C.C. Blaney: Magnet Status to Lure White Students to CCSD

It's a shame. If the Charleston County School District really wanted diverse elementary schools (read, "integrated"), it would reinstitute tracking!

I know, I know. Tracking has been the third rail of educational philosophy for the last couple of decades. Instead, CCSD is laboriously trying to deal with the problem of white flight by creating magnet schools. Students will end up tracked by school instead of by class.

C.C. Blaney is the case in point. In the early 1990s the school had nearly 400 students enrolled. By the spring of 2014, it had fewer than 200 students and was rated Below Average, with 94 percent of its students on free or reduced lunch. This year the building sat vacant as its students were divided between two other schools; ex-Superintendent McGinley was only too happy to remove it from her stats on failing schools.

Blaney will end up with the same "diversity" problem as Academic Magnet under the present circumstances. CCSD must up its game with the many defacto segregated black schools in the district. Until it does so, no true magnet school will be as diverse as Charleston County citizens would hope.

Will Diversity Ever Come to Burke High School?

Amid all the concerns in the Charleston County School District, ex-Superintendent McGinley decided to move "diversity" closer to the top of the list. Hence, the hiring of a "diversity expert." Evidently, diversity is the new buzz-word for quasi-quota systems (nod to the Oscar furor). 

Diversity spokesmen are now making the case that the admissions process of the Academic Magnet High School prevents diversity. The presumption is that in order to function in a multi-cultural society, students at AMHS must attend classes with a larger percentage of black students.

What about the students at Burke High/Middle? Shouldn't someone be concerned that, in order to function in a multi-cultural society, its students must attend classes with a larger percentage of white students? McGinley threw several half-hearted bandaids at the problem of 99% black enrollment at the school, but she (and the school board) was never really serious. 

Many in the community wish to continue Burke's tradition as a black high school. What would Martin Luther King, Jr., say about that goal?

CCSD Disconcerted by Its Own Policies Regarding School Transfers

I'm not sure anyone has counted how many programs Charleston County School Superintendent Nancy McGinley has instituted to entice students to attend school outside their attendance zones, but those programs are legion.

So it's all the more puzzling why CCSD administration last month claimed to be "disconcerted" over this trend. Maybe it thinks the "wrong" students are heeding the siren call of magnet and partial-magnet schools or petitioning for curriculum offered only at the other end of the county?

Actually, one reason for concern is that, while North Charleston's elementary and middle schools are full, numbers are exiting North Charleston for high school, perhaps to avoid ninth-grade classes where up to 40 percent are reading at the fourth-grade level or below. Another concern is falling enrollment at de-facto all-black Burke, the only high school on a majority-white peninsula. Could Burke's celebration of its all-black hsitory have anything to do with white flight?

Seriously, does anyone wonder why students who can choose to go elsewhere do so, even opting sometimes for "gasp" private schools?

Board Vice-Chairman Ducker worries that too much parental choice will send some schools "into a death spiral." Some parents, on the other hand, think a death spiral might be the solution for the ones with dismal records.

CCSD has decided to throw another edublob consultant at their perceived problem: for $16,500 he or she will "study school choice trends using a two-pronged approach--an online survey and focus groups." With all the fine administrators already on board at 75 Calhoun, you'd think this could be an in-house job. Apparently not.

Let's at least hope that McGinley resists tinkering with the focus groups.

SC's Walk-to-School Day Becomes Bus-to-School Day in CCSD

Children do not get enough exercise, or so experts tell us constantly. They sit to watch TV, play video games, or entertain themselves with the computer or a smart phone. Partly due to lack of suburban sidewalks, many children never walk farther than the end of their driveways. So what to do?

South Carolina, in an effort to encourage more walking, has created its own Walk-to-School Day, one that occurred as scheduled this morning. Local TV showed students walking to Lambs Elementary. What I hoped to see did not materialize: an interview with Superintendent Nancy McGinley of the Charleston County School District explaining her philosophy on walking to school.

Has there been anyone in the entire history of education in the State of South Carolina who has discouraged more students from walking to school?

From her actions and recommendations, the following picture of the McGinley-inspired school district appears: no neighborhood schools and a massive fleet of buses that criss-cross the district at all hours of the day and night ferrying students to and from so-called magnet schools.

Over the next few weeks, while you drive to work past students waiting for the bus in the dark, remember who is responsible for students' not walking to school.

Why Proposed CCSD Mt. Pleasant Magnet School Is a Bad Idea

No one can blame parents for wanting an academically-challenging elementary school for their children. Since the edublob has decided that tracking is discriminatory, many face either providing challenges at home or enrolling in private schools. Now the Mt. Pleasant community has proposed its own "Buist" in Mt. Pleasant. Though I could respond with evidence of how the presence of the Academic Magnet and Buist have damaged the Charleston County School District, one more eloquent than I made the case several years ago in the New York Times, of all places. As you read his analysis, think of its relevance to what exists in CCSD today.

