Into The Lion’s Den; West Charlotte Schools Could Reap Millions In Additional Funding
Several of the elementary schools that the board’s recent vote will transform into new K-8 grade models next year, for example, feed into West Charlotte High: Bruns Avenue, Walter G. Byers, Druid Hills, and Thomasboro. While others, like Lincoln Heights and Irwin Avenue elementary schools and J.T. Williams and Spaugh middle schools, will be shuttered with a majority of their students flowing into the newly formed K-8 schools and, barring significant student assignment changes, ultimately into West Charlotte.
In light of anticipated budget cuts facing the district, the question of maintaining CMS’ weighted student staffing formula, where mostly schools that serve economically disadvantaged students receive additional teacher resources, has also come into sharp focus. The district spends about $48 million for weighted student staffing, and a concern is that budget cuts would force CMS to scale back its funding formula for schools that have been receiving the additional teacher resources.
Could the ISG’s initiative and funding be focused on launching the new K-8 school models, or to craft a Harlem Children’s Zone-like initiative that’s all the rage since “Waiting For Superman” hit theaters, or to help keep weighted student staffing levels intact at high poverty schools that feed into West Charlotte High?
All of that remains to be seen, as the ISG committee has been holding a majority of its decision-making meetings in private. It is interesting to note, however, that the committee recently received a presentation from Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach For America, among other education models and initiatives the committee has been studying.
Also unknown is how any funding donated by the ISG would weave its way into CMS. One possibility that has been openly discussed would be to create a new foundation to distribute any private dollars parallel to the ISG’s stated goals. Another possibility, McCrary said, would be to form an umbrella group that combines myriad Westside community organizations that currently operate as independent entities.
Whatever the ultimate initiative and funding level the ISG recommends, however, both CMS officials and ISG committee members insist that any parallel between school board decisions that heavily impacted West side schools and the ISG’s decision to focus its efforts and resources on the same West Charlotte corridor is purely coincidental.
“There really is no correlation,” said Mayor Anthony Foxx, who sits on the 13-member ISG committee. “Nobody on the ISG committee knew what was going to happen with CMS and school closings. What drove that focus (on the West Charlotte corridor) was data that showed on student achievement.”
To that end, the ISG committee reached its decision by using graduation rates as a determining factor. Despite recent improvements, West Charlotte High’s graduation rate is still the lowest in the district: 51 percent last year versus a district average of nearly 70 percent.
“We focused on graduation rates because they’re the bottom line,” said Anna Spangler Nelson, one of the ISG committee co-chairs. “While we’d like to see graduation rates higher across the entire system, the opportunity to leverage results in a corridor of schools currently yielding the lowest graduation rate in the system may ultimately point us to a replicable path for a greater number of schools.”
West Charlotte High’s recent academic growth, with the number of students rated as “proficient” growing from 40 percent to 72 percent over the last four years, also factored into the decision, Foxx said.
“It speaks to the community support that’s already in place, and that’s going to be key moving forward,” he said. “There’s strong engagement there as a platform, from businesses, churches, neighborhood groups, parents, that we think can be used as momentum to build on.”
School Board member Kaye McGarry said any initiative coming from the ISG should focus on something new to the district, particularly given the additional resources that have already been devoted to West Charlotte corridor schools and the less-than-dramatic academic results they have produced.
“Continuing to throw money at the problem is clearly not the answer,” McGarry said. “We’ve been doing that for years and what do we have to show for it?”
Instead of enhancing existing CMS initiatives or programs, McGarry suggested the ISG could better use some of its private dollars by helping turn schools slated for closure into public charter schools.
“I hope it would be bold,” she said of the ISG recommendation. “Not just in terms of funding, but how you structure that change for teachers, students and parents to take ownership and responsibility.”
The ISG committee has previously stated its intent to tailor an initiative to fit within CMS operations, focused on achieving goals set by the district, instead of creating alternatives to existing schools.
“It’s a testament to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools that there is a group of community and business leaders who believe enough in our school system and superintendent to donate millions of dollars not for something to compete with our system, but to help it achieve even more gains,” said Board of Education Chairman Eric Davis.
In that vein, he said it was appropriate to have private dollars enhance the district’s budget for targeted areas, at a time when deep cuts could jeopardize academic gains CMS has made at some of its most challenged schools.
“It would be doing something incremental, over and above our resources, to accelerate student achievement,” Davis said. “You can’t measure impacts to scale without a lot of money.”
Members of the CMS Investment Study Group Committee: Anna Spangler Nelson, co-chair, C.D. Spangler Foundation; Richard “Stick” Williams, co-chair, Duke Energy Foundation; Charles Bowman , Bank of America; Gene Cochrane , The Duke Endowment; Jay Everette, Wachovia-Wells Fargo; Anthony Foxx , Mayor of Charlotte; Dr. Ophelia Garmon-Brown , Novant Health; Thomas Lawrence , The Leon Levine Foundation; Ronald Leeper, R.J. Leeper Construction; Katie Belk Morris, Belk Foundation; Calvin Murphy , NC Superior Court Judge; Susan Patterson , John S. and James L. Knight Foundation; Calvin Wallace, retired educator
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