The Great Schools in Wake Coalition is calling for the Wake County school board to delay implementation of the new student assignment plan for a year to address what it calls unanswered questions about the plan.
In a press release and position paper released today, GSIW objects to “the rapid and reckless implementation” of the assignment plan. The group cites issues such as cost, lack of choice, elimination of base assignments, impact on newcomers, unfairness to magnet schools applicants from low-performing nodes and impact on school balance.
“The public has been offered what is essentially a glorified PR and marketing plan,” said Yevonne Brannon, chairwoman of Great Schools in Wake, in a statement. “Parents remain thoroughly confused; many are lulled by the prospect of grandfathering and keeping their current school assignment and are unaware of the significant costs and considerable upheaval that awaits our community.”
Among the 10 points in GSIW's position paper is last fall's school board elections. The group says "voters rejected the previous board 5-0 this fall."
"The fall election was a referendum on the policies and practices of the last two years,” according to Great Schools. “The current version of the plan reflects and embodies those failed policies. Citizens recognized that the plans afoot were costly and poorly conceived which is why those who supported this plan in the election were defeated.”
(Normally I'd go into more detail on the other nine points but I'm juggling various items today so you guys can read and comment about them yourselves.)
Comments
is board modifying tomorrow?
Mon, 01/09/2012 - 22:41 — sam123456Keung,
Does the board agenda for tomorrow include a discussion of the assignment plan? Will they be adjusting/modifiying feeder patterns during tomorrow's session?
Thanks!
Thanks for the late night chuckle
Tue, 01/10/2012 - 02:17 — FSandYOUCome on man, the Geico cave is no place to live.
We'll find out tomorrow.
Mon, 01/09/2012 - 23:50 — KeungHui (author)We'll find out tomorrow.
...
Mon, 01/09/2012 - 16:26 — SideburnsA press release AND a position paper? Lucky day.
Does GSIW know that the increase in transportation costs could be avoided by not offering bus service with grandfathering? That's how it's always been handled in the past. You can stay but you have to drive your child there.
Different beast this time
Mon, 01/09/2012 - 19:03 — SatchHHSidburns, Everyone in the county falls into the grandfathering bucket this time. Everyone. It would be crazy to not offer transportation since the grandfathering component of the new plan is what provides the stability for the 90+ percent of parents who are happy with their kids' current school. Reducing costs by not providing transportation for grandfathering is a silly idea. Previously, I believe WCPSS should have helped more folks with grandfathering transportation too.
...
Mon, 01/09/2012 - 19:25 — SideburnsI agree. IMO, stability is so important and glad that this plan offers that for all students.
I was just pointing out that GSIW cries about the increase in cost for this plan yet ignores the benefits being provided to all children with some of those costs. But I wouldn't expect anything less from them.
community outreach
Mon, 01/09/2012 - 15:05 — EBDarcyKeung, any idea how successful they have been with reaching parents of children not in the system? I heard Tata say a month ago that they anticipate 12,000 new kindergarterners next year. Have you heard anything about how many are registered? There seems to be lots of confusion about this. Some parents think registering at the school they want is enough.
Staff is supposed to report
Mon, 01/09/2012 - 15:15 — KeungHui (author)Staff is supposed to report back to the board on the numbers.
Fact Check
Mon, 01/09/2012 - 13:42 — ForWakeI never thought I would have to fact check GSIW. Their members should hold them accountable for this misinformation.
First, 600,000+ addresses will not be ‘unassigned.’ Every student will get a seat. This headline claim creates unnecessary drama and insecurity in the community.
This paper claims that “you can have stability, proximity and choice and avoid the current chaos with time and better planning.” The current plan was developed based on decades of research and experience. You can find some of it here, including an extensive bibliography of the 22 systems that were studied and other research on how assignment relates to achievement and other educational outcomes: http://assignment-archive.wcpss.net/overview/
How does GSIW propose to do it better?
FACT CHECK
(1) This plan costs more money, lacks a detailed budget and funding, and buses more children.
Costs more money? Misleading. This plan costs more money than what? Some direct costs may be higher, but we may save money elsewhere. The least expensive plan to implement is a neighborhood schools plan. Is that what GSIW wants?
