Your chances of getting an Advanced Placement class or foreign language in a high school vary widely across the district.
The disparities were highlighted in data shared at this month's student achievement committee meeting of the school board. The differences were noticeable enough that board members are talking about the need to make some changes.
For instance, staff presented data showing that Enloe High leads the way with 28 AP courses. But none of the four small schools that make up East Wake High had more than five AP courses with one school having none.
In foreign languages/second languages, Enloe High was listed as offering everything but AP Latin Virgil. But none of the East Wake small schools offered anything other than Spanish.
During the meeting, staff explained that the reason Chinese is only available at Enloe is because of the school's GT magnet program. Board members responded that they might end the restrictions that prevent Chinese from being offered at other high schools.
You'll note that Broughton High offers a lot of foreign languages as part of its International Baccalaureate magnet program. The board got this data on Dec. 9, the day before the vote to phase out the magnet program.
The new data is a followup on a draft report showing course offerings for each high school.
The lack of course offerings at East Wake continued to annoy board member Lori Millberg, who is chairwoman of the student achievement committee. Board members speculated that splitting East Wake into four small schools could be preventing them from having enough students to offer some courses.
In 2005, the N.C. New Schools Project awarded the first installment of a grant to transform East Wake High into four small schools. In all, the district is slated to get $1.2 million over a five-year period.
The idea was that having smaller schools would improve student performance and lower the dropout rate. Teachers would be able to better establish connections with students.
Board member Beverley Clark said the project just might not be working out as well as hoped. That's ominous news for the fate of East Wake's small schools after funding ends in 2010.
Asst. Supt. David Holdzkom is supposed to present to the board in the spring an evaluation of the effectiveness of the grant at East Wake.
Click here for the number of AP classes per school.
Click here for the number of foreign languages per high school.
Click here for the number of PE classes per high school.
Click here for the PE classes offered at the GT magnet middle schools.
Comments
question the availibility of courses
Thu, 01/01/2009 - 10:21 — charterschoolmomIs there any information on the actual availability of courses? At my kids' school, some AP courses are only available every other year. At many schools, courses are only available if there are enough interested students.
“At many schools, courses
Sat, 01/03/2009 - 10:00 — ncdad1“At many schools, courses are only available if there are enough interested students.”
While there are staples like Spanish, many AP classes seem to be based on student interest which gets back to the whole discussion of low income student concentration. The lower your school’s income, the smaller the college bound population and the few students’ sign up for advanced courses. Really the numbers don’t tell the actual story because more disruptive than total offerings is when courses in a sequence are arbitrarily cancelled due to low interest on the first day of school. So, AP I, II, and III or some specialty courses (Drama / Yearbook I, II, III) are not offered reliably all the time so completing the sequence is impossible. As a result, if you are in a low income school with a child who is college bound you are at a disadvantage to parents in a high income school. The cycle builds on it’s self as the population understands how the game is played and migrates to best opportunity for their kids.
Disparity
Wed, 12/31/2008 - 20:49 — SideburnsMr Hui,
Who determines which AP classes are offered at a high school?
I don't really see a huge disparity. Besides EW and Enloe, all the other high schools offer 14,15,16 AP courses.
In the first chart it
Wed, 12/31/2008 - 21:18 — ncdad1Sidburn, here is how I read the info...
In the first chart it has
Enloe 28 AP classes vs. EW (3+1+5+0) 9
Wakefield has 22
Second chart - foreign languages
Enloe 14 vs EW 1
Wakefield 9
You would have to be serverly limited in your academic needs and interest to be at home at EW.
.
Sat, 01/03/2009 - 09:34 — ObserverNY.
I can read (and add). I
Wed, 12/31/2008 - 23:09 — SideburnsI can read (and add).
I don't know the history of EWHS but from what I've read it seems the BoE divided this high school up into 4 smaller schools. It would make sense that you can't offer as many AP courses at 4 small schools vs. one large school. The BoE complains about the disparity (esp. Millberg) yet it appears this disparity was due to their prior decision to take a grant to split this school.
My question again would be -- who decides which AP courses are offered at a high school?
The way they do it in other districts.....
Thu, 01/01/2009 - 09:01 — fiestamomSome districts in other parts of the country have a modified open-enrollment. AP classes in the afternoon are open to kids from other district high schools. Other high schools offer mostly vo tech classes which are open to area kids.
It is good to make these
Wed, 12/31/2008 - 14:02 — ncdad1It is good to make these disparities public.
Personally, I don’t have any problem with Enloe which is a huge facility that I am glad to see filled and avoid building another $70M HS. When you see the attendance map for the school with kids driving 26 miles one way to be there it is amazing we are still getting use out of the facility until the area repopulates. I do see a East vs. West Wake fight brewing as the two growing areas fight it out for resources.
I think these subtle disparities are one (not the major or only!) of the problems helping drive reassignments which caused by the mass movement of people in the county. I would hope most public HS are about the same. Yes, there will be some diversity which makes each unique but overall kids would have similar offers and opportunity. There should not be enough disparity beween the schools to cause people to move from house to house to get in one public school over another.
Maybe it starts with a disparity of high and low income kids that can lead to the number of AP and Specialty classes offered (e.g. Shakespeare English, Chinese, Newspaper III) which leads to some schools being perceived as having more opportunity than other, more accomplished than others (e.g. newspaper articled on the number of AP scholars at one school over another), children in lower opportunity schools feeling inferior and parents of those children moving to get in the “hot” school with the best – scores, AP classes, specialty classes, etc.
Just like in the marketplace, slight differences in values are communicated and people react by moving back and forth across the county and from street to street trying to get an edge for their child by getting in the “hot” school. You can not blame people for doing that but you can blame the PUBLIC school system for allowing the creation of enough of a disparity between the schools to cause these real or perceived opinions. I think be getting the information out in the public, meaningful discussion and actions can take place.
Btw, did you seeWakefield
Since F&R population does
Wed, 12/31/2008 - 16:16 — vsheehanSince F&R population does not get access to Enloe’s Special classes I think it should be shut down. Some magnet parents are behind the push to have more of Raleigh’s F&R bussed out of their neighborhood schools. if the Magnet is shut down the resources could be spread around.
"Since F&R population does
Wed, 12/31/2008 - 17:33 — ncdad1"Since F&R population does not get access to Enloe’s Special classes I think it should be shut down."
I think that would be shortsighted. Given that a new highschool cost $70M to build and all the schools are over crowded, it would be best to use what we have until it falls apart. As you can see many of the 2600 kids who attend Enloe are from your area and if they were forced back into your school it would cause even more disruption and displacement.
Well..
Wed, 12/31/2008 - 14:16 — Bob_SconceWhy not just expand Enloe's base area? If Broughton can reach well outside the Beltline, why can't Enloe?
I suggest that the big thing driving reassignment is people moving into the county, not people moving from place to place in the county. Second, at least this last go round, seems to be trying to get students at a school to each progress to the next school together. Third is trying to balance out diversity.
I hope that the district's response to this is to add electives to the schools currently without them, not to take them away from those that have them now.
Reference: Enloe Student Map
Wed, 12/31/2008 - 15:11 — ncdad1http://www.wcpss.net/demographics/distance/images_h06/high06_distance_maps.pdf#page=7