CMS Wins the Broad Prize!!!
But is that something we should advertise? In order to qualify, your school district has to be large, poor and failing. Large numbers of your students have to be poor, minority and failing.
Then to win, poor minority students have got to fail a little less compared to other kids who are failing in other large, urban districts in the state. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools scores have improved slightly in recent years. But our graduation/dropout rates, one of the key factors in who wins the Broad Prize, are actually WORSE than the rest of the state for minorities, the poor and overall. But since large, broke, failing urban school districts are only compared to other similar districts in the state, CMS looks fantastic, even though its students fail to graduate MORE OFTEN than those across the state as a whole.
Hence, CMS is failing, just not as badly as three other urban districts in the state it is competing against.
Where CMS really maims children is in its graduation rates for economically disadvantaged kids. Across the state, 62% of them graduate. In CMS, only 52% do.
CMS’ graduation rate for Blacks is 55 %, statewide it is 63%. Charlie Sheen would have two words for this: not winning.
Here’s a rundown from an article called “Not making the grade: Facts on graduation; GETTING THAT DIPLOMA,” Charlotte Observer, May 30, 2010:
NORTH CAROLINA: Statewide last year, the overall graduation rate was 71.8 percent.
The rates for subgroups:
Blacks: 63.2 percent
Hispanics: 59 percent
Whites: 77.1 percent
Asians: 83.7 percent
Economically disadvantaged: 61.8 percent
Limited English proficiency (LEP), 52.1 percent.
IN CHARLOTTE-MECKLENBURG
OVERALL: In Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, the graduation rate was 66.1 percent last year.
Here were the graduation rates last year for subgroups:
B LACKS: 55.5 percent.
HISPANICS: 57.6 percent.
WHITES: 81.1 percent.
ECONOMICALLY DISADVANTAGED: 52 percent.
LIMITED ENGLISH PROFICIENCY: 54.4 percent.
That’s largely a massacre, not something to celebrate.
