Just how much impact will the ability to apply to high-performing schools (formerly called achievement-choice schools) have on Wake County's new student assignment plan?
As noted in today's article, members of the student assignment task force promoted to the audience Wednesday how every family would have access to high quality schools via the high-performing school choices.
But Susan Pullium also said a number of times that no decision has been yet whether firm set asides need to be established for the high-performing schools. This comes after talk about using as much as a 20 percent set aside drew complaints from people such as school board chairman Ron Margiotta.
On a related note, one of the questions from the audience was whether a child could lose a seat to a student applying to a high performing school option.
Brad McMillen replied that current students won't be asked to give up the seat at the school they're now at for any reason. For those who will be entering the lottery process, he also pointed out families who live closest to a school will have greater priority than those who don't live as close.
Another person asked whether they'd know at the "front end" how much diversity a school would have in the choice plan. McMillen's answer was no because "parents are going to choose how they're going to choose."
McMillen also pointed out that the expectation is most students in 2012-13 will stay at their current school. He said the diversity levels won't likely change much next year because the only people expected to go through the lottery process in elementary schools in large numbers are rising kindergartners.
This could mean it would take a few years before any noticeable change would be seen.
One of the questions was whether the course offerings were considered when determining which high schools to be used as high performing options. McMillen said the course catalog wasn't considered but Pullium added that Superintendent Tony Tata has talked about looking at course offerings to make sure all schools are desirable.
Wake will soon be posting info online on the high performing middle school and high school options.
Comments
Choice does not mean simple
Thu, 09/01/2011 - 11:13 — RKCurtrightAre we realizing more choice requires much more than just picking which caryon out of the crayola box? Wake County is not a small box of crayons. Wake County has much more than one es, one ms, and one hs. It should not be set up as such.
It is more complicated. Wcpss needs help from all of us to form an effective outreach with thorough explanation of what each school offers and what is the best fit for every child and family.
Choice will require our schools to evolve more quickly with themes/programs created for underenrolled schools. People will need the information reaily available and feedback.
The idea is to let people choose from everything wcpss has to offer. Options should include proximate schools as well as schools, besides magnets, further away. Wcpss can promote these positives and parents, realtors, businesses, citizens, organizations will be more proactive about informing themselves and others what choices are out there.
Sarah had the idea of an online network for parents, teachers, Principals to advertise their schools mission, strengths, and challenges, as well as having some criteria to measure schools. This network can allow parents to give input. Good idea.
Test scores are not the only measure of what makes a school great. Collective test score of 800 kids does not reflect how much your child is learning . It is what they do for the individual/whole child that matters.
Wcpss must help us all look beyond test scores. When we include choice by encouraging all schools to look at what benefits the whole child , techers will be able to back away from "teaching to the tests" and give them the time to concentrate on creative learning for each child and their individual needs.
Choice is more complicated. It is proactive. It promotes creativity, diversity,competition, and helps celebrate and identify the individual/whole child. Choice keeps us all connected and reflects this value. At the same time we save a ton of money, offer diversity, offers more programs, more services, more creative approaches. When one town excels, we all celebrate. It is the same with our schools.
choice plan goes toward neighborhood school plan
Thu, 09/01/2011 - 07:23 — mnordbergthe more they talk, the more it sounds like the choice is being taken out of the choice plan with the increasing likelyhood that seats available at high performing schools is going to be severly limited. So essentially the new plan is choice of year round vs traditional schools that are relatively close to the nodes. So essentially after all of this they tweaked the old plan to smooth out the extremely long commutes. They could have spent the last 2 years just modifying the old plan to eliminate some of the more extreme distances for some nodes and accomplish the same thing. Wake county is likely to become the have and have not county like most counties have become. Where you live determines the quality of school you get and there will be certain areas of wake county that become even more desirable than others. (And don't tell me all schools are going to be the same as that was never the case and will never be reality.).
Less Choice
Thu, 09/01/2011 - 10:16 — MiraMilI agree. Further, after attending the presentation last night it became apparent that there will be less choice at the middle school and high school level. Each elementary school (including magnets) has a "feeder pattern" for middle and high school, which guarantees the student a seat at the middle and high school into which the elementary school feeds. So when a family makes a choice for an elementary school, they're really going to need to seriously consider what middle and high school they want their child to attend, which doesn't really make a whole lot of sense especially with respect to the magnet schools, which are all themed and with respect to the AG middle and high schools (you can't know your child is AG until they take the CogAt's in 3rd grade). In my neighborhood, this feeder pattern priority will effectively take away our current base middle and high school (none of our close elementary schools feed into these), split our neighborhood into 3 different middle schools (one of which is quite far away) and two different high schools, one of which is substantially further than our current base school (which is about 1 mile from my neighborhood). Based on what I saw last night, I think well-informed parents will look at what high school they want their child to attend then work their way down to figure out what elementary school to choose. This is going to be a nightmare! See the wcpss website for the feeder patterns.
