To Recap the Redistricting

One of our contributors did us all a big favor and created one map out of the two provided by the school system.  These combined maps show the attendance lines before and after the approved redistricting plan.  These are simple jpgs and can be viewed larger and/or printed by simply clicking on them.

Enjoy!

Redistricting in the dark?

Just want you all to know that the board meeting currently going on regarding the final vote on redistricting is not being broadcast as they have had a power outage.

Never fear! Jonathan Cribbs of the Patch is there with a minute by minute blogpost of the meeting.

Follow his report here - (you'll need to refresh your screen every few minutes)

Live Blogging: DeKalb School Board Meets to Vote on School Closings, Redistricting

Click here for a school system press release detailing the final decision.

Public Hearings Underway

According to the AJC,

Parents make one last plea against redistricting

On Tuesday night, Thanes and 61 other parents went before the school board to ask for a change to the plan, which is up for a vote next week. The proposal will close eight schools and move 9,000 students -- about 9 percent of the district's total enrollment. The district said the changes are necessary and will free up about $12.4 million each year. . . .

Tuesday night's hearing drew a near capacity crowd with more than 100 parents and students attending. Each speaker had 90 seconds to address the board. Chairman Tom Bowen said the district will review the concerns presented by the public to make sure no major areas were overlooked.

"We're going to continue the process," Bowen said. "The district is going to pay attention to redistricting a lot closer so that we have smaller more frequent changes as opposed to larger changes." . . .

Public hearings are the final phase of the redistricting process. Another hearing will be held Thursday at 6:30 p.m. at the district's headquarters, 1701 Mountain Industrial Blvd., Stone Mountain. The board is scheduled to vote on the plan on Monday night.

Click here to read more...

Redistricting Hearings Scheduled

From: RAMONA TYSON
To: RAMONA TYSON
Sent: Mon, February 21, 2011 10:04:08 AM
Subject: DeKalb Schools - Redistricting and Consolidation Public Hearings

Greetings ~

On Tuesday, March 1, 2011 and Thursday, March 3, 2011, DeKalb County School System will host public hearings regarding the Superintendent’s Recommendations (February 7, 2011) for the Proposed 2011-12 School Year Redistricting and Consolidation plan. The public hearings will be held both days at 6:30 pm at the Administrative and Instructional Complex Board Room, 1701 Mountain Industrial Boulevard, Stone Mountain, GA 30083.

The goal of the public hearings is to provide a fair and equitable opportunity for citizens representing all regions of the DeKalb County School District to comment on the Superintendent’s February 7th
recommendations concerning the redistricting and consolidation plan. DeKalb County citizens are encouraged to come out and express their opinion on the Superintendent’s recommendation. Each person will have an opportunity to provide their opinion on a public comment form. There will
also be opportunities for speaking.

(Below) please find a document outlining the process for the upcoming public hearings on March 1 and March 3. Beginning today, February 21, the team will start receiving calls and conclude taking requests by Friday, February 25 at 3:00 pm. Speakers will be notified by 5:00 pm on Monday, February 28, 2011 via email or phone.

For more information on the Superintendent’s recommendation, please go to:
http://www.dekalb.k12.ga.us/redistricting

Ramona H. Tyson
Interim Superintendent
1701 Mountain Industrial Boulevard
Stone Mountain, GA 30083
678-676-0010 office
678-676-0709 fax
tysonr@fc.dekalb.k12.ga.us

===

Public Hearings on the Superintendent’s Recommendations (February 7, 2011)
for the Proposed 2011-12 School Year Redistricting and Consolidation

Tuesday, March 1, 2011 6:30 P.M.

Administrative and Instructional Complex
Board Room
1701 Mountain Industrial Boulevard
Stone Mountain, GA 30083

The goal of the public hearings is to provide a fair and equitable opportunity for citizens representing all regions of the DeKalb County School District to comment on the Superintendent’s February 7th recommendations concerning the redistricting and consolidation plan.

Please come out and express your opinion on the Superintendent’s recommendation. Each person will have an opportunity to provide their opinion on a public comment form. There will be opportunities for speaking.

You can sign up to speak by either pre-registering or signing up at the public hearing:

1. Pre-register (the first 38 speakers at each meeting), by either:

a. Going online 24 hours a day from 9:00 AM Monday February 21 until 3:00 PM Friday, February 25 at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/publichearings or

b. Calling 678-875-2000:

9:00 AM – 5:00 PM Monday February 21, 2011;
9:00 AM – 5:00 PM Tuesday February 22, 2011;
9:00 AM – 5:00 PM Wednesday February 23, 2011;
9:00 AM – 5:00 PM Thursday February 24, 2011; and
9:00 AM – 3:00 PM Friday February 25, 2011.

c. The online/phone registration process will ask you to provide your name, the high school cluster you reside in, zip code of your residence, and email or phone number (in case we need to contact you).

d. A map of high school clusters can be found at http://goo.gl/RqEL7

e. Two persons each night from each cluster will be randomly chosen from all of the online requests to speak from that cluster.

f. Those selected to speak will be notified by 5:00 PM on Monday February 28, 2011 via email or phone.

2. Sign up at the meeting (the second set of 38 speakers at each meeting):

a. Accepting speaking request forms from 5:30 PM until 7:15 PM that night at the meeting.

b. The person at the registration will ask you to write your name, the high school cluster you reside in, and zip code of your residence on the form.

c. Two speakers (and alternates) from each of the 19 high school clusters will be randomly chosen each night from those who sign up at the meeting.

A short presentation on the Superintendent’s recommendation will be followed by 76 speakers, each who will have 90 seconds to speak.

Thursday, March 3, 2011 6:30 P.M.

Administrative and Instructional Complex
Board Room
1701 Mountain Industrial Boulevard
Stone Mountain, GA 30083

For more information on the Superintendent’s recommendation, please go to:
http://www.dekalb.k12.ga.us/redistricting

Ask Not What Your School District Can Do for You...

This article was published yesterday in the Briarcliff "Patch" (love that news source, BTW.)  I thought I'd share a bit of it with you on the blog. You can read the whole thing by clicking here.

A former Lakeside High parent believes local parents should let redistricting go through and let their students pollinate other schools.
By George Miranda

I'll be excoriated by my neighbors for saying this, but it is plainly obvious once we all agree to rid ourselves of the self-delusion insulating us from the truth: My neighbors are attempting to preserve their elitist, socioeconomic advantages. The fact is that Lakeside High-area schools are seriously overcrowded – in particular, Oak Grove Elementary School.

People who can afford to live in the district have moved into it, which up until the housing bust was peppered with infill housing. The DeKalb County Board of Education is not charged with maintaining the property values of the wealthy citizens of north-central DeKalb County; on the contrary, its mission is to provide free, high-quality education to all the children of the county. If the board can fulfill its mission cost-effectively and avoid raising property taxes, that's icing on the cake. The most cost-effective way to do this is to redistrict the county to alleviate overcrowding.

