Buist Again? Let's Take a Step Back

Charleston County School District Board member Ruth Jordan, who lives in West Ashley and is chairman of the Board's Policy Committee, has roiled the waters by suggesting that Buist Academy not be allowed "to become segregated again." Putting her in charge of the Policy Committee is an exercise in chaos now and yet to come! Nevertheless, any suggestion that the "magnet school's admissions procedures could be overhauled to attract more minority students" coming from this quarter should be met with the derision it deserves.

Here is a history lesson that attempts to be purely expository:

• Buist began as an all-black school when Charleston's schools were segregated and not consolidated into one district.
• To meet requirements imposed by desegregation lawsuits, Gregg Meyers (a present Board member) put forward the plan to create a 60-40 school to show the Civil Rights Division that the district was integrated, and the plan was accepted.
• The school's admissions process uses four lists and a lottery to select students, but the results were required to be 40 percent minority.
  
• The school thrived while other schools in what became District 20 of CCSD disappeared or became all-black and failing.
• A lawsuit about five years ago killed the 60-40 race-based requirement.
• Since the ruling, the percentage of minority students attending Buist has declined--CCSD putting the percentage at 25; those in District 20 suggesting that in the lower grades the percentage is more like 15.

Now, the rest of the story.

The present situation couldn't appear more biased and controversial even if it had been put into effect by a White Citizens' Committee operating in cabal. And it's easy to see who is at fault: present and former school board members, their political cronies, and present and former superintendents hired by the school boards. Until the following messes are purified with the daylight of transparency, no one will accept new OR old guidelines.

Before present parents of Buist Academy start jumping down my throat, let me point out that most parents who have sent their children to Buist over its years of operation as a magnet have not played the system in any way! No, Buist's controversies derive from how CCSD has tampered with Buist's admissions to benefit the few and well-connected. The tampering has proceeded under CCSD's "trust us with no verification" policy. There are three aspects to the tampering: implementation of the lottery; verification of the lists; and abuse of "testing" procedures.

1. The potential for abusing who "wins" the lottery is immense, as has been well-documented on this blog and elsewhere. Until the Buist lottery becomes as transparent as the SC Education Lottery, its results will continue to be suspect.
2. Already well-documented here and elsewhere has been CCSD's reluctance to cull from the lists those who do not qualify for them. Due to some well-placed complaints (covered by the mainstream news media), procedures have tightened. However, due to the immense secrecy surrounding who is on what list and where and machinations when vacancies have occured in upper grades (such as allowing seats to go unfilled), no one will trust the process until the lists are public.
3. Buist's potential kindergarteners are NOT taking an "entrance exam" that is an intelligence test; therefore, the school does not select the "best and brightest," as is frequently suggested. The school's results are a combination of motivated parents, self-selection (more likely to be middle-class), and resources that CCSD has poured into the school. In fact, concerning the entering "interview" a previous commenter wrote,

"In the preface to the YCAT, the publisher states that the test is not designed to be used as the sole criteria for assessing a student and the test results should not be used as a single determining factor for directing where a child is placed in school. It further states that the test is to be used only in combination with other measures of a child's abilities, otherwise its results if taken alone may be highly unreliable, especially at the youngest age levels of kindergarten and pre-kindergarten. If that is the recommendation of those who designed the YCAT test, then why is Buist using this test exactly in the manner that the publisher has said it is not to be used?"

If that isn't damning enough for you, how about that the proctors asking the children the questions are not uniform and not qualified, and the reported results are not verifiable by any other human being.

Now, here it comes: District 20 has been such a thorn in the side of the powers-that-be that CCSD will make it a county-wide magnet without a list for District 20. McGinley and Meyers will point out that District 20 now has several "partial magnets" for its population, so why should its residents complain?

Hey, as long as the voters of Mt. Pleasant and James Island can vote District 20 residents like Toya Hampton-Green into office over the objections of residents of downtown, it's deja vu all over again. What's mine is mine and what's yours is mine.

CCSD's Delay, Linger, & Wait Policy Works

I should let Sunday's P & C article [Change Sought to Policy] speak for itself (with some added italics):

"Charleston County schools are supposed to verify the address of every student this year, but district leaders plan to ask the school board to change that requirement. The school board passed a policy in January of last year aimed at preventing parents from lying about their addresses to attend specific schools. District leaders failed to make plans to implement the policy until late last summer, so they decided to phase it in with five magnet schools."
[snip]

"The address verification policy was the board's response to downtown parents questioning addresses of certain students enrolled in Buist Academy, the only excellent-rated magnet school on the peninsula. Downtown residents accused some of the school's parents of lying about their addresses to better their children's chances of acceptance into the school."

Actually, downtown residents PROVED that some parents were lying about their addresses, but CCSD chose to ignore the facts!

