Stamford Public Schools: From Desegregated Schools to Integrated Classrooms

Located in southwestern Connecticut, about forty miles from New York City, Stamford is a relatively diverse community located in an affluent state and region. Median household income for the city’s 129,000 residents is roughly $77,000—slightly above the state average but only about half that of neighboring Greenwich. Ten percent of the population is living at or below the poverty line. And in a state that is 71 percent white, only 53 percent of Stamford residents are white.¹

Enrollment in Stamford Public Schools reflects this diversity. In the 2015–16 school year, the district enrolled roughly 16,000 students. Of those, 40 percent were Hispanic, 32 percent white, 18 percent black, 9 percent Asian, and 2 percent two or more races. Just over half (52 percent) of students were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, 13 percent of students were English language learners, and 12 percent of students had special needs.²

In contrast with many northeastern cities, Stamford has shown remarkable success maintaining racially and socioeconomically desegregated schools thanks to strong district policies and state laws that date back to the 1960s and 1970s. Over the past decade, the district has also committed to integrating classrooms through de-tracking and successfully reduced achievement gaps while increasing overall test scores.

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History of School Integration Efforts in Stamford

Stamford’s progress promoting diversity and equity in public schools over the past fifty years is the result of at least three different efforts: a state law that reinforced the goal of racial integration, district policies to desegregate schools in the 1960s and 1970s, and the district’s push for de-tracking in the late 2000s.

Connecticut’s Racial Imbalance Law

In 1969, Connecticut enacted a law requiring all public schools to be racially balanced, falling within a defined range of district average enrollment of minority students.³ And after a delay of eleven years, the state issued regulations for implementing the law in 1980.⁴ Several other states passed similar laws over the years—including California, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania—but Connecticut’s law is one of the strongest and is still in place.⁵

In its current form, the law requires each district in the state to report the racial composition of the teaching staff and the percentage of minority (non-white, non-Hispanic) students and students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch in each of its schools. Any school in which minority enrollment is more than 25 percentage points above or below the district average for those grade levels is deemed “racially imbalanced,” and schools that fall outside a 15 percentage point range from the district average are cited for “impending racial imbalance.” Districts must submit plans for addressing the imbalance, which are approved and monitored by the state.⁶

While Stamford’s desegregation efforts predate this law and are more robust, the state context further supports and justifies the district’s policies.

Desegregating Stamford Schools

Stamford began voluntarily racially desegregating schools in the early 1960s. In 1962, Stamford’s Board of Education developed a plan to desegregate the district’s two high schools. Then in 1967–1968, the board created a new attendance plan to desegregated middle schools. Finally, in 1972, the board voted unanimously for a new policy to integrate all schools in the district, including elementary schools, by setting a goal of having the percentage of minority students at each school fall within plus or minus 10 percentage points of the district average. The district was to achieve this goal by regularly reviewing and adjusting school attendance zones and creating magnet schools that could draw students from multiple neighborhoods.⁷

A 1977 report by the Connecticut Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found that the Stamford Board of Education had successfully developed and implemented plans to create racial balance in schools. The report credited the board, school staff, and community members for committing to the goals of integration.⁸ While the NAACP’s efforts monitoring school segregation in Stamford helped to spur initial school desegregation efforts, district leaders actively carried this work forward. Perhaps as a result of this strong district leadership, school integration in Stamford was a relatively smooth political process, with no sizable pattern of white flight from the district.⁹

Stamford’s communities of color, however, were not well represented in these early discussions that shaped desegregation policies. District leaders and school staff in Stamford were largely white, and the district’s efforts to engage the local community in this process focused mostly on white residents.¹⁰ Already in 1977, the Advisory Committee’s report noted that the underrepresentation of minority leadership, staff, and teachers was “one of the most serious problems in the school system” and pointed out ways that students of color were receiving lower-quality instruction than white peers in the same schools.¹¹ However, it would take until thirty years later for the school district to prioritize engaging communities of color and addressing within-school inequities.

