By Robert A. Frahm
Bloomfield – In a high school that only a few years ago posted some of the worst math scores in the state, a cluster of bright teenagers one recent morning tackled a series of challenging calculus problems…
‘It’s a success story,’ said Marian Hourigan, an official with the Connecticut Council for Education Reform (CCER), a statewide, business-sponsored non-profit group that issued a report in March describing the district’s aggressive reforms as a blueprint to narrow the achievement gap.
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One of 30 low-performing school systems designated by the state three years ago as Alliance Districts targeted for extra funding, Bloomfield was singled out by CCER because it is one of the only districts that has made steady progress in all of its schools, said Jeffrey Villar, the group’s executive director.
‘Quite honestly, in education, there’s a narrative out there that says minority and poor children can’t learn at the same levels as majority Caucasian kids. That’s a difficult thing to fight,’ he said. The Bloomfield story ‘counters the narrative…that poverty and race are somehow destiny.’
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