Starting Social Media Education in Middle School

From their 2011 survey of the top 500 college admission office, Kaplan Test Prep reported that:

• Nearly a quarter (24%) reviewed publicly-accessible webpages and social media sites of their applicants to get a complete picture of the candidates;
• About one fifth (20%) Googled their candidates;
• For around one eight (12%), things that they discovered online, including admissions of underage drinking, photos of inappropriate behavior, the use of vulgarity in blogs and comments, and evidence of plagiarism and copyright infringement, had negatively affected the admission chances of the candidates in question. 

In general, I'm not one to start the college preparation madness in middle school.  It's bad enough how positioning oneself to be attractive to colleges can overtake one's high school education, so I would prefer we protect our middle schoolers from that as much as possible.

However, as I've been reading some college entrance preparation stuff lately, I've come to agree with what many experts say.  I think students should be educated about the potential consequences of what they post online in such public places as their (non-school protected) blogs, Facebook pages, and other social media.

Current legislation has most places, including Blogger and Facebook, restrict accounts to people who are 13 and up.  So they are aiming for high school and up, but most students turn 13 in middle school.  In addition, many students establish accounts when they are underage, with or without their parents' knowledge or permission.  (Full disclosure:  I allowed our son to create a blog when he was underage, but with the agreement that his account was under my supervision as a legal-age adult and that I would review his posts and had the ultimate decision to remove any posts I thought were unappropriate.)

Typically, formal social media instruction is given in high school, but apparently students are finding that by then, it is too late.  Students can delete regrettable posts and comments, but since at least one poll found that 75% of high schoolers "friend" someone they have never met, they often find that their most embarrassing items have been spread around the net and it is impossible to eradicate them.

So this is a matter that can vary tremendously among families and even individuals in the same family.  However, if your middle schooler is blogging, or commenting on blogs, or doing Facebook or other public social sites, then I advise you to be having a conversation with your young adolescent about how these "funny" posts, photos, or comments could come back to haunt them in a few years.

Study Casts Doubt on the Ability of Highly Competitive Universities to Raise Salaries

On the heels of my post yesterday about a study that showed that high achieving students end up with similar test scores whether they get into the most competitive high schools or not, a study this year by researchers at Princeton University discovered a similar phenomenon in regards to the most exclusive universities.  In this 2011 study, they found that most high achieving high school students who applied to the most elite colleges, but ended up going to a less competitive school (whether because they weren't accepted or chose a different school), earned the same average salaries as their peers that graduated from the exclusive colleges (Ivy League-level schools).

This study is particularly interesting because it was a repeat of a study that the same economists published about 10 years ago.  That study revealed the same thing--applicants to top tier universities who attended less elite colleges generally obtained comparable salaries to the graduates of the most exclusive schools.  In the first study, however, the salaries were self-reported, which left room for some, padding, shall we say.  But in this follow-up research, not only were many more people included, with the time span now reaching to careers of people in their 40s and 50s, but the data on salaries was taken from more objective sources, such as Social Security information.  Still, the results were the same; there was no boost in income for graduates of top colleges compared to other students with comparable test scores and such who didn't attend those types of schools.

So, the bottom line is:  Big name colleges are not required to earn the big bucks.  If you have the grades and test scores, along with personal qualities like self-confidence and persistence that are related to applying to these types of schools, of a viable candidate for admission, ON THE AVERAGE, you will earn as much even if you attend a less prestigious college.  Depending on how much you have to pay for the big name schools, in fact, you may be better off turning them down (if accepted) and pursuing an education at a less costly alternative.

There are some BIG caveats to this conclusion, however.  Graduating from a highly competitive/Ivy League type university DID significantly increase the incomes of minority students (black and Latino), students from low income families, and those whose parents did not attend college.  It appears that the elite colleges do provide those types of students with skills, habits, or networks that do advance their professional chances at gaining a larger salary.

