Superiority complex.
I don’t expect districts that are affluent to understand, and that’s fine but these are not excuses these are facts that I have presented the statistical information with.
While competitive balance has leveled the field some by removing primarily private schools that have a competition advantage from the playing field. It has allowed the public affluent districts to gain a greater advantage by picking and choosing who they accept and who they don’t why insuring that their enrollment numbers still fall within the division they want to be in. I’ve hear several people say they expect Burg to go to D4 next year, I will however believe it when I see it, I bet some how they manage to stay just under the D 4 cut.
As discussed earlier though this isn’t about athletics, state testing paints an inaccurate picture of the education being offered because poverty and disabilities are not taken into consideration ( IEPs allow for acommendations for some students such as longer test times however very few are actually excused from testing) giving parents that live in those districts a fause assumption that their child would be getting a better education somewhere else because the affluent districts are excepting primarily affluent and non disabled applicants in open enrollment which in turn makes their district look better and others look worse as percentages shift.
This however is not true, I can not speak for all districts but Portsmouth continually has their top kids preforme above and beyond. While PHS also offers Dual Credit course where student earn both high school credit and college credit for courses without having to attend post secondary classes, or pass an advanced plasment test. As of my knowledge Burgs only options to gain college credit is AP, or post secondary, forcing them to test out, or removing high school experiences by having them go to the college during the school day.
Anyone been down to winter fest? You can thank PHS students and staff for the beautiful murals in the windows as they got out supported the community and the arts at the same time.
However these aspects are not included in state test results or Friday night scores so people get a negitive idea about the education system. This results in transferrs to the districts that preform well on test, and those transfers primarily being the more affluent in the district who would have performed just as well in their original district resulting in the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. It is sad this is the case, because in the majority of cases the original district offers the same opportunities and in many cases more then the district they are transferring too.