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The Charlotte-Mecklenburg high school you attend predicts your odds of college success, according to a study that compares the district's graduates with each other and peers from other urban N.C. districts.
Graduates who applied to state universities in 2006 had a strong shot at being accepted, according to the study by Cheryl Pulliam, director of the Public Education Research Institute at Queens University of Charlotte.
But once those students got to college, big differences emerged.
Graduates of high-performing schools serving affluent neighborhoods were more likely to land in advanced classes, return for a second year with a decent grade-point average, and graduate within five years.
For example: 84 percent of Myers Park grads returned for a second year of college with a GPA of 2.0 or higher, compared with 54 percent of Berry grads.
Wake County Schools outperformed Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools on every measure Pulliam studied.
“I don't think there were any big surprises, but it's disturbing that there's still so much difference,” she said.
Educators and policymakers nationwide are rethinking school effectiveness. For years, public schools have been judged on how many students earn a diploma. Increasingly, that diploma is seen not as the finish line but one leg in a relay.
North Carolina has begun a two-year quest to redefine what schools should teach and test, with a new focus on college and career readiness.
Pulliam looked at data from 15 UNC-system campuses to see how well CMS prepares graduates for college. Her report has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal, but she has shared her findings with CMS leaders. Her goal, according to the report, is to nudge CMS to look at what else it could do to boost students' odds of earning college degrees and being prepared for good jobs.
“Without being equally prepared (for college), students from some CMS high schools have a much higher risk of not graduating,” Pulliam writes.
CMS Associate Superintendent Ann Clark says she's intrigued by the data: “The timeliness is great, in terms of conversations we're having about holding ourselves responsible for college readiness.”
Tax dollars at stake
Of course, family support, finances and student effort also shape achievement. As Pulliam puts it, high schools can't control “whether or not in their sophomore year they start partying too much.”
But she's urging CMS to do more to ensure that teens whose families may not know much about college understand how to get ready.
Getting in is just the start. Almost 20 percent of freshmen statewide didn't return for their second year of college, and only 54 percent graduated within five years.
In addition to what students and their families pay, N.C. taxpayers kick in almost $13,000 a year for each in-state student, Pulliam reports.
When students earn a degree, that's likely to pay off with better earnings. But when they wash out, “there is little to no return on investment for the taxpayers.”
Even strong students say college can be a shock.
Elizabeth Garnett, a 2008 Butler graduate, says her Advanced Placement classes prepared her well for N.C. State. But a college classmate who was valedictorian in another state failed freshman classes.
Kyle Conrad, a North Mecklenburg High alum who graduated from Appalachian State last year, says he had to develop new habits for college.
“In high school, except for a couple of AP classes, I really did not open a book outside of school the entire four years,” said Conrad, who now works in marketing.
“What I wish I'd learned in high school was the proper way to study.”
Lessons for CMS?
It's no shock to hear that some schools and districts do better than others at producing qualified college students, says Tina McEntire, admissions director for UNC Charlotte.
Suburban schools such as Providence and North Meck in CMS, Weddington in Union County and Green Hope in Wake traditionally produce large numbers of graduates who get into UNCC.
Numbers may be smaller at other schools, but the key is whether students took the toughest courses and earned good grades, McEntire says: “If you're at Garinger, don't worry about being compared to the kids at Providence.”
CMS has long pushed students to take challenging classes. Officials say students benefit from trying college-level work, even if they don't do well enough to earn college credit.
Wake's 74 percent pass rate on last year's AP exams far outshone CMS's 48 percent, Pulliam's report shows. Wake had fewer test-takers, which could indicate the district is more selective about AP enrollment.
Clark says the gap is so big she assigned a staffer to learn about Wake's AP program.
Role of poverty
Some Wake educators and advocates say the Queens study validates that district's decision to use family income in student assignment, avoiding the high concentrations of poverty found in CMS.
Graduates of CMS's high-poverty neighborhood schools looked far weaker, on average, on most measures of college success than graduates of schools in more affluent areas.
Results for magnets were mixed. Graduates of Harding, a math, science and IB magnet school, were among the most successful on many measures, even though more than half the students come from low-income families. Graduates of Northwest School of the Arts ranked near the bottom, with lower poverty.
Wake also has significantly less poverty than the other districts Pulliam studied.
Teens with college-educated parents, savings plans and a lifetime of focus on academic achievement have a huge edge over classmates struggling with day-to-day survival.
But Pulliam calls for schools to do more to bridge those gaps: Beef up programs such as Communities in Schools, which helps prepare first-generation college students. Take students to visit campuses.
“There's going to have to be some TLC by lots of adults,” she says.
