the director of the Black 

Experience Center at Clemson Uni- 
versity. 

It found that while there isa “rela- 
tively small difference” in science 
achievement between suburban and 
urban students, the difference can 
be accounted for by such factors as 
parental education, home learning 
resources, and the academic climate 
of individual schools, rather than 
the school’s location. 

The study concludes that, rather 
than the perceived negative factors 
of urban settings, “it is the differen- 
tial distribution of parent education   

and other resources that appears to 
account for differences in achieve- 
ment.” 

Parental Resources 

The longitudinal study, which be- 
gan in 1984, tracks the behavior ofa 

cohort of more than 3,000 7th-grade 
and 3,000 10th-grade public-school 
students. ; 

The study measured student 
achievement on the basis of scores 
attained on an annual test adminis- 
tered by the researchers. The test 
questions are drawn from those used 
by the National Assessment of Edu- 
cational Progress. 

The researchers found that rough- 
ly 23 percent of the nation’s public- 
school students attend classes in the 
central cities, while 44 percent are 
enrolled in suburban districts. The 
balance attend rural schools. 

The question of what effect loca- 
tion by itself has on student achieve- 
ment is an important one, partici- 
pants noted, because of a general 
perception that city schools are infe- 
rior to those in suburban areas. 

But Mr. Miller and Mr. Green as- 
sert that “the public's concept of ur- 
ban schools has been distorted by 
the experiences of a few large urban 
school systems that have exper- 
ienced and continue to experience 
major. problems.” 

Mr. Miller also noted that a major 
factor in the success or failure of the 
students in mathematics is the “aca- 
demic climate” of a given school. 

“Clearly, the combination of pov- 
erty and other circumstances have 
produced a significant number of ur- 
ban schools without a strong posi- 
tive academic climate,” he notes. 

But the researchers also note that 
“urban students ... report being 
pushed toward school achievement 
at least as hard by their parents as 
suburban and other students.” 

The study also found that while 
“strong levels” of parent involve- 
ment and encouragement exist in 
urban populations, a crucial differ-   

ence between urban and suburban 
populations is the lack of “home 
learning resources” in urban homes. 

“This result suggests that it may 
be necessary for schools—urban and 
other—to identify homes without 
adequate learning resources and to 
provide joint student-parent loan 
programs for selected kinds of equip- 
ment and resources,” the report 
states. 

Mr. Miller also noted that, accord- 
ing to interviews with students and 
parents, boys generally are more 
likely to have access to such scienti- 
fic equipment as calculators, home 
computers, microscopes, and the 

like. 
“It seems like parents are more 

likely to buy telescopes for their sons 
than for their daughters,” he noted. 

Math Tracking 

The second study, conducted by 
Thomas B. Hoffer, looked at diiTer- 
ences in academic tracking and 
school environment in urban and 
non-urban schools. 

It found that urban students are 
“much more likely” than their coun- 
terparts in other areas to attend a 
school with a “weaker academic cli- 
mate.” 

Another major difference between 
the populations is that urban stu- 
dents are more likely to remain at a 
low level of achievement in math, 
Mr. Hoffer asserts. 

The study also notes that virtual- 
ly all of the disadvantages inherent 
in urban education “appear to be 
tied up with the lower socioeconomic 
status of the individual students and 
the schools as aggregations.” 

The third study, which was con- 
ducted by Karen Brown, also of 
Northern Illinois University, found 
that television viewing had a 
“small, but significant negative ef- 
fect” on career interests. 

It also found a weak correlation be- 
tween the viewing of science-related 
television programs and the science 
achievement of 12th graders. 

  

Calif. Settles Lawsuit Filed in Creationism Dispute 
The California Department of Ed- 

ucation has settled a federal lawsuit 
brought against it by a Christian 
graduate school that arose from a 
dispute over the school’s creation- 
ism-based curriculum. 

The department was sued in both 
state and federal court by the Insti- 
tute for Creation Research after 
state education officials sought to 
bar the school from awarding mas- 
ter’s degrees in science beginning in 
1988. 

The Santee-based institute's fed- 
eral suit was settled for a reported 
$225,000 late last month, although 
school officials said they agreed not 
to disclose the terms of the settle- 
ment and thus could not confirm the 
figure. 

The institute offers master’s de- 
grees in biology, geology, physics, 
and science education. Most of its 20 
to 25 students each year are teach- 
ers from public or private Christian 
schools who are seeking advanced 
degrees, said Kenneth Cumming, 
the dean of the graduate school. 
“We teach a standard science 

master’s degree program,” he said. 
“The bottom line is this: After you've 
done your science, after you've done 

your experiements, how do you in- 

terpret it in a world view? Evolu- 
tionists interpret it all in light of the 
theory of evolution. We just think 
there are other valid world views.” 

State officials sent review teams 
that in 1988 recommended against 
state approval for the school. That 
began a long administrative and le- 
gal battle between the institute and 
Bill Honig, the state superintendent 
of public instruction. 

The state contended that the 
school failed to offer adequate labo- 
ratories and course content for the 
science degrees it offered. 

The institute fought the education 
department in state court and 
through administrative proceedings 
over the department's actions, and it 
eventually won approval to contin-   

ue offering science degrees, Mr. 
Cumming said. 

The school’s federal suit charged 
state officials with violating its Con- 
stitutional rights to free speech and 
free exercise of religion. 

Meanwhile, during the four-year 
dispute, the California General As- 
sembly passed a law that took over- 
sight authority of postsecondary in- 
stitutions away from the education 
department. The law established an 
independent council for private, 
postsecondary, and vocational edu- 

cation to oversee such schools. 
Susie Lange, a spokesman for the 

education department, said the 
school’s degree-granting programs 
would be subject to approval by the 
new council by 1995. —M.W. 

  

      

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- EDUCATION WEEK 
  

Volume XI, Number 23 - February 26, 1992 American Education's Newspaper of Record © 1992 Editorial Projects in Educ ation / $3.00 

  

  

Palm Beach Shifts Integration Focus to H ousing 
By Peter Schmidt 

  
  

Boca Raton, FLA.—Thiscommunity of 
plush homes, golf courses, and polo 
grounds hardly has a reputation as a 
place where a middle-class black family 
can find a good housing buy. 

But, thanks to an apparently unprec- 
edented desegregation policy adopted by 
the Palm Beach County school board, at 
least one developer here recently has 
been going out of its way to reach the Af- 
rican-American market. 

Levitt Corporation, which developed 
an apartment complex here called St. 
James Club, has been offering reduced 

rents to black apartment-hunters, mar- 
keting its townhouses in black newspa- 
pers, and taking other steps to attempt a 
degree of racial integration. 

Other developments and even entire 

  

  
                  5 municipalities within Palm Beach Coun- 3 : 

5 ty have followed suit and embarked on BF 

: 2 crusades to attract black families to iE 

OTE ~ white areas. : 

The land between the railroad The impetus for these efforts is a The most affluent residents of 

tracks and Interstate 95 tends to be school-board policy giving children a re- Palm Beach County's 2,023 square 

inhabited almost solely by blacks. Continued on Page 9 miles live In beachside homes.     

O.T.A. Advises 
Caution in Move 
To National Test 

System Seen Creating 
New Barriers to Reform 

/ 
By Robert Rothman 

WasniNgToN—Citing the potential 
abuses and misuses of tests, the Congress’ s 
research arm last week raised caution flags 
in the current debate over creating a new 
national system of student assessments. 

The Office of Technology Assessme 
.nonpartisan analytical agency, exp 
concern at a hearing here on the recently re- 
leased report of the National Council on Edu- 
cation Standards and Testing, which called 
for national standards for student perform- 
ance and a system of assessments to gauge 
performance against the standards, 

The concerns were contained in a study by 
the agency on educational testing, a sum- 
mary of which was released last week. 

Michael J. Feuer, the project director of 
the study, said the two-year analysis of test- 
ing in the United States, as well as a special 

 



   - 

FEBRUARY 26, 1992 - EDUCATION WEEK 9 
  

Continued from Page 1 

prieve from being bused for racial 
balance if their neighborhoods are 
integrated. 

Under pressure from the U.S. De- 
partment of Education's office for 
civil rights to racially balance its 
schools, the school board attacked 
what it saw as the root of the prob- 
lem—housing segregation—and 
drew up contracts that exempt de- 
velopments and municipalities from 
the district's court-ordered busing 
program if they agree to become ra- 

cially integrated. 
Eight interlocal agreements and 

eight developer agreements cover- 
ing from 22 to 5,000 units, both rent- 
al and sale, have been drawn up so 

far, and more are pending. Discus- 
sions also are under way to draft a 
master agreement covering all un- 
incorporated parts of the county. 
Although the civil-rights office 

has not formally approved of the 
agreements as a achool-desegrega- 
tion mechanism and several legal 
quesiions remain unresolved, na- 
tional experts on school integration 
have heralded the Palm Beach pro- 
gram as potentially an effective, 
more permanent means of integrat- 
ing schools without forced busing, 
especially in areas undergoing rapid 
population growth. 

Asserting that forced busing for 
racial balance has caused white 
flight and the decline of some urban 
districts, C. Monica Uhlhorn, the su- 
perintendent of Palm Beach County 
schools, said, “Here, I think, we have 
the opportunity to avoid the social 
disasters that have occurred in other 
urban areas.” 

“Everyone has known that urban 
school segregation is a reflection of 
housing segregation,” said Gary Or- 
field, a professor of education and so- 
cial policy at Harvard University. 

“I don’t know whether they have 
the right formula down there,” Mr. 
Orfield said, “but they certainly 

have the right idea.” 

The Advent of Busing 

The 2,023-square-mile county en- 
compasses 37 incorporated munici- 
palities, most of which lie within a 
few miles of the Atlantic coast. 

