The Wood vs View County
In Columbia, South Carolina one of the biggest rivalries between high schools are Blythewood (the wood) and Ridge View (View County). The two schools competed in things from friday night football games to student council debates. Attending Blythewood, I had no choice but to have hatred towards Ridge View, but there was always a small part of me that always wanted them to do well.(Except when competing against us.)
Attending Kelly Mill Middle School, I was originally zoned to go to Ridge View High School with pretty much everyone else that was in my 8th grade class including all of my best friends I had played basketball and football with since the 2nd grade. Already attending the Freshman orientation at Ridge View High School, I knew for a fact I would be going to school there until a week before school started and my mom told me I was going to Blythewood. I was not happy about the change because I would not be attending school with the friends I grew up with. Since my closest friends at the time went to Ridge View, I always wanted them to do well. Fast forward four years later and my four best friends I met at Blythewood are all playing college football.
While my 5 best friends that attended Ridge View only 1 of them are in college right now and they all stopped playing sports in 10th grade year. We were not as close the later years in high school so when I found out they stopped playing ball it made me question what really is the difference between our two schools. Why are schools that are literally 5 minutes apart from each other getting such different results, not just in athletics but in graduation rates, end of course exams, etc.? “ You will not see Millionares hanging out with people that bring home thousands”.
Look at both schools as a whole and the types of students that attend each of the school. There are wealthy and under privileged students that attend both Blythewood and Ridge View. Blythewood, a predominitly white school has more wealthy people while Ridge View does not. The reason for that is, Blythewood pulls majority of it students from a neighborhood known as Lake Carolina were the median income of a household is $70,000 dollars a year — a neighborhood that contains two elementary schools and one middle school while Ridge View pulls students from neighborhoods where the median income of a household is $62,000 dollars a year. ($8,000 difference may not seem like a huge difference but when you look at it from holistic stand point it is.)
The reason this stands out to me because the kids from Lake Carolina seem more driven, more motivated and this may be because there parents are wealthy and cares a lot about there child education. When you take kids that are not as motivated and put them around kids that are motivated, the peer pressure do good starts to play in affect. This is shown in the difference of EOC courses for the African American students at each school. For the 2015 school year the average EOC for African American students at Blythewood high school was 77 compared to Ridge View African American Students scores which were 72. Not a very big gap at all; but lets look at what really matters. What percentage of graduating seniors are furthering their education after high school.
As shown in the 2015 South Carolina State Report Card Blythewood sends 77.3% of there graduating students directly to college while Ridge View only sends 65.6% of there graduating students directly to college. What Ridge View does have Blythewood beat in is drop out rate. Blythewood Drop out rate is 0.9 while Ridge View is 0.7. Blythewood answers back with a 31.3 to Ridge View 0.0. That statistic is the drop out rate recovery, which means how many of there students get there high school diploma or GED after dropping out of school. So when students drop out of Ridge View they are not furthing there level of education, in a world where a four year degree is not good enough any more.
One might be reading this post and say the schools are getting these results because the teachers are not qualified. That is false because 74% of RidgeView teachers have advance degrees in there respected subjects to Blythewoods 72.2%.
So what is the main is cause of these results. “ You will not see Millionares hanging out with people that bring home thousands”. Its about who the students are around, not there friends they are with outside of school; but who are they placed in class with. Are they placed in class with students that have a positive aspect about school and setting goals to further there education after high school. Or do they have the classmates that say they are going to college but not putting forth the effort to make it happen. Classrooms should be completely segregated not just by demographics but also by intelligence. Some students may need to take advanced level classes but not all of them. When that happens you are putting all of the advanced students that are motivated to do great on one class. Those students are together all of day with the peer pressure of “I have to do go on the test because I be looked down upon by classmates if I do bad.” In the other classrooms you have students that promote there peers to not do the homework.
Ones peers has the biggest impact of their life, while one will try to impress the people he associates himself with on a daily basis. Booker T. Washington said “Associate yourself of people with good quality, for it is better to be alone than in bad company.” When one is associated with bad people trouble and failure is bond to happen, and when one goes down one can only point a finger at themselves because they made that choice. As Jennifer L Hochschild said in The American Dream and the Public Schools, ” I am an American so I have the freedom and the opportunity to make whatever I want in my life. I can succeed by working hard and using my talents; if i fail, it will be my own fault.”
https://drive.google.com/a/g.clemson.edu/file/d/0ByTyeUR1YOBkWUtzaXl
https://ed.sc.gov/assets/reportCards/2015/high/c/h4002084.pdf
hSkRBcmM/viewhttp://www.city-data.com/neighborhood/The-Summit-Columbia-
SC.htmlhttp://www.city-data.com/neighborhood/Lake-Carolina-Columbia-SC.html
https://ed.sc.gov/assets/reportCards/2015/high/c/h4002084.pdf
