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KNOW DUMB QUESTIONS FT Dr. Elizabeth Horton Sheff
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A single statistic can expose a whole system. When Dr. Elizabeth Horton Sheff learned that roughly 74% of Hartford eighth graders couldn’t read, she stopped seeing school failure as an individual problem and started seeing it as a constitutional crisis. That moment helped spark Sheff v. O’Neill, the landmark Connecticut education case that forced the state to confront racial isolation created by district lines, town boundaries, and unequal access to opportunity.
We talk through what the Connecticut Supreme Court actually ruled, why “winning” in court didn’t automatically desegregate schools, and how the remedy got pushed into politics. You’ll hear what the plaintiffs originally asked for, why a regional approach threatened wealthy suburbs, and how the state leaned on voluntary participation instead. Along the way, we connect the dots between school segregation, housing and zoning policy, and the uncomfortable reality that many decision-makers privately seek school choice for their own families while limiting it for everyone else.
We also dig into what has worked: Connecticut magnet schools, Open Choice, and pathways that lead to early college credit, careers in manufacturing, and life-changing outcomes for students across the region. Then we look ahead to the looming 2028-29 promise of “no more lottery” for Hartford placements and ask the practical question nobody can dodge: will the state build enough high-quality seats to make that real, and will funding finally follow the child with the oversight families deserve?
If you care about public education, school choice, magnet schools, integrated schools, and real educational equity in Connecticut, listen all the way through. Subscribe, share this conversation with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find it.
Why Sue Connecticut In 1989
SPEAKER_00Nineteen eighty-nine, you decide that you're gonna sue the state of Connecticut. It's twenty twenty-six. Where did you think we would end up?
SPEAKER_01Well, you know, let's um back it up a little bit. Because in 1989, I was totally unaware of the inequality in Hartford schools. Totally unaware, which seems to me it as uh my bad, right? Um, but since my child was on grade level, reading, we didn't have any problems, um, then all was well. Um, and I think that was my first lesson that I learned about my responsibility to other children.
SPEAKER_00So I want to just pause it because most people judge the school system, if they even think of such a thing, by their experience with their child. Your son Milo was good. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Academically. Academically, socially, you know, we had no behavioral problems. It wasn't like that. Um, and it really, I wasn't even invited, Dr. Perry, to the the organizing meeting. Um, it was a community meeting of public interest law firms, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, um, Hispanic uh legal aid here in uh Connecticut, Yukon School of Law, uh, and independent lawyers uh who came together and presented this to the community. Uh and I wasn't even invited to the first organizing meeting. Why were they meeting? They were meeting to discuss with the community the status of education in Harvard in 1989.
SPEAKER_00Was something happening because I was in high school. That was my senior year high school, 88. Was my senior year high school. And, you know, as a kid, you knew that Harvard schools weren't good. You wanted to stay out of them if you could avoid it, right? Right? But did something happen?
SPEAKER_01You mean to prompt the lawyers? They have they were tracking for a few years the increasing decline in educational achievement of Hartford um students and the increase in um racial isolation of Harvard. So they tracked that for a couple of years, mostly John Britton and Martha Stone. Um, so they had called a meeting to discuss their findings. I wasn't invited. Back then I was vice president of the Westbrook Village Tennis Association.
SPEAKER_00And Westbrook Village, was it a public housing? It was public housing. Okay.
SPEAKER_01It's public housing in the um northwest corner of Hartford, right over by the University of Hartford. Okay. Um, not in the north end, in in the northway. All the way down, all the way. Yeah, all the way down. Um and the president of the association, Barbara, uh, she was the one that was asked to come to the meeting because she had a child in Project Concern. Right?
SPEAKER_00And so her she was nervous about attending. Project Concern was a program that busts children from Hartford in particular to some of the suburbs.
SPEAKER_01Yep, to some of the subscriptions.
SPEAKER_00So her child was in that program.
SPEAKER_01She was in that program. They call it Project Choice now. Yeah, but it was Project Concern for many, many years. Um so she requested that I go. And that's how I got into this suit. Is I'm sitting there and I'm I'm listening to all of these words flying through the air about the deteriorating conditions in Harvard schools. Um, but the one thing that stuck in my mind, Steve, that still sticks in my mind, is that in 1989, 74% of students in Harvard's eighth grade could not read. So if you're in the eighth grade and you cannot read, what are your life chances from there? Um, and to me, that 79 wasn't, I mean, 74% wasn't 74% of the students failing, it was the system failing. That's too big a number.
SPEAKER_00Because 74% you cannot imagine that by accident, right, that many children would be born to that many adults in that community that are incapable of reading. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Exactly.
SPEAKER_00It's not a thing. No, it's not. There's no data that supports anything. I don't even care if it's eugenics. There's nothing that supports that. Right. So for you, it just was a whoa. That's what it exactly. It was like, what? Because that's a big number. When you think of 74, a lot of times when we think of education, we hear uh the the perspective on data not recognizing that that means that 74 out of every 100 children could not read. Exactly, exactly. A most basic couldn't read first, second grade. Could not read.
SPEAKER_01And it hasn't changed. So you realize, I mean, I you might be familiar, I know you are um with the young lady who graduated and is now suing Harford because she's uh she she can't read. Uh but she's graduated, and she's not the only one.
SPEAKER_00But you you're talking about there was a young woman who recently um brought a lawsuit against the state of Connecticut because you've proven that state of Connecticut is the one who's responsible for these things.
SPEAKER_01And she's suing the city of Harvard.
SPEAKER_00And the city of Harvard for graduating her illiterate. Illiterate, can't read.
SPEAKER_01You know, I because I'm gonna come back to the what in the world is the matter here that, you know, because part of it, um, and I don't want to sound like that, but it is like that. How do you have a child and not know that they can't read?
SPEAKER_00Well, I I think I can answer that. Okay. Parents can't read either. I get it. I get it. And I'll I'll take it one step further. It would be easy for me as an educator um to hop on the parents should do better. But Dr. King said that um a school should be so good that you can't tell who that child's parents are. And is with you, you and I, we judge our school experience by our children's experience.
SPEAKER_01I did it one time not anymore.
SPEAKER_00Right. Well, so so someone tells you that your child's a BC student in most cases, you just take that. You go to the doctors, and the doctor says, You got a bump, you got a bruise, this is what it is. You may look on the internet, but you only go you that's why you went to this person to expect that. For me, and I want to come back to this because I think that this is important. For me, what I think of it from an educator's perspective, I think she had at least one kindergarten teacher. She may have had multiple first grade teachers and multiples all the way through elementary school. Then when she got to sixth grade, she had seven periods in a
The 74% Reading Crisis
SPEAKER_00day. So seven teachers per day who knew this for the next seven years. And not one of them lost their jobs as a result of this child's inability to read. And presumably, enough of them had to say that she could read in order for her to graduate.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And I I'm not, I'm not, in what I'm saying, I don't disavow the responsibility of of the teachers at all. Yeah. But what I what I'm trying to express is the fact that education is a partnership. That part's true. Okay. Um, I don't expect, I I don't, I didn't, I did not expect my school, my children's schools to be totally responsible for their education. As a parent, right? I need to be involved. Are you doing your homework? Read to me. Um, what did you learn in school today? What's going on? I used to just stop by and that used to make my kids really.