Over all, the district's enrollment 
of 110,000 students is about 60 per- 
cent white, 27 percent black, 11 per- 
cent Hispanic, and 2 percent Asian 
or Pacific Islander. 

“There is real diversity in this 
county, a startling contrast,” Super- 
intendent Uhlhorn said. “You go 
from the mansions of Palm Beach to 
the migrant workers of the glades.” 

Few local communities, however, 
are as diverse as the county as a 
whole. Housing patterns tend to run 
north and south, with the most af- 

fluent residents living in beachside 
homes, while middle-class whites 
and blacks tend to cluster in older 
communities between the Intra- 
coastal Waterway and railroad 
tracks that run about halfway be- 
tween the waterway and Interstate 
95. (See map, this page.) 

The land between the railroad 
tracks and the interstate tends to be 
inhabited almost solely by blacks of 
various income levels. 

As the community has grown, 
most new white development has 
cropped up on the other side of the 
expressway. 

The district operated separate 

schools for white and black children 
until 1970, when it lost a desegrega- 
tion suit in federal court. 

The board responded by dropping   

  

Promise-of Less Busing Propels Palm Beach Desegregation Efforts Por 
  

  

  

    

  

  

  

    

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

    

  

its segregation policies and implée- 
menting a busing plan. It was de- 
clared desegregated and released 
from court supervision by 1973, and, 
by 1974, it was regarded as one of 
the nation’s most integrated school 
systems. 

Soon after, however, a housing 
boom in the undeveloped swamp- 
land west of Interstate 95 that made 
the county one of the fastest- 
growing in the nation undermined 
the district's control over the racial 
composition of its schools. 

An estimated 179,000 new resi- 
dents, most of ther white, moved in 
between 1980 and 1986 alone, and 
the district felt compelled to build 
new schools in their neighborhoods 
to accommodate the growth. 

Meanwhile, district officials ad- 
mit, schools in the older coastal 
areas were neglected. 

In 1987, several white parents 

from the coastal communities filed a 
complaint with the federal civil- 
rights office alleging that the dis- 
trict was becoming resegregated 
and was spending more on the new 
schools and their mostly white stu- 
dent bodies. 

An investigation by the office 
found the complaint to be valid, and 
the district was threatened with a 
loss of federal aid. 

The school board responded with a 
voluntary plan that called for new 
magnet programs, the realignment 

of school-attendance boundaries, 

and the desegregation of all schools 
by this year. 

As a result, nearly 8 percent of the 
district's students are now bused for   

  

      
    
  
  

  

  

Gs: sik. 

  
  

              
“There is real diversity in this county, a 
startling contrast,” Superintendent of 
Schools C. Monica Uhihorn says. “You go 

a : from the mansions of Paim Beach to the 

  

racial balance, with elementary stu- 
dents riding up to 30 minutes and 
secondary students up to 45 minutes 
each way. 

A Boon to Developers? 

Meanwhile, new development 
continued, and William V. Hukill, 
an assistant superintendent in 
charge of growth management, said 
he decided to create the interlocal 
and developer agreements to avoid 
having to put even more children on 
buses. 

Mr. Hukill said he initially tried 
to stem new development that 
would racially imbalance scheols by 
submitting “racial-impact reports” 
on proposed developments to local 
land-use authorities. The reports, he 
said, were read and largely ignored. 

Frustrated, district authorities 
decided to try to influence land use 
through the placement of school-at- 
tendance boundaries, and took 
pains to ensure that the residents of 
any new developments would find 
their children being bused some dis- 
tance for racial balance. 

The ploy worked. “The developers 
came in and said, ‘What do we do? 
We can't sell these developments,’ ” 
Mr. Hukill said. 

The district decided to work with 
the developers and with growth- 
minded municipalities, and laid 
down its rules by fashioning the de- 
veloper agreements. 

Most of the agreements follow the 
same basic formula: The school 
board agrees to waive a given area 
from compliance with forced-busing 
as long as, by a set deadline, the stu-   

dent population sent by that area to 
local schools is racially balanced, or 

10 percent to 40 percent black. 
The agreements generally con- 

tain a strategy for promoting hous- 
ing integration that may include 
building dwellings of varying sizes, 
lowering rents, and targeting mar- 
keting campaigns at blacks. 

Whites in search of a home, mean- 
while, hear the pitch that a given 
neighborhood is free of busing. 

“In the case of the developers, 

what they have to gain is sales,” Mr. 
Hukill said. “In the case of the com- 
munities, what they have to gain is 
access to the nearest available 
schools.” 

The school board entered into the 
first developer agreement in June 
1990 with Levitt, a nationally 

prominent developer based in Boca 
. Raton. 

“If it had been some local guy, 1 
don't think anyone would have paid 
any attention to it,” Mr. Hukill said. 
“The fact that it was Levitt made 
others consider it. That also demon- 
strated to the land-use authorities 
that we were serious.” 

Levitt pledged to reserve 10 per- 
cent of the apartments in its 224- 
unit St. James Club development for 
black tenants and to reduce their 
rents by $155 a month, or $1,860 a 

year. 
Levitt also agreed to devote at 

least 15 percent of its advertising 
budget for the development to the 
goal of achieving racial balance. To 
that end, the firm embarked on a 
marketing plan that included direct 
mailings to predominantly black   

migrant workers of the glades.” 

neighborhoods and promoting the 
program to business, professional, 
and civic groups. 

In a progress report sent to the 
school board last December, Elliott 
M. Wiener, the president of Levitt, 
said he already had leased 10 apart- 
ments, or just under half the re- 
quired number, to minority fam- 
ilies. 

Abbey G. Hairston, the general 
counsel for the Palm Beach County 
school board, said moet of the black 
tenants in the development are 
school-district employees who work 
in Boca Raton-area schools. 

Holding ‘the Hammer’ 

Ultimately, the test of any agree- 
ment is not the racial composition of 
a given neighborhood itself, but the 
overall racial composition of the 
population the neighborhood sends 
to local schools. 

“We are not trying to put a black 
family in every fifth house,” Mr. Hu- 
kill said. 

‘If the party signing the agree- 
ment with the district fails to send 
an integrated population of children 
into local schools by the time speci- 
fied, then the children of that area 
will begin being bused, often at 
some distance, according to the dis- 
trict’s regular student-assignment 
patterns. 

“The hammer is there,” Mr. Hu- 

kill said. “If they don't pass the test, 

they’re on the bus.” 
It is possible that the communi- 

ties or developers involved may then 
press for changes in their atten- 

. Continued on Page 10 

 



    

a” 

10 EDUCATION WEEK - FEBRUARY , 1992 @   

Palm Beach County Schools Shift Dosearegnion Sls to-H OUSIng 
Continued from Page 9 

dance-zone boundaries, but, “basi- 
cally, they're presenting a re-segre- 
gating argument at that point” and 
will have the weight of federal civil- 
rights law working against them, 
Mr. Hukill said. 

So far, only one of the school- 
board members has voted against 
the 16 developer and interlocal 
agreements submitted for the 
board's approval. 

Arthur W. Anderson, a professor 
of education at Florida Atlantic Uni- 
versity and one of two black mem- 
bers of the school board, said he has 
been “extremely supportive” of the 
agreements because they “go a long 
way in providing a healthier com- 
munity mix.” 

The agreements also have re- 
ceived the backing of Project Mosaic, 
a coalition of community activists 
dedicated to improving race rela- 
tions in Palm Beach County and 
avoiding the kinds of tensions that 
have erupted in riots in nearby Mi- 
ami. 

Kernaa H. Illes, the president of 
West Palm Beach Branch of the Na- 
tional Association for the Advance- 
ment of Colored People, said he 

helped draw up an interlocal agree- 
ment for the mostly black communi- 
ty of Riviera Beach because stu- 
dents there were being bused away 
to more than a dozen schools to help 
them become racially balanced. 
When leaders of the town of Jupi- 

ter and the village of Tequesta met 
last month to discuss an interlocal 
agreement they had under way, 
most said they viewed the agree- 
ments primarily as a means of end-   

ing busing and encouraging parents 
to help improve substandard neigh- 
borhood schools. 

“As long as you have forced inte- 
gration, you don’t have any loyalty 
to the schools by the parents or the 
kids,” said Frederick E. Martin, the 
president of Jupiter Tequesta Na- 
tional Bank. 

“We sit trying to get the right 
number of faces in a classroom, and 
never ever talk about the quality of 
education,” said Cheryl A. Onorato, 
a community activist. 

As coordinator of Metamorphosis, 
a coalition of local leaders dedicated 
to improving schools in northern 
Palm Beach County, Ms. Onorato 
said she has come to realize that the 
fates of local schools and the broader 
community are closely linked, and 
that interlocal agreements merely 

reflect that fact. 
Although no one at the meeting 

asserted that their communities had 
completely embraced racial toler- 
ance, several said the proposed 
agreement had them thinking about 
how to improve race relations. 

“There is a reason why we don't 
have blacks in Tequesta, and we 
don’t really know what that is,” said 

William E. Burckart, a member of 

the village's council. 
“We have to find out what that is, 

and we have to change that,” he 
said. 

Some Detractors 

Mr. Hukill said the general pub- 
lic's reaction to the agreements has 
been “essentially nonexistent” be- 
cause Lhose most affected by the 
agreements are potential new resi- 
dents who may not yet be living in   

  

Thaddeus L. Cohen worries that the housing agreements wiil dilute black political power. 

the area. 
The agreements do have detrac- 

tors among the community’ s leader- 
ship, however. 

Gail Bjork, the school-board mem- 
ber who voted against the agree- 
ments, said she does not think the 
task of school desegregation should 
fall to municipalities, developers, or 
the school board. 

A foe of forced busing and an advo- 
cate of neighborhood schools, Ms. 
Bjork said, “I view the interlocal 

agreements as the lesser of evils, but 
still ap evil.” 

