Raleigh Public Record (https://theraleighcommons.org/raleighpublicrecord/topics/news/school-board/page/3/)
Walnut Creek Elementary has been a poster child for Wake County’s debate about high-poverty schools. Its students recently saw big gains in test scores but are still well below the county average.
Wake County schools have seen steady growth since the recession hit in 2008. But this year Wake’s central office is seeing a high volume of traffic, and growth may be re-approaching levels not seen since before the recession.
Wake County schools currently builds elementary schools on 20-acre tracts of land. But 20 acres is hard to find in Raleigh, where school capacity is stretched thin.
After one year of a choice assignment policy that was enacted by a lameduck Republican majority, the Democratic majority is directing that Wake schools again moves towards a system that controls for diversity.
The North Carolina NAACP is calling on the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights to “reinvigorate” its investigation into Wake schools. The NAACP made the request based on an analysis of F&R data last week by the Record.
A new Record data analysis exposes a trend of poor schools getting poorer at a faster rate than more affluent schools, despite the school system’s contention that a choice plan would stabilize F&R percentages. The analysis also shows that before the diversity policy was changed, schools poverty levels were moving toward the middle.
In the Record’s ongoing effort to make school system data more digest-able, Education Reporter Will Huntsberry updates and analyzes the latest numbers on the controlled-choice assignment plan released at Tuesday’s school board meeting.
Much has been made of the school board’s decision to ask county commissioners for an increase to its budget as well as the fact that it’s not cutting teachers. The Record takes a larger look at the budget, and Wake’s rank near the bottom of the nation in per pupil spending.
The Wake County school system is a $1.4 billion per year business. The Record explains where the money comes from and where the money gets spent.
As the new controlled-choice plan has been rolled out, capacity issues across the county have begun to rear there head. A major study to identify places for new schools begins this summer.
