Latest GAO Report out on Government overpayments.
The National School Lunch Program continues to be rife with fraud and overpayments, increasing every year.
The 2014 numbers are:
School Lunch: Overpayments of $1.75 BILLION DOLLARS or a rate of 15.3%.
School Breakfast: Overpayments of $923 MILLION DOLLARS or a rate of 25.6%.
$2.67 BILLION DOLLARS, an absolute waste in the school lunch program.This also leads to further waste due to the fact many programs are tied to this "poverty program".
The pathetic, sad facts is, the USDA will only allow school districts to audit a 3% sample - IF they even conduct one.
It is in the LEA's interest to get as many kids signed up whether they qualify or not.
Friday, October 2, 2015
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Church saved Charlotte’s McClintock Middle School from closing, study finds
Okay. Help me here.....
Here are the two paragraphs that bother me about this story:
The study also shows that even a volunteer program with hundreds of volunteers, a big vision and staying power isn’t a cure-all for the challenges of urban education. Despite efforts to boost achievement and attract middle-class families in the area to the school, poverty remains high (more than 80 percent) and academic performance low (McClintock earned a D on state ratings this year, up from an F the year before).
Attendance gains didn’t last when the students moved up to high school, with absenteeism soaring in ninth grade for former McPIE participants.
Is this what's going to happen after $55 MILLION Dollars disappears from Project LIFT?
I'm all for volunteerism and applaud the church for doing it, but doesn't this prove the problems facing a majority of these kids comes from the home as evident by the dismal performance of these same kids once they enter the ninth grade?
Church saved Charlotte’s McClintock Middle School from closing, study finds
Here are the two paragraphs that bother me about this story:
The study also shows that even a volunteer program with hundreds of volunteers, a big vision and staying power isn’t a cure-all for the challenges of urban education. Despite efforts to boost achievement and attract middle-class families in the area to the school, poverty remains high (more than 80 percent) and academic performance low (McClintock earned a D on state ratings this year, up from an F the year before).
Attendance gains didn’t last when the students moved up to high school, with absenteeism soaring in ninth grade for former McPIE participants.
Is this what's going to happen after $55 MILLION Dollars disappears from Project LIFT?
I'm all for volunteerism and applaud the church for doing it, but doesn't this prove the problems facing a majority of these kids comes from the home as evident by the dismal performance of these same kids once they enter the ninth grade?
Church saved Charlotte’s McClintock Middle School from closing, study finds
Without the Christ Lutheran Church volunteers who helped turn McClintock Middle School into a hub of robotics and engineering activity, the school might be nothing but a vacant lot today.
That’s one finding from a UNC Charlotte Urban Institute study of an eight-year partnership between the church and McClintock, which now boasts a technology magnet program and a new building with state-of-the-art labs.
McClintock Partners in Education, known as McPIE, has long stood out as the gold standard for community engagement with one of Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s high-poverty schools. Christ Lutheran has hosted family nights that bring hordes of parents and students after school hours and has helped the faculty develop the kind of extras that often elude schools without affluent families.
On a gut level, it seems obvious that volunteers are good for a school. But the study, which CMS and the church presented at a Tuesday news conference, represents a rare and detailed attempt to quantify the value of that work..... MORE
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/education/article36858798.html
That’s one finding from a UNC Charlotte Urban Institute study of an eight-year partnership between the church and McClintock, which now boasts a technology magnet program and a new building with state-of-the-art labs.
McClintock Partners in Education, known as McPIE, has long stood out as the gold standard for community engagement with one of Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s high-poverty schools. Christ Lutheran has hosted family nights that bring hordes of parents and students after school hours and has helped the faculty develop the kind of extras that often elude schools without affluent families.
On a gut level, it seems obvious that volunteers are good for a school. But the study, which CMS and the church presented at a Tuesday news conference, represents a rare and detailed attempt to quantify the value of that work..... MORE
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/education/article36858798.html
Monday, September 21, 2015
Squishy numbers: Why it’s harder than ever to talk about poverty in CMS
As student poverty emerges as a central issue in the future of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, it’s getting harder to talk about.
I don’t mean because “poverty” often serves as code for a tangle of issues related to race, social class, opportunity, cultural values and neighborhood identity. That’s true but not new.
The latest challenge is more basic. Poverty numbers that have long served as the basis for big decisions in CMS, from teacher assignments to millions of dollars in aid, have gotten squishy.