Lacks a budget and funding? False. This plan does not lack funding or a plan. So far, they have been able to realign resources to conduct the much needed outreach for this plan. Funding for school buses, etc. will come with the 2012-13 school budget that is in development.
Buses more children? False /Misleading. There is no data to support this claim. In fact, students who were traveling to their sixth or seventh furthest school will now get to choose from schools closer to home. While students who were bussed away from their closest school to make room for magnet programs will now have a say as to what school they go to, not just be shipped to a school with leftover space.
(2) The plan does not guarantee proximity and destroys historic neighborhood attendance patterns.
Does not guarantee proximity? Misleading. No plan guarantees proximity. However, most students are now guaranteed to attend one of their closest schools, (even if it is not the closest school). This was not the case before when thousands of base assignments were far from home and there was no real opportunity to go anywhere else. Also, even today you are not guaranteed to attend the school within 1.5 miles of your home if it is capped. The new plan will give highest or near highest priority to proximate students as seats open up, which is better than how it works currently with a capped/not capped approach.
Destroys historic attendance patterns? False/ Misleading. The criteria for picking feeder patterns is outlined in the plan. The first priority is to honor historical feeders, second is to calendar match. This approach was applied it universally across the district. This approach consolidated 265 feeder patterns down to 115, keeping our students together instead of splintering them all over the county.
Our school system adds thousands of new students every year and 1-3 schools are built. Patterns will always have to change but this plan gives an apolitical approach to make adjustments instead of moving thousands of students every year from school to school.
(3) The plan does not give real choice.
Misleading. What is the definition of real choice? There is not unlimited capacity so, of course, not everyone can get their first choice. That was true with the old plan with many people getting their fourth or fifth choice when they didn’t get their three magnet choices. Areas that were severely limited from participating in the magnet lottery can now at least have non-magnet choices.
The truth is that families have more choices than ever. Every choice list includes at least five elementary, two middle, and two high schools, many include more. Children of poverty have three more choices than their peers to give them the possibility of choosing a school that best suits their needs, something that has never been a choice for them in the past.
(4) The plan actively limits choice at the points where it is most important.
False. There will be choices at every point including whether to stay on a feeder pattern or apply for another option, a choice they can make every year. As to this claim, there will actually be more choices available at these “most important” points than at any other time because these are the points at which most people will transition on and off feeder patterns.
(5) The plan does nothing to avoid high poverty schools.
False. To say that the plan does nothing to avoid high poverty schools is to say that the magnet schools do nothing to avoid high poverty schools, which is one of their primary objectives. This plan strongly supports magnet programs and their objectives to avoid high poverty schools. It is also better than the old plan because the students who are displaced are getting better options than they did in the past when they were simply sent across town to schools that had space. In truth, the old plan was doing a very poor job of avoiding high poverty schools. We need to get back to using magnet schools for their stated purpose.
High poverty schools are not sustainable. Finally, something true. It is ironic that this paper mentions Walnut Creek. The Superintendent and staff have expressed many times that part of their purpose with this plan is to avoid high poverty schools, using the increased cost of Walnut Creek as an example. Based on our demographics, it is not possible to completely avoid high poverty schools, but this plan prioritizes avoiding high poverty schools and will hopefully be more successful than the old plan that failed in that mission.
(6) The plan threatens home values and does not accommodate our County’s ongoing growth.
Home values. Misleading /False. There is no data to support this claim. In fact, experience shows that home values increase in areas where a choice plan is implemented because all schools work harder to be attractive choices and become attractive choices.
Does not accommodate growth. False. This is a primary advantage of the plan. It does accommodate growth by asking parents to list a number of choices and letting them distribute themselves across the schools in accordance with the establish criteria and actual capacity. This plan was designed by experts in choice plans and capacity. If we don’t have enough seats for students, then any plan will have problem.
(7) The voters rejected the previous Board 5-0 this fall.
False. This is as bad as the Republican board members saying ‘we have a mandate’ two years ago. To claim you know what the voters voted for/against shows just how far GSIW will go to stretch the truth.
