i have a 7 yr old who is in 2nd grade and I am all for neighborhood schools. these kids getting bussed all over the place is ridiculous.

10/8/2010 12:02:09 PM

I agree that improved educational outcomes for all students are ridiculous.

10/8/2010 12:19:39 PM

Quote :

"I agree that improved educational outcomes for all students are ridiculous."

You have to admit that some kids are not getting improved educational outcomes out of this. The "good kids" that are being moved to the "bad schools" are obviously getting the shaft in the name of bringing up the average of the entire system.

I know it's not purely a direct ratio of "good kids" to "bad kids" but if you admit that putting disadvantaged children in better schools improves their situation it must follow that putting advantaged children in worse schools worsens their situation.

10/8/2010 1:12:28 PM

Quote :

"Fuquay-Varina is the 4th whitest high school in the county."

the current policy's goal is socio-economic diversity.

10/8/2010 2:45:17 PM

Quote :

"disco_stu: You have to admit that some kids are not getting improved educational outcomes out of this. The "good kids" that are being moved to the "bad schools" are obviously getting the shaft in the name of bringing up the average of the entire system. I know it's not purely a direct ratio of "good kids" to "bad kids" but if you admit that putting disadvantaged children in better schools improves their situation it must follow that putting advantaged children in worse schools worsens their situation."

The whole point of bussing is to avoid having worse schools and better schools to begin with. I think we do a good job of avoiding drastic differences.

Quote :

"sparky: i have a 7 yr old who is in 2nd grade and I am all for neighborhood schools. these kids getting bussed all over the place is ridiculous."

I suspect you may live in fast-growing part of the county.

The majority of bussing all over the place is due to growth and development, not socioeconomic balance.

Quote :

"modlin: There's houses for sale right now in Green Hope's and Apex's district that are quite affordable. There's a lot more houses right now in Fuquay's district under $200K than there are in SE Raleigh's district. Fuquay-Varina is the 4th whitest high school in the county."

Most of the parents of the kids in the free/reduced priced lunch category aren't in a position to own--even at a "reasonable" $200K. They rent. And, due to yearly rent increases and job situations, some of them are very much peripatetic when it comes to housing.

10/8/2010 3:31:23 PM

Quote :

"The whole point of bussing is to avoid having worse schools and better schools to begin with. I think we do a good job of avoiding drastic differences."

But by definition you're putting advantaged kids in worse schools in order to strike that balance. There are worse schools and there are better schools. All this does is average it out, which may be fair, but it still has a direct impact of putting some advantaged kids at less of an advantage.

You don't put disadvantaged kids in better schools and then magically everybody has a better school. The best schools get worse, the worst schools get better, and individual kids slide up and down the good school scale to make it happen.

Also, I've posted before income-assisted housing in Cary. It exists and there are vacancies. I know their lives are difficult and they can't find time to move and no one can do anything without a handout but to suggest that it's impossible to live cheaply in Cary/Apex/Morrisville is just wrong. But I agree a 200k home is a horrible example.

[Edited on October 8, 2010 at 3:55 PM. Reason : .]

10/8/2010 3:52:07 PM

but doesn't the whole forced busing thing have a terrible track record? why not just do the most practical thing in terms of transportation and then create some program to draw better teachers to the under performing schools; I assume thats the issue, that the low income schools will get shafted

10/8/2010 3:56:14 PM

^^We've been bussing since the 1970's. It's not like we're letting schools fall into despair and then trying to bus some rich kids there as a last resort to save the school. And, if you must know, our advantaged students perform the same as advantaged students in other districts that don't bus. So, no, advantaged kids don't suffer as a result of our bussing practices.


Of course, there is income-assisted/affordable housing in Cary. Cary's not nearly as across-the-board affluent as people think it is.

(Plus, the whole there's-nothing-stopping-you-from-moving is nonsense. If all our less affluent people picked up and moved to Cary tomorrow, there wouldn't even be room for all of them at Cary High or wherever it is that people think is so desirable. We'd have to bus even more for growth.)

^When you figure out how to draw those good teachers in, keep them, and students perform well, we'll get to work on neighborhood schools.

[Edited on October 8, 2010 at 4:10 PM. Reason : ]

10/8/2010 4:05:34 PM

Bus the teachers?

10/8/2010 7:22:09 PM

Quote :

"advantaged kids don't suffer as a result of our bussing practices."

besides sitting on a bus for 1-2 hours a day and being stuck in an underfunded/shitty school.

Sure they will still do good on tests and bring up the average but what about the other days they aren't taking tests.