Normally the nuances of education data matter mostly to a handful of educators, reporters and policy geeks. But the school board has embarked on a review of student assignment. Many board members and community leaders say that reducing concentrations of poverty is the best way to give all kids a fair shot at a promising future.
In other words, those numbers could eventually shape where your kids go to school, what your home is worth and whether Mecklenburg County can compete for high-paying jobs.
“My big fear is that people are throwing around numbers that aren’t accurate,” says Amy Hawn Nelson, director of social research for the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute “That can really harm public schools.”
Nelson recently co-authored a book advocating for CMS to use socioeconomic status to promote diversity in schools. Now she’s worried that confusing poverty data, misunderstood or misused, will undermine the effort.
So if you care about public education, join me in a walk down Wonk Lane to understand the challenge.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, as courts overturned race-based assignment, people began to talk about school diversity in terms of socioeconomic status. Some districts, such as Wake County, used it to shape student assignment.
In CMS it became a minor factor in a complex plan that mixed geographic assignment and school choice. As schools came to look more like the neighborhoods that surround them, some saw poverty levels soar. When that happened, many of the remaining middle-class and affluent families fled.
In an effort to compensate for the increased challenges, CMS has pumped in millions of dollars and assigned additional teachers to keep classes smaller at high-poverty schools.
There have always been questions about those numbers. The income standards for lunch aid are higher than federal poverty levels – $44,863 vs. $23,850 for a family of four, for instance. And because there’s little or no verification, some conservatives charge that the levels are inflated by freeloading families and/or school leaders seeking extra resources.
It may have been controversial, but the system was consistent.
Until last year.
At schools where most students had consistently qualified for aid, CMS shifted to providing free breakfast and lunch for everyone. That means families don’t have to fill out forms every year and school employees don’t have to process them.
It also means CMS can no longer rely on lunch status to track poverty at those schools.
The district can tally students who qualify for food stamps and other forms of public assistance. But that yields a lower number.
For some CMS schools, that creates poverty rates higher than 100 percent.
Perhaps you can see why Scott McCully, the CMS official in charge of reporting these numbers, simply gave the board a list of 2013-14 poverty rates as it began its student assignment review. He’s trying to figure out what to do this year, when the rates are tallied in October. He says he may end up releasing dual reports: One with numbers for the 74 CEP schools (presumably with the 100+ percentages adjusted down) and another with old-fashioned school lunch data for the remaining 94.
In the longer term, the challenge of dealing with concentrated poverty led two candidates for Charlotte mayor to talk about capping school poverty levels as Wake County used to do.
At last week’s school board meeting, member Rhonda Lennon tried to explain why higher poverty levels here complicate that issue. She cited the CMS rate as about 61 percent, a significantly higher number than I’d heard. Two days later, McCully told the board 56 percent was his best estimate for 2014, with 2015 numbers yet to come.
You could argue that the details don’t matter, whether it’s 56 percent vs. 61 percent in CMS or 93 percent vs. 100 percent at any given school. Anyone who’s paying attention can identify schools that have overwhelming levels of poverty and all the challenges that come with that.
But decisions about individual schools and students need to be based on solid data. And if CMS rolls out a new and confusing set of numbers, some folks are bound to question the accuracy and the motives.
Nelson, the Urban Institute analyst, says districtwide numbers matter, too. “We’re at a point in the community where if we inflate the number unintentionally, that can drive people out of our public schools,” she said last week.
There are other ways to talk about poverty, diversity and schools, Nelson says, and she contends it’s worth the work to come to a new consensus on reliable data.
Add that to the checklist of challenges ahead.
I don’t mean because “poverty” often serves as code for a tangle of issues related to race, social class, opportunity, cultural values and neighborhood identity. That’s true but not new.
The latest challenge is more basic. Poverty numbers that have long served as the basis for big decisions in CMS, from teacher assignments to millions of dollars in aid, have gotten squishy.
Normally the nuances of education data matter mostly to a handful of educators, reporters and policy geeks. But the school board has embarked on a review of student assignment. Many board members and community leaders say that reducing concentrations of poverty is the best way to give all kids a fair shot at a promising future.
My big fear is that people are throwing around numbers that aren’t accurate. That can really harm public schools.
Amy Hawn Nelson of the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute
Yet if you look for up-to-date reports on school poverty you won’t find them. That’s because CMS currently has two different ways of tallying those levels, depending on the school. There’s a good reason, but it’s complex and confusing – exactly the kind of thing that undermines trust among people who are inclined toward skepticism – so CMS never posted its 2014-15 poverty report.Amy Hawn Nelson of the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute
Nelson recently co-authored a book advocating for CMS to use socioeconomic status to promote diversity in schools. Now she’s worried that confusing poverty data, misunderstood or misused, will undermine the effort.