FEBRUARY 10, 2009
Magnet Schools: More Harm Than Good?
By VICTOR HARBISON

Victor Harbison teaches civics and history at Gage Park High School in Chicago, where he also sponsors the school newspaper. In 2000, he became the first National Board-certified high school history teacher in Chicago and he has worked on several educational reform projects during his career. Gage Park faces the all-too-common challenges of an urban school: test scores are so low that only 8% of students meet state standards; only 47% of its students graduate; and 97.4% of them live in poverty.

"Given the recent economic news, it seems everyone wants to talk about the long-term impact of short-term thinking. Why not do the same with education and magnet schools? Think of the issues educators faced 30 or 40 years ago: Smart kids not being challenged? Academically under-prepared kids, most of them ethnic minorities, moving in and test scores going down? It’s completely logical that they chose a path to create magnet schools. But it was a short-term solution that has had long-term negative consequences.

"I take my students to lots of outside events where they are required to interact with students who come from magnet or high-performing suburban schools. What I see time after time is how my kids rise to the occasion, performing as well (or at least trying to) as those students whose test scores or geographic location landed them in much more demanding academic environments.

"On a daily basis, I see the same kids who do amazing things when surrounded by their brightest counterparts from other schools slip into every negative stereotype you can imagine, and worse, when surrounded by their under-performing peers at our “neighborhood” school.

"When educational leaders decided to create magnet schools, they didn’t just get it wrong, they got it backwards. They pulled out the best and brightest from our communities and sent them away. The students who are part of the “great middle” now find themselves in an environment where the peers who have the greatest influence in their school are the least positive role models.

"Schools adapted, and quickly. We tightened security, installed metal detectors, and adopted ideas like zero-tolerance. And neighborhood schools, without restrictive admission policies based on test scores, quickly spiraled downward — somewhat like an economy. Except in education, we can’t lay off students who have a negative impact on the school culture. That is why adopting such a business model for the educational system has been and always will be a recipe for failure.

"What should have been done was to pull out the bottom ten percent. Educational leaders could have greatly expanded the alternative school model and sent struggling students to a place that had been designed to meet their educational needs. Now, hundreds of millions of dollars later, we are no closer to meeting the needs of the struggling student, but the system has created collateral damage, namely the great middle, who are forced everyday to go to class in a school that is more unchallenging, unwelcoming and dangerous than it has to be.

"Imagine if pulling out the “bottom ten” had been the policy for the past 30 years. Neighborhood schools could have purred along like the go-go 90’s under Clinton and the students with the greatest needs, facing the greatest challenges, would have had millions of dollars in resources devoted to their education in brand new state-of-the-art buildings (with Ivy League-educated, amazing teachers, no doubt). Just imagine.

"Instead, the system as it is stratifies communities. By the time they graduate high school, many of the brightest kids already feel alienated from their neighborhoods; after all, they spend the majority of their day somewhere else.

"I look forward to the arguments defending magnet schools. They are legion and many are spot on. That is, if you can live with the idea of condemning the vast majority of students in your community to sub-standard schools. No one can rationally argue that they are a good long term solution to what ails schools in this country.

Councilman Gilliard Stokes Mean-Spirited Rumors About Burke's Closing

Wendell Gilliard has the floor, or at least the op-ed page, Saturday to respond to ideas proposed by the District 20 (downtown) constituent board. Most of his ideas mimic the usual platitudes emanating from Superintendent McGinley. However, one vitriolic section reads as though NAACP President Dot Scott thought it up. 

"My constituents are saying that there is a faction in the community that wants Burke closed so that it can be reopened as an exclusive academic magnet school for a select few. This group has already suggested the name of “Academic Magnet-South.” Group meetings are being held with handpicked special interest groups that want to close the school, change the school’s name and re-open anew. 

"The general community feels that the school is being neglected — that so-called advocates appear to be involved, but that movement on any real plans is running at a snail’s pace. This actually would allow for a further drop in enrollment and therefore the school’s closing.

"Such actions are unfair and cater to those who wish to exclude children who have every right to be at Burke.

Conspiracy theories, anyone? Gilliard uses the classic "straw man" strategy: set up a false premise and then demolish it.

• "so-called advocates" are unnamed because Gilliard didn't want to publicize Arthur Lawrence's support;
• "exclusive magnet school" and "select few" suggest that any change is meant to exclude the present students;
• "handpicked special interest groups" translates as community members not selected by Superintendent McGinley
• "change the school's name" slops over into the "red herring" category, since no one has suggested doing that.

The "snail's pace" Gilliard complains about can be laid squarely at the doorstep of the very administration he claims is doing so well for the school as it is.

Nowhere does Gilliard state what he really wants: an all-black high school. 

CCSD's McGinley's Tunnel-Vision Diversity

Really, it's a hoot to see our local rag touting the push for diversity within Charleston County's magnet schools. Under the leadership of Superintendent McGinley the district has become almost as segregated as it was prior to consolidation and desegregation. Someone needs to confront her with the facts, but apparently the reporter is unwilling to do so.

The reality is that Buist Academy, with 21 percent non-white, is the most integrated school on the peninsula barring the Charter School for Math and Science, of course! And the School of the Arts with its 23 percent nonwhite is more integrated than any other high school in the district.

