Wake's performance on U.S. News list of top high schools

I agree one size does not fit all, but I don't think it is fair to compare the educational results of a charter school which has that level of commitment and motivation to the current Wake schools situation.  That said, I am intrigued by the idea of a KIPP type school and wonder how it (or they?) would that fit into the system.  Is it a magnet? Is it a charter (like Partnership)? Where will the resources come from?  (Or is it not as expensive as it sounds?) Would it require cutting something else? If so, what?   I don't know how many of the 46% that don't graduate would apply.  What happens to the kids you hope would apply, but don't?  As I said, it sounds great, but I'm not ready to commit to supporting it until I understand more.

I do not find a comparison of a district of 209,000 students with a district of 140,000 to be particularly relevant or helpful without  considerably more information than provided.  As to failing in meeting our potential, that is a generic comment that is often made about public schools.  When all schools can be funded like the Harlem Zone with a 1:6 teacher to student ratio, we can have a different discussion regarding potential.

Its not that WCPSS is sub-par it’s that they are failing to meet their potential

That is worth repeating.  Well said. More should be expected than has been delivered.

My son applied to Raleigh Charter last year as a rising freshman. When we arrived for the lottery, which is open to the public, btw, we were told (via handout) that siblings of existing students made up the majority of the new freshman class, and there was only a 13% chance of getting in. With those kinds of odds, we knew it was a long shot.

At the lottery, we were divided into different rooms that denoted which math level under which the students would be admitted. The students' names had been written on index cards beforehand and were also divided by math level.

Principal Humble entered the room, explained how the lottery would work, indicated how many open slots were available for our math level, indicated how many waiting list slots would be drawn, and dumped the cards into a tub. Another staff member mixed them around, and the drawing began. If I remember correctly, there was also someone there from DPI or SBoE to oversee the process.

The aforementioned handout also indicated the chances of getting in at the 10th grade level. That class had one opening available (meaning that one student from the previous year did not plan to return), and that opening had already been filled with a sibling (meaning that if you showed up with a rising 10th grader, you were SOL).

Needless to say, we did not get in. ((I say "we" because that's the feeling you have when you're the kind of family who places education pretty high on the priority list -- it's a family effort.))

So, we did not get in, but neither did many, many of our son's classmates, one of whom is the child of a prominent NC politician. If I'd thought for a minute that Raleigh Charter's lottery system was rigged in any way, that particular child's "non-luck" in the lottery would have certainly changed my mind.

As others have stated far more eloquently, I believe there are many factors that factor into a child's performance, and it starts at home. If the parents don't value education enough to instill that value early on and work with their children to prepare them for Kindergarten (or, at the very least, get them into a pre-K class like More at Four or HeadStart), the child begins his/her school career at a disadvantage. Start peppering the pot with all the other factors -- low expectations, large class sizes with high student-teacher ratios, learning disabilities, lack of motivation, economic disadvantage, etc. and you have a rolling snowball down a hill...it keeps getting bigger and bigger and more out of control.

My children are Caucasian, five years apart. The older one has excelled since day one. The younger one has a yet-undiagnosed/yet-untreated developmental/learning disability and has struggled since day one. He entered school under an IEP, met his objectives, and was kicked off the IEP at age 7. Our family income has not changed drastically one way or the other. The degree of parental involvement has not changed either; rather, it has increased, by necessity, just to keep this kid at "mediocre" rather than "failing miserably".

If our family income was higher, we'd be able to throw money at educational psychologists, private tutors, etc. Instead, we must rely on the resources WCPSS offers which, I'm tellin' ya, ain't much.

There is no easy answer folks, no single solution that will suddenly make everything okay. But hiding the low-performing kids in the mish-mash of statistics and pretending WCPSS is the greatest school system on the planet with its current policies is definitely NOT the answer.