- D.C. charter schools come in first in new quality ranking
- Stats to know on D.C. charters: 72 more days in reading; 101 more days in math [Washington Latin PCS and Eagle Academy PCS mentioned]
- D.C. asks court to dismiss charter schools’ lawsuit alleging unequal funding [Washington Latin PCS and Eagle Academy PCS mentioned]
- Too cool for school: Historic D.C. school buildings find new life as condos
- D.C. coalition pushes city leaders to commit to strong neighborhood schools citywide
- New Federal Guidelines Aim to Rid Schools of Racial Inequality
- U.S. Education Department issues guidance on racial disparity in nation’s schools
D.C. charter schools come in first in new quality ranking
The Washington Post
By Michael Alison Chandler
October 1, 2014
The District’s charter schools ranked first in the nation in a report released Wednesday that for the first time looks at the quality of the charter school movement.
The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, which released the report, has historically ranked states by the friendliness of their charter school laws. This is its first attempt at evaluating how charter schools are actually performing.
“We firmly believe it’s not just enough to pass a strong law,” said Nina Rees, the president and chief executive of the Washington, D.C.-based alliance. “Now we have 2.5 million students in a little over 6,400 public charter schools. We asked how well they are doing and how they are impacting the lives of the students in these schools.”
The report measured charter schools’ performance in 25 states and the District overall, including those that enrolled at least 1 percent of public school students in charter schools and participated in a 2013 study by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University which evaluated student performance in charter and traditional schools.
The District came in first, followed by Louisiana and Michigan; all three have the highest concentrations of charter schools. Nevada came in 26th, or last.
The District scored 104 out of 116 possible points in a rubric created to measure growth, innovation and academic quality.
Nearly half — 49 percent — of the city’s public schools were charter schools in 2013, and 44 percent of the city’s public school students were enrolled in the independently operated, publicly funded schools. D.C. charter schools also served a higher percentage of racial and ethnic minorities and students in poverty than the traditional public schools.
D.C. charter schools got high marks for using innovative practices, such as extended day or extended year schedules or for offering higher education courses.
The charter sector also rated well for maintaining a small, but steady closure rate for under-performing schools. Eighteen schools were closed between the 2008-2009 and 2012-2013 school years.
And the Stanford study showed that the District’s charter school students outperformed traditional public school students in some measures of academic growth between the 2007-2008 and 2010-2011 school years.
“We are encouraged to see D.C.’s charter sector and its school leaders recognized for its efforts to raise student performance, provide innovative programs and serve the neediest students,” said John H. “Skip” McKoy, chairman for the D.C. Public Charter School Board. “Our job as a charter authorizer is to make sure we foster more innovative, high-quality schools and hold underperforming schools accountable.”
Stats to know on D.C. charters: 72 more days in reading; 101 more days in math [Washington Latin PCS and Eagle Academy PCS mentioned]
The Examiner
By Mark Lerner
October 2, 2014
Yesterday the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools released a study entitled "The Health of the Public Charter School Movement: A State-by-State Analysis." It differs from other reviews of the charter school movement conducted by this organization and those by the Center for Education Reform that have looked at the quality of charter school laws across the country. This one attempts to quantify the performance of the schools themselves. The exciting news is that the measurement put D.C. at the top of the list of all 50 states.
The criteria for the ranking include points for indicators around growth, innovation, and quality. It is here that a couple of statistics stand out. Just yesterday, I reported on the strong academic performance of charters on the DC CAS compared to the traditional schools. This finding is reinforced by the National Alliance review which showed that a child enrolled in a charter in the nation's capital gains on average an extra 72 more days of instruction in reading and 101 more days of teaching in math compared to being in a DCPS classroom. Comparisons in academic progress were for the 2007 to 2008 school term to 2010 to 2011. I imagine that if more recent school years had been included the delta would be even greater.
Congratulations on everyone working so hard day and night in our local charter system and to the D.C. Public Charter School Board for it superior leadership in education reform.