"Buist Academy was one of the five schools required to do the address checks this past school year, and it was the only school that verified students' addresses in a different manner. The other four magnet schools checked students' addresses against the manner in which they came into the school." [Gee, how did that discrepancy creep in?]
[snip]
"McGinley said she would go back to the board July 21 to talk about the conflicting manner in which schools are verifying addresses to get feedback on what the board wanted to see happen."These questions are unique to Buist, and we have to investigate them," she said." [It doesn't take any imagination to guess what Gregg Meyers and his ilk want. She's hoping he has rounded up the votes.]

Too bad that Superintendent McGinley has decided to continue in lockstep with her predecessors. She could have begun a new era of trust in CCSD with a tough verification policy that would have put to rest the deserved reputation of cheaters at Buist. Think of the sham (i.e., unverifiable) lottery and inappropriately used test for entering kindergardeners as well as the address cheats. She's simply serving the interests of the "deserving" rich. Apparently, that's what "Charleston Achieving Excellence" means to her.

The Statistical Case Against Buist's Lottery

All but the most optimistic residents of District 20 of CCSD and their friends were unhappy but not surprised by Judge Scarborough's ruling concerning the lawsuit against Buist Academy's admissions policies. If he had ruled in their favor, it would be the first sign of a break in the wall. [See County Board Wins Buist Battle in Saturday's edition of the P & C].

However, if 75 Calhoun thinks that residents of District 20 will simply go quietly into the night--well, another case is yet to be made. Of course, the plaintiffs should go ahead with their appeal of this one, but if the courts refuse to interpret the rules to mean what they say, the statistical route remains. It's time to pull it into shape.

Now, before you stop reading, let me say that I'm not going to bore you with statistics here. My point is that many high-profile lawsuits have been won on such data, the most obvious one being against the tobacco companies. The legal reason for that warning on each pack of cigarettes is the statistical correlation between cigarette-smoking and cancer, not scientific or medical evidence (although I'm sure by now some exists).

You can see where I'm heading with this. A statistician should be able to take the addresses of each student of Buist for the last, say, 10 years, and show that it is statistically impossible to arrive at the composition of its student population as it has stood over that decade without finagling and malfeasance on the part of officials "testing" with the YCAT and running the "lottery."

In other words, based on CCSD's use of four lists for kindergarten, a statistical case can be made that the number of Buist students living in District 20 should be within a certain range if CCSD has followed its own rules. Needless to say, CCSD officials, especially Janet Rose, have done everything in their power to avoid handing over the numbers. Thanks to FOIA, they can't hide forever.

Now that Doug Gepford supposedly is culling the waiting lists for Buist, will its "lottery" also be run transparently, or will we again have "trust us, the unknown number beside your child's name didn't come up." [If you want to see how its lottery "works," see my blog of last March, Gambling by the Numbers: Magic Tuition Money.]

Superintendent McGinley's integrity is on the line here.

CCSD Superintendent's White Wash Not Inspiring

Let's face it. Superintendent Nancy McGinley has decided which side her bread is buttered on. Those responsible for her selection as superintendent want to protect the cheat system in place at Buist come hell or high water, regardless of the needs of the rest of her constituents. She's made her choice and is steering clear of any decisions that would annoy her majority on the school board.


Now comes the plan for "partial-magnet" schools. [See
Struggling schools might get to 're-create' themselves in Saturday's P & C.]

Read carefully. A seasoned veteran of the CCSD wars has:

Charleston Superintendent Nancy McGinley has placed her "plan" for reorganizing failing schools on the penninsula, in North Charleston, and on Johns Island on the CCSD web-site. It is full of education jargon, some that sound good and many that just make sounds. It reflects an attempt to "play catch up" and “me too” with other communities around the country that have tailored successful programs rooted in unique communities. To be fair, some locally generated ideas are included within McGinley's new plan, but most of these have been borrowed, too, (more like plagiarized) with little or no acknowledgement to sources found among Charleston’s rich, built-in cultural resources or to the help of those active within the city's many integrated communities.

Certainly the plan has its problems, which may be unintentional, but this is the worst part: there is a thinly cloaked attempt to close the barn door on CCSD's embarrassingly weak position on "county-wide" magnet schools. With one exception these only exist at the high school level. McGinley gives the "county-wide" magnet concept legal standing for the first time, without ever acknowledging that the concept was illegitimate to begin with, as it has been applied to Buist Academy. In one section of the document under the heading "A 'Partial Magnet School' Constituent District" she says, "If the constituent district has county-wide magnet schools, they will continue to operate utilizing their enrollment criteria."