I say take the money that would be spent on extra gas and buses and give it to the teachers that want to teach in the "disadvantaged school"

10/8/2010 8:52:54 PM

Quote :

"ScubaSteve: besides sitting on a bus for 1-2 hours a day and being stuck in an underfunded/shitty school. Sure they will still do good on tests and bring up the average but what about the other days they aren't taking tests."

1. There are no uniquely underfunded schools in Wake County. Our schools are equally funded. We pool all the property taxes in the county and divide them by school per number of students, etc... The only disparity you may find is in money raised by PTSAs, and by keeping our schools socioeconomically diverse, we are working to ensure that those PTSA funds aren't too disparate. If you end bussing, PTSAs would become comparatively non-existent at the disadvantaged schools.

2. Bussing increases ride times by an average of fifteen minutes. I went to a school a few miles from me, and I definitely rode over an hour each day--it has stops after all! I happened to be the first stop in the morning and last stop in the afternoon...what are you gonna do?

3. The whole point of bussing is that there are no "shitty/underfunded" schools to begin with. Nobody is getting bussed into a shitty school. We are not busing advantaged kids into shitty schools. AGAIN, NOT HAVING SHITTY SCHOOLS IS THE WHOLE FUCKING POINT! Seriously, we've been doing it since the '70s, folks.

Quote :

"ScubaSteve: I say take the money that would be spent on extra gas and buses and give it to the teachers that want to teach in the "disadvantaged school""

Gas money comes from a separate state fund so that would be impossible. If we quit bussing, that would just be lost money. But, even if we could somehow keep that money, the extra gas money that we spend on bussing wouldn't even begin to cover what it costs to get a lot of good teachers in a disadvantaged school.

Furthermore, getting good teachers into schools is just the beginning. Now those good teachers have to figure out how to teach classes in which 60 percent of their kids are behind in reading and 40 percent are behind in math. And when I say behind, I'm just saying behind...it could be a year behind or five years behind...also, the 60 and 40 numbers are just off-the-cuff averages from the different schools I've read about...I could give you some worst case scenario figures that would be a whole lot worse.

Anyway, light bulbs should be going off for you here...teachers and students have a better chance when it's just a few of the students that are behind/struggling. When it's the majority of the school that's behind, well...no amount of money/extra good teaching can overwhelm the disadvantages and get those scores up. And, for the most part, good teachers won't hang around for too long; bad teachers though are happy to stay and sit on their asses, bemoaning the injustices. Meanwhile, among all these struggling teachers/bad teachers and students that are behind, there are good students that are on track, getting the shaft at shitty schools cause they live in less affluent neighborhoods.

1337 b4k4 and I have spoken on TWW a bit about this issue, and he and I agree that very small class sizes would be an excellent solution. Like, 12-student classes would be totally doable and teachers/parents would love all over it...but nobody wants to pay for that.


TWO QUICK CASES (and I got more if you want them):

1. Newark, NJ. Their schools are so crappy that they just got a $100 million donation from Facebook Boy. But they already had the highest paid teachers in the state!!! They spend 22k/pupil, and their schools still suck. In Wake County, we spend 7k/pupil. And it ain't just Newark...there are counties in NC that spend 20k+/pupil and still suck big time in comparison to Wake in all categories (rich, poor, black, white, etc...). Go to greatschools.org and look up Forsyth, Charlotte-Meck, and Guilford for more info (I've posted stats in other threads, and I'm too lazy to do it now). The only category we're behind in is ESL, and the only test we're meaningfully behind in for less affluent students is the 8th grade math EOG. There was some other county that meaningfully beat us in the graduation rate of students receiving free/reduced priced lunches, but it was evident that they had easier standards to attain that goal.

2. Harlem Children's Zone. Geoffrey Canada's program is often held up as a model for other schools (and it should be!) But Canada's program involves intervention as early as the womb, and otherwise, as early as 2 years-old with his Harlem Gems program where kids experience intensive language acquisition (extremely important!). Canada initially tried to intervene with a school that started in the third grade, and he found that 3rd grade was too late...he shut the school down after three years cause it wasn't working/wasted funds, and he sent the kids to other schools (the kids were devastated). Important note: when he shut it down, he supposedly did so cause the kids' scores weren't improving enough (and they weren't improving very much), but he also may have done it to make a political point (3rd grade is too late, and the state must invest sooner--Harlem Gems-style).

Other charter schools see success, but they tend to take students from parents that are desperate to get their kids in (read: parents who really, really care about education in a serious way). Plus, they include before-school classes, Saturday classes, school years that run well into the summer, and school days that run into the evening. So, of course, they're doing good! Are we ready to take/pay for such drastic measures? I'm down if you're down...but it should be clear at this point, that your idea about using extra gas money is absolutely pitiful.

