A discussion of education in East Tennessee
School Board MUST Vote To End Its ILLEGAL Transfer Policy NOW!
There is now no way to deny white or black students to transfer out of the A-E zone. They will apply for them in droves, as no one, even those in the blocks surrounding A-E, really wants to go to school there.
The blacks have been trying to go to Fulton and West. The whites have been trying to go to Gibbs and Carter. Now, the school board won't be able to prevent them from doing it, and no matter how large the A-E zone is expanded to by this clueless board, A-E will continue to have students sucked out of it.
The handwriting is on the wall. A-E is a failed school, not just a failing one. It must be closed if the county school system overall has a chance to improve. It has practically ceased to be viable and is in danger of being taken over by the state due to its terrible test scores.
Under the old, illegal, unconstitutional policy that the school board foolishly left in place last nite, blacks could never transfer from Austin-East to Fulton, as they have wanted to do in droves for years. Also, no white student in the A-E district could transfer out of it.
The school board, in its utter stupidity, expanded the A-E zone to include all of Chilhowee Hills and all of Spring Hill, all the way northeast to East Towne (Knoxville Center) Mall, in a failed attempt to force more students into A-E, a failing school that the state is about to take over if it continues to fail.
On top of this, the school board continues to reject charter schools, continues to reject things like Chris Whittle's Edison Project, and all of the private solutions that would be the only way to save A-E from failing.
A-E will continue to lose students. They will transfer to Carter, Gibbs, Fulton, South-Doyle, and West. The parents of both the black and white students there don't want to go there. Despite the school board's stupidity, which only served to devalue both residential and commercial real estate in a wider area and make the Magnolia Avenue blighted area corridor expand to Asheville Highway and Rutledge Pike, A-E's student population will continue to decline, as will its test scores.
A-E continues to be a magnet school. However, the main thing it is a magnet for is drug dealers, prostitution, gang violence, crime, guns, etc. Don't forget there was gunfire at an A-E football game not long ago. The criminal element preys on the school.
A-E will have less and less students, no matter how big its "zone" is expanded to. The parents will do what the school board won't, which is close this failing school for good. That is the only way for them to get a quality education for their children and to end all of the crime that is happening in the neighborhood.
That's how the area around the former Rule High School was revitalized, with the Hope Project getting rid of poor housing, bringing in new businesses that are thriving, like Mechanicville's Food City, as opposed to 5 Points' IGA that failed. Neither Burlington nor 5 Points will ever prosper until A-E is closed.
The school board has given A-E more dollars per student BY FAR than any other high school in the entire system. The physical plant is wonderful. The performing arts curriculum is perhaps the best in the state.
However, STILL NO ONE wants to go there, even including the parents and students that live right in the same neighborhood. They want to go elsewhere, but up until now have been denied that choice by the school board. Many stopped applying for transfers because they knew they would be routinely denied under the old, illegal, unconstitutional policy that the school board failed to change.
The ONLY way to "fix" the A-E neighborhood is to close A-E as a high school, make it the Knox County School's headquarters, hold all school board meetings there, make sure it is safe all around the neighborhood for the public to attend such meetings, bulldoze the project housing at Walter P. Taylor and Austin Homes, the abandoned houses where the crackheads and prostitutes hang out, build Hope Project housing, and get Magnolia Avenue revitalized with nice commercial developments.
That is what happened in the area around Rule High School. Once Rule was closed, the area started to prosper and flourish in terms of residential and commercial development. Only when A-E is closed will that happen to Burlington and 5 Points. No one wants to live and have a business in areas where crime is high. KPD cruisers have to intensely patrol the area nightly to keep things manageable.
The handwriting is on the wall. A-E is a failed school and nothing can keep it from failing even more. The transfers will now have to be approved. There is no place for the school board to hide anymore. They are the last to see what is going on with the dynamics of the community they supposedly represent.
The fact is that A-E will have less and less students as time goes on, no matter what the board tries to do to save it. It ceased to be a viable school or a school with passing grades long ago. It is being propped up by people who are living in the past.Build a shrine to Sam Anderson and his football championships of a generation ago, but release the people of the community from their bondage and free them to send their children wherever they want to go, instead of forcing them to go to a failed school and pouring more of our taxpayer money into a hole that is getting deeper and deeper.
The elimination of school zones is truly the only way to go. Why deny parents the right to choose where they send their children? Of course, if they were given this choice, A-E would have virtually no students.Burlington would be revitalized, since it would no longer be zoned only to A-E. Continuing to expand A-E's "zone" only causes more white flight, increases the size of the blighted areas in terms of both residential and commercial property, and forces more and more students out of public schools into private schools. There are some wonderful private Christian schools that are now in the A-E zone and more and more students will go there instead, unless the decide to go to other public high schools.
One of the problems the school board continues to perpetuate is that if you go out of your zone, you have no bus transportation, so even though buses will run right by your home, if you choose to go to a school out of the A-E zone, you must provide your own transportation.
How is that fair to a student and parent who is simply exercising their right to choose? They are taxpayers, too.
The state only requires that someone be given bus transportation if they live at least 2 miles away from the school, if i recall correctly. I'd say eliminate all buses that run from homes within 2 miles of ANY school and save the taxpayers a LOT of money. Buses should only be funded by taxpayers to bring students from at least 2 miles away from whatever school they are to attend. I walked to and from school over a mile away growing up. Why can't today's students do the same?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by ed4kids on
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It would be nice to have vouchers. I think it's sad that our coices are:
1) Pay taxes (which get raised on a regular basis in the name of education when our education system is failing our children so badly) AND pay outragous tuition for private school.
2) Just pay the taxes and send our kids off to be dumbed down.
I would love to have the choice of where to send my child to school AND have assistance in paying for it.
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Permalink Reply by Cathy McCaughan on -
I don't think you can do anything to make parents be involved in schools if they are not already attempting involvement. We can't change the past. What we CAN do, is clear paths for the future. Students should see other parents participating in their children's education in a positive manner. Some of them will decide to be involved parents in their own children's education. That is an achievable goal.
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Permalink Reply by beenthere_donethat on -
You are getting into federal issues now, folks. Quotas, majority/minority, all that stuff! Drop all the federal funding and the Board can do as they wish if our taxes are high enough to fund their plans.
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