SPEAKER_00I think we can agree that you may not be the typical mom.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00I think we can agree to that. And and because most moms don't sue their entire state.
SPEAKER_01Well, okay. But that number was fine, that was too large. It's like, you know what, that that's that's to me uh is systemic. And that to me speaks to what we know about um this nation and even up south here in Connecticut. It's okay for black children, Puerto Rican children, um, children of color, any any it's okay for them to fail.
SPEAKER_00One of the many reasons why I am so interested in speaking to you, Dr. Elizabeth Hortons, is because your story as a story of America at its best, I don't think is told enough. I think it should be taught in every state in the nation, and I know that other nations could learn from it. I think what it does, what your story does, is it shows that even in a state like Connecticut, the land of steady habitats.
SPEAKER_01Up south.
SPEAKER_00Up south. A place where the bucolic setting of New England can numb us to really what's going on right in front of us. That that state can be held to account. But I think here's the other part. And that there are times when the system works.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It's working. Well, I I was just at a graduation. Um uh Goodwin University magnet school system, it's the early E camp, early college admission machinery program. So they work manufacturing program. Um so these these students go to their high school part day, and then the other part of the day, they come um and at A Camp and learn their all of the things they learned about manufacturing jobs. And so when at their graduation, we had several students who had earned 21 college credits, um, and all of those students received a certificate from the State Department of Labor granting them 200 hours towards any apprenticeship that they choose.
SPEAKER_00We're gonna talk about how that program came to be. But uh did you think in 89 that we would be here today?
SPEAKER_01No, I did not. You know, no, you know, because we're still fighting, Dr. Perry. We're still, you know, the case is not closed. People think that the last settlement ended the case, it did not. The state has and 2022 they had 10 years, so that's what, 2032?
SPEAKER_00So let's take a step back. What was the state found liable, guilty of?
SPEAKER_01You mean in the beginning, way back this with the Supreme Court, Connecticut Supreme, they were they were um they were guilty of complicity in racial isolation. They this uh the Connecticut Supreme Court found that the fact that school districts and town boundaries were terminus uh exacerbated racial isolation and therefore violated the Connecticut Constitution, which guarantees children um access to uh a substantial education. And and also it it talks about um the discrimination, uh non-discrimination, I'm saying, clause, that the that that this fact just reproduced, reproduced year after year, racial isolation.
SPEAKER_00A system.
SPEAKER_01System, systemic racism, systemic, systemic racism, just a system. Um, and then the uh the final thing is that the Constitution of the State of Connecticut says that we're both Connecticut citizens. You shouldn't have access to public and more public emboluments than I am. We should get the same stuff if it's public, sure, right? Sure. So when you look when you take those three um tenets of the constitution and you just juxtapose it against what was happening then, and it's still happening now.
SPEAKER_00Sure.
SPEAKER_01Um our education system is unconstitutional.
SPEAKER_00So and many people know of the Brown versus Board of Education decision that said that the schools shall be desegregated with all due haste. That's what we heard from Brown. And then what happened was there were de facto segregatory strategies that were used, that are used all over the country. So they didn't say you can't come to this school because you're black. They just drew a district where most of the black people lived. And then they prohibited by way of making it illegal to attend a school outside of your district. So your neighborhood public school was your prison if you were an urban student.
SPEAKER_01It still is.
SPEAKER_00It still is.
SPEAKER_01It is still is because it's still against Connecticut law. If you live in, if I live in Hartford, I can't go to school in West Avon. It's against the law.
SPEAKER_00Which is which, when we think about it, as public accommodations go. Yeah. If I am in Hartford, if I'm a Hartford resident and I go to West Hartford and somebody steals something out of my car, I can use the police in West Hartford. I don't have to pay taxes to do that.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00I can go to the library there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I can use their public parks, I can use their public accommodations without any additional, because I live, I it's public, it's available to the public.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00But public education, not at all. So initially, what was it that the plaintiffs you said that you wanted as a remedy from the state?
SPEAKER_01You know, we again, first, let me okay, I don't mean to backtrack the state.
SPEAKER_00No, please, I want you to.
SPEAKER_01Because here the uh let me just say that while I um very much appreciate the Connecticut Supreme Court decision on the one hand, on the other hand, I think it was a way to recognize the problem, but really not doing anything about it.
SPEAKER_00Can you say more about that? Because as somebody who's currently suing the state, yeah, I expect that we're gonna win. Yeah. But what does winning look like?
SPEAKER_01Exactly. What does winning look like?
SPEAKER_00Like, what did you win?
SPEAKER_01Exactly. We won a lawsuit, okay? But but but um the fight that that's when the real fight began. Right.
SPEAKER_00So what I Because you were charging was that having sending children to school that was overwhelmingly black without their choice, right, was by itself uh discriminatory, unconstitutional.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00And and the presumed remedy would be then they can't do that anymore.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Right? You gotta be able to eat a lunch counter, right?
SPEAKER_01Right, right, right, right.
SPEAKER_00Gotta be able to get on the bus, right?
SPEAKER_01Right, exactly.
SPEAKER_00And so the presumptive remedy would be these schools need to be desegregated, and there are no more limits like there were.
SPEAKER_01Exactly.
SPEAKER_00And that didn't happen.
SPEAKER_01And that didn't happen.
SPEAKER_00Still to that state.
SPEAKER_01Still, still didn't happen. Not to today. So what the Supreme Court of our state did was when I say they kind of went under the wire and dug a little hole for themselves to hide in, is that they ordered the state of Connecticut to remedy the situation. Um they could have ordered a special master. Um we did retain oversight of the process, so that's a positive thing. That's got us where we are now because we continue to have oversight. But to me, that just punted it into politics. And you know, Connecticut politics suck.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, pretty much. Yep. Suck, suck, suck. Yeah. And Harford is even worse. Yep.
SPEAKER_00And so there's nothing like a community that's poor that's fighting over meager resources.
SPEAKER_01It's over over.
SPEAKER_00Ain't got nothing to fight over. And when you got somebody stealing, somebody stealing and putting it in their pocket. There was only so much to start with. Yeah. And this person, two
Parents Teachers And Shared Responsibility
SPEAKER_00for me, one for you. Yeah. Three for me, one for you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And it's like, you know what, why, what you're still getting gypped. Why are you sitting around looking? But that's a whole nother story. Uh, what we really, what I wanted, and we proposed several um remedies to the state in the beginning that were, of course, all rejected.
SPEAKER_00And I want to pause here. This is why I want to make sure that people understand this because there is a settlement, and we'll get to that in a moment, that has been used by the opponents of school choice to speak ill of the chef plaintiffs. But that was a settlement. There were other requests that were made that were not what was the ultimate settlement. And I think people need to really understand that in a in a lawsuit, when you win, in a civil lawsuit, when you win, now there's a negotiation. Right. And so you, as the plaintiffs, proposed what? It didn't start off as magnet schools.
SPEAKER_01No, no, it didn't start out as magnet schools. We, although we kind of slid into that, when it when we slid into that, that's a whole other thing. But we proposed um uh basically a regional school system. Um so we looked at it like a pie chart, draw this huge circle around Greater Harford, um, and all the towns, towns that are contiguous to Harford, those who are contiguous to the contiguous, draw that map and cross it in fours. So if you're in this quarter, you can go to any school in this quarter. And this quarter, you know, the whole thing.