In truth, four of these five seats had been held by Democrats and yet one district went to a runoff and another was won with only a few hundred votes. This is not to dismiss the results, but to show that our county is divided politically and the vote was not a referendum on the plan. In fact, all of the candidates said two things pretty consistently: Tata is doing a good job and this is our plan moving forward. Why did they say those things? Probably because polling showed that the community likes the plan and the leadership of Superintendent Tata.
(8) The plan shuts out newcomers.
False. The plan is more welcoming to newcomers because they have more choice and will not be stuffed into an overcrowded school. There is movement in and out of grades and schools all the time. Newcomers will have access to these seats. The past approach of filling schools beyond capacity was not sustainable. This plan will more evenly distribute students, but not by dictate. It will instead take parents/students preferences into consideration.
(9) The plan undermines the health of magnet schools and does not improve the fairness of magnet access.
Undermines the health of magnet schools. False. There is no evidence to show this is true. (*In the past, “alter the demographics” is code for “we don’t want more poor kids in our schools. I hope this is not what they mean.)
Does not improve access. False/Misleading. At the very least, access is not worse because there are at least as many magnet seats as before and access is no worse than before. The claims that nearby students are locked out are not true and access is actually being expanded in some schools. Students were locked out before but now they have a say as to whether they stay at their school or get displaced to another school.
(10) The public did not have opportunity for substantive and meaningful input in the development of the plan; substantive and meaningful community outreach is still nonexistent.
Public input. False. The public had dozens (if not hundreds) of opportunities to engage with staff at public meetings, outreach sessions, surveys, BAC meetings, and more. Also, more direct comment and question opportunities by email, phone and online have been available for months.
Community outreach. False. Even new school board members at the meeting last week acknowledged that this plan includes tremendous community outreach that has been lacking in Wake County. In fact, community outreach is better than ever under this plan. You can find a recent outreach plan update here: http://www.wcpss.net/Board/work-session-materials/01-03-2012--work-session/sa-outreach-plan_update--1.2.2011.pdf
reply to ForWake
Tue, 01/10/2012 - 17:48 — kah678ForWake,
Since you are far more deeply invested in selling this plan than I am in defeating it, I will only highlight a few of your most misleading statements to discuss.
With regard to home values decreasing or increasing under a choice plan, you claim that “experience shows that home values increase in areas where a choice plan is implemented because all schools work harder to be attractive choices…” What experience? Charlotte’s experience? Did their choice plan help their home values across the board? Your faith in the appropriateness of applying a free market philosophy to the public school system is breathtaking. But it’s nothing more than wishful thinking. You are assuming that schools can and will work harder to be attractive choices, but what if there’s no money for them to do anything differently to make themselves more attractive? What if they work harder and are still underchosen? Will those schools be closed? What does it do to property values if homes are located near a closed school?
Twice you talk about parents distributing themselves evenly across the system (points 6 and 8). Why on earth do you assume this will happen? Are you assuming that parents have such intense loyalty to the Wake County Public Schools that even if they don’t get their first or second choice they will stay in the system and be happy with their third for fourth choice? That is beyond wishful thinking. It is complete hogwash. People who can afford to leave will exit the system if they are not happy with the school they are given. Parents across most of the United States exercise some modicum of control over where their children attend school by purchasing a home in a particular neighborhood or district. The old policy 6200 was unusual in the United States because it broke that widely held expectation that purchasing property X guarantees school Y. This new choice plan ALSO breaks that expectation BUT it does not contain the goal of keeping all schools below 40% F&R. The fact that the old plan didn’t succeed in its goal of keeping all schools below 40% F&R is moot. At least it had this laudable goal! And it succeeded for some significant period of time, contrary to your claims. The point is the new choice plan surrenders the composition of schools, in some important and long lasting ways, to the invisible hand of the market – in this case parents’ preferences. People will want what they perceive to be the best schools and the more people who choose those schools, the more in demand they will become. Your hope for an even distribution of families is nothing more than that – a hope. It’s purely speculative until people actually start making their choices. The number crunchers will have lots of fun numbers to crunch once that happens, but by then, how many disaffected families will have exited the system?