Ironically, the study's findings were announced on the same day that D.C. Attorney General Irvin Nathan asked a federal court to dismiss the lawsuit filed by the D.C. Association of Public Chartered Schools, Washington Latin PCS and Eagle Academy PCS over inequitable city funding of charters compared to the regular schools. DCPS receives around $100 million per year that charters don't get which is what the legal action is over. This does not include the hundreds of million of dollars in facility funds the traditional schools are provided that are also blocked from charter school access. What is so amazing about this step taken by Mr. Nathan on Wednesday is to think about the possibilities of where academic achievement would be for charters if they received the same dollars to educate our children as DCPS, and did not have to spend much of their limited energy on the search and building of permanent facilities.
D.C. asks court to dismiss charter schools’ lawsuit alleging unequal funding [Washington Latin PCS and Eagle Academy PCS mentioned]
The Washington Post
By Michael Alison Chandler
October 1, 2014
D.C. Attorney General Irvin B. Nathan has asked a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit that alleges the city has failed to provide uniform funding to public charter schools and traditional schools.
The lawsuit, which the D.C. Association of Chartered Public Schools and Eagle Academy and Washington Latin public charter schools filed this past summer, argues that charters receive less public funding than traditional schools, in violation of the D.C. School Reform Act.
Passed by Congress in 1995, the law paved the way for charter schools to open in the District and required the city to set up a “uniform formula” to fund charter and traditional schools equally on the basis of enrollment.
Nathan’s motion says that policy decisions the D.C. Council has made about school funding are within its powers delegated by Congress through the Home Rule Act in 1973. The law allowed the District to have its own popularly elected legislature and delegated it broad authority.
“In short, these are distinctively local decisions, requiring quintessentially local evaluation of the needs and resources of the District’s public school system,” says the motion, filed in U.S. District Court. “There is nothing in the School Reform Act or any other law suggesting that Congress intended to relieve the Council of its Home Rule Act authority to make them.”
A judge ultimately will decide how these two federal laws should play out in local governance decisions about school funding. It’s a unique — and closely watched — legal question for the nation’s capital, given its status as a federal district that is subject to congressional oversight.
D.C. charter and traditional schools are funded primarily through a per-pupil formula that varies depending on grade level and the types of services a student receives.
Charter school advocates have said that relatively high funding levels in D.C. have helped the movement flourish. Currently, 44 percent of public school students in the District are enrolled in charter schools.
But charter supporters argue that additional taxpayer dollars go to the traditional school system, which a government-commissioned study on school funding confirmed last winter.
Much of the extra funding for traditional schools comes in the form of services from other city agencies, such as facilities maintenance by the Department of General Services or legal representation by the Office of the Attorney General. D.C. Public Schools also receives funding based on projected enrollment, which can be high, whereas charter schools receive funding based on actual enrollment figures.
The charter schools estimate in their complaint that the city has spent about $2,150 less per charter student each year since 2008 than it has for students in the D.C. public school system, a total difference of $770 million. They are not seeking a financial settlement, instead asking for the court to rule that the funding arrangement is unfair and to issue an injunction ordering the city to comply with the School Reform Act’s uniform funding requirement going forward.
City officials have justified this difference by saying that traditional schools must be staffed and prepared to accept students at any point throughout the school year, which charter schools are not obligated to do.
Too cool for school: Historic D.C. school buildings find new life as condos
The Washington Post
By Deborah K. Dietsch
October 2, 2014
Returning to the classroom is a daily routine for District restaurateur Spike Mendelsohn. The former “Top Chef” contestant and owner of several local eateries lives in the renovated Pierce School in Northeast Washington, near the bustling H Street corridor.
“It’s a magical-looking building,” says Mendelsohn of the 1893 brick structure with its corner turrets. “After going inside and seeing how they managed to capture the integrity of the school, I was sold.”
The 33-year-old chef has rented in the school since 2011 and pays $2,400 per month for a classroom-turned-loft. He sleeps in a bed within a turret, stores his belongings in a former student cloakroom and cooks in a kitchen raised on a platform to look over the living space.
“It’s great for entertaining,” says Mendelsohn of the elevated cooking area. “You can control the party and it puts you on stage a little bit.”
