- Charter Enrollment Up, DCPS Down in Raw Count
- Middle Schools To the Rescue
- Washington-Area Schools Confront the ‘Gifted Gaps
- My High School’s Surprise Transformation, and What It Says About Education Reform
- Overhaul of School Policy in Jeopardy
- School Design Free Webinar: What's New in PowerSchool 7.0?
- FOCUS School Quality and Education Policy Dashboards
Charter Enrollment Up, DCPS Down in Raw Count
The Washington Post
By Bill Turque
November 4, 2011
Last year’s historic uptick in DCPS enrollment--the first in four decades--might be short-lived. Officials said late Friday that this year’s unaudited October count came in at 46,191--that’s down 419 students, about six-tenths of a percent-- from last fall’s 46,515. That was when the District received a 1.6 percent bump over 2009.
The city’s public charter schools continued their robust growth. The Public Charter School Board reported unaudited enrollment at 32,009--an 8.2 percent boost over last October’s 29,557.
All of these numbers now go to an outside auditor, retained by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE), who verifies them for residency and other requirements. The audited figures, available early next year, are usually a bit lower.
DCPS spokesman Fred Lewis said nearly all of the decline was concentrated at four schools that encountered what he called “bad press” in 2010-11: Dunbar High School, Hardy Middle School, Noyes Education Campus and Thomson Elementary. Dunbar’s New York-based management group, Friends of Bedford, was dismissed by Chancellor Kaya Henderson in late 2010 for poor performance. Hardy was roiled by leadership changes, Noyes by cheating allegations and Thomson when students were sickened by a classmate who brought cocaine to class.
Per usual, the District declined to release detailed, school-by-school numbers until after the audit. Overall, Lewis said, enrollment “continues to be stable” after years of steep decline. Preschool and pre-K enrollment continues to increase, and ninth grade experienced a boost this year, bolstered by strong showings at newly modernized Eastern, Woodson and Wilson high schools.
The numbers have apparently been available for at least a couple of weeks. At the urging of a source, I asked DCPS on Friday afternoon. After I received them I contacted D.C. Public Charter School Board, where an exasperated official said that they were under orders from Mayor Vincent C. Gray’s office to sit on them until a joint DCPS-charter announcement could be arranged. When she learned that DCPS had coughed theirs up, she released the charter count.
Middle Schools To the Rescue
The Washington Examiner
By Jonetta Rose Barras
November 6, 2011
As promised, D.C. Council Chairman Kwame R. Brown introduced legislation last week to create a three-year pilot program that would provide incentives for teachers rated "highly effective" to work in schools declared "high need," which are mostly in low-income communities. The bill is part of his middle school reform agenda.
Is Brown trying to rescue middle schools, or is he hoping middle schools will rescue him?
Certainly he could use some rescuing. His political stock has dropped dramatically.
"He's a man without a country," said one city hall source.
U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. is conducting a criminal investigation of Brown's 2008 campaign operation. Brown has parsed that to mean the election committee -- not he -- is the specific target of the probe. He may be the only person in the city slicing reality so thinly.
What's not in question, however, is that as proposed, his "Highly Effective Middle School Teacher Incentive Act of 2011" is a short-term, expensive fix that borders on micromanaging the D.C. Public Schools. Equally important, it won't resolve concerns of parents, like those in Ward 5, who want more rigorous traditional middle school options.
Bluntly: It's a swirl of confusing, sometimes empty, flourishes masquerading as a substantive response. Consider, for example, the bill's purported intent -- to shift the balance of "highly effective teachers" to schools with a dearth of such instructors, thus enhancing the quality of education. But the legislation sunsets after only three years -- far too soon for any long term effect to take hold.
The bill would limit to five the number of highly effective teachers assigned to any one school.
Can a facility be turned around with so few top quality instructors?
The transferred, highly effective teachers would be eligible for a $10,000 annual bonus. What about those instructors with that rating who are already at high need schools? Do they not deserve some reward?
Speaking of money, in addition to bonuses, Brown has proposed forgiving loans taken for mortgage down payments -- although the bill doesn't specify whether the mortgages have to be for homes in proximity to those high-need schools -- and providing tuition assistance or helping repay student loans.
While the pilot may be small, the implementation costs are significant. Does the chairman intend to follow Mayor Vincent C. Gray's example, proposing additional taxes to finance this latest safety net for his political career?
Brown's instinct is right: middle schools need attention. But his legislation just isn't the right prescription. It's also precipitous: An extensive study of the usage and future needs of school buildings in the city is currently underway; it likely will result in closing or consolidating some facilities, including middle schools.
