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I take these studies with a grain of salt. I always consider who is paying for these studies.
We saw numerous consolidations during integration and these integrations/consolidations have been a long-term positive both academically and economically. Back in the 70's, the White Citizens Council used these same studies to support segregation. Most studies contain certain bias that should be highlighted and not ignored.
I have no idea if NC has more consolidation than most other states. If so I would think that may be attributed to the lower funding NC provides to their schools as compared to other states.
The Washington County school having an enrollment of just over 100 students is a very small school with limited offerings. Since 2004 the enrollment has ranged from 77-165. No idea why the variance of over 50% but I would think Hispanic students and transient farm workers has something to do with it but that is total speculation. I am going to see if I can get more info on that. The head football coach, Wayne Rodgers has been in that position since 1986.
I read an article that was very interesting about consolidation and mergers into a 1 county system. The article was about Wake county schools as the success story and discussed a state in which did a statewide consolidation, which was Maine. Interesting enough the article never exposed what the academic benefits were but stated that's difficult to track. Additionally in Maine who did a statewide consolidation and merger did save around 5% on their budget but that was all at the administration level it did not save anything at the school level.
Wake county essentially combined Raleigh City and wake county schools in order to balance low income families and higher income families and essentially every 3 years your kids could go to a different school. The goal there is to keep less than 40% of subsidized lunches in the school.
Btango you may know more about this in Wake County than I do but the article is an interesting read. It's meant to be a success story for consolidation and merger but if anything from the article it validates my points of no real savings and no academic gains.
Ok 1 you are talking integration of blacks and whites into the same schools which is totally different from consolidations of today. 2 wouldnt the modern day segregation be these public charter schools?
Since it seems that NC is a front runner atleast to my knowledge on consolidations please tell me a couple of success stories? Where 1 in turned out to be a dramatic financial benefit and 2 academically there was a dramatic increase academically.
I have no idea if NC has more consolidation than most other states. If so I would think that may be attributed to the lower funding NC provides to their schools as compared to other states.
The Washington County school having an enrollment of just over 100 students is a very small school with limited offerings. Since 2004 the enrollment has ranged from 77-165. No idea why the variance of over 50% but I would think Hispanic students and transient farm workers has something to do with it but that is total speculation. I am going to see if I can get more info on that. The head football coach, Wayne Rodgers has been in that position since 1986.
Back in the 1960's and early 1970's, many schools across the South integrated and consolidated at the same time. Overall, this was very successful although other "studies" indicated that such a thing would not be successful.
Most of the recent consolidations over the past 30 years have been in Eastern NC. Robeson County went through three or four consolidations from the early 1980's to 1990. Some of the former high schools did not even have classes such as Advanced Math, Chemistry, and Physics. With the new high schools, there were enough kids to offer such classes.
Martin County's consolidation five years ago has been tremendously successful. The kids now have more classes that they can take that will properly prepare them for either a vocation or for college. The same holds true when Northampton-East and Northampton West consolidated a few years ago. Back in 1981, when Northampton-East and Northampton-West were created, there were several smaller high schools that offered little college preparatory classes. Things are much brighter now in Northampton and Martin County since consolidation.
Look at Beaufort NC. In the 1980's, besides Washington HS, you had Pantego, Wilkinson (Belhaven), Bath, Chocowinity, and Aurora. These schools offered little preparation for kids to attend college. These schools consolidated to form Northside and Southside in 1989. Subsequently, we saw more kids going to college as a result.
All of these consolidations helped academics and was cost efficient in the long run. As far as the economy, the old education structures wasn't helping commerce whatsoever. In fact, it dragged the economy down.
Again, when reading these studies, it's important to find out who sponsored these studies and why these studies were done in the first place. With any consolidation, there will be some cons with it, specifically travel. However, we should not discount the positives from consolidation.
Once again define success? If these were as successful as stated it would be hard to believe that NC would be ranked 48th in the nation. Additionally I have been to Pantego and Beaufort and there is absolutely nothing there when I was there about 2-3 years ago.
In my eyes when you speak of consolidation bettering academics you better be talking of increasing one letter grade within 5-10 years.
The geographical barriers would have to be huge to have a high school with only 100 students.
Once again define success? If these were as successful as stated it would be hard to believe that NC would be ranked 48th in the nation. Additionally I have been to Pantego and Beaufort and there is absolutely nothing there when I was there about 2-3 years ago.
In my eyes when you speak of consolidation bettering academics you better be talking of increasing one letter grade within 5-10 years.
Merger of school systems are often viewed as a budgetary advantage. The Lexington City Council commissioned a study eight years ago, hoping to prove that merger of the county system with the two city systems would save significant money. What it found instead is that the two city systems would lose a total of $16 million per year in federal money. Additionally, countywide, a merged system would be required to raise per pupil spending to the level of the highest of the three systems...Lexington. With that in mind, the cost of a new school is a bargain. At the time, Davidson County was dead last of all 100 counties in per pupil spending. I suspect that hasn't changed.Davidson County is an example of separate school systems that appear to hamper the county. Thomasville and Lexington have their own schools systems with high schools that have space available. Thomasville is much like Albemarle. One high school that has seen enrollment and academics dwindle with a middle school and two elementary schools.
North Davidson and Ledford have space issues but it would seem that the six miles to Thomasville High School from Ledford HS and 7-8 miles between North Davidson and Lexington would allow for redistricting and not building a new school.
I bet al sharpton and jessie jackson come to town. When desperate to save your crappy school why not pull the race card. Last time i checked albemarle isn't an all black school.