Thursday, November 8, 2012

How safe is your school?

The updated North Carolina school report cards are out,  bearing a wealth of data for families who are thinking about where their kids should go to school next year.

School safety is always a big question,  and these reports offer a couple of key data points.  The most meaningful one in my eyes is the short-term suspension rate  (once you've gone to a school's report card,  click the  "Safe, Orderly & Caring Schools"  tab).

These numbers always remind me of the time a teacher friend called to chew me out:  "You've listed some schools as having more than 100 suspensions per 100 students. That's obviously wrong."  You'd think so,  but sadly,  every year some Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools have so many repeat offenders that they end up with more suspensions than students.  This year I checked CMS high schools and found West Charlotte with 176 suspensions per 100 students and Harding with 157  (on the low end were Providence with 4.56 and Ardrey Kell with 7.55).

If you're a regular reader of this blog,  you know what's coming next:  Numbers never tell the full story, but they help you ask good questions. Low suspension rates can indicate a principal is overlooking offenses to make the numbers look good.  High ones may signal a faculty that's cracking down to change a culture.  But when suspension rates are high,  parents and students deserve good answers about what's going on.

The more eye-catching number is the one at the top of the safety page:  The number and rate of criminal and violent acts at each school.  My quibble is that it takes too long to compile and report this data.  The numbers you're looking at in late 2012,  potentially to judge school selections for 2013-14,  are from the 2010-11 school year.  This is also a category where you definitely want to get beyond raw numbers.  Here's the state report that breaks down the type of offenses at each school.  Even then,  ask more questions about what happened and how it was handled.  "Assault on school personnel,"  for instance,  can be anything from a teen attacking a teacher to a kindergartener lashing out during a tantrum.

There are detailed breakdown of test scores under the "High Student Performance" tab.  They're pretty self-explanatory.  One warning:  The numbers listed under the end-of-grade performance breakdown for elementary and middle schools won't match the more familiar composite score.  The composite is the combined pass rate for reading,  math and science.  The report-card breakdown lists the percent of students who passed both reading and math,  which is almost always lower.  That's arguably the best measure of students who are ready to move up to the next grade;  it just tends to make me do a double-take.

The  "Quality Teachers"  tab offers a lot of data about credentials and experience.  I'm not convinced it tells much about how good the faculty really is, but it's worth knowing.

The district report card,  found by clicking the district name at the top of the list of schools,  offers some additional information,  such as the principal turnover rate.  With all the talk about CMS principal churn last year,  I was curious how that would look.  The tally shows 15 percent of principals left the district in 2011-12,  up from 9 percent the previous year.  That's well over the state average of 11 percent and Wake County's 8 percent rate.  But it's close to the turnover rates for Union County (14 percent)  and Guilford County (13 percent).


28 comments:

Anonymous said...

Confusing statistic of 15 percent of principals leaving-does this number include retirements, demotions and deaths? Seems the churn was well over a third by January and continued to grow????

Wiley Coyote said...

November 8, 2012: We're talking about suspect data.

November 8, 2014: We'll be talking about suspect data.

November 8: 2016: We'll be talking about suspect data.

You get the point.

Anonymous said...

How informative is the "passing" score if a student passes the EOG with a 3 but in reality has a 40% on the exam? The kids know they can get away with passing with no effort, do their parents?

Shamash said...

I think everyone knows how to determine if a school is safe or not.

It's just demographics.

The same as crime in the general population.

People have been moving out of "urban" schools for decades for just that reason.

Anonymous said...

Unsafe schools?

Round up the usual suspects...

Anonymous said...

Demographics indeed. And it's always the same demographic that causes all the problems. For over five decades we've throw away trillions on this demographic and they've squandered every last dime. And it's always through no fault of their own. Dr. King would be so ashamed............

Anonymous said...

The kids follow the actions of the BOE ! Kick the bad kids out of school and let the ones that want to learn learn. We always need someone to cut the bagel when they are 30 years old folks.

Bill Stevens said...

Ann, can you find out how many students were expelled during the school year for these numbers?

Anonymous said...

CMS rarely expells students. Judges in this county regularly sentence students to return to school creating more issues. Throw them out and lock them up please. CMS should not be an alternative to jail nor should it tolerate students with chronic behavioral issues that get in the way of those who want to be there.

Anonymous said...

Are we talking about in-school suspensions (ISS) for things like using a cuss word or out-of-school suspensions for things like bringing a loaded weapon on campus? There's a big difference.



Anonymous said...

ISS - telling someone in 8th grade to type penisland.com in computer class to find a bionical toy website.

OSS - bringing a loaded gun to school.



Anonymous said...

PenIsland.com (Pen Island). My "gifted" son got an ISS for this. I'm not saying he didn't deserve an ISS but he was technically suspended in school for a day. He was given the opportunity to sit in a special room all day with the school resource officer and eat lunch at a special table. He's in his second year of college now.

Bill Stevens said...

