Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools will roll out its annual school progress reports on Monday, with more details than ever. Numbers on per-pupil spending and "return on investment," a CMS gauge of how much academic growth each school gets for the taxpayers' bucks, generally garner a lot of interest.
The school board got a preview Tuesday night, and members' discussion previewed some of the back-and-forth likely to happen in the community. At the end of the long presentation, you'll find maps plotting spending and returns -- plotted in red, yellow and green -- for each neighborhood school. Red signals a school that's not getting as much academic growth on test scores as officials would expect for the amount of spending, while green schools are doing better than expected. Not surprisingly, large, suburban schools with relatively low spending are the most likely to land in the green.
Board member Tom Tate, who represents an east Charlotte district with many high-poverty schools, questioned the value of such labels. Parents are likely to believe that red is bad, he said, when it may just signal high need and a lot of expensive support programs. Chief Information Officer Scott Muri agreed, citing the small, high-poverty Reid Park Elementary as a "red" school that's serving children and families well.
Rhonda Lennon, who represents the north suburbs, took the opposite tack. A green rating may signal overcrowded schools that aren't getting enough money, despite strong achievement, she said: "To me the green light should send up a red flag for parents. ... There's very little money being spent on a tremendous number of kids."
Ericka Ellis-Stewart, the newly elected board chair, said CMS has done a better job of spelling out what it does to help urban schools than suburban ones. "I'm not hearing what is necessary to meet the needs of suburban schools," she said. Muri said it's up to each school to use its data to create a plan that top administrators and the board can support.
Hattabaugh told the board he recommends keeping current programs, such as extra teachers and money based on student poverty, but acknowledged that as poverty numbers rise, it's more challenging to provide enough support.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
CMS 'bang for buck' report coming
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29 comments:
It looks like Ellis-Stewart is trying to take a less partisan tone. This makes sense right after she helped to vote in a Mecklenburg Acts type to the board for district 6.
"I'm not hearing what is necessary to meet the needs of suburban schools," she says. Words are nice, but let's see how she votes.
Bottom line, we are funding a firehose at the urban schools and the kids can only swallow once a day (mostly due to their home situation as Fannie has pointed out). Cut it down to at least a garden hose.
Suburban kids are missing on opportunities to really soar. They are most likely the ones who can save this country.
NC ABC tests are such a low bar> This school board has got to think higher for some of its kids.
Not surprisingly, large, suburban schools with relatively low spending are the most likely to land in the green....
....now what would be the odds of that?
Using school lunch numbers in any equation immediately makes all data worthless...
Wow! Willie Coyote shows up after only three posts!! Yesterday it took over 50 posts....
Anon 9:49....
I showed up yesterday only because after the 59th post, my head was about to explode from the whining about little Johnny not getting enough sleep...
Wiley and for any others that follow the regular posters on this subject of CMS, I have thrown in the towel on CMS.
It is no longer useful for me to try to post common sense things for this community. I have much better things to do in life. I care about his community because I still live here. However the school system and the mindest of the majority of the BOE and BOCC are the albatross around this community's neck.
Am I looking at this right? The report claims to show 2010-11 per-pupil expenditures, but uses a 2009-10 attendance boundary map. See First Ward/Dilworth/Eastover on p.42-43.
I am not surprised, TROTS, by your stance. After my one child graduates I am outta here as well, by necessity. In the meantime, if Ellis-Stewart wants specifics about what the suburban schools need, seriously, she has got to get the board out to the burb schools. I am sure the kids who eat off the floor at the top CMS school, would give her a bite of their sandwich. I think the board should also take a hard look at the AP science books. And don't take them away to sub in CTE books exclusively. Both are needed.
Yet another case of a vocal minority's attempt to hijack district policy.
One of the saddest things we discovered about CMS and this community, way back in the 90's, was how many people would say either "I'm so glad my kids are graduated and we're done with CMS" or "I can't wait until they are graduated and we're outa here." Rather a sad commentary on the system (or perhaps the politics of the system). That is not the norm in lots of other places (most especially places that aren't trying to force suburban parts of the county into an urban mold).
TROTS...
We both know the way this is headed and unfortunately, there is no stopping it unless it's done on a national level.
CMS is like any other school district, large or small. Each has its own little power group thinking they're "improving education" while at the same time throwing away more good money after bad on programs like Bright Beginnings.
No Child Left Behind was a bipartisan effort and exposed major flaws in education at the time.
Yet today, 10+ years later, a new administartion wants to gut it. OK, I get some of the arguments against it, but if flaws were exposed and by all accounts test scores did increase and the "achievment gap" DECREASED, where do we take it to the next level?