What does she mean “schools”? There’s only one K-8 magnet that fits that description: it’s Buist. And, unless she meant to limit only "academic" criteria remaining unchanged, this is a naked attempt to close the back door on the scandal that has surrounded CCSD's loose-as-a-goose "enrollment criteria" at Buist.

Complaints against the address cheats and admissions scams at Buist have little to do with academic qualifications. If cover-up is her purpose, McGinley is not correcting a problem; she’s white washing it. She is attempting to plug the gaping hole in CCSD’s defense of having run the Buist scam as long as it has. She gives it cover. No one will ever be held accountable.

If this bad apple is still stored with the rest, how long will it take for other parts of her plan to become spoiled by this exception to consistancy and fairness? If the other points in her reorganization plan are so good, then shouldn’t Buist conform to them as well?

McGinley needs to be questioned directly on this and not allowed to wiggle out of it . . . or be permitted to slip out the door before questions are answered. The truth is that Buist should be allowed to keep its "academic criteria," but it should also be required to conform to the enrollment and opportunity zone aspects of this new "partial magnet" concept that is being proposed for the other schools in the community. Buist might see its integrity restored in the process.

If McGinley refuses to budge on this exception for Buist, then her stonewalling the issue has to be seen for what it is. We all know that Buist organizers greatly fear racial inclusion. Those behind keeping Buist just as it is still share this fear, even if their fears are based on a downtown that existed 25 years ago, but no longer. Because of the academic criteria at Buist and CCSD’s failure to provide substantial early childhood education to minorities and low income children before now, the argument (and fear) that Buist will become “all black” no longer applies.

Too bad the original NAACP suit didn't use its position to change the inequity of early childhood education instead of just the appearance of "diversity" at the upper levels. [Note from Babbie: Oh, that's right. Isn't that the part that Gregg Meyers is responsible for?]

Where’s the policy that says Buist is a "county-wide" magnet? Where are other comparable K-8 "county-wide" magnet schools? Unless Buist has peers, it should not continue unless CCSD acknowledges it was established on the principal of racial minority exclusion and still functions that way.

Who came up with that "partial magnet" phrase, anyway? I thought St. Andrews was what a real magnet school was supposed to be. It’s Buist that is the crazy hybrid. We should say that Buist is at the same table, exactly like the other "partial magnets," or the county should be prepared to name about six more "county-wide" magnet schools, designed to be just like Buist and strategically located in other parts of the county. CCSD might start with converting Jennie Moore. Then watch the storm of protests go up when local residents are required to participate in a county-wide lottery just like Buist. Will they follow with forcing this on Ashley River Creative Arts? Not likely.


So she's throwing a few crumbs at those vociferous community members who disagree with CCSD policies on Buist in hopes that will quiet them down for a while.

By the time it becomes clear that the "partial magnet" system is another sleight-of hand, McGinley will have moved on to greener (as in $$$) pastures and those students who are now in CCSD's failing elementary schools will be in CCSD's failing middle and high schools.

Academic Magnet Lottery? You've Got to Be Kidding

Why now? That's the question CCSD parents should ask themselves.

Oh, yes. I know what Janet Rose said--that there were too many qualified applicants for Academic Magnet High School (AMHS), and to avoid its being "elitist," a lottery should select those admitted.

Why now? Because AMHS enjoys national recognition now.

And those parents who previously sent their children away to Choate and Phillips Andover or signed them up for Porter-Gaud or Ashley Hall are thinking to themselves, "Wait a minute. Why spend tens of thousands per year for what we can get for free in a nationally-ranked local school"?

Everything was going along so swimmingly for CCSD until AMHS became full about four years ago; then, based on a School Improvement Committee recommendation, the school began to rank applicants on four criteria--and admit them according to that ranking. No wonder we've been hearing rumblings on this blog regarding Buist Academy students who haven't made it into AMHS.



Yes, that's correct. Graduation from Buist Academy is no longer an automatic ticket to the Academic Magnet High School! Gregg Meyers and his ilk should breathe a sigh of relief that their children have already completed their public school education!

Of COURSE, rankings will eliminate some Buist applicants; no one (except a few deluded Buist parents) claims that the school has cornered the market on the brightest students in CCSD. Certainly, the YCAT doesn't test for that, as everyone who's paying attention already knows.

Logic would seem to suggest that the solution for so many bright, well-qualified students would be to make AMHS larger to accomodate them.

When did CCSD ever operate according to logic? No, CCSD self-interest suggests the lottery solution.

Why, if AMHS took all of those qualified students, their high schools' test scores would drop; their principals and the district superintendent would look bad! That's logical, also.

If the most talented CCSD students will attend AMHS on a roll of the dice, CCSD needs to ask itself why it has a magnet high school at all. What philosophy justifies leveling by lottery?