SPEAKER_00So because I don't I think a lot of people uh when I get the opportunity to travel, I'm sure the same is true with you. One of the first questions they asked, they got black people in Connecticut? Like, yeah, and what many people don't know about Connecticut, so if you think of Connecticut as a rectangle, essentially, and then north central part, there's this place called Hartford. It's pretty black and Latin. And the southwestern part, there's a place called New Haven. And then there are a couple of other places that have high percentages of black children, but they're not majority black. Um, and then then then the southwestern corner is Bridgeport. So you have a couple towns that I don't think people realize in Connecticut that are black and Latin, right? Almost 100%. Right. And then beyond them, which is really interesting, almost adjacent in some cases, Hartford, West Hartford. West Hartford's wealthy, it's not like pretty good, it's rich. It's wealthy, it's wealthy. And then the same is true of Bridgeport. You have Bridgeport, they have Fairfield, right? Which is not like pretty good, it's wealthy. Right. And then it only gets richer from there. Hartford, West Hartford, it only gets richer from there.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00And so what you and what you as a plaintiff did was you said, okay, Hartford's there, so people can have visual. Hartford's here, but we're gonna draw outside of Hartford. We're gonna create a because in places like Memphis, they have Shelby County schools. But sometimes when people outside of the state think of counties, they don't realize that their counties are still black. A county with us, Middlesex County, Hartford County, so Hartford County is not black. Hartford County is pretty white, but Hartford is black. Fairfield County is uber white and uber wealthy, but Bridgeport is not. So if this plan that y'all had put in place had worked out, then these uber white communities, really rich, some of the wealthiest in the world communities, would have had to open their school doors to poor black and Latin children. What did State say when y'all had that great idea? Oh, you see it ain't happening, right?
SPEAKER_01You see it ain't going nowhere.
SPEAKER_00No, no. What they decided. Our liberal friends in the blue state, our liberal friends didn't want black kids coming to their working schools?
SPEAKER_01Up south, up south. They didn't want them coming? No. They still don't want to come. But let's talk about, let's get back to the the remedy. When when that didn't happen, when when the pie didn't happen, um, and it was chosen uh in the state of Connecticut, and the state of Connecticut chose how to implement the remedy per the Supreme Court of our state's orders, right?
SPEAKER_00So they said to the they said to the guilty party, you get to pick how this problem. Exactly. So you broke your own constitution, yep. So you get to fix it. Yeah. Not the people who found out that you did it. No. Not the plaintiffs, no, but the defendant is in charge. The mouse is now in charge of the chiefs. Yes, exactly. Because a lot of people don't understand, a lot of people, that the, and this is so important. The state board of education does a fantastic job of putting the blame on the chef plaintiffs. Oh, okay. And as a result of scarcity, then people start to blame the lifeboats for the sinking of the Titanic. But I'm today years old realizing that wait a minute, the Supreme Court said that the defendant could fix the how to do it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I didn't know that. Oh yeah, oh yeah. I really didn't know that. Yep, told the state, you fix it, right? And okay, so that again they're punning this right into politics. They could have said, we're appointing a special master to oversee your planning. They didn't even do that. Um, they just kicked it over. And the state of Connecticut devised this um, how do I say this? Um user-friendly um remedy uh where local control was not touched, right? So it chef is a voluntary system. You do not have to participate.
SPEAKER_00You, and I want to make sure we're not talking about you as individuals, parents, or like we're talking about you, the cities and state.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00They don't have to participate.
SPEAKER_01Well, some yeah, they don't. They don't, they really don't. And families don't have to participate.
SPEAKER_00Families don't, but the f whether the families wanted to or not, if the cities had to, then the families de facto would have to.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, yeah, they could.
SPEAKER_00Right, because if it could if like in some states, in in some communities, like in let's say New York City, where we have schools, it's school choice. So you don't have you don't have to go to neighborhood school. You can go to it's but you can decide not to, but no one can stop you from going. If you want to go stop you, exactly. But in Connecticut, they still gave the the Supreme Court still gave the local communities who created the de facto racist system the opportunity to maintain the de facto racist system.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Okay. And the state in its implementation did not touch that. The court said that it was unconstitutional, and the state of Connecticut skirted around it through this voluntary system. Right? Let me finish. Let me finish. Because um they chose to build um magnet schools to try to encourage an expansion of open choice. Project concern, open choice, more seats in the suburbs, that didn't happen. Um and they took VOTEC as a part of the system.
SPEAKER_00So I want to pause there for a second because I it it again, you and I understand this because we're in Connecticut and and you know, scarred by the experience, mean not nearly as much as you may be. But in Connecticut, there are neighborhoods, what we refer to as public schools, that the state of Connecticut acknowledged that because they were driven by your zip code, by
What The Supreme Court Actually Ruled
SPEAKER_00your address, they were de facto segregated, and through the de facto segregation were inherently racist and therefore limited the access that the black children who were in them had to the same education that the white kids in the adjacent communities had. And so the plaintiffs said, This is this is your charge that this system of sending children to school in a neighborhood is racist. The state said, You're right.
SPEAKER_01Well, no, we you have to be careful because there's nothing in the in the Supreme Court decision that talks about the the racism in our okay. There's nothing like that. They talk about ice racial isolation, um, but again, Punt didn't really talk about the underlying um platforms of racism.
SPEAKER_00And the implications of of of such. Right, right. But they don't call it out. No, they don't call it out. So that's me doing that, me editorial. Yeah. So so what the when the Supreme Court said that the defendant could select the remedy for the problem that they created, the defendant said what we're going to do is maintain the zip code system of school districts, but in one town or so, Hartford, we're going to put magnet schools in there.
SPEAKER_01Well, so see no that that's a little off too.
SPEAKER_00Okay, that's what I'm asking.
SPEAKER_01Um, because in the in the beginning, um since they chose this magnet school uh process, we had hoped, we being the plaintiffs, we had hoped to bring all of the cash into Harford that had to go with with magnet school development, magnet school running, um, you know, billions of dollars that we bought. Literally. We wanted to bring billions more. Uh, but it was Harford, uh, Mayor Eddie Perez, and that troop that I was serving with who decided they didn't want any more Magnet schools. So that's how Krek got into.
SPEAKER_00And we'll get to what Kreck is in a second.
SPEAKER_01So But wait, let me let me finish that point.
SPEAKER_00Okay, yep.
SPEAKER_01Because had had had they had Harford um continued to work to develop magnet schools, the money would have been flowing into Harvard, into Harvard. And um students coming in would have brought more money.
SPEAKER_00So people don't know a magnet school in Connecticut, because they're different in different states. A magnet school in Connecticut is a public school that's run either by what's called a regional education um uh corporation, a RESC, or it's run by the local school system. And in Connecticut, why that's important is because both of those are unionized schools. Um there's a reason why that's important versus a charter school, which is typically not unionized and not an option that many or private schools, which are also typically not. But these schools are schools that are run by the local board of education slash the teachers union, and they are um open to a region, they call regional magnus, so the region you can call there, and the chef what would have become known as the chef schools had an expectation that they would be desegregated whilst in a segregated community of Hartford. Is that correct?
