I'm sure I've outlined it before. Our community of about 25k people has THREE school districts. There is one district for the high school. There are two K-8 districts. One K-8 district was one school for the longest time. They finally split out the 6-8 into a new middle school.
But why do they need three school districts with three administrative staffs, etc?
Needless to say, the community voted against the tax increase being sought by the larger of the two K-8 districts.
It's a tough problem.
oilBabe is in one of the St. Louis area school districts getting students from other districts that lost accreditation. Normandy and Riverview Gardens lost their state accreditation and students in those districts could apply to transfer to districts selected by the unaccredited district.
So oilBabe's school is now taking students from other districts and is supposed to receive tuition payments from the sending school district.
It's not a perfect solution. But it does offer parents in an unaccredited district a option to send their children to measurably better schools.
But the other side of the coin is not all aspects of accreditation are under the control of the school district. Attendance and dropouts are really a parenting issue, not a teaching issue. Yet, as oilBabe describes it, the districts are measured on critera that go beyond a students test scores.
If I recall correctly, the schools are graded on:
Academic Achievement 56 points
Subgroup Achievement (Minority/Free|Reduced Lunch etc) 14 points
College and Career Ready 30 points
Attendance 10 points
Graduation Rate 30 points
Any district with less than a 50% is unaccredited. Provisional accreditation is 50-70% and over 70% is accredited.
So out of 140 points, 40 are largely out of the school districts control. The other 100 points or about 70 percent are largely influenced by the district.
But if parents don't care enough to make sure their kids go to school or stay in school, will they care enough to help with homework?
I just sat at the table tonight with my daughter doing French and Honors Algebra, while doing my Cisco CCNA homework
But how many parents can or will help their students like that?
We are quick to blame teachers. But how much of our education issues are parenting issues? Throwing more money at such a problem will not fix bad parents.