Connecticut is home to some of the nation's starkest inequality between neighboring school districts, new data shows.

As part of a project examining disparities in education, the Washington D.C.-based think tank New America analyzed thousands of adjacent school systems across the U.S., comparing the median household income of one district against the other. By this measure, previously unpublished data shows, Connecticut is home to 23 of the top 300 most unequal borders in the country, including eight of the top 100.

In most cases, these borders are between the state's largest cities and their suburbs, though in some instances the disadvantaged district is a small city or suburb. The border between Hartford and South Windsor represents the starkest disparity, followed by Hartford and West Hartford, Bridgeport and Fairfield, Bridgeport and Trumbull, and Waterbury and Cheshire.

A first-in-the-nation program that connects families with young children to affordable housing in Connecticut is growing.

The Head Start on Housing program is administering an additional 35 state-funded housing vouchers for low-income families enrolled in Head Start, a federally funded preschool program that promotes school readiness for children up to age 5.

“Get your son out of this school.”

That’s the message Yanira Rios received seven years ago from her son’s kindergarten teacher shortly after moving to Bridgeport, the only community in the region where she could afford an apartment. Her son had learned to read in preschool before leaving Shelton, and now Rios was being told that his teacher needed to focus on his classmates, who were far behind him academically.

“It was so discouraging to have a teacher beg you, ‘You have to figure it out. You have to get your kid out of here, because at the end of the year he’s going to be behind,'” said Rios.

Segregation Is Preventable. Congress Just Isn’t Trying.
Again and again, federal efforts to promote integration have been whittled down almost to nothing.

AMA calls for alleviating racial housing segregation, Medical Press, August 2, 2018, available here

‘When I See Racial Disparities, I See Racism.’ Discussing Race, Gender and Mobility, Claire Cain Miller, Emily Badger, Noelle Hurd, Ibram X. Kendi, Nathaniel Hendren, Raj Chetty, New York Times, March 27, 2018, available here

Extensive Data Shows Punishing Reach of Racism for Black Boys, Emily Badger, Claire Cain Miller, Adam Pearce, and Kevin Quealy, New York Times, March 19, 2018, available here

No progress seen for African-Americans on housing, jobs, and incarceration, Tracy Jan, The Boston Globe, February 26, 2018, available here

Conversations Aren't Enough, Teaching Tolerance, Spring 2017, available here.

White families with children are drawn to less diverse neighborhoods, schools, Emily Gersema, USC News, March 22nd, 2017, available here