“We have not done an effective job 
of educating, and now we are getting 
into monitoring and overseeing 
communities,” she complained.   

“God forbid that these interlocal 
agreements do not work,” she added, 

predicting that “havoc” will ensue iff 
areas that were given a reprieve 
from busing under the agreements 
are forced to begin busing again. 

Thaddeus L. Cohen, the chairman 
of the Palm Beach County Commis- 
sion on Affordable Housing, last 

month criticized the agreements as 
likely to deter the placement of af- 
fordable housing where it is most 
needed. 

He said few people would care 
about the racial composition of local 
schools if all schools were funded 
equitably, and predicted that few 
black families will want to move to 
new developments far from their   

churches, jobs, and schools. 
“Think of the parents who are 

black who move out there,” he said. 
“They now have this neon light 
flashing, saying they are brought 
there under this interiocal agree- 
ment. They go in with this burden of 
having to prove they are just like ev- 
erybody else” 

Moreover, Mr. Cohen said, the 
agreements, if successful, would 
have the impact of diluting black po- 
litical power by disbursing blacks 
throughout the county and prevent- 
ing them from getting a majority in 
certain voting districts. 

Ms. Hairston, the school-board’s 

lawyer, predicted that the strongest 
Continued on Following Page 

  

Courts, School Boards Testing Strategies 
To Integrate Both Neighborhoods, Schools 

By Peter Schmidt 

Although social scientists often 
have found a link between housing 
segregation and school segregation, 
few school systems around the coun- 
try have been willing, as Palm 
Beach County has, to attack both 

problems at once, desegregation ex- 
perts said last week. 

Recently, however, several feder- 
al courts and school boards have be- 
gun, largely on their own, to test 
strategies to integrate both housing 
and schools. 

With little guidance from the U.S. 
Supreme Court, the Bush Admini- 
stration, or each other, the school 

boards generally have been “trying 
to feel their way” into the largely 
uncharted area where the two types 
of integration overlap, according to 
Gary Orfield, a professor of educa- 
tion and social policy at Harvard 
University who has been involved in 
developing some of the plans. 

The efforts have been called both 
viable, legal methods of integrating 
communities and ineffective, uncon- 

_ stitutional attempts at social engi- 
neering. 

Few, however, have been around 
long enough to show much impact 
on schools. 
Among the districts to have ad- 

dressed housing segregation: 
© The Denver school board, when 

recently presented with the develop- 
ment of a fairly remote new subdivi- 
sion called Green Valley Ranch, 
agreed to build a achool close to the   

subdivision only if the developers 
signed a contract agreeing to ensure 
that the subdivision would be inte- 
grated. 

® The Nashville-Davidson County 
(Tenn.) Public School District 
agreed not to bus children to inte- 
grate Antioch High School, located 
in an outlying section of the county, 
provided the neighborhoods around 
the school became integrated. With 
the help of some marketing by the 
local community, the neighborhood 
has become integrated, and the 
school population is about 20 per- 
cent black, district officials said. 

¢ In both Milwaukee and Louis- 
ville, Ky., school-desegregation 
suits have resulted in the establish- 
ment of programs that provide fam- 
ilies with various forms of assis- 
tance in making integrative 
housing moves. 

Supreme Court Actions 

Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court 
took two actions that experts believe 
might help clarify the power and 
duty of local authorities to prevent 
shifting housing patterns from caus- 
ing racial imbalances in schools. 

The Court last month let stand a 
decision by the U.S. Court of Ap- 
peals for the Seventh Circuit that af- 
firmed the broad powers several 
suburban Chicago municipalities 
were exercising in seeking to main- 
tain racially balanced communities. 

The appeals court rejected claims 
by two real-estate-agent associ- 
ations that a nonprofit housing-inte-   

gration group had violated fair- 
housing laws by marketing homes 
to specific races in an attempt to 
make neighborhoods racially bal- 
anced. 

The appeals court also denied 
claims by the Greater South Subur- 
ban Board of Realtors and the Na- 
tional Board of Realtors that several 
local municipalities had violated 
fair-housing laws and the realtors’ 
First Amendment right to free 
speech by enacting ordinances re- 
stricting the right of real-estate 
brokers to solicit business at homes 
and the use of “for sale” signs where 
they might exacerbate segregative 
housing patterns. 

The affirmative marketing cam- 
paign of the nonprofit South Subur- 
ban Housing Center was not dis- 
criminatory, and the municipalities 
acted within their purview in re- 
stricting solicitation and “for sale” 
signs, the appeals court held. 

But even as the Supreme Court 
let stand that decision, it was consid- 
ering Freeman v. Pitts, a case involv- 
ing the Dekalb County, Ga., school 
system that experts hope will clarify 
to what extent desegregated school 
systems must work to eliminate new 
racial imbalance brought about by 
changing housing patterns. 

A finding narrowing or even 
eliminating that duty, several de- 

segregation lawyers said this 
month, most likely would be inter- 
preted by achool districts as justifi- 
cation for reducing their own deseg- 
regation efforts and to declaring 

  

  

yy 
er Er 

  

These low-income housing units were built under court order in 
Yonkers, N.Y., in an effort to desegregate a white neighborhood. 

that they have no control over hous- 
ing segregation in their communi- 
ties. 

But some school districts, Mr. Or- 
field said, could view such a Court 
finding as justification for more ac- 
tively promoting housing integra- 

tion. 
“School districts should ask them- 

selves if they really want to deal 
with ghetto and barrio schools,” Mr. 

Orfield said. 
David S. Tatel, a lawyer with the 

Washington law firm of Hogan and 
Hartson who has been involved in 
cases linking housing and school 
segregation, said: “There are some 
school systems that are doing the 
least they can and desegregating 
only to the extent they are required 
by law. If the Supreme Court cuts 
back on their obligation, they will 
cut back on what they do.” 

“But,” Mr. Tatel added, “there are 
also a large number of achool sys-   

tems in the country which believe 
that integrated education makes ed- 
ucational sense, and those schools 

will continue their efforts no matter 
what the Court does.” 

Rental and Sales Bias 

Several recent studies suggest 
that the housing patterns that have 
complicated or thwarted past school- 
desegregation efforts are likely to 
continue to segregate schools. 

An analysis of U.S. Census data 
published in USA Today last fall 
found that blacks are highly segre- 
gated in two-thirds of the 47 metro- 
politan areas where they make up 
at least 20 percent of the popula- 
tion. 

In those metropolitan areas that 
had become fairly integrated, the 
newspaper's study found, the inte- 
gration could often be attributed to 
rapid growth that had shaken up old 

Continued on Following Page 

  

Mi
ch
el
 

Pe
lt
ie
r



   

  

s = 

FEBRUARY 26, 1992 - EDUCATION WEEK 11° 
  

  
Continued from Preceding Page 

opposition to the agreements will 
come from real-estate-agent associ- 
ations that believe the agreements 
will limit how they market and sell 
homes. 

No organized resistance from the 
industry has come so far, however, 

and a spokesman for the Central 
Palm Beach County Association of 
Realtors said his organization is 
waiting to see what stand the o.c.r. 
takes on the agreements. 

A spokesman for the civil-rights 
office declined last week to say 
more than that the agency was re- 
viewing the agreements and other 
aspects of the Palm Beach County   

B
e
 

L
E
E
 

  

desegregation plan. 
Mr. Hukill snd Ms. Hairston as- 

serted that the federal agency has 
been supportive of their efforts ver- 
bally, but is hesitant to give formal 
approval to the untested approach. 

“The problem is that no one else in 
the country is doing this, so there is 
no reference point,” Ms. Hairston 
said. 

If the district's integration plan 
does not work, the o.c.r. may force it 
to “pair” predominantly black and 
white schools and bus students be- 
tween them.’ 

In the meantime, Ms. Bjork and 
some other community leaders have 
questioned the sincerity of some 
who entered into the agreements,   

  

accusing them of simply trying to 
defer compliance with the district's 
busing program. 

Observers agree, too, that the 
most difficult task before municipal- 
ities will be to persuade whites to 
move into historically black neigh- 
borhoods. 3 

Mr. Iles of the local N.A.A.c.P. of- 
fice acknowledged that Riviera 
Beach will not be able to bring 
enough whites into its heavily black 
neighborhoods to integrate its 
schools. The agreement in that com- 
munity, he said, “was entered into 
one, to keep the students of Riviera 

Beach in Riviera Beach, and two, to 

show the o.c.r. what they have man- 
dated cannot be obtained.” 

  

  

  

William V. Hukill, left, suggested using the housing agreements, which Arthur W. 
Anderson, above, says “go a long way in providing a h     thi 

  ity mix.” 

Ms. Hairston predicted that the 
school board almost inevitably will 
have to go to court to defend the in- 
terlocal and developer agreements 
because a number of legal issues re- 
main largely unresolved. 

Little Legal Precedent 

Among the thorniest of these is- 
sues is whether the school board can 
compel third parties—the munici- 
palities and developers—to remedy 
school segregation, a problem for. 
which the board ultimately is re- 
sponsible. There is little legal prece- 
dent for linking housing and school 
segregation. (See related story, page 
10.) 

Mr. Cohen of the affordable-hous-   

= ~ing commission said developers in 
the county often have made housing 
even more segregated by marketing 
developments to very specific 
groups. Mr. Orfield of Harvard, who 
conducted an in-depth analysis of 
racial trends in the county, has as- 
serted that its fair-housing ordi- 
nances have been weak and largely 
unenforced. 

