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Thread summary:

Diversity rule in Wake County school district, integrated schools, parents’ report income levels, low income students, rising test scores, standardized tests above grade level, maintain diversity

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Old 09-26-2007, 07:30 AM
 
Location: Up above the world so high!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by North_Raleigh_Guy View Post
Any way you paint it, Neighborhood schools are just a great way to make sure the children of wealthier areas never have to mingle with children from poor areas of town. WCPSS is a county school system and people pining over the idea of neighborhood schools don't seem to grasp the county school system concept.

I'm done with this dissapointing thread.

Wake County Public School System

Is there no middle class in Wake County?

You seem to want to make this a rich family-poor family thing, which doesn't encompass the whole situation. Busing is a way for "wealthier kids to not have to mingle with poor kids?" What a broad generalization, and totally ridiculous to me. Oh, I'm sure it happens, but certainly not in the majority of situations.

Maybe it is different over there, but in Mecklenburg County, even with all our wealthy neighborhoods there are just as many middle class ones, if not more. And guess what? We middle class people ALREADY have neighbors who are black, white, Asian, Puerto Rican - heck one of mine is South African - oops, almost forgot my son's best friend, he's Phillipino. We didn't NEED busing to have an integrated school.

An overwhelming amount of people fought for neightborhood schools in Charlotte once they realized how busing had outlived its usefulness and purpose, and had grown too costly. Maybe in Wake it still has a purpose, and if it ain't broke don't fix it. This issue of struggling groups of poor students is a very complicated one. But it has a lot less to do with wealthy people not wanting to associate with poor people, than it does intelligent educated parents wanting their kids to be in the best learning environment possible.
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Old 09-26-2007, 07:49 AM
 
Location: Apex, NC
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NChomesomeday View Post
I think you summed it up well, Alice. It's one of the reasons the CH schools are so attractive and that CH/Carrboro is still #1 on my list of places to live should we ever get down there! But we might just as well wind up in Wake, depending on jobs and there are certainly great neighborhoods that I visited on my trips down there as well as ones I've read about here. I would just put my kids in Catholic schools should we wind up inside Wake Co borders.

My oldest started school in Fairfax Cty VA. When we moved to MA, I couldn't believe how small the school system was, or that everything was town based. But there wasn't any bussing in Fairfax Cty (at least not where we were and I'm fairly sure the entire county revolved around neighborhood schools). I think county-wide school systems can work and there are some positives. Fairfax Cty Schools had tremendous resources. But they are governed very differently than WCPSS and perhaps there is something the school board could learn from Fairfax County?

I was a prouduct of the Fairfax County, VA school system and even though it's a county wide school system with 170,000 students it works very well. I wouldn't say all the schools are neighborhood schools, but it has consistant boundaries and my schools were never more then 2½ miles away. I've said this before, but the BIG difference between Wake and Fairfax county is money. Fairfax County rolls in money, due to all the real estate and corporate taxes the recieve. The county reassess property every year and they are literally raking in the dough. When they were growing heavily back in the 80's they were able to keep up with construction demands through bonds and planning. There is no forced busing there, but that's manly because there are only isolated pockets of poverty in that county. The median household income is over $100k and they take their schools very seriously. I don't even know how lower middle and poor familes afford to live there. Real esate (while coming down recently) is way overpriced there, just like it is in the Northeast.

Wake reminds me a lot of Fairfax when I first moved there in the 80's as a kid, but Fairfax just has more money and higher paying jobs. That is what has kept the county wide school system performing at a top notch rate.
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Old 09-26-2007, 11:17 AM
 
Location: Piedmont NC
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Whew!

I have been through all of these issues -- personally. I was a student at a HS when busing was initiated in the late 60s, early 70s. The race riots, as a result, were horrific. There was many a day my parents picked me up from school to get me away from the fighting.

Somehow, students at the school not only survived, but persevered. It was more 'outside' influences creating the problem for us.

I can't say it has been the result of lower socio-economic groups in the public schools, or races, but I don't think children today -- for whatever reasons -- get the education I got back in the 70s. The education my daughter had access to, as a 2005 graduate, did not compare to what I had in 1973.

