If you wanted to argue that Mecklenburg County actually has three separate school districts, this map of neighborhood school popularity would be a fascinating conversation starter.
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| Quality of Life map |
Some residents of the suburban areas that tend to love their public schools have argued for splitting off as separate districts.
Amy Hawn Nelson, director of the university's Institute for Social Capital, wasn't arguing for or against that action when she sent me a link to the neighborhood-school map recently. She was pointing out the complex ways that school quality and family choices interact with the broader quality of life in our area.
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| Nelson |
I can't say there were any huge surprises, but seeing data mapped out can paint a picture that's more powerful than abstract knowledge. Hawn and her colleagues at the UNCC Urban Institute are looking for ways to harnass that power to spark dialogue about education. I'll be eager to see that they come up with.
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24 comments:
"Spark dialogue about education?
Isn't that what "Courageous Conversations About Race" is supposed to do?
It's amazing how that decades-old elephant in the room has yet to be recognized.
Yeah, you always have the chicken/egg question, though.
Which came first, the strong neighborhood schools, or the "good" neighborhoods?
I'd say it's a matter of reaping what you sow.
Something the social engineers have been trying to change for decades without much success.
I would tell folks that if they work hard and plan for the future that they can also have a better quality of life.
But, that is just likely to get me sent to the "re-education" camps.
Quality of life for students blah , blah you cannot even get them home before 5 pm with late bell. CMS leaders say oh it saves us money alot of money how are we gonna fix it? I tell you how send the bus through the neighborhood once instead of twice and you will save. IDIOTS these CMS suits downtwon have no clue and that CLOWN Morrison what is his purpose? Lapdog.
I'm not so sure how much this map really tells us. First of all if 75% of all students are attending neighborhood schools that's pretty high, considering we have a magnet system as well. The map does not explain why kids are not attending neighborhood schools. Are they in charters, magnet schools, or private schools (do the students included in this study include private school students?)? And so far I haven't figured out how to drill down to exactly what neighborhood and school each area is. I can click on an area and see what percentage attend neighborhood schools but can't see what neighborhood it is. Also, how is "neighborhood school" defined--is it the assigned school or is it a school within a certain radius of the neighborhood? This also does not disclose how convenient alternative schools are to a neighborhood. Are those not attending neighborhood schools opting for distant schools? Or are they, say, attending a close by charter? That would say a lot about parents' preference for proximity.
INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL CAPITAL.
Wow, what a BS name.
Still a larger picture is missed here. Last year, only 80.1% of Charlotte Mecklenburg children attended CMS.
More importantly...
Has Amy Hawn Nelson been properly trained in overcoming her "white privilege" and been properly exposed as a white racist teacher?
I sure hope so, because I wouldn't want her to spread her "success" without the proper vetting by our black academic overlords.
She just looks so well-cared for with those nice teeth and hair that I'm concerned she might problems "relating"...
It is amazing how demands for "justice" and "equity" have created all kinds of data crunching "institutes". And of course, in CMS and other school systems, the demand that everything be absolutely fair and equitable (including apparently outcomes) has resulted in more and more testing to provide data for comparison.
9:26 am.
Yes, you're right.
There is just too much information missing here to draw any useful conclusions.
But that's never stopped an educrat.
What percentage of CMS students attend Magnet schools? That is why we have crazy school start and end times like 7:15am/9:15am and 4:15pm. It is all driven by the complexities and extra cost of busing the Magnet school students all over the county.
1:50, magnet school busing has been hacked to nearly nothing. It is now limited to shuttle stops at scattered places around the county. The sad thing, this was probably the best $ per student spent in CMS because it lead to more achievement. Many urban students as the picture shows, used magnet busing to go to a "better" school. Essentially, we saved money busing the student to a magnet school rather than spending the 1.3 money (and other monies) at the neighborhood school. Yet no one was intelligent enough to realize this.
As for this chart, it is now essentially useless because many urban students have returned to the neighborhood schools due to the discontinued magnet busing.
Magnet busing totals 37% of the Transportation budget. This is for 7% of the bus riders in CMS. It is a huge money pit, and absolutely is the reason for the ridiculous bell tiers. Every K-5 magnet student receives residence based busing. Shuttles are only for students at K-8 or 6-12 magnets living 5 miles out from the school. The rest of CMS students, and teachers, are bearing the cost of the magnet busing system with the late bell.
Competition is the major factor that made our country #1 on a Global scale.
Today they make it that everyone recieves a trophey and is equal.
That is MARXISM people and will lead to the downfall of CMS and the USA just like it did with the former Superpower called the United Soviet Socialist Republic.
2:59, this data dashboard indicates 25% of CMS students go to magnet schools. Of course, I'd think a higher percentage of them would be riding the bus since the closer students in neighborhood schools would not be riding the bus. But as I also pointed out, this data is old since this drastically changed last school year, shuttle stops. And many urban students discontinued going to the magnet schools due to this.
But the most important thing is I believe we looked at the transportation cost and not the schoolhouse cost like you did, made that rash decision (based on class envy), and now are spending more at the schoolhouse on these children than it cost to bus them and spend at the magnet schoolhouse level.
2:59
Not sure where you got the numbers but according to CMS, they transport 122,000 students per day. If 7% of those are magnet riders, that would be about 8,500 students.
I would have to see the data you're looking at to believe 37% of the transportation budget is magnet transportation.
Some of the school zones have distances upwards of 6 miles just for home schools, depending on where the boundaries are.
Also, how many students are we busing to school that live within 1.6 miles? Why don't we move that to 2.5 miles and cut back even further to save money?
"Also, how many students are we busing to school that live within 1.6 miles? Why don't we move that to 2.5 miles and cut back even further to save money?"
Because then more baby mommas would have to wake up to take their kids to school...
Next thing, you'll expect them to fix the kids breakfast, too.
4:54, touche.
Will 2-year stint Domestic Peace Corps (TFA) teachers be required to participate in diversity training boot-camps led by Glenn Singleton?
Ann, could you please find out the accurate Magnet school student numbers for us?
Texas girl, I've emailed to see if I can get up-to-date numbers on the percent of all students and of bus riders who are in magnets. It is definitely true that magnet students represent a disproportionate share of the transportation budget, for all the obvious reasons (fewer students from any given area, longer distances). There have also been cuts to magnet busing, such as the consolidated stops for some full-magnet schools. I suspect fresh numbers about busing and costs will be presented during the upcoming 2013-14 budget talks.
TG, here's what I got from magnet director Jeff Linker: There were 17,755 magnet students enrolled on the 20th day of 2012-13 and there were 141,171 total K-12 students, which works out to about 12.6% I do not have the figures on how many are bus riders.
That 17,755 number is down from almost 20,000 a couple of years ago.
Ann, thank you for the updated numbers. Yes, Magnet busing costs almost 3x what neighborhood busing costs per student.
but which group costs more TO bus overall?
We can save money on the other 100,000 riding buses by increasing the home school radius.
Also, how much more per pupil does it cost taxpayers to educate inner city students versus students in the burbs? We can cut the per pupil funding for the inner city and save money as well.
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