Mr. Hairston, other school-dis- 
trict officials, and some community 
leaders also acknowledged that the 
board may face a legal challenge for 
encouraging housing discrimina- 
tion through the agreements. 
“Whoever signs the agreements 

has the responsibility for bringing 
about racial balance,” Ms. Hair- 
ston said in an interview last 
month. “How they do that, we don’t 
care. The iden is Lo pass the torch, 
to get schools out of this business, 

and to get the people in it who 
should be in it, and that's local gov- 
ernment.” 

Another challenge to the agree- 
ments could arise from the U.S. Su- 
preme Court, which, in a pending 
school-desegregation decision in- 
volving a case from Dekalb County, 
Ga., could significantly narrow the 
responsibility of Dekalb, Palm 
Beach, and other districts to main- 
tain racially balanced schools in the 
face of demographic change. 

Ms. Hairston questioned whether 
Palm Beach would continue to enter 
into the agreements “if there was no 
legal mandate over our heads.” 

But, Mr. Anderson of the school 
board said, “You won't see me back- 
ing away.” 

“This school board,” he said, “be- 
lieves that it has a moral and ethi- 
cal as well as a legal obligation to 
promote integration in our 
schools.” 

  

Continued from Preceding Page 

housing patterns, the presence of a 
military base that demanded hous- 
ing integration, or the existence of 

sizable populations of students, re- 
searchers, and faculty tied to large 
universities. 

Meanwhile, an analysis of census 
data conducted last year by the 
Knight-Ridder newspaper chain 
found that the levels of residential 
integration in the nation’s 50 larg- 
est metropolitan areas had im- 
proved only slightly since 1980, with 
30 percent of blacks and two-thirds 
of whites still living in neighbor- 
hoods populated almost entirely by 
their own race. 

Several other studies suggest that 
the mechanisms that have perpet- 
uated housing segregation are still 
hard at work. 

A study conducted by the Federal 
Reserve Board and released late last 
fall found that, even when the in- 
come levels of all parties involved 
are the same, blacks and Hispanics 
are significantly more likely than 
whites to be denied housing loans. 

Discrimination by sales and 
rental agents also remains perva- 
sive, a recently released study 
sponsored by the U.S. Department 
of Housing and Urban Develop- 
ment suggests. The study, conduct- 
ed by the Urban Institute and 
Syracuse University, involved 
3,800 fair-housing audits in 25 
metropolitan areas during the’ 
spring and summer of 1989. 
When black, Hispanic, and white 

undercover “testers” inquired about 
housing, more than 50 percent of 

black and Hispanic renters and buy- 
ers experienced some form of dis- 
crimination.   

More than 40 percent of each mi- 
nority group got less help from sales 
or rental agents on how to buy or fi- 
nance a home, and more than 35 

percent of each black or Hispanic 
test group were told of fewer avail- 
able properties than their white 
counterparts, the study said. 

In some cases, resistance to hous- 
ing integration has been far more 
overt. 

When the city of Dubuque, Iowa, 
last spring embarked on an unusual 
integration plan that called on em- 
ployers to lure 100 black families 
into the virtually all-white city, 
crosses were burned around town, 
and fights between black and white 
students broke out at the local high 
school. 

Lingering Segregation 

The difficulties that districts face 
in trying to integrate schools in the 
face of segregated housing patterns 
were evident in an analysis of feder- 
al and state data released last 
month by the National School 
Boards Association. 

The study, written by Mr. Orfield, 
found that the degree of achool seg- 
regation for black children has re- 
mained fairly stable since 1970. 
However, Hispanic children, by 
most measures, had become more 
segregated in schools than blacks, 

largely as a result of residential seg- 
regation. (See Education Week, Jan. 
15, 1992) 

School segregation, in turn, of- 
ten worsens housing segregation 
as parents consider the racial com- 

position of local schools in deciding 
where to buy a home, noted George 
C. Galster, a professor of economics 
and the chairman of the Urban 
Studies Program at the College of   

Wooster in Wooster, Ohio. 
Mr. Galster said the results ol his 

study, published last November in 
the Journal of Housing Research, 
“suggest that, if housing discrimina- 
tion could be eliminated in the aver- 
age metropolitan statistical area, 
there would be sizable decreases in 
residential segregation, measures of 
school failure, and poverty rates for 

African-Americans.” 

The Yonkers Case 

The Supreme Court was seen as 
giving courts and school districts the 
go-ahead to explore the relationship 
between housing and school inte- 
gration when, in 1988, it declined to 
hear two separate appeals of an un- 
usual federal court decision that 
found both the city and schooi board 
of Yonkers, N.Y., liable for unconsti- 
tutional discrimination in education 
and housing. 

Drew S. Days 3rd, a professor of 
law at Yale Law School who served 
as assistant attorney general for civ- 
il rights under the Carter Admini- 
stration, said his decision to sue 
Yonkers was based on a belief, 
gleaned from years of prior work in 
civil-rights law, that school boards 
and housing authorities often “work 
hand-in-glove” in perpetuating seg- 
regation. 

The U.S. Justice Department pre- 
sented evidence to persuade the 
court that Yonkers housing and 
school authorities had, through the 
placement of public housing and 
public schools, worked together to 

ensure that certain neighborhoods 

and schools were mostly white or 
black. 

Mr. Days said the Justice Depart- 
ment had been working to link 
school and housing segregation in   

other communities, but the agency 
abandoned the effort under the Rea- 
gan Administration, although it 
continued to pursue the Yonkers 
case. 

In 1986, the U.S. Court of Appeals 
for the Second Circuit ordered the 
district to carry out various desegre- 
gation remedies and the city to build 
200 units of subsidized housing for 
low-income families and 800 units of 
housing for moderate-income fam- 
ilies in white sections of town, where 

such housing had not been placed in 
the 

Dee R. Barbato, a spokesman for 
the city, said that 142 of the subsi- 
dized units for low-income families 
have since been built and that an- 
other £8 ure slated for construction. 

City officials are discussing the 
possibility of giving mortgage subsi- 
dies in lieu of building the 800 mod- 
erate-income units. 

“No one has moved into the 
houses yet,” Ms. Barbato said. “The 
whole thing is not over with yet to 
really sum up and say this has 
worked or this hasn't worked.” 

But Jack O™Toole, the president of 
a local citizens’ group called the 
Save Yonkers Federation, said the 
school system's desegregation ef- 
forts have only caused whites to 
leave and the system to decline, and, 
“When the housing is built and pop- 
ulated, the achool system will prob- 
ably get worse.” 

“We are not opposed to this on ra- 
cial balance,” Mr. O"Toole said. “We 
are opposed based on the fact that 
public housing has not worked in 
this country, the state of New York, 

or Yonkers. The governments of this 
country are lousy landlords.” 

Despite the court order, city and 
school officials in Yonkers last week   

said they continue to have little con- 
tact with each other over their re- 
spective desegregation plans, and 
district officials are unsure how the 
population of the subsidized housing 
will affect the racial balance of local 
schools. 

A Case of Cooperation 

In Shaker Heights, Ohio, by con- 
trast, school and city officials have 
been working closely together to in- 
tegrate housing and schools for dec- 
ades. 

Nearly six years ago, the city and 
. school system established and be- 
gan funding the administrative ex- 
penses of the Fund for the Future of 
Shaker Heights, which uses private- 
ly donated funds io provide low-cost 

_ mortgage loans to people who make 
housing moves that help keep the 
city integrated. 

“If you look at this as a housing 
program, you say yes, maybe this is 
something that a board of education 
should not be involved with,” said 
Donald L. DeMarco, the director of 
community services for the city of 
Shaker Heights. 

But, Mr. DeMarco said, “it actual- 
ly is an integrative organization 
more than a housing organization.” 

The city’s efforts have kept three 
of its nine neighborhoods racially 
balanced, but the others have be- 
come disproportionately black or 
white. 

District officials say the schools 
are racially balanced, but acknowl- 
edge that white and black students 

* often do not socialize as well as they 
could, especially at the high-school 
level, and that the enrollment in the 
district's honors and Advanced 
Placement programs is dispropor- 
tionately white. 

4 

 



  

      

  

6 THE HARTFORD COURANT: Tuesday, March 24, 1992 *5 E 

  

  

  

  

      

  

    

  

    

* $168 million proposal to reorganize city’s schools unveiled 
© 

By CONSTANCE NEY
ER The report was commissioned to an elementary school,” said Paul schools. 

cials would consider whether they and when renovations at various 

: Courant Staff Writer ~ study how to accommodate almost Abramson, president of Stanton Leg- In the middle school arena, Burd- wanted to enlarge Rawson School or schools are completed. 

.r- iinet J 4,000 new students expected in the gett & Associates, an educational sall is proposing to build three new build another school. Carroll said his The deputy school superintendent, 

‘Hartford's two largest elemen- next 10 years as well as the 2,000 consulting firm in Larchmont, N.Y. schools at a cost of about $24 million committee would be delighted to Charles Senteio, said Monday he was 

ary schools would be converted into students now housed in portable The Martin Luther King school each and keeping Lewis D. Fox and meet with residents in the Blue Hills impressed with the proposal because 

. i ed high schools and three classrooms or ; leased space, said serves about 1,100 elementary 
Thomas J. Quirk middle schools the area to consider what to do with the the draft report 

was sensitive to resi- 

| ev middle SCs wollg be hatte ee 
Jed Carrol <chool students, and the school board same. AF 400-student school. dents who spoke at public hearing® 

*  underaplantio ing more than nder the plan, Benjamin Ht. wants to get elementa schools Plans call for conxertin 
i i -— : 

million presented to a board of edu- Burdsall II, a partner at Russell Gib- down to about 600 | The Fox School, which serves plead Wl ho i = Jropesing he said pares = Deb 

cation committee Monday. son von Dohlen Inc., proposed that elementary school serves almost dents, into a middle&chool, too. E open 
' — don't want their 

on oe vs Son actin Luther King E 

School, several years and be considered  Ster schools on't wan 

om proposa presen by a a L utner g lementary 1,200 students. 
South School — ‘hich used to be eventuall as an earl education schools closed. 

