Separate, but Equal?

The idea of providing options is a valid point, Melanie. Many of us have gotten so caught up in the question of whether or not merger will make all Orange Co. schools equal that we have often failed to think about the drawbacks of eliminating choices. Reducing or eliminating choices is exactly what the possible merger is all about.

My spouse and I ultimately settled on CH (after looking throughout the Triangle and the region) because we were impressed with the school system. As potential parents, we felt this made the most sense to us. Over time, we have met people from other parts of the Triangle who, like us, had choices but decided to live elsewhere. For them, the CHCCS school system did not justify higher taxes and housing costs. We also know people who simply were not interested in a highly competitive and stressful education environment for their children.

Obviously, this "pro-choice" position would be somewhat hollow if the Orange Co. system were substandard. Of course, it is not. Based on its resources and its student performance on EOG tests, the Orange County system is well above average for the state. For some, it is an attractive alternative. If it does not remain so, the Triangle will be poorer for the loss.

WHOOPS! FOrgot to give kudos to Ms. Lancaster.

Mark, when you explain your comments thusly--they DO seem a little more "on topic." Perhaps if you parsed them FOR us (as you just did) it would make more sense to most of us.

Is Mark's statement about not wanting his taxes raised one good reason why (perhaps) the systems SHOULDN'T merge? I'm just throwing this out there--so please don't lambaste me--but one of the reasons we bought "much less" house in the city school system (as opposed to what we could have afforded in the county) was that my husband and I both believe in public education--and after serious research the CHCCS made the most sense to us. Please understand--20 years ago (when we bought our first house) the county, and the schools there, looked VERY different. Not neccessarily WORSE--just different, and we didn't think the county schools would meet the needs of our planned for children. (My husband, who grew up in rural KY, was adamant--he wanted his kids to have access to AP level science classes, etc.) We knew we could get more house and MUCH lower taxes, if we moved to the county, but we chose to buy in Carrboro. My point is, so long as there ARE two systems, then people who feel as Mark does have an alternative. Of course, it's a drag for the people who WANT the same sort of public schools CHCCS have and can't afford houses in the CHCCS district. hmmmmm........'tis a puzzlement.

Melanie

Melanie,

I didn't say that you did. But some people have so I was just tossing that off as an example.

I don't believe my comments have been off topic in the slightest. If you were considering installing a new engine in your car, it certainly wouldn't be off-topic to question whether or not that car is the best transportation, whether or not figuring out a way to use the bus system or maybe buying a bike might be a better option. I happen to think that the school system confuses education with schooling, is designed to serve purposes in our society that prevent us from improving as a society, inherently contradicts notions of individual freedom (which is a poor lesson for our children), and I'm not looking forward to having my taxes raised over it (especially when we don't have the political will to reduce the military budget to pay for social needs). That's my persepctive on merger in a larger context - I think it's like treating a cancer patient for a sprained ankle - and, while it may be different from a lot of other perspectives shared here, it's still on-topic.

Mark, I think you're drifing a little off-topic here. The subject is the question of merging the school systems.

Sorry to continue the off topic thread, but at first glance, it would seem that the Supreme Court agrees with you Mark. In Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972), the Court ruled against compulsory school attendence. At a closer look, though, it seems the Court believes that there is a compelling state-interest in compulsory attendence. In Yoder, the issue was Free Exercise--not "democracy." So, it looks like the Supreme Court DOES uphold compulsory attendence (as long as it doesn't violate first amendment rights.)

I'm as off-topic as someone equating success on standardized test scores with a quality education.

Mark--I have NEVER equated the two. WHen I said I washappy with the education my kids have received I was judging by their ability to think--that is, read various sources and formulate their OWN opinions. These are traits that were taught, not just by their father and myself, but by numerous teachers they had in the city school system. (Thanks Ms Clapp, Ms. Maxwell, Mr. Frescoln, Ms. Rhodes, Ms. Cutchin, Mr. Brogden, Mr. Sodeberg, Dr. Mullis....and the list goes on...)

melanie

The fact that the state requires schooling is anathema to democracy. Are we grown-ups or not?

Actually, to be more precise, forced schooling is anathema to freedom. Also, it's a little known fact that literacy rates were higher in the early days of the U.S. before the institution of compulsory schooling.

Excuse me Mark, but NC does NOT require "forced State schooling". Parents are perfectly welcome to home school, or privately school, their children. As to their being state standards, well I should hope so. Otherwise there would be ignorant people who chose not to school their children AT ALL. It is in a child's best interest to know how to read and do math--and a little history isn't a bad thing either. All the STATE requires is that they be schooled IN SOME FASHION. This is a problem?