TWO QUICK REALITIES:

1. Money doesn't work. Unless we're ready to change class sizes and length of school day/year, we cannot throw money at this problem to solve it.

2. SmartStart and More At Four don't technically work. I was a huge advocate for these programs (and I still am!). But research has shown that the increases in test scores that kids gain by participating in these programs "fade out" by the time they reach the third grade. I'm referring to recent studies, but I also spoke to someone who worked on the original research back in the day when they were trying to decide whether or not it was worthwhile, and they found the same thing: the increase in scores fades out as kids continue through school. While the scores don't stay up, the kids who participate in these programs still tend to have better outcomes in life. So they're worthwhile but certainly not some sort of cure-all that we can just throw money at.


So, yeah, solve these problems, and I'm all on board for neighborhood schools. Gas money ain't cutting it though. (I take that back. I've got more problems like the declining property values/business failures that come along with neighborhood schools...)

[Edited on October 8, 2010 at 10:58 PM. Reason : ]

10/8/2010 10:36:46 PM

Quote :

"Like, 12-student classes would be totally doable and teachers/parents would love all over it...but nobody wants to pay for that."

I really do think that people would pay for it, but there would need to be some way of convincing them that it would really happen. Part of the problem is, I don't think people trust the government (state or otherwise) to fund and do the things they say it will. I think if the government said "we want to raise your taxes by 1-2% but in exchange we guarantee a 12:1 student to teacher ratio, the people would expect it to either not last and the money to eventually find it's way to administrators and middle management or that we would get 12:1 ratios the same way that the colleges do them, by counting ever staff member who possibly could be connected to teaching someone instead of looking at the real classes.

And though I was sort of joking about busing teachers, I do think that perhaps we should consider instead of assigning students via socio economic status, we should perhaps assign teachers that way. So schools with more needs would get more teachers, and so if you want your kid to have a class size of 12, then perhaps you need to move and support a weaker school, something akin to a magnet school I guess. I mean I'm sure we do assign teachers base on need to some extent, but I'm talking a sort of approach were they say "Ok, our average number will be 12 student class sizes, so starting with the poorest schools we're going to assign teachers from our pool until we reach that number. Combine this with a freedom to choose the school your child goes to, but with priority given to people in the neighborhood first and you would probably see a natural balancing of sorts.

10/8/2010 11:14:24 PM

this picture of john tedesco makes me lmfao

10/9/2010 7:30:00 PM

I'm going to be honest and say I skipped 90% of this thread simply because whenever I hear "educators" prattle on about their vision for education, I can't help but hear Senator Bob Dole Kang saying, "the politics of failure have failed, we must make them work again."

10/10/2010 10:10:24 AM

^^ It is my magnum opus.

10/10/2010 12:05:37 PM

^^AHA

1. I'm not prattling too bad.
2. It's not about my vision for education at all.

I could have said it in a whole let less words:

If we cut bussing, we lose that money...we don't get to keep it for other parts of our school system. Even if we could keep that money, it wouldn't even begin to cover the new costs associated with failing schools, in part because, in the absence of major changes, no amount of money can fix failing schools. If you want to end bussing and you're serious about creating equal opportunities for all students, then you need to prepare yourself for: public education that begins at the age of 2, extended school days, extended school years, Saturday classes, and classes for parents... And you need to get ready to pay.

I just want people to go into this thing with eyes wide open and no romantic ideas about some badass Morgan Freeman descending on a school with an army of devoted teachers ready to get those scores up and sing Lean on Me in the streets.

10/10/2010 2:59:22 PM

Regarding the "busing teachers" thing-- we already do offer huge incentives for good teachers to go to bad schools. The first school in which I taught offered $10,000 extra per year on top of the county supplement for National Board teachers to teach there. We didn't have a single teacher bite.

Paying good teachers less poorly won't persuade them to go to a crappy school that will stress them out and make them hate humanity.


I haven't read the thread, so I'm not sure which side the above opinion will place me. For the record: busing is stupid. Way ahead of schools and teachers, parents are the #1 factor determining student achievement. Parents have the right to choose to live in neighborhoods that will place their kids among other kids who's families also give a crap.



