SPARK (Strategic Partners for Accountability and Reform of Key) Educational Performances

1. SPARK(Strategic Partners for Accountability and Reform of Key) Educational Performances

2. Addendum to SPARK Position Paper • SPARK Educational Performances Staff is not officially engaging the NC General Assembly at this time. • SPARK will be transparent and build agreement within the community, in order to move forward for the best interest of the students and partners of this community. • The Strategic Partners will not go through the "back door" to the General Assembly, as CMS did with the handling of the "Pay for Performance" HB546 initiative. • A SPARK Value is the "sunshine approach" of talking openly and honestly about the State of Education within Mecklenburg County. • A Draft Bill will be prepared for all to view and offer input, prior to presenting to the NC State Legislators in 2013.  We encourage all facets of this community to come together and build a plan for the future.

3. National Education Policy Center Findings • In many places, Schools and Districts are already too large for fiscal efficiency or educational quality; deconsolidation is more likely than consolidation to achieve substantial efficiencies and yield improved outcomes. • Financial claims about widespread benefits of consolidation are unsubstantiated by contemporary research about cost savings… Policymakers may believe “We’ll save money if we reduce the # of Supts. by consolidating districts”; larger districts, however, need – and usually hire – more mid-level administrators. • Claims for educational benefits from systematic statewide school and district consolidation are vastly overestimated and have already been maximized. • Which deconsolidations would likely produce improvement can be judged only on a case-by-case basis, with attention to the devilish detailsthat sweeping state policies cannot provide. • Impoverished students… are especially hard hit... A strong body of research evidence makes it clear that less affluent communities “often benefit from smaller schools and districts, and they can suffer irreversible damage if consolidation occurs.” In short, “state-level consolidation proposals appear to serve a public relations purpose in times of fiscal crisis, rather than substantive fiscal or educational purposes.”

4. Critical Issues • More than half of our elementary and middle school students who are below grade level are in less than one-third of our schools • Overcrowded suburban schools • Controversial Pay for Performance • Low Teacher Morale • Standardized Testing • Bell Schedules • Community Trust • Increased Class Sizes • Per Pupil spending

5. NOW AA/Latino 60% White 32% Asian 5% Multi 3%

6. Independent School District Structure

7. 72% 28% Human Resources Transportation Food Services Other Human Resources Transportation Food Services Other Outsourced Outsourced Human Resources Transportation Food Services Other Outsourced

8. CITY CONSOLIDATION Outsourced Outsourced Human Resources Transportation Food Services Other Human Resources Transportation Food Services Other M4R M4R Human Resources Transportation Food Services Other Outsourced M4R

9. QUESTIONS?