In case you missed it, today's Sunday Forum includes some Q&As on Wake's diversity policy in advance of this week's UNC Center for Civil Rights conference on school resegregation.
As the articles note, Wake enjoys a national reputation for its diversity policy. Eric Houck, one of the presenters at this week's conference and former research director for the Wake Education Partnership, said in his interview that he's surprised more local people don't recognize Wake's reputation.
"One thing people in Wake County may not realize is just what kind of reputation Wake has nationally as an innovator and as a high-performing school district," Houck said in the Q&A with Rob Waters. "I'm surprised at how little weight that reputation seems to carry in your internal discussions."
Richard Kahlenberg, considered to be among the leading researchers in the field of socieoeconomic diversity, praised Wake in his Q&A. He particularly cited how Wake has a higher graduation rate than the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system overall, among black students and among low-income kids.
Charlotte also has higher percentages of low-income and black students than Wake.
Comments
Wake as an example
Mon, 03/30/2009 - 17:14 — FalcI do not understand all the narrow-minded assumptions. I do not understand this assumption that not wanting to keep the status means wanting segregation – as if there are only two alternatives. I do not understand this notion that higher F&R schools automatically will be lacking in resources compared to lower F&R schools. I do not understand the assumption that if a higher F&R school has good teachers and resources it must be in a close knit Mayberry-like place. My home town was and is no Mayberry where everyone in town gathers after church for a picnic. It was and is drug and sex offender infested.
Wake County is not the Bronx, DC, Detroit or the south side of Chicago. I think comparing it to the lack of resources in those places is disingenuous. Wake’s F&R is around 30% and even Raleigh’s F&R is only around 40%, which is lower than a lot of places, including Charlotte and my home town, so you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t cry at the pity party about how tough it is here and I shake my head at these theories that the diversity policy is what is keeping Wake from being like a Detroit. Let me see if I can keep this straight – on the one hand having too many F&R kids makes schools unhealthy, but on the other hand if WCPSS outperforms districts with higher F&R rates in any way, it is because of its wonderful policies and not because it has a lower percentage of F&R students. Maybe if my 45% F&R home district had taught fuzzy math and logic, I could better reconcile these theories.
One Step At A Time
Mon, 03/30/2009 - 09:19 — JanisTangoI appreciate the sentiment about the passion for things that help the kids, but one step at a time. We will never succeed in getting this school board to think outside the box until we replace them with individuals that are willing to do just that.
The 'status-quo' has been in place for way too long. Look at our economy. I see empty seats all around me where people have lost their jobs to overseas counterparts that were quite a bit cheaper. We've got to figure something out or I fear for my children's future. Many of us do feel the passion you do, but one step at a time. Give the people that are trying to make a change a chance to do just that. I think vocational schools are an outstanding idea. Everyone thinks all the kids have the opportunity to go to college and that is just not true. There are hundreds of ideas and things that could help the kids, but for some reason this current board has refused to look at most all of them.
Honestly, do any of you care
Mon, 03/30/2009 - 08:57 — user1234Honestly, do any of you care about education really? For ALL kids?
The subjects that get the most activity have either to do with diversity or convenience (MYR, Summer Vacation, and Bell Schedules). Mention diversity and you are guaranteed a hot debate.
Where is that passion for Ron’s vocational HS? (which I love) Where is the passion to volunteer to help F&R kids by tutoring? What about the outrage that Wake funding per student is so dismal?
Where have you been?
Tue, 03/31/2009 - 06:51 — fiestamomThere was a blog post about the vocational high school. I think all of the 'regulars' posted on here about what a terrific idea it was. I know I did, and I remember VOR as well.
Love your strawman question asking if we care about education for ALL kids, though. Nice.
Love the idea of vocational h.s.
