This week on 0684-Radi0, our free podcast (subscribe here in the iTunes Store), we talk to Board of Education candidate Hugo Alves. The Republican is one of eight total candidates seeking a seat on the school board Nov. 7. He’s in a contested two-person race for a two-year Board of Ed term. Alves was elected to the school board in 2021. There also are four four-year seats up for election. Here are recent episodes of 0684-Radi0:
Thank you, Hugo, for your service to New Canaan. 4, um er I mean 2, more years!
I find the statement that “We are not Westport” disturbing. Is that to imply that New Canaan “values” are better than Westport “values”?
Possibly wishing we were a little more Westport….
https://www.niche.com/k12/search/best-school-districts/s/connecticut/
I think it might be the diversity of Westport. Another board of Ed candidate that suggests we close the gate.
Close the gate? Have you been downtown on a weekday, or at a New Canaan restaurant recently? New Canaan welcomes any and all, provided they can afford it. What you are really pushing for, without realizing it obviously, is sameness everywhere.
Regarding diversity, here is a quote you won’t like:
“If you’re really sincere about diversity, then you need to quit insisting that everyone should THINK exactly like you do. Unanimity of thought, especially when it’s enforced through speech codes and laws that restrict and criminalize ideological dissent, is not tolerance, it’s totalitarianism. Tolerating different ideas is the most important form of tolerance.”
J. Goad
It’s not clear how you go from the idea of “allowing diversity” to “pushing sameness everywhere”. Seems like quite a leap.
Regarding who’s welcome to NC in your view, I guess it’s not everyone, per your comment above.
Your last sentence is a strawman argument (see my first sentence above).
It isn’t a leap Paul, it’s a consequence. What you, Arnold and others are pushing for, under so-called “diversity,” is that every town should have the same ethnic makeup, range of incomes, population density, variety of housing/architecture (tall, multi-unit buildings in single family neighborhoods), along with the increased crime rates and traffic congestion that will inevitably go along with it. That is the road to sameness.
If you are only talking about ethnic diversity lets look at the numbers – according to the state of CT figures 2009 – 2023 New Canaan saw its trend for ‘students of color’ increase from 6.8% to 20.1% of the total enrollment or a combined annual growth rate of 8.7%, (Darien grew at a 10% rate over the same period – but Darien had both a lower start and end point). Westport was 7.5% growth, Wilton 8.2% and Greenwich 3.3% CAGR https://public-edsight.ct.gov/Educators/Educator-Diversity-Dashboard?language=en_US. You then need to look at private school K-12 (instate) enrollment with New Canaan, Darien, and Westport all between 590 – 660 resident kids attending private schools rather than public (Wilton has a much lower figure). Greenwich has a large figure at close to 2,800 kids (Norwalk as reference has around 1,100) – I do not know the ethnic distribution of private vs. public school kids – https://public-edsight.ct.gov/Students/Enrollment-Dashboard/Nonpublic-School-Enrollment-and-Staff-Counts?language=en_US.
Lastly if you want to get a view on enrollment by district with all sorts of ways to split the data look at https://public-edsight.ct.gov/students/enrollment-dashboard?language=en_US as this will show that New Canaan did this at the same time it kept its overall enrollment steady, which is not the case with all neighboring towns.
This may not fit into the your narrative with regards to perceived progress in New Canaan and how it relates to your views of who to vote for in the local BOE elections, but it is clear from the data that New Canaan is becoming significantly more ethnically diverse than it was 15 years ago, and based on state and national demographic trends there is no reason to not expect this to continue. This of course is a totally different issue than diversity of thought etc.
Thank you for all you have done and can’t wait for you to serve our community again!
In response to William Taylor 10-5 – 3:20pm:
“NC welcomes any and all, provided they can afford it” is pretty clear & direct, not sure how else you can interpret that other than they are not welcome if that cannot afford it. It’s not clear how that’s a strawman argument, which is a technique that changes the original argument to better argue against it – that wasn’t done here.
William, I’d be happy to have coffee with you for a general discussion. I feel in-person is way better than printed communication. While I don’t expect we would walk away agreeing on everything, we might learn something from each other and come away with a better understanding of each other’s position.