Melanie

Melanie,

Schools are always very controversial. Not the least reason is that our kids are the central focus and there is such an emotional component. I just thought I'd point folks who are interested to the most knowledgable person on the big picture of public education, John Taylor Gatto. Personally, I can't think about the public school system without immediately wondering why - in a self-described "democracy" - everyone so willingly accepts the fact that our government requires forced state schooling. I think it is an amzing comment on the psychology of the masses and our national mythology that this particular observation seems so incrediblly far-out to just about everyone.

Just a couple of complications that make the comparison between the two districts less clear:

In Montgomery County, the county council provides funds for 77.2 percent of MCPS’ total expenditures. State education aid and grants contribute 15.7 percent, federal grants contribute 2.9 percent, enterprise funds supported by federal aid and fees make up 3.2 percent, and fees and all other sources of revenue total 1.0 percent.

Montgomery County levies an income tax (this year, 3.2%) in addition to its real property tax. The county also charges a fuel/energy tax. From what I can tell, all that money goes into the pot that the school budget ($1.4 billion) comes from.

How do you cancel a subscription to a free paper?

Oh yes - it is supported by real estate adds - it doesn't need people to pay for it.

Keep in mind this is the same paper that said the current process for taking public input for development of Horace Williams deserved an "A". That must not have been the same PR session I attended.

Eric Muller and Duncan Murrell both brought up interesting points about the relationship between socio-economic status (SES) and performance on standardized tests. I decided to look up the end-of-grade (EOG) pass rates and the economically disadvantaged (ED) rates for all 15 elementary schools in both districts. I plotted the results and performed a linear regression analysis for both EOG data sets (Math and Reading).

As might be expected, both data sets showed that school EOG pass rates drop as ED% increases. For math EOGs, a 1 point increase in ED% corresponds to a decrease in the pass rate by 0.12 points. In other words, the model predicts that an increase of eight points in ED% -- for example, 20% to 28% -- will result in a Math EOG pass rate decline of about 1 point. The R-squared for this model is 0.43 meaning that ED% explains 43% of model variance.

The impact of ED% on reading EOG pass rates is more pronounced. Each 1 percentage point increase in ED% reduces the Reading EOG pass rate by 0.27 percentage points. In other words, the model predicts that a 4 point increase in ED% would pull Reading EOG pass rates down by about one percentage point. In this model, R-squared is 0.59 or 59 percent -- fairly high considering there is only one variable.

For purposes of comparison, I also used school system as a dichotomous variable (CHCCS or Orange). It's explanatory power was relatively limited.

The available data were limited. The NC Report Card provides EOG pass rates but not raw scores. The ED% does not describe the degree of wealth or poverty of families, only the proportion that is economically disadvantaged.

Nonetheless, these findings suggest that the SES of a school's families might be of greater relevance than being in one district or the other. Some Orange schools with low levels of ED families had standardized scores that looked like CHCCS schools. CHCCS schools with a large ED population (Carrboro and FPG) had profiles similar to relatively disadvantaged Orange schools.

Why is no one discussing the Elephant In The Corner? IE:DEVELOPMENT. Chapel Hill is pretty much BUILT OUT. There is a great deal of undeveloped land in the county. Property values in CH are much higher/100 than in the county--largely because of the perception tht the City Schools are better. (C'mon--we know it's true. How many real estate adds do you see touting "Orange County Schools!"?) IF the schools are merged--that distinciton disappears..though I suspect a new one will emerge..."Home in [city school name] walk-zone..."

Melanie

Welcome aboard, Melanie.

Good question about development. Like you, I am surprised we have not heard more about that possibility. Often, a key question to ask when something like this comes up is "Who is going to make money from it?" It seems like it would be very profitable to have more "Chapel Hill" to sell to people.

Anyone else have thoughts about the ramifications for development?

"The truth is that America's unprecedented global power and spectacular material wealth are a direct product of a third-rate educational system, upon whose inefficiency in developing intellect and character they depend.If we educated better we could not sustain the corporate utopia we have made. Schools build national wealth by tearing down personal sovereignty, morality, and family life."

John Taylor Gatto, from "The Underground History of American Education

Comparing schools by test scores may not present a complete picture. Test scores report only on basic subjects such as language arts and math. It's been my understanding that one of the county parents' points of contention is the disparity in quality and breadth of the county curricular offerings and those of the city district. OCS does not offer the music or foreign language opportunities that CHCCS students have due to a lack of funding (teacher salaries). Along with salaries, it would be necessary to consider availability of qualified teachers for those subjects who would choose to work in the county vs. town. If the districts would cooperate, those curricular inequities could probably be overcome, although that would probably entail bussing. Why should county kids not have the same level of direct access to art education and other non-tested subjects that town kids have? In this example, money and opportunity are directly linked. It's very unfortunate the public debate on merger has focused so entirely on taxes and barely acknowledged the differences in curriculum and opportunity between the two systems.