But for white middle or upper income students, the debt they might occur to attend the most exclusive schools is not likely to translate to significantly higher salaries.

Of course, we hope that earning a lot of money is not the sole criteria by which we judge our universities.  Income upon graduation is an even worse stand-in for educational quality than standardized tests are.  However, there can be questions about the educational value of the highly elite schools.  In many of them, the focus is really on graduate education, so that a majority of undergraduate classes are taught by graduate students, who may have only a shallow command of either teaching techniques or the subject area (and sometimes, even of the English language itself!).

This is all to say that students don't need to feel that their lives will be ruined if they don't get into their desired Ivy League schools.  There are a lot more factors involved in finding the right school than simply the prestige of its name.

Study Casts Doubt on the Ability of Highly Competitive High Schools to Raise Test Scores

While more and more applicants try to get into the country's most competitive high schools, a new study suggests that all that effort may not be worth it.  The study, entitled "The Elite Illusion," by economists from MIT and Duke University, compared the students who gained entry to some of the nation's top examination schools (public school that students must apply and take entrance exams in order to attend) to their peers who didn't quite make the cut.  They found that, three or four years, there were virtually no difference in test scores, including state standardized tests, SAT and ACT tests, and AP exams, between the two populations.

This obviously is a narrow study, and applies only to the top tier of students.  Plus, of course, it conflates educational value and achievement with test scores, which readers of this blog know I find a dubious proposition.

However, it should alleviate some of the pressure on students to get into these top schools.  It demonstrates that smart, hard working students can attain equivalent test scores without having to attend the one "magic" school set up for the top achievers.  It also disputes one of the main arguments about these schools--that being around other top students will drive high achievers to superior performance.  This study found that their test performance was no better than the top students left to pursue their education with a traditional school filled with "average" students.

If this is true, it may even behoove students NOT to attend such schools if they are planning on applying to the most competitive colleges.  The thing is, the colleges all have a cap on how many students they will take from any one high school.  For example, if Bill Gates could prove that he had rounded up the 1,000 most brilliant students in the country for an advanced Bill Gates High School, Harvard wouldn't accept all 1,000 of them, no matter how much smarter they might be.  They would only take a small percentage--25 or 50 students maybe?--because they want a diverse, but still high achieving student body.  A student with a 2200 SAT score who is number 1 in an average school that doesn't have a lot of Harvard applicants may stand a better chance than a student with a 2300 SAT score from an elite school that has dozens of other applicants also trying to get in.

It's just something to consider....

This is particularly interesting for homeschoolers to consider.  Many families decide to have their homeschooled children go to school for their high school years for a whole variety of reasons.  But certainly an important consideration is preparation for college and trying to make the students more competitive by having them in school with other high achieving students.  But this study implies that elite peer relationships don't result in higher test scores.

For example, in our area, most of the homeschoolers I know who are going to school for high school want to get into Raleigh Charter High School, which was the Number 1 school in North Carolina in the Washington Post annual High School Challenge that ranks the best high schools in the country (although it was only 55th best on the national list).  But it is not that much more likely to get into Raleigh Charter, which I think accepts 11% of eligible applicants through a lottery system, than to get into Harvard, which accepts about 7% of applicants.

Anyway, this study is reassuring for those other 89% that don't get into Raleigh Charter that by taking the right classes and doing the hard work, they can earn equally impressive test scores even at a "normal" school.

Is American Education Too Competitive?

Is the American educational system too focused on competition?  I would say "yes," not that anybody really cares what I think.  But this month, I am in good company, as that is the position that Deborah Stipek, Dean of the Stanford School of Education, takes in an editorial in this month's Science magazine.

Stipek argues that the burden to be on top among higher-achieving American high school students leaves them anxious and physically exhausted, makes them prone to cheat, and robs them of the intrinsic beauty and interest of the subject and the joy of learning.  The more they fill their transcripts with high test scores, exemplary GPAs, academic honors, and mountains of extracurricular activities, the emptier their actual experience of education is.  As Stipek said in a telephone call to reporters, "For the most part, high school has become for many of our students not preparation for life or college but preparation for the college application."

