A line started Sunday morning in front of the AA School Administration
Building for acceptance into Community High.

It is two weeks until the school administration will accept applications.
That's a long time to wait. 

Is there a better way to do this?

40 responses total.

Yes.  There are several.  The best way to handle this would be to figure out
why so many more people either want to go to Community or don't want to go
to Pioneer or Huron than there is room for, and then either fix the problems
at Pioneer and Huron or start more "alternative" high schools.  The next best
thing would be to go to a full lottery, rather than this half line/half
lottery situation we have now.  The line was originally thought to be a
measure of comittment, but is now just a measure of whose parents can afford
to take the most time off of work.

I was a student at Community, and very active in school politics, at the time
the things were happening that led up to this two week line.  I'm sorry to
say that I may have contributed to the situation, along with a lot of other
people.  My class was the first to have a line, five years ago.  At the time,
the line started only a few hours before applications were being accepted.
Waiting for a few hours didn't seem like too much of a burden, and was felt
to be much better than a lottery, which wouldn't give people any way to
control whether they got in or not.  If it occurred to to anybody that the
line might get longer than that, they didn't speak up loudly enough.  It was
on that that the last several years of enrollment policy have been based, but
the burden of getting in the line has changed an incredible amount since then.
It's time for the policy to change as well.

What we have now may be a measure of commitment to some people, but it also
measures a lot more.  What was once a school for people who wanted to be there
for the openness, the extra educational oportunties it provides, or whatever
other reason is now becoming a school for people whose parents can afford to
spend two weeks waiting in line, and who are in good enough health to do that
in the weather we're supposed to get later this week.  And people wonder why
Community has so much trouble battling an "elitist" image.  I love Community
High.  I got an incredible amount out of it, and I think deciding to go to
school there was probably the best decision I ever made.  Still, if this two
week line is the enrollment criteria, I don't think the Ann Arbor Public
Schools should be operating a school like that.

Admission should, of course, be by application and screening, since space
is limited and there is a special environment to which not all children
adapt or benefit. The line idea was idiotic from the first day, and the
lottery does not match the student to the school. Just as higher education
admits students by application and screening, so should Community. [My
high school, Brooklyn Tech, although a New York public school, screened
admissions.]

That would make the 'elitist' image even worse...at least now they have a 
process they can pretend is fair. It would probably be better for both the 
school and the students, but the Ann Arbor school board has struck me as
opposed on some fundamental level to anything even vaguely...Unfair? I guess
that's a good word for it...anything that makes the educational experience
different in any way for some students based on some non-random process.
I'm a little surprised Community's still there, honestly. 

Anytime now the Ann Arbor School system will get some real
competition from Commie High and Bach type alternative schools.
There are already folks looking to open such a charter school
if the School Board doesn't *finally* agree to meet the demand
and open the one that's (again) been proposed.  The difference
between now and 1991 and 1993 when the concept was shot down
is that it's both easier to open a charter and it will be 
paid for with state school money.  Money that follows the
child wherever the child goes, be that House One or Pioneer
or an independant alternative.

The excuse used to be that opening an alternative was too
expensive.  But now, it will be very expensive to not open
an alternative and watch those students go elsewhere and
take their funding along.

The next School Board election is June 10th.  If you care about
this issue you really should vote.

Well, the line is both stupid and unfair; a lottery is stupid but
fair; selection would be intelligent and fair *within a system that
really believes that different types of schools are needed for
different kinds of students*. I don't see why anyone would say it
is "unfair". I do not believe that Community High is a *globally*
better school, just better for some kids (and not necessarily the
brighest or most creative). Shouldn't children go to the school that
is best for them? [I have a very high opinion of the regular Ann Arbor
school system, despite all the beating some like to do on it.]

But Rane, what do you select for?  How do you decide who is "good enough."
One of the really wonderful things about Community was the big variety in the
student body.  The only thing the students had in common was that they were
there because they wanted to be there.  There was nothing about people being
there because they were "good enough."  In fact, of all the educational
environments I've been in, Community was by far the most accepting.  Deciding
that only certain people are good enough would destroy a lot of what was
really wonderful about the school.