Blackboards along one wall come in handy for making to-do lists for his businesses, including Bearnaise on Capitol Hill and the Sheppard, a recently opened bar near Dupont Circle.
Now his unit and six others in the Pierce School are being sold as condos. Real estate developers Jeff Printz and Chris Swanson, who own the school, are marketing one-bedroom apartments in the building for $375,000 and classroom lofts from $499,000 to $649,000, as well as listing their penthouse for $2.9 million.
The condo strategy comes after they tried to sell the entire building for $7.2 million in 2013 and dropped the price in July to $6.5 million.
Printz and Swanson bought the once-dilapidated school from the District government in 2000 for $275,000 and spent $3.5 million to renovate the building into rental apartments. They turned the top floor and attic into their own five-bedroom home with a movie theater, a disco-themed bathroom and a rooftop garden.
“In a school, you don’t have the same limitations as you do in a home,” says Printz. “You can make the spaces what you want them to be.
“In doing so, we made sure the history of the building remained visible.”
Original metal-and-slate staircases and spacious hallways, one with an original drinking fountain, connect the main floor and basement units.
The Pierce School is just the latest learning environment in the city to go condo. From the 1885 Wormley School in Georgetown to the 1903 Edmonds School on Capitol Hill, former classrooms have become some of the most coveted properties in town.
At the renovated James G. Berret Elementary School near Logan Circle, homeowners Brandon and Elizabeth Long recently received five offers on their two-bedroom, two-bathroom condo within a week. Listed for $699,000, the former schoolroom sold for $750,000 in early September.
The Longs, who originally paid $647,500 in 2011 for the unit, remodeled the kitchen with Ikea cabinets and a farmhouse sink. “We liked the potential we saw, the interplay between historic and contemporary design,” says Elizabeth Long, 31, an architect.
In a city with few industrial structures for conversion, District school buildings offer the rare opportunity for authentic lofts with high ceilings and tall windows already in place. Their classrooms typically rise to 13 to 15 feet, with huge, operable windows measuring 8 to 9 feet tall to provide plenty of daylight.
Developers have capitalized on the generous proportions by adding mezzanines and contemporary kitchens exposed to open living spaces.
“This building captured our imaginations,” says federal researcher Tom Brock, 52, of the renovated Edmonds School, where he now lives. “Its blend of old and new stood out from all the places we looked at.”
In June, Brock and his partner Bill Sawyer, 63, a retired information technology specialist, were among the first buyers to move into the recycled school after waiting about eight months for their two-level unit to be completed. They spent about $900,000 for the two-bedroom condo, with its stainless-steel kitchen appliances and heated floor and Italian sinks in the master bathroom.
As evident in several converted school rooms, the window sills in their living area are raised nearly four feet off the floor, so draperies and shades aren’t necessary for privacy.
Part of the appeal of school condos is the variety of unit designs in spaces once used as classrooms, cloakrooms and corridors. Former Navy officer Alicia Washkevich, 33, who now works at the Sierra Club, bought one of the smallest units in the remodeled Gage School in LeDroit Park based on its architectural character.
“I fell in love immediately with the exposed brick walls,” says Washkevich, who paid $240,000 for her L-shaped efficiency in 2012.
“Because of the high ceilings, the space feels bigger and the closets are taller for more storage.”
Built in 1902, the remodeled Georgian Revival-style Gage School is part of a three-building complex developed by Urban Realty Advisors to maximize the number of housing units on the site.
“The 59 units in two new buildings on the site gave the project critical mass and justified the investment required to save and adapt the landmark school,” says architect David Haresign of Bonstra Haresign, the District firm responsible for the design.
The Edmonds, Pierce and Wormley school condominiums similarly incorporate new or renovated townhouses as part of their developments.
For the architects of school conversions, the challenge is to retain as many original architectural features as possible while modernizing the buildings to meet current standards. At the Gage School, necessities such as fire stairs and an elevator were accommodated by widening a 1908 addition to the school while leaving original masonry and framing intact.