Mon, 03/30/2009 - 14:06 — NCParentYES. Exactly what this county needs. There should be several vocational high schools to serve the needs of kids who aren't college bound. I don't understand why they don't exist already, but they certainly should in the future. There are loads of programs to offer: cosmetology, auto mechanic, food preparation, childcare, an LPN program, certainly many technical fields where this would apply, and so much more. We're doing the kids in this area a real disservice by not providing this for them.
You see, 1234, I agree with you -- vehemently -- sometimes.
Horace Tart advocates this
Mon, 03/30/2009 - 14:10 — Eric_BHorace Tart is the primary advocate for this. See:
http://blogs.newsobserver.com/wakeed/georgia-on-their-minds
Harumph....
Mon, 03/30/2009 - 00:38 — Bob_Sconce"I'm surprised at how little weight that reputation seems to carry in your internal discussions."
It should carry no weight whatsoever. I don't care if mentioning WCPSS does make education professors across the country genuflect reflexively. The only thing that matters is *actual* performance, and WCPSS is not doing that well on that score. The "national reputation" only makes it more painful to admit that the diversity policy is a failure.
Many of the presenters at
Sun, 03/29/2009 - 22:59 — sstarksMany of the presenters at Thursday's conference have made a career out of promoting busing for diversity in public schools. It does not seem to matter to them whether or not children, especially poor children or minorities, are actually getting an education. They continue to churn out papers, books, op-ed pieces, etc. promoting their ideas, even if those ideas are leading to failure for the kids they claim to support. They will not rejoice to learn of school systems that achieve academic success without resorting to their diversity goals. In fact they will disparage them, as word of this success might bring to an end their grants, speaking fees, etc.
The dream and the reality
Sun, 03/29/2009 - 21:23 — NCParentYes, Wake County enjoys an excellent nation-wide reputation. When we were in the process of moving here, the first thing people/friends/colleagues would say is "great schools". That's what we thought, too.
Fast forward 4 years. Tired of perching beneath the reassignment guillotine, of year-round schools and the chopped up schedule, of not being able to see family who gather in other states during the summer because we have school, of not having a long, lazy summer with the kids. I said last week "We should have moved to Chapel Hill". Well, now we don't have to. We're going private. We got our acceptance letters, picked our school and we are ready to be done. I am not entirely proud of this decision. I'm public school educated all the way and come from 5 generations of public school teachers. But I see no other way to maintain my family sanity while owning a home in Wake County.
And another one bites the dust.
I have friends who talk about moving here. And we do love it here, 2 hours from the ocean, close to the mountains, mild winters, friendly people. But I tell them to move to Chapel Hill, and BUYER BEWARE in Wake County.
Fair Comparison
Mon, 03/30/2009 - 08:32 — user1234Always remember when citing CH that they invest much more in their school system than Wake does. Investment per student comparison below.
Dreams & Reality have gone bust in Wake Cnty!
Mon, 03/30/2009 - 00:04 — g88ky07You are SO right. So right. Congrats on getting your ticket out. Leave, run, hurry and NEVER look back or lose a minutes sleep over it. Just pray for the rest of us until we too can find the out!
You're going to get your family back, stability and consistency back in your education and most of all, be rid of the ridiculous IGNORANCE that this education "cult" continue to believe is the ONLY way!
I have people ask me and I tell them the same, if you want to keep your sanity DON'T MOVE TO WAKE COUNTY until after your kids are grown!
Wake County is the home of FUBAR education in the public schools AND a large % of tax payers who are too ignorant to see what's TRULY going on with their money and behind their backs!
Articles like these today show just how nervous they are getting. Stan Norwalk, Harold Webb and the "Spin Cycle" or more like "Septic Tank" known as the wcpss propaganda team are getting VERY nervous that it's ALL about to come undone.
And guess what, IT IS!!!!
g88ky07 You as so
Mon, 03/30/2009 - 08:40 — user1234g88ky07
You as so unhappy here why do you stay? You spend a lot of energy on the blogs complaining about WCPSS but you continue to stay. Have you ever thought about all the energy you put into complaining and how much happier you would be if you moved now?
