Potentially improving relations between the WEP and the school board majority

Here is the mountains of research that I would like to see - MOUNTAINS of research that shows that INDIVIDUAL student achievement is increased for students from high-poverty neighborhoods who are bussed to lower poverty schools. In other words show me the MOUNTAINS of research that shows that it is socioeconomic (SE) diversity BUSSING that drives achievement. If the existing research uses SE diverse community schools as data inputs that does not validate that SE diversity BUSSING drives achievement - it only tells us that low-income students living in SE diverse communities and attending SE diverse community schools have higher achievement, which seems logical because in their case it is not an either (community and parent proximity) or (diversity), but a both.

Now, I'm guessing that given that only about 1% of school districts in the entire nation BUS to create SE diverse schools and Wake County, which is the largest of those districts, REFUSED to do this research that you will have difficulty providing MOUNTAINS of research to validate a "SE diversity BUSSING policy drives achievement" theory. Now, it seems to me that those who support this theory should have been all over doing the research to validate the theory, but instead they refused.

Research that focuses only on overall school scores also tells me nothing. That is the equivilant of saying we did all this research and determined that fields with mostly blue flowers in them are mostly blue and fields with mostly yellow flowers in them are mostly yellow - well, no duh, I could have told you that and saved the research time. All that shows is that most places have an achievement gap (we already knew that), and therefore, the schools with mostly students at the top of the gap have higher overall score than schools with mostly students at the bottom of the gap and that students at the bottom cost more to try to get over the bar. Show me that data that plucking the blue flowers, transporting them to a field with many yellow flowers while transporting yellow flowers to the blue field actually consistently makes the flowers grow and will close the gap.

Don't tell me the gap can't be closed because some have done it. Don't dismiss them with statements of "they are a rarity, that's why they make them movies". Tell me why they are rarities. Tell me is different about them (do they have magical powers?). Tell me why we can't make it happen here and have a movie made about Wake County. Tell me what is wrong with this county that it can't be done and why this county is OK with being just another place where disadvantaged kids fail and then we pay for too many of them to be housed in prisons. Tell me why our by school pass rates are all over the place - why we have low-poverty schools where low-income students do horrible and schools with higher poverty levels where they are doing relatively well. Tell me why a system where only 59% (or is it 58%) of low-income students are graduating deserves accolades and why we should just keep doing what we were doing and apparently be happy with that result because doing the same thing over and over won't get you a different result.

Give me MOUNTAINS of answers, instead of the same defeatist rhetoric over and over without suggesting any solutions other than keep bussing even though we refused to prove that it actually raises achievement here in Wake County.

If you don't want to answer all that maybe Mr. Parrot will have those answers. I'd also like his insight into whether he would be satisfied with his business if it produced those results and if it did would he keep the same business model or look at changing his model.

Hands clapping! 

Perhaps Ron will listen now when this businessman tells him that what he is doing will cost us a lot of money, harm our community economically, and not improve student achievement among economically disadvantaged kids they profess to have concern for one bit.