Thar She Blows! CMS Lands Broad Prize
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools learned this week that it finally won the coveted Board Prize, after years of yearning and hundreds of millions of dollars spent in pursuit of the elusive Holy Grail of urban education.
Indeed, during his tenure at the helm, former Superintendent Peter Gorman at times seemed on an almost Ahabian quest to land the Broad (rhymes with road) Prize, with frequent travels to all points of the compass, hobnobbing with Broad boosters and true believers, scoring points and making inroads wherever and whenever he could. Some of the more obscenely pricey initiatives Gorman and his predecessors pushed to implement, in fact, were in direct alliance with achievement benchmarks and goals used to judge Broad finalists and winners.
The annual Broad competition pits a pool of 75 eligible school districts from across the country that are selected based on size (at least 37,000 students), poverty levels (at least 40 percent free or reduced-price meals), and minority enrollment levels (at least 40 percent minority). The winning school district gets $550,000 in scholarship money and bragging rights as the top urban school district in the nation.
Based on some of the criteria used to award the distinction – graduation rates, improvements in student proficiency levels, reductions in achievement gaps – it begs the question: if CMS is the best, how bad are some of the rest?
Graduation rates? Don’t even go there.
Boosting academic proficiency and closing achievement gaps? Ditto.
After pumping mind-numbing loads of loot into initiatives that have done everything from funnel extra money into high-poverty/low-performing schools and dole out monetary incentives to lure effective teachers to the same, to turbo-charging teacher development and deep-mining for data-driven metrics, CMS managed to shave all of 4 points off the gap between the percentage of black students scoring at or above proficiency levels on end-of-grade math tests (grades 3-8) compared to white students. For the 2008-09 school year, the gap stood at 33 percent, dropping to 29 percent for the 2010-11 school year. The situation was even worse for economically challenged students compared to non-economically challenged students, with the achievement gap actually increasing from 23 percent to 25 percent.
Jump in the way-back machine and the numbers show that from the 2005-06 school year to the 2010-11 school year, the achievement gap has narrowed from 39 percent to 29 percent for black students compared to white students scoring at or above grade level on end-of-grade math tests, and from 34 percent to 25 percent for economically challenged students compared to non-economically challenged students.
Similar numbers hold true for achievement gaps on end-of-grade reading tests. For the 2008-09 school year, there was a 40 percent gap between black students and white students scoring at or above grade level, dropping to 37 percent for the 2010-11 school year; meanwhile, the gap increased from 30 percent to 34 percent for economically challenged students compared to non-economically challenged students.
Composite end-of-grade reading results for the 2010-11 school year showed only 48 percent of black students scoring at or above grade-level proficiency in reading; 47 percent of economically challenged students; 49 percent of Hispanic students; 70 percent of Asian students; and 85 percent of white students. Composite results for math showed 63 percent of black students scoring at or above grade-level; 65 percent of economically disadvantaged students; 70 percent of Hispanic students; 85 percent of Asian students; and 92 percent of white students.
For the 2010-11 school year, overall, scores declined in 15 of 22 areas tested on state exams, with scores dropping in seven of eight areas tested for high school students.
Those results and that progress, apparently, are golden enough to get a district named as the very best in modern-day urban education. I don’t know exactly what that portends for the state or fate of government-run, public schools in our country, but I’m pretty sure it’s not good.
In any event, congratulations to CMS – they’ve finally harpooned their very own Broad whale.
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