Until some of the demand for alternative-style schools has
been met the fairest way to allocate the open slots would be
by straight lottery among those who submit an application
to attend the school.  Part of the application would include
a thorough orientation on the school's philosophy to attempt
to limit applications to those who really do "fit" the program.

First, I never wrote "good enough". Second, since the environment is
different, there *should* be a way to ascertain who would benefit the most
from that environment vis-a-vis the alternative (the "regular" schools
are, of course, also "alternative schools", if there are two choices).
Those that would benefit the most from one of the alternative school
(types) should be counseled into them. Mary offers a reasonable first
approach to implementing this. 

A lottery would certainly make more sense than camping out for two weeks,
missing school in the process for one of those weeks. I wonder what the snow
did to the line last night. It sure was a good test of everyone's commitment.

Folks will always be claiming that the BHS model is "elitist". I think there
should be some money set aside to meet the special needs of the brightest kids,
too. If it is OK to spend money on those who need help to keep up, then it
is unfair not to spend money on the others, too. AA will never do what 
you suggested, Rane, because of this thinking, and because theyu aren't 
big enough.

The alternative schools in AA have the best of everything. They  don't offer
evrything, but anything they don't have can be gotten by just going over to
the regular schools. No wonder everyone wants it.

The general (what can we call them? open admission?) alternative among Ann
Arbor schools does provide for the brightest kids, as far as I can tell,
to the same extent as the other alternative. There are after school
activities, though they may cost a little extra. The "Academic Games"
program is one of those in Ann Arbor, which is run under the
open-alternative school auspices. [My wife rode today in a taxi driven by
a CHS-type alternative school graduate (no subtle, invidious implication
intended), and he had never heard of Academic Games, and expressed some
regret that he hadn't, after it was explained to him.]

Community did have Academic Games, I think.  I was never part of it, but I
think there were some Pioneer and Huron students on Community's team.  I'm
not sure whether Pioneer and Huron had their own teams.  I suspect they
didn't.

I'm not sure what srw means when he says that "the alternative schools in AA
have the best of everything."  They certainly have different things, and I
think they both have some good things that the other doesn't.  Since both
Community and Pioneer have internationally recognized music programs, those
make a good example.  Community has a wonderful Jazz program, and students
from Pioneer and Huron flock over in large numbers to take Jazz at Community.
But, Community does not have an orchestra, or a non Jazz band.  Lots of
students from Community go over to Pioneer and Huron for those programs.  The
same goes for all kinds of other programs.  Last time I checked, there were
far more Pioneer and Huron students taking classes at Community than there
were Community students taking classes at Pioneer and Huron, so that's really
something flowing both ways.

Then there's the often heard argument that Community costs significantly more
than Pioneer and Huron, apparrently started by a group of Pioneer parents who
were more interested in being able to hurt Community than in what the actual
facts were.  The numbers that purported to show that were a comparison of one
part of Pioneer and Huron's budgets (Pioneer and Huron have different budgets
for different things that they do) to Community's total budget (Community only
has one budget, rather than the several that Pioneer and Huron have).  In
addition, the numbers were significantly skewed by the discrepency between
the number of students from Community who take Pioneer and Huron classes, and
the number of Pioneer and Huron students who take Community classes.  The
numbers that CBE (the Religious Right school board members) and the group of
Pioneer parents were pushing pretended that those numbers matched.  When "dual
enrollment" is factored in, and the calculations are done using the schools'
total budgets rather than the total budget for Community and partial budgets
for Pioneeer and Huron, Huron ended up costing something like $1000 per
student more than Pioneer, with Community coming in about half way between
the two.  In other words, it's not really possible to decide that Community
costs more or less than the other schools.  That was a few years ago.  I'd
imagine that the numbers would probably be pretty similar today.

Clearly, there's more demand for Community than there are available spaces.
Something needs to be done about.  Saying, "they're a better school, no wonder
so many people want to there" is really just dodging the issue.  If Community
is really doing things so much better than the other schools, then it would
seem to be time to fix the other schools.

I don't think Community is doing "things" in general better than other
schools. It just has snob appeal, because it has limited enrollment. Open
the enrollments in th e two systems to the same number of places, and
see what happens. I think more students will elect an academic curriculum,
as it is a better guarantee of "success". 

