Criticism of local schools is unwarranted
Let’s face it. City High has an image problem.
In the last year alone, one student earned a perfect score on the ACT. Another student received a state activism award for raising money to clean up the Iowa River (and a standing ovation from 400 teachers at the award ceremony). The Advanced Placement economics team recently swept a state quiz bowl and headed to Texas for regional competition.
Some of this spring’s graduates have been accepted at Stanford, Yale, and Smith, among other prestigious institutions. The orchestra’s concertmaster, a talented violinist with plans to become a professional musician, has won numerous awards and has mentored and taught music to elementary kids. He said the City High teachers’ dedication and excellence “is not likely paralleled at any other high school in the state.”
The school has won three Grammy awards for musical excellence and is just one of three Grammy Signature Gold Schools in the country. A Nobel Prize winner and at least two Rhodes Scholars are City High alumni. The Fas Trac program, launched 16 months ago to guide African American students in school and steer them toward college, has completely exceeded expectations. Participant grade-point averages are on the rise, and attendance problems have declined. Students are applying for colleges all over the country; in the past, some of them never even considered college as an option.
City High’s Best Buddies chapter, which fosters friendship with and integration of students with intellectual disabilities, just won its second-consecutive High School Chapter of the Year award. The newspaper, the Little Hawk, has won more National Pacemaker Awards — considered the Pulitzer Prize of student journalism — than any other school newspaper in the nation.
Based on all this, you’d think the image “problem” is that of a snobby elite high school.
Wrong. With increasing frequency and volume, certain members of our community — usually people with no direct experience and who have spent no time in the school — are insisting that City High is the school to avoid.
At a recent public discussion about possible boundary changes, one parent announced that City High has a problem, and it is “weakening.” Parents she knows — who live on the West Side — are all opposed to their children attending City High, should boundaries change. Another West Side speaker suggested that moving children to City High would cause trauma that could lead to mental illness. Yet another announced that no one in her home was allowed to wear the color red (City High colors) because people in her West Side home only wear green (West High colors).
What is going on here?!
Many of us City High parents are baffled. Each day, we see proof that our kids attend a great school. (Not a perfect school, but an outstanding one.) Indeed, if test scores and achievements are valid measuring sticks, it is among Iowa’s top high schools. Because we know City High is fabulous, it is surreal to hear parents in our community call it a source of psychosis and educational ruin.
A quick look at Iowa Test of Educational Development scores from 1999-2008 shows the average yearly composite score among 11th graders was 92.2 for City High, 92.3 for West High; among 10th graders, that number was 89 for City High, 85.3 for West High (no data available for 1999); and among ninth-graders, that figure was 89.6 for City High, 86.4 for West High. City High’s composite ACT score in 2008 was 25.1 — the second highest in the state; West’s was 25.6. (The state average is 22.3, and the national average is 21.2.)
Why are some parents with no firsthand knowledge of City High worried? Because their kids may some day attend one of the state’s top high schools — whether that school is City or West? These two schools are both among those envied in the state.
It is true that an enrollment-policy change last year temporarily overwhelmed the school. That situation was rectified quickly, and City High’s staff rose to meet the challenge of 150 unexpected students.
Much attention has been focused on more recent test scores and on demographic changes that could leave City High with a higher proportion of poor students. Of course changing numbers should be a concern. Maintaining socioeconomic balance between the two schools is essential. All parents (and taxpayers) want to meet (and exceed) the needs of our most vulnerable students and to preserve excellence, whether our kids leave the house each morning wearing red or green sweatshirts.
Let’s put things into perspective. We must be reasonable and approach this as one community with one tax base and one main interest: the best possible education we can provide to all of our children.
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