Have you ever thought about
Mon, 03/30/2009 - 09:10 — g88ky07Have you ever thought about how much happier we'd all be if YOU moved?
I'll stick around long enough to see if real change can be implemented this fall!
Without YOUR help! ;c )
So
Mon, 03/30/2009 - 11:34 — supportwcpssplease tell me that is a promise that you will leave if the change you seem to guarantee doesn't happen.
Please promise and make us all happier.
ONLY IF
Mon, 03/30/2009 - 15:20 — g88ky07YOU leave first!
Did Anyone See the Word Education?
Sun, 03/29/2009 - 21:02 — JanisTangoI really liked how the N&O tried to get on the socio-econmic diversity bandwagon today with the Q&A in the paper. I was really amazed that we read what a success the policy was, but not one word pertaining to "education" for all children. It was about balance and social experimentation. If it's working then REALLY prove it. I can tell you in my son's class there are a lot of kids just getting by. They are only learning what they need to get to the next level and not what it's going to take to be successful going forward. It's a real shame. It's not due to the fault of the teachers. It's just the way it is.
Also, anyone who has taken a statistic 101 class can tell you that WCPSS having a graduation rate of 78% with 25% low income versus CMS wth 66% with 50% low income is not a mark of success. I would expect that Wake County should be doing somewhere in around 90% if it was doing such a bang up job!
Another presenter of note at
Sun, 03/29/2009 - 20:40 — sstarksAnother presenter of note at the UNC conference is Dr. Roslyn Mickelson, a sociology professor at UNC Charlotte. Last year at a presentation at the Levine Museum in Charlotte she stated that white suburbanites are opposed to having minorities in their schools because they fear that those children would then get a good education and compete against suburban kids for slots at Chapel Hill. In her writings she frequently claims that newcomers to Charlotte in the 90's pushed for the end of busing because they did not want their children attending school with minorities and the poor. Her husband, Dr.Stephen Smith of Winthrop University, is also a presenter.
“In her writings she
Mon, 03/30/2009 - 08:12 — user1234“In her writings she frequently claims that newcomers toCharlotte
I think I would say a similar thing has happened here in Wake over the 30 years I have lived here. Wake was always unselfish, progressive like the technology companies that first came here. Over time, it seems a more vocal group of “Me first” folks have moved here with concentration on “Me”. It is all about inconvenience – MYR / Summer vacation / School Start times, Moving node to node to get Johnny into a “good” school instead of making your present school “good” (being a leach off the previous group), and not thinking about the entire community of which 30% is F&R and rarely heard from. I guess the “Me generation” has come front and center now.
Understand me, 1234
Mon, 03/30/2009 - 13:35 — NCParentYou are speaking to a person who puts in more than 25 hours a month volunteering in her community, who donates 5% a year to charity and still thinks it's not enough, a former teacher, and someone who is passionate about taking care of those less fortunate. Your attitude sucks. My family's life has been tremendously disrupted by the decisions of this school board. There are other ways to attack the issue of poverty without busing kids all over creation and reassigning them every 2-3 years. It is not supposed to be like this, and for those of us who have lived in other communities on the planet, we know it's so much better when you know where you're going to school, everyone's in school at the same time (although I love the idea of offering year round BY CHOICE), and parents don't have to worry about how in the heck to get their kid off the bus an hour earlier once a week when they're flexing their schedule at the office already beyond the boss's endurance. Let's talk for a brief minute about the poor in this county who cannot afford any daycare for their kids for that hour every week. Tell me, do you honestly think it's good for those kids, some of whom will be as young as 4, to go home to an empty home for several hours? So don't pretend the machinations of the board do not negatively impact every single parent in this county, be they black, white, rich, poor, or anywhere in between.
Truly, you speak like someone who has no children or has a vested interest in creating good PR for the board.