Stipek also believes that the impetus for change must come from the schools--high schools and colleges--rather than from the students.  She urges high schools to reduce this pressure by such steps as:

• linking subject matter to students' lives and interests
• focusing more on active student involvement in innovative solutions, problem solving, and hands-on experiments and activities and less on getting the right answer on a standardized exam;
• giving students multiple opportunities to achieve higher grades (by allowing papers to be rewritten or tests to be retaken, for example)
• publicizing and pushing a wider number and variety of high-quality educational options rather than merely worshiping at the alter of the top 10 or 20 elite institutions
• priding itself on how well it matches all its students to the postsecondary education best to each individual, rather than on the number that were accepted by "name" universities
• focusing and celebrating learning at whatever level, rather than test scores

She also states that colleges must do their part as well, and to encourage a student body that is passionately interested in the educational offerings at that school over having a high average SAT or GPA score.

How to Get Accepted into Highly Selective Colleges

Last month my homeschool support group had a workshop on Selective College Admissions by Richard Bowden, the executive director of the Summer Science Program (SSP). The SSP is a college residential summer enrichment program for gifted high school students to engage in top-level scientific research. Thus, not only does Bowden lead a selection process that is similar to those of the top colleges (they typically receive applications from only the very top high school students, and accept only 13% of those), most of the SSP students go on to the most selective colleges (in 2010, 80% of the 68 SSP students enrolled in either Ivy League colleges or in Stanford, MIT, or Caltech).

The following are some highlights from Bowden’s comments:

Why Apply to the Most Selective Colleges?
Here are what Bowden says are good reasons to apply to such schools:

• You have a particular passion for that college and/or its programs
• These colleges have large endowments, and so can be more generous with financial aid
• The student body is made up of high achieving students, so you will be going to college surrounded by other smart, motivated, hard-working students
• The alumni network can be valuable
• Why not? Bowden suggests that if you are interested and think you have at least a shot, you might as well apply to one or two of those schools and see what happens

Bad reasons to apply to these colleges are:

• You are applying for the status of these types of colleges, not because you are really motivated to be challenged at that level
• Your parent(s) went to that college
• Your parent(s) want you to go that college

Some General Advice about Applying to College

• The process should be driven primarily by the student, NOT the parents
• Bowden recommends the Princeton Review’s Cracking College Admissions as an excellent resource for information on applying to college.
• Start early. For example, Cracking College Admissions has guidelines for what you should be doing for each year in high school (that is, starting in 9th grade).
• Don’t apply to 20 different colleges. It is expensive, time consuming, and the colleges can see that you have applied to many colleges. Applying to lots of different colleges leads the colleges to believe that you don’t really know what you want and are just applying all over, rather than having figured out what colleges are a good fit.
• Try to see things from the perspective of the college admissions staff. You are likely to be more successful if you are coming from what the college needs/wants, rather than from what you need/want.
• Don’t put too much pressure on yourself about getting into a highly selective college. You don’t need to go to an expensive, big name college to get an excellent education.
• Don’t take it personally. If you receive a rejection letter, remember that the college is evaluating your application, not you. There is a difference, because your complex and rich personality can never be reduced to even the most extensive college application.
• Realize that because of the vast numbers of applications involved, for many students it is largely a matter of luck whether you did or did not get in.

So What Do These Highly Selective Colleges Want Anyway?
Bowden reminded us that each college admissions staff person at top colleges typically reads and considers over 1,000 applications. What is going to make that person read your application and say “Wow! I want this student to come here!”? According to Bowden, there are basically two things these colleges want to see for a successful application.

