Local School Topics

Texas Schools: Enrollment Skyrockets

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Texas Schools: Enrollment Skyrockets
Fueled by immigration of Hispanics to Texas, the state’s school system continues to grow at a frenetic pace, with a current enrollment of more than five million students. In this article, we dig into the numbers to examine how the Texas school system is changing, and what these changes mean for the future.

Everything is bigger in Texas, including the educational system. No state has experienced more growth in the number of K-12 students over the last decade than Texas. Although the majority of the growth is among the Hispanic student population, all ethnic groups except Caucasians experienced both numerical and percentage increases in enrollment during the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 school years. These increases in minority enrollment and decreases in white enrollment continue a trend that dates back to the 1980s.

Enrollment Reflects Increasing Diversity

According to the Texas Education Agency, over the last decade, the state’s public school system has added over 820,000 students, which reflects a 19 percent increase in total enrollment. When viewed longitudinally, enrollment growth in Texas is even more pronounced: Since the 1987-1988 school year, enrollment has increased by a whopping 1.85 million students, representing a growth of over 57 percent.

In the 2012-2013 academic year, Texas public school students were:

  • 51.3 percent Hispanic;
  • 30 percent white;
  • 12.7 percent African-American;
  • 3.6 percent Asian, and
  • 1.8 percent multi-racial.

These numbers are representative of the increasing ethnic and cultural diversity of students enrolling in Texas public schools. The Hispanic student population surpassed the 50 percent mark in 2011 and is the fastest-growing segment of Texas’ student population. Conversely, white enrollment, which has been decreasing for years, is projected to continue declining for the next several decades. In 2000, over 41 percent of Texas students were white, but that number now stands at just over 31 percent. By 2050, experts

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New York City Schools: Most Segregated in the Nation

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New York City Schools: Most Segregated in the Nation
A recent report reveals that public schools in New York isolate students not only by race, but also by socioeconomic status. In this article, we examine the extent of segregation in New York’s schools, its causes, and potential solutions to this problem.

On May 17, 1954, the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which declared that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. Yet, 60 years later, public schools across the nation continue to be highly segregated based on race and socioeconomic status. Curiously, America’s most segregated schools are not in the Deep South but in New York, a state that has expansive ethnic, cultural, social, and economic diversity. Perhaps even more surprising, New York City, one of the most diverse cities in the world, also has one of the most segregated school districts in the country.

Segregation by the Numbers

According to a report by UCLA’s Civil Rights Project, school segregation in New York is widespread. It occurs in metropolitan New York City, rural areas, and urban locales upstate. However, as the nation’s largest public school system with 1.1 million students, the New York City Public Schools greatly influenced the depth and breadth of the segregation problem. And a significant problem it is. Although the number of Asian and Latino students has dramatically increased since the late 1980s, exposure of these groups to white students has decreased. In fact, of New York City’s 32 school districts, 19 had less than 10 percent white enrollment as recently as 2010. Some of New York City’s schools, particularly charter and magnet schools, are identified by the authors of the report as being so segregated that they are classified as “apartheid schools.”

Compounding the problem

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Florida Schools: Broward County Bus Service Issues

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Florida Schools: Broward County Bus Service Issues
The first day of school in Broward County resulted in six students getting dropped off by their bus in the wrong city after school. Not a good start for a district that promised better bus service for the new school year. Will a lawsuit follow?

Broward County began the school year with high expectations for their bus service. The district purchased new buses and brought on new drivers in hopes of raising their level of service. Throughout the first few weeks of the previous school year, transportation officials were inundated with complaints from parents about bus delays and children getting dropped off at the wrong location. Unfortunately, a major error on the first day of school cost the county’s bus safety another black eye even before the school year was in full swing.

Kids Left at Wrong Stop, in Wrong City

The Huffington Post reports that seven students between the ages of 10 and 13 were dropped off in the wrong city on the first day at Forest Glen Middle School. Instead of getting dropped off at their Coral Springs stop just a few minutes from the school, the students got off the bus seven miles away in Pompano Beach. The students were left near Broward Health North Hospital in Pompano Beach, according to NBC Miami.