“My family's life has
Mon, 03/30/2009 - 14:50 — user1234“My family's life has been tremendously disrupted by the decisions of this school board. There are other ways to attack the issue of poverty without busing kids all over creation and reassigning them every 2-3 years. ”
You are right. You should not be subjected to the turmoil. So, I will give you that WCPSS are poor planners. Their poor planning has caused great pain. I will say that the WCPSS has been under a lot of stress in the last 10? years with all the uncontrolled growth. Most school system build a school occasionally while WCPSS has to build seven? a year! That leads to frequent reassignments not the mass movement of poor people moving from node to node. Concerning the poor … personally, I don’t think most people care about them. They only become “visible” when they become inconvenient like for reassignment. They don’t blog or have contacts at the TV station so can easily be the scapegoat for all the problems. We have made a choice to bring them up to standard. We use to pour resources into a few wealth high performance groups on their way to college who kept the score high. Now we are trying to figure out how to deal with the permanent underclass whose problems probably can not be fully addressed in public school. What I think is good is for all schools to offer a quality education and to find ways to improve the performance of groups that traditionally do poorly in school (e.g. F&R, LI, LE, Special Ed). I think there are more creative ways to do that besides mixing everyone together. But again, I don’t think most people care about how low income kids are educated as long as it does not interfere with them.
“Truly, you speak like someone who has no children or has a vested interest in creating good PR for the board.”
I have had my kids in public school after elementary school when we homeschooled. We homeschooled during the elementary years because we were unhappy with the level of math and languages offered. If you took your hours of community service and homeschooled you would have genius kids. Most kids can finish the public school offering in 2 to 3 hours a day at home. I opted out of the Government Issued education when it did not meet my needs and supplemented it with tutoring when I needed to use it.
On MYR … I think it was a good response to the hyper uncontrolled growth we were experiencing and which until last October was projected to continue. So, bunch everyone together until new schools were built. But we have a public that is all about Me and convenience who bucked. So, the WCPSS had to divert time and energy to sort it out in court and now needs to come to end of job to determine who dictate the school calendar. I am guessing they will win but won’t have a need to use the power and will revert back to OYR until the time (hopefully) hyper growth comes back.
This is what you keep
Mon, 03/30/2009 - 15:14 — Eric_BThis is what you keep missing and ignoring, user1234. WCPSS is not succeeding at educating low income students.
We've proven with our WCPSS vs. CMS comparison that WCPSS does virtually identical to CMS on EOG tests and worse than CMS on high school EOC tests for black, ED and LEP cohorts. Look at the current data for 2007-08. Busing students all over the place does not equal "finding solutions for those who traditionally do poorly in school."
As far as I can tell, WCPSS is not working on finding solutions for those who traditionally do poorly in school. Why do you keep defending WCPSS? What is WCPSS doing that we can point to as a success for traditionally poorly performing groups?
Eric and what you
Mon, 03/30/2009 - 16:36 — user1234Eric and what you keep missing is that scores are not everything. I guess without some amazing charter schools or costly intervention that poor kids will do poorly in every system in theUS
“Why do you keep defending WCPSS? “
We use to live in a “good” school node and now my kids go to a “bad” school. My wife teaches at a “bad” schools so I think I know what I am talking about. I saw the difference between what “good” schools get and what “bad” schools have to settle for. My wife spends much of her time trying to keep kids in the classroom, breaking up fights, calling parents at disconnected numbers, filling out referral, giving out paper and pencils to kids that don’t have any, etc. And that is “bad” in the sense that “golden node” parents would never allow their kids to go there. “Golden node” parents live in LaLa land thinking their Johnny is the end all to be all …. The savior of society and needs to be challenged or we’ll miss the next cancer drug. So, personally, I am not interested in the “good” schools getting better until they improve the “bad” schools. I am not saying “zero sum” since the good and bad can both be improved simultaneously.
