Public Education In Hartford

Dear Neighbor:

The 2013 CMT and CAPT tests were made public a few months ago. Students in Hartford are still struggling to make strides. Public officials claim that the scores have gone up since 2007; yet the overall student’s performance is still the same. In order to define the Achievement Gap, parents need to know that their child is still not doing as well as other students located outside of Hartford.

We as parents should not care how students are doing as a group. A parent’s focus should be on their child. If your child has not improved in reading, writing or math skills from last year, is it not wrong to say that “I have not seen any improvement in my child”. If teachers, principals and school administrators, are working hard to prepare Hartford students; for college and a career upon graduation; Why must we as parents accept or understand that out children are still struggling to increase achievement.

Hartford public education is sorely lacking. There’s not enough money or time in school to adequately educate our children. Nor is there a commitment to, or even a clear picture of, what and educated citizen of Hartford should look like. Students are almost completely unaware of the empowerment that true education and literacy offer, and it seems that no one has figured out how to get through to the teachers, or the students and their parents.

Parents are disengaged, teachers are overwhelmed and undereducated, and students have no idea of how to live a healthy productive life. It is not their imaginations that have failed them but their educations. They learn the little they know about life from computer games, mass media, sports and the constant distractions of the streets (world), they value worthless trinket’s that will get them killed.

Whether you know it or not, the young people of Hartford are destined to carry the older generation on their backs. Yet, they haven’t been equipped to deal with the task that is ahead of them. Without a proper education the young people of Hartford are bound to fail them and us. We know that our school system, teachers and educational accessibility is lacking.

I believe this is due to the lack of vision, not a lack of resources, if we cannot see the goal, how can we move toward it? Once we understand what it is our children should know, we will know what is expected of ourselves as parents and educators. The acquisition of knowledge is a personal and therefore, in part, a unique experience, this individual aspect of the learning experience cannot be graded, nor should it be.

A student who works only for a grade rather than for the joy and indispensable importance of knowledge will be limited by the expectations of others rather than take pride in self-growth. Our best students, most of them, are limited by our own failed knowledge of how the world works and what is possible…The question is, Does and education today allow every student in Hartford, Connecticut to become the best he or she can be?



I am not a community leader, nor a politician, or a religious leader I just live in a neighborhood near you. This is where I do that @ in the City of Hartford, I serve the public, and my job is to inform, educate and empower all the residents living within my community. Sincerely Yours, Martha Hood