De-tracking Classes

Stamford has a long history of tracking students based on performance into different levels for core academic classes. In the early 1960s, middle schoolers in the district were sorted into fifteen different groups based on ability. When the board passed a plan to desegregate middle schools in the late 1960s, Stamford reduced the number of tracks to four but made no other efforts to address racial or economic stratification within these groups.¹²

Already in the 1970s, experts advised Stamford of the harmful effects of this system. The 1977 Advisory Committee report highlighted academic tracking as an impediment to equity in the district. “Ability grouping as it now operates tends to resegregate the school system and reinforce feelings of inadequacy in minority students in the middle and high schools,” the Committee concluded. “To the extent that it is educationally feasible, the school board should take steps to eliminate ability grouping at all educational levels.”¹³ Nevertheless, by the time that Joshua Starr became superintendent of Stamford Public Schools in 2005—nearly three decades later—tracking in the district had only grown more entrenched. When Starr arrived in Stamford, middle schools in the district had four or five academic tracks. Students were assigned to tracks at the beginning of their sixth grade year based on a numerical score derived from a number of different standardized tests. They stayed in that group for all subjects, for the entire year, and usually throughout all of middle school. Students who had been in lower tracks in middle school typically ended up in lower-level courses in high school. Some elementary schools had also begun separating students out by reading group levels starting in third grade.¹⁴

“It was about whether all kids were getting the instruction they needed to be prepared for the 21st century.”

Starr made de-tracking the central policy goal of his tenure. “I knew that the major issue facing the district was the tracking of students,” he reflected. “I knew from day one that that was the work, and I started laying the groundwork for it.”¹⁵ Starr began highlighting student achievement data that clearly showed black and Hispanic students in the district were not receiving the same quality education as their white and Asian peers. He framed de-tracking as part of a bigger effort to improve teaching and learning. “It was about whether all kids were getting the instruction they needed to be prepared for the 21st century.”¹⁶ During the first few years of Starr’s leadership, the district began a major teacher training initiative to improve instruction in core subjects and equip teachers with the tools to differentiate their lessons, reaching students with different skill levels.¹⁷

Whereas communities of color were often missing from the school desegregation discussions of the 1960s and 1970s, Starr made a concerted effort to reach out to the black and Latino community. Many parents and community members who had never come to school board meetings before showed up to listen to and participate in the discussions about de-tracking. At one school board meeting, several Stamford teachers who had also been students in Stamford talked about how they had been tracked, how terrible it was for them as students, and how much they hated it as teachers.¹⁸

By 2009, the district had created the instructional capacity, and Starr had built the political support, needed to tackle the issue. Starr recalls that during his fourth year with the district, when he announced in his opening day speech, “We are going to eliminate tracking this year,” that “people stood up and applauded, which had never happened before.”¹⁹ Stamford began reducing the number of academic tracks and creating pathways to move more students into high-level courses.²⁰ In 2010, the GE Foundation gave Stamford a grant of $10.5 million dollars, adding to an earlier award of $15.3 million, with continuing de-tracking efforts as one of the specific projects to be funded.²¹

The Current Plan

As a result of these efforts spanning five decades, Stamford currently has a robust policy to desegregate schools and a number of efforts in place to integrate classrooms by reducing academic tracking.

