BY MICHAEL P. MCKEON
Connecticut residents generally have a well-founded regard for their local and regional public school systems. Many of these schools hew to the highest academic standards, and graduates of the state”™s public high schools regularly attend the country”™s most competitive colleges and universities.
It was, therefore, an unhappy surprise to see how Connecticut”™s public schools fared in a recent federal report contrasting the educational experiences of students across the country.
On March 21, the U.S. Department of Education”™s Office for Civil Rights released the results of its Civil Rights Data Collection for the 2011-12 school year. The collection is composed of data the civil rights office collects biennially from every public school and every public school district in the U.S.
The office distills the data it collects into a number of categories, including “College and Career Readiness” and “Early Learning.” In the former category, the collection employs various metrics, such as the percentage of high schools in each state that offered the following math and science courses during the 2011-12 school year: algebra I, geometry, algebra II, calculus, biology, chemistry and physics. While many in Connecticut would assume the state had been among the leaders in offering these courses, they would be wrong.
Out of the 50 states, Connecticut ranked as follows: algebra I ”” 37th, geometry ”” 30th, algebra II ”” 33rd, calculus ”” 10th, biology ”” 30th, chemistry ”” 33rd, physics ”” 20th. And Connecticut ranked last among the six New England states in every course offering.
Similarly dismaying was Connecticut”™s standing in terms of states with the highest percentage of students enrolled in Gifted and Talented, or “GATE,” programs. During the 2011-12 school year, only 2 percent of Connecticut students were enrolled in GATE programs, which was well below the national average of 7 percent. In fact, Connecticut ranked 38th in the nation, knotted in a tie with Delaware, Michigan, Nevada, New York, South Dakota and West Virginia; and it was surpassed by states such as Alabama, which boasted 9 percent enrollment, Arkansas with 10 percent, Georgia, 11 percent, Indiana, 13 percent, Maryland, 16 percent, Mississippi, 7 percent, Oklahoma, 14 percent, and Nebraska, 12 percent.
Connecticut”™s early-education numbers were more variable. According to the results, 82 percent of Connecticut”™s public schools offered preschool programs during the 2011-12 school year, far above the national average of 60 percent and tied with Colorado for 14th in the nation. In terms of districts that offered only full-time preschool programs, however, just 14 percent of Connecticut schools qualified, below the 30 percent national average and leaving Connecticut 32nd of 50 states.
A common reaction to numbers like this is to call for increased funding. There is, however, little evidence of a direct correlation between revenues and results. According to reports prepared by the country”™s largest teachers union, the National Education Association, during the 2011-12 school year, Connecticut ranked No. 6 in the nation in per-pupil expenditures and No. 6 in starting teacher salaries. In contrast, Arkansas ”” which ranked first to fourth in the nation in terms of percentage of public schools offering biology, chemistry, physics, geometry and algebra II and which had five times the amount of students in GATE programs ”” was 32nd in average per-pupil expenditure and 37th in starting teacher salaries during the same school year.
The solution, then, might not be so much the amount that is given to school districts but the manner in which both the federal and state governments require them to allocate it. Despite some perceptions to the contrary, a public school district”™s budget is not limitless; its parameters are finite. These allocations are governed not only by the escalating costs of salaries and benefits, but also in large part by the ever-increasing mandates imposed on the nation”™s school districts by the federal government and, perhaps more inexorably, on Connecticut schools by state legislators that fail to understand that a school day is like a suitcase ”” only so much can be put in until the inclusion of items requires the removal of others.
The extent to which Connecticut schools excel despite the strictures placed upon them is nothing short of remarkable. As the Civil Rights Data Collection results make abundantly clear, however, the cost of these obligations has a real and quantifiable effect upon the educational resources and opportunities that are available to the state”™s children.
Michael P. McKeon (mmckeon@pullcom.com) is a partner in the School Law practice at Pullman & Comley L.L.C. and a contributing author to “Education Law Notes,” the firm”™s blog covering federal and state developments in school law. For more information on the CRDC and other issues related to school law, visit schoollaw.pullcomblog.com.