So, Eric, think outside the score box and think about the school climate. Think about why parent feel the need to move node to node to stay in some school. In public school system where they teach the same material in many different buildings and everything is suppose to be equal, ask yourself why people are trying to crowd into a few “good” schools, why they will let their kids live in trailers in a parking lot, and why they are fighting so hard to keep others out to hold on to their seat. If we had all “good” schools you would not see any of that wasteful behavior. People's apparent irrational behavior indicates how bad the disparity is.
Alternatives
Mon, 03/30/2009 - 17:03 — Eric_BI suggest you look at the KIPP case study in the WSCA materials from the Wake Forest meeting:
http://www.wakesca.org/sites/default/files/030509_WakeForest.pdf
There are alternatives out there to help low income students without being prohibitively expensive.
Why isn't WCPSS doing some experimentation along these lines? Why are we sticking with the same old 1970s solution that has still not been shown to lead to academic success? Why isn't WCPSS using the NC DPI's EVAAS software from SAS to analyze teacher effectiveness and develop best practices?
I'm sorry you are so bitter and seem to impute nefarious motives to those who would like to change the status quo. Maybe you need to stop defending the status quo and start finding alternatives.
“I'm sorry you are so
Mon, 03/30/2009 - 19:18 — user1234“I'm sorry you are so bitter and seem to impute nefarious motives to those who would like to change the status quo. Maybe you need to stop defending the status quo and start finding alternatives.”
Eric, I am not bitter but I am not interested in giving in anymore. Really, people her want change that will benefit them. You don’t think there are any who are looking out for the best interests of the poor do you? I am open to changing the status quo but I have not seen anything that benefits me. The argument from my side sounds like, “keep the poor people in your school and out of ours and we’ll send you some extra resources and develop some creative program to make it better. Trust us”. I agree with you that there are alternatives out there and I don’t know why they don’t do them. Really, if Ron is our hero why doesn’t he tell us straight out why they don’t do Kipp or vocational school next year?
Actually, I believe WCPSS is
Mon, 03/30/2009 - 16:18 — shearertwActually, I believe WCPSS is doing the opposite of helping F&R groups. For the most part, the only effort they make is to shuffle the kids around to mask the issues. I cannot see how they specifically aim to improve their situation.
User – FYI, there are no truly poor people in theUSA
Under Charlotte's
Mon, 03/30/2009 - 08:43 — sstarksUnder Charlotte's "progressive" assignment system of the past the achievement gap remained stagnant, older schools crumbled, and new private schools flourished. Ironically it was not the "new" suburbanites who were sending their kids to the private schools. Rather it was many of the "old guard". Especially laughable during the 1999/2000 court case were the testimonies of city leaders (Hugh McColl for one) who claimed Charlotte needed to continue its raced based busing so that our graduates would be comfortable with diversity. Of course their kids and grandkids attended private schools. Meanwhile suburbanites were the worker bees in the school system's volunteer ranks. Suburbanites also provided many of the high scoring kids whose scores propped up individual school testing results. But in the fight against busing they were cast as the bad guys (sound familiar?). Their motives could only be based on racism, no matter how complex assignment had become or how poorly minorities were doing. Many high poverty children who are attending CMS today have parents who were "educated" under busing. Yet we are told they had "bad" experiences at school and do not know how to help their children. It appears to me that the former assigment system failed them. Perhaps suburbanites were on to something after all!
So now you need to lie User1234
Mon, 03/30/2009 - 08:31 — Voice_of_Reason_You have not lived here 30 years, you have given us enough information to question your credibilty yet once again.
User1234, it's not about race or "me" and last time I looked our country was founded on "WE THE PEOPLE", selfish as that might seem to you.
You are so good … and
Mon, 03/30/2009 - 08:45 — user1234You are so good … and right … 2009-1982 = 27 years … sorry I rounded … you are such a stickler for minutiae which may be why you often miss the big picture.
