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WakeEd

The WakeEd blog is devoted to discussing and answering questions about the major issues facing the Wake County school system as it prepares to undergo historic changes. Will the new school board scrap the diversity policy in favor of neighborhood schools? Will year-round schools be converted back to a traditional calendar? How will the new board respond to growth and the school construction program?

WakeEd is maintained by The News & Observer's Wake schools reporter, T. Keung Hui. While Keung posts information and analysis on the issues, keep us posted on your suggestions, questions, tips and what you're doing to cope with the changes in Wake's schools.

Parent friendliness in Wake

Submitted by KeungHui on 08/19/2008 - 10:17

Wake got a mediocre grade for parent friendliness in a new report issued by the John Locke Foundation.

Wake got a grade of C on the report. None of the state's 115 districts got better than a B+ on "The Parental Prerogative: How ‘parent-friendly’ are school districts in North Carolina?"

The report was put together by Terry Stoops, an occasional poster here and an education policy analyst for the Locke Foundation. One thing to keep in mind is that the Locke Foundation is pretty critical of the state's public education system.

Wake's grade was based on four components.

Wake got a C for administration:
* How well did administrators communicate with teachers and parents?
* How bureaucratic was the school district?

Wake got a C for teachers:
* How stable was the teacher workforce?
* How many teaching position vacancies remained at the beginning of the school year?

Wake got a D+ on safety:
* How safe were the schools in the school district?

Wake got an A- on performance:
* How well did the school district perform on state tests?
* How well did students in the district perform on the SATs?
* What percentage of district students graduated high school in four years?

Overall, the report found that smaller districts got better ratings than bigger ones.

Comments

JLF Story uses NCDPI Data!

Wed, 08/20/2008 - 08:31 — Kent Misegades (not verified)

Thank you Keung for mentioning this story, but it would be better in the print version of the N&O in order to reach a larger audience. The JLF uses facts, which is why they are often critical of government schools - that's what one must conclude from facts. Page 10 of the Stoops report shows his sources: the NCDPI and the NC Office of the Governor. Are these not indisputable? There IS data to show that F&R busing doesn't work, my study from this past spring: ullisart.com/images/Misegades_Balance_rebuttal.pdf
Like Terry Stoops, I was careful to use credible sources and provide readers the means to duplicate my work. Most of the performance data comes from the WCPSS and the NCDPI. I have received no refutations of this study since publishing it this past spring.

WCPSS and the BoE do not

Wed, 08/20/2008 - 09:17 — bigwinnie

WCPSS and the BoE do not care about credible sources, they care about sources that back their diversity busing plan PERIOD.

Print space

Wed, 08/20/2008 - 09:09 — KeungHui (author)

One of the things we're all going to have to get used to is that space in the print edition is a lot scarcer now. A lot more stuff will be running online only or in longer form online.

Mr Hui -Advertise the blog more in the print area

Wed, 08/20/2008 - 12:54 — Voice_of Reason (not verified)

Maybe more people will come here to learn about the "dark side" of WCPSS.

Go Ron!

Tue, 08/19/2008 - 17:42 — bigwinnie

again, a heartfelt thanks to Ron for sticking up for families!
http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/local&id=6337697

If I were a gambling man...

Tue, 08/19/2008 - 16:14 — Dadof3

...and I'm not, but if I were, I would expect that a fairly-administered poll (and I've argued the near impossibility of such a thing) of most Wake County parents would reveal... apathy, and whatever would match that as a grade on the topic here.

I would also expect to find a correlation between an increasing level of school volunteering and parental dissatisfaction. But that's purely anecdotal.

I'm unsure how the strident secularists would poll; other than to reveal they CAN'T LET SOME THINGS GO...

ROFLMAO!!!!!!!

Tue, 08/19/2008 - 17:00 — bigwinnie

sorry, can't resist...even though we've come so far! :+)

seriously, seriously....

Tue, 08/19/2008 - 17:18 — bigwinnie

how does one conduct a neutral poll? this topic has become near and dear to me recently and debating the merits of a one question survey vs. say a 3 question survey....

thoughts?