Integrating Schools

In 2007, in response to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Parents Involved in Community Schools, which limited school districts’ ability to consider students’ individual race in school assignments, Stamford revised its integration policy to be based on educational need rather than race.²² Under the current policy, Stamford sets a goal for all schools in the district to fall within plus or minus 10 percentage points of the district average enrollment of disadvantaged students (defined as students receiving free and reduced-price lunch, English language learners, and students living in income-restricted housing).²³ The district achieves this goal by frequently reexamining attendance boundaries for neighborhood schools and weighting magnet school lotteries by both educational disadvantage (balancing the percentage of disadvantaged students at each school) and geographic zone (allowing preference for students from certain zones where neighborhood schools are overenrolled or imbalanced).²⁴

Integrating Classrooms

Under Starr’s leadership, Stamford eliminated ability grouping in elementary school classes; replaced the middle school system of five rigid tracks with a system of two flexible levels, allowing students to enroll in different levels for different subjects and move into the higher level mid-year; and created open access to honors and AP classes in high school.²⁵ The district is continuing to work on moving more middle and high school students into higher level classes.²⁶

Impact on Integration and Student Outcomes

Stamford has met its integration goal for a majority of its schools and has also succeeded in increasing representation of minority students in high-level classes, boosting overall academic achievement, and reducing achievement gaps.

Diversity in Schools and Classrooms

In the 2015–2016 school year, eighteen of Stamford’s twenty schools fell within the 10 percentage point goal for enrollment of disadvantaged students (with 54 percent of students qualifying as disadvantaged district-wide).²⁷ The two schools that missed the goal were each 14 percentage points below the district average, and one of those schools made progress compared to the previous year in getting closer to the district average.²⁸ All Stamford schools also met the state desegregation standard for enrolling minority students in 2015–2016. Statewide that year, five schools were cited for racial imbalance and twenty-six schools were cited for impending racial imbalance.²⁹

Stamford has also seen an increase in racial diversity in high-level courses as a result of de-tracking efforts. From 2010 to 2014, the percentage of Stamford’s black and Hispanic students taking AP courses doubled, from 11 percent of black students and 22 percent of Hispanic students taking AP course in 2010 to 29 percent of black students and 43 percent of Hispanic students in 2014 (see Figure 1). (While encouraging, these rates still lag far behind white and Asian students.)

Academic Achievement

Stamford has also shown strong academic achievement while meeting its integration goals. As of fall 2015, Stamford had the highest overall academic performance out of the five largest school districts in Connecticut, and low-income students in the district performed above the state average.³⁰

Most notably, since Stamford began work on de-tracking and curricular reform, achievement gaps between student subgroups have decreased at the same time that achievement across all groups has increased. Between 2006 and 2013, the percentage of white and Asian students passing state math, reading, and writing exams in grades 3–8 grew by a few percentage points, while the percentage of black and Hispanic students passing state tests rose dramatically. Accordingly, the achievement gap for grades 3–8 between the highest achieving racial subgroup (Asian students) and lowest-achieving racial subgroup (black students) fell by one-third in reading and math, with a modest decrease in writing as well (see Figure 2). Similarly, both low-income students and middle-class students were more likely to pass the state eighth grade math, reading, and writing tests in 2013 than in 2006, while the gap in achievement between the two groups also fell across all three subjects (see Figure 3).

Stamford also saw an increase in graduation rates for all student subgroups by race/ethnicity and by free and reduced-price lunch eligibility from 2010 to 2013. Over that period of time, the gap in graduation rates between the racial/ethnic group with the highest rate (Asian students in 2010, and white students in 2013) and the group with the lowest rate (Hispanic students) fell from 22 percentage points to 14 percentage points. Likewise, the gap in the graduation rates of students eligible for free lunch versus non-eligible students fell from 12 percentage points to 9 percentage points.³¹

While these gaps in student performance are still sizable, Stamford is making progress in closing them.

Lessons for Other Districts

Stamford’s efforts to desegregate schools and integrate classrooms point to several lessons for other school districts and state policymakers.

Having a Measurable Goal for Integration Is Powerful.

