April 2, 2009

Going that extra mile – or not

No one has actually met a child in Wake County who is assigned to a school 20 miles from home. But the example is used so often in discussions about reassignments and diversity that most people assume it is true.

But it’s not true. You could say it misses the mark by miles.

According to a school district analysis of assignment patterns for 2006-2007, 75 percent of all high school students are assigned to a school within five miles of their home. Almost 96 percent are assigned to a school within 10 miles.

Elementary school students live even closer. About 90 percent are assigned to schools within three miles of home. Almost 99 percent are assigned to schools within 10 miles, according to a study now being completed by the district. That mirrors a similar distance analysis done by the district in 2003-04.

A tiny fraction of students who choose magnet programs or request transfers do live 20 miles from school. But even when students who choose a school are included in the total count, 85 percent of them live within five miles of the school they attend. 

“I don’t know of a single child assigned to a school 20 miles away – not one,” said Chuck Dulaney, the assistant superintendent for Wake public schools who oversees student reassignments.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t wiggle room in this debate. The district measures the distance between home and school in a straight line. Bus routes are never that efficient.

But with the vast majority of students living within 10 miles of their assigned schools, even the most circuitous route is typically finished in 45 minutes or less. A ride of less than 45 minutes is what the district promises – and usually delivers.

It isn’t very catchy to say “I know a kid who has to ride a bus 45 minutes to get to school.”  

But it could be true.

An outsider’s view of Wake schools

Sometimes lost in the debates about Wake County’s public schools is the fact that people outside the district often think of it as a model of integration.

Noted author and researcher Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation in Washington, offered those thoughts and others during several presentations this week in Raleigh and Chapel Hill.

A strong supporter of socioeconomic diversity, Kahlenberg presented a summary of four decades of research that consistently shows diversity improves the academic performance of low-income students without harming the gains of children from middle-income families. His presentation to the Wake Education Partnership can be found here.  Key points of his address included the following:

• While most districts throughout the country have returned to “neighborhood schools” and increased segregation, 65 school systems still consider family income when making school assignments.
• Defining diversity by family income is “legally bullet proof” because the precedent is well established for linking decisions about public government services to family income.
• From the baseline studies of James Coleman in 1966 to the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), researchers have said the socio-economic mix of a school is one of the biggest predicators of student success.
• Despite recent reports suggesting Charlotte’s public schools compare favorably to Wake County, students in Wake fare better when looking at a broad range of measures, including the critical measure of graduation rates.
• Charlotte’s pre-school program, called Bright Beginnings, could explain some of that district’s longer-term success with low-income students.
• Wake gets “more bang for the buck” by spending almost $500 less per student. Wake would have to increase its budget by $65 million to cover that difference.
• Wake is having a harder time meeting its diversity goals. In 2000, only seven schools exceeded Wake County’s goal of having no more than 40 percent of all students qualify for subsidized lunches. In 2007, 51 schools exceeded that limit.

“Austere” budget moves on to county

The Wake County school board sent a 2009-10 operating budget request to county commissioners this week that is mostly unchanged from the $1.2 billion budget proposed by Superintendent Del Burns.

The request assumes a cut of at least 5 percent in state funding and no increase over last year’s request to county commissioners. Gov. Beverly Perdue has recommended lawmakers make liberal use of the one-time stimulus money to fill gaps in public school funding from the state. If state funding or federal stimulus money provides unexpected revenue, Burns has told teachers he will “turn the spigot on as fast as he can” to retain classroom positions.

But year-round schools open July 7 in Wake County for roughly 40,000 students and the state isn’t likely to have a budget approved by then. That has forced the school district to tell 1,496 employees who are currently working on one-year contracts that the money currently isn’t available for everyone to be rehired. More than half of those positions are teachers.

Wake’s chief business officer estimates it will be mid to late April before the schools will know how much federal stimulus money will be available and how that money can be spent. Much of the federal money is set aside for specific purposes.

Noteworthy

…Few people would think of singer Janis Joplin and state schools Superintendent June Atkinson at the same time, so Atkinson did it for us. Telling The News & Observer “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” she announced she was suing Gov. Perdue over a decision in January that stripped Atkinson’s office of its authority. Perdue effectively pushed Atkinson aside when she named former Cumberland County schools Superintendent Bill Harrison to oversee both the school board and the education department. The governor is trying to get around some long-standing governance problems at the state level that have fractured lines of authority and muddled decisions.

…The state school board decided Thursday to postpone for one year a controversial requirement that all students complete a graduation project beginning in 2010. The project’s big goal is to make sure students can demonstrate classroom skills before earning a diploma, but local districts complained loudly that its details were confusing and answers from the state were often contradictory.
  
…An open letter authored in part by Wake County school board member Ron Margiotta and Apex Mayor Keith Weatherly has drawn a rebuttal from fellow school board member Kevin Hill. The original letter, found here, suggested the academic performance of Wake County students does not justify the district’s diversity efforts. In response, Hill said the opinions can’t be called research because the findings are based on faulty logic that conveniently ignores key pieces of information. Hill’s rebuttal can be found here.