To put the icing on the cake, in Wednesday's P & C article, Courrege stated that "District officials . . . say they have to adhere to the county school board's policy on the process, but they're not sure what that policy is. To figure it out, they are going through nearly 20 years of archived paper records."

In fact, they'll let us know when they finish inventing it.

Do they really believe they can manipulate admission into AMHS as they have for Buist?

Spotlight: Responses

As I indicated at the beginning of this conversation, I am a stranger to the Buist controversy, knowing only what I have read and seen in the media or, at this point, read in comments on my blog. However, many of the commenters on my previous post have more information, opinions, charges, and rumors to share. Perhaps others can shed some light on the following issues, charges, and (yes!) even a threat. LIGHT is definitely what is needed! Please jump in, for it's clear that Jerry Adams has decided to stay out of the stream of answers for now, probably to keep his job.

These are listed in order of appearance:

1. "The most important criteria for Buist admission are the profession of the parents, and the ability for the parents to raise funds for the [Buist] foundation." and the related comment from a later poster: "The Buist foundation donations should be public knowledge."
2. "Testing is an easier way to conceal preferential choice of students by the Administration." and "The way it is achieved is by non-uniform testing proctors." and "You can be sure that the proctors knew which children were the offspring of the well known and well connected. and "The principal's room passed 100%."
3. "[When students are dismissed from Buist for an average below 85], are the parents informed of their appeal rights? Or are some parents not informed intentionally? What part has race [...] played in how student dismissals for academic reasons have been handled?"
4. "The publisher [of the YCAT, apparently the test used at Buist] states that the test is not designed to be used as the sole criteria for assessing a student and the test results should not be used as a single determining factor for directing where a child is placed in school."
5. "The YCAT does not measure intelligence; it measures the chance that a child is at risk to have problems in school. [...] It identifies children that will need extra help."
6. [mine] "Why is Buist using an ACHIEVEMENT test? [...] This test sets up the 'winners' to be children whose parents can buy enrichment programs and/or tutors over those with more native ability. Therefore, it favors the rich."
7. "People get a teacher to buy the YCAT on line and pass it around to each other. They then take turns testing the children of their friends. [...] Some Buist parents [...] hire teachers who have given the YCAT to prep their four and five year olds."
8. In regard to Dist. 20 as a"dumping ground": "Of the 3100 students still found in downtown schools, more than 800 (25-30%) are from outside the district." and "Over 30% of Memminger's students live outside of Dist. 20 while nearly 2/3 of its students don't even live in its attendance zone of mostly south of Calhoun."
9. "Charleston Progressive (a magnet school?) was ordered to take more than 50 transfers from troubled Brentwood Middle under NCLS [NCLB?]. (Buist has taken no students under NCLB.)" and "How many children from Dist. 20 were allowed to transfer to Sullivan's Island ES under NCLB? [...] Sullivan's Island is now purging their student body of 'illegal' transfers from Dist. 20 [from] low performing [schools]." and "Magnet schools are not immune to [NCLB]. [...] Irregardless of what CCSD chooses to say, Buist is not immune to it." and "Magnet schools are not supposed to let a teacher's child in automatically or they risk losing a certain type of funding."
10. "Do you know the overlap that [the story about the No New Town Taskforce's anti-incorporation campaign last summer] had with the Buist fake address story? [...] Most of the money behind the campaign came from a handful of real estate interests that [...] have contracts or pending contracts with Charleston."

And from the other side of the issue:

1. "If keeping Buist Academy for Advanced Studies means stocking it with a group of wealthy and connected people then so be it."
2. "So what if [Gregg Meyers and Toya Hampton Green] get a little preferential treatment in the lottery or admissions process. [...] A very few children are ever displaced because of this."
3. "The proctors are human! Of course they might be a little star struck by the child of a mover and shaker."
4. "Downtown children are usually either unqualified or their parents are too stuck up to put them in a public school like Buist."
5. "It's only right that Gregg and Robert New should have had five kids each go through Buist. Maybe they owned rental property downtown or had in-laws that lived downtown."
6. "In my day these downtown people would have minded their own business and appreciated public servants like Gregg Meyers."
7. "This 'primary residence' business isn't written anywhere on Buist forms."
8. "The Title 1 list idea for Buist is nonsense. Most of those people don't pay taxes at all."
9. "We should move our [sic] school to Mt. Pleasant anyway so we all won't have to commute over the bridge. Really, if it's made up of children mostly from Mt. Pleasant then why is it downtown?
10. "[Sallie Ballard] had a meeting just this week to address the downtown whiners. Many of us think that there shouldn't even be a downtown list. Watch out! You're right, we are well connected.
11. "If that downtown mob gets their way it will destroy Buist Academy as we know it. I would put my daughter in Ashley Hall if it became more of a district school."

Isn't there enough smoke here for the Post and Courier to do some investigative reporting?