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What difference does it make whether kids at school are rich or poor or somewhere in the middle? I don't get it. Please explain.
I have a friend who used to teach high school English in a poverty-stricken part of his city. After living that nightmare for a year, he left that school and took a job teaching in a middle class area. The difference was ENORMOUS. At the poorer school, he was surrounded by kids who just didn't care ... kids who told him to his face that there was no point in doing their homework because they could make so much more money selling drugs than at any other job. He was even physically assaulted by one student. There were lots of other kids who needed his attention, but he was overwhelmed. There were just too many of them. This is not the case at his new school, though. Most of his new students have very stable home lives & are encouraged by their families and communities to succeed. Now he has time to dedicate to the few students who need more one-on-one help. And yet, none of his current students need help nearly as much as those inner-city kids just 15 miles down the road.
That's one of the reasons why I think Raleigh has their diversity policy. Students from low-income areas traditionally need more help at school. If you keep them all at one or two locations, the teachers feel overwhelmed and burn out quickly (and the students don't hold much of a chance, either). But if you sprinkle them throughout the community, the students have a better chance of receiving the individual attention they need. I suspect that programs like No Child Left Behind are behind it, too.
I'm not really trying to defend Wake County here. I can see that the school system is trying, but I can also see that it has many flaws.
I haven't read all of this thread and don't have kids. But I'll chime in and say there is no way I would put my child into a system where he/she was going to be shuffled around year after year, being forced to start at a new school.
Neither would I! And I'd be scared to death to move here with kids knowing they'll be bussed to the other side of the county AND get a new school every year...oh, and never see the neighborhood kids (node? What's a node? Oh nevermind...it interrupts my hysteria). And each year you just put your kid on a bus and they have no idea where they are going! They're traumatized, I tell ya. I give my kid a camera so he can bring home a picture of his new school each year. That way we can find it and check it out at some point...and he can show the neighbor kid!
Mrs. Steel--I agree with you 100%, and even though I'm a vocal critic of WCPSS's implementation of the diversity policy, I'm not against the diversity policy itself.
Here's an example of where I have a problem with the implementation:
A node from Penny Road Elem is getting moved to Davis Drive Elem in order to raise the F&R at DDE, which is incredibly low (below 10% I think). Penny Road, however, is at 27%. I thought the idea of the diversity policy is so we don't have low income, underprivileged kids relegated to high poverty schools. 27% is below the county average as well as the county max goal of 40% F&R at any one school. So how is moving these kids improving their education or opportunities? It's not, IMO.
Additionally, once those kids are moved out of Penny Road Elem, the F&R dips too low so they need to bus more low income kids into Penny Road. They are busing a node in from SEVENTEEN miles away in order to raise Penny Road's F&R to 20%. The kids getting bused in are currently at Smith Elem, which is 70% F&R, but no mention is made in the assignment plan of lowering Smith's F&R. The move is to raise Penny Road's to 20%, which is lower than the 27% they started with.
Meanwhile, there are several schools closer to the Smith node with F&R percentages lower than the county average that they could be sent to instead. One of them, Wiley Elem (a magnet) is only 6 miles from their home. In the assignment plan, it was recognized that Wiley's F&R is too low for a magnet but that staff couldn't identify a way to change their base area to raise it. HELLO!?!?!?!?!
Anyway, that is my frustration with the diversity policy. It gives no consideration to the low income children it buses around supposedly to give them a better education. If they were truly being bused from crappy schools to a distant school that was better I could get behind it. But too many moves are done solely to raise one school's F&R and not to lower the sending school's.
Mrs. Steel--I agree with you 100%, and even though I'm a vocal critic of WCPSS's implementation of the diversity policy, I'm not against the diversity policy itself.
Here's an example of where I have a problem with the implementation:
A node from Penny Road Elem is getting moved to Davis Drive Elem in order to raise the F&R at DDE, which is incredibly low (below 10% I think). Penny Road, however, is at 27%. I thought the idea of the diversity policy is so we don't have low income, underprivileged kids relegated to high poverty schools. 27% is below the county average as well as the county max goal of 40% F&R at any one school. So how is moving these kids improving their education or opportunities? It's not, IMO.
Additionally, once those kids are moved out of Penny Road Elem, the F&R dips too low so they need to bus more low income kids into Penny Road. They are busing a node in from SEVENTEEN miles away in order to raise Penny Road's F&R to 20%. The kids getting bused in are currently at Smith Elem, which is 70% F&R, but no mention is made in the assignment plan of lowering Smith's F&R. The move is to raise Penny Road's to 20%, which is lower than the 27% they started with.
Meanwhile, there are several schools closer to the Smith node with F&R percentages lower than the county average that they could be sent to instead. One of them, Wiley Elem (a magnet) is only 6 miles from their home. In the assignment plan, it was recognized that Wiley's F&R is too low for a magnet but that staff couldn't identify a way to change their base area to raise it. HELLO!?!?!?!?!
