What has Connecticut manufactured, to a level of exquisite precision unmatched almost anywhere else on Earth?
No, no, no, I don’t mean Pratt & Whitney airplane engines or property-casualty insurance policies or superb newspaper columnists.
What gets Connecticut talked about with awe and fear is its educational “achievement gap” — its ability to produce and document test scores sorted by race and/or socioeconomic class.
The achievement gap is a most sought-after defect across the country, with school officials and social service agencies and race-based advocacy groups searching for evidence that white and black and brown and rich and poor achieve in well-defined niches that can be attributed to sins ranging from indifference to segregation to subtle racism.
Be it grades or test scores or graduation rates, there are few, if any, states that offer up evidence as grandiose as does Connecticut that the achievement gap is alive and well.
At low-key cocktail parties, when they are assured that no outsiders are listening, the “achievement gap” detectives will concede that in any random population, there will be an “achievement gap” — with Bell Curve data points revealing that student populations will sort themselves from genius to disappointment — whether the kids be black or white or Hispanic, whether dad is a butcher, baker, candlestick maker or, God help them, newspaper editor. Even in the absence of racial or socioeconomic differences, a measure of “gap” will appear — but the rules of the game say that we are only looking for gaps that represent mischief for which white folks can feel guilty.
The recreation for the sociologists is an achievement gap that can be neatly carved up among racial and socioeconomic groups. That is why Connecticut is cherished as the perfect laboratory.
In tiny Connecticut, the snobby bedroom suburbs will guarantee a sufficient pool of high achievers to produce an “achievement gap,” when compared to the cannon fodder in the factory towns and basket-case cities.
As a part of Connecticut’s pioneering efforts to show the nation how best to funnel money to favored consultants and how to perform pretend-reform — all in the name of closing the achievement gap — Connecticut’s Black and Puerto Rican Caucus in the General Assembly has crafted a clever piece of legislation that, as of this writing, has staggered out of the Education Committee in good health.
As God intended, this bill would require that a committee be formed to “study” the achievement gap. If nothing else is accomplished, this piece of the legislation will be considered sufficient if the committee can hold emotional public hearings; boss around legislative staff and state education officials to produce data and reports with colorful charts; and create a little slush fund for friendly consultants.
To keep things interesting, the caucus has included proposals to link teacher evaluations to student performance and to provide parents with tools to administratively blow up “failing” schools. It will take the state’s teachers’ unions at least three or four days to kill these particular provisions — with the understanding that the Democratic majority in the General Assembly is elected to protect union teachers, not students at the wrong end of a theoretical achievement gap.
It’s not about the parents. It’s not about the kids. It’s about the power — and those who have it, intend to keep it.
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Laurence D. Cohen is a freelance writer.