Stamford’s policy of having all schools fall within 10 percentage points of the district average for enrollment of disadvantaged students (and earlier, minority students) helped ensure that district leaders and the school board would push forward the enrollment policies needed to create more integrated schools. “Having that hard and fast rule was really powerful,” Starr reflected. The 10 percent rule not only kept the district accountable for enrollment policies but also served as a broader statement of the district’s commitment to equity that Starr leveraged to promote within-school integration. “It enabled us to push on tracking in ways that I might not have been able to if I didn’t have that 10 percent rule.”³²

De-tracking Classes Is an Issue of Equity and Quality.

Stamford’s experience demonstrates that desegregating schools is not enough; equity and excellence require integrating classrooms and ensuring that students of all backgrounds have access to rigorous coursework. The district approached the work of de-tracking classes as a question of integration but also as an issue of improving instruction across the board, and Stamford’s success in improving performance for all subgroups while reducing achievement gaps reflects that commitment.

State Context Matters.

The success of Stamford’s school integration efforts is part of a bigger trend across the state. A 2015 report from the Civil Rights Project found that Connecticut as a whole has made significant progress integrating schools over the past three decades, in contrast with neighboring New York and Massachusetts.³³

Connecticut’s Racial Imbalance Law—and enforcement of that law—is one of the tools that has enabled the state to make progress on integrating schools in recent decades. In racially diverse districts like Stamford, the state law provides a lever for making districts work to keep schools from becoming racially isolated. However, the segregation between Connecticut districts is an even greater problem than the segregation within them, as is the case nationwide.³⁴ While Stamford has enough diversity within district boundaries to create socioeconomically and racially diverse schools, the demographics of some the neighboring school districts in the metro area surrounding Stamford illustrate this disparity. For example, Bridgeport is a high-poverty district where all students now receive free lunch through the Community Eligibility Provision of the school meals program, whereas New Canaan has not offered the free and reduced-price meals program at all since 2005, after only sixteen of the district’s roughly 4,000 students qualified for the program that year.³⁵

While the Racial Imbalance Law does not address inter-district segregation, a 1996 Connecticut Supreme Court ruling does. The court found in Sheff v. O’Neill that the racial isolation of black and Hispanic students in Hartford Public Schools, in contrast with the mostly white suburban school districts that surrounded the city, was unconstitutional.³⁶ A subsequent settlement provided an inter-district integration plan for the Hartford region based on voluntary school choice, and some inter-district transfer programs and magnet schools exist in other areas across the state as well.³⁷ Expanding these inter-district integration efforts across the state is essential for addressing the extreme segregation that remains between many Connecticut school districts. The next step for promoting integration in Stamford is to augment within-district efforts with more inter-district efforts.

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This profile is part of The Century Foundation’s Stories of School Integration series.

1. “QuickFacts, Stamford City, Connecticut, 2010–2015 data,” U.S. Census Bureau, https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045215/0973000,00.
2. “EdSight: Insight into Education,” Connecticut State Department of Education, http://edsight.ct.gov/SASPortal/main.do.
3. Judith Lohman, “Legislative History of the Racial Imbalance Law,” OLR Resarch Report, 2010-$-0249, June 4, 2010, https://www.cga.ct.gov/2010/rpt/2010-R-0249.htm.
4. Gary Orfield and Jongyeon Ee, Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, The Civil Rights Project, April 2015, https://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/integration-and-diversity/connecticut-school-integration-moving-forward-as-the-northeast-retreats/orfield-ee-connecticut-school-integration-2015.pdf p. 11.
5. Al Baker, “Law on Racial Diversity Stirs Greenwich Schools,” The New York Times, July 19, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/20/nyregion/law-on-racial-diversity-stirs-greenwich-schools.html?_r=2.
6. “State Regulation 10-226e: Regulations to Implement the Racial Imbalance Law,” Connecticut State Department of Education, amended November 29, 1999, http://www.sde.ct.gov/sde/cwp/view.asp?a=2683&Q=334900 An exception in the law exists for any school in a district with at least 50 percent minority enrollment in which 25–75 percent of students are racial minorities. These schools are labeled “diverse schools” and do not need plans for correcting racial imbalance even if they would otherwise be labeled “racially imbalanced” based on the 25 percentage point rule.
7. Connecticut Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, School Desegregation in Stamford, Connecticut, July 1977, https://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/usccr/documents/cr1204515.pdf p. 14.
8. Connecticut Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, School Desegregation in Stamford, Connecticut, July 1977, https://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/usccr/documents/cr1204515.pdf p. 61.
9. “Survey Finds School Desegregation Successful in Stamford,” The Morning Record, August 25, 1976, https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2512&dat=19760825&id=ypJHAAAAIBAJ&sjid=gP8MAAAAIBAJ&pg=1226,2837822&hl=en.
10. Connecticut Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, School Desegregation in Stamford, Connecticut, July 1977, https://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/usccr/documents/cr1204515.pdf p. 14.
11. Connecticut Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, School Desegregation in Stamford, Connecticut, July 1977, https://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/usccr/documents/cr1204515.pdf p. 61.
    