How exactly does the line work?  When I saw pictures of it on TV news, my
first thought was that rich people could pay unemployed people to wait in line
for them.  My next thought was that they should auction off those slots.  But
opening up another "alternative" school would be a better plan.

Well, if it wouldn't cost any more per pupil , as scg claims, it would make
sense to do exactly that. No football or orchestra, you'd have to go to
Pioneer for those. I remain deeply suspicious of these cost figures. I 
think it would cost a mint that the taxpayers can't afford.

I think that in some academic departments at Pioneer, there are some 
incompetent teachers. I'll bet that a number of people are anxious more
to avoid this problem than to get into Community. If they shored 
up some of these problem areas (in Pioneer particularly), they might ease this
Community problem some, too.

My kids at Pioneer were not permitted to take courses at Community, despite 
the fact that Community kids could come to Pioneer for all the best parts.
Those facts underlay some of my comments earlier. I don't think it fair.
Very few kids went from Pioneer to Community for classes, but there was  a
torrent pouring into Orchestra and Marching Band the other way.

Maybe this has changed.

I thought Community wasn't structured with particular courses not taught
in other schools - I thought it was the open multi-grade format that
was desirable. If that's the case, I wouldn't expect much traffic from
Pioneer to Community - but educate me: what would students "take" at
Community, coming from other schools?

There are incompetent teachers everywhere. In the physics course I
took at Brooklyn Tech - considered an "elite" school - the teacher
had some problem and started just not showing up. So another student
and I appointed ourselves to teach the course. (Anyone can read a
book and develop lessons from it.) It was fun...until the administration
discovered what was going on.

I'm not sure why your kids weren't allowed to take classes at Community. 
Pioneer students had been able to take Community classes for several years
before I ever got to Community, and certainly were doing that in large numbers
all four years that I was at Community (the years I was at Community included
two of the years Jeremy was at Pioneer).  I was in some classes in which a
third of the students were from Pioneer, and some classes had a lot more than
that, so clearly a large number of Pioneer students were being allowed to take
Community classes.  There may have been individual classes that filled up with
Community students, not leaving room for Pioneer students, but classes that
had some extra room in them got a lot of Pioneer students (and a few Huron
ones as well).  Take a look at the actual numbers, and you'll see that the
number of students going over to Pioneer from Community was nothing compared
to the number of students from Pioneer taking Community classes.

I hope Community isn't getting snob appeal, as Rane states, but it may be.
That certainly wasn't the case when I started there.  The typical reaction
from people I know who didn't go to Community at that point was, "why would
you want to go there?!?!?"  Community was generally thought of as the place
for druggies and social outcasts, and certainly did have some of those
elements.  It was also a place where it was ok to try weird educational
things, and I think some of the classes where I learned the most were things
that would never have been allowed in other schools.  At some point, people
started realizing that the things Community was doing worked.  By most
traditional measurements of the quality of an academic program, Community was
doing a lot better than Pioneer and Huron (by this I mean higher MEAP and SAT
scores, more National Merit finalists and semi-finalists, and various other
things like those, not that *I* consider any of those to be terrably good
measurements of any thing).  Also, people were coming to realize that there
are other good ways of learning things besides just sitting in a classroom
and listening to a teacher and that there were better reasons for doing things
than just because the bell had rung.  Once all the people attracted to the
school for those reasons started lining up to get in, that probably went on
to draw a lot more attention to the school, and both got people to take a look
at what Community had to offer, and probably got some people just jumping on
the band wagon as an unfortunate side effect.  Still, I'm sure that even some
people just jumping on the band wagon will probably come away from the school
having had some really good experiences there, and having learned a lot.  
        I'm not sure what Rane means by Community not being an academic
program.  Define academic.
        Unfortunately, getting rid of the limit to the number of students that
can go to Community is not as simple as it sounds.  The last few classes at
Community have had as many people on the waiting list as actually in the
school.  Now, I'm sure not all of those people would actually decide to go
to Community when it comes right down to it, but I'm guessing too many of them
would to fit.  Even if we ignore the big changes in Community's program that
would probably have to be made to deal with that number of students, they just
wouldn't fit.  Community's building, when it was remodelled a few years ago
(Community had been there for 20 years in a building that was, by all
accounts, falling apart, before the remodeling), was designed for a school
with 325 students, which was the limit at the time.  That limit has been
pushed up since then, to accomodate some of the demand.  It sounds as if
they're going all the way to 400 next year, based on the reported size of next
year's freshman class.  It was calculated a few years ago that when all the
Pioneer students taking Community classes are counted, the school was
functioning most of the time with the equivilant of over 500 students (five
classes taken by Pioneer or Huron students added one student to Community's
count, while five Pioneer or Huron classes taken by Community students
subtracted one, for that count).  You really can't cram that many more
students into that building.