The school board must implement other changes just as necessary as redistricting to reduce costs and introduce operational efficiencies. Not the least of these, DeKalb County must stop pouring kids into schools already brimming over with students because the schools being evacuated are low performing. The right thing to do is to fix the bad schools. Unfortunately, the board’s hands are tied, at least in the short run, by the federal No Child Left Behind Act. This law must be significantly amended so that it helps students without destroying their school systems.


===
George Miranda is a Pastoral Care Counselor

Enormous capacity imbalances - is south DeKalb overbuilt?

We have some very talented bloggers.  Recently, our resident Map Goddess spent a good bit of time plotting DeKalb County high schools on a Google map and then drawing a 1.5 mile octagon around each one.  The resulting graphic is very interesting—as you can see, the schools in north DeKalb are evenly spaced out, while several in south DeKalb actually overlap—and Arabia isn't even included! (Go ahead and imagine one more high school 6 miles south of Miller Grove and Lithonia High Schools and about 6 miles east of MLK—waaaaaay down in the southeastern corner of DeKalb—27.5 miles from Dunwoody HS.)

This graphic illustrates why balancing needs to push southward, as this is where the empty seats are. Worse, there are still additions slated to be built to MLK and Miller Grove with SPLOST 3 funding—funding that may need to be reevaluated and reassigned to perhaps fixing some of our older, needy middle schools as well as perhaps providing an auditorium for Cross Keys—the only high school without and not scheduled to receive one.

There is data accompanying the pins on the map. It is highlighted below, but click here to access the map yourself.

Chamblee High School
Utilization: 108% Educational Adequacy: 33 Technology Readiness: 78 Met AYP 2010: Y

Cross Keys High School
Utilization: 79% Educational Adequacy: 88 (highest high school in county) Technology Readiness: 90 Met AYP 2010: N

Dunwoody High School
Utilization: 120% Educational Adequacy: 81 Technology Readiness: 97 Met AYP 2010: Y

Druid Hills High School
Utilization: 108% Educational Adequacy: 73 Technology Readiness: 68 Met AYP 2010: N

Lakeside High School
Utilization: 137% Educational Adequacy: 22 Technology Readiness: 74 Met AYP 2010: Y

Tucker High School
Utilization: 107% Educational Adequacy: 82 Technology Readiness: 100 (highest high school in county) Met AYP 2010: Y

Redan High School
Utilization: 114% Educational Adequacy: 80 Technology Readiness: 78 Met AYP 2010: N

Stephenson High School
Utilization: 100% Educational Adequacy: 81 Technology Readiness: 73 Met AYP 2010: N

Stone Mountain High School
Utilization: 99% Educational Adequacy: 58 Technology Readiness: 74 Met AYP 2010: N
Stone Mountain

Cedar Grove High School
Utilization: 92% Educational Adequacy: 86 Technology Readiness: 67 Met AYP 2010: N

Lithonia High School
Utilization: 103% Educational Adequacy: 73 Technology Readiness: 72 Met AYP 2010: N

Martin Luther King Jr High School
Utilization: 146% (highest high school in county) Educational Adequacy: 67 Technology Readiness: 74 Met AYP 2010: N

Miller Grove High School
Utilization: 102% Educational Adequacy: 92 Technology Readiness: 93 Met AYP 2010: N

Southwest Dekalb High School
Utilization: 130% Educational Adequacy: 55 Technology Readiness: 73 Met AYP 2010: N

Avondale High School
Utilization: 81% Educational Adequacy: 45 (lowest high school in county) Technology Readiness: 59 Met AYP 2010: N

Clarkston High School
Utilization: 82% Educational Adequacy: 54 Technology Readiness: 79 Met AYP 2010: N

Columbia High School
Utilization: 82% Educational Adequacy: 68 Technology Readiness: 58 Met AYP 2010: N

McNair High School
Utilization: 62% (lowest high school in county) Educational Adequacy: 65 Technology Readiness: 73 Met AYP 2010: N

Towers High School
Utilization: 77% Educational Adequacy: 61 Technology Readiness: 55 (lowest high school in county) Met AYP 2010: N

===

For similar maps with corresponding data for MS and ES, click these links -

Middle schools
ES1
ES2
ES3
ES4
ES5

Good advice

I don't usually repost articles in their entirety, but this one from the Dunwoody Crier is important and eloquent and I want you all to read it in it's entirety.

No right or wrong in redistricting
by Lauren Menis
Wednesday, February 2, 2011 11:57 AM EST

Dunwoody’s schools are being redistricted and as many of us know, it’s an emotional and volatile issue. As I write this, I realize that by the time my column comes out, things may have changed. But I believe that what I have to say will still be relevant.

For those who are not in on the debate, with the exception of Dunwoody Elementary School, our elementary schools are overcrowded. A previous plan to move fourth and fifth graders to the new Dunwoody Elementary didn’t solve the problem. Now, it’s back to the drawing board for the county.

DeKalb has hired consultants to come up with a new plan. And our parents are also working hard to come up with their own versions, depending on where they stand on the issue.

As Dunwoody’s school districts are sliced into various pieces of the pie, there are many people affected. Understandably, people are upset. The bottom line is that no one wants to leave the schools they love and, conversely, no one wants overcrowded schools.

I am not going to state any opinions or discuss boundaries, neighborhoods or the many other issues in this debate. But what I do want is to call for civil discourse on this complicated and multi-faceted matter.

Sentiments are running high and things feel very turbulent here in our city. There are blogs, emails and petitions. There’s distrust among those who a short time ago worked together. Because redistricting is such an emotional issue that affects our kids, it’s causing negative feelings among friends and acquaintances.

We need to remember that we are not enemies, regardless of how we want the school lines drawn. Every person is entitled to an opinion and to fight for what they want. Those with differing views have the right to disagree and try to get their opinions taken into account.

We are, after all, parents who care about our children and where they go to school. We are mothers, fathers, neighbors, friends and acquaintances. We need to have empathy toward those with different opinions.

At a recent informal meeting, I was impressed that while there were charged emotions, there was very little ugliness and people on all sides were extremely informed. But it still left me with a feeling of neighbor against neighbor. If you listen to the conversations and look at the blogs, you can see that things have taken on a somewhat vicious tone.

The passions incited by redistricting speaks volumes about the type of people we are and how much we care about our kids’ educations. I am proud to live in a place where there are so many involved parents. And I truly believe that however things turn out, Dunwoody schools will always be great because of this commitment.

I’ll take this over apathy any day.

Lauren Menis is a Dunwoody mother whose column appears in The Crier each month. You can reach Lauren at Lauren.Menis@gmail.com.

DCSS fixing something that isn’t broken say unified Lakeside community leaders

DCSS ignores its own rules and transfer students

By Tom Doolittle

Supercluster meeting to be held Tuesday, January 25 at Oak Grove United Methodist Church at 7:00.

What started as DeKalb School System’s (DCSS) attempt last year to close and consolidate twenty-three (23) underutilized schools (most south of US 78) has morphed into a plan to identify overcrowded schools and change several schools’ neighborhood boundaries (county-wide “redistricting”).