This year, DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson launched a new middle school program in Ward 6. She has been working with parents to design one for Ward 5, and has indicated Wards 7 and 8 are next.
If Brown wants to aid middle schools, he should embrace the role best suited for him and the legislature: consistent, rigorous oversight.
Washington-Area Schools Confront the ‘Gifted Gap’
The Washington Post
By Kevin Sieff
November 6, 2011
The budding scholars in Alexandria’s gifted classes are bright and curious enough to make any teacher beam, but these days they’re also an emblem of what the school system calls one of its greatest failures: a lack of diversity among the academic elite.
Most of the city’s students are black or Hispanic. Most in gifted programs are white.
This imbalance in classes tailored to gifted and talented students is echoed across the region and the nation, a source of embarrassment to many educators.
In theory, a racial enrollment gap in gifted programs should be easier for schools to close than a racial achievement gap. But in practice, experts say, there are many obstacles. Among them, they say, are testing and outreach methods that fail to ensure children from all backgrounds get an equal shot.
In Alexandria, where a bitter struggle to desegregate public schools ended a half-century ago, administrators have vowed over the next year to tackle the problem.
“It’s simply unacceptable,” said Gregory Hutchings, director of pre-K-12 initiatives for city schools. “These numbers tell us that we’re not serving all kids.”
At Cora Kelly Elementary School, Rosalyne Cameron teaches seven gifted fourth-graders, all of them engaged in the kind of high-level inquiry considered a hallmark of gifted education. Last month, Cameron launched a discussion about modern art by asking the class, “What is art?”
The philosophical volleying commenced.
“Anything can be art,” one said.
“No, it has to be beautiful,” another responded.
“It has to be beautiful and interesting,” a third said.
The debate continued, getting increasingly heated.
Four of Cameron’s students are white, two black and one Hispanic. In the city’s elementary and middle school gifted program, 61 percent are white, 17 percent black, 11 percent Hispanic and 6 percent Asian.
By contrast, 25 percent of Alexandria’s 12,000 students are non-Hispanic white. About 5 percent are Asian, 31 percent are Hispanic and 34 percent black.
Alexandria is debating how to diversify gifted classes without sacrificing rigor. That pursuit could raise questions such as how intelligence is measured and the function of a program catering to the academic elite. “It’s all on the table,” Hutchings said.
While educators across the country face the same problem, Alexandria is particularly sensitive to racial questions. In the 1950s, the city resisted early efforts to allow black students into public schools, firing employees who disagreed.
As the school system today redoubles efforts to boost minority achievement, officials see the “gifted gap” as a hurdle to that aspiration.
“In many ways, the district has been resegregated,” Superintendent Morton Sherman said.
To get into a gifted class in Alexandria, the first step is generally a parent or teacher referral. Sometimes candidates are identified through high state-test scores. Then, candidates are typically given tests that measure intellectual and academic aptitude.
In recent decades, local school agencies and state and federal governments have wrestled with how to define gifted students. Intelligence tests have been tweaked. The referral process in many districts has changed. But many gifted classes remain stacked with white and Asian students.
“It’s a national problem,” said Joyce VanTassel-Baska, an education professor at the College of William and Mary, “and in some districts it’s extremely hard to make progress.”
Hutchings, a product of Alexandria schools, remembers thinking that gifted classes were “off-limits.” As a black student, he said, he noticed that the classes “didn’t include any kids that looked like me.”
That was more than 20 years ago. Hutchings worries that not much has changed. He’s now crisscrossing the city, holding town-hall-style meetings about the gifted program and who might be eligible for it.
“There are parts of the city where parents have never considered that their kids might be gifted,” he said. “No one has ever told them. That needs to change.”
Among local school systems, Prince William County’s has taken perhaps the most aggressive policy on diversity in gifted classes. It mandates that the demographic composition of the gifted program reflect the overall racial and ethnic makeup of the school system. To do that, Prince William has amended its identification process to ensure that it finds gifted students from a variety of backgrounds.
The Fairfax County system and others in Northern Virginia have started an enrichment program that targets high-achieving minority students.
Fairfax’s “Young Scholars” program aims to find underrepresented minorities and get them into gifted classes. Some parents have voiced opposition to that initiative, claiming it shouldn’t restrict such services to a narrow population when thousands of students countywide might benefit from them. Still, Fairfax’s gifted program is overwhelmingly white and Asian.
