Top performing cities on NAEP test have the least poverty — but some poor cities do surprisingly well
Do cities with less poverty test better? Yes, but the correlation is not as tight as you might guess, according to 2013 test scores released Dec. 18, 2013. I put together a spreadsheet looking at the percentage of students who qualify for free and reduced priced lunch in each of the 21 urban school districts that volunteered to be part of a National Center for Education Statistics assessment (know
School choice sounds great in theory—but who does the choosing?
Say it ain’t so—public-school leaders in New Orleans tinkering with admissions rules to cherry-pick students? No way. These are open-enrollment public schools, aren’t they? Apparently, public schools in the highly decentralized environment of New Orleans are making independent choices. Two of the most historic high schools in the Crescent City, McDonogh 35 and Eleanor McMain Secondary School, enrolled about a quarter of their newly admitted ninth-grade classes after both schools declared that no seats remained.
Specifically, McDonogh 35 and McMain admitted more students after the Orleans Parish School Board allowed them to leave the centralized, anonymous system (OneApp, which was built to ensure a transparent and fair enrollment process) and after they told hundreds of families that no seats were available. Prior to Hurricane Katrina, both schools required students to attain certain test-scores to get in. Regardless of their past history, an injustice exists when students are denied available seats in public schools.
Neerav Kingsland, CEO of New Schools for New Orleans, and Caroline Roemer Shirley of the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools find fault with the much-maligned Orleans Parish School Board for allowing the schools to leave the OneApp process. But before casting blame on specific leaders, let’s examine what underlies the choice lobby.
“We need more choice!” is the rallying cry of a large faction in the current education-reform movement. Post-Katrina reform activists leveraged the lack of seats in a waterlogged district to advance a choice agenda.
Choice is certainly an important ideal. Charter groups co-signed and continuously support the