Wilton’s Schools have ranked within the top five in Connecticut for many years, including last year. When I campaigned last summer, the number one concern that residents of Wilton voiced was to maintain the high quality of our schools. All other issues were secondary. Many people told me that they moved to Wilton only because of the schools. If I learned nothing else during my time knocking on doors it was to keep Wilton schools among the best in the state.
As a newly elected State Representative, I understand that school boards must remain under local control and that property taxes must be carefully invested as we educate our children. Regionalizing our schools is periodically raised in Hartford, but the concept is a non-starter for any of the communities that I represent and the proposals continue to receive only limited interest.
Wilton’s Board of Education is once again considering the Open Choice Program for Wilton schools. This program allows children from designated communities to attend school districts that adjoin their town. The program offers an opportunity for a small number of children to attend higher-rated schools and for the receiving town to welcome children that may be from different socioeconomic, racial or ethnic backgrounds than typically found in its community. The program is decades old, but was expanded to Norwalk and its surrounding towns only last year. Last year Westport enrolled around 30 Norwalk students, and Weston enrolled around 80. All of those students were first enrolled initially in kindergarten or first grade when there was an opening and they continued the progress until they graduate.
I have read the letters that oppose the Open Choice program. Most of the stated concern is with the cost, and I recognize that Wilton, like almost every other Connecticut school district, is forecasting a larger-than-usual budget increase for next year. I have also spoken with the Wilton Schools Superintendent Kevin Smith to thoroughly understand the financial considerations.
The Open Choice Program would be made available only if there is an open seat. With that in mind, the cost of an additional student is minimal. The fixed costs of our buildings and other infrastructure, classrooms, and teachers would be in the budget whether or not we participate in the Open Choice program. Additionally, the state would pay $3,000 for each child we take in, while the state and Norwalk would also pay for the students’ transportation and any special education costs. The cost of participating in the program adds money to our budget and builds a better community. In fact, our cost per student would actually go down.
I support the Wilton School District participating in the Open Choice program. The opportunity to add children from our state to highly rated schools benefits us all because educating everyone in Connecticut to their maximum potential benefits us all. While it is essential to protect our school districts with local school board control and strong parental involvement, this is an opportunity to allow our communities to work together to provide the best opportunities for more Connecticut children. It is an opportunity to share just a little of what we have built in our schools with the rest of Connecticut. It will add to the breadth of our students’ educational experiences and will make our schools even better.
Kudos for this well thought, well presented, fact based opinion. Also for the courage to make a public statement. As a long time town resident whose child was enrolled in Wilton schools from K through high school I too support the Wilton School District participating in the Open Choice program.
Thank you, Keith. I agree with you. On a selfish level, the Open Choice program would also benefit our children specifically, as de facto diversity enhances understanding, broadens outlooks and teaches life lessons that are not found in abstract discussions.
Adding two or three Norwalk students per grade to a school that has roughly 3,700 students will have very little impact on the average Wilton studnent’s experience. I am strongly in favor of exposing our children to more diversity but we need to find a more effective way of doing it. Open choice will have very little impact and at a very high cost.
It’ll have barely any cost, he literally addresses that in his piece.
And exactly what cheap alternative way to improve diversity would you care to suggest? Personally, I’d love to see Wilton build a lot more affordable housing, but I’m pretty sure you’d find a silly pretext to oppose that too.
Not referring to financial costs here. See my other comment.
Why not provide children A Better Chance in life by providing better schooling. “It is twice blest: it blesses those who receive and those who give the opportunity.” Indeed, it is a quality of mercy.
I agree that the cost of the program is not going to be a problem. While it may introduce some additional diversity into our schools it will also degrade the quality of education that our children receive. The lottery used by open choic for selecting participants will bring in students that will be a disruption in the classroom.
On the whole, are Norwalk students more disruptive than Wilton students? Whether you want to believe it or not, the answer is yes. This is generally true of city schools when compared to suburban schools and Wilton and Norwalk are no exception. To be clear, I’m not talking about the race, color or ethnicity of these students. I’m talking about the values and behavior that are learned at home and brought into the classroom. There are a lot of great families, parents, and kids in Norwalk. But when the approach is a random lottery you have to look at what sorts of students are most likely to come from that process and how they’ll affect our classrooms and our children.