[Edited on October 10, 2010 at 5:00 PM. Reason : ]

10/10/2010 4:58:42 PM

Quote :

"For the record: busing is stupid. Way ahead of schools and teachers, parents are the #1 factor determining student achievement. Parents have the right to choose to live in neighborhoods that will place their kids among other kids who's families also give a crap."

absolutely

10/10/2010 5:32:06 PM

Quote :

"For the record: busing is stupid. Way ahead of schools and teachers, parents are the #1 factor determining student achievement. Parents have the right to choose to live in neighborhoods that will place their kids among other kids who's families also give a crap."

But nobody is getting bussed into schools where the majority of kids' families don't "give a crap."

If we end bussing, then we'd end up with a lot of kids getting sent to schools where a disproportionate number of families of kids' don't care as much as other parents.

And that ain't right. You yourself admitted that teachers don't want to teach at those schools so why would you support a system that creates those schools...when we could have a system (bussing) that avoids those schools altogether?

10/10/2010 5:41:50 PM

Privatize the schools with 100% pay vouchers and let the parents decide where to send their children. Someone will figure out how to create a school parents want to send their children to.

10/10/2010 5:53:34 PM

^Parents already want to send their children to Wake County Public Schools. Over 90 percent of parents in Wake County said they were satisfied with their children's education and over 80 percent said they were very satisfied.

VERY SATISFIED

This notion that education is fucked was fabricated in the early 80s by conservatives.

GTFO

10/10/2010 6:06:20 PM

Quote :

"Regarding the "busing teachers" thing-- we already do offer huge incentives for good teachers to go to bad schools. The first school in which I taught offered $10,000 extra per year on top of the county supplement for National Board teachers to teach there. We didn't have a single teacher bite. "

I'm not talking voluntary incentives (although that's the first way to go) I'm talking teachers are employees of the school system, and will be assigned where they are needed, not where they want to go. Sure, you might need to kick in extra money anyway for, as an example, the teacher that has to drive to the other side of raleigh every day because they were just reassigned from a cary school where they live to somewhere in wake forest, but if you can't get volunteers for the bad schools, you need to draft them.

Quote :

"But nobody is getting bussed into schools where the majority of kids' families don't "give a crap.""

So all of these poor kids getting bussed out of shitty schools, we're not filling their spots in those schools? Somewhere there is a bottom rung, and either we're busing some kids from a better situation to a worse one, or we're letting perfectly good facilities go to waste while we overcrowd others.

Quote :

"over 80 percent said they were very satisfied. VERY SATISFIED This notion that education is fucked was fabricated in the early 80s by conservatives. "

These are mutually exclusive points. Just because people are satisfied with what they have doesn't mean what they have isn't shit or isn't fucked. Tons of people are satisfied with medicare, that doesn't mean it isn't fucked and in need of a serious overhaul. Tons of people are satisfied with their insurance, that doesn't mean healthcare isn't screwed up in this country.

10/10/2010 6:40:28 PM

It can always be better. Also, how many of those same families had to make good schools an element of where they moved? It would be far better for society if they moved where they wanted to live and send their children to the school of their choice, rather than forcing them to move, as so many have done.

10/10/2010 6:42:00 PM

Quote :

"This notion that education is fucked was fabricated in the early 80s by conservatives."

this issue isnt people saying "education is fucked."

this issue is people saying that they are tired of their children 1) being sent to different schools each year through re-districting and 2) having to travel halfway across the county to go to school.

the quality of education is only being brought up by the race-baiters who think this movement is about removing minorities from white schools (which is laughably and highly absurd).

10/10/2010 6:45:56 PM

Quote :

"1337 b4k4: These are mutually exclusive points. Just because people are satisfied with what they have doesn't mean what they have isn't shit or isn't fucked. Tons of people are satisfied with medicare, that doesn't mean it isn't fucked and in need of a serious overhaul. Tons of people are satisfied with their insurance, that doesn't mean healthcare isn't screwed up in this country."

Yeah, sorry, I was responding on multiple levels: to the particular situation in Wake County (parent survey) and to the overall push by conservatives to privatize our school nationwide.

I agree we could use some changes, but jumping into neighborhood schools with no plan isn't the change we need.

Quote :

"LoneSnark: It can always be better. Also, how many of those same families had to make good schools an element of where they moved?"

The whole point of bussing in Wake County is that they don't have to move to get good schools. We can attract businesses here with the "good schools" refrain and actually mean it all the way across the board. You can move to a low income neighborhood and get a good school or a high income neighborhood and get a good school.

Quote :

"LoneSnark: It would be far better for society if they moved where they wanted to live and send their children to the school of their choice, rather than forcing them to move, as so many have done."

So every school would be private, and parents would get to send their children to the school of their choice? Private schools would be required by law to take whoever applies and accept their voucher as payment?