So if you care about public education, join me in a walk down Wonk Lane to understand the challenge.
It’s about school lunches
In the wake of the Jim Crow era, courts forced CMS and other districts across America to integrate public schools by race.In the 1990s and early 2000s, as courts overturned race-based assignment, people began to talk about school diversity in terms of socioeconomic status. Some districts, such as Wake County, used it to shape student assignment.
In CMS it became a minor factor in a complex plan that mixed geographic assignment and school choice. As schools came to look more like the neighborhoods that surround them, some saw poverty levels soar. When that happened, many of the remaining middle-class and affluent families fled.
In an effort to compensate for the increased challenges, CMS has pumped in millions of dollars and assigned additional teachers to keep classes smaller at high-poverty schools.
The old system may have been controversial, but it was consistent
School poverty levels, here and nationwide, are based on the percent of students who qualify for free or discounted school lunches, a federal program based on family income.There have always been questions about those numbers. The income standards for lunch aid are higher than federal poverty levels – $44,863 vs. $23,850 for a family of four, for instance. And because there’s little or no verification, some conservatives charge that the levels are inflated by freeloading families and/or school leaders seeking extra resources.
It may have been controversial, but the system was consistent.
Until last year.
The numbers get wacky
That’s when CMS started using a relatively new federal option designed to eliminate paperwork and make sure students get the nutrition they need to focus on learning.At schools where most students had consistently qualified for aid, CMS shifted to providing free breakfast and lunch for everyone. That means families don’t have to fill out forms every year and school employees don’t have to process them.
It also means CMS can no longer rely on lunch status to track poverty at those schools.
The district can tally students who qualify for food stamps and other forms of public assistance. But that yields a lower number.
Under a new federal formula, some CMS schools have poverty levels higher than 100 percent
Here’s where your face may start to twitch: To compensate for the difference, the federal government spells out that the public-assistance number be multiplied by 1.6 to create a school poverty rate for schools using the free-meals-for-all approach (OK, you know there’s a cumbersome government label: It’s Community Eligibility Provision, or CEP).For some CMS schools, that creates poverty rates higher than 100 percent.
Perhaps you can see why Scott McCully, the CMS official in charge of reporting these numbers, simply gave the board a list of 2013-14 poverty rates as it began its student assignment review. He’s trying to figure out what to do this year, when the rates are tallied in October. He says he may end up releasing dual reports: One with numbers for the 74 CEP schools (presumably with the 100+ percentages adjusted down) and another with old-fashioned school lunch data for the remaining 94.
Why it matters
In the short term, the inconsistencies mean CMS is grappling with how to handle teacher allocations and other formulas based on free-lunch rates.In the longer term, the challenge of dealing with concentrated poverty led two candidates for Charlotte mayor to talk about capping school poverty levels as Wake County used to do.
At last week’s school board meeting, member Rhonda Lennon tried to explain why higher poverty levels here complicate that issue. She cited the CMS rate as about 61 percent, a significantly higher number than I’d heard. Two days later, McCully told the board 56 percent was his best estimate for 2014, with 2015 numbers yet to come.
You could argue that the details don’t matter, whether it’s 56 percent vs. 61 percent in CMS or 93 percent vs. 100 percent at any given school. Anyone who’s paying attention can identify schools that have overwhelming levels of poverty and all the challenges that come with that.
But decisions about individual schools and students need to be based on solid data. And if CMS rolls out a new and confusing set of numbers, some folks are bound to question the accuracy and the motives.
Nelson, the Urban Institute analyst, says districtwide numbers matter, too. “We’re at a point in the community where if we inflate the number unintentionally, that can drive people out of our public schools,” she said last week.
There are other ways to talk about poverty, diversity and schools, Nelson says, and she contends it’s worth the work to come to a new consensus on reliable data.
Add that to the checklist of challenges ahead.
Saturday, September 12, 2015
CMS student assignment and the public engagement puzzle
Two headlines in the Charlotte Observer today:
--->>>CMS student assignment and the public engagement puzzle
--->>>Commuters flood into Mecklenburg
...
--->>>CMS student assignment and the public engagement puzzle
--->>>Commuters flood into Mecklenburg
...
What's interesting is that neither of these stories really gets to one of the root causes of both, which is the failure of Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools.
