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Location: Atlanta, Birmingham, Charlotte, and Raleigh
2,580 posts, read 2,484,874 times
Reputation: 1614
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Quote:
Originally Posted by neil0311
Have you lived there and had children in public schools in the state? Well I have. The quality of schools is highly dependent on the tax base and that is highly variable based on the town. For every Weston or Wellesley, there is a Fitchburg or small town in the western part of the state. The town we lived was middle class and had a pretty good tax base, and the schools were OK, but nothing better than Cobb County. My kids used xeroxed textbooks and it took 5 years to get the funding approved to fix the leaky high school roof. Capital projects are very difficult to get funded since the small local districts have to go with their hand out to the state. There's no such thing as SPLOST.
So yes...in MA many schools systems are good, but income is much higher, as are taxes. If you live in a very affluent community, the schools have a good stream of tax revenue, but more important for student achievement is parental involvement. Affluent parents tend to be educated and involved. That more than anything is what I believe makes the difference. In GA, a lack of involvement is what I believe has a big impact. What is much better here is the countywide system and larger more evenly managed tax base. SPLOST also makes a big difference. Having said all that, it doesn't take a genius to see the redundancy when multiple school systems all have boards, superintendents, administrators, offices, etc. That stuff costs money.
Thank you for saying that and I wish more people would get this. It's always a debate or argument when many refuse to see the entire forest rather focus on the individual trees.
Great thoughts! However, you must not be from around here. We don't have Teacher's Unions, GA is a right to work state and the teachers' organizations here are pretty powerless as we can see by the constant cuts to funding in education, they can't seem to get much done. (Except they did help defeat Roy Barnes because they didn't like what he said about the collective group and class size has risen and spending declined ever since.)
LMM, thanks for the clarification. What I really meant to endorse was residinghere's focus on making sure students are doing the work and learning it. Teachers, even great ones, can only do so much. The student has to be in an atmosphere where learning and a strong work ethic are valued.
I know exactly what type of situation the DeKalb County school district has become because it mirrors what happen with Birmingham City Schools prior to it being taken over by the state of Alabama nearly 2 years ago. The reason why the school districts in both situation is/was in poor conditions was mostly the blame of the school board versus the quality of individual schools. This is why an overall of the board needs to be in order rather than attempting to running form their problems.
However, instead of trying to fraction the quality of schools county how about people become more active and vote since the Dekalb County school board is elected. Additionally, running from your problems will not solve them and that is what forming your own school district will do ultimately (create new ones in addition to the existing ones). People think that forming their own municipality or school district is somehow going to keep the problems at their "imaginary borders" when it will still be there waiting for them and likely follow them to this "new" level of bureaucracy. This where community activism and participation comes into play rather than running the other way.
I can vote for two board members in DeKalb as can other residents. This is a board of 9 which will shrink to 7, so soon we will all vote for one board member. (Shrinking the board is important.)
A few elections ago, many people on the Northern and Central end of the County contributed to a candidate running against Sarah Copelin-Woods (one of the worst board members) and it was used against the candidate who was ultimately defeated. Same things with Donna Edler who was running against Zepora Roberts (the then sitting board member who slugged a TV reporter and whose children were making nearly 6 figure salaries in school system jobs that they either weren't qualified for or grossly overpaid) and because "we" helped in her campaign, she was nearly defeated.
In a small system, I am likely to know residents across my community. So, if I want my friend to support "Joe" for school board there is an understanding that we are all in this together. That is not the case in DeKalb and other large systems.
In the case of DeKalb, and remember this is not a DeKalb specific bill and has sponsors from across metro Atlanta, there has been plenty of activism for a long time. It is just that voters apparently want different things from their board members. In S. DeKalb, for example, many voters only support candidates who will protect their cherished choice programs and associated transportation services regardless of whether the system can afford it or not.
Can you identify one large school system, outside of the metro DC area, where poor students are successful?
I can identify a couple of GA small school districts, that overall are pretty poor, yet have impressive graduation rates. Take a look at Dalton High School -- 80% free and reduced lunch rate, 90 percent graduation rate. Calhoun City -- 60 percent poverty, 87 percent graduation rate, and Gainesville City 75 percent poverty rate, 81 percent grad rate.