The Lakeside High School zone is not overcrowded according to community school advocates and no schools are being closed; but traditional neighborhoods are slated to be removed from four elementary schools for the first time since the last school was built 40 years ago. (Neighborhoods were added to other schools when Heritage Elementary was closed as a feeder in the mid-1980s.) Lakeside area advocates want to know why DCSS is trying to “fix something that isn’t broken”. Not only that, but they say DCSS “can have its cake and eat it too”, by continuing to serve students from outside of the school zone.

After the DCSS plan was published in the first week of this month, Lakeside PTA president Barbara Haan immediately contacted representatives from feeder schools. Emphasizing that providing feedback and information to the community and DCSS regarding the school zone proposals is not a PTA effort Haan said, “We have never seen the Lakeside community more together on a scholastic issue.” Four elementary schools and Henderson Middle School had representatives at the meeting on a moments notice on Friday before the big snow storm. Meanwhile, the Leafmore, Diamond Head and Sagamore neighborhood associations called meetings to generate support. Also, the Lakeside Foundation’s role in the “Valhalla Project” $1.5 million capital campaign was put on hold to consider the impact on the community’s giving.

Depending upon which plan DCSS chooses, a so-called “centralized” or “decentralized” plan, Lakeside would lose neighborhoods with at least 231 current students, 84 from Oak Grove, 63 from Evansdale and the rest from Sagamore. Sagamore is being moved in total (“redistricted”) to the Druid Hills High School zone, despite the fact that many Sagamore students have walked to Lakeside since it was built in 1965.

As Things Stand Now
A Lakeside communiqué to parents establishes a primary goal of having no “split-feeder” schools, whereby students who attend schools together are separated moving onto the next level. Summarizing the plan’s impact to the community, “the current plan splits neighborhoods at the primary and secondary level and sends children far outside the natural boundaries of a school's community. This negatively impacts our children's socialization and the neighborhood's identity.” (City of Dunwoody advocates have raised similar objections regarding city areas being redistricted from schools in Dunwoody.)

The position paper also says DCSS actually defies its own stated priorities: (1) preserving geographic proximity (primary criterion); (2) safe and efficient traffic patterns; (3) preserving and supporting intact neighborhoods (secondary criterion); (4) minimizing disruption of long-standing feeder patterns.

The source of the problem is DCSS’ contention that some Lakeside feeder schools are overcrowded and therefore the high school zone should change. However, Lakeside united group says the high school itself is not overcrowded and the feeder zones should be handled within the highly regarded school’s current boundaries.

“…the plan significantly understates the student capacity of Lakeside High School...” which will be increased from 1314 to 1789 once the current 25 classroom renovation is complete during the next school year.

Transfer Students
As there is no school within the Lakeside zone being proposed for closure; Sagamore is currently not overcrowded; and Lakeside has 450 seats being added to its campus; many advocates are mystified that the sometime controversial school zone is being reformulated. The Lakeside communiqué points out that DCSS also does not account for “increased/decreased enrollment due to non-resident transfers from sending and receiving schools under No Child Left Behind (NCLB).”

This is what Lakeside’s Haan refers to as the “AYP bubble” which she claims will not be relevant soon because no schools will ultimately be able to meet its 100% success mandate and remain a transfer school. “If you remove the AYP bubble, there’s no need to restructure—and the middle school and some elementary schools can be rebalanced (within the zone), she contends.

Next Step—The Supercluster Meetings
Haan, Lakeside feeder school representatives and the various communities that started their own efforts, about 50 people; met Sunday to establish a comprehensive position and solutions to rebalancing the feeders. Some changes to feeder boundaries are suggested, DCSS figures are contested and school populations are creatively managed in the proposal that “makes more sense and impacts as few as possible” and “does no harm to any other group”, presumably a reference to the Druid Hills cluster.

The Supercluster effort continues for the general public on Tuesday, January 25 at Oak Grove United Methodist Church at 7:00.

===
Writer Tom Doolittle is a 17-year Northlake area resident, founding trustee of Northlake Community Alliance, Inc., founder Northlake Business Forum and writes the www.NorthlakeStation.blogspot.com

But Wait! There's Still More!

Ok, so until now we have communities coming from all corners of the county (well, actually, they are mostly in north DeKalb) writing up formal responses to the redistricting proposals. We've seen them from Fernbank, Lakeside, Leafmore, Sagamore, Livsey and the Dunwoody City Council.

Now the Valleybrook Neighborhoods Weigh In -

Neighbors within the communities located inside I-285 along East Ponce De Leon Avenue through Valley Brook Road, to DeKalb Industrial Way thank the DeKalb County Board of Education for taking steps toward optimizing the use of our limited resources. We support the goals that grew from the public charrettes across the county and the online survey.

Both proposals would redistrict our neighborhoods from the Druid Hills MS/HS feeder pattern to the Freedom MS/Clarkston HS feeder pattern, thereby splitting our elementary school, McLendon ES, between the two.

That in itself is contradictory to DCSS’s stated goal of “minimizing split feeder patterns and maintaining intact neighborhoods”. We agree with that goal and want to preserve the vertical alignment of schools that was put into place seven years ago.

Another DCSS stated goal is to “minimize the distance that non-choice students travel to school”. Again, both proposals are inconsistent with this goal, as current distance and travel time to Druid Hills MS from our neighborhood is between 1.5 to 3 miles and between 3 and 8 minutes respectively. Conversely, distance and travel time from our neighborhoods to Freedom MS are between 6 to 8 miles and between 18 and 25 minutes respectively; more than doubling the distance and/or travel time our students would have to endure.

Finally, under a third DCSS stated goal, “Provide students with equitable access to quality programs”, both proposals drastically decrease equity to our children for at least two reasons:
➢ First, they move our children from their current middle and high schools that are not listed as Needs Improvement to middle and high schools that are both in Needs Improvement Year Five (NI-5) or Greater status.
➢ Second, both proposals would move our children out of schools that offer the International Baccalaureate (IB) program to schools that do not provide IB.

If we are redistricted according to either plan, we will exercise our Public School Choice option as is our right considering both Freedom MS and Clarkston HS are in NI-5 status, potentially defeating the purpose of redistricting this neighborhood.

We do see common themes in all of these responses:

• Keep neighborhoods together
• Keep feeder systems stable - no split feeders
• Don't move from passing schools to failing schools
• Be mindful of travel times and congestion

Those seem like reasonable requests.

Attention Losers! This is How You Win ...

This post, a copy of an email distributed by Fernbank was added yesterday by a new participant . We just want to assure readers that the blog is simply enlightening the community—as we did by publishing the other community emails we received—not endorsing anyone's actions or viewpoint.   - Moderator

Points for Tonight at Shamrock/Druid Hills
Everyone must attend tonight's redistricting meeting at Shamrock/Druid Hills Middle -- even if you think you're not affected, you are -- we will lose teachers, financial support, and key parental involvement. Some examples of how you will be affected? No art special, no science special, no Reflections, no Chess Club, no Hospitality chairs, no Library Committe chairs, no Ambassador leaders, no Garden Committee leaders -- the list goes on and on. Your community needs you there tonight and every other night you possibly can. Every parent and stakeholder should have a personal goal of attending TWO meetings.

