- Brown: Heavy Inequity Across D.C. Middle Schools [Washington Latin Public Charter School is mentioned]
- Area Schools Try to Fix Middle-School Woes
- Brown Looks at Multiple Incentives to Steer Highly Effective Teachers to Weak Schools
- When Charter Schools Get Too Picky [KIPP schools are mentioned]
- Police Check Grade-Schoolers’ Math [KIPP schools are mentioned]
- FOCUS School Quality and Education Policy Dashboards
- Upcoming FOCUS Workshops
Brown: Heavy Inequity Across D.C. Middle Schools [Washington Latin Public Charter School is mentioned]
The Washington Examiner
By Lisa Gartner
October 22, 2011
D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown said the District is headed for a "racial explosion" if more parity is not created between middle schools in affluent areas of the city and those across the Anacostia River.
Most D.C. Public Schools in Wards 7 and 8 are underenrolled, while Alice Deal Middle School in Tenleytown is at capacity just one year after a $70 million renovation. Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh is seeking another middle school in the Palisades area to relieve crowding.
As city officials examine middle schools in hearings this fall, Brown said he is disgusted to see the state of Sousa Middle School near Fort Dupont Park, which was renovated at about the same time as Deal -- "but Deal is a 10 and Sousa is a five."
"Adults," he said, let this happen.
"Johnson Middle School -- that is a crime. It is an absolute crime. No child in America should have to go to a school like that. Have you gone to Sousa? And they say it's been modernized," Brown said.
School officials have acknowledged that low enrollment figures in the middle grades -- more than half of stand-alone middle schools have fewer than 300 students -- make it difficult to provide the robust offerings of schools like Deal and Hardy Middle School in Georgetown. In the charter world, parents look to Washington Latin Public Charter School.
The city's out-of-boundary lottery allows parents who are dissatisfied with their neighborhood schools to send their kids to other schools with open seats. But as those top schools get further and far between, "it's coming to a point where there will be no more seats available," Brown said. "And when there are no seats for a Ward 7 or Ward 8 child to get into a school like Deal or Hardy or Washington Latin, you're going to have a racial explosion."
Area Schools Try to Fix Middle-School Woes
The Washington Examiner
By Lisa Gartner
October 22, 2011
They graduated from elementary school relatively unscathed, thanks to the healing powers of the cootie shot.
But it's middle school where kids contend with overwhelming emotional, neurological, physical and cognitive changes -- and national and local leaders say the middle child of K-12 education has been long overlooked in school reforms.
Since returning to session, the D.C. Council has been examining the District's public middle schools, which tend to be underenrolled, inconsistent in their academic and after-school offerings, and complicit in a high dropout rate among ninth-graders. Perhaps most startling, 10 percent of eighth-graders said they had attempted suicide, according to a report from the Office of the State Superintendent for Education.
Many Fairfax County middle schools are breaking their teachers into teams to focus on students more individually, while Montgomery County trained teachers to actively address the special needs of preteens and early adolescents until funding for its Middle School Reform Initiative ran out.
"Most policy and laws say 'elementary' and 'secondary' -- there's no language in it that says 'middle,'" said April Tibbles, spokeswoman for the Association for Middle Level Education. "When states and districts have to make decisions, well, it isn't really done very well right now."
But children in sixth through eighth grades tend to need more attention than their elementary and high-school counterparts. "Young people between the ages of 10 and 15 go through more rapid and profound changes than during any period in their life except from birth to age 2," Tibbles said. "Educators need to be prepared for how to work with this age group."
Fairfax County Public Schools holds "open enrollment" for high-school math and foreign languages, allowing any middle-school student to a get a leg up on advanced coursework to ease the transition into high school. To tackle the haywire emotions of the age, many Fairfax middle schools break students into "teams," comprised of a math, science, English and social-studies instructor, to focus better on students' individual needs, said Noel Klimenko, coordinator for secondary instruction and school support.
"It provides a support system instead of a more high-school situation where unconnected teachers are interacting with the child," she said. "Middle-school kids have a lot of things going on ?-- their hormones and things like that -- but if we can figure out what's going to motivate them to learn, then they can be successful, and that's true of kids at every age."
An audit of Montgomery County's public middle schools in the 2004-2005 school year "really confirmed what the school system knew: There were some inconsistencies with the implementation of the curriculum, there were resources that were not provided to all children, and there was a need for middle-school achievement to increase," said Linda Caroll, acting director of middle-school instruction for MCPS.
School officials created the Middle School Reform Initiative, revising curricula and introducing special electives like robotics. They also emphasized inquiry-based teaching and alternative ways to demonstrate learning than, say, a book report.
As the budget tightened, however, MCPS eliminated a number of staff positions associated with the reform. The last school year that the initiative was in full force was 2008-2009.
