Education Week - January 16, 2013 - 13

executive
EDUCATION WEEK

nology was suggested through
community meetings, Ms. Watts
said, and has begun to gain some
traction. Elementary school students will receive laptops, and
teachers have received training
on new software. Some families
of Project lift students—about
80 so far—will receive subsidized
Internet access in their homes.
Project lift has also yielded
some striking in-kind donations:
A $1.8 million gift from the Presbyterian Healthcare Foundation
in Charlotte provided vaccinations for free to Project lift students. That effort reduced the
number of students who were
suspended for not having their
immunizations up to date, as is
the state’s policy, from nearly 60
last year to only three at the start
of this school year, said Ms. Watts.
The most publicized policy
change so far has been the effort to expand the school day
and year. A campaign to raise
community support for that effort yielded mixed results, with
some families saying they do not
want the longer school day and
even some key funders wonder-

“

Foundations
want to help school
districts take risks
they otherwise
wouldn’t be able to.”

JANELLE SCOTT
University of California, Berkeley

ing if it is the best use of the
project’s money. Some Project
lift students already received
extra summer programming last
year through the Building Educated Leaders for Life, or bell,
program. A hearing on the extended-day proposal is scheduled
for January 22.
The zone’s curriculum is the
same as the rest of the district’s,
said Ms. Watts.
Project lift ’s work is being
closely watched by its investors
and by district officials in Charlotte and nationwide. Ms. Clark
said that “this will help all of us as
a community learn about how we
make investments; … you have to
have good results for the district or
Project lift to invest in you.”

Sustainability
Because the continued investments are contingent upon results, some have concerns about
whether the program will last.
“If we feel like there’s not much
actually happening, we’ve agreed
that we ought to pull the plug
and not throw money away,” said
Mr. Williams.
Ms. Clark said that she believes that if the donors, most
of whom had worked with the
school system before, see that
their investment is successful,
they might continue their support. “Fifty-five million is a significant investment, but $10 to
$11 million a year in the types

of budgets these foundations and
the county are dealing with is
not that significant. ... Our community can afford it,” she said.
She said the district would also
hope to learn from Project lift’s
successes.
But others, including Carol
Sawyer, a co-founder of an equity-focused nonprofit called
Mecklenburg Acts, said her group
was concerned about what would
happen at the end of five years.
“It’s not that you can fix a school
once and it stays fixed,” she said.

JANUARY 16, 2013

www.edweek.org

HAS GONE MOBILE
Enjoy easier browsing, searching, and
sharing from your mobile device.

Integration Concerns
Richard McElrath, a member of
the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school
board who taught in the district
for three decades, said that while
he voted to approve Project lift,
he was concerned about the program’s sustainability.
“I voted for it as an intervention. But you’ve got to look for
the cause—how did it get this
way?” he said. “I don’t want us to
think that we can be successful
as a city having poor people over
here, middle-income over here,
rich people over here.”
West Charlotte is the alma
mater of many of Charlotte’s
prominent citizens, but its academic reputation has deteriorated as its population has grown
poorer and as the city’s busing
program ended because of a
court order in 1999. The school’s
on-time graduation rate was 56
percent in 2012.
The special attention to west
Charlotte has caused some conflict, though.
“It creates a zone of privilege
within a unified school system,”
said Susan Harden, an assistant
professor of education at the
University of North Carolina at
Charlotte. “I don’t think you’ll
have support for a unified district
for long if you single out these as
the special kids.”
In well-off Ballantyne, a neighborhood in south Charlotte, there
was serious discussion of seceding from the city of Charlotte and
from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg
public school district, with some
residents fearing that too much
money was going to other schools.
There are also concerns that
while Project lift may benefit
some students, it maintains or
even promotes a school system
that is increasingly segregated
by race and socioeconomic status.
“Project lift represents a paradigm shift for Charlotte. Charlotte at one point worked toward
integration, and West Charlotte
High School was one of the models of that integration effort; …
now the notion is, pour extra
money in and educate children in
isolation. That troubles me,” said
Ms. Sawyer.
Ms. Watts said that while such
concerns were not “invalid or outlandish, ... at the same time, it’s
the cards these kids have been
dealt.”
“People in decisionmaking positions continue to think about
whether this is the best way to
deal with this,” she added, “but
this is what we have today, this
is where we are, and we need to
serve these kids.”

Experience the new mobile
website from your smartphone.

VISIT WWW.EDWEEK.ORG

EXTRA! EXTRA!
NEED EXTRA COPIES OF

Quality Counts 2013?
ORDER MORE
ONLINE:
www.edweek.org/go/buyQC
TOLL-FREE:
1-800-445-8250
Order the digital edition
for immediate download:
www.edweek.org/go/buyQCdigital
Back issues of prior years are also available.

ALSO AVAILABLE:
QUALITY COUNTS 2013

STATE HIGHLIGHTS REPORTS
Order online only, for just $4.95
www.edweek.org/go/qc13shr
Prior years are also available.

http://www.edweek.org http://WWW.EDWEEK.ORG http://WWW.EDWEEK.ORG http://www.edweek.org/go/buyQC http://www.edweek.org/go/buyQC http://www.edweek.org/go/buyQCdigital http://www.edweek.org/go/qc13shr

Education Week - January 16, 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - January 16, 2013