Urban Schools

[peaceloveunderstanding]

the building in question scares me and gives me a headache. I am sure that building would fit in very well where the morrocroft stuff is.

[Miesian Corners]

Something else that's interesting. When I worked on a small area plan for Huntersville, CMS didn't realize that Long Creek Elem was in a protected watershed. They were giving the Town a hard time for saying that the school had to conform to impervious surface standards (due to run-off for the Mountain Island Lake watershed) when it gets rebuilt.

We got a great deal of enjoyment telling them it was a North Carolina law that says they have to build up, not out when the school is replaced. Funny how one arm of government never talks to the other. The school will have to be two stories or move somewhere else.

[dubone]

it doesn't surprise me... the school system bureaucrats think they can do whatever they want, independent of laws...because everything they do has just 6 degree away from being "for the children". like 6 degrees of kevin bacon, CMS bureaucrats can find a way to trace anything back to being "for the children".

They even find ways to justify when letting adults that are convicted felons with 0.0 gpa for years continue to attend regular school (yes, as students). No wonder they design schools to be like prisons... for many parts of town, that is how the schools are run. But it is "for the kids".

[Sabaidee]

The principal can always add more between classes to allow students to time if a school more than 2 stories. The thing how long students must stay in class is dictate by NC law and the students don't want to stay in school for longer than 8 hours. Schools in CMS, students are usually allowed 5 minutes between classes to go to their next class. I personally don't think 5 mins are enough, good thing some school don't have lock outs. Some schools, from each ends are like a quarter mile or farther. I think a multistory building is more efficient, walking some stairs isn't walking like a quarter of a mile to go to class. However, if we look at other schools in other part of the country, schools in suburban DC, they allow 10 minutes between classes.

[peaceloveunderstanding]

5 min is plenty. My school was quite sprawling and 3 stories tall and it took 2 min to get to class.

[Sabaidee]

The school I went to, I didn't even have time to go to my locker, I had classes that was at one end of the school and I had to go to the other end, and I walk fast.

[dubone]

short change times are all part of the security effort in modern mega-schools. If you can be constantly yelling at the students to keep moving to class, then there is less chance they will socialize in the hall, which will cause problems like fights.

CMS requires teachers to be stationed at their doors like guards for the entire time during class changeover, which of course means that classtime must be used for bio-breaks and classroom preparation. But if they are not at their battle stations between class, there is hell to pay.

when i was in high school, we had 15/20 minutes between class, which was a good time to read the newspaper in the library, finish up some busywork, grab a drink at the cafeteria, and hang out with friends, and teachers can grab a coffee and write up the board.... my belief is that CMS students (at least at the schools i'm familiar with) act more like prisoners than students in large part because they are treated that way and the buildings are built that way.

[Sabaidee]

CMS do treat students like prisoners, and the Student Body Government really don't have anymore say anymore. I think high schools should operate more like colleges, with a Dean of Students, but in high school cases an assistant principal of students who deals with students' activities and deal with the needs of students. At my high school, we had like 5 assistant principal, assistant principal of curriculum, 3 assistant principals of discipline, and an general assistant principal. I think many those positions are uncalled for.

[dubone]

and in many cases that i am aware of, those assistant principals build relationships with the kids they see all the time, the troublemakers, and their own version of "do it for the kids" ends up protecting the bad kids from being suspended or getting in serious trouble.

I've heard of kids who were caught dealing drugs at lunch, and their punishment was 2 days lunch detention. Other cases, a kid assaults a teacher... the teacher quit, and the kid got only a single day suspension and was still allowed to graduate. In the real world, these things are illegal... but in the backwards world of CMS, somehow it just okay. And the superintendant says "there are no thugs at CMS". Of course, that statement only makes sense if dealing drugs, and assaulting teachers are not considered bad by the system.

It all seems consistent with a policy of treating the entire school as though they are full of uncontrollable people who need to be contained, as they never bother to get rid of the bad kids so the rest can be treated with respect. The good kids lose out, and many just become bad kids... and the teachers end up spending most of their energy trying to control the disruptive kids...

[atlrvr]

dubone....I'm just curious as to your our your wife's solution? I completely agree with you that allowing bad kids to remain at schools puts everyone in a bad situation, but I can't think of what to do.......hell, it used to be that I would have said "f-em" and kick them out of the public school system and let real life sort them out, but I've come to realize that this will only lead to these kids leading a life of underachievement at the best..... or a career criminal on average.

