Background

The League of Women Voters of Connecticut believes that promoting racial/ethnic and economic diversity and avoiding racial isolation in public schools is essential to provide substantially equal educational opportunity for Connecticut children, as required by state law. Offering students diverse, inclusive educational opportunities from an early age is crucial to achieving national educational and civic goals, and the state's educational, civic and economic goals to prepare students for higher education or productive employment, to give them the opportunity to be responsible citizens able to participate in our democracy, and to contribute to the state's economy. A working partnership between state and local authorities must exist to guarantee success. The LWVCT supports the concept of collective responsibility among individual school districts and the state of CT to take proactive steps toward achieving diversity and avoiding racial isolation in the student population. Such approaches could include but not be limited to the following: