Jefferson County School District worried about middle school performance

They need to be worried

The Courier-Journal reports that the Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) board of education is conducting meetings today with a goal of doing something better for the district’s many troubled middle schools.

Another article linked out of this current one reminded me that the JCPS board had voted to close the Myers Middle School back in May 2014. Students and their teachers were redistributed among other Jefferson County schools, including The Academy at Shawnee and Western Middle School.

So, I wondered if that had any impact on Shawnee’s and Western’s performance. All I had to do was pull up the cover page for each school’s 2014-15 Kentucky School Report Card to get an interesting answer. Very simply, after the Myers Middle kids arrived, both Shawnee’s and Western’s performance “tanked.”

As you can see in this screen shot of the Academy's Kentucky School Report Card, the overall middle school performance score at The Academy @ Shawnee dropped by 24.4 points and its percentile rank in Kentucky plummeted from the 99th to the 53rd percentile.

The Academy At Shawnee's Ratings Tank After Myers Middle Kids Arrive

Western Middle School faired equally poorly.

Western Middle School Ratings Tank After Myers Middle Kids Arrive

I guess you can move chairs around on the Titanic, but that won’t keep the ship afloat.

Clearly, after many years of trying, the traditional public school system in Jefferson County isn’t getting the job done for kids. It’s way past time to try something new like a totally separate charter school program where staff at under-performing schools won’t just chase kids around to other pieces of real estate.