GSIW telling supporters "we must stop" the new student assignment plan now

This will be a long post (just warning you now so you can skip it), but I've been thinking about the blue plan for a while, and would like to put down a few observations. I really don't have a strong opinion about the plan right now. I see problems and opportunities that sort of cancel themselves out for me.

#1 I do think there is a certain amount of equity built into the blue plan that is not present today. For instance, magnet students have always had the guarantee of being able to go back to the base school if they decide the magnet school is not for them, now they are treated like everyone else. They have to apply to get into a new feeder pattern and take their chances. Also, given the changes already implemented in the magnet lottery, the chances of getting into a magent school are much less determined by socio-economic status, where you live, etc. than they were a few years ago. Since we don't know exactly how the new lottery might be weighted it is hard to judge, but it wouldn't surprise me if the assignment lottery ends up being very similar to the current magnet lottery.

#2 While the acceptance rate to the first choice school might average out across the county to the 85% figure we keep hearing, I think where the student lives will have an enormous impact on first choice acceptance. For people living in slow growth, stable parts of the county where the schools are not particularly over crowded, it probably won't be that hard to get into one's first choice. For those people that live in high growth, younger areas, I can imagine that it would be almost impossible for kids (no matter the age) to get into their closest schools. Even in the kindergarten classes, many seats will be taken up with siblings. 

#3 The acceptance rate when changing feeder patterns will probably be as uneven as it might be for Kindergarteners. The areas with crowded school simply won't have room for many new kids. Magnet students have been living with the feeder pattern concept for a while now. Students who choose to try to get into a magnet school outside their feeder pattern have almost no chance of getting in, and I really don't see why it would be any different county-wide.

#4 I think the idea that bussing costs will go down in five years is a fantasy. There will be many families with current sixth graders and closely spaced kids who will use their oldest children to pull their younger children along in schools that are not assigned to their neighborhoods for many years, and even a few kids like that per neighborhood with guaranteed transportation will drive up costs. Also, even if the five year figure is good, we will have so many new students in the system by then we're going to need those extra busses and drivers just to cope with growth.

#5 There are a few nagging questions that I've not seen answered at all, or the answers seem very inadequate, that make this plan a bit scary for me. It feels like either it really hasn't been thought out very well, or there are unpleasant surprises waiting for us. There is the middle school question that I've raised before. How will students who go to a middle school that feeds into more than one high school that did not go to a feeder elementary school be treated? Will students be given a choice, or will it be simply a question of which school has room? Or, another big question, how do they deal with new schools? As we have seen time and again, even when people are deeply unhappy with the system as a whole, they tend to want to stay in their current school. How do they fill new schools in anything like a fiscally or educationally sound manner? Will we end up with schools with a few students per grade in the upper grades? Will it take years for a new elementary school to fill up with all the attendant costs of an underutilized school? 

#5 I do see advantages for schools and children once the year starts. Because schools have to take everyone who moves in, particularly K-3 classes in elementary schools can be very unstable. For instance, one of my neighbors works for an elementary school where every kindergarten class has the legal limit of 24 students. Since they know they will get more students as the year progresses (they have every year since the school opened), they are having to pull kids out of their current classes to create a new kindergarten class to make room for incoming students. That would presumeably not be a problem under the blue plan, as schools that have hit their class size limits simply would not have more students assigned to them. 

#6 I do think that students will have more stability this way, and that is something that has been a major complaint in this county for years. Schools will hopefully have a more stable population to deal with, and I do think it is better for students and families to feel invested in a school community they know they will be a part of for many years.

#7 (last one I promise). I think it is very possible that individual schools will not see a huge change in their demographics in response to the blue plan. The individual students who go there might change, but the demographics might be very similar. Given some of the questions Jennifer Mansfield has raised on her blog about which schools have been assigned as choices to individual neighborhoods, I think that the Superintendent is trying to maintain diversity. But, for parents and students, the changes could be dramatic. We won't have the security of a base assignment, but there will be the stability provided by the feeder patterns. I honestly don't know if trading one for the other is a good trade or not.

What a delightful whack job Yevonne Brannon is. This is going to fun. 

The only thing there is going to be a vote on  at the October 4 board meeting is the Algebra policy.

But I think its ENTIRELY APPROPRIATE to have the GSIW crowd out in force, showing their true (truly confused) colors and interferring with that process.

I look forward to seeing Yevonne get herself arrested and be dragged out of a board meeting when the only vote is whether to extend a programmatic guarantee of equal educational opportunity to poor/minority students - a promise of equal opportunity that they NEVER EVER COULD HAVE HAD in her idea of a top notch school district, where their main function was as portable symbolic tokens.

After all, GSIW's silence on the Algebra debate has been a deafening so far.  Its really good to see them take a stand now. 

Break a leg, Yevonne!

Don't forget, Jennifer Mansfield has made similar statements. She too made public comments stating she wants to bring a stop to the new family-friendly student assignment plan. That is the same goal shared by Yevonne Brannon, the Reverends Barber, Gatewood and Petty, and the other race-hustlers.

WakeUP Wake County and GSIW seem to be interchangeably involved in the political process. Will it take an edict from Heaven to encourage the NC Board of Elections to determine exactly WHAT their political agenda is - especially since it seems aimed solely at Republican candidates and anything led by a Republican majority (including Wake Commissioners)?

They have received FREE access to one television station and  unchecked use of Raleigh community access programming. This is unfair, dangerous and  allows them to theoretically impact public policy.

I pray that the voting public sees through their constant wet diapering of anything that personifies progress and success. Venita Peyton, Wake School Board Candidate, District 4