By CHRIS POWELL
Having smiled benignly at Hartford Public High School’s graduation of an admittedly illiterate and innumerate student two years ago, Governor Lamont and the General Assembly this year passed a law formally lowering academic standards in public high schools.
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It was almost as if they were re-enacting the 1932 Marx Brothers movie “Horse Feathers,” in which Groucho becomes a college president and declares to the faculty: “This college is a failure. The trouble is, we’re neglecting football for education.” He proceeds accordingly.
But “Horse Feathers” was a parody. Governor Lamont and state legislators are supposed to be operating in real life.
Connecticut’s Hearst newspapers reported last week that the new law forbids public high schools from enforcing academic standards for student athletes that are higher than the standards set by the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, standards that are laughably low. The CIAC standards require student athletes to pass just four classes per grading period even as most students must take six classes in a grading period if they are to graduate on time. Under the CIAC standards, a student taking six classes can receive four D grades and two F grades and remain eligible for varsity sports.
But until now Connecticut high schools have been free to enforce higher standards, and many have done so, as by requiring a minimum grade average of C or by disqualifying students if they fail even one class.
Under the new law, higher standards will be forbidden.
State Rep. Jason Rojas, D-East Hartford, the House majority leader, says the lower standards are necessary to be fair to students from poor households and to encourage them to stay in school to preserve their connection to the one thing they like about it — sports.
But what is the point of staying in school if a student is going to graduate uneducated? What incentive does a sports-loving student have to become educated when standards for participation are essentially eliminated? Only one high school athlete in a thousand has a chance of making a living as a professional athlete even for a few years.
The new law emphasizes to student athletes what most high school students in Connecticut already know: that they will be advanced from grade to grade and given a diploma even if they learn nothing. Now student athletes will be told that they can be completely ignorant and still enjoy the honor of wearing their school’s uniform.
Of course, as “Horse Feathers” suggests, this is an old racket. But back then it wasn’t as damaging. Sports were not as big a business, schools weren’t yet corrupted by political correctness, the world wasn’t as competitive economically with the United States, and society had self-respect.
In his campaign commercials Governor Lamont proclaims that Connecticut has the best schools in the country. Someone should ask him how his assertion squares with the new law requiring high schools to dumb their students down. And even if Connecticut still has the best schools in the country, God help the country.
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STATE ALREADY LOSES WEALTHY: Will wealthy people leave Connecticut if their taxes are raised substantially?
The state’s 19 billionaires may be less sensitive to taxes to some degree, since they have so much money. But what is that degree? Tax too much and anyone will depart.
In any case Connecticut long has had a problem with people departing because of high taxes and the state’s high cost of living generally. Florida, with no state income tax, and other Southern states with lower taxes are full of former Connecticut residents from the middle and upper classes. Migration is not entirely a matter of warmer winters, since many former Connecticut residents keep their homes here and return in the summer.
Connecticut’s population wouldn’t be growing at all but for the illegal immigration state government facilitates.
Raising taxes isn’t the only way for state government to address more public needs. Improving government’s efficiency would be better, if politically impossible as long as state government operates mainly as a pension and benefit society.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)
Chris Powell column 