Education

The landscape of advanced classes in CMS

As Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools strives to meet the needs of all 141,171 students, part of its charge is to ensure that all students are ready for either careers or college. Of the almost 40,000 CMS high school students, how many will graduate ready for college? AP as a measure of college readiness CMS has clearly stated […]

Explore CMS data at the school level

Categories: Data, Maps Tags: CMS, Education

The UNC Charlotte Urban Institute has partnered with MeckEd to provide a series of interactive maps that allow the public to do their own exploration of CMS schools. Those maps have now been combined into a new interface that creates an integrated school data resource. The maps show data on teacher turnover, student suspension rates, […]

Rethinking high-stakes testing

Categories: General News Tags: Education, Schools

Early in my teaching career I realized how easy it would be to cheat on standardized tests. I realized this by accident, due to my lack of a poker face. The day after a big end-of-unit assessment, a parent of a third-grade student told me her son had gone home upset, because he knew he […]

Explore nature: Uwharrie Naturalist Weekend May 4-5

The LandTrust for Central North Carolina and staff from the North Carolina Museum of Sciences are hosting the Uwharrie Naturalist Weekend on May 4 and 5 – a weekend of nature exploration in the Uwharries. The focus of this inaugural event will be breeding birds. This naturalist weekend is the first of its kind in […]

Advanced manufacturing: Economic lifeline?

“In 1965, if you had a good back and a good alarm clock, you could make a good living in Milwaukee,” Mayor Tom Barrett told a recent Raleigh conference, because of the strength, at the time, of that city’s manufacturing sector. Although rural Stanly County is very different, that Milwaukee attitude was also the prevailing […]

We know what doesn’t work. Why keep doing it?

Nationwide, schools of concentrated poverty have poor academic outcomes and limited educational opportunities.[1] Our local schools are no different.[2][3] Education reform is a priority across the political spectrum and throughout the community. But are we basing our reform efforts on accumulated evidence or simply on stories that tug on our emotions? The students pictured above […]

Collective Impact for Children and Youth Baseline Report

The Collective Impact Baseline study is part of United Way’s pilot initiative to increase the graduation rate over the next 10 years for the community’s most vulnerable youth. This data will form the baseline against which United Way and its agencies will be measured in the goal to increase the graduation rate for at-risk children […]

CMS proficiency: Maps and trends

Categories: Data, Maps Tags: CMS, Demographics, Education

Maps of student scores reveal patterns of high achievement in northern and southern parts of Mecklenburg County and a more complex mix of high and low scoring schools within Charlotte. A closer look reveals that schools with big improvements since last year are scattered around the city. As part of a continuing partnership with MeckEd, […]

Mapping CMS high school data

How well do you understand the differences between high schools in CMS? After years of rapid growth and changing demographics in Mecklenburg County, it may be time to update your perspective. The UNC Charlotte Urban Institute has compiled interactive maps of Charlotte-Mecklenburg high schools as part of our partnership with MeckEd. With this tool, it […]

Tracking neighborhood trends just got easier

Since 1993 the City of Charlotte has tallied information about some (and in later years all) city neighborhoods, in its regular Quality of Life reports. But this year major changes are afoot for the project, which opened its online doors to the public on Monday. The report now covers all of Mecklenburg County, and it’s […]