Process Points to Follow:
1. Be on time, or better yet, be early.
2. Sit at a table (8-12 roundtops) with 1/3-1/2 Fernbank people.
3. Control the pen, control the mike, or better yet, both. Each table will have a "scribe" -- be it. Each table will have a "reporter," who will speak for 2 min. -- be it.
4. When you get to "Option 3," be clear and concise. Use Fernbank as an example of the larger theme -- e.g., not breaking up long-established neighborhoods, moving kids to different programs, supporting larger schools.
5. When you hear a point that is consistent with our position, go ahead and applaud.

Substance Points to Follow:
1. We need a clear strategic vision first, before we implement redistricting for fewer, bigger schools.
2. With that vision in place, follow the Board's own goals:
-- don't split in half historic neighborhoods, like Fernbank, where the building has supported the same neighborhood for 50+ years and the school's many buildings have served Druid Hills for 90+ years.
-- don't move children from one kind of educational program to another, like IB. The IB program should be available to more students, not fewer. We support a larger school of 900 and providing more access to IB.
-- the plan must account for future growth. Construction on hundreds of residences for Emory and CDC families is breaking ground this year. According to the Board's own goals, those residences should be zoned to Briar Vista.
-- the plan must provide safe, walkable environments and pay attention to traffic patterns, and not further clog the Clifton Corridor.
-- decisions should be based on actual cost benefits, not on speculation.

Response on smaller issues:
1. We have no official position on location of magnets. If conversation at your table focuses on that, incorporate that concern into your points and MOVE ON.
2. If anyone suggests making Briar Vista a PK-K or PK-1 campus for Fernbank's children, talk about 1100 students and families with multiple children driving back and forth and back and forth along Clifton Road during the morning rush hour. Enough said.
Finally, schools from our cluster will be there tonight in DROVES. Be there -- for your friends, your neighbors, your children, and OUR school.

And We're Off!

Last night, was the first of 6 community input meetings on the redistricting/consolidation plan. According to local media outlets, there were about 500 people at Miller Grove High School.

In what continues to be a ongoing effort of transparency, the presentation for the meeting was posted on the DCSS website.

http://www.dekalb.k12.ga.us/www/documents/redistricting/public-input-workshop-presentation.pdf

In addition, they have put up a form so that you provide your comments via the internet.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/redistricting

You also have the ability to read what others are saying. Trust me when I say that your comments will be have more impact if you are not cutting and pasting from someone else's email. If you don't care enough to be throughtful with your own response, why even bother?

https://www.surveymonkey.com/sr.aspx?sm=cfs7yCefxIosATk9Zs83gI8DjaV4iK2j10i_2bQeLWJso_3d

Here is the schedule for the workshops. I would love to hear from people who went to see how it worked and if the tables really reached consensus.

• 6:30 -7:00 PM Goals for Tonight Overview of Options• 7:00 – 8:00 PM Small Group Discussion
• 8:00 – 9:30 PM Tables report out

How this will work tonight
• Small Group Discussion (7:00 – 8:00)
– Table Introductions and selection of Scribe, Timekeeper, and Reporter
– Round 1 - Pluses
– Round 2 - Deltas
– Round 3 - Consensus Alternative
• Large Group Share (8:00 – 9:30)
– Presentation of Consensus Alternative by Table Recorder

The latest community push-back: Check out Dunwoody's petition

As the Fernbank, Druid Hills and Lakeside crowds were organizing their own community ad hocs designed to fight the redistricting plans for DCSS, Dunwoody remained relatively quiet.  Now, they have come to the table with a petition of their own (a petition I would say that even Dunwoody residents probably do not agree upon completely).  All of this powerful resistance to redistricting plans tells us one thing: Communities have absolutely no faith or trust in our school system leadership and will not blindly follow any recommendation they attempt to put forth.

The school system has held some very sacred cards close to their chest in this game. One, Arabia is completely off the table. Not even discussed. Not even offered up to relieve over-crowding in that area—even though that is the stated reason the school was originally built. (Read our report on it here.) Two, the school communities currently resisting redistricting are convinced that their schools are over-crowded largely due to the enormous numbers of transfers—legal ones like AYP and special ones like Administrative Letters. It is patently unfair to deem a school "over-crowded" when the crowding may be due to outsiders, and then make neighborhood children attend school elsewhere. Ramona Tyson quietly removed the board policy that was up for change on this subject at the last meeting—Why? Three, there are too many issues tangled up in this plan to make it workable. For instance, the magnet programs need to be addressed and attended to as a subject all their own—not simply part of this plan. And really, what good does it do to redistrict students into failing schools? It won't stick, as these students will now qualify for AYP transfers. And last, there was an audit conducted in 2004 by Ernst & Young that showed DCSS was spending an estimated $15 million annually on inflated salaries in administration. That report was mysteriously buried and no new report was ever ordered. Interestingly, from our estimates, this entire painful redistricting plan will not save the system as much as implementing the salary audit recommendations. What a tangled mess!

AT any rate, check out the petition by clicking here.

Target: DeKalb County, Georgia School Board & Superintendent
Web site: http://www.dekalb.k12.ga.us/redistricting
Background (Preamble):
This is a petition to inform the DeKalb County School System where Dunwoody stands on the Redistricting and Consolidation Plan, that will take effect August 2011. DeKalb County has made two preliminary redistricting proposals that affect Dunwoody schools.

The Superintendent is accepting public input and will make her final recommendation on redistricting to the School Board on January 31, 2011. Please sign the petition to show your support.
Petition:

PETITION FOR DUNWOODY COMMUNITY SCHOOLS

1. We do not support the County’s Decentralized Plan as is.

2. The County Decentralized Plan has the following problems:

•Dunwoody Elementary School (DES) cannot accommodate 1,132 students. The cafeteria and gym are comparable in size to Vanderlyn’s. Children will be moved from modular classrooms at Vanderlyn to trailers at DES.

•There is no access to Austin or Vanderlyn for students who live in rental complexes.

•The percentage of renters at DES would be over 60% compared with 0% at Vanderlyn and 0% at Austin.

3. We believe the 4/5 school is an excellent educational model, and one of several plausible solutions. We believe the 4th and 5th graders from Kingsley should attend DES.

4. We believe that limiting access to Vanderlyn and Austin to only homeowners is not acceptable.

5. We believe Dunwoody homeowners should be able to send their children to Dunwoody schools.

6. Modular classrooms are a better learning environment than trailers.

7. The location of the magnet program should not influence fair drawing of school lines in Dunwoody.

8. We believe it is irresponsible to decide to keep magnets where they are before knowing whether it is more cost effective for the County to centralize them.

