As it currently stands, four of the district's 7 elementary schools fall outside the Board's professed goal of 38% (+- 10%) FRL at each school.
While the Board has spent over 9 months trying to create a rational plan to address the disparity at two of the four schools (and ignoring the other two), virtually nothing has been said about improving student academic performance at any of the three elementary schools that failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress this past year.
That begs the question: What is more important to the Board - SES balance or academic performance?
Al Hartkopf made his answer to that question perfectly clear Monday night.
While Liz Brown made her position perfectly clear earlier in the year.
It is time for the rest of the Board to show enough courage to publicly state what they see as the top priority for the Orange County Schools.
Is it a profoundly unpopular social engineering experiment, or is it, as the Board's own policies state, "setting high academic standards for student success"?
Until every member of the Board models the "integrity and moral courage" to live up to the Board's own policies, how can it expect such behaviors from the county's students?
To the other 5 Board members: Stand up and be counted!
11 comments:
This Board should be known as the "Reign of Error". The majority of the Board, the not so FAB FIVE (Liz, Dennis, Susan, Debbie, and Ted) are not educators, but instead are glorified sociologists. Let's make sure we let everyone know what is going on.
The newspaper people love this blog, sans Casey. They believe the Board to be lovable fools that are holding unnecessary grudges. Al has had to fight the Board by himself for too long now. I hope Anne will step up and let them know that she believes the Board is off key.
Casey hates the blog b/c he is "in bed" (journalist term) with the BOE as well as Central Office. It is unethical for a paper to lack objectivity to this extent.
In contrast, The Daily Tar Heel has really done an outstanding job in covering this topic.
I think it is time to plan a March or a protest against the flagrant misuse of power that this BOE has exhibited.
I think a peaceful, lawful protest/demonstration is a wonderful idea. The Board has done nothing but try to shame us for being who we are--parents of children of HES.
BTW--the other journalists are amused by Casey's smug attitude. Even the ones that are younger think he needs to grow up. He's the corncob editor in town!
Anyone got any ideas on how we should demonstrate our protests?
Anon@5:21 said
"I think it is time to plan a March or a protest against the flagrant misuse of power that this BOE has exhibited."
All well and good, but it is also time to get the Feds involved. While Carraway's plan was an attempt to get around NCLB, it was so transparent most saw through it quickly. The BOE is still trying to game NCLB, use quotas, and hide the children they are failing. Dennis's plan to escape NCLB by opening a preK program is more evidence. Trying to force children back into a school under NCLB penalty is more evidence that they care about their social agenda than than educating kids or obeying the law. Maybe a federal judge will bring some sense to this mess.
Allan,
Thank you so much for the time and effort you have put forth in creating and updating this blog. It means very much to those of us who are not able to attend every meeting.
Thanks also for putting the clip of Al speaking on here. Yes, we do need to decide what is more important, SES or education. Thank God there are people like Al who come forth and speak up for what they believe in and feel is right.
I agree with him 100%. HELP THE FAILING KIDS IN ALL SCHOOLS NOW, not once they have been dispersed accordingly based on their skin color or their family's ability to pay for chicken nuggets. The "social experiment," as somebody previously mentioned, needs to stop. These are little human lives we are dealing with here, and they deserve better.
"That begs the question: What is more important to the Board - SES balance or academic performance?"
Answer: Whatever makes them look better among their friends at the internationalist coffee shop. Liz and Dennis have screwed over every family at both HES and CES by forcing their own narrow agenda over education. They are now having Ted do their dirty work.
Anne and Al have our backs. I don't want Anne to speak out unless she is comfortable to speak out. I do want her to vote for what is right and not to agree with what is wrong.
The answer lies with Susan and Debbie. They can either go with Dennis, Ted, and Liz, or they can come to their senses and back Al and Anne.
Sorry no nonsense, but Debbie and Susan will do whatever Liz tells them to do. They are not willing to cross that line. See what happened to Al? He was villified. Susan and Debbie are both scared of the wrath of Liz. Ted, on the other hand, is controlled by his ego. He loves giving soundbytes of no substance.
A protest of the Board's decisions should take place---if the letters of intent are mailed. Maybe Liz will have the cops wash us with the fire hoses.
Could someone tell me which school Al was referring when he mentioned a school with a 95/5 split achieving well?
What are they're priorities? Certainly not the children at central and efland. If children were their priority they would have implemented Ted's green plan back in Feb or March when Al first put it on the table. They could have done that and then taken 9 months to work out some long term plan they could work out. They could have done that because the green approach is not exclusive of other plans. They could have taken immediate and focused action that would have benefitted kids. These kids have gone through 3 more 9 week periods since this came up. that is three quarters of a year. So really the question is why did'nt they focus on a plan that would help those that need help immediately but instead tried to make this somebody elses problem AND overcomplicate and overpoliticize the problem? Why is it so important to the board to punish hes for its own success? Power trip? For Liz and Dennis its simple. They just hate hes and Al so for them screwing up hes is like killing 2 birds with one stone. But for the rest, where is their heart? Where is their head? How did they not see that the green plan should have been done months ago and kids could be getting what they needed for the last 9 months?
Scott
I think that the BOE perceives HES' demographics as the reason for their academic success. However, there are plenty of schools (Cameron Park comes to mind) that have balanced SES and are still successful.
One board member actually said that if you strip out the FRL kids, you won't have that academic success. I believe that is selling everyone short. HES is not successful just b/c we have a lower FRL percent.
My point is that when we continue to espouse HES' success it lost on the BOE b/c they think it is due to our demographics.
That myth needs to be completely eradicated b/f we can proceed.
Tink's Mom
I think the "95/5" school was a hypothetical situation.
Which would be better - a school that is 95% FRL and making all its academic goals, or one that is 38% FRL that is failing to meet its goals?
Of course, your answer depends on what you see as the schools' purpose.
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