"she stated that white
Sun, 03/29/2009 - 21:37 — CaryCurmudgeon"she stated that white suburbanites are opposed to having minorities in
their schools because they fear that those children would then get a
good education and compete against suburban kids for slots at Chapel
Hill"
I wish I could spare the time to go to this conference, just to inhale from the same hookah these people must be using. The above statement is certainly one of the dumber claims I have heard lately. Students who want to go to UNC must compete with peers across the state. If they are in a higher-performing school, then they must rise above their peers in that environment -- No matter who they are.
Issues
Sun, 03/29/2009 - 20:16 — jmoster1. As stated by someone else, if it's so famous, why isn't anyone else doing it? The reputation should be based on student achievement, not diverse schools. 2. Kahlenberg's book has the word CHOICE in it. We don't have choice. 3. Kahlenberg claims 65 other district nationwide do some sort of socio-economic diversity plan. This may be true to some extent, but they do not involve bussing and do include school choices. WCPSS is his shining star of research. 4. Since it's pretty much been proven to have no positive affect on student achievement, the topic seems to be switching to the benefits of diversity. This is not the job of public schools. Their job is education. Let the towns do better planning for low-income housing, community ownership, etc. 5. How many of these experts have children in Wake County and have actually gone through the reassignments? 6. Why is every debate over the status quo versus resegregation like in Charlotte? There are other successful models all over the country. WCPSS needs to look beyond its borders.
Here's a couple of open question to WCPSS supporters
Sun, 03/29/2009 - 19:39 — Voice_of_Reason_If Wake County's economic diversity program is so good and has wonderful results, why didn't other school systems jump on the bandwagon?
Funny, I was thinking about the "brains" (not human) behind the economic diversity program ; isn't it SAS that writes the computer program that Growth Management uses to execute the policy? I guess that company has nothing to gain if this policy is used throughout the US, does it? Aren't the (SAS) Goodnights' a big supporter of Wake Education Partnership?
Just wondering....
BTW- SAS is not all bad, they want us to spend money on education, see http://www.businessweek.com/blogs/economic_stimulus_package/archives/2008/12/sas_goodnight_c.html
BUT, there is a little problem I saw in our schools...i.e. we need teachers and staff literate in technology to teach and use it. From what I saw, those skills are sorely lacking. So we buy a bunch of "band instruments" and nobody knows how to play them. Good idea, poor execution...wasted money.
“If Wake County's
Mon, 03/30/2009 - 08:02 — user1234“IfWake County
It takes a progressive community to make this change. Wake was not rocked by the race riot that happened in other cities that refused to adapt. Wake has been on the forefront of these changes which is not common elsewhere.
Two wrongs don't make a right
Mon, 03/30/2009 - 09:48 — shearertwFirst, Wake County is not a "community", thanks to the policies of the WCPSS.
Second, you can't just call yourself "progressive", you actually have to show "progress" first. That's what I love about you "progressives", using the political definition.....you actually don't care if you're really making progress with your policies. You only care about you "reputation" with your buddies. WCPSS has make no "progress" in education the children with their policies, therefore, you cannot call this area a "progressive community" when you have neither.
Define progressive
Mon, 03/30/2009 - 08:10 — SideburnsIs it progressive to forcibly bus poor children under the guise of a better education?
Is it progressive to remove choice from parents in their child's education?
Is it progressive to move children (sometimes the same ones) year after year to achieve the perfect percentage?
Is it progressive to ignore the declining test scores and increased dropout rate and just keep on with the same policies?
Is it progressive to pursue a goal at the cost of the family structure and community cohesiveness?
Is it progressive to be right instead of doing the right thing?
Is it?
VOR I was thinking the same
Sun, 03/29/2009 - 21:43 — DrActualFactualVOR I was thinking the same thing. Chapel Hill should jump on the bandwagon. They could move to a county system and provide a far better education for the outlying communities near them. Since UNC Chapel Hill is hosting this event I wonder if this experimental system would be one they would impose on themselves. Don't think we'll get any takers for that bandwagon.
I think that would be a great question .. But
Sun, 03/29/2009 - 22:28 — Voice_of_Reason_What they would do, if they had to do it would be like they do here. i.e. Make fantastic magnet schools in key areas and overwhelmingly cater to a certain elite group of citizens.