SPEAKER_01That that that there would be diversity in student population.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Diversity, yeah. Um, and so I think the sharp edges that you're putting on things, you need to round them a little bit. Yeah, so that's what I'm listening for. You need to round them a little bit because it ain't it ain't so cut and dry. Yeah. Um in the things that Harford did following um the rejection of Which is insane, what people should understand, like right? Yeah, they they gave away money. They gave big money, like gave away money for schools, big money, big money. Because we wanted to turn every Harford school into a magnet.
SPEAKER_00Which would have meant that they got the local money and state money, exactly. They would have doubled the amount of money that they were at least. At least, and then got a full new building. Yep, renovated or brand new building. But the mayor said no. The mayor said no, and the council said no. And the city council said no. Yeah, they said don't give us a regional school where white kids might come in, suburban kids, black, white, or other.
SPEAKER_01Well, they said that they didn't want to put take any more of uh taxable property off of the tax rules. Now I understand that. I understand that because um the the fact that our school districts are basically even those in the res are are basically undergirded by local tax dollars. Um that's why a place like Fairfield can have so much more money than the education costs here in Global.
SPEAKER_00Well, that that and I we could I definitely want to have a conversation about that because I there there's another side to that. But I think that I think it's important to under I think it's important that you help people to understand that right now there are how many magnet schools that are considered chef magnets?
SPEAKER_0142 and 43, the 43rd is being built right now.
SPEAKER_00So there are 43 schools. Uh I can attest as somebody who opened the chef magnet capital prep is a chef magnet school that we opened in 2005. By 2009, Hartford, Connecticut had four of America's top performing high schools. I think it's something that people really need to just pause on. In Hartford, Connecticut. Yeah, a community that's still poor, still primarily black and Latin, because of the chef's settlement, four of the high schools, and I don't know that there were more than four at that time, there was five, I think, but there were four high schools in Connecticut, in Hartford, that were on U.S. News and World Reports top performing high schools, period.
SPEAKER_01Yep, yep, and in the Greater High Ford region. And here's the thing uh So it worked. So it worked, it worked, and and actually what I witnessed on Monday Pass is another indication that it that it can work. What we're facing now is um ignorance in ignorance in the community. Let's just tell the truth and shame the devil. The retreat um from uh diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging by our state, which manifests itself not only in the philosophy of the departments, but in the division of the monies.
SPEAKER_00What I find fascinating though, there are the politics and policies and policy makers who support not making more of these schools possible. But then to a person in each of their departments, if you ask them where they send their children to school, right?
SPEAKER_01Where do they go? Where do they go? Magnet schools, open choice, charter schools, charter schools, parochial, but they're not in that district.
SPEAKER_00And you know what's fascinating to me is that we don't do a good enough job of telling that story. I can't tell you how often I get a call, hey doc, oh hey, senator, how can I help you? Hey, representative, how can I help you? Hey Mayor, how can I help you? Hey, councilman, what what what whatever gets you to call me today? Oh, your niece, right? Waiting list, right? Really? Yeah. So if you were thinking in 1989 that things are gonna be different, what did you think the educational landscape would look like?
SPEAKER_01Well, first first and foremost, I I would have hoped that by now we would have addressed uh another uh critical aspect of why we're so segregated, and that's housing. Okay.
The Remedy Fight And Voluntary Choice
SPEAKER_01So I mean we originally had housing as a part of the case.
SPEAKER_00I did not know that. Can you say more? I really didn't know.
SPEAKER_01No, we we we talked about affordable housing in the beginning um as we were formulating putting together the suit, because as you know, if if the the town is um diverse, then the school diversity is organic. It's right there, it's growing up, right? Um, but because of the amount of bristle, uh we took housing out of the case.
SPEAKER_00People don't I know that people when they when they see this, they're gonna be they're gonna trip because obviously you you were ahead of your time, but we are not talking about Alabama here. No, we're not. We are talking about the dark blue state of Connecticut, wealthy, wealthy, wealthy, wealthy, largely white, suburbanized, who I was not since who was the last Republican governor that we had. Wasn't it Ella Grasso?
SPEAKER_01Wasn't she a Republican?
SPEAKER_00No, it wasn't one who went to prison. Oh, Roland. Roland. So last time was right, Roland. Since then, Democrat, Democrat, Democrat, yeah, Democrats control virtually everything here. House, Senate, House, Senate, and then most local uh uh uh councils. So we went to our friends, you went to our friends and said, hey, got this really cool idea, right? Uh if we build some affordable housing in West Hartford or Fairfield or or Greenwich or you know, Hamden or some of these other places, which are adjacent to poorer communities, then some poor people might be able to move out there who might be of color and they could go to your kids' schools, and they said, no, no.
SPEAKER_01No, no, no. We didn't actually, I I don't know how the I don't think we wouldn't talk to people about it, but we have spoken about um the organic nature of housing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Uh however, it is the zoning laws in the state of Connecticut that uh that actually were put in place specifically to direct multifamily housing in certain towns and then single family dwellings in other towns. So which towns do you think got the multiples? Right. Right, the urban communities. The urban communities.
SPEAKER_00So one of the things no trees? No, no trees. So one of the things that has always amazed me about you in your person, I've had the opportunity to sit in meetings with you. Um most people don't realize that Capital Prep was originally named Elizabeth Horton Chef Prep. And for two years, it was named Elizabeth Horton Chef Prep. But we were told that you had to be dead. Right. And I wasn't interested in that as an option. So uh thank you. Right. So so it we we ultimately if per your suggestion let the name go. The the reason why I say that is because I've watched you put your own personhood aside, any accolades aside. You had a house fire that was suspicious. Yeah. Death threats.
SPEAKER_01Death.
SPEAKER_00Can you talk about the personal cost of fighting? Because your kid was good. You could have gotten my arrow straight.
SPEAKER_01I just could have did it like this and kept it moving. And still could. I was a very grown man. Yep, 40 something. Right. Yeah, and I'm still at it. It you know, I believe deeply in my soul that this is what God wants me to do. This is my mission. You know, I wasn't invited to that meeting. Some people might say it's it was a coincidence. Um but I know that I'm so this is what I'm supposed to be doing. And so I I I get really pissed off. Um a lot of times, as you know, you see me bite people in meetings.
SPEAKER_00I have, it's been pretty cool. I've I've I've often wanted to be like, hey, too late. Too late. But I would I if you if you just let her go, she was gonna, but you did that, so I'm gonna sit.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you deserve that.
SPEAKER_00You're gonna get the rest. Not now you're gonna get it. Right. Um, but what are the costs? Because I because there's a sister right now who's looking at you and thinking, I don't know if I can.
SPEAKER_01It's it's okay. The cost is um really, if I'm gonna be honest with you, Dr. Perry, is the lack of privacy that I feel like I'm on all the time when I'm out in the community. Uh um, I'm not supposed to swear, I'm not supposed to cut you off on the road, you know, those kinds of can't have that second dream. You know, I mean, all of that. All of that. Um, but the joy that I see when I visit these schools and I look at these buildings and I'm watching all these little munchkins of all different colors running around, and I go to the high school and I see all of these children, you know, talking together on the, you know, playing on their phones together, and I call um I call dismissal organized chaos.