Gifted programs vary from place to place. Some local schools provide “gifted centers,” others an hour of special instruction per day.
In nearly every local system, white students are disproportionately represented, even though most gifted programs explicitly target students with natural talents and aptitude, which are spread evenly across racial groups and social classes.
Experts say one factor that skews enrollment in gifted classes is intelligence testing.
Students living in poverty, particularly those whose parents are uneducated or speak English as a second language, are less likely to develop verbal skills measured by traditional intelligence tests. But that doesn’t mean they’re not gifted. Assessments that measure spatial and mathematical intelligence as well as curiosity and leadership abilities are more likely to identify a diverse crop of gifted students, experts say.
“We used to think that gifted meant students who could read and write at an early age. That’s changed,” said Carol Horn, director of gifted education in Fairfax. She said that Fairfax has learned that using a variety of assessments can help broaden the pool of gifted students.
Some experts say that the parental- and teacher-referral process leads to uneven representation. Many parents might not refer children for testing because they are not familiar with gifted programs. Without a teacher or parent referral, most students are not fully evaluated.
In Alexandria and elsewhere, officials have started a campaign to recast the referral process, encouraging more parents to recommend their children and training teachers to consider a wider range of criteria.
First-grade teacher Sheila Walsh said she looks for students who are not just academically advanced but able to make connections between their studies and the world around them. In such moments, the Alexandria teacher says to herself, “I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with this little person.”
She typically finds about two of those students a year. For those who are found, the payoff is clear.
“I used to get bored in my class. Everything moved so slow,” said Jawad Adams, 9, a black student in Cameron’s fourth- grade class at Cora Kelly Elementary. “Now things are up to speed.”
My High School’s Surprise Transformation, and What It Says About Education Reform
The Washington Post
By Jay Mathews
November 6, 2011
Among the cliques in our national education debate, I am considered part of the no-excuses crowd. We are defined by our fondness for charter schools and the Teach for America organization, our belief that poor kids can learn as much as rich ones and our support for Obama administration policies that encourage rating teachers, at least in part, on student test scores.
On the other side, as we see it, are the besieged leaders of the establishment: education schools, teachers unions, superintendents and school boards who think Obama has forgotten the need to educate the whole child and is going with anything that might raise proficiency rates.
Our arguments about this issue often disintegrate into the online equivalent of a schoolyard brawl. So who are the people we no-excuse types hate? Among the top five on our enemies list has to be Linda Darling-Hammond, Charles Ducommun professor of education at the Stanford University School of Education. She is the best-known critic of Teach for America’s recruiting bright 20-somethings to be classroom teachers with only a summer of training. She is always a leading establishment candidate for U.S. education secretary.
So why am I so in love with what she has done to inspire the unique transformation of an ordinary San Francisco Bay Area public high school? Why is it such a big deal to me that the talented faculty of Hillsdale High School in San Mateo, Calif., adopted Darling-Hammond as their fairy godmother and consulted her during every crisis?
What happened there was a victory for deep learning and unlike anything I have seen in a suburban school with a mostly middle-class student body. No Teach For America recruiting or charter schools were involved. Must I turn in my no-excuses credentials and hand my blog over to my colleague Valerie Strauss (who readers think is at odds with me on everything)?
At the very least, I have to rethink my views of Darling-Hammond and the ill-considered labels thrown around in school policy battles, because I know the Hillsdale story is real. I attended Hillsdale and have visited often since graduating. Former Hillsdale principal Don Leydig, one of the most influential participants in its changes, has been my friend since third grade.
Here is how I summarized the changes for a returning-home piece I did on the California-based Web site Zocalo Public Square:
[S]tudents are organized into small advisory groups that meet daily with a staff member trained to help them with any problems — a system pioneered by private schools. The ninth and tenth grades are divided into three houses that focus on interdisciplinary lessons and ambitious projects such as a recreation of a World War I battle and a trial of “Lord of the Flies” author William Golding. Students of all achievement levels are mixed in the same classes, sharing in discussions but doing different homework based on their needs and wishes. All seniors must define an essential question, write a thesis of at least eight pages, and defend it before a panel of graders including outside experts. More changes are planned. The idea is to do much more than prepare students for the annual state tests, but the changes have helped raise the school’s Academic Performance Index on California’s 1000-point scale from 662 in 2002 to 797 this year.
Notice how I slipped in those test score gains? That was a desperate attempt to save my no-excuses street cred.