District architect Eric Colbert, who redesigned the 1889 Berret School into condos, removed portions of a chimney from inside the building to gain more space for the units. “We inserted a steel structure under the roof to hold up the chimney and allow it to remain visible from the outside,” says Colbert.
Graphic designer Gary Ridley was one of the first to buy in the Berret and still lives on the top floor. Ridley, 50, purchased his two-level, two-bedroom penthouse in 1999 for $340,000. “What sold me on the unit were the good bones and 14-foot-high ceilings,” Ridley says.
He reinforced its schoolhouse charm by staining the original oak floors, exposing the brick walls and hanging classroom-style globe lights above the foyer and kitchen.
“It would be nice to have an outdoor space,” says Ridley, citing one of the disadvantages to living in a building where balconies and roof decks are absent. While such amenities are often lacking in converted schools, developers of recent projects have made an effort to create common areas. At the Edmonds School, part of the parking lot is covered by an elevated deck, providing an outdoor terrace for homeowners. The Gage School adjoins a grassy courtyard built over an underground parking garage that is used for barbecues and happy hours.
At the Pierce School, a black-bottomed swimming pool and grilling area occupy the playground, and wide hallways serve as galleries for exhibiting works by local artists.
“Everyone who comes to visit is wowed by the tall ceilings, the pool and gym in the basement,” says Mendelsohn, adding, “I would love to buy my loft. The cool factor is way up there.”
D.C. coalition pushes city leaders to commit to strong neighborhood schools citywide
The Washington Post
By Michael Alison Chandler
October 1, 2014
The most salient criticism throughout the 10-month public process of redrawing school boundaries in the District was that the city should be investing in improving neighborhood schools everywhere rather than reshuffling school assignments.
Education officials have responded that they must do both. Now a group of more than 50 education advocates across the city has signed on to a list of key principles they say would move the city closer to the goal of quality schools District-wide.
“All families want to have access to high-quality schools in their neighborhood that thy know they can send their children to,” said Josh Louria, a spokesman for the group.
He said the city should bring the same goals of “coherence and predictability” that guided the boundaries process to the planning of neighborhood schools, “including making sure that all students have access to sufficient resources and making sure there is coordination across charter and traditional schools.”
The coalition, which has met a few times and drafted the principles, is hoping to shape the education debate before the election Nov. 4. Nearly half of the city’s public schools are now charter schools, and they enroll 44 percent of all public school students. But, the advocates say, parents do not want to have to rely on a lottery to get a good education for their children.
More than 50 people have signed on to the principles. Among them are representatives from advisory neighborhood commissions, ward education councils, PTA’s, alumni associations and various education advocacy organizations.
Several members of the deputy mayor for education’s advisory committee on student assignment also signed on, including Evelyn Boyd Simmons, a parent in Ward 2.
“What people expect to come out of this reform is strong neighborhood schools as the backbone of the education system” she said. Choice should be “a companion and not a replacement.”
Here are the group’s principles. They are described in more detail on this Web site.
● Ensure all families have access to high-quality DCPS schools in their neighborhoods – a predictable, matter-of-right path from preschool through high school.
● Focus resources on students and communities with the greatest need.
● Require coordinated planning between the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) and the Public Charter School Board (PCSB) to build a core system of stable DCPS neighborhood schools with a complementary set of alternative options.
● Responsibly manage our financial resources.
● Broaden assessment measures to focus on student growth and use multiple measures to assess a quality education.
● Ensure families and community members have reliable ways to exercise the right to participate in public education decision making.
New Federal Guidelines Aim to Rid Schools of Racial Inequality
The New York Times
By Motoko Rich
October 1, 2014
With racial minorities still less likely than white students to have access to rigorous academic classes or experienced and qualified teachers, the Obama administration will announce guidelines on Wednesday to ensure that strong teachers, high-level math and science courses, quality extracurricular programs, and equivalent technology and school facilities are available for all public school students.
In a 37-page document issued by the Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Education, the administration urges state officials, superintendents and principals to monitor policies and facilities and to make sure they are equitably distributed among students of all races.
