-
Fraud Found in Lunch Programs (July 2008) - Discusses fraud found in
applications for F&R programs. In other words, the data Wake County is using to
determine who to bus is extremely suspect.
- Speaking the right language on education
(July 2, 2008) - Discusses programs being undertaken in Charlotte to help
improve education for poor students and English as a Second Language students.
Note that they do not involve busing, but rather programs targeted to help these
children directly...
- Students in Clayton concerned,
Student wants to see if Obama can help Clayton schools,
Police escort board member out amid cheers,
SACS Report on Clayton schools
(June 2008) - A series of articles on a Georgia school district facing loss of
accreditation and a parent revolt thanks to a focus on things other than
education. If you don't think the same thing can happen here, you need to read
the last Curriculum Audit
performed on Wake County (fall of 2007) to see how much the focus on educating
children has been lost.
-
Wake Diversity Busing Plan Runs Up Against Diesel Costs (June 2008) - See
page 11 of this edition of the
Carolina Journal for a discussion of Wake County's busing program and the
rising costs of fuel.
- States Grapple With Fuel
Costs for School Buses (May 30, 2008) - An AP article listing some of the ways
education is being cut to pay for rising fuel costs for busing.
- County Power Hems
In School Board (May 22, 2008) - Turns out the Wake County Commissioners have
more authority than they thought they did to dictate HOW the school board spends
the money they give them.
- Held Back
In School 25 Years (April 26, 2008) - An opinion piece from George Will with
some interesting data on how public school performance has declined since the Federal
Government got involved and major reforms started happening in how we educate our
children. Talks about reports showing that family involvement is more important
than money when educating children, and lists many of the failed educational experiments
that have used our children as guinea pigs.
-
Transportation Costs: An Eye Opener (April 15, 2008) - Another Blog post with
data on how much more is being spent on transportation and busing than in past years.
- Soaring
Fuel Prices Hurts Kids (April 10, 2008) - A CNN/Money article on how soaring
fuel prices are forcing districts to cut back basic educational programs to continue
meeting busing needs. Again, we could better use the money we spend on busing F&R
kids around the county to improve the schools close to their homes.
- Editorial in Favor
of At-Large Elections (April 8, 2008) - An editorial making the case for at-large
elections of school board members, pointing out how inefficiently the current district-based
scheme works.
- A Rebuttal
to the Wake Education Partnership (April 1, 2008) - On February 14, 2008, the
Wake Education Partnership released a brochure entitled "Striking a Balance: In
Support of Diversity in the Wake County Public School System" that attempted to
provide evidence supporting Wake County's diversity busing program. This rebuttal
refutes many of the points in that brochure, including the claims that we have "excellent
schools" as a result, and it brings quite the pile of facts to back itself up (as
opposed to many of the twisted numbers WCPSS tries to present in its favor).
-
Followup Comments on Joint Meeting (March 27, 2008) - A Blog post from
Save Our Students, interesting for its analysis of the polls that Wake County
loves to use to prove support for Mandatory Year Round and bond issues.
- Wake 2008 Magnet
/ Calendar Applications (March 12, 2008) - As you read this, the question you
should be asking is "if year-round schools are the solution to our capacity woes,
and MANDATORY year-round is such a hotly debated topic, how could they only find
seats for HALF the people who WANTED a year-round seat?" You should also keep in
mind that the way they found room for all the traditional opt-outs was by ripping
kids out of those seats and sending them elsewhere. For example, students in nodes
371.2 and 371.3 were pulled out of Weatherstone to make room for traditional opt-outs.
This was the third move in the last 8 years for some of these families. And for
those moved to new year-round schools, their traditional opt-out was NOT the school
they were just assigned out of.
- Inspiring
Parents; Educating Youth (Spring 2008) - From the University of Minnesota, talks
about the Learning Dreams program which works to foster parental involvement in
the education of their children. The pilot project was done in a housing project
and resulted in huge educational gains for these economically disadvantaged children.
