Suddenly, SUDDENLY, even though with the district for the previous three or so years, CCSD Superintendent Nancy McGinley discovers that thousands of students cut school for the first couple of weeks in the fall.Personally, I'm also shocked, shocked, that there's gambling going on in here.
Oops. Sorry. Did it again. It's just that for the last 40 years, since South Carolina's compulsory school law was passed in 1967, districts have not enforced the truancy laws. No one has ever paid the $50 fine for not sending his or her child to school. Now we discover that, when a law is not enforced, many people do not to obey it! Remember the wide-open bars when Charleston was a dry county?
Let's not forget that the legislature of the great State of South Carolina in 1955 abolished compulsory schooling so that the races would not be forced to go to school together. (I'm not making this up, for those of you who are transplants!) And, once school was compulsory again, why should the legislature or the individual school districts worry if the children of the poor and the transient, those largely under discussion here, attend school or not? Aren't they likely to be troublemakers anyway?
Gee, I wonder if South Carolina's abysmally low graduation rates have any relationship to enforcement of truancy laws? Duh.
What has changed? Why this sudden interest in a phenomenon ignored for decades?
Truancy laws were a paper tiger, and now a real tiger has appeared--No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the federal law that teachers' unions and the entrenched educational bureaucracy love to hate. NOW if those children aren't in school, everybody knows it, and, furthermore, they get penalized for it.
NCLB statistics reveal the depths of our failing, and failed, schools. They force school districts like CCSD to study the underside of the beast to figure out how to raise the level of the lowest achievers. Clearly, that includes attending school.
Those who care about children stuck in failing schools should thank God for NCLB, and pray that Congress doesn't gut the law before the mess is cleaned up.
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CCSD's sudden interest in the truancy issue is primarily related to it's head count. As CCSD is working its way toward the 10-day enrollment figures (used for the state's official per student allocations) it's all about the money...not the kids. The key will be to see if CCSD is just as concerned on day eleven.
From reading the comments on the P&C web-site related to this story, it shows that a majority would just as soon see these "don't want to be there" students stay away permanently. Some of the comments said if the don't want to be there then fine, they're probably the ones with academic and conduct problems anyway.
"Good ridance" as at least one wrote. So what if these kids that society is leaving behind aren't in school? Hey, dufus, they are still on our streets and the education they are getting there we can't afford either.
For that reason alone we should pay whatever it takes now to reach them because if we don't we'll most certainly pay more later, when we have no choice, through the criminal justice system, public housing, drug rehab and child welfare for another generation of kids with parents who are undereducated and unemployable.
We need to remember both questions this year. Will CCSD be just as interested in reaching these kids after the 10-day head count reports are sent to the state? Can CCSD do more than convey an image to a large part of the public that it is just warehousing kids who don't want to be there?
This last question is especially important when it has been shown that CCSD is still directing so many students into educational programs that tend to serve the system's needs more (as in head counts & manipulating school report cards) and serve students less. The same CCSD programs are being shown to ignore individual needs of thousands of children each day. That begs another question. What about CCSD's ignoring the needs of our community as a whole for decades to come?
Nancy has been directly overseeing the schools for three years and she is just now realizing that attendance is down EVERY year at the beginning? Why hasn't she said something before now? Talk about grandstanding on a non-issue. and asking for more money? who is she kidding. And she gets a free pass from the P&C. Again.
The truancy statute is being addressed because of http://www.charleston.net/news/2007/jul/04/trident_united_way_program_focuses_on_at_risk_st/?print, http://www.charleston.net/news/2007/jun/29/letters_editor/ (No Reasonable Plan), and http://www.charleston.net/news/2007/aug/26/high_truancy_low_grades14094/.
In the past Charleston County ignored the problem so that it did not have to educate the poor. And the fact that State Law mandates that Intervention Plans be created for those missing more than three consecutive days of school was conveniently ignored. But, with the advent of BLOGS and NCLB, people are now becoming educated as to their rights.
In short, too much light is being shed on an old problem for the powers that be to ignore it any longer.
The problem with NCLB here is that CCSD is using it only when it wants to and without making parents aware of all of their rights under Federal NCLB guidelines. It's a rigged game with CCSD acting as both referee and opposing team owner. Parents have been isolated, intimidated and threatened if they attempt to challenge CCSD authorities when they try to invoke their rights to transfer their child to schools of their choice. Magnet schools have been totally excluded when Federal law only requires that academic qualifications be met by NCLB transferees. Lotteries can't be used as an excuse to exclude NCLB transfers, yet CCSD has done just that. There is no legal justification for CCSD closing Buist to all NCLB transfers while listing CPA as a receiving school primarily to Brentwood students. Minority students are being steered to certain schools while non-minority kids are being steered to others. Transportation is being denied to some but not to others. CCSD is not revealing the stats but if they were to be made public, NCLB would be shown as a mockery in the hands of CCSD.
retired teacher:
If every child in a faling school eligible for free tutoring would demand to be tutored, CCSD would either go Bankrupt, increase funding, improve schools, or increase transfers. The threat of vouchers is not necessary--in essence vouchers are available in the form of free tutoring.
If CCSD would "sell" the free tutoring programs to parents in a similarly earnest way as they seem to be pushing the truancy issue, then maybe the NCLB mandated tutoring programs would reach the students (and schools) that would most benefit. I've never been convinced that CCSD has done all it needs to do to get these services to the students who need them the most. I've heard that in some failing schools (including a least a few downtown) that less than 10% of the eligable students are enrolled in some sort of after school tutoring.
The CCSD has an inherent conflict of interest in selling the tutoring program because it has to fund the program. That's why it is ultimately up to parent groups and education advocacy groups to educate the public on the requriements of the NCLB. This is something that CEN should be doing and would be doing if it were not a pawn of Joe Riley.
In a related vein, look at the mess in Dorchester School District Two where they are leasing "smart boards" for teachers at $1 Million per year. Do you think that is the best use of limited funds? Note that none of the kids has access to the schools and all this technology at night, so they head to the County Library and fight over use of the 30 or so computers. The same thing happens here in Charleston.
Wouldn't it make more sense to use limited funds to give kids access to school computers and school libraries at night rather than lease smart boards that the teachers do not know how to use? Couldn't we run a bus or two later or let the kids ride the city bus at no charge?
CCSD had a program to give CARTA passes to high school and middle school kids which would have been usable 24/7 for an entire semester. They were also renewable for each subsequent semester and only cost the student/parent $5 each. CCSD paid the difference ($35, I think). Trouble is they only offered the program at two low income, low performing, high minority schools. Even so they didn't promote the program and as many as half of the 400 pre purchased passes were never distributed. It looked like they didn't want to do anything to undermine the private bus service they had under contract. Never mind that CARTA is begging for customers and provides a much more flexible, cheaper and cleaner service.
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