Quote:
Originally Posted by atwl1011
I am a raging liberal but I agree 100%. The amount of spending on at risk programs is insane, up to 3x's per student. But they are faling. I am certainly not opposed to at risk students getting more, but it should work.
Charter schools are working the great majority operating with a lower cost. KIPP with a 70% reduced/free lunch population as good results. Also, Suger Creek is making strides.
CMS is too big to function. Legally, it can not be divided into several districts. The lawsuits and logistics would cost more than any savings. However, if they break off certain schools and run them like charters, I am convinced it will work. Give the power directly to a local, elected board, specific to that school, that is able to make decisions on the micro level. Let energized principals "own" their schools. On the whole the charters in the CMS area are out performing traditional public schools.
In additon, all the studies show that you need to put the best teachers in the worst schools. This is not happening.
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Thank you so much for understanding that I am not opposed to creating
effective programs to help at risk kids. I was so afraid it would be read that I am somehow opposed to creating special programs (after school tutoring, for example) that help kids who need assistance w/ "mainstreaming" so they can succeed with their studies and social skills.
There is a program in Kannapolis - the Academic Learning Center - which is a grassroots movement that began as a way to provide a safe haven and a place to study after school, in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Now, THAT program has been amazingly successful! And I maintain it is successful b/c the folks in the community WANTED IT and DESIGNED IT and COMMITTED TO IT.
There are methodologies, but they don't necessarily have to include millions of dollars to establish and perpetuate.
I feel it is sheer madness to continue "throwing money" at programs that are not succeeding.
Time we took a hard look at how much money is being spent on such things as training kids to READ after they have turned 18 . . . and started spending the money in helping them in the third grade. And cut out the duplication of services! Kids who drop out of school can get their GED - we don't need to have all these different programs to accomplish the same thing. We are spending millions on different programs when they should all be streamlined and cut the costs.
If you look at the budget, it is simply shocking to see how much goes to the school system here - and yet we do not have a premium system!
When the budget issue we should be discussing is schools and spending to create successful students who become functioning members of society - and we choose to close libraries - the one place that everyone in the community can go - and a place that COULD BE a safe haven and study opportunity for at risk kids . . . I gotta tell ya - this seems wacked out.
We are spending $18Million to create a literacy center at WPCC . . . b/c we have so many folks who are evidently incapable of reading and writing . . . and then we close the repositories for the books for folks with or without money to read . . . I mean . . . does no one else see the total absurdity of this?
We have to spend $18 million to get folks "up to speed" cause they are illiterate, so we keep that in the budget and then close the libraries.
No one else seeing something really screwed up at the county level if this is how the budget folks think you should be handling the fact that we have so many dropouts and slacker students and passed along students that we have to have a LITERACY CENTER at the cost of $18 M and yet won't insist kids can read at the third grade . . . and we close libraries?
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