Unfortunately, the
Thu, 09/01/2011 - 10:36 — mnordbergUnfortunately, the introduction of feeder patterns undermines the concept of choice and it does mean that a decision made for elementary school could have a huge impact 6 years later for middle school and 9 years later for high school. I think it is crazy to think that a decision on what elementary school a new student in K goes to should really make a difference on where to go for middle or high school. Schools over 6 or 9 years change a lot and it seems like I should decide when my child is in 5th grade where to go for middle school and likewise, 8th grader to decide high school.
Additionally, I have a hard time believing with our growth in wake county that the feeder plans will not change from starting K to 5th grade. Just me but the school system should make it clear that feeder patterns are likely to change a lot over 5 years and that you are likely to have a feeder pattern that is not what you saw in K when in 5th grade and it is time to go to middle school the next year.
A loose feeder pattern concept is fine but only if it takes a back seat to the choice concept. And guess what, it doesn't really matter that much that kids from one elementary school go to the same middle school. The real world means making new friends and if there is a big mixing of kids, so what. I think there should be some level of pattern in a node but kids need to learn to get new friends and things happen. If a friend goes to another school and they are really a friend, then you will stay friends.
And guess what, it doesn't
Fri, 09/02/2011 - 03:45 — jeffrey1And guess what, it doesn't really matter that much that kids from one elementary school go to the same middle school. The real world means making new friends and if there is a big mixing of kids, so what. I think there should be some level of pattern in a node but kids need to learn to get new friends and things happen. If a friend goes to another school and they are really a friend, then you will stay friends.
I completely disagree. Of course you are entitled to your opinion, but in my experience, most kids thrive on continuity and repetition. Inconsistent feeder patterns have always been a major complaint of many parents, and is one of the reasons, the new board was swept into office in 2009.
When our kids were bused to a distant elementary school, they made many new friends. But now that we're back in our neighborhood, I can honestly say that those friends are long gone. Oh we tried to stay in touch -- but distance was a big disadvantage. Who wants to drive 20-25 minutes each way to visit a friend for an hour or two.
Oh and when we did return to our neighborhood school for MS, we were the only node (about 5-6 kids) that went from the distant ES to the nearby MS. It's difficult enough going into the 6th grade at MS, and it's even more difficult when you don't know anyone around you.
So
Fri, 09/02/2011 - 08:18 — Dove314So the only real choice is where you go to ES and that choice is based on where you choose to live? After that, you're stuck whether you correctly guessed at age 4 what your child's best options (neighborhood, families in your neighborhood, type of ES, MS, and HS programs, etc) were or not?
Can honestly say that was not true for mine. While I thought they were smart and hoped they would be AG, I could not have predicted many of their needs through ES, MS, and HS from how they presented at age 4. Nor could/can I have afforded to live in the places where I could have best met their needs despite both my husband and I working. FYI -- what happens if your neighborhood is not so "desirable" even if the nearby school is fine?
So the only real choice is
Sun, 09/04/2011 - 02:24 — jeffrey1So the only real choice is where you go to ES and that choice is based on where you choose to live?
It appears that you did not understand my comments.
I was responding to mnordberg's last paragraph where he/she stated that feeder patterns are not important, that good friends stay friends even when they go to different schools, and that kids handle separation just like adults, all of which I disagree with.
I illustrated that with my own situation where poor feeder patterns had noticeable affects (In fact, at one point, our node was scheduled to go to ES in Raleigh, MS in Cary, and HS in Apex).
I did not say anything to imply that your school assignments should be set in stone at age 4. And of course, with the new choice assignment model, they aren't.
Eh...
Thu, 09/01/2011 - 09:58 — Bob_SconceThe more I think about it, the more I think this idea that some schools are "quality schools," as if it were some immutable property of the school, while others aren't "quality schools" puts too high of a gloss on what's really happening. It's true that some schools do quite well serving the students currently going to that school. But, that does not mean that you could assign a completely different set of students to that building and expect that school to do similarly well teaching the new set.