New York consultant and a copsul- School, which used to be Weaver The plan calls for MLK to be con- South Catholic High School — would center y y 
” i 

tant from a Hartford firm — also High School, and the Michael D. Fox verted into a high school by fall 1998 be used as a middle school until the ; 
“The people were heard,” Sentels 

‘alls for renovating more than 10 Elementary School, which used tobe while Fox elementary would be used year 2000, whed it would be replaced “Dwight is important as a safety gai, “Their comments wars h2Rd 

elementary schools, including the Bulkeley High School, return to their as a high school by fall 1996. The by Burr School. : valve,” said Abramson, adding that and addressed. 

crowded McDonough and West Mid- lorines use. : . : three large high schools — Bulkeley, The proposal calls for building 2 it can be available as an elementary 
The draft will be Cw and 

‘dle schools. 
e suggested that they be consid- Weaver and Hartford Public — pew elementary school in Hartford school for several years to keep up given to the board of education In 

w 
. ered 

iali is 
: 

; : h i id the board must 

The report, developed after sever ered as smaller specialized high would be kept as general high and renovating and/or building ad- with the growing population. Ap jac ay in time for a referen- 

   

  

al public hearings, was 14 months in schools, one serving as a center for schools under the plan. iti i 
. 

aE Ene EET Besant FT Tn BE mm er Sw 

i Tools i ag I jee me a § terest in ‘science Spevistisel proposal Imaging be- Jor, McDonough, Milner, Hooker, mentary school studentsbytheextra 
A meeting to consider the draft report 

bo: ind physical pl . cause it fits in with the board s tenta- Webster, and Twain. room that would be available when will be April 2 at 7 p.m. at school 

‘ning committee.” 
“Martin Luther King i i 

: 
. 

ning mumittee. ; 
er King is too big as 

Under the proposal, school offi-- the middle schools are in full swing ~ offices on High Street 

  

       

  

FINN NIE SERN - 

  

. 
ll 

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wy mya ym ae SE 

    

| cond 

Low ake eR Er RIDAY 
' MARCH 27, 1992 
  

  

  

Weicker warns that state 
By ROBERT A. FRAHM 
and LARRY WILLIAMS 

Courant Staff Writers ..-- 

Unless the state acts quickly to end racial 

ation in its public schools, Connecti- - 

cut will lose a school desegregation lawsuit, 

Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. warned Thurs- 

day. : 

3 state must promote ideas such as 

voluntary student transfer plans to avoid a 

‘divisive and costly court order, Weicker told 

the Connecticut Policy and Economic Coun- 

cil in Hartford. 
© Although the governor's office later insist- 

ed that Weicker was not presuming the state 

would lose its 3-year-old legal battle over 

ST. immer ee ber TT . 

desegregation, Weicker’s words during a 

question-and-answer session were blunt. 

_ “If we sit on our duff,” he said, “the ax is 

going to fall, and then believe me, nobody 

will like the solution, either in terms of what 

happens to the children or the price that we 

have to pay as taxpayers.” 

The governor made the remarks in re- 

sponse to a question about a pattern of court 

rulings ordering the state to pay for pro- 

grams in areas such as mental retardation, 

children’s services and jails.” 33 

“There is nothing more expensive than 

devising a court-ordered solution as com- _. 

pared to a solution of the executive and 

legislative branches of government, and I'm * 

going to tell you right now you're going to 
    

  

Soom: 

have another one coming right over the hill,” 

Weicker said. 
Civil rights groups filed a suit against the 

state in 1989, alleging that racial segrega- 

tion in Hartford and its suburbs violates 

state constitutional guarantees of equal edu- 

cation. 
About 90 percent of the children in Hart- 

ford schools are black and Hispanic, but 

most suburban schools are predominantly 

white. 
The state has tried twice to block the 

lawsuit, but Hartford Superior Court Judge 

Harry. Hammer rejected both challenges, 

ruling again last month that the issue should 

must desegregate 

go to trial. No date has been set, but a trial - 

could begin within a few months. money to promote voluntary school integra-* 

a WE Co ———— 

   

- 

PT Th 1 aa ed Tuc 2 
crus BI RE LT 

Weicker said he and Vincent L. Ferran- 

dino, who will become state education com- 

missioner in 
solve the problem.’ op 

«This is the No. 1 issue facing us, that we 

are going to be creative but we're going to do 

the job. We're not going to be told by a court 

what to do.” 
The governor said a number of programs 

have been successful, including Project Con- 

cern, under which about 700 black and His- 

panic children from Hartford voluntarily 

attend predominantly white schools in sur- 

rounding suburbs. 

Nevertheless, Weicker’s proposed 1992-93 

budget includes only a modest “amount of 

aman 

bo oot pa ol 
dict,” Meehan said. The point 1s, 

| rindi want the legislative and 

  

May, have discussed ways to- 

yea 

Weicker urges d 

| Continued from Connecticut Page 

schools quickly 
tion programs, and a spokeswoman in his 

office would not predict whether the gover- 

nor would make any major moves next year. 

“You have to look at what's allowed with- 

in the current financial constraints,” said 

Avice A. Meehan, Weicker’s press secretary. 

: A deep economic slump has forced Weick- 

er to propose slashing money, including mil- 

lions of dollars in school aid, from the budg- 

et. . : Gores 

Meehan insisted the governor's remarks 

Thursday were not intended to suggest that 

the state will lose the desegregation suit 

known as Sheff vs. O'Neill. 

“He is not presupposing an unfavorabi: 

~~ Please see Weicker, Page B11 
es 

segregation 
executive branches to sit on their 

hands awaiting the outcome. . . - 

his view we need start acting 

” 

 



    

questned as poor gain new mofility 
  ‘: 

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= Eloise Coleman and her 2-year-old grandson, Ky-Reece, 

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Marshall Street in Hartford to a home in Manchester after the U.S. 

Development 

are willing to take people of color. 
Does that mean people's hardened 
hearts have changed?” she asked. 
“Bring us your tired, your poor — 
and bring your: Section 8. certify, 
cates.” HR 

Sheff, who lives in public housing; 
and is chairwoman of the city coun- 
cil's housing _said she 
still believes in integration. Indeed, 
her son is the lead plaintiff in a 
lawsuit that seeks to eliminate ra- 
cial segregation In the Hartford 
area's public schools. ria 

But she argues that efforts to 
counsel the poor about housing.op- 
portunities outside the city should be 
matched by efforts to tell people 
about homes available within city 
limits. “There has got to be an ex- 
change,” Sheff said. = 

Perry and Sheff are talking pub- 
licly about an idea that is quietly but 
rapidly gaining currency among 
black urban leaders around the 
country, said Henry Taylor, a profes- 
sor of urban history and director of 
the center for applied public affairs 

ruled in 1990 that recipients of rental subsidies in Ha 
SAR IRE J 

at the University of Buffalo. 1% 
Many minority city leaders and 

academics have come to believe that 
efforts at integration serve only to 
isolate minorities in predominantly 
white areas, where they lose their 
political voice, he said. Therefore, 
efforts should be made to improve 
the quality ‘of life for minorities 
within the cities, Taylor added. 

And there are political reasons for 
minority leaders to discourage inte- 
gration of surrounding towns. “Poli- 
ticians are not going to endorse or 
Joss programs that erode their polit- 
cal base,” Taylor said. “It's just not 
going to happen.” PRCRLREE 

. ‘The sentiment for segregated mi- 
nority. institutions and: communities 
has “exploded” among black aca- 
demics, Taylor said, but theory has 
“not really given birth to any coher- 
ent Idea to rebuild the inner 
city.” a 

Petry and Sheff say that the way 
to improve life in Hartford jis to 
demand outside help: more federal 
money as well as a pooling of taxes 
in the region to help the city. They 

Tony Bacewicz / The Hartford Courant .: 

moved from an apartment on South 
rtment of Housing and Urban 

could use them outside the 

also say local banks must provide 
more loans to city residents. 

To help failing landlords, Sheff 
would like to see a larger portion of 
the city’s rental subsidies linked to 
specific apartment units, rather 
than families that can move with 

em. ral 
But Gene Shipman, a staunch pro- 

ponent of regionalism who recently 
was ousted as Hartford’s city man- 
ager, says it is shortsighted for city 
officials to try to hold onto tenants = tf 
who have an opportunity to move. 

Shipman, now managing director 
of Philadelphia, said the public poli 
cy has failed the poor and cities by 
concentrating subsidized housing in 
urban areas. fr 

But he acknowledges that the al- 
ternative holds pain for Hartford. 
“Do you shore up your landlords by 
putting Section 8 recipients in more 
vacant units?” he asked. “It's a poli- 
cy dilemma.” 
“Juan “Figueroa, a 
state representative from Hartford 
who has been a leading promoter of 
regional housing opportunities, also 

  

Democratic 

--— 

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believes that Perry and Shefi’'s argu 
ments are flawed. . : 

Cities have received massive 
amounts of federal aid, particularly 
in the '60s and '70s, but neighbort 
hoods haven't improved enough and 
the barriers still exist in the suburbs, 
Additional aid alone is not enough, h¢ 
said. : i) ' 

“We're not much better off,” Fir 
gueroa said. “You could argue we'r¢ 
a lot worse off. Like it or not, Ameri: 
ca has become suburban America."s 

Choosing tostay * | 
Now that the federal government 

has removed the major roadblock 
for holders of rental subsidies, city - 
officials couldn’t put it back in place 
even if they wanted to. They have tb 
hope that more tenants will mak¢ 

. the decision that Sherrie Bell did. « 
Bell received her rental subsidy ib 

December when the Mahl Avenug 
home she shared with a friend was: 
condemned. Although she was in 
formed that she could move outsidf 
Hartford, she elected to take an 
apartment on Woodland Stree 
blocks from where she grew up. 

