It is indisputable that education forms the cornerstone of a productive society. What is frequently disputed, however, is what that cornerstone should cost. Just as every year swallows return to San Juan Capistrano, Calif., so too do gadflies swarm in school districts across Connecticut during the annual budget season.
This year, however, while some constituents focus on what their respective school boards propose to spend, the U.S. Department of Education”™s Office for Civil Rights may be scrutinizing how they spend it.
The OCR is charged with enforcing federal, school-based civil rights laws and has jurisdiction over any public or private educational institution that receives any form of federal funds. The office has the power to investigate, order remediation and even strip funding from schools that fail to comply with the anti-discrimination laws for which it has oversight. In conjunction with its enforcement mandate, the Civil Rights Office occasionally issues what it terms a “Dear Colleague” letter, in which it spells out what it considers to be the scope and application of these civil rights laws.
On Oct. 1, the OCR issued a 37-page Dear Colleague letter, addressing what it perceives to be racial disparities in the nation”™s public schools, particularly at the high-school level.
The letter is predicated upon the results of its Civil Rights Data Collection for the 2011-12 school year, which the office released in March.
The data collection gathers information regarding educational programs and services from every public school and every public school district in the country.
The Oct. 1 Dear Colleague letter focuses on the data collection results pertaining to educational disparities between white and minority students, including:
Ӣ A total 4 percent of white students were held back in ninth grade, compared with 12 percent of African-American students.
Ӣ A total 81 percent of Asian-American high school students and 71 percent of white high school students attended high schools that offered the full range of math and science courses; only 47 percent of American Indian/Alaska Native and 57 percent of black high school students were afforded the same opportunity.
Ӣ On average, teachers in high schools serving the highest percentage of minority students earned $1,913 less per year than their colleagues in the same district who served the lowest percentage of minorities.
Ӣ Black students were more than four times as likely as white students to attend schools where 20 percent or more of their teachers had not yet satisfied all state certification and licensing requirements.
Citing these, as well as many other, dichotomies in resources, instructors and facilities, the Civil Rights Office warned in its Oct. 1 letter that both state and local funding must be allocated in a way “to ensure the availability of equal educational opportunities for students, which may require more or less funding depending upon the needs at a particular school.”
The letter sets forth an obligation upon both states and school districts to allocate their respective educational budgets to ensure that schools primarily composed of minority students are given equitable opportunities in terms of classes, extracurricular opportunities and technological resources. Perhaps of greater import is the required equal access to skilled instructors and effective administrative staff. It is conceivable that OCR investigators could review staffing decisions, perhaps even including intradistrict transfers, review teacher and administrator evaluations and require decision-makers to justify their staffing decisions and personnel assessments. Of particular interest will be seeing whether such measures ultimately affect collective bargaining considerations.
In the wake of the Civil Rights Office”™s Oct. 1 Dear Colleague letter, when administrators and school boards craft their districts”™ annual budgets, they may be called to answer not only to their constituents regarding the amounts allocated but also to the federal government as to the equity of those line items.
Attorney Michael McKeon is a member of the law firm of Pullman & Comley LLC, which represents a number of Connecticut school districts. Visit schoollaw.pullcomblog.com for more information on education and law. Contact McKeon at 860-424-4386 or MMcKeon@pullcom.com.
