It's not exactly the kind of national attention Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools celebrates, but the district made Washington Post education reporter Valerie Strauss' year-end quiz.
"The year 2011 was monumental in education -- monumentally good or monumentally bad, depending on your view," Strauss wrote. Among her trivia questions was:
Why did the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District try out 52 standardized tests in the spring?
a. To detect cheaters.
b. To find the best test for a new accountability program.
c. To pick standardized tests in every subject so teachers can be evaluated by student scores.
d. It didn't because that would be preposterous.
The correct answer was c, although an even better one would be:
e. The number actually went higher than 52. By the end of the school year even testing officials were having a hard time keeping track, as they tried to keep up with all the high school electives.
Since then, though, Superintendent Peter Gorman has moved on and interim Superintendent Hugh Hattabaugh has eased off on the rollout of new tests for teacher ratings.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Washington Post: CMS did what?
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27 comments:
I'm so happy that my kids are out of the CMS system. What a mess.
I have lived in Charlotte my entire life and would never consider moving except for the welfare of my children. I love Charlotte. It is part of my identity.
My wife is a teacher in another county because she refuses to work in CMS. She commutes 40 minutes each way out of the county to teach in a title 1 school. Year after year her friends leave her school for CMS, only to return or leave teaching all together.
She has a friend who is a teacher in CMS, and the only defender of CMS that she knows. This person is a staunch supporter of CMS. She saw him last night and he told her not to come to CMS under any circumstances, not to put our children in CMS, and that he is planning on an exit at the end of the year.
We have been contemplating pushing the boundaries of our budget to buy a house in the “good” school district, but my wife and her educator friends have all concluded that even in the “good schools” the resources are focused on children whose parents who donate money. Or the resources are focused on the poorest kids. If you are in the middle …good luck.
So for the first time in my life I am seriously considering leaving the county and living somewhere where I will not be happy or content at all, deep in the suburbs, simply to ensure my child gets a proper education. It is very sad that I have to leave my lifelong home simply because of bad schools. It is a shame that every employee of CMS I know warns me not to put my children in CMS schools.
Anon @ 3:00pm: My story is very similar to yours. Only there is no way I could sell my house in this market. Right now it is worth about 50% of what I paid for it 7 years ago. I abandoned my home, the only one I've ever purchased and it will probably go into foreclosure. I hate this fact, but I had to save my kids from the CMS schools they were in. Goodness, the stories I could tell you about what they were doing to my high-achieving kids. Maybe someday I'll write a book. As it is, CMS and by extension the government of Charlotte-Mecklenburg, forced me to flee from my home to save my children from the gangs and insane political correctness we were experiencing from CMS. I can't be the only one who has been forced to make this decision.
3:23, I'm sorry but I just don't believe you.
If you abandoned your house to foreclosure there were other reasons.
Your whole post reeks over over-inflated melodrama, little of it actually true.
3:23 I also don't believe you. 3:00, you're pretty dramatic but you give no reasons why all your bazillions of CMS teacher friends are so much against this school system.
I know CMS isn't perfect but much of it is what you make of it. I went through school during the 70s and got shipped all over town. My kids got the opposite experience - one elementary school, one middle school, one high school, and they've done fine.
My kids have done fine.
I do not need to know how full funding might have made all the difference, between a fine life or a very successful one?
So keep things as they are. No need to make any alternative education options, such as those with money have, and use.
My kids are fine. They will get a job. Perhaps working for those who had those options and turned out successful.
Why bother to look at how close to eighty percent of the CMS graduates who applied to CPCC had to take remedial courses, just to get into CPCC.
We just need to know things are just fine. All we have to do is close the competition from overseas and things will be.... what is the word... fine.
It is as bad as stated above for some kids. I have moved one child because I didn't want the test drama, or any other drama, to affect the education. There are at least 2 known cases of kids who had nervous breakdowns over the treatment of one school, not the curriculum or rigor or whatever - one of those kids was a national merit winner, and a SC college was more than happy to scoop that kid up from the damage caused in CMS. All is fine now. The other kid's short poem on deep depression, identified as a key component to that kid's withdrawal, was distastefully published in the school's lit mag anyway. There are psychology practices in this area filled to the brim with kids who are dealing with the system, and a mention of the idea of a consortium to publish affects of this dismal past few years has been batted about. Whether that comes to pass won't see the light of day in Charlotte news or CMS circles, so just keep reading what newspapers publish about this school system in other parts of the country.
@3:47
I did give one reason eardin people in he middle. re-read as needed. I have other reasons. I'm not goin into those details.
I was not trying to convince you.
My wife is a dedicated educato, so are the vast majoriy of her friends, many of whom work in CMS. I routinely socialize with them. The feedack is overhlmingly negative. I simply provided my conclusions. Feel free to ignore...
-signed 3:00
When we moved to Charlotte from Miami nearly 20 years ago... our real estate agent advised us right away that the schools were better in Cabarrus county. I've never regretted it!
It never ceases to amaze me how quickly people express disbelief and assume other motives when someone else points out an experience that doesn't match their own. Example: Anonymous 3:47 and 3:54. Disagree if you choose, but you basically are calling people liars and THAT is just plain egotistical. You don't know them, or what their experience is.
