[Vision2020] The Bleeding Hasn't Stopped...

[Mike Curley]

<color><param>0100,0100,0100</param>Mr. Courtney:


I have retained below two paragraphs of your post 
regarding MSD.  Unfortunately you either didn't read very 
carefully or are knowingly comparing doughnuts to 
doorknobs.  I am not quarreling with whatever your 
ultimate point may be, simply that you are using an 
inapposite statistical comparison to support it.


The MSD website states that the chart shows "where the 
students who left our elementary school went."  That 
information was gathered early last year when the 
community and district were discussing whether a levy 
increase should be submitted to a vote.  It was primarily 
in response to a statement/argument that basically 
suggested MSD was losing students INTRA-CITY to other 
educational opportunities.  When students transfer from 
MSD, the district usual receives a records request from 
the student's new district or school (not from home 
schoolers usually).  Therefore, much of the data 
presented comes from that feedback from the new 
school or district.  


Further, that information is in no way inconsistent with 
your contention that people who are moving to the 
Moscow area are choosing other educational alternatives. 
 I did not see, and do not think you will find, any statement 
by MSD administration that argues that the percentage of 
"new kids" to the area who attend MSD is as high as it was 
in 1990.


Again, I am not making any claims to educational 
superiority of one institution over another (for your kids, 
my kids, or all kids), but I do not think you will find any 
study that has been done that shows that families new to 
the area have predominantly chosen other institutions 
because they investigated and found MSD to be inferior.  If 
you were to conduct that study under appropriate 
scientific principles, you MIGHT find that to be the 
ultimate conclusion.  Or you might find that most of those 
who chose alternatives had a predisposition to do so.  
Some (maybe many?) moved to the area primarily so that 
they could send their children to Logos, or one of the only 
charter schools in the state, or had always home schooled 
their children and were disinclined to send their children 
to public schools regardless of how highly rated they 
might be.


So, again, I argue not with whatever your ultimate 
conclusion may be, but simply that you cannot use the 
statistics you presented to suggest that the majority of 
families/students LEFT the MSD to find other educational 
alternatives IN THE AREA.


It is certainly true that if a family leaves the area and 
accordingly removes its children from MSD and that 
family is "replaced" by a family of home-schooled children 
(or children who attend a private school), enrollment will 
decline.  I suspect it would be a much tougher study to 
determine the "net" demographics of the families to leave 
and enter MSD boundaries within the next few years.


Mike Curley




</color>I want to throw more cold water on their contention

(http://www.sd281.k12.id.us/GeneralInformation/files/mov
emen

t.pdf) that families with children are leaving the area.

That's a bunch of hooey and they know it. All the census

bureau statistics show that the number of school-aged

children in the MSD region has increased by 20 percent! 
They

were talking about all the local housing that's being built

for families -- yet the number of kids continues to decline.



I would like to see MSD school board get their heads out of

the sand and acknowledge what the census statistics

definitively show: - First, people are moving to Moscow 
and

not putting their kids in the government schools. - Second,

that in 1990 private-school students made up 12.7 % of

Moscow's total K-12 enrollment; those 
private/homeschoolers

made up 20% in the 2000 census.