Nov. 5, 2009
           

The realities of change

Tuesday’s election of John Tedesco in the last undecided Wake County school board race means the transition from campaign promises to actual governance will start to unfold quickly in the coming weeks.

The new majority will soon find itself wrestling with the realities of school finance, building capacity and a hopelessly long list of competing academic interests. Other issues will grab headlines, but how the school board handles these basic realities will speak volumes about likely changes in the coming school year.

At least initially, building capacity might be the most difficult to address given the board’s new support for neighborhood schools. If students were assigned to their closest schools, according to a 2005 study by the school system, some enrollments would exceed 200 percent of building capacity while other schools would be less than half full.

The details of that study are now outdated, but administrators believe the basic findings would be the same today.  If so, the board will need to make a few decisions about what it means to be a neighborhood school. Those decisions, in turn, will reveal the board’s appetite for large student reassignments and financial inefficiencies.

But even if board members are willing to absorb the short-term costs of building inefficiencies, tight budgets could limit their options. Revenues are currently struggling to meet lowered expectations at the state level, and the situation isn’t significantly better for the county.

With 4,000 new students still expected to enroll in Wake’s schools next year, per pupil expenditures could go down again. The nature and extent of the budget choices made within that context could shape the new board’s larger policy decisions right up to the next school board election in 2011.

At least capacity and budgets can be measured in black and white. Improving the academic performance of poor students – another issue that gained significant attention during the campaign – often creates competing classroom interests and requires years to yield results. Assumptions made while endorsing some options and rejecting others will reveal much about how the new board wants to handle instruction and school choice – including the magnet program.

During his school board campaign, John Tedesco  often talked about finding a “Wake County way” to improve schools that did not provide good schools for some at the expense of others.

Neither he nor other new board members are suggesting they know exactly how that will work. And that, in part, is why some of the new members are suggesting they should take it slow at first.

Given the realities of the situation, it might also be their only option.

State releases school report cards

The annual North Carolina Student Report Card, one of the most extensive sources of information about individual schools, was released last week by the state Department of Public Instruction.

The web site offers a wide range of information for every school in the state that goes well beyond the more commonly cited numbers involving passing rates on end-of-grade and end-of-course exams. Organized by categories, information in the report cards includes detail such as average class size, sources of revenue, teacher quality and student discipline for the past school year.

As a district, Wake generally ranks above the state average in most categories and above many of its peers. The academic performance of minority students and those who are poor, however, ranks near or just below the state averages.

Of most use to parents, however, are the school level report cards, which offers a snapshot comparing each school to the county and state measures.

Magnet school advocate calls for controlled choice

Richard Kahlenberg, one of the country’s leading experts on magnet school programs, argued in a recent op-ed piece in The News & Observer that Wake County should consider a “controlled choice” program as a way to maximize neighborhood school options without abandoning integration. The article can be found here.

A long-time advocate of school diversity programs, Kahlenberg often cites Wake County as a successful example of magnet schools. But in the op-ed piece published last week, he referred to the county’s current mix of magnets and mandatory reassignments as “politically unsustainable.”

He suggested controlled choice could keep some schools from becoming predominantly poor without denying parents the right to attend a school close to where they live. The approach is currently used in smaller systems such as Cambridge, Mass., Champaign, Ill., and Lee and St. Lucie counties in Florida.

Controlled choice relies on placing the most popular magnet programs in the schools most likely to be underenrolled. To reduce travel times, larger districts create attendance zones and place magnet choices within those zones. In practice, Kahlenberg said, about 90 percent of families receive their first choice of magnet programs, which helps explain why roughly half of them are willing to send their children to schools outside their neighborhoods.

Noteworthy…

…  Cost overruns and public debate about the wisdom of the planned location for the new Forest Ridge High School in Wake Forest has prompted county and school system staff members to closely re-evaluate four other options. The information will be sent to school board members and county commissioners this month. In the meantime, incoming school board members have asked that no additional money be spent on survey and design work as it is probable they will be making the final decision.

…. The Wall Street Journal recently published excerpts from interviews with the chancellor of the New York City Department of Education; the president of the University of Pennsylvania; and a member of the Obama administration offering a wide range of thought-provoking suggestions on needed changes in education. Those interviewed call for a more rigorous approach to teacher recruitment, an overhaul of school financing and limited competition for public schools.

Wake Education Partnership is a 501(c)(3) non-profit created in 1983 to support public schools, in part by educating the community on current school issues. Most of its financial support comes from local business. Send comments to Tim Simmons, VP Communications, at  tsimmons@wakeedpartnership.org