Outside her front door, she cag 
take a bus directly to her job at the 
Veterans Administration officed 
downtown. She then walks het 
daughter across the street to her 
day-care center on Main Street. 

Rufus Wells, vice president of 
Hartconn Associates, a minoritys 
owned firm that runs the state's Sec 
tion 8 program, grew up in Hart; 
ford’s Stowe Village project and 
doesn’t believe poor tenants wi 

" leave the city in droves. It is a com: 
munity, he said, and the poor need 
their community for survival. ' 

“People in the neighborhoods aré’ 
always asking for a cup of sugar or §. 
stick of butter till the end of the 
week,” Wells said. “Then down in thé 
‘suburbs I hear [from landlords], 
“Your tenants are always asking for . 
‘something.’ What they don’t under 
stand is that where they come frond, 
it's all right to ask.” 

* Wells says that rental subsidy 
holders are already moving [ro 
poorer neighborhoods to more affly- 

"ent parts of the city, where white- 
collar residents have lost jobs andi 
departed. : 

What is clear is that people donk 
make housing choices on the basis of 
political philosophy, but on such 
things as back yards, pantries and 
bus schedules. ' 
For Nadine Thomas, the motive tb 

move was as simple as not getting p 
telephone call from Hartford 
schools when her children. did ndt 
show up. Or having a patch of grass 
behind her house. ; ay 

“I like to walk out my door ani 
just sit in my own back yard, anfi 
there I didn’t have one,” she said. i: 
.* Eloise Coleman has not only the 
extra room she craved, but also h 
pantry in Manchester that reminds 
her. of. her mother’s, long ‘ago 
rural Georgia. It evokes the magled] 
rows and beautiful jars of cucunj- 
bers, peaches, peas, #4 L 1 4 

“It's silly, but I like To See all the 
foods in order. My mother Yel 
can everything in jars,” she m : 
ob the winter, we'd have every- 

ng.” Peter ar To : 
She laughs a little. It seems liken 

small thing. But this reminds her she 
is home. .: . : 

‘For Sherrie Bell, though, the cify 
still offers the connections that 
make life workable for her and hdr 

- daughter. ‘ 
“I wanted to walk toa laundromat 

and a grocery store. Everything ls 
convenient here,” she said. : 

Yet she acknowledged that if ste 
had more time to think about it, arjd 

-if-she had a way to explore the sub- 
urbs, she ‘might have considered 
leaving Hartford” She admitted, 
“That would have been a tossup.” ! 

AJ 
s : . 

s [] 

  

° 

 



A8 THE HARTFORD COURANT: Sunday, March 22, 1992 

alue of integration £3 

(8
 

  

Continued from Page 1 

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Coleman's subsidy helped her pay 
‘for the Hartford apartment where 
«she lived for seven years. 
« Then, last year, when her daugh- 
‘ter was killed in a car accident, 
+Coleman found herself trying to 
: raise an active, curious boy in one of 
+ the city’s most troubled corners. She 
» could not let him out to play. She was 
» afraid to even let him look out of the 
*windows for fear he would fall. 
+ “With him, I had to get out,” she said. 
+ That's when she talked to Imagi- 
: neers, the company that administers 
: federal subsidies in Hartford. She 
» wanted to know where else she could 
+live. To her surprise, she said she 
: was told she could live any place she 
+ liked. 

“I was thrilled,” Coleman said. 
But if she had called a year or so 

» earlier, the answer would have been 
. in Hartford and nowhere else. 
: It has been a generation since this 
+ kind of opportunity has existed. Af- 
. ter World War II, a large wave of 
: black people attracted by manufac- 
« turing jobs moved from the South to 
- Hartford, to be joined later hy in- 
. creasingly large numbers of Hispan- 
« ics, also seeking jobs. 
+ By the late 1960s, however, the 
. manufacturing jobs — the tradition- 
: al vehicle for the city’s poor to es- 
- cape poverty — began to disappear.’ 
. And opportunities for better housing 
: closed off too, as zoning and other 

- factors put the suburbs out of reach 
. for many inner-city families. 

For decades, urban politicians 
« have fought to bring back jobs and to 
. break down what they perceived as 
: exclusionary practices that kept the 
- poor out of the suburbs. 
. In Connecticut, that fight has been 
. largely ineffective on both fronts, 
: until recently. 

Under threat of a lawsuit by the 
. Connecticut Civil Liberties Union, 
the U.S. Department of Housing and 

- Urban Development ruled in 1990 

Fl 

..that the 2,800 recipients of rental * 
- subsidies in Hartford could use them ' 
- outside the city. By last summer, all 
- subsidy holders had been informed 
. of their new options. 

As a tool for racial and economic ° 
integration, rental subsidies such as 

. Section 8 have none of the potential 
: drawbacks of, say, trying to build 
low-income projects in a suburb. 

And suburban landlords, now fac- 
: ing steep vacancy rates, are wel- 
» coming the bearers of Section 8 cer- 
tificates, something many did not do 
in flush times. 

: Nadine Thomas, another city 
woman, had no trouble taking her 
subsidy to the suburbs. Thomas has 
moved {8 Bast Hartford, where she 
and her three children found an 
apartment on Governor Street. 
“I've always wanted a duplex with 

an upstairs, downstairs and 1% 
baths,” said Thomas, a lifelong Hart- 
ford resident who grew up in the 

s
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ct 
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housing project. . 
The last straw for Thomas came 

last year, when her daughter, Nah- 
kia, then 14, came home from Quirk 

“Guess who's pregnant now?” 
Not wanting an unwed mother in 

her family, Thomas decided it was 
time to take her children out of the 
city. The East Hartford apartment 
“was exactly what I wanted,” she 
said. “Thank God it was here for 
me.” 

John Roughan, director of the 
East Hartford Housing Authority, 
said that the number of landlords in 
his town advertising for Section 8 
tenants has doubled in the past four 
years to about 200. 

“And we're even seeing owners of 
single-family houses willing to rent 
to tenants,” Roughan said. “That's 
never happened before.” 

Ve
 
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city’s Charter Oak Terrace public | 

Middle School one day and chirped, . 

The trend is evident in other sub- 
urbs. In West Hartford, the number 
of willing landlords has risen from 
90 to 150 in two years, the West 
Hartford Housing Authority said. 
Coleman used her rental subsidy 

to move to Manchester. She found a 
clean two-family white house, 
tucked behind another house on Cen- % 
ter Street, 2 main thoroughfare. The 
house is -old, with a comfortable 
front porch, and plenty of space for 
her grandson to play. : 

“This place is for me,” she said to 
herself when she first saw it. “It's a 
home instead of an apartment.” 

Second thoughts 
When they started asking, re- 

searchers found many other poor 
families with dreams such as those 
of Coleman and Thomas. 

So far, about 140 Hartford fam- 
ilies have moved out of the city, four _ .. 
times the number that have moved * 
in. But a survey of 400 federal rental 
subsidy holders suggests there could 
be many more departures. The Citi- 
zens Research Education Network, a 
nonprofit research group, found 278, 
or 68 percent, who were interested in 
moving out of the city. Many cited 
fear of crime. Some said they believe 
their children would attend better 
schools in the suburbs. 

But many said they did not have 
cars, or any way to learn about the 
suburbs. So the Hartford Foundation 
for Public Giving, citing city policy 
encouraging mobility, awarded 
$250,000 last month to the Housing 
Education Resource Center, a non- 
profit organization dedicated to 
counseling poor tenants. For the 
next three years, the resource center 
will advise Section 8 tenants about 
housing and services available : 
throughout the region. : 

“It is a simple matter of choice,” 
said Susan Harkett-Turley, execu- 
tive director of the housing center. 
“We are giving poor families the 
same choices anyone else in the 
world has. All they need is just a : 
little extra support.” 

Hartford will be the first city in 
the country to offer such counseling 
voluntarily. Other cities — Chicago, 
Cincinnati, Dallas and Memphis — 
have put into effect similar pro- 
grams but under court orders. -  - 

Underlying the philosophy of al- 
lowing the poor to move is the as- 
sumption that life is better in the : 
suburbs. In Chicago, where housing ’ 
choice for subsidy holders has been 
in effect for 18 years, a recent sur- 
vey supports the assumption, Re- 
seachers from Northwestern: Uni- 
versity found that poor families felt 
safer and were more lkely to have 
jobs and be satisfied with their chil- 
dren’s education than their counter- 
parts who remained in the city. 

Similar research in Cincinnati is 
less conclusive, but also points out 
that in some ways, particularly em- 
ployment, the lives of the poor have 
improved. ; H ae al, 

a view of regionalism long espoused 
by city politicians and housing advo- 
cates, in Connecticut and elsewhere. 
But while many continue to push 
that agenda, others are having sec- 
ond thoughts. 

Mayor Perry, for one, argues that 
it makes more sense to concentrate 
on equalizing the quality of housing 
in Hartford and the suburbs before 
peking people to pick a neighbor- 
ood 
“A choice between going where 

there's rats and roaches, and a place 
where there's not any — that's not 
real choice,” Perry said. 

City Councilwoman Elizabeth 
Horton Sheff, for another, is suspi- 
cious of the new open-door policy by 
suburban landlords. 

“Now all of a sudden, landlords 

AR
 

That assumption is at the heart of ; 

  

 



      

Cv 89-0360977S 

MILO SHEFF, et al SUPERIOR COURT 
J.D. HARTFORD/NEW 

Plaintiffs NEW BRITAIN AT HARTFORD 

Ve. 