Many of your statements read like glib advertising slogans, e.g., “The truth is that families will have more choices than ever.” “The plan is more welcoming to newcomers because they have more choice…,” etc. These statements are simply not true. Many families have, without question, less choice now than they did before. Many newcomers, without question, will not enjoy the benefit of a feeder pattern-guaranteed seat and will be left with less desirable choices than their neighbors. Many rising 6th and 9th graders, contrary to your unfounded assumption, will NOT take the risk of giving up their feeder pattern to go back into the lottery, so we should not expect that new openings in those grades will necessarily be very plentiful. In fact, doesn’t the alleged cost savings at the end of this crazy rainbow DEPEND on people going to school closer to home, sticking with their feeder patterns K through 12, and generally not moving around that much?
One final point: there may be good reasons why some families should have less choice now than they did before – perhaps in an effort to make the system more fair to everyone, magnet and non-magnet families alike. But be honest about what is happening, make the argument explicitly, don’t sugar coat the reality with this snow job about families having more choice than ever. It is complete crap.
interesting post
Mon, 01/09/2012 - 19:19 — SatchHHYou seem to know a lot about the new plan. I may post rebuttals to some of your misleading misleadings later, but wanted to point out one in particular that jumped out at me (copied your portion at the end of my reply).
You state in your first fact check that "the least expensive plan to implement is a neighborhood schools plan. Is that what GSIW wants"? Well - I attended a forum last year put on by GSIW called Costs & Consequences where the whole premise was the extra expense and HIGH costs of a neighborhood schools system - financial, educational, and I would say moral costs. So to answer your question - clearly the neighborhood schools model is NOT supported by GSIW. I encourage you to investigate the reams of research showing how expensive neighborhood schools are - when they create high poverty schools, etc. They are only cheap on the surface, not if you scratch even a tiny bit below the surface.
Also - hasn't Gen. Tata said that the new choice plan will cost more than the current plan? That's probably what is meant by "costs more." That's how I read it.
FACT CHECK
(1) This plan costs more money, lacks a detailed budget and funding, and buses more children.
Costs more money? Misleading. This plan costs more money than what? Some direct costs may be higher, but we may save money elsewhere. The least expensive plan to implement is a neighborhood schools plan. Is that what GSIW wants?
That is the difference between misleading and false.
Mon, 01/09/2012 - 22:18 — ForWakeThat is the difference between misleading and false. The claim may technically be true but it is misleading for exactly the reason you gave - the costs they refer to are just the surface costs, you have to look below the surface to know the true costs.
I was being ironic when I asked if GSIW wants neighborhood schools. It is the logical extension of their argument and demonstrates that are misleading the reader by pointing to costs as a reason to stall when their own research shows that costs are sometimes worth the expense.
Also, my post acknowledged that "Some direct costs may be higher" but the question is still: more money than what? The old plan perhaps cost a little less but was not sustainable and did not achieve its goals. Neighborhood schools may technically cost less up front but will cost more down the road and will cause even worse capacity problems.
The staff and experts that developed this plan studied the reams of research you refer to in your post (see their bibliography). In the end, with this research in mind, they decided that these costs are worth it.
While I agree with you that
Mon, 01/09/2012 - 21:57 — jenmanWhile I agree with you that we don't really know the cost of this plan yet, I caution you to take what GSIW says with a grain of salt. This is the same group that argued against the new location for Rolesville High by saying that Rolesville only has 200-something high school students. They conveniently omitted the students living in unincorporated areas around the school. Now, I'm not arguing for or against the final location, but GSIW should have at least been truthful in their arguments.
What about the fact that
Mon, 01/09/2012 - 13:04 — jenmanWhat about the fact that McLaurin and Morrison voted for this plan?
Well maybe the great schools gum flapper
Mon, 01/09/2012 - 14:23 — FSandYOUshould step up and tell her board buddies they need wake up to what's about to happen around them. They do realize parents start ranking choices a week from tomorrow don't they?
EIGHT DAYS you have board. When will you do your job on this issue?
An issue the NEW majority created I might add.