One of the more interesting things reported out of last night’s OCBOE meeting was the plan to designate HES as the only alternative school CES parents could choose, assuming (as the BOE has) that CES fails to make Adequate Yearly Progress for the second year and requires a “School Improvement Plan.”
According to the No Child Left Behind law, parents of children in schools that enter “School Improvement” can opt-out of that school and enroll their children at another public school as long as it has not already been “identified for improvement under Title 1 or identified by the State as persistently dangerous.” This includes local Charter schools.
The idea is to provide an incentive for lower-performing schools to take the necessary steps to improve, while not forcing parents to keep their children in failing schools. Throughout the law, both in word and in spirit, is the concept of parental school choice. When a school meets the "School Improvement" criteria, parents can CHOOSE to either transfer to another school or CHOOSE to stay where they are.
While HES will surely satisfy the requirements outlined by the law for a safe and adequately performing school to accept families seeking to opt-out of CES, so do other schools in Orange County. By designating only one alternative school for CES parents, I believe the Orange County Board of Education is violating the law – both in word and in spirit.
According to the US Dept. of Education, “If more than one school that meets the requirements [not identified for improvement under Title 1 or identified by the State as persistently dangerous] is available, the LEA must offer more than one choice to eligible students. LEAs should strive to provide a full menu of choices to students and parents, and must take into account parents’ preferences among the choices offered.”
To my knowledge, no Orange County elementary school is currently “identified for improvement,” and only CES is at risk of that designation this year. Additionally, I am not aware of any Orange County elementary school that has been identified as “persistently dangerous.” If both of these facts are true, why would CES parents seeking to exercise their rights be forced into the year-round schedule at HES?
I believe CES parents should be able to choose HES for their children; however that should not be their only choice. Since every other school in the district qualifies to host these children, why doesn’t Orange County Schools allow CES parents to choose the school they feel will serve their children best – regardless of where it is?
But, then again, nothing in this matter has ever been about what is best for the individual students at either CES or HES. Why should this be any different?
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4 comments:
Allan,
You hit the nail on the head with this post. OF COURSE IT IS NOT ABOUT THE CHILDREN. IT IS ABOUT SHIRLEY CARRAWAY. Make no mistake. It is about Shirley Carraway and her retribution to individuals who have dared to take a stand against her bad policies and cronies. Look what she had done and is currently doing to other schools across the county.
A few weeks ago, the "Pitt County Mafia" was described in the local paper. That is Shirley Carraway's main focus.
If anyone believes the situation with CES or HES stems from concern with the children or "No Child Left Behind" then they are kidding themselves. Children's education is the least of Carraway's concerns at this moment in time.
The children are the ones Carraway is hurting the most.
The Orange County Schools wants to "even out" the number of students who receive a free or reduced lunch (F&R) across the district. They plan to cap the number of F&R elementary school students at 38 percent. (Currently, Wake County Schools buses students around to "even out" the number of F&R students across the district. They call it maintaining "healthy" schools.)
The problem is that F&R is not a good measure of socioeconomic status because, among other problems, classification bias occurs. There is plenty of incentive for a district school to place a student under the F&R umbrella, because many district schools may be able to receive Title I funds and services from the federal government. Audits of Title I parents' eligibility is scant, so school systems likely have a number of children under Title I whose parents exceed the income ceiling.
On the other hand, private schools do not receive Title I funds directly. Instead, they are required to negotiate an allotment through the local school system, which is no easy (or even worthwhile) task. Moreover, schools that do not have a cafeteria cannot classify any students as F&R. Thus, the number of F&R students tend to be low or nonexistent for home, charter, and private schools and high for district schools.
Thus, we have a classification bias - classification of students as F&R is based on the incentives offered to classify them as F&R.
Interesting how Orange County Schools want to "follow" in Wake County's shadow. Especially since all parents "love" the Wake County schools!
Shipping poorer children around the county works for a while, since these families are “stuck” in government provided schools. The minute you being to dictate assignments that empowered families dislike they simply leave government schools. Then the percentage of F&R students within the system begins to increase. Orange County will then need to raise the percentage of “these” students in each school. This continues until the county voters have had enough and elects school board members who reject this nonsense, or there are so few student not classified as F&R it no longer matters. Ask members of the Charlotte system!
Too bad the Orange County School Central Office does not want to deal with student achievement issues within schools with a higher percentage of poorer students. Leadership and performance makes a school “healthy,” not the percentage of "rich" kids attending.
It is a good thing the school board has an attorney that consults with them. From a common sense approach, they need to follow his lead.
Please remember that Dennis W. is an attorney. If there is something that is not in "black and white", he has the ability to manipulate the spirit of these laws. Some of the Board members are obviously intimidated by him, and therefore will not say a word. That is too bad.
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