Spend enough time listening to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Superintendent Jim Pughsley, and you’ll understand why 33 percent of incoming high school freshman are either partially or totally illiterate in reading, math or both.
After almost two years as the number one guy in charge and four as the number two guy, that’s a figure I wouldn’t be too quick to broadcast if I were facing a contract renewal less than a year from now. But then again, Pughsley probably knows that when it comes down to it, no one around here really cares anyway, as long as the big picture looks rosy.
It isn’t. Nothing made that clearer than a mind-bending press release CMS put out last week to announce the launch of Pughsley’s Transition 9 program.
“Did you know that 8.7 million students in grades 4-12 across the country are unable to read and comprehend material?” the release reads.
I suppose that was to soften the blow in the next line, the part about how 33 percent of incoming high school freshmen in our school system needed remediation this year because they couldn’t read or do math well enough to make it in high school.
To help readers comprehend the sheer horror of this, I asked Dr. Chris Corbitz with the NC State Board of Education to help me quantify it. The kids the CMS release refers to are those who tested at Level I or Level II on their eighth grade end-of-grade tests, the lowest of four levels. (Keep in mind that to “pass” this test, kids need only master about half the material on it.)
When kids score a Level I or Level II in reading, Corbitz said, it means that 87.7 percent of the students in this state scored higher than they did. When they score a Level I or Level II math, it means that 84.2 percent of North Carolina students scored higher. The way the test is scored, Corbitz said, it’s possible for a kid to miss every question on it and score at Level I.
Of course, Pughsley has an explanation for the poor record. These kids missed the “fix-it” programs that he and former Superintendent Eric Smith put in place in recent years, he told the county commission last month. That’s true. But test scores have inched up statewide, including in areas that didn’t have these programs. The bottom line is that these kids were in the second grade when Pughsley assumed the number two position in this school system, and he — and we — failed them.
Now Pughsley wants to “fix” the situation. Here’s his description of his hard-hitting plan, which the county commission didn’t add funds for, but which CMS plans to implement anyway. The school system is going to ask parents to send these kids to summer school. If they still can’t read or do math on grade level after that, Pughsley wants to admit them to high school anyway and enroll them in a “modified school within a school” where the system will once again try to teach them the basics.
“That means, quite frankly, that they’ll probably have to pass a few electives,” Pughsley told the commission.
Wow. That’s tough. Then again, passing anything, including gym or art class, is a challenge if you’re only semi-literate.
“If they’re still not on grade level at the end of the first quarter or the first semester,” Pughsley added, “their extracurricular athletic eligibility could be in question.”
Here’s what Pughsley had to say when a county commissioner asked what would happen if they still can’t pass at the end of the ninth grade: “Hopefully, that won’t be the case. We have an obligation to continue to work with them.”
No, Mr. Pughsley, you had an obligation to work with them. That was six years ago, enough time for a simple truth to become abundantly clear — the Pughsley way, like the Eric Smith way before it, just isn’t working.
Understand that I’m not talking about turning these kids into college graduates, or even average students. I’m talking about teaching them the basic reading and math skills they’ll need to fill out a job application or to run a cash register so they can feed themselves.
In December, in what can only be taken as a further sign of their dementia, Pughsley and other CMS educrats celebrated after only 31 percent of CMS fourth-graders tested on grade level on a national achievement test. Why? Because they did better than their peers in other urban school districts like Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, DC.
Meanwhile, our inner-city classrooms, where children desperately need help the most, are flooded with the most inexperienced teachers. So what does Pughsley do about that critical problem? Last month he proposed a new program that will pay teachers more for good job attendance and for raising student test scores — and simultaneously admitted to county commissioners that it would be easier for teachers to get the raises if they taught in schools with more academically advanced students, where it’s easier to raise scores.
Clearly this man just doesn’t get it. The only question is how much longer we can afford to put up with him.
Contact Tara Servatius at tara.servatius@cln.com
This article appears in Jun 23-29, 2004.
