CMS: Educational Apartheid
CMS officials, not surprisingly, disagree. Gorman, who conceded that the concept of clustering all of a district’s Title I schools underneath the umbrella of one administrative zone is untested, said it was being done in an effort to provide the best support for those schools at a time when the district is in dire financial straits.
In addition to being staffed at the same administrative levels as the other learning community zones, the Central Zone will also have literacy and math specialists to support its elementary and secondary Title I schools.
CMS Chief Academic Officer Ann Clark said that will help shift the focus of Title I schools from what had previously been as much about bureaucratic compliance, to one that is focused more on providing academic support for the schools.
That might sound good in theory, but several school board members weren’t sold on the idea in practice.
“Putting all poverty together has never been a good practice,” said Joyce Waddell. “I haven’t seen it work well. It gives the perception that we’re separate, but trying to be equal.”
Waddell encouraged Gorman and staff to revisit the Central Zone plan and either scrap it altogether, or provide an alternative that retains the purported academic benefits without concentrating high-poverty schools.
“There are a number of people, myself included, who believe that what Mecklenburg does better than anything else is find reasons to segregate,” said board member Richard McElrath. “We use race, we use economics, we use housing patterns, and now we’re going to use learning centers.
“It disturbs me to no end to think that we’re going to have separate but equal all over again,” he said. “People just aren’t going to be ready to go along with that.”
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