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CALHOUN HAS DIRE EDUCATIONAL NEEDS - Southern School Study Raises Funding Questions |
| (09/23/2003) |
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Calhoun County is among eight West Virginia counties with the most dire educational needs, according to a study
presented this week to the Southern Governors Association annual meeting in Charleston. Calhoun and seven other state counties are among 300 counties in 17 Southern states with the most critical problems, many of them likely caused by deficiencies in their states school funding formula. The study included 1,538 counties, parishes and independent cities in the South, assessing educational and economic factors to determine those counties with the most urgent needs for educational improvements. The school funding formula inflicts "live or die" cuts on small, rural under funded systems, according to school superintendent Ron Blankenship. Blankenship has long been advocating for changing the funding mechanism, which has caused the elimination of programs and teachers in Calhoun. Calhoun High School recently had poor results on the SAT-9. The testing program, however, is being replaced this year, and the school will not be placed on academic probation. Numerous other indicators showed areas of high performance within the county system, including exemplary SAT-9 scores in lower grades. Unfunded mandates required under President Bush's "No Child Left Behind." will likely inflict greater strain on rural systems, where other alternatives are not available. The West Virginia counties with the most critical educational needs were Lincoln, McDowell, Mingo and Summers in Southern West Virginia, and Calhoun, Clay, Roane and Webster. Brian Noland, associate executive director of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission and co-author of the study, says states often fail to look at localized needs when determining education funding. "We definitely saw some patterns some predictable, some surprising," said co-author Houston Davis. Seven West Virginia counties made the top 300 list of better schools, signifying relatively healthy economic and educational systems. Those counties are Brooke, Hancock, Jefferson, Kanawha, Ohio, Putnam and Wood.
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