As a teacher -- at all levels -- it seems most classes are watered-down. Someone else addressed this as 'tracks' issues, and my experience has been, as an educator, that the lowest are not necessarily pulled-up but that the highest are dragged down. There needs to be equal access to a good education, but to assume all children will perform equally is ridiculous.

After busing students for years, schools in Coastal NC have moved to 'schools of choice.' Students are assigned to a neighborhood school -- ie. the closet one to the residence -- and buses are provided to students living the farthest from the school in their given area, BUT, any student in any neighborhood in the county, may elect to attend another school IF they can get themselves to the school.

Interestingly enough, the schools deemed as better ones, whether a perception or a reality, for whatever reasons, are the ones students and their parents are flocking to. Unfortunately, there is a cap to numbers of students a school can handle, so it is first come, first served. I well imagine if the trend continues, they may have to institute a lottery of sorts?

Seems an interesting take on putting the responsibility upon families to get their children into the better schools.
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Old 09-26-2007, 11:39 AM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sandycat View Post
I personally like the concept of neighborhood schools. In Colorado where I taught, there were schools that had a higher F&R lunch population, and a higher minority population, but it gave those schools opportunities to bring in the programs that were best suited for the kids that they served. And there were some great things happening in a lot of those schools. Were the test scores as high as the other areas? No, but when you are dealing with working poor communities, there are a whole other set of variables that play into test scores.
We saw similar great things happening at Portland schools with a large percentage of F&R kids. A neighboring school had many children who were refugees whose parents need additional services but did not know how to find the services they needed. The school provided a space for a county social worker and community volunteers to come and and help the families while the kids were at school. Another school had a large percentage of kids whose first language was Russian. The school was able to hire bilingual staff to help w/ communicating to parents when they came in. The test scores were not as high at these schools, but the kids were having growing and learning and the families were improving their lives and become productive members of society because of some of these extra steps these neighborhood schools were able to take.

Yes, it would be ideal to provide these services at all schools so no matter where a child is bussed they would get these services. But that's just not the reality in this country.

Edit: wanted to add: BUT I do not think there is a one size fits all approach to every county or every school within a county. Maybe some of these schools like the ones I mentioned would be better off being neighborhood schools where new refugees can establish a sense of community at surrounding the school they can walk to. But other schools would definately benefit from some socioeconomic and racial diversity. Our old school had very little diversity. One of the reasons we picked Durham was so our kids could grow up around diversity.
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Old 09-26-2007, 12:23 PM
 
Location: Cary, NC
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You are correct that there is not a one size fits all approach to any school system anywhere in the country. Demographics are different, resources are different, school boards and local politics are different, budgets are different, human resources are different, parents are different, social services are different, town and city designs are different. These are all things that are tied into how the spokes in the wheel of a school system turn.

That is why I find it so sad that people who do not even live here or have children in the system can complain about it. You need to BE HERE and see firsthand how things work, and then if things really are not working out for you, I can understand a change. Several of you mentioned failed bussing/economic diversity initiatives in other parts of the country, but that doesn't mean it fails HERE. In fact, Wake has been bussing for decades and it is not "failing". It may need improvements, and it may need tweaking over time to keep up with different issues, but that doesn't make it BAD. Things are different here than in Philly or Michigan or New York or wherever.

I changed my own child out of a WCPSS to a charter school but that was because I liked the curriculum better, NOT because I wanted to shield her from the evils of F&R lunch kids. My other child still attends her base WCPSS school (with 42% f&R lunch). It is like a neighborhood school. We live a mile away and she goes to school with all the kids from the neighborhood, all the kids on her swim team and in her girl scout troop. It's a very diverse school and we've never had a single problem. In fact, I spend a lot of time up there volunteering with various teachers to help the slower kids catch up in reading and math with one on one time. You need to put something into the schools to get something out of it. I'd rather be up there proactively helping with any problems than complaining about them.