The only reason CMS is considering digging a deeper hole for itself is their unending quest for "diversity". We all know that horse left the barn decades ago, ironically to the surrounding counties.
This paragraph pretty much shows the "code" (reasoning) for living in an outlier county but commuting into Mecklenburg County:
~~Union communities near Mecklenburg attract executives and other Charlotte workers who prefer the lower taxes and quality of life Union offers, said Chris Platé, executive director of Monroe-Union County Economic Development.~~
To be blunt about it, the main "quality of life" issue is schools.
Mecklenburg County is about 58% White, but CMS is 29% White and declining. In 1987, CMS was 58% White.
The only reason CMS should be looking at school assignment changes is for population shifts FOR INCREASES OR DECREASES in specific school enrollments. In those cases, adjustments do have to be made - not for a continued failed diversity at all cost mantra.
Until CMS and this county face the real issues of White flight, Black flight (Black student percentage dropped from 42% to 40% over the past two years) and brain drain, nothing will change for the better.
CMS student assignment and the public engagement puzzle
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article34947450.html
The only reason CMS is considering digging a deeper hole for itself is their unending quest for "diversity". We all know that horse left the barn decades ago, ironically to the surrounding counties.
This paragraph pretty much shows the "code" (reasoning) for living in an outlier county but commuting into Mecklenburg County:
~~Union communities near Mecklenburg attract executives and other Charlotte workers who prefer the lower taxes and quality of life Union offers, said Chris Platé, executive director of Monroe-Union County Economic Development.~~
To be blunt about it, the main "quality of life" issue is schools.
Mecklenburg County is about 58% White, but CMS is 29% White and declining. In 1987, CMS was 58% White.
The only reason CMS should be looking at school assignment changes is for population shifts FOR INCREASES OR DECREASES in specific school enrollments. In those cases, adjustments do have to be made - not for a continued failed diversity at all cost mantra.
Until CMS and this county face the real issues of White flight, Black flight (Black student percentage dropped from 42% to 40% over the past two years) and brain drain, nothing will change for the better.
CMS student assignment and the public engagement puzzle
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article34947450.html
Thursday, September 3, 2015
As CMS graduation gap fades, a troubling skills gap remains
Oh what will they ever do when the graduation rate reaches 99%?
We need to do away with the graduation rate and use a literacy rate.
As CMS graduation gap fades, a troubling skills gap remains
We need to do away with the graduation rate and use a literacy rate.
As CMS graduation gap fades, a troubling skills gap remains
Ten years ago, when a judge accused four Charlotte-Mecklenburg high schools of academic genocide, roughly 40 percent of their students were dropping out.
Three years ago, when Project LIFT philanthropists kicked off a $55 million turnaround project focused on West Charlotte High, that school’s graduation rate was only 56 percent.
This year, West Charlotte’s graduation rate hit 76 percent. Garinger and West Meck, the other two remaining “genocide” schools, were at 89 percent and 84 percent, respectively (the fourth closed a few years ago).
North Carolina’s 85 percent graduation rate for 2015 was an all-time high. CMS topped that by three points, at 88 percent. All groups in CMS have made steady gains over the last five years, with the biggest improvement among the black, Hispanic and low-income teens who were leaving school at the highest rates.
That’s some very good news. Young adults with diplomas have a better chance than dropouts of getting a job and staying out of trouble.
Three years ago, when Project LIFT philanthropists kicked off a $55 million turnaround project focused on West Charlotte High, that school’s graduation rate was only 56 percent.
This year, West Charlotte’s graduation rate hit 76 percent. Garinger and West Meck, the other two remaining “genocide” schools, were at 89 percent and 84 percent, respectively (the fourth closed a few years ago).
North Carolina’s 85 percent graduation rate for 2015 was an all-time high. CMS topped that by three points, at 88 percent. All groups in CMS have made steady gains over the last five years, with the biggest improvement among the black, Hispanic and low-income teens who were leaving school at the highest rates.
93.7 percent: 2015 grad rate for CMS white students
86.5 percent: Rate for CMS black students
82.8 percent: Rate for CMS low-income students
79.4 percent: Rate for CMS Hispanic students MORE.... http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/education/your-schools-blog/article33612873.html
86.5 percent: Rate for CMS black students
82.8 percent: Rate for CMS low-income students
79.4 percent: Rate for CMS Hispanic students MORE.... http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/education/your-schools-blog/article33612873.html
Sunday, August 30, 2015
While I'm On A Roll...School Discipline
I read a story about "Black Students Dispoportionately Disciplined More Than White Students" on my cell the other day and was going to do a blog post about it when I had time, but from that day to today, I've read more stories on the issue.