10:27, you are getting to my point. For example, for this report Ann has written about, there wwere 305 reports of assaults on personnel. So you should see at least 305 students expelled or sent through the expulsion process. Typically, CMS expels less than 10 students per year.

So you see CMS needs to push through some new programs. One, creation of an alternative school system either offsite or another part of these school campuses that separates these students from the "serious" students.

Second, we are not doing these students any good by passing on the idea that their behavior is totally unacceptable in a civilized society. These students and their family units must be cycled through the Department of Mental Health so the family unit must adjust to support the student.

Third, CMS must be more aggressive in getting the perpetrators into the expulsion process. Essentailly, many offenses, including assaults on staff must be put into the expulsion process and have thatheavy hand over them.

Fourth, CMS must resurrect a strong vocational trades program where many students can get the background and limited training they need to have a chance for a decent career and earnings potential.

Wiley Coyote said...

Eliminate Bright Beginnings and take the $20 million+ dollars per year and put it into vocational school(s).

Anonymous said...

I'm not going to name the south charlotte elementary school, but my son came home from school one day and said they had arrested a 5th grader in front of him in the school hallway. The kid had to be held down on the floor by 4 adults, hand-cuffed, and taken away in a police car. Apparently, he was swearing and screaming the whole time. I went to school to talk to the assistant principal about the matter who became defensive and told me the school had followed proper procedures and that the incident wasn't any of my business. When I explained that my father was a former school principal and that I was certain the school followed proper procedures, she relaxed. I then went on to explain that my son was in the hallway and witnessed what happened but that I didn't want to rely on what a 4th grader had told me. I wanted to hear what happened from a school administrator. At this point, the assistant principal acknowledge that what my child told me was accurate but the school was sorry they didn't take the 5th grader under arrest out the back door like they usually do. The kid was in the BED program at school.

We transferred to a different school the following year that didn't house a BED (Behaviorally and Emotionally Disturbed) program.

Anonymous said...

(cont.)

A student in the aforementioned elementary school BED program also broke a teacher's arm in several places that year. The principal put the BED program on the same hallway as the regular classrooms because he didn't want the BED kids to feel ostracized. Also, things like suicide attempts are generally not reported accurately. Trust me on this one.

I can't make this stuff up.

Anonymous said...

I would not send my child to an elementary school that housed a BED program. Not after our experience. Parents need to ask if this program is housed at a school.

Anonymous said...

Knowing CMS, the BED program is probably called something else now. This is what CMS does when a program or school gets a bad reputation - they change the name to try and fool the public.

Ann Doss Helms said...

Bill, in 2010-11 CMS had 35,393 short-term suspensions, 137 long-term and five expulsions. (p. 70 of this report http://www.ncpublicschools.org/docs/research/discipline/reports/consolidated/2010-11/consolidated-report.pdf)

Short-term suspensions are out-of-school, 10 days or less.

Shamash said...

I'm surprised that they're still allowed to label children as BED since I'm sure it involves "disparate impact"...

Against the same demographic we all know is the source of the majority of the serious violence in our schools.

Namely, black males.

Of course, I could be wrong, but that's what most of the stuff I've read on BED says.

Only they say the label just might be a sign of gender and race discrimination (as you'd expect from educrats).

From Project Ideal online:

"African-American students were far more likely to be diagnosed as emotionally disturbed than white students, reflecting possible race bias in this category."

Yeah, sure...

Wiley Coyote said...

1:13...

It isn't just Black males.

Shamash said...

Wiley,

I never said "just", but majority.

You can see for yourself how the educrats claim that it's racism because a disproportionate number of students labeled BED are black.

And I'm not buying that any more than I'm buying "Racial Justice" for the black adults.

Anonymous said...

Is this not Project LIFT stats? Oh Denise dont play that game with her cash?

Wiley Coyote said...

Mother charged after 10-year-old brings gun to Chatham school

By Mark Schultz
mschultz@newsobserver.com

Posted: Thursday, Nov. 08, 2012

CHAPEL HILL The mother of a 10-year-old student at North Chatham School has been charged with a misdemeanor after her daughter brought a loaded 45 caliber gun to school Wednesday.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/11/08/3652232/fifth-grader-brings-loaded-un.html
......

Looks like there will be a 1 in the column for Possession of a Firearm at school....

To Ann's point, how long will it take for this data to show up?

The report for this school has all zeros in every column.

If I happen to remember this incident next year when the reports come out, I'll look it up and see.

Anonymous said...

Vocational Schools at $5,000 per

OR

Prisons at $30,000 per

YOU MAKE THE CALL !!!!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

If Providence H.S. has less than 5 per 100 students (the lowest), then why do they need 4 assistants on the Administrative Staff ?

Anonymous said...

To 8:11pm Anon:
You are a racist bigot who is one step below inbred hillbillies.

Anonymous said...

No one can answer this question; "CMS" has its own police force that is a complete and total waste of taxpayer money and works more to hide crimes than it does to solve them. Look at CMS statistics from five years back when they claimed to have less violent crimes for the district than Davie County had for one high school.