This is why CMesS was do despirately trying to get employees to refer possible lateral entry canidates.The nerve of this system in deploreable. Between TFA and now desperate for latteral entry how can the public or the teachers trust CMesS. The budget increases every year but the sarlary and working conditions keep going down.There is already a mass exodus of top employees retiring in January. Ann, you should compare the 2012 January retirements from other years. Please look into this information. Most of the younger teachers will be headed to Wake County.
I've taught in CMS for 20 years. If it weren't for the kids... CMS leadership is a joke, from the school level on up. There are struggling schools in the county that have principals who have only never taught, they have NO training in education whatsoever. I'd like to run BOA, I've got a Masters in Education!! Yeah, didn't think so. TFA and lateral entry are insulting enough to those of us who purposefully went to college to be teachers. There are some TFA and lateral entry folks who are good, but classroom teachers are having to teach the teachers what to do. Many TFA people I have worked with have been brutally honest-they are doing it for a resume builder. Are we considering the damage we may be doing to our neediest kids? Sorry for the rant...
Based on my child's experience, they are obviously teaching to the test. My kid spent Sunday night worried about EOGs. My wife and I were both products of public school. My mother taught in a public university and my grandmother taught English in public schools. It pains me to say this, but we are considering moving our child out of CMS (in one of the very good districts) to private school because money is spent on students in the tails of the distribution curve. Inner city kids get two to three times the money (based on reports published in the Observer) and high acheiving kids are placed in gifted classes and are given other opportunities for success. More dollars need to be spent to identify and develop the talents of kids who are above average but not in the exceptional category.
Ann, I don't see how postponing or slowing down these insane testing policies is exactly a cause for celebration. This just means CMS executives are waiting for the public outrage to subside a bit. Now, if they scrapped the plan altogether that would be good news.
I wouldn't be surprised if Hattabaugh or the next Gorman clone goes behind our backs to the Legislature and persuades them to implement a law requiring CMS to administer all 52 tests and then some.
Maybe they should make it 57 tests, like the steak sauce.
My CMS classified "gifted" kid was pretty average at an expensive private school here in town but that doesn't mean he didn't receive a decent education at the CMS schools he attended for 6 years.
I'm grateful for the EC services my other child received for a reading disability through CMS before transferring to a smaller private school.
Can we please stop attacking our public school system as well as those who chose to send their children to private schools? This kind of pettiness doesn't accomplish anything. Welcome to Charlotte. If you think you've got your children's schools neatly lined up K-12, think again. CMS is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans.
As far as 52 standardized tests in subjects like fashion design, what does the Washington Post know? On the other hand...
$84,000./year for a physical education teacher. Over $60,000./year for an elementary school phys ed teacher. How can cms pay this much for a 9 month phys ed teacher and at the same time fire teachers and underpay others?
6:38 PM
I disagree. Based on my experience, CMS does a fairly decent job educating kids on either side of the bell curve. It's the kids stuck in the middle who get the short end of the stick.
- 7:36 PM.
Anonymous 7:36: That's what I said. The tails get the attention. The ones in the middle get less. They should focus on the right side of the middle.
The reason CMS is slowing the testing rollout is because they are waiting to see what tests the state develops. The state tests will be rolled out at the end of 2013 in all subject areas and grade levels, as required for Race to the Top. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the tests are going away, they are just being developed from the state rather than CMS. Can't wait to see what those look like.
57 tests like the steak sauce. I like it!
7:51
I can tell you that students taking elective dance need to demonstrate a "punch" as part of a choreographic sequence in order to be considered globally proficient in the subject.
To hell with plies as we skip to nowhere.
My children are out of CMS. That is so sweet. I have seen this system from the inside out and it is overrun by people that are not looking out for the interests of ALL students. Goodbye, adios or whatever you may want to insert there. This system reeks. One positive factor is that 75% of the teachers are awesome. Administration-----Not so much. Parental involvement...depends on which school...
See: "Bats in the School Belfry". (North Meck).
Act 2, Scene 4 on the standardized musical theater test.
Do I get credit for choreographing a "Gay Penguin" dance with a "punch" in it? A trio performed to Tango music, of course.
Anonymous 7:40 - there is a pay scale that is designated by the State of NC based upon years of experience and level of education + the CMS supplement. Your logic suggests that certain subject areas have more value over others thereby creating a highly subjective mechanism that is incredibly limiting as the education of students requires a variety of subjects and experiences to develop a well rounded person. Why would a PE teacher be less worthy of their salary?
I loved my PE teacher who also established my school system's first girls soccer team and served as my mentor and coach on and off the field. Mrs. S encouraged me to succeed academically and never held it against me when I missed team practice to receive extra help in Chemistry before every test and quiz. Ms. S had faith and confidence in me at a time when a lot of teenage girls feel unsure of themselves. It would be impossible to create a standardized test that could measure Ms. S's contributions to my schooling.
Mrs. S was worth a million dollars a year.
Cont.
Mrs. S also had my team lobby our school board for girl's soccer uniforms after the nincompoops decided to buy the boy's soccer team new uniforms and have the girls wear the boy's old, smelly uniforms. Put that on your standardized PE test and smoke it!
Ann:
http://www.wsoctv.com/video/30136031/index.html
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