I am not saying all these programs are bad. In fact, ABC of Wilton is an example of a program that does it right. This program fosters diversity without undermining our schools core values, like Respect, Responsibility and Readiness to learn. This is thanks to its selection process, accepting students that have good grades. Bringing in random students from Norwalk is a completely different approach and will have completely different results.
It is not fair to our teachers and it’s not fair to our children. We should never support a program where participation is based purely on lottery and where there is no process for removing disruptive students.
Do you have any actual evidence for this claim you keep repeating that Norwalk students are more disruptive than Wilton students?
Frankly, there seem to be quite a number of highly disruptive kids in my kids’ classes every year – I don’t see any reason to think this isn’t an equally big problem in Wilton, or to think that a kid we bring in through Open Choice is any more likely to turn out to be a troublemaker than a kid whose parents just bought a $3M house here. (in fact, based on my kids’ experience with disruptive classmates I’d probably be more worried about the $3M kid)
To be clear, disruptive kids are a problem, but using then as an excuse to block Open Choice is silly; if we’re worried about disruptive kids in classrooms, we should give the schools more money to hire more paraprofessionals to help teachers manage those kids.
Well Michael I really wish that was true because as I’ve said, I very much would like to see more diversity in our schools. Beyond anecdotal stories and just plain common sense you can look at a wide variety of data to answer this question and it all shows the same thing.
For example 1 in 26 students in Norwalk are expelled or suspended where in Wilton it was 1 out of 168. This is according to the CT Dept Of Education 2019-2020 District Profile and Performance Report. A few more numbers:
Math Proficiency: 29% in Norwalk vs 70% in Wilton
Language Proficiency: 44% in Norwalk vs 90% in Wilton
Absentee Rate: 12.4% in Norwalk vs 4.4% in Wilton
Expulsion Rate: 3.7% in Norwalk vs 0.6% in Wilton
You really don’t have to look very hard to see a dramatic difference. Whether you’re looking at statistics or talking to kindergarten and Pre-K teachers or talking to students you’re going to get the same answer. Norwalk students are much more disruptive than Wilton students and we don’t want that behavior in our schools.
References:
https://edsight.ct.gov/Output/District/HighSchool/1610011_201920.pdf
https://edsight.ct.gov/Output/District/HighSchool/1030011_201920.pdf
https://www.publicschoolreview.com/wilton-high-school-profile
https://www.publicschoolreview.com/connecticut/norwalk-school-district/903090-school-district
Putting aside financial aspect of the program and whole “diversity” idea, I don’t believe many “disruptive” kids would end up in Wilton Schools. The parents of the kids who would apply (and get randomly selected) are caring and trying to get better opportunities for them, so they would be rather interested in kids succeeding in school. Open Choice is not taking random kids and forcing them to attend “better” schools.
“Disruptive” kids are in most cases result of parents not caring about them, regardless of social status.
All of these numbers you mention are from high school – if Wilton’s schools are so much better than Norwalk’s then you would fully expect those numbers to be better in Wilton because Wilton kids have had the benefit of going to Wilton schools from K-8.
I also don’t see how math or language proficiency has anything to do with disruptiveness, even in lower grades; if a kid is raised in a house where English is not the primary language, they’re probably going to score lower on language proficiency through absolutely no fault of the kid or their family. (I suspect Wilton also puts in considerably more resources to avoiding suspensions/expulsions than Norwalk does)
And my own anecdotal information + experience with Norwalk kids seems to be dramatically different from yours; I don’t know what teachers you’re talking to, but the Norwalk elementary teachers I’ve spoken to certainly don’t feel that way about their students, and the kids at the extracurriculars / camps my kids attend in Norwalk tend to be every bit as lovely as Wilton kids.
I’ll admit that I don’t have any statistical argument with which to refute yours, simply because the kind of disruption I would actually worry about – kids preventing teachers from teaching properly – is hard to measure; at the same time, though, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and claiming that one town’s children are dramatically worse-behaved than another’s is a pretty extraordinary claim.
Mr. Phillips, Maybe we should disband the Wilton/Norwalk/Brien McMahon Girls Hockey Team. We are already a community without boundaries…
Interdistrict sports is one of the best ways we can teach our children to value diversity. The Wilton/Norwalk/Brien McMahon Girls Hockey team is such a great program, schools should do a lot more of this sort of thing.
