A Controversial Hartford Ad Campaign Urges Parents to Reject Suburban Schools

Hartford educators say an ad campaign discouraging parents from sending their children to suburban schools reflects success of the city's education reforms, but a lawyer for plaintiffs in the Sheff vs. O'Neill desegregation case says it threatens to undermine a court-ordered plan to reduce the racial isolation of city students.

Hartford Public School officials launched the campaign with television, radio and print advertisements urging parents not to gamble on a lottery for seats in suburban or regional magnet schools that are key elements of the desegregation effort.

Instead, the ads advise families to choose among several career-oriented high schools and various restructured elementary and middle schools that are part of the city school system's school reform program.

The ads drew the ire of Martha Stone, a lawyer for plaintiffs in the long-running Sheff vs. O'Neill school desegregation case.

"It's really, from our perspective, just outrageous," she said.

The ads are airing as parents receive letters this month announcing results of the annual lottery for seats in suburban or magnet schools. Although many children were placed on waiting lists for those schools, Hartford can guarantee parents a spot at one of their top four choices of city schools, the ad campaign said.

"Why risk [your children's] future on a lottery and then a waiting list?...They don't need to go anywhere else," the ads say.

Regional magnet schools and suburban schools are the central elements of the state's effort to comply with a 1996 state Supreme Court order in the Sheff case seeking to reduce racial segregation among Hartford's mostly black and Hispanic student population. Since then, the state has spent hundreds of millions of dollars building and operating racially integrated magnet schools in the greater Hartford region. In addition, state officials are encouraging predominantly white suburban schools to accept more Hartford minority students under a transfer program known as Open Choice.

In a press release this week, Hartford school officials cited the city's own school reform efforts, including the redesign of previously struggling schools to emphasize specialized themes and college-bound curriculum.

READ MORE