And in comparison to the rest of the state, Wake's scores area amongst the highest in the state, so they must be doing SOMETHING right. It's not perfect my any means and I have my own issues with the system sometimes, but I don't think there IS a perfect system out there anywhere. It works here pretty well for the majority of students in the district. As long as your child is motivated and a strong learner in the classroom and you all as parents are supporting them at home, poor children are NOT going to hold your kid back.
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Old 09-26-2007, 01:14 PM
 
Location: Wake Forest NC
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lamishra View Post
SO I'm wondering if anyone here has a child who is forced into being bussed over an hour to a lower income area school? In all my years and my children's years in WCPSS, that has never happened to us or anyone I know. They didn't have the data from anything too recent, but in 2004, 77% of students attended base schools (that's subtracting out magnet students, transfers etc) and 87% of them lived with in 5 miles of their school. I doubt it's that different now with the exception of students choosing traditional over YR schools after the lawsuit.

I was just perusing the WCPSS website demographic data section and looking at Base attendance areas for elementary schools. Every school I clicked on that I knew was a school in a higher income area IS basically a neighborhood school! The majority of students who attend live within a 5 mile radius of the school (many even closer), with the exception of the F&R student pockets who are being bussed IN. Most are not being bussed OUT. This is where the argument gets fuzzy for me, because why would it matter if lower income students were being bussed in as long as you are not being bussed out? The only logical conclusion I can come to is that people don't want them in their schools. I specifically remember this being the case a few years ago in the Leesville schools when a larger pocket of lower income kids were being reassigned to Leesville and parents throwing an absolute fit! I remember this example because I specifically remember reading some of the comments and being very, very disturbed.

Look at Knightdale High's base area. They put a whole bunch of north Wake neighborhoods (including mine!) in there- the base map looks like a piece of swiss cheese. The bus ride for the ONE girl going is well over an hour. Teh bus winds in & out of the afflicted subdivisions, from all the way up here in Wake Forest down to Knightdale. The other 4 high school kids go to magnet or are granfathered in to their old schools from before they moved here. Let's see if my son makes magnet. If not we will have to go private. Why ride a bus for over an hour to a school with gang violence and a 65% drop out rate?
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Old 09-26-2007, 02:40 PM
 
Location: Blacksburg, VA
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"Why ride a bus for over an hour to a school with gang violence and a 65% drop out rate?"

As a parent, I would find that a very painful choice. At ~$10K/year, private school would also be very difficult. Hmmm.
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Old 09-26-2007, 04:19 PM
 
Location: Cary, NC
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Originally Posted by NYer View Post
Look at Knightdale High's base area. They put a whole bunch of north Wake neighborhoods (including mine!) in there- the base map looks like a piece of swiss cheese. The bus ride for the ONE girl going is well over an hour. Teh bus winds in & out of the afflicted subdivisions, from all the way up here in Wake Forest down to Knightdale. The other 4 high school kids go to magnet or are granfathered in to their old schools from before they moved here. Let's see if my son makes magnet. If not we will have to go private. Why ride a bus for over an hour to a school with gang violence and a 65% drop out rate?
I looked at the base attendance area. That is a situation I would consider private school, but it is also not the norm.
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Old 09-26-2007, 04:36 PM
 
Location: Downtown Raleigh
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Originally Posted by RDSLOTS View Post

As a teacher -- at all levels -- it seems most classes are watered-down. Someone else addressed this as 'tracks' issues, and my experience has been, as an educator, that the lowest are not necessarily pulled-up but that the highest are dragged down. There needs to be equal access to a good education, but to assume all children will perform equally is ridiculous.

I am also a teacher, and I could not agree more. You can't move more quickly than your slowest student without leaving a child behind.

Last edited by roscomac; 09-26-2007 at 05:27 PM..
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Old 09-26-2007, 05:25 PM
 
Location: Up above the world so high!
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Originally Posted by roscomac View Post
I am also a teacher, and I could not agree more. You can't move more quickly than your slowest student and not leave a child behind.
Thanks for doing a very difficult job - and weighing in here with what you have experienced.
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