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By Lauren Outlaw
FOCUS and PCS in the News: February 2013
With the release of audited enrollment numbers, the release of the Chancellor’s plan to close 15 DCPS buildings (without providing the right of first offer to the charter schools) and the approval of Rocketship’s charter application, the District was a flurry of charter school activity in February. The articles below highlight FOCUS and PCS in the news last month. Also, don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and Facebook!
More students attending D.C. public schools (The Washington Examiner, 2/6/13)
This article discussed the five percent increase in public school enrollment based on the recently released enrollment audit. The audit confirmed that public charter schools saw a ten percent increase and are now enrolling 43 percent of all public school students in the District. FOCUS Executive Director Robert Cane commented that charter growth is happening “in spite of the government” and that “the District should learn to embrace the charter schools.”
For more data on charter enrollment statistics, check out our Data Center.
D.C. debates growth of charter schools (The Washington Post, 2/10/13)
In this article, Emma Brown captured the District’s on-going debate on charter school growth and what this growth will do to the traditional public school system. Some officials and activists maintain that lawmakers should have more control over the charter schools. Robert Cane, however, rebuked this suggestion saying, “it’s a very bad idea for a government that cannot run an effective school system to try and run, in any way, shape or form, the much more effective charter school program.”
Check out this article for more on this contentious debate.
Charters shell out to renovate long-vacant D.C. school buildings (The Washington Examiner, 2/10/13)
This article touched on another contentious aspect of the charter school discussion here in the District: the disposition of facilities. In this piece, Rachel Baye exposed how difficult it is for charter schools to acquire facilities and provided the example of Washington Latin PCS, which spent $23 million to move to Rudolph Elementary. This property, vacant since 2008, was in serious disrepair. Mundo Verde PCS described a similar experience. Robert Cane highlighted that the District is required to give a right of first offer for closed DCPS buildings to the charter schools, but that “this doesn’t normally happen.” Consistent with this practice, last month Chancellor Kaya Henderson announced a plan to close 15 DCPS schools and none of these buildings was offered to the charters as required by law. Cane maintained “the mayor’s hoarding buildings to protect DCPS against charter growth.”
Funding inequity for charters compared to DCPS tops $220 million 2008 to 2012 (The Examiner, 2/25/13)
In this article, Mark Lerner discussed recent FOCUS analysis, a spreadsheet that lists the amount each charter LEA would have received between 2008 and 2012 if the government provided charters with their pro-rata payments of DCPS extra-formulaic funding. The total loss amounts to $221,184,423.
To view this spreadsheet click here. For more on information on the government’s inequitable funding practices, click here.
D.C. clamps down on low-performing charter schools, approves Rocketship (The Washington Post, 2/26/13)
In this piece, Emma Brown reported on recent decisions of the DC PCSB Board: 1) to allow the California non-profit Rocketship Education to open two schools in the District; 2) to merge Septima Clark and Achievement Preparatory Academy; 3) to shutter two of Howard Road Academy’s three campuses allowing them to focus on early childhood education only and; 4) to allow Imagine Southeast, another school in danger of being closed, to stop serving grades 7 and 8 and focus on reaching achievement benchmarks set by the Board by this year or next.
For more about these PCSB board actions, read this article!