Joe-So: Say, An Education Revolution In Connecticut?

• 

  From school board vice chair Joe Sokolovic:

  Does Connecticut Need a French Revolution?

  ​Recent headlines out of France are concerning. With more than 250,000 students taking to the streets, blockading high schools, and battling riot police, it is easy for us Americans to dismiss the chaos as a French phenomenon an chalk it up as national culture rife in rebellion and civil disobedience. But beyond the tear gas in the streets of Paris we see the grievances written on the protesters’ cardboard signs. classrooms without air conditioning, staff shortages and a funding scheme that fails low-income communities.

  Sound familiar?

  Paris suddenly doesn’t feel so far away. It looks like Hartford, New Haven, or my dear city of Bridgeport.

  ​In Connecticut, our gilded Capitol buildings and wealthy enclave hide the structural rot in how we fund and support public education. While our kids aren’t yet tipping over dumpsters or boycotting schools, they are quietly suffering through the exact same systemic educational neglect.

• ​Step into the disproportionately large number of our urban and rural schools and the decay hits every sense, from loud fans battling oppressive heat, to the underlying mold spores tainting the air. Despite the fans, the beginning of the school year in late August, the oppressive heat settles into brick buildings like an oven, turning classrooms into pressure cookers not conducive to learning, an environment students press damp paper towels to their necks just to stay conscious. You can see the flickering fluorescent lights above, the buzzing distracting both the teachers and the students from teaching and learning. Step into the hallways for some relief and often times you find broken water fountains.

  ​But drive just a few miles in down the road from any of these municipalities and you likely enter a different universe entirely. Here schools are a sanctuary. Crisp, whisper-quiet HVAC systems are keeping rooms at an ideal 68 degrees regardless of the heat outside. Students learn in state-of-the-art facilities equipped with the latest technology, swim in Olympic-sized aquatics centers, and perform in state of the art centers.

  ​By tying public school budgets to local property tax bases, Connecticut has created an educational caste system. Which in turn has created a permanent underclass in order to provide the wealthy districts with a steady supply of service workers. We ask kids in rural towns and cities alike to learn in conditions no state legislator would tolerate in their own office, while sending neighboring suburban youth to campuses built like elite private schools.

  ​The French students rising up are declaring that a society cannot continuously promise equal opportunity while starving its public schools of adequate funding. They rightfully refuse to accept that their futures should be sacrificed to fiscal austerity measures.

  ​Connecticut stands is approaching the breaking point. We should not need to riot in the streets, or tear gas canisters in our town squares to recognize that our current path is unsustainable. But we do need a revolution of political will.

  ​What does a Connecticut “revolution” mean? It means either the state either voluntarily abandoning the timid incremental change that leaves urban and rural districts suffering or the people rising up and taking a stand. It means voluntarily dismantling property-tax-based funding model to guarantee true educational equity, court action, student walkouts, parental boycotts or even a general education strike by the unions.

  The fire in Paris is a warning. It’s time Connecticut listened before the smoke reaches our own backyard.

  Vive de rèvolution!

  Joseph Sokolovic

  Vice-Chair Bridgeport BOE

  Writing as an individual