The number one thing is Excellence. As Bowden put it, these colleges are looking for students who have “academically plastered the ceiling.” That is, they have taken advantage of every academic possibility, gotten straight A’s (or close to it), and made it look easy. They have taken as many advanced classes as possible (for example, calculus is practically a requirement to get into somewhere like MIT or Caltech), and still have time and energy left over for sports, community service, and other extracurricular activities.

Bowden said that colleges continue to stress that test scores, such as the SAT or ACT, are not the biggest factor, but don’t kid yourself--the colleges do look at them and they are important in the overall selection process. Test scores are particularly important in the case of applications from homeschoolers, because colleges are looking for some external evaluations of the students. This can include SAT/ACT scores, AP or SAT subject matter tests, grades in classes taken at community colleges or other outside educational providers, etc.

On the other hand, Bowden states that the colleges do take into consideration the life circumstances of the applicants when considering their performance. Students who come from a more challenging background--for example, those born into a non-English speaking family or one with no college graduates, or someone whose socio-economic level is such that they had to work long hours to help support the family--can have a less perfect GPA or test score. However, students from well-to-do and educated families who have attended private schools all their lives had better maintain a pretty-close-to-the-top level of academic performance.

But outstanding academic performance is not enough for these colleges. The second thing the college is looking for is something about you that is Extraordinary. Your application must demonstrate there is something about you that is deep, valuable, and unique--something that you, and you alone, will bring to their freshman student mix. Colleges look for students who have discovered their passion and have explored and committed to that passion in a meaningful way. Also, colleges like signs that you have grappled with and overcome adversity in some way. It doesn’t have to be a socio-economic and/or poor family background factor, although those can be strong ones. It can also be dealing with health or learning issues, challenging yourself to your limits in some way (academically, physically, psychologically, etc.), or mastering the subject or activity that DIDN’T come easily to you. Ideally, this kind of thing will be reflected not only in your information about school and extracurricular activities, but also in the personal essay you write for your application.

For those of us homeschooling, Bowden said that this is an area in which our kids could have an advantage. The flexibility of the homeschool schedule opens up opportunities for our students to be involved in internships or important projects, etc., in a way that students who are in school all day just can’t do. So homeschooling teens should make sure to take advantage of that to take on something personally meaningful and significant to them that will help their application stand out!

Finally, Bowden pointed out that this overcoming obstacles and/or significant accomplishment has to be something “real” for the student. The idea is not just to have something that looks good to colleges. The real value of taking on a challenge and overcoming it is that students grow and become better, more mature people. The fact that they are better people makes the college want them, not the project per se. And even if they don’t get into a top tier college, they still have created value for themselves through their personal growth. This is an area, Bowden warns, in which parents can either help or hinder their students. It is great when parents support their children in taking on meaningful and calculated risks. Some parents, however, try to protect their children from these kinds of things--which can be scary and painful to go through--and thus rob them of an opportunity to grow.

What About Letters of Recommendation?
Another component of the application packet are letters of recommendations from an adult outside the family who knows the student well. Here, Bowden had a quote that was probably my favorite line of the evening. When talking about these letters, Bowden stated, “They can’t be just good. They can’t even be glowing. They have to be INCANDESCENT.” So pick the people who write your letters of recommendations carefully. Bowden suggests that you ask them if they can write you a strong recommendation, and give them a way to decline if the letter is not going to be... incandescent. Also, make sure to include letters from different perspective--that is, not ALL academic references or ALL extra-curricular references.

There were many other little tidbits and pieces of advice given over the 90 minute workshop, but those were the major categories we covered. It was really a wonderful session, because it is so helpful to hear this information from an insiders perspective. I found it so valuable that I asked Bowden’s permission to post a synopsis of his comments on the web for others to read as well, which he graciously provided.

Many thanks to Mr. Bowden for sharing his expertise with us all!