SPEAKER_00Yes, you know, and it's a super cool part of the day.
SPEAKER_01It is, it is really super fun. It is. Um, when I'm with those kids, like I was on Monday, and these two little girls came up and they were just so excited to take a picture, and um, they said thank you.
SPEAKER_00And you're a real celebrity.
SPEAKER_01I don't know about that.
SPEAKER_00No, no, no, no. No, you you really, I mean, let's let's call it 42 schools exist. If if you just assume for a second that each of the schools has 500 kids, right? That's a lot of kids.
SPEAKER_01And and and the other thing that that I I it just it just really this past year, um, because I was at a gas station getting gas, and this guy pulls up and he says, Um, I just want to thank you. I'm thinking, okay, must be chef related, right? Um, but now it doesn't have to be. Certainly. Uh because I've I've worked on other things. But he said that uh his daughters work in magnet schools, and that they are very happy to go from a unnamed district to the magnet schools. And so that got me to thinking, Steve, besides the access to educational opportunities, right, that our kids get, include including uh early college grads, um think about the number of people that actually are employed.
SPEAKER_00That's a really important point.
SPEAKER_01Wait, and the money, the all the money that we brought in on construction, it built it literally at least by 2010, you'd brought in half a billion dollars worth of construction.
SPEAKER_00That's not just materials, that's human capital. Yeah, and then in addition to that, how many people Who are black and Latin got a chance to teach in districts that they would not have gotten a chance to teach in before.
SPEAKER_01Exactly.
SPEAKER_00And become leaders of schools. And how many parents now see themselves as parents of college-going children? Yeah. Or career-going children.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_00And the impact that your collective effort has made on the psyche of a state can't be measured in numbers. It's measured in lives changed. But who have been some of your most ardent uh uh adversaries during this time still? Because they're still there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, oh they're still there.
SPEAKER_00Um the story doesn't end happily right now.
SPEAKER_01No, no, it doesn't. Um, I'll name you a couple of names. There was this one attorney that worked for uh the state, his name is Ralph. He was a horrible man. I know him. You know Ralph? I know Ralph. I agree with you. He was horrible. Senator Doug McCory, um, you know, he hasn't been uh helpful at all. Um, like you can name almost every single Harvard school board who have laid at the foot of Chef the inadequacies of the district. So what would be like let's say McCorrect, what what would you want him to do if he could do more? Well, you know, first of all, McCaury works for Crek, which is a part of the Chef lawsuit. So that makes me a little crazy because I discussed that with Craig. So how are you gonna have somebody who is not supportive of quality integrated education working at a place that is philosophically dedicated to quality integrated education? You don't think he does? You don't think he supports it? I you know, I I don't I you know I get where I wait, okay. No. I know that I have been in rooms with him and in committee meetings with him and watched him on television where he said very negative things about Chef. Very negative things.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I haven't heard those. My experience with him has been that he supports choice. Um and well, I haven't heard his comments on magnet schools. I can't speak on that. Um I can say that I think uh what I can say is I have seen him support the opportunity for children to attend the schools of their life. His kid went to both of his kids went to school. I think one of his sons, his son, not one of his son, his son went to a um to a uh charter school, and I believe is now employed by Craig. So uh I think that they support the the effort. I I think for me, and I'm interested in hearing more about some of the folks who you feel, the people who I struggle with are the people who are dying our efforts. And I'll tell you what I mean by that. Like these two plants, I gotta
Magnet Schools That Proved It Works
SPEAKER_00get them downstairs because I'm I'm not killing them, but I'm I'm not doing what I should do to help them live.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00And I think too many, I'll say specifically, black and Latin legislators who benefit in some ways directly from Chef.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean, listen, Josh Hall is the is the un was the union president from um Hartford Federation of Teachers, is the state representative, sent his kids to a magnet school, but works against school choice. Right.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00So so those people, yeah, those people who take for themselves, put it in their pocket, and then don't give to the community who claim to be representatives, those people to me are gross.
SPEAKER_01Right. And and those people who um are gross because of inaction.
SPEAKER_00That's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_01Like, like Charlene Russell Tucker?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Oh, yeah, she's awful. Yeah. So she's awful. I I let me be let me be clear. Yeah. The commissioner of the state, Department of Education, who also happens to be of African descent. I've never heard call herself black. But I know what she looks like.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00I know what people think she is. Yeah. With or without her opinion. I have yet to see her stand on business on making sure that black children are taken care of.
SPEAKER_01Right. No, yeah, you're right, you're right.
SPEAKER_00And and and I would go so far as to say she has led, people often tell me, oh, you you know, you you can't go after her as the governor. It's a job, man. If she got a job as a commissioner, State Department of Education, she could probably get another job.
SPEAKER_01Right. And she just because that would lead leads me into allegiance. Is your allegiance where's your allegiance? Is it to your pocketbook or is it to your profession or is it to your your mission in life? Where's your allegiance? Right. So if you're if just because somebody says you shouldn't say something, if you know in your heart that is the right thing to do and you don't say it, then that's gross.
SPEAKER_00But and and and and let's be clear what we're talking about here. I think it's so important to revisit that your son was fine. Yeah. Had no problems. And you didn't have to do this. These folks are in a position to fix thousands of children's lives. Yeah. Today. Right now. There is no reason why anyone who calls himself an educator wouldn't be doing everything they could to make sure there were more manga schools. More choice programs. Tonight.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Last year.
SPEAKER_00Because the best schools that are public in the state of Connecticut are choice schools. There's just no, there's no middle ground on that. And some people will say, well, what about the wealthy white schools? Well, the wealthy white schools who have wealthy white kids tend to do well for wealthy white kids. But the black kids, they don't do well.
SPEAKER_01Right. Plus, plus the fact, you know, the thing of it that um is the other side of this flip-going. When we talk about uh uh correcting racial isolation, that includes white people. That part. Okay, people don't think, I mean, you you they say, oh, Elizabeth, a good thing you've done with us, boom, I can go on board. No, it's about all of our kids because I have met in my course of three decades plus, almost four, I've um talked with teachers who are in teaching college, who are white, who have said to me that it wasn't until college that they interacted with a person of color.
SPEAKER_00That's powerful. Okay, think about you're these are our teachers, they're talking about. So think about what they think of people.
SPEAKER_01Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Who they've only seen in rap play basketball.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And or the TV told them that they kill somebody, right?
SPEAKER_00Because then there's the other side of it. What I've seen as somebody who ran f started and ran a magnet school in Hartford, were those white kids who we sent off to college, and I guarantee you, when they went off to college, people said, Where'd you go to school? They say Hartford. No, you didn't. Where'd you go to school? No, I went to school in Hartford. Yeah. Like I really went to school in Hartford. No, you didn't. You went. No, I know where I went to school, and I went to school with mostly black and Latin kids. And how cool I can think of one young man right now. He went to Keene State. So he's from West Hartford. Uh-huh. His family sent him to Capitol Prep. He graduated, went to Keene State. Keene State is about as white a college as you can get without doing it intentionally. Okay. Like you can't get whiter than Keene State. Okay. You can't. You can't. It's not possible. Right. And so I guarantee you that when he talks about high school, and when they met his high school friends, they're like, that's not your Yeah. Yeah. They live on Barber Street? Yeah. Yeah. That's where they used to live. They don't live there anymore. They went to Capitol, they went to college. Right. But the point is, right? There's something meaningful there. And you mentioned something else, and I really think this is how many people I know who went just to our school are now teaching. Right.