"I wouldn't say it's resolved because we have quite a number of schools that did not make [adequate yearly progress]," a federal benchmark for improvement, Caroll said. "But if you look at the progress we've made, it's phenomenal."
Of the 31 schools Maryland flagged as "schools identified for improvement," the lion's share -- 15 -- were middle schools. But on state exams, eighth-grade students did just as well as high-schoolers.
In the District, the issue is more pressing. Just 59 percent of ninth-graders are promoted to the 10th grade and 53 percent of students who drop out of high school do so in the ninth grade.
"I blame adults," said Brown, when asked why middle schools were just now becoming a focus of city officials. But, he said, "What we do with our middle schools will determine if we are successful in school reforms."
Brown Looks at Multiple Incentives to Steer Highly Effective Teachers to Weak Schools
The Washington Post
By Bill Turque
October 21, 2011
D.C. Council Chairman Kwame R. Brown called this afternoon to say that the bill he is drafting to steer good teachers to struggling schools involves more than possibly waiving annual evaluations.
Brown says he is looking closely at incentives other states have established, including homebuying assistance, tax credits and loan repayments. He wants to pilot the effort in the city’s middle schools.
“That’s the gist of the legislation,” Brown said.
Illinois, for example, offers low-interest loans for down payments in the school districts where teachers work. California assumes portions of student loan payments for educators willing to go into low-income or rural schools. Maryland takes on as much as $11,000 in debt for four years of service. New York reimburses tuition for instructors seeking certification to teach science or math in a low-performing school.
I haven’t had a chance yet to look for evidence that these measures actually work. Some seem relatively new, so it may be hard to tell.
There are some significant hurdles facing District legislation. Housing incentives would have to be significant to lure some of the many teachers who live in Maryland or Virginia across state lines. Temporarily exempting teachers from evaluations may also be problematic. Public charter schools don’t use a uniform evaluation system such as IMPACT, so some equivalent measure of teacher quality would have to be developed.
Changes in IMPACT might be the most politically problematic. Private donors who have committed tens of millions of dollars to DCPS might not look favorably on any move that appeared to weaken IMPACT’s reach. Any modifications would also require the agreement of Chancellor Kaya Henderson, which is far from a sure thing. Brown said Henderson sent positive signals in their discussion, but she offered a more nuanced reaction in a lengthy e-mail this morning.
While Henderson said she’s willing to explore the issue, she remains strongly committed to the idea of “mutual consent” in dealings with teachers, meaning that any job assignment should be contingent on agreement by both the teacher and school principal.
“I strongly believe in treating teachers as professional adults, not widgets that we move around at will,” she said. “I think we need to ASK our high performing teachers what would make them consider teaching in a low-performing school, and what’s holding them back. Only after considering their input should we develop a plan to address this issue.”
Henderson said evaluations are “a critical component” to helping teachers succeed in the classroom. “Without them, teachers don’t always get the critical feedback that they need to improve and refine their practice to ensure that they are doing their very best for our students. Even highly effective teachers want and need feedback,” Henderson said.
“These are complex issues, which require sophisticated solutions,” she said, adding that it will be important to look carefully at other incentive programs “so we don’t make the same assumptions or fall into the same traps as districts who have tried this before, and failed.”
When Charter Schools Get Too Picky [KIPP schools are mentioned]
The Washington Post
By Jay Mathews
October 23, 2011
The Pacific Collegiate School in Santa Cruz, Calif., is a public charter school. It must hold a random lottery when it has more applicants than vacancies. It is not supposed to be selective.
Yet somehow its average SAT score has risen to the top tenth of one percent among all public schools nationally. Less than ten percent of its students are low-income, compared to 40 percent in its city. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that the school is allowed to ask (not require, its principal emphasizes) that every family donate $3,000 and 40 hours of volunteer time a year.
As a supporter of the charter school movement, I get grief from people who say that charters—independent public schools using tax dollars—are private schools in disguise. They are almost always wrong about that, but there are enough Pacific Collegiate situations to make me wonder if the rules need revision.
Places like California, where the law allows some preferences, are more likely to have this problem than D.C. The District’s charter law and demographics would give Pacific Collegiate a much more diverse student body.
That still leaves selective practices like the seven-page form, including essay questions, that applicants must fill out for the Gateway High School charter in San Francisco, or the lottery-exempt status as “founding parents” offered by some Los Angeles charters to applicants who promise money and volunteer time, as revealed by the L.A. Weekly newspaper.
Todd Ziebarth, vice president for state advocacy and support at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, said vague state laws let charter authorizers, such as universities, state or local school boards, occasionally wink at loopholes. To stop that, 12 Newark, N.J., charters have signed a compact barring any burdensome requirements, like attending information meetings or filling out long forms, before their lotteries.
