New Haven is my adopted home. I wasn't born here, I didn't grow up here. I have no clan who traveled from the south 3 generations ago and settled in Dixwell or Dwight to take advantage of wartime jobs. I didn't attend Yale nor do I work there. I no longer have any formal role in the the city's Democratic Party hierarchy. I just live here.
Here, in a city that is situated downstream from the catastrophic economic changes of the last few decades. A company town with an entrenched full-time mayor and his political machine, and a part-time legislative body. A segregated town where a segment of the promising middle class cycles out after obtaining a degree and another segment goes house shopping in Hamden or Guilford when the first kid turns 4.
When we first arrived, we would drive around town. Soon I was playing a game, "Where's PS Waldo?" as we would encounter one after another of the city's breathtakingly beautiful school buildings. (And yes, there are some spectacular duds.) What kind of city is this I wondered, having spent years doing education activism in New York, that builds such beautiful schools?
I found out, yes I did. It's a city that believes in top-down, ham-fisted educational reform based on old liberal pieties. Convention wisdom has it that the Board of Education is a known depository for the politically connected, the mediocre loyalist and the status-seeking small-town careerist of middling abilities. It's a city that is re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic as its neighborhoods become more racially and economically segregated, and where job creation is thought of as an act of noblesse oblige or chum on political waters.
And the 2 schools that were in terrible shape? They exist today, more than a decade after this battle, as 1) a charter school and 2) a medical offices building. And Mauro? It's closed. Not enough students. The vacant land? Sold to Yale New Haven Hospital and converted into a parking lot. And the neighborhood? Go see for yourself.
And, too: I can't seem to upload the trailer, so click the link.
Here, in a city that is situated downstream from the catastrophic economic changes of the last few decades. A company town with an entrenched full-time mayor and his political machine, and a part-time legislative body. A segregated town where a segment of the promising middle class cycles out after obtaining a degree and another segment goes house shopping in Hamden or Guilford when the first kid turns 4.
When we first arrived, we would drive around town. Soon I was playing a game, "Where's PS Waldo?" as we would encounter one after another of the city's breathtakingly beautiful school buildings. (And yes, there are some spectacular duds.) What kind of city is this I wondered, having spent years doing education activism in New York, that builds such beautiful schools?
I found out, yes I did. It's a city that believes in top-down, ham-fisted educational reform based on old liberal pieties. Convention wisdom has it that the Board of Education is a known depository for the politically connected, the mediocre loyalist and the status-seeking small-town careerist of middling abilities. It's a city that is re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic as its neighborhoods become more racially and economically segregated, and where job creation is thought of as an act of noblesse oblige or chum on political waters.
For those of you who haven't seen it, the documentary, "The Hill", tells the story of an eminent domain battle between New Haven and residents of an area called the Upper Hill. Goaded by state dollars that paid more for new construction than renovation, hubris, political calculation and vanity, the city set out to build a school. The Upper Hill was and is a low-income area of homeowners and tenants. The city's rationale was that since 2 other schools nearby were in terrible condition, and another school, Mauro, near the contested land could not accommodate the influx of more students another building was required. To build would require removal of many households. Some people were glad to go. Others not, so they suggested that the city build on unused city-owned land nearby. Those who wanted to stay (and their allies) raised hell and fought the city all the way to federal court to be able to keep their homes. On a fine legal point (the doctrine of laches) they lost their case, although their moral argument won the day.
The homes were razed, the neighbors dispersed often incurring significant debt to rent or buy elsewhere, and the school was built. In what I can only imagine was a final gesture worthy of Marie Antoinette, the school was named after the city's sole African-American mayor as if losing one's home and community is a small price to pay to honor a black man who led the city for 4 years.And the 2 schools that were in terrible shape? They exist today, more than a decade after this battle, as 1) a charter school and 2) a medical offices building. And Mauro? It's closed. Not enough students. The vacant land? Sold to Yale New Haven Hospital and converted into a parking lot. And the neighborhood? Go see for yourself.
And, too: I can't seem to upload the trailer, so click the link.
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