This is a thread for posting results and also for looking at the aggregated totals from our Pundit of the Year contest. (A winner won't be announced until results are final.)
I'll be watching this page for Orange County election results (be sure to page through as it does not show all races on one page).
Here's what our pundits think:
| County Board of Education (choose 3) | ||||||||||
| Al Hartkopf | 11 | |||||||||
| Eddie M. Eubanks | 7 | |||||||||
| Jeff Michalski | 3 | |||||||||
| Stan Morris | 1 | |||||||||
| Stephen H. Halkiotis | 13 | |||||||||
| Tony McKnight | 7 | |||||||||
| County Commissioner, At-Large | ||||||||||
| Bernadette Pelissier | 14 | |||||||||
| County Commissioner, District 2 | ||||||||||
| Leo L. Allison | 4 | |||||||||
| Luther K. Brooks | 1 | |||||||||
| Steve Yuhasz | 8 | |||||||||
| Tommy T. McNeill | 1 | |||||||||
| District Court Judge, District 15B | ||||||||||
| Glenn Gerding | 1 | |||||||||
| Page Vernon | 13 | |||||||||
| Land Transfer Tax | ||||||||||
| Against | 11 | |||||||||
| For | 3 | |||||||||
| NC Senate, District 23 | ||||||||||
| Ellie Kinnaird | 11 | |||||||||
| Moses Carey | 3 | |||||||||
| US Congress, District 4 | ||||||||||
| Augustus Cho | 3 | |||||||||
| William (B.J.) Lawson | 11 | |||||||||
Issues:
Comments
I'm confused
If CES was recognized as a high achieving school would anyone care what the FRL % was? It isn't a cause/effect situation. High FRL% doesn't = low test scores.
Rob
I agree with you on the high
I agree with you on the high FRL doesn't = low test scores, but there are just as many who believe it does.
Let me also state that the Board is the one who draws the attendance lines for the schools. The Board has less control over HES or a school that is set up as a magnet type and that may have more to do with this situation than we know.
You are right
"The Board has less control over HES or a school that is set up as a magnet type and that may have more to do with this situation than we know."
You are exactly right.
When the Board first discussed taking federal Title 1 funds away from Central and Efland Cheeks to create a district-wide Pre-K program, the reason was not the academic opportunities it provided at-risk children. Rather, it was the Board's desire to control the school where people could send their kids.
Without the Title 1 funding, Central and Efland Cheeks were not subject to the "sanctions" under No Child Left Behind - the primary of which was the right for parents to opt-out and send their kids to a higher performing school.
Whereas, the average school district under Title 1 School Improvement can expect less than 2% of parents to opt out of its failing schools, Orange County had over 12% of its parents opt out.
I feel that these numbers were embarassing for some Board members and they felt the need to exert their control by taking that choice away from parents in the county's lowest performing schools.
less than 2% average and over 12% for Orange County
Allan,
Can you give us a link to validate your assertions that over 12% of students opted out of CES and ECES?
12% opting out of Orange County Schools is inaccurate
After some research, the % of students opting out of Schools of Improvements is actually slightly higher than 8%. This figure is still significantly high, but not the % that was shown before.
Actually, both numbers are accurate
I am sorry for not responding earlier to the postings related to my claims about opt-out percentages. I haven't checked this thread in a while, so I didn't see the comments until now.
My numbers are, in fact, accurate. And, if you take into account the other two avenues for "opting out" of both Central and Elfand Cheeks Elementary schools (administrative transfers and HES enrollment) the percentage of parents who have chosen to "opt out" of those two schools is more like 35%.
I wrote about this situation last August and September with details for how the numbers were calculated, but I will provide a synopsis here.
First, for the average opt-out rate for a school in School Improvement status:
According to a 2006 Vanderbilt University study, "hardly any students and their families are actually exercising the choice option. In 2005-2006, only about 1.6 percent of all eligible students took advantage of transferring to a school that was making AYP." This rate is very close to what was seen in both Wake and Durham counties for the current school year.
As for the Orange County opt-out rate:
For the 2006-2007 school year (prior to anyone being allowed to opt out) the Orange County School District claimed student populations of 300 students at Central Elementary and 439 at Efland Cheeks Elementary (the only two schools required to allow NCLB opt outs). (I have the District's document in .pdf format if anyone cares to see it.) That makes a total of 739 students eligible to opt-out for the 2007-2008 school year.
