More than 100 students and local schoolteachers filled the Branford Common Room on Mon., Oct. 5 to attend a panel discussion about the reform of public school education in New Haven. The hour-long event was co-sponsored by the Yale College Democrats, New Haven Action, and the Education Network of Dwight Hall. The speakers included assistant superintendent of New Haven schools Garth Harries and alderwoman Rachel Plattus, SY ’09, as well as two New Haven principals: Dolores Garcia-Blocker of the Co-op Arts and Humanities High School and Lizanne Cox of Commonground High School.

The panel discussion centered on Mayor John DeStefano’s recently announced educational reform plan to improve academic performance within the city’s public schools. To this end, he has brought in a group of experts from all over the country to examine the schools and make recommendations for improvements.

Assistant Superintendent Harries is one of these experts. “The main question for us is, what do these kids need at this time and how can I give it to them? There are no simple solutions,” said Harries. “From a policy perspective, high-performing schools have four things: leadership, high expectations, personalization, which is where adults can know kids, and partnership, which involves the investment of social capital from the community to the public schools. We’re trying to put some of those pieces in place, but there are definitely no simple solutions.”

According to its website, this new reform plan has ambitious goals: bring New Haven students’ scores on the Connecticut Mastery Test (CMT) and Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT) to state averages by 2015, cut the dropout rate by 50 percent in five years, ensure that all students have the opportunity to go to college, and make sure that students are academically prepared and financially able to complete college.

“How will the city achieve these goals?” said Abby McCartney, BR ’10, Vice President of the Yale College Democrats. “Well, the main components of the plan are increasing school accountability, dividing the schools into ‘tiers’ based on performance, and taking dramatic action to improve the lowest-performing schools, recruiting new talent, and making it possible for students to go to college through the proposed New Haven Promise program.”

Such an education reform plan is far from new; the issue has long been part of Mayor DeStefano’s platform. In 95, two years after he was first elected, he launched a 15-year, one and a half billion dollar school construction program with the aim to rebuild or renovate every school facility in the city. Nevertheless, statistics show that the percentage of New Haven students who pass the CMT and CAPT has barely changed over the past decade (around 50 percent as opposed to the statewide average of 80 percent) and that the high school dropout rate here is still almost twice as high as elsewhere in the state.

EDUCATION, ESPECIALLY LOCAL EDUCATION, HAS always been a prominent issue on campus. An entire network within Dwight Hall is devoted to the cause, including such diverse groups as Instrumental Connection, which brings music lessons to children who would otherwise not be able to afford them, and YHHAP: PEP-SLAM, which allows Yale students to tutor inmates in local prisons. In the context of the current reform proposal, two particular organizations stand out: the Yale College Democrats and New Haven Action.

“The Dems are leading the education reform lobbying program for the city,” said Lobbying Coordinator for the Yale College Democrats and President of the College Democrats of Connecticut, Ben Stango, PC ’11. “We take direction directly from the Mayor’s Office. We need the state to apply for federal funds that would allow the reform plan to be put into action, and our goal is to make sure that it takes the actions necessary to secure those funds.  This requires applying pressure to the New Haven state delegation (state senators and reps) and the Education Committee in Hartford.”

McCartney added that they would “be in constant contact with key members of the Board of Aldermen, parents and community leaders in order to encourage them to support New Haven’s application for federal ‘Race to the Top’ funds.”

New Haven Action, on the other hand, includes both a political action committee and a 501(c)(3) nonprofit component, which work together to push the organization’s agenda. Unlike the Dems, New Haven Action is not affiliated with any party, though its mission and philosophy are progressive.

“In general, what we do is focused on involving Yale students with New Haven politics and community service,” said Dan Hornung, JE ’12, director of the political action committee for New Haven Action. “Our role in this reform will involve some canvassing, getting students out there to educate community members about what this reform means to them so they can help put pressure on the state legislature.”

Hornung continued, “If the city and the state can get their act together, apply for this funding and if they are willing to make the necessary reforms, there will be the money there to support reform. You can’t ask for more than that.”

OF COURSE, IT IS NOT ONLY STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS that take the initiative but also individual students, on a daily or weekly basis. Many students on campus are involved in some sort of tutoring or mentoring program, and some even contribute outside the framework of a formal organization.

“My experience with New Haven education comes from being a Public School Intern for two years and from being the co-director of the Roosevelt education center two years ago, where I oversaw a couple of research projects conducted for the New Haven public schools,” said McCartney. “There’s nothing more frustrating to me than seeing a kid’s talent wasted because his school can’t prepare him for the future he’s capable of. And it’s also an area where a college student can really have an impact.”

Hornung explained that his involvement in education had very personal roots. “This is my second year mentoring a student at Fair Haven Middle School. It’s a two-hour commitment every Friday, and it involves not just homework help and tutoring but also life-oriented mentoring,” he said. “I grew up on the South Side of Chicago and I’ve been involved in these kinds of programs for a long time. Just look at the difference that extra attention, an extra two hours every week, can make on one person’s life. Imagine if we can bring that personalized attention to scale, to every student in New Haven and in the country.”

Another fact that attests to Yale students’ concern for public education is the great popularity of Teach for America, which started in 1990 as the thesis project of a college senior but is now one of the top choices for post-graduation employment. Just last year, a whopping 12 percent of Yale’s graduating class applied for a TFA position. Only 36 percent of those who applied got a position.

Minh Tran, MC ’09, who currently teaches at Elm City College Prep Middle School in New Haven, is one of those selected this year to participate.

“I had always wanted to teach, so it was a perfect match for me,” said Tran. “New Haven is a really great city and I believe that we can do so much more with the education here if we had more resources to devote to it.”

As for how test scores have barely changed over the course of the past decade, Tran said, “The problem lies mainly in demographics of the regions. New Haven is a heavily immigrant community; there is a large Hispanic and African-American population—and socioeconomically speaking, that makes a difference. The schools here do not benefit from the resources of a well-off community that one finds in predominantly white suburbs.”

Education reform, concluded Stango, is about the future. “If we do not make meaningful changes in way we educate kids, our nation will suffer immeasurably,” he said.  “We can make those changes right here in New Haven; Yale students can plan a major role in changing the lives of thousands of kids. How could we not be passionate about that?”