Arne Duncan is against testing and teaching to the test but is pushing testing teachers. Scratch your head over that one.
What new and innovative programs are coming to replace it that we haven't had in 40 years?
Womb to college graduation funding by the government?
We're already overspending on programs that don't work. Piling more money on top of them isn't going to fix it.
Sorry to see you go, but I intend to stay here just to irritate the hell out people as an alternative voice...
Wiley, read today's Viewpoint column entitled "This poverty solution starts with a hug".
Pretty good. A similar study done in NC documented the same conclusion seen in the book on Dr. Canada of the Harlem Achievement Zone.
Bottom line, poor people in the US are poor because they lack the ability to establish priorities. They lack that ability because they lack a value system that is compatible with today's modern society.
TROTS...
I read it earlier this morning.
Did you read kantstanzya's commnt?
Here's part of the last paragraph:
...One thing he does say that doesn't make sense. He claims the external environment can affect the child in the womb. His example is Dutch men and women who had been in utero were affected by a famine during WW11.
How can that be? I thought life in liberal nirvana didn't begin at conception but only at actual birth?
Like I said, womb to college....
RE Ellis-Stewart and the burbs: She reported at the end of the meeting that she has called the mayors of all six towns and met with the mayor of Davidson. She said she hopes to connect with the other five soon to get their views on the needs of their schools and communities.
.....wonder what the list of unspent bond monies is related to the 'burbs.... if any.
Ann, That's great that Ellis-Stewart is talking to mayors, even if city mayors don't have much to do with the schools, which are managed at the county level. Nobody would deny that it's a good idea for her to talk to them.
Let's just watch how she votes. So far she has voted to appoint to the BOE a district 6 individual who, according to your newspaper, is not very representative of district 6.
Why would meeting with the Mayors of the towns result in anything? Which of the suburbs Mayors have expertise or vision regarding education.
I certainly don't have all, or even many, of the answers. However, I can tell you that until we truly reform the American public education system at its very foundation we're going to keep getting what we've been getting....only worse. Yet the numbers will be couched against lower standards so as to make it look better.
What we should be talking about and implementing is a shift in how we approach education. One thing we CAN see about the future is that the ability of our kids to become adults who can think in divergent ways to solve real world problems and to create real world solutions (ideas, products, technological innovations) IS the most important test kids will ever be required to pass. This is true if you are an engineer, a carpenter, a plumber, a salesperson. In the real world there is more than one answer to problems. Our educational system is built, however, to deem success as a child's ability to spit out information from memory and to fill in the one and only one "correct" bubble on the test.
Until we realize that this system of putting out graduates built for success in 1910 is not the right direction to deliver graduates who will be successful in 2050, we've got ZERO hope.
The problem is, thoughts like that scare people because people are afraid of what they don't know. People in power know standardized testing as a way to slap a number on a kid and to use that number as THE determinant as to that child's ability to be successful in life.
Go check the divergent thinking study done in the book "Break Point and Beyond". It shows how kids excel at divergent thinking at age 5 but that ability to think is all but gone after we have "educated" them in our system for 10 years.
We don't need a business person or a bean counter to be the next superintendent. We need an educator with vision who sees what the future is going to require and who will transform the educational aspects of CMS into what our kids need in the future, not what they needed in the past.
Apaprently Ellis-Stewart does not trust the suburban representatives on the board now to get an accurate picture of the needs. That says a lot (to me) as to the future directtion of the board.
Secondly, while it is good to go talk to the mayors (who another poster has pointed out has little to do with schools) where the most any of them can probably verbalize is the lack of feeling of community their schools' assignment areas gives the town.
Lastly, I doubt many can verbalize issues like pointed out in last year's story on Mallard Creek HS where students had to sit on floors due to lack of desks and lack of space for them because of the high per pupil count in the classrooms.
Nor would many be able to tell about the lack of advanced classes to really challenge these kids.
Nor could any of them verbalze kindergarteners going to lunch at 9:55 and 5th graders coming back from lunch and getting straight onto buses to go home.
Maybe she should also talk to the BOCC suburban members.
But suburban voters get what they deserve when clearly had they simply turned out to vote agressively, they would have some sayso again. However, get one hint that this is happening, the Observer starts screaming to scare the urban voters.
Lastly, when in the world did anyone think Lennon was a conservative?
Last time suburban voters came out in force to affect change on the school board by voting out Wilhelmenia Rembert, way back in 2003, the Observer immediately began running columns questioning suburbanites' motivation--hinting it might be racial.
Ann-can you do a story or find out any information on the school mates program? I just learned that our PTA not only provides volunteers (no biggie) but also cash to our sister school! How can that do acceptable? Is that even allowed? I find it obsurd that a school that gets so much more funding than our schools collects this as well! According to our limited budget information our PTA provides the amount is $3,000!