There is a subtler issue. What if parents and students are discouraged by the higher standards that make the best charters worth attending? The KIPP schools, part of a charter network with longer hours and proven achievement gains, require that students, parents and teachers sign contracts affirming their responsibilities, such as promptness and good behavior. Some readers have told me they assume that students who violate those rules are expelled. The truth is that such contracts have been used by teachers to set guidelines in regular schools since long before KIPP began. Violators may be mildly disciplined, but not expelled.
I know that because I have investigated KIPP for ten years and have written a book about it. Some parents don’t have the time or inclination to ask a lot of questions. I can see why they might get the wrong impression or might just think their child is not up to so much work.
Pacific Collegiate principal Archie Douglas reminded me that his school requires every student to take at least five Advanced Placement courses. I think that’s great, but not all parents agree with me. Douglas says his school’s request for funds and time is necessary because California financial support for charters is so low, about half of what D.C. charters get. Only 30 percent of his families donate as much as $3,000, he said, although he was surprised to learn that a page on the school Web site still said the 40 hours of volunteer work was mandatory. He said he would have that statement deleted.
His school’s distance from large low-income neighborhoods frustrates recruiting, but last year the school reserved six of a possible 56 slots for a lottery just for students whose parents had less than two years of college.
Gateway executive director Sharon Olken defends her application essay questions as a way to help parents and students think through what kind of school they want. Their answers are not read until after they are admitted. Nearly half of Gateway students are low-income, close to the city average, despite the long form.
I still don’t think they need the essay questions. Charters spend public money. They should do everything possible to convince parents their doors are open to all, as long as that doesn’t get in the way of the deep and imaginative teaching that they are there to provide.
Police Check Grade-Schoolers’ Math [KIPP schools are mentioned]
The Washington Post
By Bill Turque
October 22, 2011
Self-confidence is not an issue for 10-year-old Gregory Colvin Jr.
The Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School fifth-grader guaranteed a win when he arrived Saturday morning at the Boys and Girls Club on Benning Road NE for the first math contest organized by the police department’s Youth Investigations Division.
Gregory nailed 46 out of 50 questions on the exam, beating out fifth-grade students from four other elementary schools in wards 7 and 8: Beers, Burrville, Plummer and Randle Highlands.
“What made me so confident? I think I’m just smart. I get good grades at school,” said Gregory, who received a $200 gift certificate from Foot Locker for backing up his boast.
Sixth-graders from five middle schools (Eliot-Hine, Sousa, Kelly Miller, KIPP Key Academy and Kelly Miller) also competed, with KIPP’s Mutawakkil Farrakhan prevailing. He said that with the exception of dividing decimals, the exam was a breeze.
“For homework we have 30 questions a night,” said Mutawakkil, who aspires to be a scientist who invents “hover boards and the stuff of the future.” He collected an Xbox for finishing first.
The contest was put together by Lt. Mustafa Haamid, who transferred into Youth Investigations after 20 years in narcotics. He said it was an opportunity to do something other than put people away.
“I needed a change,” said Haamid, who grew up in Southeast Washington and attended Anacostia High School. “I just want to give back, pure and simple. I know it’s a cliche, but that’s it.” Haamid and his team have organized a spelling bee and plan a day-long “Father and Child Fair” for March.
Haamid and his staff, which includes Sgt. Lisa Griffin and Officer Christine Wallace, worked with teachers to pick exam questions and invite teams of five or six students. The top scorers at each school were recognized with Olympic-style medals, and everyone got certificates.
Donna Williamson, Gregory’s fifth-grade teacher at King Elementary, said events like this are important — both for those who won and especially those who didn’t.
“They learn how to compete. They learn disappointment too, not in a negative way,” she said. “They won’t be afraid to take risks and reach for the stars. They know you’ll have a bumps and bruises along the way.”
FOCUS School Quality and Education Policy Dashboards
The FOCUS School Quality Dashboard has been updated with the 2011 DC CAS results. Available at www.focusdc.org/data, this easy-to-use, interactive tool allows users to see school performance on the state test and compare progress from 2006 to the present for all public schools in the District, both traditional and charter.
The FOCUS Education Policy Dashboard is a collection of sector level information on performance, enrollment, funding, poll data, facilities, and ward facts. It is available at www.focusdc.org/education-policy-dashboard.
Upcoming FOCUS Workshops
FOCUS Workshop: Parent Engagement Strategies
November 1st, 4-7pm
This session is designed for school leaders (ED, Head of Schools, Principals, VP) and parent coordinators or counselors. The focus will be on helping you to understand how to engage parents in a meaningful way by using the National Network of Partnership Schools model of Parent and Community Engagement (Joyce Epstein model).
Cost: $50 for VSP schools, $100 for non-VSP schools.
Click here to register or go to www.focusdc.org/workshops.