You might say McGinley's putting the emphasis on the wrong syl-LA-ble.

How about considering upping diversity at the Military Magnet? What about Charleston Progressive?

The district remains silent on integrating these magnet programs, and the reporter follows suit.

One point made about the School of the Arts is that students at Corcoran Elementary, another de facto segregated school, didn't know about its programs. McGinley has been in a position for years, first as chief academic officer and then as superintendent, to tell them, so she's responsible for their ignorance.

Someday the newspaper will stop shilling for the district. Someday.

"Charlestowne Academy" Building Example of CCSD's Failures

It's not Charlestowne Academy on Rivers Avenue that may become a homeless shelter if the Charleston County School District's agreement for a land swap with Mayor Keith Summey goes through.

No, it's the Charlestowne Academy--Charleston County Discipline School--Bethune Arts and Community Center--Bethune Elementary School campus. The building's construction date seems lost in the mists of time. Perhaps a reader has a long memory and can fill in the blanks. What is certain is mismanagement of this CCSD asset by multiple superintendents and School Boards.

What happened to Bethune Elementary School's use of 5841 Rivers Avenue is unclear, but probably the (black?) school was a victim of integration and consolidation in Charleston County. It was vacant. By 1982 this albatross was rented for $1 per year to the city of North Charleston for use as an arts and community center, an agreement that lasted for at least 10 years. How's that for a great return on investment? One would hope that CCSD got something else in return!

Before 1996, CCSD decided to use the building for its first "discipline" school during times in the nineties when students were actually expelled from CCSD's other schools in large numbers. That lasted until CCSD built a special campus as a discipline school, an idea that was ultimately rejected as non-PC.

Notice, none of these decades involved an entity named Charlestowne Academy.

1996 was a banner year for formation of magnet schools in the district. Not only Charleston Progressive but also Military Magnet and Montessori schools were approved, with some opposition, by the district. Charlestowne Academy was formed as a magnet school with no academic entrance requirements that would focus on "back to basics," starting as K through 10. The school focused on academics (no athletic programs) including the Spalding Method (http://www.spalding.org/) and Core Knowledge ( http://www.coreknowledge.org/) in its lower grades.

In its first years, this school was more successful in the results in its lower grades than any of the other magnets, with the exception of Buist Academy. Parental involvement was required; the school had an effective discipline system; and, of course, its curriculum was parent-driven, not district-driven. It was so successful that the lower grades used a lottery system to select only one-third of applicants. And, it was more integrated than almost any other school in the district.

What happened? It's true that the high school portion never really got off the ground. In hindsight, the plan should have started with perhaps kindergarten through fourth and add-a-grade per year, as many new schools have done. Sticking students in trailers at the Bonds-Wilson campus apparently was not a turn off, but in 1999 the school moved into the old discipline campus.

No, the school's success was its death sentence. As new superintendents and new school board members arrived, they saw that the school made the other non-magnet schools look bad by comparison, so one by one they stole away the details that made it successful. One of the first to go was required parental involvement. Next, the school was informed it must use the same ineffective discipline program as the rest of CCSD. Maria Goodloe-Johnson pulled the rug all the way out when she decreed that all CCSD schools must use the same curriculum. These developments should serve as a warning to the folks at Meeting Street Academy that hope for a deal with the district!

Since 2009 the campus has been for sale with apparently no takers except for member Chris Collins's lease agreement that was finally dissolved this year. So of the thirty or forty years that the school has existed, how many were utilized with full use of the property by the district?

How many other properties also lie fallow?

Theme for Mt. Pleasant Magnet at Whitesides?

To relieve overcrowding without offending any parent in Mt. Pleasant, Charleston County Schools Superintendent McGinley has a brilliant idea: create a magnet elementary school open to any resident of East Cooper. The school, unlike other magnets, will have no attendance zone and will be located at the former Whitesides Elementary in an almost all-white area of the town.

The idea neatly sidesteps the toes of Mt. Pleasant parents who want smaller classes in their overcrowded schools but want somebody else's child to change schools.

But what happens if too few parents sign up for an untested school not knowing what its student body will look like?  How many parents will be enticed by a "theme"? CCSD is taking chances with its overcrowding because Mt. Pleasant parents have clout. You merely need peruse McGinley's effusive praise of Mt. Pleasant in her op-ed: "There's not a town in America that does a better job of supporting high-quality public education than Mount Pleasant." "The town of Mount Pleasant should beam with pride that so many people want to reside within its boundaries."

As we used to say, "Gag me with a spoon." No, these parents need not suffer the closing of neighborhood schools and shuffling around of their children nor tolerate one ethically-challenged principal running two elementary schools, as downtown District 20 residents know so well.

Just try to imagine a theme created by administrators that will actually fulfill a desire of Mt. Pleasant's residents while resulting in an integrated school. McGinley knows perfectly well that what residents desire most is another Buist Academy located in Mt. Pleasant, an all-honors elementary, if you like.

Has anyone sensed support for a theme other than that one? In truth, most parents want their children to stay in the attendance zone they paid for and for the pesky newcomers crowding into the schools to go away.