Certainly a lot goes back to parents who shouldn't be afraid to beat their child every once in a while to maintain discipline.....it also goes back to the schools who are so afraid of not upsetting a parent, or getting sued, that they would rather put their own staff at risk as opposed to hurting some thugs pride (or butt).

But seeing as how groups such as the ACLU are going to continue to encourage disrespect with no consequences, and the school system runs scared......what is the best alternative to the current mess?

[monsoon]

Kids are not as well behaved now as they once were, hence the need to run schools like prisons. Plus you can't discipline students like you used to.

When I was in highschool, screw up, and they sent you to the principals office where one of the coaches would show up with a big leather strap and you got a pretty good strapping while "assuming the position" against the wall. And they would do it with the loud speakers on so everyone could listen which hurt even more. LOL.

The school was very well behaved. In fact so well behaved we had an open campus then. If you were not in class, you could leave. Kids would go out back and smoke pot with the younger teachers. Kinda like college. Everybody learned their ABCs, everyone was happy and there were no problems. They could never do this now.

[dubone]

There are huge organizational and social problems in CMS (and in many ways all US public school systems, especially when it comes to cities). Education, though, isn't rocket science... put teachers who know their stuff in a room with kids who are incented to know that stuff, with some books, pencils, paper and a board to communicate that stuff.

In my opinion, ALL the issues result from the lack of human scale to the organizations and the buildings. There are just so many cases where principals, counselors, teachers, students, and parents don't or can't know eachother or work together to keep every kid incented to learn. The resulting adult power vacuum leads to a child-based power structure, which usually is built around gang and clique groups that soon influence much of the students behavior, almost always contrary to the goals of the education system.

my wife's solution is very simple: make schools smaller and more attractive, hire academically-qualified teachers, reduce bureaucracy and end social promotion.

1) make all schools small, (1/2 or 1/3 the current size of the most CMS schools). When schools are small, there is less of mob effect in the student body, and everything is de-escalated. With huge schools, admin is scared to let the kids be kids for fear of what could happen. My wife's school doesn't have assemblies for fear of a riot. That is just not highschool, and is sad. When the schools are smaller, the power structure changes instantly. Principals and teachers know every kids name and story, and kids that might be bad when the mob has the power are suddenly angels. My wife has had students that had committed gang rapes and armed robbery, but are sweet kids when they are in a small class. Mega-schools create far too many holes for those kids to fall through to become bad kids. With more attractive, academic looking school buildings, students behavior shifts to respect the institution, people behave based on cues from the built environment... in schools that look like prisons or warehouses, students are very different than in schools that look like little college buildings. (the buildings part, though, is much less important than size, imo).

2) hire academically-qualified teachers that can pass tough content exams. Education is simple: someone who knows something, tells the ones that don't know something about something... The system's current answer to teaching shortages is to lower the standards for employment, and knowledge standards are first to go. If you don't pass content exams, you can now still teach for something like 4 years... people come in as english teachers after being laid off from an office job, and have to ask what "genre" is... and "who has ever heard of iambic pentameter".

3) CMS has built up a tremendous bureaucracy, with many of the same people that were mediocre performers in the classroom. Those people then create a host of new bureaucracy to solve problems. For example, because they hire many teachers that don't know their subject area, they create scripts for those teachers to read to their students. In under-performing schools, which receive a lot of attention from the bureaucracy, failing to follow the script is grounds for serious reprimand, even for highly qualified teachers. For example, the script given for 10th grade english, has the title "8th Grade" on the top of every page. Why? because the person who was put in charge of the 10th grade english curriculum in downtown charlotte had previously been in charge of middle school curriculum, and reused materials. So it is a catch 22, the teacher must either read her 10th students an 8th grade script, or be reprimanded and listed as an under-performing teacher. The bureaucracy is beyond out of control... the only redeeming factor is that the system is too big for full compliance, so it ususally only the under-performing schools are forced into compliance... which just further damages them. Simple solution: fire half the downtown bureaucracy, and redistribute the funds for market-rate corporate-quality managers, and for retention and recruitment of better teachers.

4) We have end of grade exams, but if kids don't pass the exams, they still go to the next grade in a practice known as social promotion. As a result, significant percentages of 10th graders cannot read. When 10th graders can't read, how well does anyone think they will behave?