As posted under the previous
Sun, 03/29/2009 - 19:15 — sstarksAs posted under the previous diversity discussion--last month Richard Kahlenburg spoke with Charlotte's Swann Fellowship (a small but outspoken pro-busing group). He warned against trying to "improve" high-poverty schools. The reason, he said, was because research shows that low-income children thrive when they share an environment with higher-income children, compared to similar children left in high-poverty schools." Ironically he made this statement just days before the comparison of CMS and Wake high poverty test scores was released. UNC Center for Civil Rights has been fighting for CMS to return to busing for years. Current law school dean Jack Boger (keynote speaker at the upcoming conference) was deputy director of the center when I heard him speak 4 years ago. At the time he pledged to do whatever it takes to overturn CMS's assignment system. So believe me, this group will be prepared to fight any changes in Wake. Take a good look at the conference agenda via the link in Keung's post above.
Monkey house
Sun, 03/29/2009 - 18:43 — SideburnsThe first time you walk into a monkey house, the stench is incredible. After a while, you become acclimated to the odor. (There's not much you can do about it anyway.) If you live in the monkey house, you never notice the smell again.
Our Board of Education has been living in the monkey house for too long. Many parents and taxpayers have become accustomed to the smell; others refuse to put up with it. Meanwhile, outsiders ("scholars") continue to praise WCPSS from afar not realizing that they aren't close enough to smell the funk.
Yes
Sun, 03/29/2009 - 19:48 — Voice_of_Reason_And we hire an insider (Dr Burns) to run the system just the way he knows how. My experience in bureacracy has led me to believe an outsider is needed to bring fresh ideas and the ability to question why we do things the way we do. I believe we are foolish to hire from within like we have. Dr. Burns may be smart, but he does not have the ability to do a self examination, nor does our current school board (eR).
I really don't care what
Sun, 03/29/2009 - 17:58 — CaryCurmudgeonI really don't care what "reputation" Wake schools have nationally. Those who seek to build their academic resumes and sell books might, but I don't.
"Reputation" doesn't mean much to families broken apart by MYR schedules.
"Reputation" doesn't mean much to a HS student who is forced to change schools, or to their little brother who is forced to do the same.
"Reputation" doesn't mean much to a kid who spends three hours a day on the bus.
And "Reputation" doesn't mean a damn thing to all of the young people who drop out of school, are unprepared to compete, or have otherwise been failed by WCPSS.
The more Wake County is praised by experimenting educrats, the more I see a school system which is being run to please THEM, not us.
Perception vs. Reality
Sun, 03/29/2009 - 17:53 — Lisa_BWell, all I have to say is that Wake County's diversity "reputation" is the perception that all outsiders see, but unfortunately the REALITY is what we all know and want to see change.
Until WCPSS stops caring about meaningless national accolades based on "smoke and mirrors" and starts focusing on REALLY helping the kids they CLAIM are being helped by our diversity plan, things won't change.
Didn't some of the board members recently suggest doing a real study to see if the individual students are actually being served??? And the majority voted it down??
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh
Sun, 03/29/2009 - 17:01 — AngelaWhttp://www.dailyhowler.com/dh072808.shtml DEFINING EXPERTISE DOWN years ago, the Times ran a front-page, Sunday report about the educational wonders wrought in Wake County (comprising Raleigh and its suburbs)—a piece which attributed the county’s “dramatic” score gains to its class-based integration program. (For our real-time reaction, see THE DAILY HOWLER, 9/26/05.) In fact, similar score gains had occurred all over the state—but that fact didn’t make Alan Finder’s report. Clearly, Wake County had recorded score gains in that ten-year period. But uh-oh! Finder failed to include a buzz-killing fact; in North Carolina as a whole, the passing rate on the reading tests had risen by nineteen points during that period—from 67.1 percent to 85.7 percent. In math, the gain had been twenty points. (To access the state’s official data, just click here, then click “Create Custom Tables.”) As with Bazelon, so with Finder: Times readers weren’t told that Wake County’s score gains have, in fact, been unremarkable when compared to those of the state as a whole. Instead, Finder quoted “educational experts” and local officials attributing Wake’s score gains to the county’s particular educational policies—an absurd attribution which might affect decision-making nationwide. Finder, a high-ranking journalist at our biggest newspaper, thus joined those “educational experts” in defining expertise down—in helping define the broken intellectual norms which pervade so much of our culture.