According to The Daily Tar Heel, " Ninety-two students took advantage of the transfer option."
Doing the math: 92 / 739 = .12449 or 12.45%
As for my other number, if you count all the children zoned to Efland Cheeks and Central Elementary schools who have been granted administrative transfers to other schools (50), the number who transfered out under NCLB (92) and the number previously attending HES (212), you get 35% "opting out."
Doing the math: 354 / 1001 = .3536 or 35.36%
Anonymous, would you care to share how you calculated your opt-out rate of 8%?
Furnished by the Central Office
A few county demographics...
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/37/37135.html
It is a bit frustrating that the town and countywide figures are from 2 different years, which makes it harder to take the town out and get a better picture of the school district.
According to a 2006 estimage posted on the US Census site:
Estimated population = 120,100 countywide
78.9% White
13.3% Black or African American
5.9% Asian
19.9% under the age of 18
12.6% below poverty (estimate from 2004)
Estimated population of Chapel Hill as of 2003 = 49,301
77.9% White
11.4% Black or African American
7.2% Asian
15.1% under the age of 18
21.6% below poverty (estimate from 1999)
So - the statement that a given school is over 80% white really doesn't do to much for me. Plus, the school board actions were not designed to balance race - but socioeconomic status.
And honestly, I'm trying to figure out what money HES has "taken" from Orange County Schools. Funding is distributed based on a formula per student. Over the past few years, Title I funds were allocated to CES and ECES in order to provide services to children at those schools. Because of NCLB sanctions, the Board made an, in my mind, ill-conceived plan to stop children from transferring away from those schools by removing the Title I plans. HES parents are indeed outraged over that shell game as well as over the lack of attention paid to children who are not at HES.
The past two years should never have been allowed to become an us-them fight. As an HES parent, I did speak at board meetings more than once because I value the year-round calendar. I would love to see more children enrolled at HES and more diversity at the school. But the BOE made a decision somewhere along the line to focus on how to model a merged or paired school rather than to try to figure out WHY parents are resistant to the year-round calendar (is it a budget issue, is it a vacation issue, is it family time??? is it tradition???).
On another note - while I am not at all happy to see the way in which the Title I funds were moved, I do think that a strong pre-kindergarten program will be beneficial to all children in the county and hope that it can provide the acadmic support to children who need it.
K
K your numbers mean nothing
more than one town
Depends on the question you ask.
I admit these numbers are just one view of the county-wide statistics - they do come from a credible source (at least one hopes the Census bureau is a credible source). I'm a 40+ year old woman... I don't attend the schools in Orange County either. But I live in the county and have a child in the county schools. My point was to show that county wide we should not be surprised. E's argument was equally flawed.
If you want to pull the population of school aged children and present it - go for it. But also try to figure out the percentages in private schools, home schools, and charter schools not just the public schools to get a clearer picture of the district wide population of children eligible to be in the schools.
In doing more research after my gut reaction post above - I did learn that the town of Hillsborough has a vastly different split - when looking at the group which self identifies only one race on the 2000 census - 60.3% white, 34.8% black or African American - which may tell more of the story about the populations of the neighborhood schools.
I also have serious doubts about the way the % of people living below poverty was reported on the various census sites - and I have neither the access nor the energy to explore how FRL is categorized and mapped.
My point - is that one number should not be used to scare or divide.
I concede that the population at HES is skewed, and welcome any and all new students and well considered ideas to gather a more diverse population.
K
K a little history lesson
I had a family member serve on the year round school organization committee when it was proposed 4 supertendants ago. There was to be NO transportation provided by the school system. We have transportation now to certain areas to help increase the minority numbers at HES. When the school system changed the application process to give disadvantaged family more of an opportunity to get into HES there was noise from the current HES parents at the time. Then the merger idea came up and there has been alot of noise from cureent HES parents. One footnote to this, the next elementary school built was to replace HES and that didn't happen. E's numbers are what they are, I may not agree with E opinion on race or money issues.
If I recall there is some 7,000 or less students in the County School System and to use census data of 120,100 to show the breakdown is just misleading! I recall that the merger study that the commissioner did showed that asian student were 1% in the county whereas they are 10% or more in CH/Carrboro and african American percentage numbers were higher in the County system than CH/Carrboro. I am sure you can search for the merger study on the Commissioner web site.
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