WILLIAM A. O'NEILL, et al 

Defendants MARCH 31, 1992 

NOTICE OF FILING OF 
DEFENDANTS' FIRST REQUEST FOR PRODUCTION 
  

  

The defendants hereby give notice that, on the date noted 

above, the Defendants' First Request for Production, consisting 

of one request, was sent to plaintiffs' counsel to be answered in 

accordance with the rules of practice. 

FOR THE DEFENDANTS 

   
  

/A istant Attorney General 
0 Sherman Street 

Hartford, Connecticut 06105 
Telephone: 566-7173 

  
 



      

CERTIFICATION   

This is to certify that a copy of the foregoing was mailed 
postage prepaid to the following counsel of record on 
March 31, 1992: 

John Brittain, Esq. 
University of Connecticut 
School of Law 
65 Elizabeth Street 
Hartford, CT 06105 

Wilfred Rodriguez, Esq 
Hispanic Advocacy Project 

Neighborhood Legal Services 
1229 Albany Avenue 
Hartford, CT 06112 

Philip Tegeler, Esq. 
Martha Stone, Esq. 
Connecticut Civil Liberties Union 
32 Grand Street 
Hartford, CT 06106 

Wesley W. Horton, Esq. 
Mollier, Horton & Fineberg, P.C. 
90 Gillett Street 
Hartford, CT 06105 

Ruben Franco, Esq. 
Jenny Rivera, Esq. 
Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund 
99 Hudson Street 
14th Floor 
New York, NY 10013 

  
 



      

Julius L. Chambers, Esq 
Marianne Lado, Esq. 
Ronald Ellis, Esq. 
NAACP Legal Defense Fund and 
Educational Fund, Inc. 
99 Hudson Street 
New York, NY 10013 

John A. Powell, Esq. 
Helen Hershkoff, Esq. 
Adam S. Cohen, Esq. 
American Civil Liberties Union 
135" aist 43rd Street 
Ne 

  

  

olin on Whelan 
Agsistant Attorney General 

  
 



    

Cv 89-0360977S 

MILO SHEFF, et al SUPERIOR COURT 

J.D. HARTFORD/NEW 
Plaintiffs NEW BRITAIN AT HARTFORD 

Ve 

WILLIAM A. O'NEILL, et al 

Defendants MARCH 31, 1992 

DEFENDANTS' FIRST REQUEST FOR PRODUCTION 
  

Pursuant to P.B. § 227, the defendants hereby request that 

the plaintiffs produce the following documents or records for 

inspection and copying by defendants' counsel: 

1. Documents, data tapes, discs or other means of data 

storage which contain all data gathered and/or used as part of 

the studies conducted by plaintiffs' expert witness, Dr. Robert 

Crain, which are summarized in the reports entitled "School 

Pbgegregaiion and Black Occupational Attainments: Results from 

Long Term Experiment" and "Finding Niches: Desegregated Students 

Sixteen Year Later." 

Specifically the defendants seek the underlying data files 

and variables used for the analyses in these two reports. The 

files should consist of all coded and edited variables for all 

individual students and/or parents analyzed in the two studies, 
    
  

 



      

along with a description of the format and coding of each 

individual variable. The files should include specifications for 

any derived or transformed variables used in the two reports; 

inclusion of appropriate SPSS or SAS programming instructions and 

codebooks would be sufficient. 

In order to expedite the defendants' review of the requested 

material the defendants ask that the data be produced on standard 

floppy discs (using ASC II format) suitable for use on a standard 

MS-DOS PC. 

Pursuant to P.B. § 228 the above requested material should 

be produced within thirty (30) days of the certification below 

unless such time is extended by agreement of the parties or order 

of the court. 

WHEREFORE, the defendants seek production in accordance with 

the rules of practice. 

FOR THE DEFENDANTS 

   
RD BLUMENTHAL of 

4 ATT So a Vil 

By: 7/ / ‘ofl a 
Joffh R. Whelan 

/ Agsistant Attorney General 
' ¥10 Sherman Street 

    
  

   
-2- 

  
 



      

Hartford, Connecticut 06105 
Telephone: 566-7173 

CERTIFICATION 
  

This is to certify that a copy of the foregoing was mailed 
postage prepaid to the following counsel of record on 
March 31, 1992: 

John Brittain, Esq. 
University of Connecticut 
School of Law 
65 Elizabeth Street 
Hartford, CT 06105 

Wilfred Rodriquez, Esq 
Hispanic Advocacy Project 
Neighborhood Legal Services 
1229 Albany Avenue 
Hartford, CT 06112 

Philip Tegeler, Esq. 
Martha Stone, Esq. 
Connecticut Civil Liberties Union 
32 Grand Street 
Hartford, CT 06106 

Wesley W. Horton, Esq. 

Mollier, Horton & Fineberg, P.C. 
90 Gillett Street 
Hartford, CT 06105 

Ruben Franco, Esq. 
Jenny Rivera, Esq. 
Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund 
99 Hudson Street 
14th Floor 
New York, NY 10013 

  

 



      

Julius L. Chambers, Esq 
Marianne Lado, Esq. 
Ronald Ellis, Esq. 
NAACP Legal Defense Fund and 
Educational Fund, Inc. 
99 Hudson Street 
New York, NY 10013 

John A, Powell, Esq. 

Helen Hershkoff, Esq. 
Adam S. Cohen, Esq. 
American Civil Liberties Union 
132 West 43rd Street 

New 
    

      J R. Whelan 
Asgistant Attorney General 

i / 
57 
EY 
joi 

Vv 

  
 



    

s 
3 

  

“ National Office 

A A Suite 1600 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE 99 Hudson Street 

AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. New York, N.Y. 10013 (212) 219-1900 Fax: (212) 226-759: 

March 31, 1992 

Helen Hershkoff, Esq. 
Adam Cohen, Esq. 
American Civil Liberties 

Union 
132 West 43rd Street 

New York, NY 10036 

Jenny Rivera, Esq. 
Puerto Rican Legal Defense 

& Educational Fund 
99 Hudson Street - 14th Floor 

New York, NY 10013 

Dear Helen, Adam and Jenny: 

This letter is intended to confirm arrangements for our 

discussion of the research conducted by Marvin Dawkins and William 

Trent on the effects of segregation on African American, Latino, 

and white school children and the relationship of that research to 

plaintiffs’ case in Sheff v. O'Neill. The discussion will be held on 

Monday, April 6 from 10:30 a.m. until approximately 1:00 p.m. All 

New York participants are requested to gather in the large 

conference room at 99 Hudson Street, 16th Floor. Marvin Dawkins, 

Bill Trent, and JoMills Braddock will be connected by conference 

call. 

The researchers have been asked to be prepared not only to 

explain their own work but to critique each other’s research from 

Defendants’ standpoint. The discussion should be lively. 

Enclosed please find summaries of the expected testimony that 

we submitted to the state in 1991. I thought they might be helpful 

as we proceed with our development of the case. 

Regional Offices 

Contributions are The NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) is not part Suite 301 Suite 208 

deductible for U.S. of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People 1275 K Street, NW 315 West Ninth Street 

income tax purposes. (NAACP) although LDF was founded by the NAACP and shares its Washington, DC 20005 Los Angeles, CA 90015 

commitment to equal rights. LDF has had for over 30 years a separate (202) 682-1300 (213) 624-2405 

Board, program, staff, office and budget. Fax: (202) 682-1312 Fax: (213) 624-0075 

 



  

I look forward to seeing you on Monday. Please feel free to 
call if you have questions or suggestions with regard to the 
meeting. 

Sincerely, 

7 Sr 
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Pa AA Apne Lah? mires OF XH Le “ A 

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Marianne Engelman Lado 

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Enclosure 

cc: Ron Ellis 
Norman Chachkin 
Philip Tegeler & Martha Stone 
John Brittain 

 



  

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Interrogatory 18. Please specify the name and address of 

each and every person the plaintiffs expect to call as an expert 

witness at trial. For each such person please provide the 

followings the 

a. The date on which that person is expected to complete 

the review analysis, or consideration necessary to formulate the 

opinions which that person will be called spon to offer at trial; 

b. The subject matter upon which that person is expected to 

testify; and 

ec. The substance of the facts and opinions to which that 

person is expected to testify and a summary of the grounds for 

each opinion. 

  

RESPONSE: Experts whom the plaintiffs expect to call at trial 

are listed below, pursuant to Practice Book Section 220(D), as 

modified by the Court: 

Dr. Jomills Henry Braddock, II, Center for Social 

Organization of Schools, Johns Hopkins University, 3505 

North Charles Street, Baltimore, Maryland, 21218. Dr. 
Braddock is expected to testify to (1) the adverse 
educational and long-term effects of racial, ethnic, 

and economic segregation; (2) the adverse effects of 
racial, ethnic, and economic segregation on the 
educational process within schools. Specifically, Dr. 
Braddock is -expected to testify that school segregation 
tends to perpetuate segregation in adult life, that 
school desegregation helps to transcend systemic 

reinforcement of inequality of opportunity, and that 
segregation affects the educational process within 

schools. In his testimony, the materials on which Dr. 

Braddock is expected to rely include his published 

works, as well as research currently being conducted on 

the educational and long-term effects of racial, 

ethnic, and economic segregation by Dr. Marvin P. 

  

 



  

Dawkins: and Dr. William Trent. (See descriptions 

below.) Dr. Braddock is expected to base his testimony 

on (1): Braddock, “The Perpetuation of Segregation 

Across Levels of Education: A Behavioral Assessment of 

the Contact-Hypothesis,” 53 Sociology of Education 178- 

186. (1980); (2) Braddock, Crain, McPartland, “A Long- 

Term View of School Desegregation: Some Recent Studies 

of Graduates as Adults.” Phi Delta Kappan 259-264 

(1984); (3) Braddock, nSegregated High School 

Experiences and Black Students’ College and Major Field 

Choices," Paper Presented at the National Conference on 

School Desegregation, University of Chicago (1987); (4) 

Braddock, McPartland, “How Minorities Continue to be 

Excluded from Equal Employment Opportunities: Research 

on Labor Market and Institutional Barriers,” 43 Journal 

of Social Issues 5-39 (1987); and (3) Braddock, 

  

  

  

  

McPartland, “Social-Psychological Processes that 

Perpetuate Racial Segregation: The Relationship 

Between School and Employment Desegregation,” 19 

Journal of Black Studies 267-289 (1989). Dr. Braddock 
  

is expected to complete his review by April 1, 1991. 