Anyway, that is my frustration with the diversity policy. It gives no consideration to the low income children it buses around supposedly to give them a better education. If they were truly being bused from crappy schools to a distant school that was better I could get behind it. But too many moves are done solely to raise one school's F&R and not to lower the sending school's.
This is an uneducated guess...are the Penny Rd kids sent to Cary because they are the closest FR kids to Cary????? Or are there closer FR kids to Cary?
Of course, I have no guess about the Smith kids other than their parents are probably not very vocal (which could be for many reasons all to do with social ills).
And Wiley s/ be ashamed for not coming up with your solution!!
BTW, in Portland we had the reverse issue.... schools closing b/c of under enrollment (too expensive for families to live in the city). The board of ed targeted some really good schools to close. The parents objected and the board of ed allowed the school communities to create a team of representatives that met collectively to come up with a plan to work for the affected school zones. The parents came up w/ great ideas that the district had not seen... maybe like your idea. HOWEVER, the political climate of Portland is so different.... it's almost a right to be heard. So I don't know if you could convince the board of ed here to have community based teams to help w/ these issues. Of course, the people on these teams spent ALOT of unpaid time and effort to come up w/ these ideas.
And the Portland Board of Ed kind of had to listen to these parents... otherwise they would loose these kids to the burbs or private schools, which a shrinking district does not want. But finding a simpathetic board memeber helps and it helps when you are rational like Raleighjayne.
Just got the email from my son's teacher that 87 of the 123 kids on his track are going to the orientation at Wake Forest -Rolesville Middle... of the remainder, most will go to Wakefield. My son says there is 1 other kid on the track who was relegated to Knightdale with him. Maybe they will have an armored minivan for their orientation? It's pretty cruel. they take a sprinkling of kids & bus them to the 3rd worst hs in the county... & most of those being bussed are minority. Guess they are not wanted at WF-Rolesville or Wakefield. They will bus in the requisite minorities from 15-20 miles away. Nice.
Sorry, RaleighJayne, but I think my head imploded about half-way through your post! Bless you for working so hard to keep all of this striaght.
Thanks, Mrs. Steel. :-) Its sort of my crusade I guess. I just really get upset at how crappy the low income families get treated in all of this. They traditionally don't have the resources to organize in opposition and I think WCPSS counts on that. Its sad. And like I said, if I really believed that these moves were really helping them I'd be very supportive. I just don't see most of the diversity assignments being beneficial to them in the past few years. I also knew some low income families at our last school who were moved to Leesville elem, which is 13 miles from their homes. They flat out didn't want to go. They were at a great magnet school and were happy there. The move didn't benefit them. :-(
PDXMom--they aren't the closest F&R to Cary but I can understand why you'd make that guess. That would be the LOGICAL thing to do, lol. Also, Raleigh magnets were designed to keep wealthy white families from fleeing the central Raleigh schools for private schools or the 'county' schools. My personal opinion is that WCPSS and the BOE listens to parents inside the beltline and does what it can to appease them for the same reasons your BOE in Portland did.
PDXMom--they aren't the closest F&R to Cary but I can understand why you'd make that guess. That would be the LOGICAL thing to do, lol. Also, Raleigh magnets were designed to keep wealthy white families from fleeing the central Raleigh schools for private schools or the 'county' schools. My personal opinion is that WCPSS and the BOE listens to parents inside the beltline and does what it can to appease them for the same reasons your BOE in Portland did.
Raleighjayne, thanks for the explaining about F&R & Cary. I feel for you. It's maddening when BOEs don't see or do the logical thing.
While I believe you when you say that WCPSS listens to parents ITB as not to get them to flee, I find that crazy in today's reality. Raleigh as a whole is not loosing families.... it's gaining them like crazy! So what if the they loose a few wealthy white families from ITB to private schools. The district is breeming with other kids, including white wealthy kids. But the money and power has been ITB ... well since Raleigh became a capital city. That's tough to fight. We saw it in Portland too... the neighborhoods with the most $ faired the best in terms of schools.
Public education in this country doesn't serve the interest of everyone. I'm not sure it every did. It should... but it doesn't.
But know that your children are learning something valuable from your convictions and how you are handling yourself!!!
I have elementary school kids but I still have a Mom who started her schooling in a One Room School house. She recommends this to this day. The parents found the teacher, paid the teacher, bought the books, built the school, paid for the coal to heat the stove (in the middle of the room), and dealt with problems beyond what the teacher could handle. Kids were taught to their ability, not their age or arbitrary age or income level. There was no middle man to define any of that. It was very PERSONAL.
Parents Voice Concerns Over Wake School Plans - Education & School News - NBC 17 (http://www.nbc17.com/midatlantic/ncn/news/Education___School_News.apx.-content-articles-NCN-2008-01-17-0030.html - broken link)
I'll be surprised if these folks back down after Feb 5
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One Room School House