Rane slipped in with number 15.  I think the biggest thing Pioneer students
were coming over to Community for was math.  I'm not sure why, but many of
them said they thought Community's math teachers were a lot better than
Pioneer's.  Community's jazz program was also a big one.  That makes more
sense, since Pioneer and Huron didn't have an equivilant program.  There were
also Pioneer and Huron students in a lot of the other classes I took,
including English, Science, and just about all the other things I took over
those four years.  There was also Community's program that allowed students
to make up their own classes and find somebody to teach it, so I'm sure there
were a lot of Pioneer students doing things through that program that most
Community students wouldn't have known about.  That's the program under which
Ann Arbor Public Schools students are allowed to take UM classes, among other
things, so any Pioneer or Huron student taking a UM class would officially
have been taking a Community class, and while they wouldn't have spent much
time at Community's building, the Community teachers who run the program are
paid out of Community's budget.  Under that program, nobody would have thought
the Physics course that Rane taught while he was in high school the least bit
strange.  There were lots of students teaching classes at Community, and it
was perfectly fine as long as they could convince a "real" teacher of that
subject that they knew what they were doing.

Math, Jazz and Art is indeed a big draw for Mega-school drop-ins. And
Community kids go elsewhere for a real choice of languages and other
specialty courses. Community doesn't have a real library, any swimming
pool, or team organized sports.  It is understood there are far fewer
courses available but those offered tend to be worth taking and open to
all. And unless the material is simply divided into two sequential
courses, any class is open to all grade levels.  Pioneer and Huron have a
type of school spirit and so does Community.  One is not better than the
other but they are different. 

When it was time to decide where my son was going to high school I looked
into Community and liked it.  I already knew quite a bit about Huron. We
talked it over.  He thought about it.  We visited the schools.  He worried
that none of his friends were going there, indeed his friends told him he
was weird to even think about it. Applying was an informed choice based on
a lot of factors not one of which was elitism.  Community offered him the
chance to Debate and participate in Model UN.  He is an avid debater who
now participates on the college level.  For him, Community was a very good
choice.  I'm glad he made it. 

I find it sad there are so few choices available to students in
the system today.  Also, I find it frustrating the way some parents
(not here) tend to think that if their child doesn't desire or need
an alternative to the mega-schools that any child who does is doing
so for invalid reasons.

s /are/is in the first sentence.  

Pioneer's Math Department, at least when my kids both went through it, was
so bad, that the kids would have gone just about anywhere to get away from
it. It wasn't possible in most cases to take classes at community of the same
class was given at Pioneer. There were some teacher's who were exceptions,
though not very many. The Music department was just the opposite.

So it makes sense, if they are allowed to, that lots of Pioneer kids would
try to find Math classes at Community, and that COmmunity kids would come to
Pioneer for music.

I know one kid who lived in the Huron part of town, but who wanted to play
in the Pioneer orchestra. He got into community so that he could legally
attend orchestra at Pioneer. An option he wouldn't have had of he had been
at Huron.

Is the Pioneer music program really stronger than Huron's?  I've
heard both orchestras and don't notice much difference.  And
isn't it the Huron orchestra that this very weekend is performing
at Carnegie Hall?

I guess it just goes to show you that you really don't know why
a particular school would be a better "fit" unless you take
some time and research the topic.  And that people who stand
at a distance and make generalizations about such things really
haven't a clue.

I was referring to 1989. There was no question then. I don't know about now.