Fernbank vs Briar Vista - By the Numbers…

“Are the Winners and Losers Really so Clear in DCSS Redistricting and Consolidation?”

Some of the most popular, well read, and commented upon posts on Dekalb County School Watch have revolved around redistricting. Posters have accused the county of trying to zone apartments into particular schools while leaving some schools with students primarily from single-family dwellings. Complaints have arisen about the feasibility of busing children to a new school while they can walk to their present school. Many others have expressed fears of property values declining. But worries about their children being zoned out of high performing schools into lower performing schools has arguably been the most constant and commented upon concern of parents.

Since many of the comments regarding redistricting have come from Fernbank parents who perceive that their children are being redistricted from a higher performing Fernbank to a lower performing Briar Vista, we’ve chosen to use the performance data of these two schools to gain some perspective. Fernbank was chosen as an example because of the volume of posts on the county online survey. Almost 1 out of 10 of the responses came from Fernbank, far more than any other school except Oak Grove. In addition, Fernbank comments have been numerous on the Dekalb County School Watch blog as well as Maureen Downey’s “Get Schooled” blog. Unfortunately, we don’t have the time or space on this blog to analyze each and every redistricting and consolidation scenario, but it is our hope that the following academic performance comparisons of these two schools will provide some guidance in using available objective data rather than relying on hearsay and opinions.

The statistics below are simply facts and figures, and in no way do they reflect on the emotions that are evoked when a child changes from one school to another. Any parent who has had a child change schools knows that changing schools is a tough experience. DCSS redistricting is not a decision that should be taken lightly and should ONLY be done in conjunction with cuts in areas OUTSIDE the classroom.

Parents need to ask that savings from cuts in the non-teaching areas are detailed and made public so they understand their children have not been sacrificed on the altar of jobs preservation. In addition, any savings that accrue from redistricting and consolidation need to be explained and made public with benchmarks established to show that this painful process has yielded and continues to yield savings that go DIRECTLY into the classroom for students.

2010 AYP numbers for Briar Vista and Fernbank show that among the test takers of the 2010 math and reading CRCT if you are Black, White or Asian, you will probably score equally well in either school.

Since no Hispanic students were listed in the Hispanic subgroup at Fernbank, no comparison was possible for Hispanic students.

The Economically Disadvantaged percentage being much higher at Briar Vista along with the greater ESOL population percentage appears to have had the effect of a 12% difference between Fernbank and Briar Vista in the OVERALL average for Math scores and an 9% difference in the OVERALL average for Reading scores.

Economically Disadvantaged refers to your number of students on Free and Reduced Price lunch, which generally equates to low-income households. ESOL (English Speakers of Other Languages) means you don’t speak the English language proficiently. For example, most of us non-Spanish speakers would not fare so well on a Spanish math or reading test if we had only lived in a Spanish speaking country for a year or two. Not enough information was given to say what the subgroup percentages are in either ESOL or Economically Disadvantaged.

=====

Look at the figures below for Briar Vista and Fernbank taken directly from the 2010 NCLB numbers on the state of Georgia DOE website. Be sure to check these numbers out for yourself. No one is perfect, and contrary to popular belief, this blog does not have a paid staff:

I. 2010 Test Scores:

A. Briar Vista:


1. Math Performance based on the CRCT:
82% of the students MEETS+EXCEEDS in Math.

The rates of MEETS+EXCEEDS for Black students is 81% and White students is 97% so both groups did well. The Hispanic rates of MEETS+EXCEEDS is 68%. The rate for MEETS+EXCEEDS for Asian/Pacific Islander students is 92%.

2. Reading Performance based on the CRCT:
89% of the students MEETS+EXCEEDS in Reading.

The rates of MEETS+EXCEEDS for Black students is 98% and White students is 96% so both groups did extremely well. The Hispanic rates of MEETS+EXCEEDS is 80%. The rate for MEETS+EXCEEDS for Asian/Pacific Islander students is 92%.

B. Fernbank:

1. Math Performance based on the CRCT:
94% of the students MEETS+EXCEEDS in Math.

The rates of MEETS+EXCEEDS for Black students is 83% and White students is 96% so both groups did well. The rate for MEETS+EXCEEDS for Asian/Pacific Islander students is 100%.

2. Reading Performance based on the CRCT:
98% of the students MEETS+EXCEEDS in Reading.

The rates of MEETS+EXCEEDS for Black students is 98% and White students is 99% so both groups did extremely well. The rate for MEETS+EXCEEDS for Asian/Pacific Islander students is 100%.

II. Diversity of the test takers:

A. Economically Disadvantaged: Fernbank: 18% Briar Vista: 54%

B. Students With Disabilities: Fernbank: 9% Briar Vista: 13%

C. Blacks students: Fernbank: 21% Briar Vista: 19%

D. White students: Fernbank: 53% Briar Vista: 28%

E. Asian/Pacific Islander: Fernbank: 18% Briar Vista: 9%

F. Multi Racial Students: Fernbank: 4% Briar Vista: 0%

G. Hispanic: Fernbank: 0% Briar Vista: 40%

H. ESOL: Fernbank: 9% Briar Vista: 25%

In conclusion, it appears that when comparing subgroups, Briar Vista can hold its own academically with Fernbank even though it has a greater number of ESOL students and a much greater number of Economically Disadvantaged students. I know this thread won’t allay all the concerns that Fernbank parents have. However, it is always prudent to look at the data in order to make a fair comparison. Perhaps that will resonate with some of the parents who read this blog.

BTW - I came away from this analysis very impressed with this little school tucked away in on tree lined Briar Vista Terrace. The administration, faculty, and parents of this small school deserve much respect, applause and support.

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Many thanks to one of our regular contributors for digging into this data and providing the facts for this insightful report.

Fun with numbers

It isn't enough to simply say that you don't like one part or another of the redistricting and consolidation plan. That gets us nowhere in filling empty seats and closing near empty schools. Tuesday Night at Miller Grove is the first of 6 public meetings for the community to provide feedback on the plans presented. Bring your plan. Share it with Dan Drake and the MGT consultants.

Dan Drake is making it very easy to build your own school zone. He has provided three maps, one for north, one for southwest and one for southeast. Be warned, these are large files and if you have an older computer they take a while to load. Each map is has the number of elementary, middle and high school students who attend their HOME schools labeled by neighborhood and/or apartment complex. The first number is elementary, the middle number is middle, and the last number is high school.

http://www.dekalb.k12.ga.us/www/documents/redistricting/resident-attendee-north-map.pdf

http://www.dekalb.k12.ga.us/www/documents/redistricting/resident-attendee-southwest-map.pdf

http://www.dekalb.k12.ga.us/www/documents/redistricting/resident-attendee-southeast-map.pdf

You can print the area you are interested in and draw your own set of lines. I recommend that you look at this chart to get a sense of enrollment numbers that the consultants have set as goals.

http://www.dekalb.k12.ga.us/www/documents/redistricting/options-school-enrollment.pdf

Remember that if we are going to make any progress in capturing additional state funds and having a more manageable facility load, there has to be school closures and redistricting. That means that any plan you put forward impacts children, even if not your children. Heady stuff, I think.