Christopher Collier, Connecticut State Historian, 876 
  

Orange Center Road, Orange, Connecticut, 06477. 

Professor Collier is expected to testify regarding (1) 

the historical lack of autonomy of Connecticut towns 

and school districts and the history of state control 

over local education; (2) the historical development of 

the system of town-by-town school districts including 

legislation passed in 1856, 1866, and 1909; (3) the 

existence and prevalence of school districts and 

student attendance patterns crossing town lines prior 

to 1909 legislation mandating consolidation; (4) the 

existence of de jure school segregation in Connecticut 

from 1830 through 1868; (5) the origins and historical 

interpretation of the equal protection and education 

clauses of the 1965 Constitution; (6) a historical 

overview of the options for school desegregation 

presented to the state but not acted upon, 1954 to 

1980. In his testimony, the materials upon which 

Professor Collier may rely will include numerous 

historical sources, including primarily but not limited 

to Helen Martin Walker, Development of State Support 
  

  
and Control of Education in Connecticut (State Board of 

Education, Connecticut Bulletin #4, Series 1925-16); 

Keith W. Atkinson, The Legal Pattern of Public 

Education in Connecticut (Unpublished Doctoral 
  

  

 



  

Dissertation, University of Connecticut, 1950); Annual 

Reports of the Superintendent of ‘the Common Schools, 

1838-1955; Jodziewicz, Dual Localism in 17th Century 

Connecticut, Relations Between the General Court and 

the Towns, (Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, William 

& Mary, 1974); Bruce C. Daniels, The Connecticut Town 

Growth and Development, 1635-1790, Middletown 

  
  

  

  

  

  

Connecticut, Wesleyan University; Trumbull, Public 

  

Records of the Colony of Connecticut; Public Records of -- 
  

  

the State of Connecticut; Proceedings of the 
  

  

Constitutional Convention of 1965; as well as the 
  

documents listed in response to defendants’ 

interrogatory 5, Plaintiffs’ Responses to Defendants’ 

First Set of Interrogatories (October 30, 1990), and 

the sources referenced in plaintiff's supplemental 

submission to Judge Hammer dated February 23, 1990. 

Additional historical documents upon which Professor 

Collier relies will be identified upon request at or 

before the time of his deposition. Professor Collier 

is expected to complete his review by March 1, 1991. 

Dr. Robert L. Crain, Professor of Sociology and 
  

Education, Teachers College, Columbia University, 525 

West 120th Street, Box 211, New York, New York, 10027. 

Dr. Crain is expected to testify to the adverse 

educational and long-term effects of racial, ethnic, 

and economic segregation in the Hartford metropolitan 

area. Specifically, Dr. Crain is expected to testify 

that the effects of Project Concern participation for 

students in the Hartford metropolitan area have been to 

reduce the likelihood of (1) dropping out of high 

school, (2) early teenage pregnancy, - and (3) 

unfavorable interactions with the police. Dr. Crain is 

expected to testify, further, that the effects of 

Project Concern participation for students in the 

Hartford metropolitan area have been to increase (1) 

college retention, (2) the probability of working in 

private sector professional and managerial jobs, (3) 

the probability of interracial contact, and (4) 

favorable attitudes toward whites. In his testimony, 

Dr. Crain is expected to base his testimony on his 

published works and his analyses of Project Concern. 

Specifically, Dr. Crain is expected to rely on (1) 

Crain, Strauss, "School Desegregation and Black 

Occupational Attainments: Results from a Long-Term 

Experiment,” Center for Social Organization of Schools, 

Report No. 359 (1985); (2) Crain, Hawes, Miller, and 

 



  

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Peichert, "Finding Niches: Desegregated Students 

Sixteen Years Later,” Unpublished Manuscript, Institute 

for Urban and Minority Education, Teachers College 

(revised 1990); and (3) Gable, Thompson, Iwanicki, “The 

Effects of Voluntary Desegregation on Occupational 

Outcomes,” The Vocational Guidance Quarterly 230-239 

(1983). Dr. Crain is expected to complete his review 

by April 1, 1991. 

  

Dr. Marvin P. Dawkins, 17627 N.W. 62nd Place, North, 

Hialeah, Florida, 33015. Dr. Dawkins is expected to 

testify to the adverse educational and long-term 

effects of racial, ethnic, and economic segregation on 

African Americans. Specifically, Dr. Dawkins is 

expected to testify that African Americans who have 

attended segregated schools have a lower probability of 

attending predominantly white colleges and 

universities, maintaining interracial contacts, and 

working in desegregated settings. Dr. Dawkins: is 

expected to base his testimony on (1) his analysis of 

data from the National Survey of Black Americans, a 

nationally representative survey of African Americans 

conducted over a period of seven months between 1979 

and 1980 at the Survey Research Center, Institute for 

Social Research, University of Michigan, and funded by 

the Center for the Study of Minority Group Mental 

Health, at the National Institute of Mental Health; (2) 

Dawkins, "Black Students’ Occupational Expectations: A 

National Study of the Impact of School Desegregation,” 

18 Urban Education 98-113 (1983); (3) Braddock, 

Dawkins, “Predicting Black Academic Achievement in 

Higher Education,’ 50 Journal of Negro Education 319- 

327 (1981); (4) Braddock, Dawkins, “Long-Term Effects 

of School Desegregation on Southern Blacks,” #4 

  

  

  

  
Sociological Spectrum 365-381 (1984); and (5) Dawkins, 

"persistence of Plans for Professional Careers Among 

Blacks in Early Adulthood,” 58 Journal of Negro 

Education 220-231 (1989). Dr. Dawkins is expected to   

  

complete his analysis by March 15, 1991. 

Dr. Mary Kennedy, Director, National Center for 
  

Research on Teacher Evaluation, Michigan State 

University, 513 Ardson Road, East Lansing, Michigan, 

48823. Dr. Kennedy will testify about the relationship 

of family poverty and high concentrations of poverty to 

educational outcomes. Specifically, Dr. Kennedy will 

 



  

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testify that two of the most important measures of 
poverty which have a strong relationship to educational 

outcomes are intensity of family poverty (measured by 

number of years of sustained poverty of the child and 

his family), and attendance at a school with a high 

concentration of poor children. Her conclusions show 

that: (1) Students are increasingly likely to fall 

behind grade levels as their families experience longer 

spells of poverty; (2) Achievement scores of all 

students - not just poor students - decline as the 

proportion of poor students in a school increases; (3) 

The relationship between school poverty concentration 
and school achievement averages is even stronger than 

the relationship between family poverty status and 

student achievement. In fact, non-poor students who 

attend schools with a high concentration of poor 

students are more likely to fall behind than are poor 

students who attend a school with a small proportion of. 

poor students; and (4) Increases in the proportion of 

poor children in a school are associated with decreases 

in average starting achievement and even occasionally 

with decreases in learning rates over time. Dr. 

Kennedy's opinions are based on her research and that 

of others as contained in reports, including, but not 

limited to Kennedy, M.M., Jung, R.K., and Orland, M.E. 

(1986), Poverty, Achievement and the Distribution of 

Compensatory Education Services, U.S. Department of 

Education, 1986. Dr. Kennedy is expected to complete 

her review by May 1, 1991. 

  

  

  
Dr. William Trent, EPS, 368 Education Building, 

University of Illinois, 1310 South Sixth Street, 

Champagne, Illinois, 61820. Dr. Trent is expected to 

testify to the adverse educational and long-term 

effects of racial, ethnic, and economic segregation on 

Latinos, African Americans, and white Americans. 

Specifically Dr. Trent is expected to testify that 

economic school segregation has adverse long-term 

outcomes for Latinos, African Americans, and white 

Americans, that desegregation has beneficial results on 

the aspirations and expectations of Latino students and 

on their likelihood of working in interracial 

environments, and that white Americans who have 

experienced desegregated schools are more likely to 

work with and to have positive attitudes toward African 

American co-workers. Dr. Trent is expected to base his 

testimony on his published work and his analysis of 

 



  

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data from (1) the National Longitudinal Survey of Labor 

Force Behavior -- Youth Cohort, an annual survey 

sponsored by the United States Departments of Labor and 

Defense of 12,686 young persons throughout the United 

States, with data available for 1979-1987; (2) the High 

School and Beyond Study, a national longitudinal 

probability sample of more than 58,000 1980 high school 

sophomores and seniors, conducted in 1980, 1982, 1984, 

and 1986; and (3) the National Longitudinal Survey of 

Employers, a national probability sample of 4,087 

employers, conducted in the 1970's. Dr. Trent is 

expected to complete his analysis by April 1, 1991. 

In addition to the areas of testimony set out above, 

plaintiffs’ experts are also expected to interpret and comment on 

the testimony and research of other experts, including both 

plaintiffs’ and defendants’ experts. With respect to documents 

listed herein, plaintiffs have included some of the primary 

sources upon which these experts base their opinions, but have 

not provided a comprehensive list of all documents reviewed or 

relied on. If any other additional areas of testimony are" 

identified for the foregoing experts or other documents upon 

which they primarily rely are identified, plaintiffs will 

identify such testimony and documents in a timely fashion, 

pursuant to the parties’ Joint Motion for Extension of Time to 

Disclose Expert Witnesses filed December 3, 1990.