Compare to Dekalb --72 percent poverty rate, 58 percent grad rate.
And which of the four systems do you think spends the most per pupil?
Having visited all the city systems I listed, the ability to target resources (even limited ones) in a small, albeit healthy, system is so much greater than in a larger system.
Last edited by lastminutemom; 01-04-2014 at 04:31 PM..
Location: Atlanta, Birmingham, Charlotte, and Raleigh
2,580 posts, read 2,484,874 times
Reputation: 1614
Quote:
Originally Posted by lastminutemom
I can vote for two board members in DeKalb as can other residents. This is a board of 9 which will shrink to 7, so soon we will all vote for one board member. (Shrinking the board is important.)
A few elections ago, many people on the Northern and Central end of the County contributed to a candidate running against Sarah Copelin-Woods (one of the worst board members) and it was used against the candidate who was ultimately defeated. Same things with Donna Edler who was running against Zepora Roberts (the then sitting board member who slugged a TV reporter and whose children were making nearly 6 figure salaries in school system jobs that they either weren't qualified for or grossly overpaid) and because "we" helped in her campaign, she was nearly defeated.
In a small system, I am likely to know residents across my community. So, if I want my friend to support "Joe" for school board there is an understanding that we are all in this together. That is not the case in DeKalb and other large systems.
In the case of DeKalb, and remember this is not a DeKalb specific bill and has sponsors from across metro Atlanta, there has been plenty of activism for a long time. It is just that voters apparently want different things from their board members. In S. DeKalb, for example, many voters only support candidates who will protect their cherished choice programs and associated transportation services regardless of whether the system can afford it or not.
Can you identify one large school system, outside of the metro DC area, where poor students are successful?
I can identify a couple of GA small school districts, that overall are pretty poor, yet have impressive graduation rates. Take a look at Dalton High School -- 80% free and reduced lunch rate, 90 percent graduation rate. Calhoun City -- 60 percent poverty, 87 percent graduation rate, and Gainesville City 75 percent poverty rate, 81 percent grad rate.
Compare to Dekalb --72 percent poverty rate, 58 percent grad rate.
And which of the four systems do you think spends the most per pupil?
Having visited all the city systems I listed, the ability to target resources (even limited ones) in a small, albeit healthy, system is so much greater than in a larger system.
Actually, most large Southern cities with the exception of Memphis, Birmingham, and Atlanta are apart of county-wide school districts. I'm pretty sure all of those other large Southern cities have thrived and survived even with the larger than average poverty rates associated with being apart of an urban core. See Wake County, NC, Mecklenberg County, NC, Miami-Dade County FL, etc. as examples of how things can work at a countywide scale.
At the end of the day, I'm still not convinced forming a municipal based school districts will solve anything. Rather it will guarantee students from lower income households in the central, eastern, and southern portion of DeKalb County will wind up on just a smaller but even more **** poor school district while the northern areas will just "circle the wagons" to ensure those kids not apart of households within their municipalities cannot receive the same quality of education...
I grew in a region where this ideology didn't work and wind up with education quality extremes where most school districts that were form didn't improve anything. The ones whom were continued to be hurt were lower income and non-white students in these countywide school district because resources were further cut.
Great thoughts! However, you must not be from around here. We don't have Teacher's Unions, GA is a right to work state and the teachers' organizations here are pretty powerless as we can see by the constant cuts to funding in education, they can't seem to get much done. (Except they did help defeat Roy Barnes because they didn't like what he said about the collective group and class size has risen and spending declined ever since.)
Guess what, the GA Constitution doesn't allow the state to take over local school systems, even if they are bankrupt. All power is vested in the local systems. To implement a state takeover, or even real pressure from the state, the GA Constiution would have to be amended, just as it needs to be to create new school systems (different amendments obviously). No Child Left Behind "required" states to take over schools and/or school systems when they reached a certain number of years "failing". While this happened in a few states across the country, it never happened in GA, because it couldn't.
