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And when Sheff VS Oniell goes into full effect, those same dicipline problems will be sent to Windsor, Bloomfield, Whethersfield...and then, when those kids are suspended 3 times in a month, and those schools finally expell the kids, the school systems will be at fault. Not he kids

My understanding of the settlement iis that the majority of kids in these really bad schools will probably stay there, since presumably most of their parents don't care about education and won't bother to send them to a suburban "magnet" school.

That settlement will divide the Hartofrd community into "haves" who go to magnet schools and "have nots" who stay in horrendous Hartford schools.

After reading this article I began to understand why the minority community in Hartford was so accepting of Clinton regardless of his endless criminal and unethical behavior. All of it fell within the bounds of "normal" behavior at their public schools!

I was hoping that this thread could also get into how these problems could be resolved.

My proposals (are ou listening governor RINO?):

(1) Treat youthful offenders as adults.

(2) Jail any teacher or administrator who attempts to cover up a criminal act.

(3) Jail parents of children who commit criminal acts.

(4) Close all schools in areas of town that are unsafe due to significant crime in the neighborhood.

(5) Instead of teaching kids about "diversity" and "black history" start teaching them about moraiity and responsibiiity for their own actions.

(6) Take one really bad kid a year and put him in the stock in front of the old state house so passersby can spit at him. It worked for the Puritans. It can work for Connecticut today.

Living in one of Hartford's border towns, I can attest to that. Our high school underwent a major renovation between 5 and 7 years ago. Basically gutted inside and replaced with new everything. Our system has always had its' share of "Project Concern" kids and others from Hartford when I was there through the 80's, but as the screwel system in Hartford continued it's downward spiral, more and more city kids began entering our system.

Walk down the hallways today, and it looks like the stereo-typical inner city screwel you see on tv. Urban graffitti inside and out, broken fixtures, vandalism, etc. Once Sheff v. O'Neill gets forced upon us, it'll only be a matter of time before the city's violence makes its' way to our screwel yards. It won't be an improvement of the educational system, it will be a degredation of successful systems to the level of the non-performing ones.

My father-in-law is a teacher in the south-western part of the state in a small town that neighbors a big-city. He is considered (and rightly so) one of the top teachers in the system. It has gotten to the point now where he is counting down the days until he is eligible for retirement. If they were to offer him an early retirement package with health care included, he would walk out the door today.

Teachers make an easy target sometimes (I enjoy bashing them myself), but I wouldn't put my FIL in that category. The situation is very problematic even if you ignore the NEA problem for a minute. Good teachers are getting frustrated with the fact that the inmates (students not union teachers) are running the asylum and they have no recourse. More and more quality teachers are either quitting education all together or moving to private schools. Not only do they have to worry about the usual ill-behaved, mouthy, wise-a$$ kids anymore, they now have to worry about getting beat up. Can't carry a side-arm ya' know. As if the teachers union wasn't doing a good enough job of destroying the public screwel system on it's own, you can now add to the situation that good teachers are fleeing in droves.