Perhaps Kahlenberg was being quoted unfairly—but Finder seemed to present him as one of the “experts” who said that Wake County’s gains suggest that low-income students “do best when they attend middle-class schools.” Low-income students “do best” under Wake County’s procedures, Kahlenberg seemed to be saying. But is it true? Do low-income kids “do best” in Wake County? These were the passing rates for such students that year—in Wake County, and in the state as a whole:
Finder failed to include those data, or others like them—and there were a great many to work with. Indeed, in the state’s most comparable school district (Charlotte-Mecklenburg), the passing rate of low-income students had improved somewhat more than in Wake County during the period in question. On the state’s web site, data for low-income students begin in 1999:
Charlotte-Mecklenburg, a slightly more urbanized district, had closed the gap on Wake County a tad during the period in question. (Though, again, such minor distinctions would need to be analyzed further.)
Sorry. Whether you were considering black students or low-income students, there was nothing remarkable about Wake County’s score gains during the period Finder reviewed. Meanwhile, with large score gains occurring all over the state, any “expert” worth his salt would have considered an obvious possibility—the possibility that passing rates were going up because the state’s tests had perhaps gotten easier. (See “De Vise gets it right,” below.) But Finder quoted “educational experts” who said nothing about this obvious possibility. They credited educational programs in Wake County for gains which had happened statewide.
We are too big to fail
Sun, 03/29/2009 - 16:51 — Voice_of_Reason_As much as they try to polish the diversity policy as a great and noble experiment, the lack of results destroys their credibility. It's sort of like saying that iron pyrite should be valuable because it looks pretty, never mind it's fools gold.
A lot of "well educated" people have a lot riding on our social experiment, their reputations are at stake. Others use it to cook the books to magically make some school look good while hiding the failures. The only problem is they can't show students benefit. Of course we know they don't care because its intentions, not results, that really matter.
This expensive social
Sun, 03/29/2009 - 17:23 — DrActualFactualThis expensive social experiment turns out to resemble "putting lipstick on a pig." Many Wake County citizens are unaware of the enormity of the Big Ed machine. Just reviewing the agenda for the meeting at UNC can be very telling of what they have in mind for us--truly makes me wish I was a lawyer.
FROM this AM enjoy your day off! :)
Sun, 03/29/2009 - 16:35 — AngelaWme thinks thou dost protest too much
Sun, 03/29/2009 - 07:19 — AngelaW
MULITIPLE articles/letters recently in support (surprise) of WCPSS and their "diversity" policy and yet NEXT TO NOTHING on the fact that WCPSS shoots themself in the foot with MYR and the wasteful spending used on a program that has the F&R% population opting out at the highest rate. Hypocrisy and falsehoods traded for back-slappin' and glad-handing ======================================== Wake's commitment to diversity stands out Sheneka M. Williams and Eric A. Houck are assistant professors at the University of Georgia's College of Education.
Updated: Mar. 28, 2009 7:29 PM | Full story Do scholars think it's right? Something rarely mentioned in the never-ending local debate about student assignments and school diversity is that the Wake County schools' 30-year diversity experiment is famous.
Updated: Mar. 28, 2009 7:29 PM | Full story Wake schools show advantage of integrated approach Richard D. Kahlenberg is a senior fellow at the Century Foundation in Washington. He is the author of "All Together Now: Creating Middle-Class Schools through Public School Choice" (Brookings Press).