Ann
How is Hattababy going to get a 3% raise for CMS teachers. Wouldnt a 3% raise have to come from the STATE ? He could ask the county for a 3% raise to the COUNTY supplement. This would amount to about an average of 3% of $5000, which comes out to a whopping increase in salary of $150. Am I missing something on this?
Bottom Line:
Suburban schools recieve half the money with twice the production.
Suburban schools average 34 per class versus 22 for urban.
How is this not taxation without representation? Oh, appoint a representative that doesnt represent their district. Thomas Jefferson and our founding fathers would be very proud of CMesS.
@5:16 the SchoolMates program is voluntary, so if you have concerns you should take them up with your PTA leaders. The great advantage of PTA money is that it doesn't come with all the restrictions of local, state or federal money. As a result, its marginal utility, especially in terms of enrichment activities, can be enormous.
Anon 5:16
Here's the link for "School Mates"...
Hopefully you can make it all the way to the end....
http://www.cms.k12.nc.us/cmsdepartments/vp/Documents/SchoolMates%20PartnershipToolkit.pdf
re: school mates
thanks for the info. I just find it bizarre to provide them even more money and resources as we receive next to nothing from CMS. Check out the over-crowding at a suburban school. See if they have any playgrounds-no its just trailers. The unequity is unbelievable. Its a constant plee from money from the PTA without any info to where it is going. Its like going to a private school without any of the benefits. Wonder what would happen if an urban school had classes over 25 or a class with too many students for the desks. It would be front page news for sure.
Anon 5:44....
Here's why we don't have money for many education programs:
Fill it out and turn it in: that’s the message thousands of school districts send parents each year when they offer applications for the federal government’s National School Lunch Program (NSLP). And each year, millions of parents comply. But new data suggest that the process for verifying eligibility for the program is fundamentally broken and that taxpayers may be picking up the tab for participation by ineligible families. The NSLP, which is administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) at an annual cost of $8 billion, serves 31 million American children each day. The program’s goal is to help low-income students succeed in public and private school classrooms by ensuring they have adequate nutrition, a mission that is compromised if substantial funds are being spent on ineligible families or the program fails to reach the neediest students.
Determining the extent of program fraud and error is important, as the entitlement is associated with other streams of federal, state, and local taxpayer dollars. Eligibility data are widely used as proxies for poverty rates, thereby influencing funding for myriad government programs and informing both school district policies and policy research. For example, NSLP participation rates serve as the main criteria for the allocation of federal Title I funds to schools. Those schools with a higher percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch also receive a larger discount on the federal government’s E-Rate program, which facilitates access to telecommunications services for schools and libraries.
State governments dole out benefits according to free and reduced-price lunch percentages, too. The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, for instance, allocates $2,250 to schools for each low-income child enrolled in kindergarten through 3rd grade. The program gauges poverty using NSLP participation.
Because of the financial benefits, local school districts have a clear incentive to register as many students in NSLP as possible. Some districts encourage parents to fill out applications, even if they are not sure they qualify. One district in Chillicothe, Missouri, offered parents a $10 Wal-Mart gift card for turning in an application. “Even if you choose to pay for your child’s lunches and or breakfasts, each qualified application earns $1,025 per child of state money for our school district,” said Assistant Superintendent Wade Schroeder.
School districts often use free and reduced-price lunch percentages for student assignment and resource allocation as well. North Carolina’s largest school district, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, gives schools 30 percent more funds for every student enrolled in the entitlement. Wake County Public School System, in central North Carolina, employs a costly busing strategy to foster socioeconomic diversity in the classroom, measured in part by NSLP participation. These districts and others could be basing policy on faulty numbers if the lunch program data are not a valid indicator of socioeconomic status.
Here's the link to the Education next/LA Times article which shows a chart comparing poverty rates over 20 years versus the number of children on the NSLP:
http://educationnext.org/files/20101_67_fig1.gif
The USDA's own report showed they overpaid benefits by $1.5 BILLION dollars in 2009/2010.
You'll read within the article just how much more is wasted in Title I funds because of the erroneous FRL numbers.
It is the platation mentatliy all over. The government wants to keep certain people on the plantation. They will continue to feel as if the government is the ONLY soulution to their problems when in reality the government is the main CAUSE of their problems.
I am here from the government and I am here to help you. Be afraid! Be very afraid !!
No one seems concerned about the 20 percent of white students left in CMS?
Come to think of it, that means the parents still pay taxes, but no cost to CMS. And the good students are leaving, making the bottom rise for no reason.
Good strategy, CMS.
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