How NOT to Respond to Reports Critical of Wake County School Board

In case you missed the latest in the agony and the ecstasy that is the Wake County Public School System (WCPSS), here are this week's headlines for the leading educational stories in the local paper, the News and Observer:
3/12/11  (School Board Member) Goldman's child sent to out-of-zone school, soon followed by
3/15/11 (WCPSS Superintendent) Tata to look into transfer
(Short version:  Board Member Goldman's middle school daughter was one of only 15 students out of the 140,000+ students in the system to receive a little-used administrative procedure to transfer out of her usual school choices that requires merely an oral request, rather than the more extensive paperwork necessary for traditional transfer requests.)

3/15/11 Play nice, audit tells board
(Short version:  An outside audit conducted by Superintendent Tata's educational training organization concluded that the WCPSS school board's public fighting, disrespect for fellow board members, and even name calling was damaging the school system's image with the public and overshadowing all the good work the schools were doing.  You can read the entire 52 page audit on the WPCSS website using this link.)

The biggie, however, was this one:
3/17/11  Schools lost Wake's trust, report says
(Short version:  The WCPSS accrediting agency, AdvancED, is giving the school board one year to clean up its act or risk the system losing accreditation.  AdvancED accused the Republican majority of alienating much of its constituency by giving inadequate notice of major action and ignoring data when making major policy decisions.  Because the system's governance had created "a climate of uncertainty, suspicion, and mistrust throughout the community," AdvancED gave WCPSS its second toughest rating, Accreditation Warning," which means that it is a serious problem that must be addressed within a year in order to remain accredited.  You can read the entire 15 page report on the WCPSS website using this link.)

That story broke, by the way, two days after Superintendent Tata presented his budget cuts for the 2011-2012 school year, and on the same day as Tata was meeting with officials of the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, which is investigating WCPSS' elimination of its diversity policy.

My two-bit response to all this good news is:

YA THINK?
After a year in which school board meetings have become a zoo, with many citizens regularly protesting and even getting arrested, while the board members insult each other in front of the public, AND the NAACP is bringing lawsuits and administrative actions against the system, AND our school system has been publicly criticized from such national figures as the Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, former president Bill Clinton, and even Steven Colbert, AND just plain old residents such as myself are writing blog posts like Wake School Board Majority Should Be Ashamed....yes, I think it is reasonable to say that there are some serious governance issues here.

However, how are the Republicans responding to these critiques?  Well, good old Apex Representative and NC House Majority Leader Paul Stam (sponsor of the bill to give tax credits to families who pull their children out of school in order to send them to private school or homeschools, which I wrote about in this blog post) is one of several Republicans who have introduced a bill to effectively bypass the well-established tradition among ALL of American education of outside accreditation, and instead create a state-run accrediting agency.  The bill would also PROHIBIT any North Carolina higher education institutions (colleges, universities, or community colleges) from considering whether or not a candidate's high school is accredited when making admission, scholarship, or loan decisions.  (You can read the full text of the bill, HR 342:  High School Accreditation, through this link.)

I'm sorry, but I think this is the same "heads in the sand" thinking that I criticized the WCPSS board in my post Why Wake County Board Should Continue Accreditation with AdvancED.  I know it sounds naive to say this, but if there is anything that should be above politics, it should be our children's future.  A community will come to pieces if it can't trust the people responsible for their children's education.  That is the point of OUTSIDE, NON-POLITICAL, UNBIASED accreditation agencies like AdvancED.  They aren't Republicans, pushing more charter schools and lower budgets, etc., and they aren't Democrats, pushing more early intervention and social programs for disadvantage populations, etc.   They come in without an agenda, and say, Are the policies fair?  Are children being treated equally?  Are people--teachers, administrators, support staff, and even BOARD MEMBERS--do their jobs right at the level of quality that the public deserves to expect?  They also have a regional and national perspective, and can comment on how a system is doing vis-a-vis their peers in the state, area, and country.