TV Reports from meetings held last night

Redistricting Meeting Held in DeKalb Co.: MyFoxATLANTA.com

http://www.wsbtv.com/video/26393530/index.html

Meeting Recap:

January 2011

public input workshops (Updated!)

Miller Grove High School, Tuesday, January 11, 2011 at 6:30 PM

Druid Hills Middle School (Shamrock Middle School), Wednesday, January 12, 2011 at 6:30 PM

Chamblee High School, Thursday, January 13, 2011 at 6:30 PM

McNair High School, Tuesday, January 18, 2011 at 6:30 PM

Bethune Middle School, Wednesday, January 19, 2011 at 6:30 PM

Stone Mountain Middle School, Thursday January 20, 2011 at 6:30 PM

January 31, 2011

special called board meeting—Superintendent presents redistricting and school consolidation recommendations

February 22 & 24, 2011

formal public hearings, Administrative and Instructional Complex auditorium at 6:30 PM

February 28, 2011

special called board meeting—approval of school consolidation and redistricting recommendations

Questions regarding the redistricting plans

Ok, so we have had a very lively discussion on the recently published proposed redistricting plans put forth by Dr. Bill Carnes & Mr. Ed Humble, consultants at MGT Consultants of America.

Questions have arisen in the discussion that we feel have validity. Questions such as:

• Were transfer students counted when the current enrollments were calculated for schools? If so, shouldn't they first be removed before deciding if a school needs redistricted due to "over-crowding"? Is it fair to ask neighborhood students to move to another school to retain room for transfers?
• Why has Arabia been set aside completely? The other magnets were consolidated and effected, but Arabia was not even part of the discussion. Enrollment and capacity numbers for Arabia are not even part of the report.
• Arabia, Miller Grove and Lithonia High Schools are not even indicated on the maps, however, there are indications of students being redistricted into SW DeKalb. Some of those students are actually located closer to Arabia, should they not be sent there, since Arabia has plenty of space and SW is severely over-crowded?
• What are the real rules for state funding for schools? Dunwoody Mom reported on the workshop presented by Lynn Jackson from the state DOE. (Read her notes here.) However, some of the rules are muddy and confusing. Will we really recover millions from the state? Do we have actual projections on how much will be returned for funding construction and "extras" like art, music and PE teachers?
• How much money will be saved by the actual consolidation of schools? How much will we save by merging redundant staff in some of the magnets? How much in transportation? How much in utilities?
• Why did so many enrollments at area schools seem to increase dramatically last May? The enrollment and capacity numbers have been changing fairly radically over the past year. Please explain how these numbers were calculated.

MGT did an excellent job of dispassionately gathering data, calculating attendance and carefully redrawing lines. This presentation, as they stated, is the first recommendation resulting from their outsider's look. Continuing in the spirit of the charrettes, schools and communities will have an opportunity to add input before the final decision will be made by the superintendent and then voted on by the board.

As far as the rest of the schedule - here's the plan.

January 2011
public input workshops (Updated!)
Miller Grove High School, Tuesday, January 11, 2011 at 6:30 PM
Druid Hills Middle School (Shamrock Middle School), Wednesday, January 12, 2011 at 6:30 PM
Chamblee High School, Thursday, January 13, 2011 at 6:30 PM
McNair High School, Tuesday, January 18, 2011 at 6:30 PM
Bethune Middle School, Wednesday, January 19, 2011 at 6:30 PM
Stone Mountain Middle School, Thursday 20, 2011 at 6:30 PM

January 31, 2011
special called board meeting—Superintendent presents redistricting and school consolidation recommendations
February 22 & 24, 2011
formal public hearings, Administrative and Instructional Complex auditorium at 6:30 PM
February 28, 2011
special called board meeting—approval of school consolidation and redistricting recommendations

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Please add your own questions to the comments section of this post and then gather and bring them to the workshops. Don't just come to complain, bring valid issues along with suggested solutions and your own data to support it.

===
Below are jpgs of the proposed redistricting maps from the DCSS website.  Click on them to view larger and then right-click to download.

 

Updated 2020 Vision

The link on the DCSS Website for all to see. Click here to download all of the presentation files from last night's meeting. They are listed under the heading "Options (3 Jan 2011)".

The AJC has a report on the meeting titled, 14 DeKalb schools on proposed closure list.

On Monday night, the school board unveiled a comprehensive redistricting proposal that calls for 12 elementary schools to close: Livsey, Medlock, Rock Chapel, Bob Mathis, Atherton, Glen Haven, Gresham Park, Sky Haven, Toney, Peachcrest, Wadsworth and Kittredge. The proposal also calls for Avondale Middle and Avondale High to be closed and used to house magnet programs.

Good luck and happy hunting.

UPDATE: For those of you having trouble downloading the very large map files, one of our very helpful and technical bloggers has graciously downloaded them, downsized them, and repackaged them as a bundle. Unfortunately, since this blog is powered by Blogger and not WordPress, I can't store the file for you to download. But if you would like it, send me an email and I'll send it to you as an attachment. -Cere

reparteeforfun@gmail.com

Educational Adequacy Reports

The School by School Education Adequacy reports are now available on line. A huge amount of kudos to Dan Drake, Director of Planning and Forecasting, for putting all this out there for us to see. As we go through the reports, DCSS faces some tough questions. Of the 134 facilities evaluated in the report, only 42 scored 80 or above in adequacy. Most of those were newer or have been extensively renovated and/or had additions. Contrast that number to the fact that 50 facilities scored poor or unsatisfactory! And there are a lot of schools that ranked fair that are actually just a point or two points better than poor!

NEW INFORMATION IS NOW AVAILABLE.

This is the guidelines that were used to evaluate each of the criteria.

http://www.dekalb.k12.ga.us/www/documents/vision-2020/suitability-report-setup-detail.pdf

I recommend that you start with the summary report here to get a sense of the range of scores.

http://www.dekalb.k12.ga.us/www/documents/vision-2020/educational-adequacy-and-technology-readiness-scores.pdf

You can find the school by school information here:

http://www.dekalb.k12.ga.us/vision-2020

Scroll down to the bottom for the school by school report. The school reports are fairly self explanatory. If a school is scored less than good on a criteria, then the report explains the deficiency at the bottom.

Here is what the scores mean:

http://www.dekalb.k12.ga.us/www/documents/vision-2020/educational-adequacy-and-technology-readiness-scores-explanations.pdf

Having read through some of the reports, but certainly not all, there are a few things that really stand out to me.

• Several of the newer schools have classrooms that don’t meet DCSS’ own size requirements. What is up with this?

• There are some easy fixes out there for some of the issues. Lack of sprinkler systems, adequate fencing, etc cost money but can be corrected.

• There are some very complicated challenges out there as well. Many schools have spaces that are smaller, sometimes far smaller, than they need to be.

• The gyms that were added in SPLOST II to most elementary school are smaller than DCSS standards.
  

