Jodi Rell

Governor Jodi Rell,

I believe that there is a much to be done to help desegregate the public schools of Connecticut. As of now the schools are very segregated on a geographical level. The students in the poor urban areas are limited to a lower education compared to that of the more affluent suburban areas. Their parents are their limiting factors. Their parents are not able to move them out to a more affluent neighborhood and their current location is not able to provide a good education for the kids.

The problem as it stands now is that the education system is based on the tax collected for the particular city. This means that in poor urban areas such as Hartford the city does not collect a lot of tax from the citizens. This lack of funds is what causes the lower education level in certain areas. This must be changed or else it causes a horrible economic chain. The chain will only bring these people into poverty and not allow for them to work their way out. The parents of these children were not offered a good education therefore they were not able to get good steady jobs. This caused them to have to raise their kids in a low income area. Because of this their children had a limited education which capped their potential to get a good stable job. This cycle will continue until something is done about the school systems in the state.

There are many ways in which this problem can be fixed.

* There must be a change in which education budgets are handled. The taxes collected for education should not be controlled but town and city governments. This money should go to the state governments which will be able to distribute the money more evenly to the districts that need the money. This will help to give the lower income schools better technology in this ever changing world. This way kids will have an equal playing field with their suburban peers.

* In order to better distribute races so that there are no particular concentrations I believe that the state should give inner city and poorer kids the chance to go to schools in more affluent and suburban areas. I do not recommend relocating all kids because it would cause a large inconvenience for most. However I do believe that those kids in the urban areas that show potential and would strive to get a better chance than their parents had should