A state agency will be immediately suspect of bias.  Even if it can avoid a partisan bias, which seems difficult, given the increasing involvement of the NC legislature in educational issues, it will certainly seem to have a bias to continue accreditation of NC schools to maintain the state's reputation.  I mean, isn't that why it is being created?  What purpose would it serve but to provide NC schools with some alternative accreditation if AdvancED pulls their, as they are threatening to do in Wake and Burke county (coincidentally enough, most, if not all, of the co-sponsors of the bill come from those two counties).

Also, this view point is very provincial.    Outside this state, college specify requirements of accreditation from regional accrediting organizations, so it would not help with the thousands of NC graduates who want to attend higher ed institutions outside of North Carolina.  However, it would probably diminish the national reputation of North Carolina colleges and universities, not to mention setting a bad precedent of the legislature messing around in the UNC admissions policies.  ( And I thought the Republicans were supposed to be the party of less government interference....)

Wake County can not continue to ignore the big rifts in our community over school issues.  But things seem to be getting better since Superintendent Tata came on board.  The Board has been acting more professionally.  They actually managed to go on a weekend retreat and come back with something constructive.  The WCPSS has been open about these critical reports and have posted them on their websites.  I think the general mood is hopeful that some healing and compromises can take place.  However, that is only possible if people feel that they have been listened to and respected, even if there are disagreements and ultimately their positions don't win.  And it only works if people feel like they can trust their school system.

In my opinion, HR 342 would only make things worse, not better.

Why Wake County Board Should Continue Accreditation with AdvancedED

All in all, it hasn't been a good week for the Wake County Board of Education.

After the first three days of the week being either early release, cancelled, or opened late due to ice, school were having a rocky week.  Then Wednesday night, the Board had another public meeting filled with angry and concerned parents.  This time the contention was over statements by some of the Board that they might just choose to drop their accredited status, rather than answer the questions being posed by AdvancED, the accrediting agency for the Wake system.  The Board majority's compromise decision was to write a letter to AdvancED regarding the restrictions under which they would agree to cooperate with the agency's attempts to investigate charges of racial discrimination and improper board procedures lodged by the state's NAACP chapter.  Less than 24 hours later, the Board received AdvancED's response, which was basically "Sorry, Charlie."  I'm sure it was stated in more appropriate legalese, but AdvancED could have reduced it to the immortal words of the Jeffrey Rush character in my favorite movie of the moment, The King's Speech, when he said, "My game, my turf, my rules."  That is, the whole point of accreditation is to have an experienced, unbiased, outside team of educational experts look at the operation of a school to assure the public of its quality (or alert them to lack thereof).  They can't really do that if the schools they are examining tell them what parts of the system they can and can not look into.

Then, on Friday, the head educator in the entire country, the U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, chose to single out Wake Country among all the public school systems in the country to question its commitment to racial equity.  And this was not an off-hand comment captured on someone's iPhone; it was stated in a Letter to the Editor of the Washington Post expressing his concerns about the WCPSS as depicted in a Washington Post article that I mentioned earlier this week.  (Click here to see the letter in the Washington Post.)

Although it may not seem like it, I really try hard to understand the point of view of the Republican majority on the School Board, and I do my best to see them in their best light.  Nonetheless, I have to say that I think it would be foolish for the Board to continue down this destructive path towards non-accreditation.  There are three major arguments against pursuing this course of action:

1.  Lack of Accreditation Will Hurt Graduating Students

Accreditation is the accepted procedure for colleges to know you are coming from a respectable school system.  Losing your accreditation--or voluntarily withdrawing from accreditation when under an investigation--makes the system look fishy.  Board Chair Margiotta, in his ignorance?arrogance? I don't know, I'm having a hard time finding a more neutral term here, states that since Wake County is so big, he is sure that colleges won't stop excepting Wake County graduates.  He's probably right--for schools in North Carolina.  I'm sure there's no way that NC State or UNC is going to ban all Wake County schools from their campuses, nor will ECU or probably Duke or other colleges in the state.  But that understanding of this special situation will fade the further from North Carolina the high school students are looking to roam.  Some colleges, especially the highly competitive ones, have an automatic "kick-out" of candidates from non-accredited schools...one way to keep the numbers manageable.  Will they go back and make an exception for Wake County students?  I don't know, but if I had a child graduating in the next year or so, I wouldn't want to count on it.