12. Connecticut Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, School Desegregation in Stamford, Connecticut, July 1977, https://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/usccr/documents/cr1204515.pdf p. 36.
13. Connecticut Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, School Desegregation in Stamford, Connecticut, July 1977, https://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/usccr/documents/cr1204515.pdf p. 62.
14. Joshua Starr, phone interview by author, September 9, 2016.
15. Joshua Starr, phone interview by author, September 9, 2016.
16. Joshua Starr, phone interview by author, September 9, 2016.
17. Joshua Starr, phone interview by author, September 9, 2016.
18. Joshua Starr, phone interview by author, September 9, 2016.
19. Joshua Starr, phone interview by author, September 9, 2016.
20. Winnie Hu, “No Longer Letting Scores Separate Pupils,” The New York Times, June 14, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/15/education/15stamford.html.
21. Wynne Parry, “Stamford Schools Receive Additional $10.5 Million from GE,” Stamford Advocate, http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/local/article/Stamford-schools-receive-additional-10-5-million-539297.php
22. “School Choice Options: A Presentation to the Teaching Learning Committee of the Board of Education,” Stamford Public Schools, November 17, 2015, http://www.stamfordpublicschools.org/sites/stamfordps/files/uploads/magnet_school_presentation.pdf.
23. “Stamford Board of Education Policies: Adoption 2015,” Stamford Public Schools, 2015, http://www.stamfordpublicschools.org/sites/stamfordps/files/uploads/policybinder_revised_160621_.pdf, policy 5117.
24. “School Choice Options: A Presentation to the Teaching Learning Committee of the Board of Education,” Stamford Public Schools, November 17, 2015, http://www.stamfordpublicschools.org/sites/stamfordps/files/uploads/magnet_school_presentation.pdf 
25. Joshua Starr, phone interview by author, September 9, 2016.
26. Winifred Hamilton, “Superintendent’s Goals Progress,” June 19, 2015, http://www.stamfordpublicschools.org/sites/stamfordps/files/uploads/superintendents_goals_progress_6-19-15.pdf p. 4.
27. It is worth noting, however, that the three charter schools located in Stamford, which are not operated by the district, all have majority-low-income enrollment, ranging from 68 percent of students receiving free and reduced price lunch at Stamford Charter School for Excellence to 85 percent of students eligible for free lunch at Stamford Academy, and majority-black or Hispanic enrollment, ranging from 87 percent black and Hispanic at Stamford Charter School for Excellence to 95 percent black and Hispanic at Trailblazers Academy. (See “EdSight: Insight into Education,” Connecticut State Department of Education, http://edsight.ct.gov/SASPortal/main.do.) This reflects a broader trend for charter schools in the state. (See Robert Cotto and Kenneth Feder, Choice Watch: Diversity and Access in Connecticut’s School Choice Programs, Connecticut Voices for Children, April 2014, http://www.ctvoices.org/sites/default/files/edu14choicewatchfull.pdf.)
    It is difficult to compare performance in these three charter schools to that of Stamford’s district schools. Two of these schools have low standardized test scores and graduation rates but specifically serve students who struggled in traditional school environments—Trailblazers Academy in grades 6–8, and Stamford Academy in grades 9–12. The third school, Stamford Charter School for Excellence, is a new school that as of fall 2016 only serves students in grades pre-K through 2, so no standardized test scores are available yet.
    
