It has been noted frequently that CAPA was chosen as a "Blue Ribbon School"- but what exactly does this mean?
Here is the link stating the purpose of the program:
http://www.ed.gov/programs/nclbbrs/index.html (to honor "public and private elementary, middle and high schools that are either academically superior or that demonstrate dramatic gains in student achievement to high levels" and "serve as models for other schools throughout the nation."
Here is the link for eligibility:
http://www.ed.gov/programs/nclbbrs/faq.html (FAQ's).
Here is a link for the program at CAPA during the G-20:
http://www.cmu.edu/multimedia/first-lady-obamas-g-20-concert.shtml
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The FAQ's explain that "dramatically improving" means that 40% of students come from disadvantaged background and the school made AYP.
The 2008 A+ report shows that 25.9% of students at CAPA receive a free/reduced price lunch. So, CAPA probably would have qualified under the "academically superior" prong rather than the "dramatic gains" prong.
All city high schools except CAPA and Allderdice have more than 50%students with free/reduced lunch. When the science school was started there was a lot of attention to making the percentage with free lunch the same as for PPS as a whole. But this concern does not seem to apply to CAPA.
Does anyone know if CAPA still has non-city residents attending where the tuition is paid privately?
By the way, you can watch the entire G-20 performance on the PPS website.
Non-city residents are supposed to be permitted only if there is space, and for 6th and 9th grade at least it seems like there are always more applicants than spaces.
CAPA may need to recruit more in neighborhoods with lower incomes, like the sci tech school did. But a barrier is probably the 3.0 GPA requirement. The requirement is higher than for the IB school, and the sci tech school has no GPA requirement at all. It is not really clear why that should be the case.
When CAPA was a downtown dream, up to half the kids were to be from suburban areas. The great school was to be such an attraction that those art starved cookie cutter kids (my joke) would flock to CAPA. After a couple of years, a couple of kids came. It has always been less than 10 I've heard.
It would be great if there were folks going to our school with tutition $.
But is that b/c kids and families outside Pittsburgh are not interested in CAPA, or because there isn't space for them?
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