(maybe this is over-simplistic, but at its core it is meant to be simple. i'm certainly no expert, but i know my wife thinks cms's problems aren't so hard to fix, but will likely never happen.)

[atlrvr]

Thank you dubone for one of the most insightful posts in a long time. I would recommend sending it as an annonymous letter to CMS, but the employee who initially receives it would probably trash it the moment they read "eliminate half the staff".

I've oftened thought that smaller schools are part of the solution, but I doubt it would go over to well in which "the children's future" never wins in a system striving to somehow capitalize on economies of scale.

[Sabaidee]

Socially, students don't like smaller schools, I understand your insight, though, but the minds of younger people think differently. School is a social place no matter what people say otherwise. The smaller the school, as people my age would say, "everyone is gon' know each other business"

[atlrvr]

Socially, students don't like smaller schools, I understand your insight, though, but the minds of younger people think differently.  School is a social place no matter what people say otherwise. The smaller the school, as people my age would say, "everyone is gon' know each other business"

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well I don't think it's supposed to be set up for the student's maximum social benefit.....education and respect are the primary objectives I went to a smallish private school for high-school and I agree that everyone knew everybody's business, and that bothered me...BUT...it did keep there from being lots of trouble, the teachers did know everyones name and what they were up to, and it did allow me to focus on my education because the whole "social unknown" element was removed.

[DigitalSky]

Here's A Link for the proposed boundary lines from today's paper for Ardrey Kell and all the schools it affects

[DigitalSky]

read the article "Student Shuffle Proposed for Southside" http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/liv...on/11888475.htm describing changes to the high schools with Ardrey Kell coming

[dubone]

violent students and litigious parents are definitely problems... and sorry that happened to your mother.

at its core, i believe that somehow education institutions just need to shift back to a much smaller scale. I just can't help but think that much like retailers and other big businesses, as education has sought economy of scale, they have lost marginal operating quality and customer responsiveness. There is something about that which creates a certain antagonism.

I think it the primary reason that people think that suburban county schools are "better", as they are somehow on a more friendly scale. I've heard parents speak of how great cabarrus county schools are much better than CMS, and the only example they gave was that the principal took the time to meet them when they toured the school.

[orulz]

Socially, students don't like smaller schools, I understand your insight, though, but the minds of younger people think differently.  School is a social place no matter what people say otherwise. The smaller the school, as people my age would say, "everyone is gon' know each other business"

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Talking about smaller schools doesn't necessarily mean 200 students. There's a big enough difference schools with 2000 students and schools with 600 or 700. There's plenty of anonymity in a class of 180 but it's still small enough so that students don't become cattle.

A relative of mine was done in very severely by the impersonal, cover-your-ass administration of a large high school in NC. This relative was guilty of nothing but complicity for not ratting someone else out, but was turned over to the police; the person who should have recieved most of the blame got off scott-free. It seems to be a given that the discipline meted out at large schools is clumsy, heavy-handed, and usually misdirected, for the simple reason that they have to deal with so much of it that they stop listening and stop caring.

[Sabaidee]

Schools in NC are no where like those in Philly or other Northern cities, their largest high school have enrollment of 8,000 or more. I think larger schools have more of an urban appeal. It gives an urban characteristic.

[dubone]

Schools in NC are no where like those in Philly or other Northern cities, their largest high school have enrollment of 8,000 or more. I think larger schools have more of an urban appeal. It gives an urban characteristic.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

agreed. but CMS is one of the largest districts in the country, and so while individual schools may not have those extreme numbers, the system still has many of the problems from the size. But it also has some severe problems from the rapid growth, as the lack of stability and capacity leads to even more organizational chaos.

[spectacle21]

8,000+ students?! @ a high school?! Wouldn't that be a safety hazard?! The largest high school population I've ever heard of topped out @ around 3,500.....a performing arts magnet school in South Florida.

[skysdalimit]

Here is my high school, Providence. It is bricked 2 stories, built in 1989, but indeed does have many suburban sprawling characteristics with a few separate buildings for the gym and tech center, trailers, and parking.

[DigitalSky]

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/liv...on/11932405.htm

In todays paper - City Misses Chance to Guide Grwoth.

Sad isn't it

[monsoon]

Sad isn't it

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Indeed it is. Especially since they are the biggest tax money black hole in the county.