Mark--?!?!? Just HOW is that quote relevant? I'm pretty proud of the way my older kid turned out--a product (k-12!) of CHCCS. And the younger one is shaping up pretty nicely as well. Of course, we spend a lot of time talking about politics, current events, and how no single source should be taken as Gospel--even the Gospels disagree with one another at times! Of course, I don't expect the SCHOOLS to parent our KIDS--that is OUR job, thank you very much. But, so far, mine have learned their subject matter in a timely fashion. Which is what school is for.

Melanie

Eric brings up a valid point, which also occurred to me when I considered my own education.

I grew up in Montgomery County, Md., which is one of the Maryland counties that abuts Washington, D.C. It's a very wealthy county, mainly because of the concentration of wealth in Potomac, Chevy Chase, and Bethesda, a concentration that diminishes as you move further through the urban ring and out into the country. Even though it was a high population county, it was also heavily rural in the other half of the county while I was growing up there. (The Montgomery County Fair was one of the largest county fairs on the east coast when I was growing up, and the county had one of the state's most active 4-H programs, of which I was a member.)

This was a county school system -- there was no special city school district. And there still isn't. I'm not sure how long the Montgomery County school district has been around, but it's at least thirty-five years old as a unified district. Clouding the comparison, it's also the 18th largest and 12th fastest growing school system in the United States, according to last year's figures -- far larger than a unified Orange County district would be.

Even so, with one school board controlling the purse strings, it was always perceived that some schools were "better" than others, and those schools tended to be in the urban area of the county. Walt Whitman High School (Bethesda) has perennially been considered one of the top public high schools in the country, even back when I was a kid. It was also one of the biggest high schools in the county. Poolesville High School, in the most rural corner of the county, was the smallest, and would never have been compared to Whitman. (Nevertheless, I knew kids through 4-H who went there, and they liked it, and they went off to good colleges). I think Poolesville is still one of the smallest, and it's still in the most rural area of the county.

Going beyond perception, and adopting just a few of the metrics that people on either side of this debate have adopted in comparing the Orange County system with the Chapel Hill/Carrboro system, here are the latest stats on Walt Whitman High School and Poolesville High School:

Poolesville:

Total Operating costs (professional salaries, supporting service salaries, substitutes, benefits, instructional supplies/support, facility costs) : $7,064,312

Total number of students: 753

Per-pupil spending from county-allocated budget: $9,381

SAT participation: 77%

Average Math score: 577

Average Verbal score: 559

Whitman:

Total operating costs: $14,369,959

Total number of students: 1,894

Per-pupil spending from county allocated budget: $7,587

SAT participation: 92%

Average Math score: 633

Average Verbal score: 609

I should point out that Whitman draws kids from some of the wealthiest families in a wealthy county, and the school's booster club is extremely active and well-heeled; the disparity in per-pupil funding, from county money, is therefore a little misleading. And yet, since we're talking about what would be achieved by equilibrating, in real terms, the public money spent per-pupil throughout all of Orange County, I think it's useful to compare these two high schools in Montgomery County. Note that Poolesville is not at all underfunded by that criteria, and yet by one of the points of comparison people have used to compare the Chapel Hill-Carrboro system to the Orange County system -- SAT participation and average scores, which I think is an unfair way of comparing, but nevermind -- Poolesville clearly lags behind Whitman.

I won't propose a reason why, because I'm not sure you can point to one reason, or boil it down to a number. I also don't mean to present this as an argument against merger, not by a long shot. Growing up in a unified district meant greater opportunity for interaction through sports, music, science and debate competitions, and on and on -- it was just more fun, and you got a better idea of what the whole county was like, not just your little corner of it.

But I wonder if the meaning of merger has been put in the proper perspective. I think it's likely, as Eric Muller points out, that you'd still see a relatively wide range of school performance (however you want to measure it) in a unified school district with perfectly equitable per-pupil spending. (And, if Montgomery County is any indication, you might not close those gaps even if you skew the per-pupil spending toward the lower performing schools.) Maybe Matt Compton and Mark Chilton are coming closer to describing the most salient point -- that if one body, the BoCC, has funding responsibility for two school systems, and it allows one to be better funded than the other through the implementation of a district tax that the BoCC themselves set, then it's hard to escape the perception that one district is favored over the other, and that this is an issue of political courage or lack thereof (Mark Chilton's point?) and an ethical/moral question (Matt Compton's point?). Debatable points, both of them -- but they seem to get closer to what's really roiling under the surface of all this.

And, if we can accept the Montgomery County experience as even a little applicable here, even if merger won't make every school in the county a carbon copy of each other -- Poolesville still lags -- neither is it right to think that the city schools will inevitably suffer --Whitman has always been, is, and probably always will be one of the top public high schools in the nation, despite being part of a unified school district for as long as I can remember.