Quote :

"DaBird: this issue is people saying that they are tired of their children 1) being sent to different schools each year through re-districting and 2) having to travel halfway across the county to go to school."

Like I pointed out already...over 90 percent of parents that responded to the survey were either satisfied or very satisfied with their children's education so uhhh.... And: 1) Redistricting is mostly due to growth, not bussing, 2) Bussing only increases bus rides by an average of fifteen minutes.

Quote :

"DaBird: this issue isnt people saying "education is fucked." ... the quality of education is only being brought up by the race-baiters who think this movement is about removing minorities from white schools (which is laughably and highly absurd)."

My bad. The part where I mentioned "education is fucked" was a broader response to the movement to privatize schools, not a specific response to Wake County's situation.

Furthermore, those "race-baiters" would be crazy because Wake County doesn't have white schools. We don't have black schools. Or rich schools. Or poor schools. THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT!

When a new school goes up, there are weird demographics at first (a lot of times parents in the neighborhood will opt out so their kids can get bussed to their old school), but demographics get worked out in the four year cycle. I encourage all of you to check out the stats at greatschools.org. Find me the "bad schools" in Wake County. And I'll find you a bazillion more in Forsyth, Guilford, and Mecklenburg counties. (I've done this exercise before.)

Quote :

"1337 b4k4: So all of these poor kids getting bussed out of shitty schools, we're not filling their spots in those schools? Somewhere there is a bottom rung, and either we're busing some kids from a better situation to a worse one, or we're letting perfectly good facilities go to waste while we overcrowd others."

In the areas that are already developed, we have been bussing for race and then SES for so long that people don't even think of it that way. For instance, Athens Drive High School is now considered "iffy" among newcomers. They go straight to the demographics and scores of a school, and they're all, "Hmmm...Athens seems to have a bit more of that 'element,' it must be a bad school." But the people who have been getting bussed into Athens Dr. (from Cary's Lochmere golf community) have been going to Athens forever, and they want their kids to keep going there. They actually successfully lobbied to get to stay there instead of being moved to "neighborhood schools."

Really, the only bussing in and out of "shitty schools" is our magnet system, and affluent parents are lined up around the block to get their kid into schools where the majority of students are from low income neighborhoods.

And this has a whole lot to do with newcomers more than anything. They get here, and they want to get into the most exclusive schools, and they get confused when they find out we don't have exclusive schools. They'll move to a neighborhood so their kid can go to a brand new school in an affluent area (Green Hope, Wakefield), and then when poor kids show up, they get all upset about it. And then as more and more neighborhoods are built around the school to the point that it couldn't even serve all the neighborhood kids if it wanted to, they get up in arms when their kid has to go to the next school over (and they blame the poor kids when it was actually a development issue, not an SES issue).

I actually took a community college class with a bunch of Wakefield graduates who explained a simple solution to what they perceived to be the bussing problem: "Those black kids should have had to take a test to come to our school."

I say: Fuck that. Welcome to Wake County, y'all.

[Edited on October 10, 2010 at 10:24 PM. Reason : ]

10/10/2010 10:22:58 PM

Quote :

"So every school would be private, and parents would get to send their children to the school of their choice? Private schools would be required by law to take whoever applies and accept their voucher as payment?"

Absolutely not. Just as a public school is not required by law to accept everyone, neither should a private school. The county must continue to make special arrangements for the school system's undesirables, just as it does today. These special cases will most likely involve an extra voucher to attend specialized private schools chosen by their parents capable of handling their needs, be they extra security, special attention, special education, etc.

10/11/2010 5:00:12 AM

Anything to line pockets

10/11/2010 8:39:10 AM

Quote :

"Just because people are satisfied with what they have doesn't mean what they have isn't shit or isn't fucked. Tons of people are satisfied with medicare, that doesn't mean it isn't fucked and in need of a serious overhaul. Tons of people are satisfied with their insurance, that doesn't mean healthcare isn't screwed up in this country."

This might be the dumbest thing I've read in a long time, and I read my own shit.

People aren't going to look at their school and say, man, this place is really fucked, but ya know, the stuff down the street is really really fucked. That's like, really^2 so I guess I'm satisfied with my school. NO ONE IS GOING TO SAY THIS.

People are satisfied with medicare...BECAUSE THEY GET THE HEALTH CARE THEY WANT. Their satisfaction of the system has no bearing on whether the system is inefficient. Same with insurance.

I can't believe I just read that.

