Expectations and geography
My jaw dropped, too.
We reported this week on the number of Advanced Placement courses taken by Alamance County high school students last year. The numbers varied widely from school to school, especially between the two high schools in the city of Burlington.
At Williams High School, 211 students took 511 Advance Placement courses. At Cummings High School, seven students took seven Advanced Placement courses.
Advanced Placement courses are college-level courses offered through the College Board and taught by the system’s teachers. Students who take end-of-course exams and earn a 3 or higher on a 5-point scale can get credit for the courses at many colleges and universities.
As someone whose employer maintains an online bulletin board allowing anyone to tell me what a complete moron I am, I understand how easy it is to point fingers when you don’t know what goes on behind the scenes. I’m not here to do that.
Williams and Cummings have their differences, but the expectations for their future shouldn’t be any different.
It’s very easy to draw conclusions about Burlington by dividing the town up by the railroad tracks and using money scales to judge east and west and the city’s two schools. Those conclusions aren’t always true, but it’s hard not to think that some east Burlington students don’t have the same opportunities as some of their counterparts on the west side of town.
Figuring out how to eliminate such disparities within a school district is a challenge for educators across the country. The Wake County School System, which has been praised by some in recent years for using wealth instead of skin color to divide students up, has seen a recent upheaval on its school board because of anger over that same policy.
Administrators at Cummings face a stiff challenge. Three years ago, the school was on Judge Howard Manning’s list of low-performing schools that were required to take immediate action to improve. It has the highest percentage of English as a second language students and the highest number of students getting free or reduced school meals of any high school in the system.
It’s hard for teachers and administrators to talk about college to students whose home life might be unstable or whose family is struggling to pay the bills. Some kids just don’t come from a family culture that has expectations for college and, at the same time, not all kids need to go to college.
Getting students to sign up for harder work is a challenge. Students who don’t have plans to go to college aren’t going to take on a heavier workload just for the fun of it.
But just maybe, those students could have their minds changed about college, and that change, if it happens, is probably going to happen at their high school. Maybe a high school culture that pushes college could be the difference they need.
One thing is for sure, there shouldn’t be this much of a disparity in college expectations between two schools only a few miles apart, no matter which side of town they’re on.
City editor Brent Lancaster can be reached at brent_lancaster@link.freedom.com or 506-3040. Read his blog at brentsblog.freedomblogging.com.









