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Some buses have a "ride time" of 45 minutes or more within the same neighborhood thanks to major cuts in the number of buses. Ride times don't really mean anything in terms of assignment. The kids who have the "exception" of a possible additional 45 minutes are going to those schools by choice (magnets and application schools) per the policy.
Some kids in my neighborhood who go to Adams have a ride time of 45 minutes to an hour and the school is 2 miles away. The kids who go to Martin 12 miles away are home in 15 minutes! It really depends on how crowded the buses are and how many stops it has to make.
It really shouldn't. Bus rides should be kept to a reasonable level, and an hour to hour 45 minutes does not meet that criteria. For my neighborhood, at least, it has nothing to do with the cut in buses, but with the distance the children are bused.
Teachers dumb down the curriculum in order not to leave low performing students behind. In the 7th grade, our son's English class was reading comic books. Comic books! When I asked his teacher why they were not reading regular "chapter books", he told me that many of the kid came from homes that did not have books and did not go to the library, thus did not read well. So in order to not to leave them behind, the whole class read comic books that year. Was it fair to sacrifice the academic progress of the middle-income students to meet the needs of the low-income students?
The reading strategies we teach students, such as sequencing events, identifying and analyzing characters, plot elements, cause and effect, inferencing, problem and solution....these can all be taught using those comic books (which we actually call Graphic Fiction) Many of them have extremely sophisticated storytelling, complex concepts, and a higher lexile score than comparable grade level texts. (Which means the words are bigger) Lets face reality; lots of humans are visual learners and many so called 21st century tasks require us to interpret visual information quickly and efficiently.
It really shouldn't. Bus rides should be kept to a reasonable level, and an hour to hour 45 minutes does not meet that criteria. For my neighborhood, at least, it has nothing to do with the cut in buses, but with the distance the children are bused.
Yes, but our parents have the CHOICE to bus as far as they feel is necessary to get the school they want. Ya'll make it sound like the district is forcing these folks to send their kids across the county. Everyone I've met with a long bus ride made that choice even when there is nothing wrong with the schools in their neighborhood. My kids go to Martin and Broughton and have plenty of friends who drive from Western Wake.
I'm still trying to figure out just how beneficial those tri-fold-displayed projects really are. What students are SUPPOSED to be doing is using technology to follow a inquiry learning process. Not cutting and pasting stuff into documents so they can cut and paste those onto a board. And the honest truth is that neither the state nor the county provide adequate funding for technology or curriculum development or training. If your school has smart boards, it is because your PTA paid for them. The inequities among our schools could be fixed. It's an embarrassment.
Our kids don't need tri-fold boards. They need qualified teachers who can teach them critical thinking. And we aren't going to get that for all our citizens unless we are willing to pay for it.
Yes, but our parents have the CHOICE to bus as far as they feel is necessary to get the school they want. Ya'll make it sound like the district is forcing these folks to send their kids across the county. Everyone I've met with a long bus ride made that choice even when there is nothing wrong with the schools in their neighborhood. My kids go to Martin and Broughton and have plenty of friends who drive from Western Wake.
This isn't a choice, but the base school assigned by the current school board. So, yes, it is the district busing children across the county. Parents can, of course, opt out and send their children to private schools, but they really shouldn't need to do so.
The reading strategies we teach students, such as sequencing events, identifying and analyzing characters, plot elements, cause and effect, inferencing, problem and solution....these can all be taught using those comic books (which we actually call Graphic Fiction) Many of them have extremely sophisticated storytelling, complex concepts, and a higher lexile score than comparable grade level texts. (Which means the words are bigger) Lets face reality; lots of humans are visual learners and many so called 21st century tasks require us to interpret visual information quickly and efficiently.
Wow! Wish our son had had you instead of the football coach for his seventh grade English teacher. I'm pretty sure the man had no idea comic books were called Graphic Fiction. But this was over a decade ago, so perhaps this is more recent terminology.
Not so sure I agree with you about the sophisticated storytelling and complex concepts of the comic books he was was reading. They were pretty straightforward good v evil. Fairly certain that the lexile scores of Wham! Pow! and Zowie! were not more advanced than comparable seventh grade texts.
I believe his teacher was on to something when he said it wasn't good teaching techniques and strategies that made good readers, it was good books, and I will admit, all the kids read up a storm that year and had a grand time doing it. The Storytelling Animal by Gottschall makes a good case for the role of stories in our lives. I believe comic books tap directly into what he talks about.
While I can certainly see the benefit for students who were struggling academically, it was a wasted year for the more proficient students.
This was not only my opinion, but the opinion of our son and many other parents. Several classmates transferred to private schools that year.
Did you read the policy? Please point out where it says anything about diversity being a goal.
Personally I believe that ANY child can get not just a "decent" education, but an excellent one in almost all wcpss schools BECAUSE of the past diversity policies.
Obviously the board agrees, even some of the ones who formerly opposed it.
It was the article, and the Martin/Evans/etal contingent, that said "diversity". I'm not aware that the D word was invoked here first, or among parents first.
Who is now voting for it that didn't before? All the "republicans" are gone except Prickett and Tedesco. He was absent, she voted against.
Any child can indeed get an excellent education, at any school we put our mind to. I don't think it has anything to do with diversity though. ie - I'm not saying the education experience is awesome BECAUSE of diversity as you did.
Otherwise, we'd quickly figure out how many F&R kids there are, and we'd bus them in and bus others out until each school was within 5% of each other on their F&R %'s - which would be the system average of 35%.
We wouldn't have Davis Drive held up as the bell cow of all Wake county elementary schools with its stunning 5% FNR. We wouldn't have 3-7 others nearby a Western Wake student could be "forced" to go with their "doubled" rate of *gasp* 10% F&R!!! The horrors!
Otherwise, you're saying all those favored Western Wake schools do not deliver an excellent education, because they have no diversity.
While I can certainly see the benefit for students who were struggling academically, it was a wasted year for the more proficient students.
This was not only my opinion, but the opinion of our son...
Going to have to eat my words.
Just talked with our son and he said that was the best English class he ever had. Said they would act out the stories holding the comic books and reading from them and they had a ton of fun in general.
He said Coach really understood kids and helped them all understand that the class was a team and that teammates helped each other to develop their skills and be the best players they could possibly be. Their class goal was that every class member was a good reader by the end of the year.
Excuse my ignorance, are schools based on address with this plan or is that now out the window?
Is this 4 plans in 4 years? That's the problem. Any plan in place is going to have positives and negatives. I was the product of a public school and I always envisioned my children being the same. I'm less concerned with the actual school we'll be assigned to, and more concerned with the fact that the board changes their minds every year. The system is losing great kids to private for this exact reason and we may be in the same boat. Again, it's not necessarily the assignment but the uncertainty.
Did you read the policy? Please point out where it says anything about diversity being a goal.
Like you, I was duly impressed by the word patter of how this would all be for the children's benefit. Nary a word about how bussing to balance diversity was how they intended to achieve these lofty goals.
"In a 7-1 vote, the board gave preliminary approval to a revised student assignment policy that seeks to minimize high concentrations of low-performing students and students from low-income families at each school.
...
At schools that can’t be balanced by means of student assignment, board members said, the system will make use of a new Office of Equity and Diversity."
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