SPEAKER_01There's a bunch of them. There's a bunch of them who are doing uh good things with the foundation that was given to them through the Chef ecosystem. Good things.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um we uh we have a person that's an independent filmmaker who's got a couple of those. We have people who've gotten their PhDs, we have people who's gotten their master's degrees. Um you got doctors all over the place.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I got doctors. Oh, you got doctors all over the place. Yeah, you got doctors all over the place. Like you got doctors all like that's a you could you could throw a stone in any direction and hit doctors who went to a chef school.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I know how many we have.
SPEAKER_01I know because the uh Brianna, what is her name? Brianna Sanchez Vasquez. She graduated from Capitol uh Prep with almost, she said she was a couple credits short of an associate. She's gonna be speaking at our event on July 9th. Powerful. July 9th, 6 o'clock, Goodwin University. Um, she is going to uh regale the fact of how her being in Capitol Prep under your leadership was one of the best choices that happened in her life, and that her brother, who did not attend Capitol Prep with her, um didn't get the structure he needed. She finished college, she's now doing uh regional work, uh I believe it's marketing. Um the brother never finished college.
SPEAKER_00You know, one of the things that I think we in the time we have left, we should start to really deconstruct for people is why did they say no to the regional schools? Why are they saying no to why did why did the suburbs say no? Why did the urban say no? And why aren't we fighting to get more opportunities for children to attend the kinds of schools that are best for them? Some children want to do a machinist program, some children want to go to college, some people want to do film, some people, yeah, and and what I find most compelling as a group of chef schools, and again, I can't speak to all of them, but the ones I'm familiar with, I can, and I can, you know, competitive as I am, I can game recognize the game. And so many people who went to a chef magnet high school think more about their high school experience than they do even their college because you create this meaningful experience in their communities, you gave birth to that.
SPEAKER_01Why are we why are people fighting that? Just plain, pure, pure, unadulterated, raise the American flag, saluted racism. That's what it is.
SPEAKER_00So the racism is that they don't want children to have this? What is what does that mean?
SPEAKER_01I think it's indoctrination. I I really believe that just like uh children of color are bombarded with negative indoctrination, white children are indoctrinated with a superiority in indoctrination. And so it's hard for it's hard for both to see each other. I just see you, Steve. I don't see all the things that are in my head about you, that I don't even know you. Um and I just think it's it's clinging to the historic pattern of structural racism in America.
SPEAKER_00That was one of the challenges for us as running a school. White kids would come to the school, and then I guess being a minority wasn't as much fun as we made it look like it was. Right. And so the first child who hears something said to them that may be attached to their race or or community, yeah, thinks, oh, I don't have to deal with this, I'll just go back. Well, we in power.
SPEAKER_02Right. I don't need to do this.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. I I don't need this, and the mother comes in, the father comes in, like, did you hear what the child said? We'll
Housing Zoning And Why Segregation Persists
SPEAKER_00take care of that, but you know, wait, that's why we're here. That's that was a negative. But there's so much good. The net good to let's call it bad is 100 to 1. Right. I mean, you actually if we care about education, then we should care about what works best. These schools in Connecticut and throughout the country, but the schools in Connecticut that are doing the best job of educating the most um challenging academic children who are most challenged by academic system that we've devised are magnet schools, schools of choice, charter schools, schools of choice. But it's not even like it's not even a question. The data's out. Like the data's, we've got that down. If you go to U.S. news reports and you look at the top performing schools, you will never find a neighborhood uh school that's urban there. You won't, but you will find magnet schools in poor neighborhoods that are outperforming the curve. What can we do now, right? Because 1989 to uh 2026, what's that? Uh 43.
SPEAKER_0136 years, isn't it? 36 years.
SPEAKER_0037 years. 37 years.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00So 37 years. It's clear that we haven't learned our lesson.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Because there really shouldn't be neighborhood schools if you just think of it as performance.
SPEAKER_01There shouldn't be.
SPEAKER_00Like there really shouldn't be.
SPEAKER_01There shouldn't be district schools that are configured according to town boundaries. There should not be.
SPEAKER_00Right. Especially as a limit. Right. So you guys still go back and forth with the court, with the state. What's coming?
SPEAKER_01Well, and um starting in school year 28-29, the according to the the last settlement, the state will be obligated to um break down that stereotype for Harford kids, in that any child who wants a placement in open choice or magnet shall be granted a place in open choice. No more lottery. I love it. No more lottery. Thank you, Jesus. You know, people say to me, um, I hate the lottery. I said, I tell them, I hate the lottery too.
SPEAKER_00I do too.
SPEAKER_01I do too. I hate the lottery. But how else would we do it? You know, how else would we do it? But in in 28-29, that no more lottery. Any child that wants to go. Now, here's the kicker. Here's the question. Is the state gonna be ready? Because in order for that to happen, the state needs to build more schools. They need to build more magnet schools.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, school districts like Hartford will cease to exist.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And Bridgeport should cease to exist.
SPEAKER_00It was it will and should.
SPEAKER_01Yep. And and you know, and all of these people that promote just giving these failing school districts more money to fail our children again, that to me, and I may be pushing it a little bit, that to me is a manifestation of systemic racism.
SPEAKER_00Well, I'll take it one step further because I don't think that's a push, that's just the truth. I'll take it one step further. The overwhelming majority of the people who work in urban school systems are white women who live in the suburbs. When I ask multiple legislators, why are you fighting for money for Hartford and Bridgeport when you know that it's not gonna solve the problem?
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Well, I'll get pressure. But those people don't vote in your district. They actually don't vote in your district, they really don't live there.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00And if you look, your families want choice. Otherwise, they wouldn't be on waiting lists. Right, exactly. So who do you care about? And they care more about the white suburban, typically women, than they do the black urban, typically women. And it really is that simple. Because if they did, then they would just look at the data. The data would show you that your magnet schools, your charter schools are your best performing schools in the state full stop. It's not even a conversation. There are no waiting lists to get into Basic Central Harding, uh, Hartford Public, Weaver, Buckley. Right. There just no, there are none to get into Middletown High. Like there are no waiting lists.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00Nor should there be. And I love so so does that mean that the state will have to open up seats in the schools when because for instance, with us at our charter school, we're looking at um we have 500 kids on a waiting list now. And what happens, uh, I'll tell, I don't know if I ever told you this. The reason I left, people don't, people think they know why I left Hartford. They don't. The the ultimate reason why I left, I mean, and when it finally came down to the come down, I was on Main Street, which is where our school is, and I was doing bus duty. And his brother pulls up almost like OJ. Like hops out of the car. I'm thinking, uh here we go. Here we go. So I said, hey brother, what's going on? He said, you know, you and I got a problem, brother. I don't know. I'm I'm just Steve Perry, you are. He said, you know, he said, you know who I am. I said, brother, I really do not, and I'm sorry. He said, My daughters have been applying to your schools for the past three years, and you keep saying no.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00He said, I'm a firefighter. He pointed, he said, I live right there. He said, every time I go to work, I put my life on the line, and you keep saying no to my kids. That's not right. That's not that's not true, it's not me. It ain't got nothing to do with me. Right. I take your kids today.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00But I don't have any control over. Now they, you, you, you the reason why. And I thought, oh my God. So they think I'm doing this? Oh, I'm good. I'm not carrying the water for these fools because I done begged these fools to stop this mess. And now they think that I don't want his black daughters to come to my school, a firefighter from Hartford, who grew up in Hartford, lived in Hartford, bet on Hartford, and just wanted somebody to believe in his children. I that that day was the day that I walked in back after bus duty and I said to my colleague and co-founder Rich Boganski, I said, We're done here, brother. I can't do this anymore.