There were so many stories I couldn't pick just one.
Now, I've said a number of times in my posts/comments over the years that I might not be the sharpest tack in the box, but I do believe I have common sense and common sense tells me that in every one of these articles on discipline dipsarity I read, NOWHERE do I ever see anyone state that the higher number of offenses Blacks were disciplind for were bogus and without merit.
If I, a White person and two Black individuals are standing in hall and I start beating my head against a wall and do that 13 times while the Black people did it only once, would statistics show the two Black people with higher incidents of beating their heads against the same wall or would the facts of the data show I am the one beating his brains out more often?
My all-time favoite FACTUAL article on this was one Ann did a couple of years ago about the Black middle school kid who was suspended one year - 13 times - because he was "angry".
Ths is a perfect example of how the facts negate the outrage over so-called "discipline disparities". Never do I see statistics showing White kids repeating offenses and not being disciplined for them while Black kids repeatig the same offense(s) over and over getting suspended each time for theirs.
If you can show me those statistics, then I'll jump on your bandwagon.
One thing that has started to be reported is the failure of Obama's "restorative justice" push, where kids are "talked to" instead of being punished. The problem is, crimes by Black students in those school systems is on the rise and getting worse.
There were so many stories I couldn't pick just one.
Now, I've said a number of times in my posts/comments over the years that I might not be the sharpest tack in the box, but I do believe I have common sense and common sense tells me that in every one of these articles on discipline dipsarity I read, NOWHERE do I ever see anyone state that the higher number of offenses Blacks were disciplind for were bogus and without merit.
If I, a White person and two Black individuals are standing in hall and I start beating my head against a wall and do that 13 times while the Black people did it only once, would statistics show the two Black people with higher incidents of beating their heads against the same wall or would the facts of the data show I am the one beating his brains out more often?
My all-time favoite FACTUAL article on this was one Ann did a couple of years ago about the Black middle school kid who was suspended one year - 13 times - because he was "angry".
Ths is a perfect example of how the facts negate the outrage over so-called "discipline disparities". Never do I see statistics showing White kids repeating offenses and not being disciplined for them while Black kids repeatig the same offense(s) over and over getting suspended each time for theirs.
If you can show me those statistics, then I'll jump on your bandwagon.
One thing that has started to be reported is the failure of Obama's "restorative justice" push, where kids are "talked to" instead of being punished. The problem is, crimes by Black students in those school systems is on the rise and getting worse.
Texas Mom Shares One-of-a-Kind PTA Fundraising Letter
Saw this yesterday and with several comments regarding this issue in a previous blog post, I thought it was timely to continue the conversation.
Texas Mom Shares One-of-a-Kind PTA Fundraising Letter
http://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/texas-mom-shares-kind-pta-fundraising-letter/story?id=33381268
Also, as Miss Whit stated, the Observer has posted its annual bullshit article about the "discrepancy" of the have and have-not schools, once again deflecting from the real issue.
The real issue in which Andrew Dunn hits the nail on the head in the first paragraph of the article: INVOLVED PARENTS:
Schools in Charlotte’s affluent areas routinely raise hundreds of thousands of dollars each year from involved parents. About two dozen of the city’s schools, most of them low-income, don’t even have a PTA.
You can read the annual woe is me PTA article here in the Observer:
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/education/article32654250.html
The comments to this article are comical, with the usual liberal suspects regurgitating the same status quo bullshit that usually follows stories such as this. Sheeeeeee's baaaack..... bet ya can't guess who it is.
Texas Mom Shares One-of-a-Kind PTA Fundraising Letter
http://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/texas-mom-shares-kind-pta-fundraising-letter/story?id=33381268
Also, as Miss Whit stated, the Observer has posted its annual bullshit article about the "discrepancy" of the have and have-not schools, once again deflecting from the real issue.
The real issue in which Andrew Dunn hits the nail on the head in the first paragraph of the article: INVOLVED PARENTS:
Schools in Charlotte’s affluent areas routinely raise hundreds of thousands of dollars each year from involved parents. About two dozen of the city’s schools, most of them low-income, don’t even have a PTA.
You can read the annual woe is me PTA article here in the Observer:
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/education/article32654250.html
The comments to this article are comical, with the usual liberal suspects regurgitating the same status quo bullshit that usually follows stories such as this. Sheeeeeee's baaaack..... bet ya can't guess who it is.
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