This shows that their are alternatives to busing if your primary goal is education
the children, AND that parental involvement is key, something that is made more
difficult by busing children across the county.
-
Closer to "home" (2008) - From the Oregon School Boards Association, talks about
a school built on a smaller land footprint so it can be built in a neighborhood,
reducing transportation costs in their fast-growing community and allow easier use
of the school facilities (such as the playground) after-hours.
- Pollution Lowers IQ (February
15, 2008) - Talks about how kids that are exposed to high levels of traffic pollution
tend to have lower IQs. When you read it, think about the hour-long bus rides Wake
County likes to send kids on.
- Wichita Busing Ended
(January 2008) - Wichita school systems stop busing for desegregation, and impose
a limit on how far students can be bused to a school.
-
Case for Busing Blows a Tire (November 14, 2007) - Shows that poor students
in Charlotte, where forced busing has been eliminated, are performing at the
same level as poor students in Wake County, indicating that forced busing is not
having a positive impact on education after all.
-
Sending Poor Kids to Middle-Class Schools Doesn't Fix the System
(October 3, 2007) - An article examining various school systems that have tried
busing poor kids to middle-class schools and how they all failed to meet the goal
of improving educational opportunities for all.
- Integration Boosts
Low-Income Kids, but... (September 19, 2007) - An article that discusses how
family involvement is a much larger factor in the education of high-poverty students
than where they attend school.
-
There They Go Again (July 24, 2007) - Discusses Wake County's socio-economic
busing scheme and shows that despite Wake County's claims of success, test
scores in the state as a whole improved about the same (in some cases) more than
in Wake County, pointing to state factors rather than county factors in the
improvement.
-
Family Involvement in School and Low-Income Children's Literacy Performance
(January 2007) - Research showing a link between family involvement and literacy
in low-income students.
- Illiterates Everywhere!
(September 26, 2005) - Pokes holes in the "improving test scores" claim made by
WCPSS and re-iterated in a New York Times piece (available
here). These numbers and this article are often used as part of the "proof"
that F&R busing works.
- Mapping 2005
State Proficiency Scores (June 2007) - This document normalizes reported state
test scores. Under No Child Left Behind, states have some freedom in determining
what tests to use and how to grade them to determine proficiency. This document
smooths those out to offer direct comparisons between states. It shows that North
Carolina is one of the worst for using this freedom to deceive its citizens about
how students are doing on their proficiency tests.
-
Key Lessons: High-Performing, High-Poverty Schools (August 19, 2005) - Summarizes
experiences of various school systems in improving education in high poverty schools.
A good read for how to FIX the schools we have that are underperforming, rather
than hiding the problem by busing kids all over the county.
-
High Performance in High Poverty Schools (2003) - Another good read on what
WORKS in improving education in high poverty environments.
- Wake County Schools:
A Question of Balance (September 19, 2002) - An excellent read on the history
of the F&R policy in Wake County, with lots of citations and comments from people
on both sides of the issue. Still very relevant and discusses many of the same issues
being discussed today.
- Parental Involvement Under
the New Title I & Title III: From Compliance to Effective Practice (2002) -
Discusses the importance of not only having parents participate in the education
of their children, but of also having them as informed and empowered decisionmakers.
- A New Wave of Evidence:
The Impact of School, Family, and Community Connections on Student Achievement
(2002) - You have to pay to get the full document, but the synopsis on the page
is a synthesis of 51 studies that examine how important family and community is
in education and recommendations for improving family and community involvement.
- Parent Involvement in Education
(2001) - Discusses parental involvement in education with lots of additional references
on the topic.
- Leading an Inner City School to "Overall Excellence"
(August 2001) - Discusses success at Seattle's Thurgood Marshall Elementary
School, a largely poor urban school, without involving busing.
- Families on the Move (January 2001) -
Researches the affects of stability on a child's education, showing that
children who move a lot have a harder time in school.
-
The Impact of Poverty Upon Schools (March 1999) - WCPSS' collection of research
on the topic. It's all of 3 pages, has only 1 page of citations, and hasn't been
updated since 1999.
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