Inside Connecticut’s Education-Funding Turmoil
“The narrative was, and remains, that to be from a poorer district was equivalent to a mental and even spiritual poverty, that to be middle class and above was a marker of virtue and worth. In some circles, when I say, ‘I went to East Hartford schools,’ a sheepish comment about my doctorate and professional work will often follow, the implication being that people from a working-class town don’t achieve these things, even though many of us do. Those who live in the daily reality of recent court decisions tend to be spoken of simply as ‘they’ and remain invisible, the stories of their schools and towns flattened. They are students and educators alike lost in the shuffle of demographic breakouts, news stories, budget lines, and test scores—problems to be fixed rather than people to be served. The social and emotional impact of undergoing schooling in a high-needs place is profound, but not often addressed. Everyone is so concerned with numbers that how the children imagine themselves, the narratives about their lives they hold to be true, gets lost.”