KCMO schools

It is that time of year again for the KCMO School District. The time when the state releases the standardized test scores, the MAP test. This year had some good and bad news. Mostly bad news in that the district scored well below the state average on every subject. The good news is that the scores were a little better than last year.

The District has a new school superintendent. He promised a 5 point gain in reading scores, but delivered about a 1.9 point gain. Not the best, but at least in the right direction.

After I looked at this years scores, I began to wonder. Even if KCMO improves to an acceptable level, will people care? Will the wealthier, whiter parts of town start to send their kids to public schools? Or will they continue to send their kids to private schools or move to Johnson County when their children reach school age?

Unlike Forest Gump's proverbial box of chocolate, with Kansas City schools you know exactly what you are getting. The Missouri Department of public education publishes a mountain of information on each school in the state. All you have to do is look, to find out how good or bad your neighbourhood school is.

The Kansas City school district as a whole, performs well below the state average in every area. That being said, a number of schools in the district perform at or better than the state average.

An example is Holliday Montessori. It scores at or above the state average in every subject. In 5th grade communication arts Holliday had 31% of its students score as advanced, the state average is 18%. So Holliday had almost twice the percentage of students score as advanced. Holliday is a themed magnet school. It uses the Montessori teaching method and is one of the few magnet schools the District has left. They have always had a very advanced pre-k program, starting child at 3 years old.

I once talked to a parent about schools. I told him about how Holliday had great test scores and I thought it was in part from their pre-k program. His response was that Holliday's pre-k program was just "an inexpensive day care for poor people."

So we have a school that has a pre-k program and has above average test scores. What is different about Holliday than most suburban schools? Why would he dismiss Holliday so easily when all the data shows they are a good school?

Academie Lafayette is a charter school in Kansas City. It is a French immersion school. All of the classes are taught 100% in French and every student becomes fluent in French within the first year. For 2007, Academie Lafayette scored above the state average in EVERY tested area. Not just a little above the average, but way above the average. I once spoke to a parent about Academie Lafayette and she said it was the "best of the worst." So we have a school that scores above the state average in EVERY area, but a local parent still labels it the "best of the worst." Why would she label a top performing school as the "best of the worst"?

Many white, affluent Kansas Citians view of the KCMO School District can be summed up in what one parent said to me. This parent told me he was worried about sending his child to Academie Lafayette because there was so much "diversity" there. He actually said "diversity" was worrying him. When I told another parent that I send my kids to KCMO public schools, she said "are they safe, do they have to go through metal detectors". I pointed out that many schools shootings and all the big ones, have occurred in predominately white schools.


The KCMO District has plenty of problems, from the administration up to the school board, but it is completely wrong to say that the drop in attendance is completely due to the performance of the schools. Few people want to admit that a lot of parents won't send their kids to KCMO schools simply because of racism. For a significant number of parents, it doesn't matter how well the school performs. They simply don't want to send their kids to a mixed race school.

So if you have kids that are reaching school age, take a look around your local public school. Look past the race of students, and talk to the teachers and look at the test scores. It may be a better school than you realized.

You can look up the scores here.