28. Judith Singer, “October 1, 2015 Enrollment Statistics,” Stamford Public Schools, October 23, 2015, http://www.stamfordpublicschools.org/sites/stamfordps/files/uploads/october1_2015_enrollment_statistics.pdf.
29. “2015 Public School Enrollment by Racial Imbalance Categories,” Connecticut State Department of Education, April 19, 2016, http://www.sde.ct.gov/sde/lib/sde/pdf/legal/racial_imbalance_2015_by_categories.pdf.
30. Megan Desombre, “Connecticut SBAC Results Reveal Continued Achievement Gap,” Education Bridgeport!, September 11, 2015, http://educationbridgeport.com/connecticut-sbac-results-reveal-continued-achievement-gap/.
31. Winifred Hamilton, “Presentation to Senior Men’s Association of Stamford,” Stamford Public Schools, June 20, 2014, http://www.stamfordpublicschools.org/sites/stamfordps/files/uploads/062014_senior_mens_assoc_of_stamford.pdf, p. 22; and “EdSight: Insight into Education,” Connecticut State Department of Education, http://edsight.ct.gov/SASPortal/main.do.
32. Joshua Starr, phone interview by author, September 9, 2016.
33. Gary Orfield and Jongyeon Ee, Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, The Civil Rights Project, April 2015, https://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/integration-and-diversity/connecticut-school-integration-moving-forward-as-the-northeast-retreats/orfield-ee-connecticut-school-integration-2015.pdf.
34. Gary Orfield and Jongyeon Ee, Connecticut School Integration: Moving Forward as the Northeast Retreats, The Civil Rights Project, April 2015, https://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/integration-and-diversity/connecticut-school-integration-moving-forward-as-the-northeast-retreats/orfield-ee-connecticut-school-integration-2015.pdf p. 11; for data on national trends, see Amy Stuart Wells, Bianca J. Baldridge, Jacquelyn Duran, Courtney Grzesikowski, Richard Lofton, Allison Roda, Miya Warner, and Terrenda White, Boundary Crossing for Diversity, Equity and Achievement: Inter-district School Desegregation and Educational Opportunity (Cambridge, Mass.: Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, Harvard Law School, November 2009),1, citing Charles T. Clotfelter, After Brown: The Rise and Retreat of School Desegregation (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004); and Jeremy E. Fiel, “Decomposing School Resegregation: Social Closure, Racial Imbalance, and Racial Isolation,”American Sociological Review 78, no. 5 (2013): 842, figure 7.
35. “EdSight: Insight into Education,” Connecticut State Department of Education, http://edsight.ct.gov/SASPortal/main.do; Nathan Allen, “School Rankings: Reading between the Lines,” new Canaan Patch, June 23, 2011, http://patch.com/connecticut/newcanaan/school-rankings-reading-between-the-lines; and Zoe Neuberger, Becca Segal, Catlin Nchako, and Kathleen masterson, “Take Up of Community Eligibility This School Year,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, February 25, 2015, http://www.cbpp.org/research/take-up-of-community-eligibility-this-school-year.
36. Milo Sheff, et al. v. William A. O’Neill, et al., 238 Conn. 1, 678 A.2d 1267 (Connecticut Superior Court 1996), http://sheffmovement.org/sheff-v-oneill-decision/.
37. Sheff v. O’Neill Stipulation and Order (Connecticut Superior Court 2003), http://sheffmovement.org/phase-1-settlement-2003-stipulation-and-order/.