Dunsmore talks schools takeover
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on June 29, 2016 1:46 PM
Dr. Michael Dunsmore
Escalating buzz about low-performing schools being taken over by other entities is just one reason for the recent school regrouping plan being introduced in Wayne County Public Schools, its superintendent says.
Whether the state, charter schools, or anyone else could potentially step in and run the local schools, the bottom line is simple -- the district has to do a better job, Dr. Michael Dunsmore said.
Other states are already seeing shifts in how schools operate.
In 2015, the Georgia House approved a constitutional amendment allowing the governor to take over "chronically failing schools." The legislation potentially allowed the governor to close them, convert them into charter schools or overhaul management.
Two years before that, Virginia had similar legislation proposed, with its House approving measures to let the state intervene where schools were failing to meet state standards.
North Carolina is also making overtures, with House Bill 1080 passing in May after several readings. June 2, the first reading passed in the Senate.
It is not law until passed by both the House and Senate, ratified and signed by the governor.
The most controversial segment of the proposal calls for the state Board of Education to select schools as part of an "Achievement School District," hiring outside entities to run the schools.
The conversation is not new, Dunsmore said.
"A lot of this came out of No Child Left Behind legislation years ago, and it was kind of back-burnered with Race to the Top over the last couple of years. It's resurfacing. Other states have been more active in this," he said. "At the end of the day, we need to do better across the board for all our schools."
At several meetings in recent months, in tandem with the proposed conversation on the local school regrouping plan, Dunsmore has mentioned the proposed bill in the General Assembly that could shift control of low-performing schools to a third-party private entity.
The threshold remains to be determined, Dunsmore said, but "there's lots of movement" being made on the takeover model, targeting the bottom 5 percent of schools at the outset.
"None of our schools are the lowest 5 percent," he pointed out. "I don't know where that threshold's going to move.
"What leaders are looking at is, we need to do a better job, how to move our schools."
WCPS currently has 11 low-performing schools -- Brogden middle and primary schools, Carver Heights Elementary, Dillard Middle, Eastern Wayne Elementary, Goldsboro High, Mount Olive Middle, School Street and North Drive elementary schools and Southern Wayne and Spring Creek high schools.
Dunsmore's ultimate goal, he said, is to have no schools make the list.
"This year's testing cycle, we're hopeful we'll get some of our schools off that list," he said. "I'm not at all happy we have any schools on that list."
The local school regrouping plan, passed by the school board June 17, tackles the easiest area on the map to focus, where the largest contingent of schools can be addressed in one fell swoop -- the central attendance zone.
The plan calls for a reconfiguration of those schools starting this fall. School Street Elementary will expand its Pre-K services and become an "early learning center." North Drive Elementary will house K-2 students and Carver Heights will concentrate on grades 3-5.
Other efforts are also being made to address under-performing schools, including DPI, the state Department of Public Instruction, lending support and making recommendations.
"All those things that we're looking at of how we can help -- principals, assistant principals, teachers, everybody across the board of what we can do better to help our students be successful," Dunsmore said. "We just can't continue to do what we've always done.
"The expectations for our children are changing from when you and I were in school. They're learning differently. They're technology savvy."
Public education was once predicated on an assembly line mentality, he said. Schools responded to the manufacturing-type design, training students for the workforce then in place.
Which is not to say that today's public education is as bad as it's being portrayed.
"The General Assembly and others make it a money issue. We have a lot of kids that face a lot of challenges in school, out of school," he said. "It's really hard to get them focused, when everything's based on a test."
Tests are often tied to teacher pay and other things, he said, with limited resources compounding the problem.
Another big challenge is the decreasing number of people going into the teaching profession, the superintendent said.
So the push for charter schools to be given authority over private schools is a concern.
"The competition is going to elevate everybody out there. There's good charter schools out there, there's bad charter schools," he said. "I would just like to see everybody working together for the kids and get it out of the political arena."
Fortunately, for at least the time being, the authority still resides with the local school district.
"I think from a political standpoint they want us in education to lead the charge," he said. "We're also aware that if we don't do it, they're going to do it for us.
"From a local standpoint, I would rather Wayne County, (we) take care of our own. I think we as a community, we would rather do it than have someone coming in and telling us what to do."
Steering away from any "gloom and doom" predictions, the superintendent said he prefers to focus on what can be done to make improvements.
"We have to change. We just have to change," he said. "I would rather our community make that change (than have it made for us). We have to do a better job.
"At some point we have to recognize we're not doing everything we can for our kids."