SPEAKER_01Well, you know, and and and and capital prep has gone down tremendously since you left. I'm trying to forgive you for that. Maybe, maybe Turkey at Thanksgiving will help me. I'll do what I can.
SPEAKER_00I'm sure they are they're doing their very best up there.
SPEAKER_01I'm not certain. But um the the point of the matter is that there is a lot of misconception out there. And uh, and even when you try to do something good, uh it gets all kinds of backfire. Like, for instance, we had that learning corridor north. Oh, it was beautiful. That you the the that would have been we had the money, uh we had everything to make that learning corridor north.
SPEAKER_00I want to tell that story because I do think and please jump in. So this is so crazy now. It's really crazy, and and people don't so a lot of people wouldn't realize that in um 2000 uh we started in 2012, 2013. Capitol Prep had 2,500 children on the waiting list. We had 50 available seats. Next to us was a vacant lot. Across the street was a building that was called the But Ugly Building. There was a community college in the distance, a park, a skate park that was a mess, and a a hotel that was kinda open but wasn't. It was by all accounts the Badlands of Hartford. Just Capitol Prep was right there at the front of it. And you proposed. What promised to be an international and this is not overstating it, an international model of what a community could do that was poor. And the plan was to get the state to agree to fund even neighborhood schools additionally.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And housing. And housing around. And housing. Yeah. And housing. Yeah. And so from the where if you're from or live in Hartford or ever been to Hartford, where Capital Prep is, Capital Prep Magnet School in Hartford, where it is now, the plan was from that point north.
Backlash Adversaries And Union Politics
SPEAKER_00North.
SPEAKER_01All the way. All the way. Housing. Housing.
SPEAKER_00And schools. And schools. To create what would be a learning corridor north. So every day at the end of school, what you would see are literally thousands of children and families in that area. Thousands.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00At some of the best schools in America, because that's what really what we had. Yeah. It sounds crazy right now, but we literally had some of the best schools in America. And I can say that it was the Hartford Board of Education. A few crazy parents. It was mostly union. They they put batteries in backs at the parents because the parents didn't know what they were saying because they they literally could not read that which was written for them. Right. And you know, that was the one time McCrory and I had a we were on opposite sides or something because I think he and I've cleaned it up since then, but we he didn't stand up in the way that I thought he should have.
SPEAKER_01He should have, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And um, and what you had planned was something called the lighthouse schools. I had agreed that I would run these lighthouse schools for one dollar.
SPEAKER_01Yep, one dollar.
SPEAKER_00I signed a contract that said that I would run these schools for one dollar.
SPEAKER_01One dollar.
SPEAKER_00And the schools were gonna receive tens of millions of dollars. And the teachers union led a protest that stopped the money for the housing, stopped the money for the schools. That's a hard federation of teachers. Yeah. When people hear me say that the teacher union is the devil, I'm saying that on business. They stopped tens of millions of dollars in investment in their jobs.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was gonna go to them. And I, you know, I'm gonna get a dollar. And here's the thing that that creeps me is the fact that the only explanation that I got about why they didn't want this to happen was you know what, right? They they didn't just I don't like Steve Perry. I I think he's arrogant. I think he what does that have to do with the price of tea in China? Is capital prep successful? Yes. That's all you need to worry about. But that's that's the only explanation there is that.
SPEAKER_00And they gave up a a clown by the name of Kodo who still follows me around. I'm not lying to you. Really? Yeah, he still follows me around.
SPEAKER_01Robert Kodo.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Robert Koto still follows me around. He's a weird guy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like he like he's a really weird guy. And and he still follows me around, still writes stories about me. It's really weird.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because what he he he got is he stops, he stopped bare mouthing magnet schools in that, and then when these kids got into a magnet school, don't they always?
SPEAKER_00Discovery. They were in the school. Robert Koto is a former board of education member and a straight clown. Like he's a straight clown. Yeah, he is. He is he he he called me one time and and and wanted me to not put a fence up around our school, which if people knew where our school was, uh Main Street in Hartford is six lanes.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00It's six and at the time, six big, dangerous, fast driving lanes. Yeah. We had pre-K. So I had an obligation to put a f like a fence. But we left the gate open, and he said it was elitist. I said, is a baseball field elitist? I said the baseball field elitist? Because they got a fence too. And I said to him, you gotta be kidding me that you don't, you can't possibly want me to spend 45 minutes of my day talking about talking to you about this. Like of all the things you want me to do today, like, and and I'll say this, and I've said this to you. I would never have left Hartford. I would never have left Hartford if we had done that. I had no intentions. The opportunities were in New York. I had spoken to Corey Booker, um, who had um just gotten a hundred million dollars from Mark Zuckerberg. And I spoken to him about running his schools. I talked to people in Charlotte, I talked to people in uh Florida, I talked to people in Nevada, and it was no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Even New York. I said no, absolutely. I if they give me this, I can continue to run Capital Prep.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I agree to run their other schools for them for a dollar.
SPEAKER_01Lighthouse schools, they all that m- all that money. And and it cut off your nose despite your faith. Now wait, I just I want to make it clear that um perhaps perhaps I have a different orientation because I grew up in an integrated neighborhood. It was diverse. We had all kinds, we had West Indians, we had white folks, we had Italians, we had uh Asian folks, we had black folks, Hispanic folks. So I grew up around people, so they just people to me. They don't bother me. Some people get really, some blacks people get people are gonna get really nervous around white, they don't bother me. Um the other thing I want people to know is that I am not saying that every white person is racist. I'm not saying that. However, I am saying that if you are white and you rest on your laurels and enjoy the bad fruit of racism, then don't tell me that you really care about people. And in fact, you know, in in my lifetime, there were two critical points in my life uh that I needed assistance with, and it was two white men who helped me. Right?
SPEAKER_00The person who pulled me aside and invited me to open capital prep is a white man.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and so I know that it's not like that. However, I think that um just like me, when I learned that it wasn't alright in 1989, even though my all right was alright, um, I think that it it comes down to when your soul decides what ain't right, ain't right.