Even then, Huron's Orchestra was a fine one. Pioneer had (and may still have)
one of the top HS orchestras in the whole midwest. 
This student was also tops in the state, and clearly wanted to play at Pioneer.
The orchestra toured Europe that year, after graduation.

Community has changed so much since I went there. . .I think the original
reason for the line was from those of us who went there when a line for the
place would have been unheard of. We all felt-at the time-that first come
first serve was a way of determining motivation. Many, many of my freinds
parents had heard some pretty frightening rumors about the place, and they
did things like lock themselves in bathrooms and run away and hide at friends
houses in order to be allowed to go(both true tales). I'm sad that anything
good was published abou it, because the influx of students has ruined alot
of things abou it. There was a sense of community there when I went which is
significantly diminished, clases were smaller-the whole school was-people were
more accepting of one another. Alot of the kids I hung out with there came
from severely troubled and abusive families, such that they felt excluded from
what was considered "normal" at the large high schools. Others were very
bright people who were failing school at the other places because they simply
could not figure out how to fit into the really *badly* designed systems
there. There were two muslim women who were tired of being called devil
worshipers, and a drag queen who was tired of being called worse things, and
any number of other people who didn't know how to fit in to Pioneer or Huron.
I see much less variety in the stuent body now, and I have a nasty feeling
that the kids who really, really *need* to be there aren't getting in. I wish
that some of the enrgy that went into standing in line for two weeks would
go towards ikmproving the other schools. I am long out of high school, but
I have not forgotten that I would not be all that functional if I had not had
the opportunity to just walk in-two weeks after the deadline-and say "Hi, I'm
tired of being miserable every single time I go in the door at school, and
I think if I go to pioneer I'm going to really lose it, may I come here?"

But then everything's different now. 

(Hi, Katt!)

I don't have the CHS experience (personally, or through my kids)
to have recognized the changes you detail, but now that you have described
them, I am quite sure that you're right.

In any event, I agree with your recommendation. I have been trying to say the
same thing. Let's put more effort into making the mainstream schools better.
People are going into the alternatives for the wrong reasons, and if we let
things go on, they won't be alternatives any more.

Too true. . .

(Hi! :)   )

I agree about the need to make the mainstream schools better.  I don't think
that needs to be done at the expense of any other schools.

I have really mixed feelings about saying that somebody went to Community for
the wrong reasons.  I don't think I heard that statement much in my last year
there, but I heard it plenty before that.  Generally, the "wrong reasons"
ranged from not wanting to go to Pioneer or Huron to wanting to be with
friends, to wanting to be in a place where they could smoke or skip class.
I made up my mind to go there after visiting Pioneer along with the rest of
the eighth graders in that part of town and finding the prospect of spending
four years at Pioneer really scary.  I guess that must mean I was at Community
for the wrong reason, but it still ended up having been a really great
decision

I worry that the push to keep Community small and to limit enrollment may have
been one of the big causes of the huge numbers of people wanting to go to
Community (which of couse forced the school to get a lot bigger).  My freshman
year at Community was the first year there was a line, and the second there
had been a waiting list.  Many of the older students there had started out
at other schools and for one reason or another had ended up switching to
Community after they decided that Community would be a better place for them.
Since there was no waiting list, they were free to do that.  When te waiting
list came along that choice evaporated.  Instead of being free to try one of
the mainstream schools to see if it was a good place for them, anybody who
wants a chance at getting into Community sometime in their next four years
has to make sure they start out their Freshman year there.  I wonder how many
of the people currently in Community or on the waiting list would have tried
to get into Community if they could have gone to one of the mainstream high
schools and changed their mind later.

<HVCN promo - > Do not forget to see the Education Interactive forum on HVCN
- http://www.hvcn.org - Interactive Forums> Back to your regular
programming.

Now *that* was a good idea, but shameless. 

Choosing CHS because of (for example) the Math department at Pioneer would 
be an example of choosing it for the wrong reason. I am quite sure there's a
lot of that sort of thinking out there.

  Not knowing the relative merits of the two math departments, can you
clue me into why it would be the wrong reason?