Once we have the engineering reports to combine with the adequacy reports, it is necessary to begin to develop a process to decide what we can live with and what we can’t. If every kindergarten classroom in a school is 50 square feet too small, what should we do? If the library is too small by 1500 square feet, what should happen? What problems are ones that we can live with and which demand solutions?

And now a brief word about the technology readiness reports. Again, these reports are straightforward, clear and concise. What is missing from the reports is an acknowledgment that most of those older elementary schools with high scores are there because the parents have invested a tremendous amount of time and energy and money modernizing their community schools and bringing in technology. Vanderlyn doesn’t have Smart Boards in every classroom because the system provided them; they have them because parents did! I think this should be indicated so both the board members and the general public understand how and why this has occurred.

Newsflash! From the Superintendent: Inequities at DeKalb schools

As today's AJC tells us, Ms. Tyson has concluded that there are Inequities at DeKalb schools.

Oh my! You're kidding! How can that be?

Some excerpts:

More than 11,000 empty seats have caused DeKalb County students to suffer from inequities in learning at different schools, the interim superintendent said Wednesday.

An instructional audit the school system is now conducting has revealed teaching and education opportunities are not equal at all schools, interim Superintendent Ramona Tyson told business leaders.

“This school district will have to address instructional offerings,” Tyson said. “It will validate what parents are saying that, ‘If I go here, I get this, but if I go here, I don’t get that.’”

Tyson said the audit will not be done until next month, but the initial findings show the need for massive change.

It’s unclear if those inequities match parents’ long-standing complaints that schools in north DeKalb, which have more white students, receive more resources than south DeKalb schools, which serve more black students.

(Editor's note: There are about 10,000 white students in the system of nearly 100,000.)

“The issue of equity is something we’re hearing loud and across the district,” said William Carnes, a consultant with MGT America. “How expensive are those empty seats? They are very expensive because that’s where they get the inequity.”

Sigh! We have been discussing exactly this for a year and a half on this blog, only to be dismissed or worse by the board. At any rate, I'm glad they're looking at data finally. For an education from this blog highlighting the empty seats (which we found could be due to the abundance of "choice" and "theme" schools in south DeKalb,) click here. Or for more, check out our report on the central administrative bloat as compared to other systems. Or read a bit here about how much focus and energy is spent on legal defense and construction contracts rather than on educating children.

I'm happy that the board and Tyson are listening to the consultants. Lord knows they have convinced themselves that we don't have a clue what we're talking about.

Before redistricting—we need a new way to teach so that learning can happen in every school

I had lunch with friends the other day and we had a conversation about the evolution of boys.  We talked about how for 4,000 years, boys have functioned in the world kinesthetically - or physically.  They hunted, fished, built wagons, homes and farms, fought intruders and wars and survived by their prowess and wits.

In the early parts of the 20th century, boys attended school, but usually farmed or worked in some industry as well. In fact, many schools focused heavily on sports and hands-on trade skills for boys.  However, in the 70s and beyond, girls were found to be trailing boys in school scores as well as opportunities in sports.  So the law began to focus on girls, which has proven very successful.  Today, our colleges are on an average 57% girls. Sadly, the high school graduation rate among boys is only 65% nationally. Worse, it's only 48% for African-American boys and 49% for Hispanics boys.

In recent times, we have asked boys to learn more like girls.  It is unnatural to expect them to sit still all day long and listen and learn by reading and imagining. So, what do we do to compensate? Often, in elementary school we drug them. If they're older, we incarcerate them. Granted, there are students who really do need ritalin and similar drugs in order to focus, but the use of these controlled narcotics for learning issues is astronomical.  I have to wonder what would happen if we simply returned to inserting a couple of recesses during the day - and lightening the academic load by replacing a few classes in high school with hands-on learning.  This would include good old-fashioned shop, auto mechanics, printshop, and even cooking! Life skills have been sidelined in favor of AP Calculus and I would go so far as to say that we are losing many boys due to this inverted learning plan that goes against the grain of how boys learn.

A new article in USA Today states,

Our public schools are turning millions of normal children into dropouts and failures. This isn't because of a few bad teachers or principals, but because the natural learning behaviors of children are routinely penalized instead of praised. Initiatives such as "No Child Left Behind" and "Race to the Top" won't change this, because they don't adequately take into account research about how children learn.

Our classrooms are outdated, functioning like mid-20th century factories. Each child is offered an identical curriculum, like a car on an assembly line. But children aren't units of production, and this approach is failing. Since 1970, the rate of high school graduation has declined, and the U.S. has fallen from first to 12th among developed nations in education.

This is inexcusable given the well-documented research about what makes students effective learners. Contemporary neuroscience has confirmed that children's learning is largely dependent on inherent interest, emotional engagement, social interaction, physical activity and the pleasure of mastery. . . .

Freedom to make mistakes and benefit from them is the basis of intellectual growth. If researchers or entrepreneurs were forbidden to make errors, innovation would cease. But when teachers are required to prioritize standardized test preparation, children are necessarily taught that being wrong is unacceptable.

Further, the NY Times informs us that Proficiency of Black Students Is Found to Be Far Lower Than Expected. The article shares some sobering facts proving that our schools—and our society—are not doing the job of educating all our people.

Only 12 percent of black fourth-grade boys are proficient in reading, compared with 38 percent of white boys, and only 12 percent of black eighth-grade boys are proficient in math, compared with 44 percent of white boys.

The state with the highest overall graduation rate was New Jersey (88 percent), followed by Iowa, Wisconsin, and North Dakota, each with 85 percent. The state with the lowest overall graduation rate was South Carolina (54 percent), followed by Georgia (56 percent) and New York (58 percent).

Poverty alone does not seem to explain the differences: poor white boys do just as well as African-American boys who do not live in poverty, measured by whether they qualify for subsidized school lunches. . . .

Worse, the Council of the Great City Schools released a new study with the alarming headline, New Report on Black Male Achievement in America Reveals 'National Catastrophe'

But the study points out that there has been no concerted national effort to improve the education, social and employment outcomes of African-American males, who are not receiving appropriate attention from federal, state and local governments or community organizations.

"This is a national catastrophe, and it deserves coordinated national attention," stresses the report.

What's going on?

“There’s accumulating evidence that there are racial differences in what kids experience before the first day of kindergarten,” said Ronald Ferguson, director of the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard. “They have to do with a lot of sociological and historical forces. In order to address those, we have to be able to have conversations that people are unwilling to have.”

Those include “conversations about early childhood parenting practices,” Dr. Ferguson said. “The activities that parents conduct with their 2-, 3- and 4-year-olds. How much we talk to them, the ways we talk to them, the ways we enforce discipline, the ways we encourage them to think and develop a sense of autonomy.”

Last, an article from the AP entitled, "Blacks struggling with 72% unwed mother rate", tells us

Seventy-two percent of black babies are born to unmarried mothers today, according to government statistics.

