Poverty, language and disability: Trends in CMS

While no one would say CMS educators have it easy,  some of the most challenging student populations have leveled off or dwindled in recent years,  according to data in the 2014-15 budget plan.

The number of students with disabilities or limited English proficiency has dropped since 2008,  even as overall enrollment has risen  (see charts on pages 88-91 of the 310-page budget book).

In 2008-09,  Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools had 14,743 students classified as  "special needs,"  or 11 percent of enrollment.  This year there are 13,532 special needs students,  or 9.5 percent.  The Exceptional Children Services budget, however, seems to be growing,  from about $105 million in 2008-09 to more than $122 million this year,  with another increase proposed for 2014-15.

I'm not sure what that means;  I've asked CMS officials but haven't yet gotten a reply.  The district's budget books used to include descriptions of significant changes with every departmental budget.  The last couple of years,  those numbers have come with no written explanation.

Students classified as having limited English proficiency have gone from 18,407 in 2008-09  (13.7 percent)  to 15,176  (10.6 percent).  The budget for that department appears to be holding fairly steady.

Poverty,  as measured by students who qualify for federal lunch subsidies, has held level at just over 54 percent for the last three years,  after four years of steady increases before that.

My quest to get racial demographics has almost become a standing joke;  we're heading into end-of-year exam time and CMS has yet to provide those numbers.  The budget book may or may not provide a clue,  on a confusing p. 90.  Parts of it appear to have been cut and pasted from last year's book,  with racial breakdowns from 2012-13.  But the bar chart includes 13-14,  and if you look at the color key you'll find percentages that don't exactly match the previous year:  41.1 percent African American,  30.8 percent white,  19.5 percent Latino and 5.5 percent Asian.  Are those the elusive current-year numbers,  long delayed by PowerSchool problems?  We'll see.  I've got that question in, too.

Update: Student placement director Scott McCully confirms that those are the current districtwide demographics.  The school-by-school numbers can be found here,  but they're just that:  Raw numbers.  He's going to get me a spreadsheet and I'll try to generate some percentages soon.

Who's to blame for CMS data delay?

More than six months into the school year,  I still can't tell you the poverty level,  racial breakdown or school-by-school enrollment for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.

The cause of that delay has become a point of contention between state and CMS officials.

Staff at the N.C. Department of Public Instruction agree that the troubled PowerSchool rollout delayed the principals' monthly reports that normally generate that information in September or October.  CMS officials say several schools were unable to run those reports for months.

But state officials say the hold-up is no longer on their end.  On Feb. 21, spokeswoman Vanessa Jeter said all the monthly reports had been run and the state was working with districts to clean up any final errors  (a clean-up that was needed in 0.0031 percent of all monthly reports, she said).

Last Friday,  she asked if I had gotten any numbers from CMS.  "I understand that their PMRs have been run, numbers double-checked with NCDPI-CMS staff and all came up correct,"  she emailed.  "That should clear the PMR issue in PowerSchool as far as I know."

Not so fast,  says CMS.  When I prodded again for the report,  spokeswoman Kathryn Block said Scott McCully,  executive director for student placement, had uncovered  some additional concerns with the reports.  "Scott is scrubbing the numbers one last time and, barring any additional issues, we will share the information early next week,"  she said.

"Also,"  she added,  "DPI confirmed that GRS report is not functioning statewide so there is no grade, race or sex data to share at this time for any NC school district."

Huh? That has always been part of the 20th-day report released in September or October;  each school and the district as a whole is broken down by grade level and race  (poverty levels come in a separate report tallied in October).

Jeter and Philip Price, chief financial officer for DPI, say it's wrong to say there's no race/ethnicity data.  There is a quirk having to do with reconciling end-of-month enrollment with average monthly enrollment,  they say.  That will be corrected during the next system maintenance weekend,  March 14.

And the state is looking into about 8,000 students across the state who were once classified as Hispanic but are not this year.  "That would represent .0053333 percent of the student body,"  Jeter reports.

"We do not believe this is an issue that distorts the data at a specific (school districts),"  Price wrote.  "The validation is important for federal reporting. We expect other corrections as we work to complete our federal reporting requirements. All this means, we have race and ethnicity data for all our students."

Bottom line:  We have a collision of two forces here.  There's little doubt that PowerSchool has created a battery of problems for local districts.  Meanwhile,  Heath Morrison was hired as superintendent in 2012 on the heels of a series of CMS data errors that embarrassed leaders and hurt the district's credibility.  He and his staff have been wary of releasing anything that isn't also available in state records,  forestalling errors but also making it unusually difficult to get data we've all gotten used to finding at the click of a mouse.  He says he doesn't want to post numbers only to have the state make a PowerSchool adjustment that requires CMS to retract its information.

So,  as soon as I know what the numbers looked like last fall,  I'll let the rest of you know.

Then maybe we can hope to see results of the 2014-15 magnet lottery, which should be sending notification letters about now.

Will Santa bring CMS demographic data?

About once a week someone asks if they've missed the story on Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools demographics,  poverty levels and school-by-school enrollment.

Nope.  I haven't written that story because CMS hasn't produced those numbers, even though the school year is more than one-quarter over.

As they've explained and I've reported,  the delay is tied to the ongoing problems with PowerSchool, a new data system the state rolled out this school year.  But really  --  we still can't get enrollment and demographic numbers that were tallied in September and poverty numbers from October?

McCully

Just before the Thanksgiving break I badgered Scott McCully,  the CMS administrator in charge of that data:  Are you saying CMS doesn't yet know how many students are in each school?

McCully said that CMS does indeed track enrollment on a daily basis.  Those numbers are used for teacher allotments and other decisions.

What CMS doesn't have is the ability to generate the Principals Monthly Report,  at least not at all schools.  Despite weekly requests and multiple  "patches,"  some schools still can't make that system work,  McCully said.  And until they can all generate those reports,  CMS can't produce a districtwide report on the enrollment and racial composition at each school.  The poverty report,  which is based on eligibility for federal lunch subsidies, uses enrollment numbers from the Principals Monthly Report to do the calculations,  he said.

"We're all a little frustrated,"  added Tahira Stalberte from the public information staff.

It's not the most burning issue in public education,  but the delayed details do compound a serious challenge:  At a time when families are facing more choices than ever,  it's unusually difficult to get good data about schools.  Test scores that normally come out during the summer were deferred to November,  and changes in the testing system pose new questions about what the numbers mean.  School-by-school data reports from CMS and the state may not be out by the time the 2014-15 application season starts in January.

Meanwhile,  the PowerSchool problems are starting to seem like more than start-up glitches.  I checked the ongoing list of  "known issues"  the day before Thanksgiving,  and while I don't understand most of the techspeak,  it looks daunting.  I put in a request for an update from the Department of Public Instruction on Nov. 19 and haven't yet gotten a response from Chief Financial Officer Philip Price.

Here's hoping a new month brings some new answers.  McCully wasn't willing to make any predictions, though. "I think I've said  'next week'  for the last two months," he said.