Cathy Truitt has conceded the District 2 race to John Tedesco. It’s a clean sweep for the candidates who oppose Wake’s policy of busing to “balance” the economic diversity of the schools. John Hood nails it with today’s column on the warnings of dire consequences should the new board overturn the policy and become another Charlotte.
Why should parents be fearful that Wake’s schools will come to perform like Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s? That would be an improvement! While average test scores are, indeed, higher in Wake than in CMS, that’s entirely explained by differences in county population. Charlotte has far larger populations of disadvantaged students. When you disaggregate the data, the relevant comparison presents itself easily.
Disadvantaged students were supposed to be the prime beneficiaries of Wake’s student-assignment policies. But in 2008-09, 47 percent of disadvantaged third-through-eighth grraders in CMS scored at or above proficient on state reading and math tests (which are actually too easy to pass, but that’s a story for another day). In Wake, the relevant statistic was 44 percent. CMS also outperformed Wake among black kids (48 percent to 45 percent) and scored about the same among white kids (86.8 percent and 86.4 percent, respectively).