Bringing randomly selected students from another district into the classroom is very different from creating an opportunity for kids from different schools to play a sports together on the same team.
Schools are funded by both property taxes and state income taxes…how much state income tax does Wilton pay in and how much is remitted? Let’s do the same analysis for Norwalk? Also, when it comes to “evidence”, how about Keith or the proponents provide data that shows quantifiable improvement in the educational outcome for Westport’s students pre/post Open Choice implementation?
Cost, spurious platitudes and lies around the realized negative impact born by accepting schools makes open choice a community issue and should allow for all voices to be reflected opposed to only the school board. If Wilton residents vote affirmatively to accept this program, excellent. If not, let this idea finally be put to rest.
The voters elected the Board of Education, as you of all people should be well aware.
And I’m pretty sure that I don’t have to explain the logic of income redistribution to you either; no town is an island, Norwalk residents are just as much a part of all of our lives as Wilton residents are and the notion that supporting Norwalk schools is not a good use of our income tax dollars is downright offensive.
Who said supporting Norwalk schools wasn’t a good use? Any false projection as such is downright offensive and intentionally inflammatory to civil discourse as you of all people should be well aware.
“How much state income tax does Wilton pay in and how much is remitted? Let’s do the same analysis for Norwalk?” If that’s not meant to imply that our tax dollars should not be going to Norwalk then you ought to have phrased it better.
Rep. Denning is presenting some twisted logic here or he should present hard facts to explain it. On one hand we have been hearing if single dollar was taken from school budget, it would be disaster and means “more kids in classrooms”. But here we find Dr. Smith has “open seats”, what means classes are not full! So, the following questions should be answered first:
– How many “open seats” are available and in what grades?
– If plenty of those seats are there, why not liquidate them and reduce staff costs (what is the main driver of the school budget) and give it back to Wilton taxpayers?
– How approximately 5K $ in subsidies can offset 20K $ per pupil cost?
Rep. Denning campaigned as “moderate Democrat” and promised to focus on getting on issues that are common problems for all residents: car tax, jobs, getting funds for the town. So far, his “moderation” manifested in support of Open Choice and Assisted Suicide, very moderate and for sure non-controversial topics
If he wants to do something good for education equality here are some ideas:
– Work on improving quality of underperforming school districts, by increasing state support but supervision of them as well,
– Legislate full funding of Open Choice costs (i.e. 20K $ instead of 5K $)
– If he wants to go bold, propose ending local funding for schools and financing all students from the general state budget. Each district would get the same funding per pupil and could not claim they have not blame lack of money for low performance. Additionally, property taxes would be much lower (but other taxes higher) and found just essential services of the town, not education.
I hope Rep. Denning would consider some of above ideas in his tenure and prove his moderation was not just campaign slogan.
Beware the donkey’s nose as it gets under the tent. Time to go.
I appreciate having a Representative who is willing to take a principled stand, even knowing it may be controversial.
(Interesting to note that we are having this conversation just as a school in Florida has been told that it cannot show a film about six-year-old Ruby Bridges being escorted into her first day at an all-white school in 1960. As Faulkner wrote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”)
I take heart in the attitude of a wealthy German businessman who, during an interview with a U.S. journalist, was asked twice about his feelings about his high tax rate, a question that he rather shrugged off. When the question was raised for a third time, he looked at her intently, leaned forward with this elbows on his knees, and replied, “I do not want to be a rich man in a poor country.”
The Open Choice Program would be made available only if there is an open seat. With that in mind, the cost of an additional student is minimal. The fixed costs of our buildings and other infrastructure, classrooms, and teachers would be in the budget whether or not we participate in the Open Choice program. Additionally, the state would pay $3,000 for each child we take in, while the state and Norwalk would also pay for the students’ transportation and any special education costs. The cost of participating in the program adds money to our budget and builds a better community. In fact, our cost per student would actually go down.
I am not sure about the economics here. Enrollment has a direct impact on costs. If there are “open seats”, this means that the number of students has declined to a point where we should think about consolidating classes and reducing the number of teachers. Teachers are not a fixed cost but a variable cost.
I appreciate Representative Denning for articulating his position and spurring debate. People reveal their values when discussing issues that affect their town. These comments offer proof that we need to hear from more Wiltonians to get a true reading of our town citizens opinions.