Posted in Education

Race to Top did not work, Brownsville, Warrington schools continue to fail

   Published Date: July 6, 2018  9 Comments on Race to Top did not work, Brownsville, Warrington schools continue to fail

In 2011, the Escambia County School District was awarded an $8.3 million Race to the Top grant. The district was one of 35 in the state that received a grant. The funds were supposed to be transformative helping our most economically-disadvantaged students.

Gulf Power CEO Susan Story wrote in an viewpoint supporting the grant that of the “half of the $8 million would be targeted toward low-income students.”

The $8.3 million was to be used to implement three Race to the Top initiatives:

  • Using data to improve instruction;
  • professional development; and
  • turning around the lowest-achieving schools.

Seven years since the award, Escambia County has failed to turn around any of its lowest-achieving schools. The number of schools has increased.  As we reported earlier, nearly half of the public elementary schools in Escambia County are on the state’s 300 Low Performing Elementary Schools list. Half of the district’s middle schools are in the bottom 10 percent in the state.

Low-income students are still struggling, and Superintendent Malcolm Thomas appears to be have little expectation of improving their schools improving.

In an interview on WUWF radio: “If you really look at those schools, their zip code is probably all the same,” Thomas said, referencing the corridor of Escambia County that includes Brownsville and Warrington. “When you move out of that area, you don’t have as many problems with school grades; they’re making A’s and B’s as you would expect.”

We looked at the fourth grade Language Arts scores of the district’s lowest performing schools and found little progress has been made over the past three years.

Nearly 90 percent of the fourth graders at Montclair aren’t proficient in the language arts subjects. Weis and Holm have 80 percent below the standard.

 

Montclair
Language Arts 1 2 Below Std
2016 57 24 81
2017 64 23 87
2018 39 50 89
C. A. Weis
Language Arts 1 2 Below Std
2016 70 19 89
2017 45 38 83
2018 57 23 80
Reinhardt Holm
Language Arts 1 2 Below Std
2016 55 21 76
2017 30 30 60
2018 45 35 80
Warrington
Language Arts 1 2 Below Std
2016 70 16 86
2017 56 19 75
2018 41 39 80
Navy Point
Language Arts 1 2 Below Std
2016 33 31 64
2017 40 26 66
2018 52 25 77
Oakcrest
Language Arts 1 2 Below Std
2016 48 29 77
2017 53 21 74
2018 43 30 73
Global Learning
Language Arts 1 2 Below Std
2016 52 23 75
2017 39 37 76
2018 42 29 71
O.J. Semmes
Language Arts 1 2 Below Std
2016 39 39 78
2017 54 26 80
2018 38 31 69
Sherwood
Language Arts 1 2 Below Std
2016 49 32 81
2017 22 23 45
2018 42 27 69
Ensley
Language Arts 1 2 Below Std
2016 38 28 66
2017 40 31 71
2018 37 26 63

9 thoughts on “Race to Top did not work, Brownsville, Warrington schools continue to fail”

  1. It should only show up on your computer. We can eliminate that requirement if it pops up for other readers.

  2. Is my e mail address out there for everyone to see? It keeps popping up. I am not saving it.

  3. The Escambia County School District spends $493M annually. The district has another $100M in reserves. I agree money isn’t the issue–it’s how Malcolm Thomas spend that half a billion dollars.

    BTW: Educations standards have not been lowered. That’s myth.

  4. This is the conversation that should we should be having with the churches in our impoverished areas. Money has nothing to do with it. Just keep lowering our standards of education to fit a certain few that have no desire to learn or were never taught to learn. Just the basics, reading and writing. You have high school grads who can not write a sentence. Focus on vocational training instead. Welding, mechanics, electricians, carpenters, auto body work. There should be different tiers of education. Do not group my child in with those who have no parenting and have no desire to learn anything . And no, I could not afford a private school for my child. He was taught early by two parents the importance of an education. To do better than us. To graduate college. That’s what’s missing and only getting worse. I had a better life than my parents, and my kids will live a better life (financially) than me. Not because of public education, but because it was instilled in me to work for it. Money has nothing to do with it.

  5. Boss Hogg and Mike Harris,
    So there is no hope for low-income children? The mantra that education is the path out of poverty is a lie? Public education should be limited to families that make a certain amount of money or whose parents pass some standards test? Because Malcolm Thomas has failed doesn’t mean we can’t break the cycle of poverty.

  6. What was the $8M spent on and who makes the decisions on how the money is spent? Just curious.

  7. Very blunt and to the point Mike Harris. But 100% true. Sometimes the truth hurts, but nobody wants to hear it because it often sounds racist. Reminds me of all those years of DARE in our nations schools. Did not work because of the home environment.
    Sad.

  8. Ferry Pass Elementary was a C school. I’m not happy about this performance. Escambia County has a lot of work to do to help our schools succeed. Electing same ideology thinking school board members might be part of the problem. Unless all schools are getting an A or B grade, we’re failing as a community.

  9. Regardless of who holds the office of the Escambia School Superintendent, there will never be enough local, state and Federal tax money or programs providing these children with free breakfasts, lunches and nurseries (for their kids) in our public schools that will ever overcome the generational poverty, sloth, indifference and incompetence of these students and their lack of parents and/or parenting. And adding teachers in the classroom or paying them more will never be a solution to improving classroom/academic performance, despite teacher unions arguments to the contrary.
    The majority of taxpayers realize these educational programs have never been successful, and it is time for our law makers to do acknowledge it also.

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