SPEAKER_00I think I I would agree with you. I would also add this a person cannot be racist and work in a racist system and benefit from a racist system in their person to person, but ultimately, if you don't call out that racism and work to fix it, yeah, then you're complicit, which makes you racist.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Because you're you're you're you're enjoying the the the fruits of bad. You're you're you know, you're you're saying talking out of two sides of your mouth. Like I keep telling people when I speak to them, when they when they claim to be um so committed to diversity, I tell them, what does your house look like? I ask them, what's in your house that shows that that you actually are committed to a multicultural world? And I tell them, uh having Jamaican spice in their spice, don't count!
SPEAKER_00And I and I can say like uh similarly, I can say I support women's rights. I could say that. But I'm still a man, and inevitably, I don't have to give anything up. Right. But I I was speaking one time at Indiana University and um at the Speed School, is what it's called, Speed School of Engineering, and uh they brought me in for um Black History Month, and the entire audience was white and one transgender guy who had a skirt on and a and a beard, and I was like, okay, that's I'm cool with that, do your thing, bruh. And and I say that because after I was done, he came up and he identified with me, and I'm thinking, I don't know, you and I have the same issues, but okay, okay, whatever.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00Um I said to them if you believe that there is such a thing as unearned disadvantages, then you have to also accept that there are unearned advantages. Right. Which would mean by fact that there are people in here who do not deserve to be here and people out there who do. And so the question is how committed are you to equity? Are you prepared to give up the seats you have not earned?
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Who here is willing to say that they didn't earn it and willing to give it to the person that did?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00They clapped and everything. I haven't been invited back.
SPEAKER_01But it's right back. But here's you know, here's the thing. It's hard for, um, like we talked about in the beginning, it's hard for people to um actually be honest with themselves. Yes. It's very difficult for people to be honest with themselves. And so if you constantly are lying to yourself, you're gonna lie, your life is a lie, and you're gonna exist in a lie, and you're gonna do things like that. Um, you know, and and that's what whatever color you are, but we have a nation here that um we built that we are not invited to the party.
Ending The Lottery And Funding Follows Kids
SPEAKER_01How about that? Okay, and I know again why I'm here. I know that this is where I'm supposed to be. This is my job, right? And I think that that people plow the road for me. Right. We have to make sure that we stay on the battlefield, that we stay in that field, and we plow the road for our our children, else they there won't be a road.
SPEAKER_00So we'll bring this to a close by asking you this. If you were queen of the forest or a politician again, oh god, no, help me. What would you want the state to offer children and families to address the issue that remains of de facto segregation? How would you fix that?
SPEAKER_01Well, I would say that first of all, we um we should take down that legislation that says that you can't go to school uh other than the place in the state. Your zone, your the district in which you reside, the city in which you reside. That we need to abolish. Now we can start with that. And then what I would uh push on housing. Um, but most importantly, and this is the thing that you and I agree with that other people don't, that um that the state stop funding uh the prisons as you call them, and let that family, whatever they don't have to give the money to the family, but wherever the child goes, the money should go. Money follows the child. Yep. So if I and there should be no restriction on where I go to school, so if I want to go to ABC Zeus School, then my education cost sharing um grant allotment, that should go with me to ABZoo School.
SPEAKER_00People don't realize that they support vouchers when they support Section 8, Medicaid, Medicare, the GI Bill, student financial aid. Those are all vouchers and they've all worked really well. Really well. Um many people came out of World War II and Vietnam on the GI Bill and built entire communities because of that. And we see that. I lived in public housing, and many people who I lived in public housing with, they left public housing with a Section 8 voucher. They didn't buy a house, but they did pay for somebody else's house to be bought. So they created wealth for it within the community. Likely a person who owned only one property and maybe they lived in that same property with them. Vouchers are are the only answer that allows for the proliferation of academic endeavors that are consistent with the desires of the families who are currently in place.
SPEAKER_01It it dep to it that I I agree with that. That is one vehicle. However, that vehicle needs to be highly monitored because the legislation that I read coming out of the federal government, what is that wrestling woman's name? McMahon? Yep. Okay, talked about the fact that a school could turn down a student for a whole bunch of reasons, but the the clause that caught my attention read uh, and I'm not saying it verbatim, but it read something to the fact that a school could reject an applicant if they felt that the applicant didn't fit into the culture of their school. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So that's do you know that's yeah, I almost said it bad though. I know you did. I almost did. I know you did. I'm glad we made this far without you doing it. So, so let me let I have I've said it about you, I say it to you. You are my hero. Um, you are someone who when I am thinking of how hard this is, I think of how many miles ahead you are. And if you've plowed down that path, then I at the very least need to get to where you are. And one of the reasons why I want to take the time to have this in-person conversation with you is because excuse me, I think that we have an obligation to tell your story. Um you were a single mom living in public housing who came with a slingshot. And while you were not invited by man, you were invited on high.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And you have taken the assignment and and and have uh delivered it well. So I am humbled to to uh work alongside you and to have learned from you, and still apologize that we had to change the name of the school.
SPEAKER_01That's all right, Dr. Perry, because you know, as we talked back then, it um that was politics, and it was more important to get the school and our kids in that school and give them the kind of education that you were offering than it was for me to have a name on a building. I ain't Trump. I don't need my name. I don't need my name on a building. I know who I am.
SPEAKER_00Well, thank you so much. So, what are some of the what are some of the events you got coming up that you want to tell people about?
SPEAKER_01Oh, yes, on July 9th, um, at 6 o'clock, the uh Chef Movement Coalition is hosting a community event to commemorate the 30th year of the Connecticut Supreme Court decision in Sheffield's own. So 30 years. July 9th, 1996,
July 9 Community Event And Closing
SPEAKER_01July 9th, 2026. So you're all invited to come. We have um praise dancing. Where's it gonna be? Oh, Goodwin University. Okay.
SPEAKER_00I'm sorry. Goodwin University is in where?
SPEAKER_01East African. Thank you, Doctor. Um, but you know, we we have praise, praise dance song. We have students from the three decade, including the Capitol Prep student. Super excited coming to speak. Um we uh we have a panel of the original lawyers now cool. Britain? Yeah, Britain. Wow. Britain, Martha, uh Wesley. Wow, you know, all of the all of the old Bill Tagler. And we have um to connect the dots, we have uh Marshall Berger, the honorable Marshall Berger, who presided was the the the uh Superior Court just justice who provided over the uh last. Okay. Okay, so we have we're gonna have a good time, and we're asking people to come and celebrate with us. Did you think about all of the uh thousands and thousands and thousands of children who have benefited from uh the being a part of our work? Um we can fill that auditorium.
SPEAKER_00I'll say this as we finish. Uh we talk about the children. I can name multiple parents whose children benefited and now have purchased homes that their parents live in. So they've actually been able to reach up, not just back, right? To take care of their family as a whole. And you are uh amazing and you've made this world a better place. So I I'm I know y'all are gonna have a ball on July 9th.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00I hope to see you there. I'm not gonna be in town. Where you gonna be?
SPEAKER_01Never mind, never mind.
SPEAKER_00Oh, God.
SPEAKER_01All right, all right. Well, that's all right. We'll we we still love you.
SPEAKER_00Uh good. I appreciate that. But but I send my love. I would otherwise I would be there.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Otherwise, I'd be there. Thank you so much. You're welcome. No dumb questions where uh there are no dumb questions. Uh so thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Thank you, sir. All right, take care. You too. Bye bye, y'all.