“Education is the great equalizer,” Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, said in a statement prepared for the Public Policy Conference of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute in Washington on Wednesday morning. “It should be used to level the playing field, not to grow inequality.”
Data collected by the Education Department show that while black and Latino students represent close to 40 percent of all public high school students in the United States, they make up just a quarter of students taking Advanced Placement classes. Two-thirds of black students attend a high school that offers calculus classes, compared with 81 percent of white students and 87 percent of Asian-American students.
Given that such courses can better prepare students for college admission, and in some cases offer college credit, students who do not have access to them are often at a disadvantage.
According to Education Department data, other gaps point to persistent inequality for minorities in public schools. Black students are more than four times as likely as white students to attend schools where one-fifth of their teachers do not meet all the requirements for state teaching certifications. (Hispanic students are twice as likely to be in that situation.) And schools with high concentrations of minorities are much more likely to have temporary classrooms in portable buildings than those where a large majority of the students are white.
The Obama administration’s document highlights the requirements of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which states that while students need not have identical resources, they must have equal access to comparable programs, materials and facilities.
The administration advises school officials to collect data on course offerings; gifted and preschool programs; athletics; teacher credentials; and access to librarians, psychologists and guidance counselors. Officials are also reminded that the Office for Civil Rights can monitor school facilities to make sure that minority students have the same quality of lighting and air-conditioning as white students or the same access to technology such as computers, tablets or Internet connections.
When disparities by race are identified, the administration’s guidance urges districts to “take prompt and effective steps to eliminate any unjustified inequities.”
The administration’s guidelines on academic programs and facilities come after recommendations made by the Education Department this year advising public school officials to use law enforcement as a last resort in school discipline and to reduce suspensions and expulsions, which tend to affect minorities disproportionately.
Wade Henderson, the president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said that taken together, the Obama administration’s guidance provided a refreshing change.
“I think they have taken a muscular approach to actually enforce the nation’s civil rights laws on behalf of students,” Mr. Henderson said. Continuing to collect data, he added, “allows us to challenge these practices in schools in a way that buttresses our chances of success.”
U.S. Education Department issues guidance on racial disparity in nation’s schools
The Washington Post
By Lyndsey Layton
October 1, 2014
The Obama administration issued new guidance Wednesday to states and school districts aimed at reducing inequities in educational opportunity between students of color and their white peers.
“Even with all the good work that we see around the country, we also continue to see opportunity gaps that need correction,” said Catherine E. Lhamon, assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education. She said the country needs to end “the tired practice of offering students of color less than we offer other students.”
To that end, the department’s 37-page guidance reminds states and school districts that they are required by federal law to provide the same quality of resources — strong teachers, facilities, rigorous coursework and extracurriculars — to students regardless of color and income. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 says that while states and school districts do not have to provide the exact same resources to all schools, all students must have equal access to educational opportunity.
States and school districts violate the law not only when they intentionally treat students of color differently but also when their policies result in disparate impact, the government said.
According to recent data collected by the Department of Education, students of color are:
• More likely to attend schools with lower-quality facilities such as temporary, portable classrooms.
• More likely to be assigned to inexperienced, less-effective teachers who have not studied the subject they are teaching.
• Less likely to have access to high level coursework.
Black and Latino students account for close to 40 percent of high school students, but they constitute just a quarter of students taking Advanced Placement courses and exams and just 20 percent of enrollment in calculus classes. Just 68 percent of black students attend a high school that offers calculus.
By comparison, 81 percent of white high school students have the option of taking calculus, as do 87 percent of Asian students. American Indian and Native Alaskan students are much less likely than students in other ethnic groups to attend high schools that offer any AP classes or courses in calculus and physics.
Lhamon said her office has fielded more than 250 complaints about racial inequities since 2009, and the office has initiated 33 additional pending investigations.
Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said U.S. public schools are “bastions” of “state-sponsored” inequality.
“We have two separate and unequal systems,” he said, referring to the high-poverty schools most students of color attend and the more affluent schools populated by their white peers. “The guidance is not a panacea for deep rooted disparity. ... It is a commitment from the federal government. And that is a welcome and noteworthy step forward.”