Education is rarely a topic for political analysis outside of election cycles. But the local transition of a Rowland school to the ISD program is important to county success. The problem has always been the challenge of limited resources in a poor county coupled with a board that is both polarized and politicized.
For the record, Republicans favor local control of education. But fair analysis should couple principles with pragmaticism. If local control isn’t working then the next level of control is most practical.
The next step is finding the right group to guide the implementation of this transition. Ignore pitches like, “We will do what’s best for the students.” We expect them to say no less. A better approach to analysis is ignoring rhetoric and focus on hard data along with principles valued by the local board, such as local control and experienced results.
We have no dog in the fight other than knowing the best group guides this transition. While both the Achievement for All Children (AAC) and The Romine Group are reported to be nonprofits, then at least their missions are both goal oriented rather than solely profit driven. Let’s check that one off the analysis list unless we learn later one is profit driven.
Then there is the local control piece. AAC is a North Carolina group while the Romine Group is from Michigan. All things being equal AAC should have home-field advantage unless the Romine Group is head and shoulders better. That’s another check off the list.
The biggest check on the list should be a scorecard for both groups. AAC offered a report card of their track record. We’d like to see the same from the Romine Group. Here’s part of AAC’s area elementary school report card reported by them:
Brevard Academy (K-8) Grade B (Opened 1998); Lake Lure (K-12) Grade B (7th year of operation); Shining Rock (K-8) Grade C (Year 2); Thomas Jefferson (K-12) Grade B (Opened 1999); New Dimensions (K-8) Grade C, only 1.4 points from a B (10th year); Veritas (K-5) Grade C (Year 3); Aristotle (K-5) Grade D (Year 4); Excelsior, Durham (K-5) Grade C (Year 2); Cornerstone, Greensboro (K-11) Grade B (Year 6).
AAC reported they have four inner city schools in Charlotte and Durham (K-5) with three C’s and one D. They have three rural schools (K-8) with two B’s and one C. They have four that are K-12 with three B’s and one C. Two are city and two are rural.
They have a D school they started working with last February when it was a 33 F and moved to a 47 D in three months. They have at least one other school that is top performing.
Seems they are accustomed to working with underperforming schools and slowly raising the bar.
I’m a political analyst. I’m not an educational analyst. So these numbers mean more to educational professionals than they do to me. Any good analyst will know the right questions to ask and we all would like to see the same answers from the Romine group for complete information.
So an evaluation should be about this type of hard data, experience with local underperforming schools valuing transparency, not vague rhetoric. There is also another opportunity.
Other schools in Robeson made the underperforming short list. The local board would be popular if they developed an initiative to proactively raise them off the underperforming list.
The board could then compare their five-year results with ISD’s five-year results. Since the Rowland school is the very lowest performing, the local board would have a head start on the ISD.
Let’s ask the right questions to choose the right transition group. Then let’s challenge the local board to compete with the ISD to demonstrate they can succeed with other schools as well. Students win both ways. No one loses.