10/11/2010 9:10:34 AM

10/11/2010 9:44:36 AM

Quote :

"LoneSnark: Absolutely not. Just as a public school is not required by law to accept everyone, neither should a private school. The county must continue to make special arrangements for the school system's undesirables, just as it does today. These special cases will most likely involve an extra voucher to attend specialized private schools chosen by their parents capable of handling their needs, be they extra security, special attention, special education, etc."

Naturally, I got a whole bunch of problems, but whatever...

Back to these vouchers...would they cover the entirety of a child's tuition at all the private schools in Wake County? Or would parents have to supplement the vouchers to truly get the school choice that you're describing?

10/11/2010 11:32:45 AM

As public expenditure per pupil in most areas already exceeds the tuition of private schools, sometimes by several magnitudes, I suspect in most areas that would be easy. However, confronted with vouchers, I suspect there would be a race to quality that would push some school's tuition beyond the voucher.

But the point is to secure a great education for everyone, and for the money we are already spending we can secure a better education for everyone, even if the rich insist on paying their own money towards their child's education, as they already do under the current system.

Privatization breaks the teachers union so a labor market can develop with a race to the top, as bad teachers are fired and good teachers are promoted. It breaks the bureaucracy, as Wake County Schools, a remarkably well run system, still manages to spend almost half its money paying and officing whole buildings of six figure bureaucrats that never see a student. Private schools tend to spend a fraction as much of their revenue on management, freeing their teachers from red tape and setting them free to teach. It also frees up money for better facilities, better maintenance, and more spending in the classroom. It also breaks the school monopoly, as the money follows the students, good schools get more funding and badly managed schools close, freeing up buildings and resources for new schools to open or other schools to expand.

10/11/2010 12:14:04 PM

The problem with vouchers is the same problem with medicare or any other middleman system. If at the start private schools are providing superior service at voucher cost thats great, but lets say they need to raise prices. Lets say that price raise is valid as well, then you've got a delay between the price increase and the raise in voucher value. Even worse, if the price raise is not valid (think healthcare costs), then the raise in voucher value creates inefficiencies the same as the current public system.

Theres a large barrier to entry in private education, same as healthcare, telco, or other "infrastructure services". This creates monopolies and eventually they cause corruption. Its not a private vs public thing. The only thing that causes prices to remain low and service to remain high is competition. The reason well off schools do so much better in the public system is that well off parents know the value of education and will spend the time to make sure their kids are getting educated. Somehow that gap needs to be filled for kids who dont have parents capable of watching the system. Thats a hard problem.

I dont like bussing because putting kids on a bus for 2 hours is fucking awful and those parents are just going to take the kids out and put them into private schools. It also doesn't fucking work. Most of the time the smart kids have no interaction with the dumb kids and all they do is average out test scores in order to hide the failing school from the feds. Its a bad solution.

Private schools/vouchers for everyone would probably work for a little while, but then you'd end up with 1 school per area dominating and driving out competition. From there you'll end up with the same corruption, abuse, and waste that happens with medicare/insurance. At that point you're no better than current public schools.

I think part of the solution is going to have to involve getting the parents into the children's lives where you can. If the parents have to work all the time, provide them with assistance so they can work less under the condition that they help their kids. It probably wont help everyone, but its a start.

Maybe in addition/instead of that you hire people who can help these kids out after school and fill that parental role in making sure the kid is getting their work done and gets the help they need.

Testing is a big thing too. Federal testing needs to be able to find problem schools and the feds need the ability to go in and mandate changes. Testing needs to be standardized and administered by the fed to prevent local tampering. Social-economic status will be part of the collected demographics to prevent local average tampering. It does no one any good to average out a schools score in order to hide a school thats failing poor kids. Federal test results should be available to everyone so parents can make informed decisions about schools.

I dont know. Its tough.

[Edited on October 11, 2010 at 2:45 PM. Reason : s]

10/11/2010 2:32:40 PM

Quote :

"Private schools/vouchers for everyone would probably work for a little while, but then you'd end up with 1 school per area dominating and driving out competition."

How? An education market would have almost nothing to do with the current health-care market. A voucher is nothing like insurance. With insurance, if you spend more, then you get more. With a voucher, every dollar above the voucher comes out of your pocket.

How does one super-school drive out competition? By offering the best damn education possible? I seriously doubt a single large institution could do that. Dis-economies of scale kick in at a certain size and the increasing management costs swamp any cost savings from resource reuse. Also, while everyone probably agrees on what type of health-care they want, parents tend to disagree on education goals. Some parents want a great football program, others want a great math/science program, still others just want whatever school offers convenient transport. It seems improbable for one massive school to be everything to everyone and still be profitable. But, even if they do, they still face phantom competition, as if they let their guard down and stop offering the best damn education possible for the money, competition will move in and take their lunch.

