History of CQE

Citizens for Quality Education ("CQE") was founded in 1994 in response to the then Board of Education's "K-2/3-5" plan. This ill-advised and controversial plan would have completely dismantled West Hartford's neighborhood school system. It would have redistricted every elementary school student in town by busing them out of their neighborhood school and to another school across town for half of their elementary school years, separated siblings, and disrupted families -- all for no educational benefit (and at an increased cost to tax payers to pay for the forced busing.) This disaster of a plan kept families with school aged children away from West Hartford in droves, negatively impacted property values, and seriously eroded public confidence in those who held public office - and a public trust - at that time. It was only after a nearly a year of pitting neighbor against neighbor, and driving the town to the brink of the abyss that the Democrat controlled board of education reverse it's vote on the K-2/3-5 plan and then seek other more reasoned and appropriate alternatives.

The board's K-2/3-5 plan was in response to the State of Connecticut's Racial Imbalance Law. This statute mandates that no school in a given school district (town) can have a minority population that is 25 percentage points higher or lower than the town wide average of minority students.

Now, more than a decade later we once again have a board of education with a super majority (5-2) of Democrats - and the State of Connecticut is once again attempting to enforce the racial imbalance law (a statute which we believe to be inherently racist as it would have us treat children differently based on their race.) It is this very real potential for history to repeat itself that has CQE reaching out to West Hartford parents and taxpayers to shine full light on this issue that the current Board of Education has largely operated in the shadows on in recent years. For more information on what has recently transpired (and more importantly, where the Board of Education appears to be heading with this issue) please read the post entitled "What's Happening Now?" on this website.