The students involved in the incident told the bus driver he was going the wrong way, but he refused to stop, the Huffington Post reported. One of the students contacted her father by cell phone. The parent asked to talk to the bus driver, but the students said the bus driver refused to take the phone. As one might suspect, many of the parents of the students have called the

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Massachusetts: Boston Public Schools Offer Free Lunches

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Massachusetts: Boston Public Schools Offer Free Lunches
Kids in Boston Public Schools will enjoy free lunches this year, thanks to participation in a federal program that cuts out paperwork required to prove eligibility for the free lunch program.
Free lunches for all kids at Boston Public Schools

This year, Boston Public Schools students will be returning to free lunches when they return to school. The large district recently joined a national program that serves free meals to all students, regardless of income level. This program eliminates the need for families to complete paperwork involving sensitive information like income amounts and ensures every student has access to a hot, nutritious lunch as part of their daily learning experience.

No Paperwork Required

The Boston Globe reports that the district has signed on to a federal initiative designed to simplify the process of offering free or reduced-price lunches to low-income students in a district. In some cases, the process of qualifying for affordable meals in school meant filling out complex paperwork that families might not always understand. For example, families in Boston Public Schools speak as many as 100 different languages, which meant that even forms completed in English might be difficult for some parents to comprehend completely.

This video explains how the Community Eligibility Option works in detail.

In addition, the process of receiving free lunches can create a socio-economic divide in some schools, as some students get free food and others had to pay for it. While many students used identification cards which made the process more discreet, some students still pay for their meals with cash. By allowing every student access to a free meal, needy

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California: Glendale Public Schools to Monitor Social Media

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California:  Glendale Public Schools to Monitor Social Media
Glendale Public Schools has hired a company to monitor student posts on social media. The district claims the practice will help school officials step in when a student threatens to hurt himself or someone else.

As more parents voice concerns about the dangers of cyberbullying, one California school district has taken matters into its own hands. The Glendale Unified School District has hired an outside company to track students on social media and send reports of the results to school officials daily. The purpose of the new program is to protect students from potential trouble, including cyberbullying, suicidal thoughts, and even truancy. However, some are questioning whether the school district is blatantly infringing on students’ privacy rights in their quest to keep students a little safer.

Company to Analyze Social Media Posts

The Los Angeles Times reports that the Glendale district has hired Geo Listening, a social media monitoring service that specializes in tracking social media for school campuses. Glendale piloted the program on a smaller scale last year, hiring the company to monitor the social websites of students at Hoover, Glendale, and Crescenta Valley high schools. This year, the district will pay Geo Listening more than $40,000 to expand their services to eight high and middle schools.

According to the Geo Listening website, their monitoring service reports daily to school officials about social website activity. Those daily reports break down social media messages into the following categories:

The report also shares the frequency and severity of student posts within these categories. All of the information is taken off of public social media pages; texts, emails,

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Local School Topics

EASTERN STATES
School districts and schools on the east coast of the United States
New York City Schools: Most Segregated in the Nation
New York City Schools: Most Segregated in the Nation
Philadelphia Schools: Home To One of the Most Dangerous Schools in U.S.
Philadelphia Schools: Home To One of the Most Dangerous Schools in U.S.
Virginia Schools: Fairfax County Schedule Change
Virginia Schools: Fairfax County Schedule Change
CENTRAL STATES
School districts and schools in the central states of the United States.
Detroit Schools: District Is Failing Its Students According To Test Scores
Detroit Schools: District Is Failing Its Students According To Test Scores
Michigan Schools: Free Meals for All Students in Some Detroit Schools
Michigan Schools: Free Meals for All Students in Some Detroit Schools
Detroit Schools: An Overview
Detroit Schools: An Overview
SOUTHERN STATES
School districts and schools in the southern states of the United States
Florida Schools: Performance Based on Race
Florida Schools: Performance Based on Race
Florida Schools: How Miami-Dade is Turning the Tide
Florida Schools: How Miami-Dade is Turning the Tide
North Carolina Schools: History and Overview Of Wake County Schools
North Carolina Schools: History and Overview Of Wake County Schools