Furthermore, there are some programs, loans, internships, and scholarships that have legal requirements that students graduate from accredited schools (sometimes with exceptions for homeschoolers).  They don't have any choice about it--Wake County students will not be eligible for those.  So, sure, if you have a child who graduates from Wake County, is only interested in going to a North Carolina college, and doesn't need these restricted loans or scholarships, whether the schools are accredited or not probably doesn't make that much difference.  But I think there are a lot of North Carolina high schoolers who don't fit into that category.

2.  AdvancED is NOT Your Enemy; They Could Even Turn Out to Be Your Best Friend

AdvancED is not reviewing the operation to come in and tell the Board what to do or to tell them how to assign students to schools.  AdvancED is supposed to be like a mediator or arbitrator; someone from the outside who can look at the issues with an impartial eye and give a ruling on which side is right.  For months now, the NAACP, leading the charge for many other critics, has charged that the Board acted against its own established procedures and agreed to a policy that will lead to racially discriminatory education.  The Board responded that they followed the correct procedures and have their arguments about how the new school assignments will benefit all students in the county.  The NAACP has one set of statistics backing up their side; the Board has another set backing up their contentions.  Whose figures are right?  Were procedures followed or not?  The latter question, at least, seems like there should be a simple yes or no answer to it.  But we have been given no answer, nor even a suggestion of how we are going to achieve such an answer; instead, we have month after month of each side arguing over the same points and making no headway in proving their points.

Enter AdvancED.   THAT is their job--to answer that question (among others).  If the Board REALLY believes they have followed the appropriate procedures, and they REALLY believe their statistics are more valid than the ones of their critics, they should welcome AdvancED to come and tell the public, The Board is right, they did things properly, and their figures are appropriate.   If AdvancED backed up their decision, that would take a lot of the wind out of the sails of the critics.  Maybe we could even move on and get something accomplished.  However, as I stated in an earlier post, this is not the first time that the Board majority acts like people outside their own ranks are out to get them.

3. Guess What?  You're Going to Have to Answer those Questions Even If You Drop Your Accreditation

Let us not forget that this fight with AdvancED is not the only regulatory problem the Board has on their plate.  The U.S. Education Department's Office of Civil Rights has not just one, but TWO, investigations of Wake County pending--one for racial discrimination, another for sexual discrimination (in interscholastic sports).   And while you can chose to drop your accreditation rather than answer those pesky questions from AdvancED, you can't just opt out of a Civil Right discrimination suit brought by the US government....a suit that will be bound to ask all those same questions and MORE.

This is where Secretary Duncan's letter is so significant.  As I've said before, I grew up in the Washington DC area, so I am fluent in DC-ese.  Therefore, allow me to translate this letter.  This letter is a warning to Wake County not to try to blow off and bluster through these discrimination complaints.  There is NO WAY Secretary Duncan would mention Wake County in that context without someone in his office having checked into the case and decided that there were legitimate reasons for concern that the system was racially discriminating.

So the Board can stick their heads in the sand if they want and force AdvancED to leave--at the expense of Wake County graduates.  But you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be at least an investigation, if not a lawsuit, coming from the federal Office of Civil Rights.  And refusing to cooperate with AdvancED will make the suits in DC even more suspicious that there is something rotten in the county of Wake.

The best thing the Board could do for the schools, the public, and particularly for ITSELF is to get out of its own way and cooperate with AdvancED.  But will it?  As my Magic 8 Ball says, "Cannot predict now."

PS--

On a happier and less complicated note--today is my son's 12th birthday!  Happy Birthday to Him!  But it makes me kind of sad to think that this is the last year before he turns into a teenager...