Robert Cotto, Jr.

What does it mean when changes to educational policy that begin in urban districts go on to shape the policy for schools statewide?

That was a question asked by Robert Cotto, Jr. in his talk: “Connecticut Catches a Case of the G.E.R.M.” at Trinity College as part of the Center for Urban and Global Studies’ Global Vantage Point Lecture Series.

The G.E.R.M. referred to is the global education reform movement, which he said “pushes a prescribed curriculum” and includes “test-based accountability and control.”

“We think the suburbs is where where the action” is in terms of changes to education policy, Cotto said, but cities are where the theories get tested.

In 2012, Gov. Malloy declared that it was the “Year of Education Reform” and unveiled six principles. Of those, three were already being practiced in Hartford and New Haven; New Haven was already using test-based teacher evaluations, and both cities had limited expansion of preschool programs and limited use of conditional funding.

The Hartford and New Haven models “appeared” to be successful, but Cotto chalked that up to what he calls “addition through subtraction,” or test scores getting an artificial boost when students with disabilities no longer had to take the same standardized test.

What the urban/G.E.R.M. policies do achieve, Cotto said, is a narrowing of policy discussion to just those schools that primarily serve children of color and/or provide fewer supplemental education services (free tutoring). It “does not disturb communities” with white and/or more tutoring services available, he said. These policies have gained approval from the elite and have benefited political patrons.

But do they benefit the students?

Those attending the talk had such questions. For schools needing more help, have there been any cases of the State simply providing the resources instead of taking extreme interventions, like closing schools?

Extra supports from the State, Cotto said, are almost always conditional.

It plays out differently in the suburbs, however. Citing the public schools in Madison as an example, Cotto said that because of a superintendent‘s and school board’s refusal to adopt certain G.E.R.M. policies, the district would lose State support. But, instead of jumping through hoops for dollars, appeals were made for more local contributions.

In contrast to G.E.R.M. policies, there is “The Finnish Way,” a model designed around customized learning experiences, a focus on creative learning, and the encouragement of risk-taking, among other things. Cotto said these competing models make similar claims, that using one over the other would boost an area’s economic competitiveness.

Finland is not the United States. It’s smaller. It’s racially and ethnically homogenous for the most part. The United States experiences “massive socioeconomic disparities” that “don’t exist in Finland,” Cotto said.

Finland does have people living in poverty though. The difference, besides the absence of enormous disparity, is that Finland has a stronger social safety net. Students there do not have their educational outcomes determined by parental income levels.

Here — especially in Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts — we see segregation and stratification based on socioeconomic indicators. The higher the percentage of students receiving free or reduced school lunch, the lower the district performance index, a composite indicator connected to standardized test data.

Does that mean that we are locked into the global education reform movement because of our socioeconomic disparities?

Cotto thinks that The Finnish Way remains a possibility: “We’ve done it before, but have gone on to a different model” since.

The next Global Vantage Point Lecture Series event will be in November.