From Education First NC School Report Cards - I think this goes a long way towards the point that I have been making. And it is just based on the numbers. What many people fail to understand is that educational attainment rankings are based upon "People 25 years and older who have obtained a four year degree." I never knew that until I started doing these studies. Drop-outs don't factor into that equation. In my opinion we rank low in that statistic because there are not the opportunities needed for people with at least a Bachelor's Degree, so they are leaving the area. That is deflating our numbers. To me it is an issue that seriously needs to be dealt with.
The following stats are from the 2007-2008 school year. Whether you agree with the premise of the report cards or not, what you find is that local High School scores in most cases aren't all that bad. The Hickory School District is having problems with English. That may be a socio-economic and cultural issue. It looks like most everyone is doing a bang up job with Algebra 1, 2, and Geometry with the exception of Bunker Hill. Biology looks like a sore subject throughout the Unifour, but there are bright spots with Bandys, Foard, and Patton. If we throw St. Stephens in with Hickory's District, then it doesn't look like any Physical Scientists will be coming from Hickory. But on the other hand, we see a lot of promise in the area of Physical Science in other parts of the Unifour. It certainly doesn't look like physics is being emphasized at all in our schools. Bandy's, Freedom, and West Caldwell are the only schools that look to have proficient physics programs. Most everyone looks to be achieving good results in Civics and Economics. The Hickory and Newton-Conover Districts don't seem to be emphasizing U.S. History. Again, I would assume that is a cultural issue.
I think this spreadsheet shows us what we need to see. There only seems to be one failing school. I'm not going to call it out, but it is glaring. I don't know why East Burke didn't submit any scores. Could someone let me know why. Bandys, Patton, and West Caldwell seem to really have it together and St Stephens seems to be doing pretty well. I certainly don't think anyone should hold their kids back from those schools. It seems that all of the schools have some idiosyncrasies and areas of weakness. Only one school, as I said, seems to be truly failing its mission.
To me this doesn't represent the statistics from an area of illiterates. I truly believe this shows that we aren't reaping the harvest of the seeds that we sow. We can see that there are bright spots and we are letting them slip right through our fingers. That is a subject we truly need to address. I am curious about what y'all get out of these numbers. Will you let me know your thoughts. How would y'all address these issues.
2 comments:
Unfortunately, we live in the area that feeds the unnamed, but obviously underperforming school. That's one of the reasons we are moving (if we can sell our house).
I think the tie between educational attainment and business development/recruiting is that the businesses who consider this, or any other area, want to feel comfortable with the availability of talent in the area. When they look at the Unifour they don't see a ready crop of educated people ready to step in and help them take their business to new heights.
So, which is it? The horse or the cart? Can we get companies to move/start here without the education/talent they need or do we need to focus on the education/talent in order to be competitive?
My point is that we can have education and talent, if they come home after college. What incentives can we give companies to take that step to build a company here on the basis that we have people indigenous to the area who might want to come home, if opportunities are made available.
I think we need to do a PR campaign and make a selling point off of the fact that we do have some pretty smart kids in this area, We need to fix our areas of deficiency and then we will have more to sell. I certainly don't think we should be running around bemoaning the fact that locals are uneducated, when the facts show that it isn't the case.
We need to do everything in our power to retain our best and brightest and on more from outside of the area. I think you always need to focus on education an we have done that. NOW we need to focus on opportunity!!!
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