CMS: Educational Apartheid
Some called it “educational apartheid,” others “a return to segregation,” and regardless of the catch phrase they used, none were happy with Superintendent Peter Gorman’s initiative that will lump all of the district’s Title I schools into a newly created Central Zone learning community.
Title I is educrat code for high-poverty, low-performing schools, the majority of which usually have high populations of Black and Hispanic students. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools has 66 schools classified as Title I, which are eligible for millions of dollars of federal funding for specialized academic and supplemental support.
The new Central Zone, spawned as part of budget cuts that trim the number of regional learning communities from seven to five, supplants the so-called Achievement Zone that included a cluster of 11 academically struggling schools. The Central Zone will be divided into two categories: Elementary, which will oversee 44 elementary schools; and Secondary, which will cover 12 middle schools and eight high schools.
The reorganization of the learning communities, and the creation of the Central Zone that’s part and parcel of the process, is scheduled to be implemented for the new school year.
None of the Title I schools absorbed into the Central Zone will physically move from their current locations. There won’t be a giant, barbwire-covered brick wall surrounding the 66 schools, with a bright neon sign overhead that reads “Poor, Low-Performing, Black & Hispanic Kids Here,” although you would have thought so judging from the howls critics of the new Central Zone slung during Tuesday’s school board meeting.
They say clumping Title I schools into the same zone socially stigmatizes them, marginalizes and neglects the high-performing students who attend the schools, while shortchanging the low-performing ones.
“Being in the Achievement Zone was sort of embarrassing, but it had real benefit for Shamrock [Gardens Elementary],” said Pamela Grundy, a long-time and vocal advocate of the school, which will become part of the Central Zone.
“It’s not by accident that Shamrock was the best funded school per pupil in the system and it’s also not an accident that our students logged a lot of growth during those years,” she said.
But as CMS faces budget cuts that threaten to increase classroom size and cut teachers at high-poverty schools, Grundy said, “it appears the schools in the proposed Central Zone won’t benefit from those kind of targeted resources.”
“At this point,” she said, “it’s just segregation.”
1 2
We need your help! If you like PunditHouse, please consider donating to us. Even $5 a month can make a difference!
Short URL: https://pundithouse.com/?p=1604