As the politicians say

Tue, 08/19/2008 - 17:34 — Dadof3

The only poll that counts is on election day, which is partially what I base my sentiment on.

I'm glad you took my note humorously.

yeah it was a good day so I was able to!

Tue, 08/19/2008 - 17:41 — bigwinnie

not an election poll, and opinion poll.....what calendar do families prefer? Is it so very far off to ask simply that?

What calendar do you prefer?

Data, please?

Tue, 08/19/2008 - 13:03 — Anonymous (not verified)

I'm confused about this report. What was the methodology? What criteria did they use to determine "How well did administrators communicate with teachers and parents?" or "How bureaucratic was the school district?" or "How safe were the schools?" Did they survey parents? Were their correlations to national studies or other benchmarks? Or is this just Mr. Stoops opinion? How were the letter grades determined? What was deemed to be acceptable teacher stability? For the life of me I can't understand why the N&O continues to give space and credibility to such opinionated "research."

Data, please? No Really I would like to see it too

Tue, 08/19/2008 - 16:57 — Voice_of_Reason_

Mr./Ms. Anonymouse

A lot of people on this blog have been asking for the data to support socio-economic busing and none ever came our way. We were only given related opinionated research supporting it. We even offered a substantial monetary reward with no takers. So I guess you hate it when people that disagree play at your own game.

yeah for the life of me, I

Tue, 08/19/2008 - 15:02 — bigwinnie

yeah for the life of me, I can't understand why the N&O continues to give space and credibility to such opinionated "research" either

http://www.swannfellowship.org/Issues/080814Education&Poverty.pdf

Huh?

Tue, 08/19/2008 - 15:35 — Bob_Sconce

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. That Swann fellowship report is a puff-piece that takes one piece of data, wraps it with a bunch of option and calls it a report.

The JLF report just used publicly available data. The "school safety" numbers, for example, are based on the incidence of crime and violence in each district. The methodology is clearly spelled out.

Wake County lost out, apparently (1) because of the bureaucracy in the administration (measured as the ratio of consultants, clerical and other staff to total employment), (2) high teacher turnover, and (3) school crime and violence. Wake scored fairly well on the academic side.

fa·ce·tious //

Tue, 08/19/2008 - 15:40 — bigwinnie

fa·ce·tious

adjective

1.	not meant to be taken seriously or literally: a facetious remark.

2.	amusing; humorous.

3.	lacking serious intent; concerned with something nonessential, amusing, or frivolous: a facetious person.

(the Swann Fellowshipt report was completely annoying to me. stridently secular as I am :p

Snort

Tue, 08/19/2008 - 15:10 — Dadof3

For the life of me I can't understand why the N&O continues to give space and credibility to such opinionated "research."

I'm not surprised how the left eats its young, but you just gotta love the denial. Here's some very simple google-searched data that you can do in your PJ's about the above sentence, as of 3:48 pm on 8/19

site:newsobserver.com mccain: 7,380

site:newsobserver.com obama: 14,700

The "site:" qualifier limits the search to pages at the N&O's web server.

They decide AND opine, I mean, report. Guess which side of the spectrum is over-reported and then which side is under? I have some data for you if you're confused.

Misleading site statistics

Tue, 08/19/2008 - 15:32 — Anonymous (not verified)

The number of hits isn't a reliable indicator of bias:

site:foxnews.com obama 153,000

site:foxnews.com mccain 124,000

Thank you JLF & Mr. Stoops.......

Tue, 08/19/2008 - 12:45 — Wuptdo

It is a pretty sad day when a local public foundation does the type of legwork & reporting that local reporters used to or should be doing. I really feel sorry for Mr. Hui and other journalist at the NandO because I know they want to do the "tough" reporting that the public really wants. However, the editors at the NandO (and other Media outlets) prefer to treat WCPSS with velvet gloves (no story here folks, keep moving on).

Image if the NandO treated the WCPSS like they do DOT, Mental Health, Uncle Jim Black and now recently, Gov. Weasley.

The TRUTH is out there........