I agree with Jim Protzman that both sides of this debate tend to talk past each other, and I wonder if it isn't because the terms of the debate are all wrong.

Let's not get too crazy about this. A vast majority of residents in both the county and town oppose merger. As a state representative told me "there is no public support for it".

If several of the commissioners STILL have not made up their mind on merger they could not have possibly run for election with a view on it and thus it would be very difficult for them to vote on it and claim to represent the voters. (representative democracy??)

The county is in the top 15% in funding no matter how you dissect the funds. kudos to the commissioners on this.

If the commissioners raised property tax 4 pennies a year for 5 years the schools would have equal funding. If they don't it must not be that bad. Or if they started in 1986 (when they were told to do this) at a penny a year we would already have equal funding.

Unfortunately (or fortunately you decide) the county folks elect people to THEIR school board who don't want to raise anymore taxes.

Now you are left to tell the county folk you as a town elite know what is best for them and their elected officials are stupid and you well help culture the hillbillies. By the way we must dissolve both democratically elected school boards and replace them with an appointed one (bannana republic/developing world style).

(this is a lot like what UNC-CH told the other state reps to raise the out of state cap.)

2/3 of the kids attend the town schools and there are far more negatives in a merger than positives so lets not forget about them either.

TAXES YES - DEMOCRACY YES - COUPS and MERGER NO

Let's also not forget that the commissioners main charge is to fund the schools not determine curricula or whether differentiation or gifted classes are bettter.

They seem to want to do more than fund the schools equally.

[DELETED:OFF-TOPIC]

Reading today's news about the tone, tenor and substance of school system merger discussions, I'm reminded of the Middle East conflict where the two sides talk past one another in grand and sanctimonious flourishes. Perhaps we need some freelancing peacemakers meeting in Geneva to think outside the Orange County box.

As I see it, there are an infinite number of possibilities through which important and shared goals could be addressed across our two school systems -- including but not limited to the few suggested by the commissioners. What's missing seems to be a spirit of collaboration designed to produce win-win outcomes. Instead, we have knee-jerk responses on both sides -- as is almost always the case here in Camelot -- with people digging in to prove they're right, without bothering to consider creative alternatives. This is not surprising. Most of our elected officials have demonstrated a disdain for innovation and creativity.

Yesterday's pro-merger editorial in the Chapel Hill News takes the award for nastiest public insinuation in the merger debate. (It's at http://www.chapelhillnews.com/opinion/story/949999p-6820526c.html) Here's what the paper said:

"The greater fear, not voiced so openly, is that the county schools somehow would pull down the quality of the city schools. If funding has anything do with quality, and we think it does, that shouldn’t happen, because state law requires that a merged system be funded at the level of the higher-funded system. Any other presumed degradation rests upon perceived abilities of Orange County students, and we don’t believe the student gene pool is any lower – or higher – because of geography."

Get that? The paper wants us to believe that are only two potential explanations for the lower performance of students in the county than students in the city: funding or genetically imprinted dullness. Right-thinking people (maybe the "people of good will" the paper refers to at the end of the piece?) will accept that the cause of disparity is funding; boorish city parents will quietly insist that county kids are genetically inferior to city kids.

How, I'd like to know, would the Chapel Hill News account for the difference in performance between kids at the two elementary schools my girls have attended--Carrboro and Glenwood? (Note up front: what does *not* account for the difference is English-as-a-second-language; only 2% more kids at Carrboro are non-native speakers than at Glenwood.) According to the report cards on the schools that are now available on the web (http://www.ncreportcard.org), Carrboro’s test scores for the 2002-03 school year were 81.3 for reading and 87.9 for math. Glenwood’s were 94 for reading and above 95 for math (above 95, they don't tell you the actual number).

One thing you can say for sure: what accounts for the difference is *not* a funding disparity. They're both city schools. I certainly never heard while I was a Carrboro parent that Carrboro was significantly underfunded compared to other city elementary schools.

So what might explain the difference? Must we assume that it's genetics? Or might we look instead to the fact (again, I'm looking at the schools' report cards on the web) that 38% of kids at Carrboro are “economically disadvantaged,” while 24% of kids at Glenwood are in that category?

The Carrboro/Glenwood distinction tells us quite clearly that educational "quality" (which is what the editorial is talking about) will not be equal in the city and the county just because funding is equal. There will still be significant disparities in performance between county and city schools in a regime of equal funding, and once those disparities are noted, there will be calls (and perhaps legally enforceable mandates) to narrow the gap between city and county schools. That, in turn, will require *reallocation* of funding and opportunity within the merged district--toward programs and curriculum geared to raising the level of performance of the more troubled county schools.

That may be a worthy objective. Or it may not be. But we should be able to debate its merits without one side's smearing the other as believers in the underpinnings of eugenics.