They know it when they see it. But damned if they can define it. Whatever it is, equity must involve much smaller class sizes and 30 percent higher per pupil spending — the getting naked steps in our obscenity analogy.
Ann Helms wades through the ridiculous waste of time that was CMS’ “priority” exercise to unearth a couple keepers.
One, Board Chair Eric Davis has manufactured a belief that parents like to have their kids go to school near where they work in order to help spare close-in schools from cuts or closings. Don’t know if this penumbra will also be used to help keep the long-desired Uptown high school on life-support, but as long as CMS keeps Myers Park packed to the gills, you gotta wonder.
Also, I guess in a way — a roundabout CMS way — amorphous concepts like equity do feedback into the iron question of which schools to close. After all, if “equity” bumps up a school’s “utilization” — not how many bodies actually attend the school but a CMS construct — then it is less likely to be on the chopping block.
And never forget that it is the very grave matter of closing schools that CMS faces in the coming years.