Children of unmarried mothers of any race are more likely to perform poorly in school, go to prison, use drugs, be poor as adults and have their own children out of wedlock.

The black community's 72 percent rate eclipses that of most other groups: 17 percent of Asians, 29 percent of whites, 53 percent of Hispanics and 66 percent of American Indians were born to unwed mothers in 2008, the most recent year for which government figures are available. The rate for the overall U.S. population was 41 percent. . . .

There are simple arguments for why so many black women have children without marriage.

The legacy of segregation, the logic goes, means blacks are more likely to attend inferior schools. This creates a high proportion of blacks unprepared to compete for jobs in today's economy, where middle-class industrial work for unskilled laborers has largely disappeared.

The drug epidemic sent disproportionate numbers of black men to prison and crushed the job opportunities for those who served their time. Women don't want to marry men who can't provide for their families, and welfare laws created a financial incentive for poor mothers to stay single.

"It's all connected. The question should be, how has the black family survived at all?" says Maria Kefalas, co-author of "Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage."

The Council of the Great City Schools report makes the following strong statement on society,

"The issues that emerge from the data are both moral and economic, calling into question the nation's ability to harness all of its talent to maintain a leadership footing in the world," says Council Executive Director Michael Casserly. "How can you narrow or close the country’s black-white achievement gap when African-American males are not getting the attention and support they need to succeed?"

George Will writes in the Washington Post of some of the findings of a sociology professor named Nathan Glazer. In an article in American Interest Glazer puts forth some alarming statistics on what he calls "the black condition." Glazer is concerned that with the election of Obama any discussion of the black condition in America has all but disappeared.

Here are some of the statistics:

70% of black children born in the United States are born to unmarried women.

More than 60% of black high school dropouts born since the mid-1960s go to prison.

Mass incarceration blights the prospects of black women seeking husbands.

For every bachelor's degree conferred on a black man, 2 are conferred on a black woman.

Only 35% of black children live with two parents.

And here's an interesting number ...

By age 4 the average child in a professional family hears 20 million more words than the average child in a working-class family and about 35 million more than the average child in a welfare family.

There is a very strong link between the number of words a child hears in the early years and that child's success in school.

Now, from the Educational Testing Service, comes a report about "The Black-White Achievement Gap: When Progress Stopped," written by Paul E. Barton and Richard J. Coley. It examines the "startling" fact that most of the progress in closing the gap in reading and mathematics occurred in the 1970s and '80s. This means "progress generally halted for those born around the mid-1960s, a time when landmark legislative victories heralded an end to racial discrimination."

There are those in Georgia examining the state's history in education. In fact, just today, the Georgia Family Council released ...

What do you really know about education in Georgia?

Their Citizen's Guide to Education in Georgia covers virtually all aspects of primary and secondary education in Georgia. The guide includes:

• The history of education in the state
• Current forms of education (public, private, virtual and homeschooling)
• How education is funded
• How Georgia compares nationally relative to student achievement
• Trends in education spending, public school reform and parental choice in education

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Overall, DeKalb suffers from virtually all of the above societal issues. Our system is a majority African-American (72%), about 12% Hispanic and less than 10% white and 3-4% Asian and other. Our schools are 64% free and reduced lunch, bringing over $30 million annually to the system in Title 1 funds.  Funds that are not finding their way to the classroom and are instead funding an army of "supervisors" in the school administration.

We have a lot of work to do to bring the education of all of our students to a respectable level. Currently, some of our students do quite well, while others are not testing well at all. Our schools are not equal.  Some, like Fernbank, Oak Grove, Vanderlyn, Austin and Evansdale do quite well.  Others—merely a few miles away—are doing a very poor job. The achievement chasm is wide. And this is the reason that redistricting is being fought so hard.

The board, therefore, is in a quandary. They cannot simply redraw attendance lines and expect everything to be grand and glorious. If they try, they will enter a battle of wills like we've not seen in a very long time in DeKalb. They also cannot continue the culture of responding to the "squeaky wheels". They must fix what ails all of the schools first. They must offer a quality education at every school coupled with a healthy, well-rounded arts and physical education.  On top of that, they must insist on new teaching methods and tools and offer teachers a high level of support in their efforts in the classroom. Additionally, they must find a way to make high school interesting for boys (and girls) who struggle with the traditional learning environment—find a way to light a path for them to a future filled with hope.

As one of our regular bloggers so eloquently put it the other day,

Ultimately we need to spend less on buildings and more on instruction. In order to do that we need to reduce the number of schools in the district. We'll soon find out if our Board is willing to make the tough decisions or continue to accommodate citizens.

To me, that pretty much sums it up.

Ma Charrette - Oh lá lá!

I went to the Chamblee Charrette and thought I'd report back. The turnout was enormous - I would estimate approximately 300-350 at a minimum were present. The overwhelming majority appeared to be from Chamblee attendance but there were a few Lakeside, Dunwoody, and Cross Keys folks present.

Add "large projection screen" to the wish list

Everyone gathered in the Bulldogs' gym for an intro - I missed the first fifteen minutes but the format was fairly simple. While the group was assembled, a brief summary slide show was presented describing the "2020 Vision" thing. Then the MGT of America folks passed out remotes to everyone and guided us through a few live survey questions with results projected over head (kewl!). That was fun but not particularly enlightening.

A sample question was something like, "Do you think portable classrooms are a viable, long-term solution for capacity planning?" Strongly Agree -> Strongly Disagree ... really?

After that, smaller groups of thirty or so split up and migrated to various rooms to fill out a simple form rating a school facilities (your choice). Then, a facilitator guided us through some questions and discussion points about priorities and concerns. Again, nothing particularly interesting or new here. Most folks in my group were Chamblee parents and talked a lot about the bad facilities and the lack of trust of leadership and absolute paranoia about being districted out of Chamblee.

At the end of our session, one astute CMS parent asked if the MGT reports would be available for the public to review. At which point, the lead consultant, Dr. Carnes (I think I have that correct) came over and said all reports would be available through the school system. I pointed out that having direct access to the reports would be a good idea since trust, or lack thereof, was the major theme of the night and offered up our humble blog as an alternate medium.

Dr. Carnes brought up the recommendations from a similar effort in St. Louis and suggested we could look at that to see what to expect in the final report. They took the todo to find it and I believe I have spotted it already here:

MGT Report for SLPS

He did say with great confidence that they will put everything on the table as they did in St. Louis. In that case, they recommended the closure of twenty-nine schools. In the end, that system closed seventeen of those recommended. He was very adamant that their report would include specific school closures and re-districting plans among other recommendations. So, I think we can expect a  very interesting report from them. Whether our leadership takes the recommendations to heart is an entirely different matter.

The irony of sitting in a planning charrette in CCHS was not lost on me. Whatever expert recommendations might end up in the MGT report about the CCHS area they are dead before the surveying is done and it is written. That ship has sailed and CCHS programs and attendance areas are now in a protected status. So this begs the question: If the System can manage planning CCHS facilities and attendance with no charrette, why is it necessary anywhere?

Discuss ...