In part that's because the school community is made up not just of the WCPSS personnel at the school, but also of the families whose students attend the school. If, over time, a school develops an ethos that values academic achievement, that ethos can be destroyed by changing too many of those families.
And, in part, it's because teachers may be very effective teaching one sort of kid, yet horrible at teaching another sort of kid. You see this frequently in gifted education -- some teachers are just great at teaching gifted kids, but not so great with non-gifted kids. So, if you dramatically change a school's population, you may be no longer matching teachers with the students who they teach well.
Bob, did you happen to
Thu, 09/01/2011 - 11:29 — DrActualFactualBob, did you happen to notice the one-page Equity Policy handout that Mr. Hui posted from the ED Task Force Mtg. (Probably two or so meetings back). It stated in a nutshell that resources are the property of the district to be distributed as deemed fit. It did make me wonder if assets will be moved around to transform the schools into themed schools, which would then result in people wanting to select different schools from their original choice.
You mean...
Thu, 09/01/2011 - 12:25 — Bob_SconceThe one that kept using the word "equity"? I didn't see where it said what you're referring to.
Personally, I dislike the word "equity" because there's no way to measure it. How do you know when you're treating people 'equitably'?? I think it's just a code word for "we do what we want and if you criticize us, we'll say that we're acting equitably." It also has a faint marxist "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" ring about it. And there lies tyranny.
I think it ends up being the
Thu, 09/01/2011 - 10:52 — mnordbergI think it ends up being the trend of which schools do well over time and you really have to interprete how well the school is doing based on the limited information that is provided. . If you end up with a school with a good ethos, it is going to take years for the ethos to fail because of the students and families break it down. For the school to start getting worse, you end up with a principal leaving, good teachers being driven away and finding schools where they can more easily succeed and have students they can teach more effectively.
Fundamentally, those in cary/apex/holly springs/north raleigh that have been pushing for neighborhood schools know exactly what they are doing in that they are concentrating people of like minds and family dynamics into specific areas and the kids go to those local schools. Then they can more easily influence what goes on with those schools without dilution from people outside those areas and make those schools more attractive for better teachers to move to them.
10 years from now we will be talking about city based schools and a split of wake county schools into pieces driven by this and also about the amount of money spent to try to keep schools with higher concentrations of students from families that don't value education up to a point that is "acceptable"
Here's a suggestion
Sun, 09/04/2011 - 13:16 — nmoskalabout the amount of money spent to try to keep schools with higher concentrations of students from families that don't value education up to a point that is "acceptable"
What percentage of families don't actually value education?
First, eliminate the institutional barriers created by the culture of low-expectations that many low-income and minority students have faced for a long time.
Second, determine which families actually don't value education and by that I mean actually TALK TO THEM, don't just ASSUME based on whether or not their kid gets FRL or their race or what neighborhood they live in. However, people that are going to talk to families are going to have to have respect for all families and not have a predetermined notion of whether or not they value education, so that counts out a lot of people.
Third, once it has actually been determined who doesn't already value education, find out why. (Wonder how many would say because systems are biased against them, so why bother.)
Last, work with them to explain system changes to eliminate barriers and work with them to change their value of education. This means educating families on opportunities available through education.
That will get things a whole lot farther than the (actually not merry) merry-go-round of the culture of low-expectation this area seems to have been on forever.
"Acheivement schools" are
Thu, 09/01/2011 - 07:18 — woodstock"Acheivement schools" are now "high-performing schools?" Who comes up with these terms. From PR perspective, what are they thinking? It suggests that other school are NOT high performing and highlights once again the inequities of the system. If students are not assigned to a Magnet school, STEM school, or high performing school, what are the getting, leftovers?
Here is an idea, stop categorizing students by some bastadized and woefully lacking concept of "diversity," send them to schools in their community/neighborhood and provide them with academic resources they need to succeed. Also, STOP trying to manipulate things so much by setting aside seats, offering privledged status to some students and not others, and limiting access. It seems the assignment gurus are starting with the idea that low income kids can't learn on par with other students. So, right off there is an assumption of low expectations. That's wrong. Damn, it does not have to be this difficult or complex.
the concept of choice is not
Thu, 09/01/2011 - 07:28 — mnordbergthe concept of choice is not about sending low income students to high income schools and whatever else. It is about letting parents choose calendar, course catalog, and performance of the schools for their children. The fundamental concept is choice is going to drive students to schools they want to go to and if I want to send my kid to a higher performing school, I have that choice. The reality is that not all schools are equal and never will be no matter how much people hope it to be so or the school system wants. There is no school system in the country or any company in the world that everything is the same.