10/11/2010 5:17:41 PM

Quote :

"Goldman, who has broken with her GOP allies on several key student assignment votes in the past two months, said that she was concerned that the Southeast Raleigh moves weren’t being proposed by those families but by the people who wanted them out of their schools. "

http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/12/14/862450/wake-rejects-reconsideration-of.html

I have to say, I don't know anything else about Goldman, but she seems pretty respectable.

12/14/2010 8:38:38 PM

This is what happened when government representatives didn't listen to the public. Ironically it will be used to further reduce the number of meetings open to public comment, or open to the public at all.

[Edited on December 14, 2010 at 11:20 PM. Reason : .]

12/14/2010 11:19:00 PM

^^ I think she is decent looking for a school board member.

12/14/2010 11:28:42 PM

really enjoyed this column:

http://www.newraleigh.com/articles/archive/tedesco-busing-wake-county-schools/

Quote :

"No Matter What Tedesco Says, Busing is Not a Problem for Wake County Schools Patty Williams is the coordinator for Great Schools in Wake, a coalition of WakeUp Wake County. John Adams famously wrote, "Facts are stubborn things," and indeed they are for Wake County School Board member John Tedesco, who is now spreading his false conclusions about Wake County schools on a national scale. In an OpEd column by conservative Minnesota Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten, Tedesco claims that “busing for diversity” failed in our county, and Kersten gave him free reign to misinform her readers. Kersten was writing in opposition to a plan by the Eden Prairie Board of Education to use socio-economic status as a factor in student assignment—the not-so-radical idea that education leaders should work to avoid the creation of high poverty schools. A mountain of data shows that where there is concentrated poverty in a school, (1) recruiting and retaining high quality teachers and administrators is difficult, (2) student achievement suffers, and; (3) it costs more to educate each student. And contrary to Tedesco’s statement that “racial segregation has increased” in Wake County schools, a recent report published by Harvard University (“Segregation and Exposure to High-Poverty Schools in Large Metropolitan Areas”) ranks Wake County among the least segregated metro areas for Black and Hispanic students. Tedesco speaks against Wake’s past policies, but, in fact, fewer than five percent of students in Wake County are bused to avoid creating high-poverty schools. Years ago, school board members had the foresight to use socio-economic diversity as one of several criteria for student assignment. As a result of this focus on maintaining healthy and balanced schools, only 15 of Wake’s 163 schools have a population of students who qualify for free and reduced lunch in excess of 60 percent. Counter to the claim that the “affluent are fleeing to private schools,” North Carolina Department of Public Instruction data demonstrates that the percentage of students attending public school has remained remarkably stable over the past decade. In fact, from 2005-2010, Wake County netted an additional 3,110 students coming from charter, private, and home schools. According to historical data, Tedesco’s assertion that test scores have dropped every year is also without merit. Achievement gaps among subgroups, including economically disadvantaged, Black, and Hispanic students have narrowed, as measured by the results of end of year testing. And our dropout rate is among the lowest in North Carolina (3.47% for the 2008-09). Graduation rates have dropped—but by a mere 1.1 percent overall over the past four years, during a period of rapid growth and overcrowding in the district. During the same period, graduation rates for economically disadvantaged students have increased. Clearly, there is a great deal of room for improvement in student achievement in Wake County—show me a school district anywhere in the nation for which this isn’t true. We know we can and must do more for our Black and limited English proficiency students. Yet, rather than focus on student achievement, Tedesco and his like-minded board members have used an imaginary busing issue to demonize and politicize our school district at the expense of the children they were elected to serve. Wake County schools have not been torn apart by “income-based busing,” as Tedesco claims. In fact 94.5% of the nearly 40,000 parents surveyed at his request earlier this year indicated that they were satisfied with their students’ assignment. Tedesco even called our schools an “academic mess.” This from a man elected to govern our schools! We have excellent schools, and a strong community whose passion for education is at an all time high. Many parents who voted for Tedesco and his majority cohort were looking for stability in assignments—not a complete and systematic destruction of the core values that drove the assignment policy. The only academic mess created is entirely due to the Board majority’s lack of focus on the classroom. Finally, to counter the claim of Tedesco’s alleged “efficiency mess,” one need look no further than to the conservative Civitas Institute, whose recent study found Wake County to rank in the top quartile of cost-effective schools: “Wake County’s per-graduate cost was found to be nearly $20,000 below the average per-graduate cost” among North Carolina schools. Sadly, student bullying has been a topic that we’ve heard all too frequently about of late. In Wake County, we are witnessing a new form of bullying in the relentlessly negative, highly charged rhetoric that Tedesco uses to taunt the public into thinking that our public schools are failing. I know many school districts that would envy a 78.4% graduation rate, a nationally acclaimed magnet program, and an average bus ride of 17 minutes in a county that spans 831 square miles. Research shows conclusively that, in fact, using socio-economic diversity as a means of improving academic achievement boosts the achievement of all students. Just remember—diversity is the complexion of a 21st-century world. But rest easy, those who care for children in Minnesota. Tedesco’s views did not prevail with a majority in the Eden Prairie schools system. In the end, their leaders were braver than Wake County’s current education regime: Eden Prairie’s Board of Education voted 5-4 to use socioeconomic status as one deciding factor in assigning students. They are headed in the moral direction—against creating high poverty schools or segregated schools. Why can’t we say the same in Raleigh and Wake County?"