Suppose that Pioneer's math department is considered widely to be a very weak
department. People will look for ways to avoid exposing themselves to that
problem. An Alternative school is such a way. Thus you wind up with kids who
are essentially interested in straight (not alternative) education, but who
are filling up the alternative school to get away from a problem in the public
high school.

P.S. BTW I think some of the Math teachers are fine, but I am describing a 
problem that I believe really existed, and may or may not still exist.
I stopped being personally involved in AA Public schools in 1993.

  Ok, I understand what you mean now, though I don't see why that's the
"wrong reason."  If a student wants a good math education, why not go
where the best math teachers (and probably students) are?  When students
are given a choice of schools, it seems natural that some schools will
develop reputations for being good in certain areas, and that will
further fuel that reputation.  If Community has the best-perceived math
program around, the best math teachers, and students, are likely to be
drawn there, so it really probably will be the best program.  That it's
"alternative" may weigh for or against depending on student preference,
but that doesn't erase the "plus" in the math category.

That's why the term "alternative" is a misnomer, unless you state that
(say) Huron is Alternative 1, Pioneer is Alternative 2, and Community is
Alternative 3 (pick your own order - I won't argue!).

I thought Community was set up to have a more open environment, not to have
better teachers. If you put all the better teachers at Community, then you
shouldn't wonder why big lines form to get in there.

That's admittedly a gross oversimplification, but it gets to the question of
"the wrong reason". I believe this perception is playing a role in the 
long lines we are seeing every year.

  Are teachers placed in school by the school system as a whole, or hired
by the individual schools?  If the schools do the hiring, it's not a matter
of "putting" the best teachers somewhere, as of the best teachers being
naturally drawn to what they think the best school is (among many other
factors they'd consider in a job hunt).  Just as students might choose
Commie for having good teachers, rather than for it being an open school,
teachers might choose Commie for having good students.  Once a school gets
a reputation as the "best" within a system, if there's choice of employment
and enrollment, I think it's inevitable that quality folks will be drawn
to it, further establishing its reputation.

Each school does its own hiring, pretty much, with limitations such as not
being able to hire somebody who doesn't currently work for the Ann Arbor
school system if the school system has unassigned teachers of that subject
area.  Teachers who want a teaching job in the Ann Arbor schools apply for
a specific position in a specific school, so everybody teaching at Community
is teaching there beause they applied for a job at Community.

That's not my understanding, Steve.  I have lots of teachers in muy practice,
and have become rather active in my kids school, where there is one multi-age
classroom.  They would like to add another, but cannot request anyone specific
to teach it and this raised concerns that a teacher might be _assigned_ by
the district who doesn't have a personal feel for the multi-age environment.

I do not know how it works at Community, but at the orientation at Bach Open
School I learned that they (teachers/administration of Bach) pressed for, and
got, a special dispensation from the school board to hire directly.  They are
the only school in the AA District which I know has that right.

Teachers who want a job at AA Schools apply to the School Board (district?)
and are assigned to schools as the district sees fit.  They also begin at the
bottom rung of the salary ladder.  I know this because, in response to
interest at Thurston School for another multi-age class, a long-time
elementary teacher (in Saline) who would just _love_ to teach a multi-age
class again is prevented from doing so because she cannot be certain to be
assigned to that school, let alone that class, and, she would lose 15-18 years
of seniority in salary and benifits.  She is a long time resident of Ann
Arbor, btw, and all her children attended AA Public Schools from K through
12.  What an asset to "lose".

I believe Community's teachers go through a multi-leveled screening
process which includes an interview with a student/parent committee,
dean and staff, and Balas administration even has a say.  The whole
process is guided by the teachers' union contract and district policy.  

It's a mixture of being qualified, being found appropriate for the 
position, being liked, and having enough seniority.

I can't really speak for how it work sat the other schools, but I've been on
several Community hiring committees over the years.  We interviewed people,
made recommendations, and central administration followed them for the most
part.  We didn't have official hiring autority -- the school board has that.
We would recommend to the central administration, who would recommend to the
board, who would vote on it.  Still, the board just about never overrides
central administration on staffing, for any school, and central administartion
honored our recommendations.  I thought the  other schools, at least the high
schools (where staffing needs tend to be a bit more stable) followed similar
systems, but I could be wrong.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss