Frustrated by what they consider the destabilizing and disruptive effects of busing, reassignment, and mandatory year-round calendar policies, some Wake County parents are pushing school officials to consider alternative ways to address students’ flagging academic performance.

Parents have cause for concern. Test results for 2007-08 from the N.C. State Board of Education showed that 1,659 public schools, 68.8 percent, failed to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) required by federal No Child Left Behind standards. Sixty schools were omitted because they lacked sufficient data to determine their status. Of the state’s 1,134 Title I schools, so designated because a high percentage of students are eligible for free- and reduced-price meals, 66.8 percent failed to meet AYP.

In 2007, North Carolina released its first-ever four-year cohort graduation rate. Only 68.1 percent of first-time high school ninth-graders in 2002-03 graduated in four years or less. The rates were worse for Native American(51.1 percent), Limited English Proficient (54.6 percent), economically disadvantaged (55.3 percent), and black students (60.0 percent).

Two models garnering attention are the Mission Possible program, focusing on differentiated compensation and performance pay for teachers, and KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program), a national network of free, open-enrollment, college-preparatory charter schools.

Mission Possible

At a May 11 public forum on education in Cary, Dr. Amy Holcombe, executive director of talent development for Guilford County Schools, discussed Mission Possible, a comprehensive teacher incentive program launched in the 2006-07 school year to raise teacher quality and effectiveness and improve student achievement. Initially, 20 schools with the highest teacher turnover rates (77 percent annually in core subjects at some schools), high poverty (more than 75 percent eligible for free or reduced price lunches in some schools), and a low AYP and ABC status were selected. The program has since expanded to include 30 schools.

While Guilford’s racial and ethnic demographics are similar to those of the Wake and Charlotte-Mecklenburg systems, Holcombe stressed that Guilford also has been challenged by the loss of major industries. This has fueled a startling rise in the school system’s poverty rate, with more than 53 percent of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunches, rising from 30 percent about a decade ago.

Mission Possible provides extra pay to experienced teachers and principals who work in the neediest schools and produce measurable, significant improvement in student achievement. Math teachers, for example, can earn an extra $18,000 per year. Teachers receive two types of incentive pay: recurring recruitment/retention paid monthly and a performance incentive awarded as a single payment after the teacher’s prior year’s performance has been determined. The program also offers structural support, specialized training, and professional development to teachers.

Prior to the program’s implementation, “one of our high schools went an entire year without a single certified math teacher, some (schools) didn’t have a math teacher at all, there was a shortage of English and elementary teachers, and the highest poverty schools had inexperienced teachers,” Holcombe said.

Since its launch three years ago, the teacher attrition rate has dropped 23 percent at Mission Possible schools, and the rate of Mission Possible staff transferring to non-Mission Possible school positions or other districts has fallen dramatically. Teacher quality, measured by data derived from SAS-EVASS, has similarly risen by as much as by 78 percent. After deriving a teacher’s effect on student performance, the effect is compared to all teachers in the system who taught the same course in the same school year.

In a telephone interview, Holcombe explained that EVASS enables the school system to track not only a student’s test results from grade to grade over subjects but also teacher, school, and district effects on the rate of individual student academic progress. EVASS, purchased by the N.C. Department of Public Instruction in 2007, is free to all school districts in the state, though only a few systems are using it.

The achievement gap between students in Mission Possible schools versus those in non-Mission Possible schools has been reduced. In 2008, Algebra I students in Mission Possible schools outperformed those in non-Mission Possible schools. “Our studies and others show teacher effectiveness and quality, along with home-field advantage, improves student achievement,” Holcombe said. Home-field advantage is a policy enabling students to remain in their neighborhood schools. “Students who are not plucked up and moved from school to school have significantly higher test scores than those who are not,” Holcombe added.

KIPP model

Since its launch in 1994, KIPP has expanded to 66 schools nationwide, including one in Charlotte-Mecklenburg and two in Gaston. “Over 95 percent of KIPP students are African-American or Latino, and more than 80 percent of KIPP students are eligible for the federal free and reduced-price meals program,” cited the 2008 KIPP Report Card, and “many students who enter for their first year are two or more grade levels behind their peers in more affluent communities.”

In a telephone interview, Brandon Wong, a national KIPP spokesperson, explained that “KIPP schools have high expectations for student achievement and a set, rigorous college preparatory curriculum. KIPP schools have longer school days, up to 9 hours. Both parents and teachers must sign a commitment to excellence form when a student enrolls.” “Teacher engagement is huge. Many teachers provide their cell phone numbers to students, so students get extra help whenever they need it,” Wong said, “and school staff make home visits.” While only 40 percent of lowincome students nationally matriculate to college, 85 percent of KIPPsters do.

KIPP schools measure performance through national tests measuring students’ grasp of subject matter, such as the Stanford Achievement Test, and state tests comparing students to their peers, similar to North Carolina’s End of Course and End of Grade. National percentile rankings for students n KIPP middle schools over four years rose from 41 to 80 in mathematics and from 31 to 58 in reading.

Resisting change

Growing evidence that a number of innovative public school models are raising student academic performance, especially in schools with high percentages of economically disadvantaged and minority students, has some parents asking why Wake County relies on busing and reassignment, which haven’t delivered improvements. Wake County school board member on Margiotta said he and some other members have urged the board to consider alternatives.

“For whatever reason, Wake thinks it knows better. The argument that these programs cost more is not true. We can use Title I and other grants” for financing, said Margiotta, “but Wake has not applied, and that’s why some parent groups are working to elect school board members who are receptive to other models.”

Karen McMahan is a contributor to Carolina Journal.

[Editor’s note: Due to an editing error, this story originally said there are two KIPP schools in Gaston County rather than Gaston.]