Roundtable Review: DC Public Charter Schools and Middle Grades Reform

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This month, DC Council Chairman Kwame Brown held a middle grades reform roundtable to bring in a variety of local education experts, including FOCUS’s Deputy Director and School Quality Director, Naomi Rubin Deveaux.

 

Mr. Brown called the roundtable to address growing community concerns regarding grades 6, 7 and 8. Currently, the DCPS graduation rate is 43%, the lowest in the nation. Sadly, 50% of DCPS students drop out in 9th grade.  New studies show that recognizing factors during the middle grade years, like failing grades in English and Math and poor attendance rates, could help improve the likelihood of a student graduating. 

 

These indicators are present as early as the 6th grade.  Since interventions during high school in these areas may be too late, middle grades reform provides an excellent opportunity to step in earlier on.

 

The roundtable was a great opportunity to share how public charter schools are providing solutions for D.C. middle grades issues. In addition to Ms. Deveaux’s testimony, KIPP DC, Paul PCS, and Washington Latin PCS detailed their unique, successful models for middle school instruction.

 

Bill Turque praises these charters and others when he points out that “Howard University Middle School of Math and Science, E.L. Haynes, KIPP, Paul and Washington Latin are among the schools that posted 70 percent proficiency or better in at least one subject.”

 

It’s clear: DC public charter schools have elevated the quality of middle grades education, consistently surpassing the performance of traditional public schools. 

 

In light of these issues, how effective have DC public charters been in middle grade instruction?  This school year, 38 of the public charter schools are serving grades 6-8, which more than doubles the number of middle grade options in DCPS.  Yet the students at 24 of these schools scored above the state average on the 2011 DC CAS, compared to just seven DCPS schools serving middle grade students.

 

In Wards 7 and 8 alone, where even higher percentages of students are economically disadvantaged, there are six higher proficiency public charter middle schools (DCPS has none): Achievement Prep PCS, Friendship Tech Prep PCS, SEED PCS, Cesar Chavez PCS and two KIPP PCS campuses (AIM and KEY).

 

Couple that with the proven methods of DC charter middle grades instruction and it’s clear that charter school autonomy is producing real results.  Get informed through our School Quality and Education Policy dashboards on our website at FOCUSdc.org.