Should charters reflect race, poverty?

Mark Edwards,  superintendent of Mooresville Graded Schools,  posed a question to the state Board of Education on Wednesday:  What is the state doing to ensure that charter schools reflect the demographics of the surrounding school district?

Edwards

It's a polite way of voicing the concern that the independent public schools  --  especially those that choose not to offer buses or participate in the federal lunch subsidy program  --  might screen out disadvantaged students and become publicly-subsidized private schools for privileged white kids.

Edwards,  who serves as the state board's superintendent adviser,  raised the demographics question during a discussion of the pending approval of 26 new charter schools.  Charlotte-Mecklenburg Superintendent Heath Morrison has been asking the same question in talks with state and local leaders.

State board member Wayne McDevitt noted that while the state's charter law used to say that charters should reflect the district's demographics,  it has been revised to say they  "shall make an effort"  to reflect the racial composition and poverty levels of the surrounding area.  The real question,  McDevitt said,  is whether charters are truly reaching out to all types of students.

MeckEd has compiled racial breakdowns for Charlotte-area charter schools.  A scan of that report shows that some suburban charters,  such as Community School of Davidson,  Corvian Community School and Socrates Academy,  are more than 80 percent white.  Meanwhile,  urban charters such as Sugar Creek,  KIPP,  Kennedy and Crossroads are more than 90 percent black.

Neither group reflects the overall demographics of CMS,  which was 42 percent black,  32 percent white and 18 percent Hispanic last year.  (What's this year's breakdown?  Good question.  Halfway through the school year,  CMS continues to insist that lingering problems with the PowerSchool data system prevents the district from reporting those tallies.)

The thing is,  CMS schools follow the same pattern.  Only two elementary schools,  Davidson and Beverly Woods,  topped 80 percent white last year.  But plenty of suburban schools have strong white majorities  (and low poverty levels)  while even more urban schools show the opposite pattern.  And test scores tend to track demographics,  whether in traditional public schools or charters.

Joel Medley,  director of the state Office of Charter Schools,  told the state board that while charter schools don't have to provide buses or free lunches,  they are required to ensure that any child who applies and gets in through the admission lottery isn't denied access for lack of transportation or parents' ability to provide lunches.  Strategies can include helping parents create carpools,  paying for van service for kids who need a ride and having some type of meal on hand for kids who don't bring a lunch or can't afford to buy from vendors.

As a practical matter,  I've heard from parents over the years that some charters discourage disadvantaged families from applying when they emphasize the need to provide your own meals and rides.

Teachers cite techbook challenges

After a recent article about the move toward digital  "techbooks,"  I heard from a couple of teachers who talked about challenges they're facing.

Sherri Garside,  a history teacher at Alexander Graham Middle,  said the social studies digital programs created by Discovery Education remain incomplete.  Sixth-graders have a full curriculum,  but whole centuries are still being developed for seventh- and eighth-graders,  she said.

"To say teachers are frustrated is an understatement!"  she said.  "What they have is great, but useless unless it is updated."

I also heard from a teacher at a high-poverty middle school,  who asked not to be named for fear his principal would take offense.  I visited Community House Middle,  a low-poverty school in the southern suburbs,  for the article.  This teacher said his students are far less likely to be able to do the techbook work from home.  They may have smartphones,  he said,  but they're not likely to have laptops or home computers that are conducive to moving among multiple items and doing online work.

Both teachers said a shortage of classroom devices poses challenges.  Unlike Mooresville Graded Schools,  which provides each student with a MacBook they can use in class and take home,  Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools relies on classroom laptops or carts of devices that can be rolled between classrooms.  The teacher at the high-poverty school said that doesn't provide enough consistent access for students to get comfortable with the digital programs.

"The more you use Discovery Education,  the better you get with it,"  he said.  "Discovery Education itself is great."

N.C. teacher pay: Worse than Mississippi?

There's a chart that's making the rounds showing North Carolina as a dead and dismal last on teacher compensation,  even before last week's vote to withhold raises for 2013-14.  Bill Anderson of MeckEd sent it to Superintendent Heath Morrison,  who's been mentioning it at every opportunity.

The graphic presentation comes from a North Carolina teacher's blog, Teaching Speaks Volumes,  but the numbers come from a National Education Association report on state rankings.

You're probably more familiar with another list from that report, ranking our state 46th in average teacher salaries,  about $10,000 below the national average (and $1,500 below South Carolina).  That's nothing to boast about,  but heck,  we're ahead of West Virginia and Mississippi.

The chart highlights another way of looking at it.  The NEA calculated salaries in inflation-adjusted dollars and charted the change over the past decade,  from 2001-02 to 2011-12.  Teacher salaries across the nation declined almost 3 percent by that measure,  while North Carolina's dropped almost 16 percent.  Indiana had the next-biggest decline at 10 percent.

You can quibble over whether we're last or almost last,  but either way it's a picture that's raising questions about the state's commitment to teachers, students and public education.

At a forum last week on the state's Read to Achieve program, moderator Mike Collins asked Morrison and top officials of three other nearby districts whether North Carolina is a good place to teach.  "No!"  called several people in the audience of about 200 educators and advocates.

Crystal Hill,  executive director of elementary education for the Mooresville Graded School District, said the daughter of Superintendent Mark Edwards recently chose a teaching job in Tennessee over offers from her home state because she can make $11,000 a year more.

"My personal feeling is that clearly there is an attack on public education,"  Hill said.

The administrators were all polished speakers,  but my favorite quote of the evening came from an audience member who identified himself only as a grandfather whose mother had been a teacher.  He talked about the push for accountability in the face of cuts.  "They want you to build a house,"  he said,  "but they won't give you no plywood,  no nails,  no saws,  no hammers."

It's a digital whirl ...

The Observer recently ran one installment of the New York Times series on "Grading the Digital School," focusing on how the nearby Mooresville Graded School District has emerged as a national model for digital learning.

For those who are trying to make sense of the technology revolution, the whole series is well worth a read. The Mooresville article focused on the benefits of the widespread use of MacBooks, but the series shows just how complex the decisions facing educators and families are.

There are serious questions about whether the benefits justify the expense (see the first and second stories in the series). There are companies that stand to make huge profits doing their best to wow educators. There are schools resisting the notion that young children need digital devices, and educators worried about the tradeoffs that come with a surge in technospending.

Meanwhile, I'm working my way through "From Digital Natives to Digital Wisdom,"  a collection of essays by education/technology writer Marc Prensky,  who introduced the idea that today's young people speak the native language of technology in a way that we older  "immigrants"  can never fully master.  Prensky argues that until educators drop their focus on the past,  stop fretting about short attention spans and create a radically new way to prepare young people for their future,  schools will function more like jails than like beacons of enlightenment.

"For 21st century students,"  Prensky writes,  "the classroom is a dark,  dark place,  compared to what they already know and can find out  --  and its contents provides no more useful light to them than would a tiny 10-watt flashlight on a sunny beach."

And on Tuesday, LaTarzja Henry, head of communications for CMS, gave the school board a quick tour of the changes in technology a high school senior has experienced in her 13 years of school.  Henry is  making a pitch for two multimedia specialists who can keep the district up to date on social media, webstreaming, video production and monitoring what people are saying about CMS.  (I couldn't help noticing that in CMSworld, there is apparently no daily newspaper covering education in 2012.  Wishful thinking?)

It's a fascinating time to be engaged with education,  and more than a little daunting.  Among the over-50 crowd,  I feel like I'm doing a better-than-average job of keeping up.  Unfortunately, that's a lot like being a pretty good reader for a 4-year-old.