Subject Author Date Written Publication Text New London Magnet SchoolsChip GorraMar 11, 2008The DayLetterNew London RepublicansNew London's Public Schools have failed so miserably in delivering a quality education, as evidenced by it's poor and still-declining standardized test scores, that it's hard to justify any faith in the judgment of those charged with it's management. This same school system that has failed so egregiously is now asking for a gigantic leap of faith by asking us to bond additional money to fund a new magnet program of dubious worth. While investment in new infrastructure is part of a community's responsibility to it's citizens, the community also has the right to expect performance from it's investment in education. It's deeply troubling to allow the Board of Education and the school administration to consider new programs and infrastructure when they have no record of success in providing basic education to our students.

I am no stranger to the concept of Magnet Schools: I have had my son in Magnet Schools in the Hartford area for most of his scholastic life. The Magnet Schools that are NOT run by the City of Hartford Board of Education are run by CREC, the Capitol Region Educational Council. The CREC is a body which is truly regional in nature, operating Magnet Schools in a variety of towns throughout the Greater Hartford area. By distributing schools of specific interest throughout the area, including the suburbs, they enable students to seek diversity and educational opportunity by fostering a true magnet principle, allowing for real educational alternatives for students who seek a specific, or non-traditional education. Students are transported by the local Board of Education school busses to the school of their choice.

The City of Hartford is a good example of how NOT to run a Magnet School: their magnet schools, all located within the city limits of Hartford, have an almost impossible time attracting students from the suburbs, since Hartford has failed to achieve any level of racial or ethnic diversity on its own. The Hartford Courant recently ran an article about how the City of Hartford has failed to make it's Magnet Schools work, citing a lack of diversity in the schools, muddled and incompetent administration, poor test scores, and lack of transportation from the suburbs to the city as reasons for the schools' failure. By comparison, the schools which CREC operates within the City of Hartford, while facing many of the same issues that face the Hartford Board of Education Magnet Schools, has been able to raise test scores and maintain some diversity even while seeing dwindling suburban enrollment.

New London will face many of the same issues that Hartford has faced trying to run it's own Magnet Schools. New London has dwindling racial and ethnic diversity, poor local test scores, a sputtering economy, and an administration and Board of Education with little or no commitment to the concept of Magnet Schools as a true alternative to a conventional classroom education, nor a record of academic achievement. Cynics could easily argue that the true reason that the School Board and Administration want to build Magnet Schools is to achieve a greater level of school refurbishment money from the state and federal government. That is the WRONG reason to offer Magnet Schools.

Citizens of New London have a right to be skeptical about the motives of the School Administrators to build Magnet Schools. If New London was an affluent suburban town, with good test scores and a racially and ethnically harmonious mix of students, the pressure to build such schools wouldn't exist. The fact that the state will offer a higher level of refurbishment reimbursement money for building an operating a magnet school is a powerful lure to a cash-strapped and beleaguered city that is anxious to find money wherever it can to help it's cause. New London has never found a federal or state dollar that it didn't covet: the question remains whether accepting this money is in the best interests of the town in years to come. We can thank federal dollars for New London “redevelopment”, a process that never received the local scrutiny that it deserved before it destroyed much of the fabric of the town. We risk a similar fate with accepting earmarked money from the state or federal government without proper oversight.

To make Magnet Schools work locally, they need to be regional in nature, independent in their administration, and have a genuine commitment to offering an alternative to traditional public education. The current paradigm of the New London Board of Education and school administration prohibits that alternative. It would be hard to believe that suburban families would send their children to an urban school that was managed by the current Board of Education and School Administration with it's record of failure. Instead, Southeastern Connecticut must dip it's toe into a process of regionalization, organize regional magnet schools that cater to specific interests, especially on the secondary school level, and investigate alternative forms of primary education, like Montessori schools. These schools must be regional in nature to achieve desirable levels of racial and ethnic diversity, and they must foster that diversity and creativity, not inhibit it. New London does not have the resources to complete that process on it's own, and to allow the Board of Education and school administration in it's current form to administer such programs is a recipe for failure. Published