1/10/2011 2:45:56 PM

Quote :

"As the report highlights, our state ranks 45th in the nation in per pupil spending, 43rd in per pupil expenditure as a share of personal income, and 46th in terms of funding adequacy and equity. The Education Law Center’s report rated state public school funding based on funding level, funding distribution, effort and the number of school-age children attending the state’s public schools. According to their report, North Carolina was one of only four states to receive below average ratings on all four indicators, including a D for funding distribution and an F for effort."

http://www.ncforum.org/doclib/2010_1119.pdf

[Edited on January 10, 2011 at 4:53 PM. Reason : link]

1/10/2011 4:51:03 PM

From Washington Post Today:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/11/AR2011011107063.html?hpid=topnews

1/12/2011 9:18:13 AM

http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/01/12/915108/wake-board-may-drop-accreditation.html

Quote :

"The Wake County school board will meet behind closed doors at 5:30 p.m. today at Millbrook High School, 2201 Spring Forest Road in Raleigh, to discuss whether to withdraw from AdvancED. The board cited attorney-client privilege as the reason for closing it to the public."

So apparently the board doesn't think that Wake parents should get to weight in on whether their children's high schools are accredited or not.

1/12/2011 12:55:36 PM

Quick plug for another thread that looks at the financial underpinnings of the new wave of school board members:

"Art Pope - The Koch Brother of NC"
message_topic.aspx?topic=607613

http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/01/12/915108/wake-board-may-drop-accreditation.html

Quote :

"In addition to student assignment, AdvancED has raised questions about the board's hiring of attorney Thomas Farr as special interim counsel, the use of the conservative-leaning Civitas Institute to train board members, the cost of ending mandatory year-round schools and the cost of not building a high school on Forestville Road."

Pope was a big financial backer for the new school board, and now they are requiring we pay Pope Civitas Institute to do the training with public funds. Nice and cyclical operation they have going there.

1/13/2011 11:28:49 PM

Quote :

"So apparently the board doesn't think that Wake parents should get to weight in on whether their children's high schools are accredited or not."

1/14/2011 12:30:52 AM

so when does this issue stunt the growth of raleigh/wake county?

make a decision and force whomever to live with it and move on.

1/14/2011 11:38:27 AM

Once again the school board is really making children of themselves. The appropriate way to handle this is to allow AdvancED to ask what they want, and then if AdvancED tries to pull accreditation for things that are irrelevant thats when they should fight it publicly, highlighting other school systems not held to such a standard or simply arguing the particular criteria is not relevant.

1/14/2011 1:19:55 PM

AH DAG!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2GngBiT9gM

Internet news just told off Wake county on this issue.

1/14/2011 7:33:21 PM

They're selling it as a Tea Party thing. Did anyone else know of a Tea Party connection?

1/14/2011 7:40:27 PM

everyone stopped arguing when I showed up... do I really smell that bad?

1/16/2011 3:11:07 PM

tea-party connection is here:
http://www.brentroad.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=607613

1/16/2011 3:45:04 PM

^^^^Wow. For out-of-towners, they did alright at reporting this situation.

1/16/2011 9:30:14 PM

^^^^^they basically called wake county school board racists. I'm glad the NAACP is getting this out nationwide. To me it seems like they only gave one side of the issue to me.

I'm for neighborhood schools because I don't want my kids sent across the county to go to school with a bunch of Cary kids. Am I racist for that? Why don't we spend the money it take to bus these kids and give teachers better incentives to teach at these schools. I know plenty of jobless teachers that would jump on the opportunity to make good money teaching kids.

1/17/2011 1:15:50 PM