The Burlington School District designated the two city schools in the high-poverty area of the city to be magnet schools, intended to draw students from other parts of the city from a higher socio-economic class.
I think magnet schools can be a good thing, though I am disappointed that they chose to have a “sustainability” academy, rather than one that focused on math, science, and technology.
The Free Press had an article the other day about the magnet schools, which open in the fall, and how the applications are coming along.
So far 85 students have applied to the magnet schools from elsewhere in the city and “about three” students who live near the two schools have applied to go to other city schools. (Gee, with such a small number, one would expect the superintendent to be more exact.)
The schools seem to be achieving the goal for which they were created. Both schools have a 90% population of children who qualify for free or reduced lunch. In contrast, the incoming kindergarten class for Barnes will have a “poverty” rate of 50%, Wheeler 63%. (I have quotes around poverty because the free and reduced lunch guidelines are not poverty level, though those terms are used interchangeably in the article.)
Here’s what caught my eye, though.
Wheeler has slots in several grades, including kindergarten, for students who do not qualify for free or reduced lunch.
In other words, if poor kids – which, by the way means under $39,220 for a family of four – will be turned away based solely on the fact that they are too poor.
Sorry poor kids, no Academy for Integrated Arts for you. Try again next year.
That seems kind of, I don’t know, discriminatory.
The school district calls this criterion: socio-economic balance (reflecting the diversity in our community).
That’s funny. If it reflected the diversity in the community, then it would not need to be artificially engineered.
I am not opposed to the schools themselves. I think an integrated arts school is a great thing. We do integrated arts here in my home school and it is a wonderful way for kids to learn.
I do think it is unfortunate that the children are being selected based on their parents’ income level.
The school district wants to feel good about its poverty numbers, so it is adjusting the numbers solely for that purpose, without regard to the benefit this school would provide to kids of all income levels.
April 2nd, 2009 at 3:25 pm
I don’t really understand what a magnet school is. Don’t they still have to teach all of the things children learn in the other schools? Are they just doing it with a different flair, or what?
I’m highly skeptical of attempting to integrate students this way. It seems like common sense that kids should just go to the school they live the closest to.
April 2nd, 2009 at 5:45 pm
All schools – public, private, and home – have to teach the same subject areas, but there is a lot of latitude in there. The public schools have Grade Level Expectations that are more specific than the statutory subject areas, but again, there is a lot of latitude.
The integrated arts magnet school will, from what I was told by a teacher at Wheeler, integrate arts into the entire curriculum. I do that with history, and sometimes science, and the kids love it.
The sustainability school will probably be different from the other schools, as it will have a “sustainability” focus, whatever that means. Last I heard, it was not yet defined. It’s like indecency, you know it when you see it.