You are right that some students should have not have priveldged status, every student should have the equal chance to go to neighborhood school or high performing/achievement school as every other one and the parents can choose.
Maybe the school board has been playing good politics and PR by using choice to help push the new plan over the old diversity plan and then coming back later to eliminate most choice and have a neighborhood plan.
I don't use the
Thu, 09/01/2011 - 07:49 — woodstockI don't use the word "equal." Different communities and student populations may need different resouces; "equity" is the better term. Offering a "high-performing" choice to a select few is neither equal nor equitable.
Indeed equal is difficult to
Thu, 09/01/2011 - 10:42 — mnordbergIndeed equal is difficult to define in schools as not a single one is equal period. However, the parent should choose which school the kid goes to and have the choice of 5 major categories. Neighborhood traditional calendar, neighborhood year round calendar, achievement traditional calendar, achievement year round calendar, and magnet school. What the school board has to do is to provide equal opportunity for all students to go to a school of their choice. A student in one node in cary and a student in one node in downtown and a student in one node in garner should all have the same opporunity to get into their choice with the same transportation options. If a student in garner only has a 15% chance to get into an archievement year round school because they live in garner but a student in cary gets a 30% chance to get into an achievement school, then that is an unfair opportunity. This is why the whole concept of setting aside seats or not setting them aside for other nodes is going to be a big problem because those achievement or high performing or more desirable schools (whatever you call them) are not equally distributed.
Personally, I think all the
Thu, 09/01/2011 - 11:06 — woodstockPersonally, I think all the various school designations need to be gotten rid of. Keep it simple. Make it so each school meets the needs of the community that are in, then assign kids by proximity, but allow the freedom to transfer if one so desires (transportation may or may not be provided depending on choice.) Period.
Part of this would include getting rid of year-round schools. They are a money drain and provide no real benefit. Two of the tracks are complete dogs and no one wants to be on them, so the tracks more often than not get collapsed. Get everyone on the same calendar and let's get back to educating kids instead of trying to engineer where and when everyone goes to school based on various, mostly irrelevant, reasons.
What is your definition of
Thu, 09/01/2011 - 14:59 — mnordbergWhat is your definition of community? Wake county or the smaller community of people going to one school? In that vain, schools will end up looking so different that it is going to be very important to be able to have choice to go to other schools.
If year round schools are used right, they save money by allow more students per school which means less money building new schools. I find it interesting in that most people that try the dog tracks (assume 2 & 3), they like them and only are forced out when they get cut and don't leave on their own most of the time. Being on track 2, it was much better but was forced out and now on track 1. Both tracks have their plus and their minus but work just as well. I think year round school options is actually a very innovative way to reduce spend and make wake county more attractive to live.
It will be interesting to see who wins the battle now, neighborhood school supports in the proximity battle or choice supporters. I guess a lot of choice supports were really neighborhood supports in disguise to get rid of the diversity plan first and now the real internal battle comes.
IF?
Thu, 09/01/2011 - 21:09 — FSandYOUIF year round schools are used right?
Not one, not a single one has been utilized "right" since the very day they were wrongfully and maliciously forced upon our "community."
Uh...
Thu, 09/01/2011 - 15:39 — Bob_SconceIf year round schools are used right, they save money by allow more students per school which means less money building new schools.
That is a very big "if." When you have a year-round school which is running on 3, not 4, tracks, then they actually cost money. Similarly, even if the school is running on all 4 tracks, if one of them is significantly underenrolled, the savings may not be there either.
Here's something else to think about: The year-round calendar depends very highly on a coincidence in the school calendars: once you take the standard holidays into account, the traditional calender takes exactly 3/4s of the time which is available for schools -- 36 weeks v. 48 week. By extending the school year by 1/3rd, the district can fit 1/3 more students by having only 3/4ths of them in at a time. But, what happens if the standard school year occupies 37 weeks as it does next year (thanks to the GA's mandate of 185 days)?
Also, WRT the "dog tracks", note that your data set has a survivor bias -- the people on track 2 are most likely to be ones who didn't mnid it to begin with. Most of the others have fought for spots on one of the other tracks.