While we "see" the challenges that our metro area systems face, outside of metro area there are some really low performing school systems. My understanding is that in about 2/3rds of the counties in GA, the school system is either the largest or one of the 3 largest employers in the country. Thus, there will be tremendous resistance from residents and elected officials to changing the Constitution to give the state more power.
And you presume that our state Dept of Ed is so functional. There is indisputable evidence that the DOE enabled some of the bad behavior in DeKalb, by telling the school system's financial people how to change things to get a cleaner audit report. By the way, it has been years since DCSS has had clean audit reports.
No, not from around here. But the question was, what can be done in DeKalb and Clayton. All the items I mentioned can be done with willing people in the county and at the state level.
There is always beaurocracy in government. Just because something is not allowed right now, doesn't mean that it cannot be done. Legislation can be introduced and passed to give the state the authority to take over poorly performing school systems similar to laws that other states have.
The populace, including the business community and lobbyist for groups and businesses are the primary ways that all government offices and institutions are pushed into specific legislation. If we all wanted the DOE overhauled, it could be done. If we wanted a way for a competent DOE staff to take over poor performing school systems, and do 2 or 3 of the things that I mentioned above, it could be done.
My kid goes to a charter so I am not all that involved in regards to our local school board here in APS except for getting out to see which members or potential members support charter schools. We have a large group of parents and various groups at all of the better charter schools that get together to discuss potential candidates especially before elections. But I am involved in quite a few activities at the local level and it may be mean but IMO too many people have the attitude that nothing can be done and that they are just pawns in a system that cannot be changed. Basically, there is a defeatist attitude (reminds me of my favorite Downton Abbey quote - "don't be defeatist, it is so middle class" lol) that is prevalent in Atlanta it seems. No one thinks that anyone else wants to work with them for a common, positive goal. Everyone is out to get the other person or group. Everyone is racist. Everyone is to blame. Nothing can be done.
It is no surprise that there is so much dysfunction to people who are not from here. The acceptance of mediocrity is just sad IMO.
LMM, thanks for the clarification. What I really meant to endorse was residinghere's focus on making sure students are doing the work and learning it. Teachers, even great ones, can only do so much. The student has to be in an atmosphere where learning and a strong work ethic are valued.
Parents are paying thousands of dollars for their kids to get tutored after school and on the weekends. Private tutors go beyond what the kids are learning at school and teach them how to take the test. These tutoring sessions add up to thousands of dollars each year. Some tutors even charge $60/hour. Folks want to talk about parent involvement but places like Sylvan and Kumon are vibrant in all the good school districts that have the sky high scores.
The other reality is in more affluent areas, there are a lot of stay at home moms who have more time to help their kids with their homework but even they turn to tutoring as their child's education gets more advanced. The tutoring programs offered at public schools and libraries are the traditional ones where the kids go there to catch up or if they're having problems. They don't go beyond the school curriculum.
Actually, most large Southern cities with the exception of Memphis, Birmingham, and Atlanta are apart of county-wide school districts. I'm pretty sure all of those other large Southern cities have thrived and survived even with the larger than average poverty rates associated with being apart of an urban core. See Wake County, NC, Mecklenberg County, NC, Miami-Dade County FL, etc. as examples of how things can work at a countywide scale.
At the end of the day, I'm still not convinced forming a municipal based school districts will solve anything. Rather it will guarantee students from lower income households in the central, eastern, and southern portion of DeKalb County will wind up on just a smaller but even more **** poor school district while the northern areas will just "circle the wagons" to ensure those kids not apart of households within their municipalities cannot receive the same quality of education...
I grew in a region where this ideology didn't work and wind up with education quality extremes where most school districts that were form didn't improve anything. The ones whom were continued to be hurt were lower income and non-white students in these countywide school district because resources were further cut.
Good point. It's been said that Atlanta passed Birmingham because it is the city too busy to hate and Birmingham couldn't move forward. All this in-fighting could take a toll on Metro Atlanta. Gwinnett County is doing really well and is a huge and very diverse school district.
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