Explaining how this happened will take time. I plan a series of stories on my blog, based on a remarkable manuscript prepared by innovative Hillsdale educators. They defied expectations. One of their leaders was the teachers union representative. The reforms require more spending, but they found ways to do it even as the budget was cut. There was little yelling.
As usual, those of us who talk and write about schools will learn much from people who spend most of their time teaching in them.
Overhaul of School Policy in Jeopardy
The Washington Times
By Ben Wolfgang
November 6, 2011
Key lawmakers and educators are growing increasingly pessimistic that a massive overhaul of federal school policy can get through Congress before the 2012 election-year battles could doom the hopes for major bipartisan legislation.
Failure to update the 2001 No Child Left Behind law, despite considerable support from both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill, would have the practical effect of giving President Obama a much freer hand in setting federal education policy and pushing his favored reforms. Lawmakers are already grumbling that waivers being granted by the administration to the states on NCLB mandates and deadlines represent an end-run around Congress on the issue.
But analysts and House and Senate aides also believe the administration’s waiver announcement had the positive effect of spurring Congress to act more quickly, evidenced by last month’s passage of a major overhaul package by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
But that legislation, which currently has the support of only three Senate Republicans, is seen as deeply flawed by many in the GOP. Even if it clears the Senate next year, as many expect, finding common ground with the Republican-led House will be an uphill battle.
Any effort could also find itself in the crossfire from the presidential election debate, with Mr. Obama’s Republican opponent possibly not wanting to see a White House signing ceremony in the middle of the campaign.
“I doubt it will be done. The issues are too complex, and there just isn’t enough time left,” said Jack Jennings, president and CEO of the Center on Education Policy, an independent advocacy group. Mr. Jennings also spent more than 25 years as general counsel and subcommittee staff director for the House Education Committee.
Despite Congress‘ poor track record of tackling major issues during a presidential election year, Mr. Jennings and others believe both parties would benefit from a high-profile compromise on education. Such an agreement would demonstrate to voters that lawmakers remain capable of tackling big problems and breaking through partisan gridlock.
“Education is really about the only issue left that has not managed to make itself totally toxic,” said Bob Wise, former West Virginia governor and president of the nonprofit Alliance for Excellent Education. “If Congress really resents the waiver proposal, then they have an obligation to act now. It’s not fair to states to begin implementing significant changes and then suddenly change all of the rules on them. The longer Congress waits, the more the waivers take effect. If you act in a year, for states that are already into the waiver system, you really upset the process.”
Without action by Congress, the Obama administration waivers will be granted in time for the 2012-13 school year. So far, at least 39 states, Puerto Rico and the District have applied, according to the Education Department. The opt-out system would free states from the most unpopular mandates of NCLB, including the infamous “failing schools” designation.
NCLB has grown so inflexible, specialists say, that states are willing to do just about anything to escape from it. They have for years lobbied Congress to change the law or scrap it completely, but that tide could turn if the waiver system satisfies states’ appetite for reform.
“The impetus to get [education reform] done could be lost” once waivers go into effect, said Tamara Fucile, vice president of government affairs at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning D.C. think tank.
The Senate HELP Committee bill, crafted by Chairman Sen. Tom Harkin, Iowa Democrat, and Sen. Michael B. Enzi, Wyoming Republican, has been cast as a bipartisan breakthrough, garnering the approval of Mr. Enzi, Sen. Lamar Alexander, Tennessee Republican, and Sen. Mark Kirk, Illinois Republican. It also got the support of all 12 committee Democrats.
GOP aides say that last month’s committee vote didn’t represent a full endorsement of the legislation, but rather a political maneuver to allow the bill to reach the Senate floor, where it will be the target of a slew of amendments from both Republicans and Democrats.
Mr. Harkin has already given up some of what he wanted in the bill, such as accountability benchmarks for school systems designed by the federal government. Some on the left believe the bill was watered down further after the passage of a Republican amendment giving states the ability to come up with their own school turnaround plans, rather than rely on the six models outlined in the bill.
Analysts believe the federal government’s footprint would have to be reduced even further to satisfy House Republicans.
“In order to get a bill this Congress, there will almost have to be no accountability at all,” Mr. Jennings said, adding that such a move to the right would erode support from Senate Democrats.
School Design Free Webinar: What's New in PowerSchool 7.0?
Wednesday, November 9th, 2011, 11am-12pm each day
With the release of PowerSchool 7.0, Pearson has introduced many new features. This webinar will go through the important new features with examples of each to introduce schools to advancements within PowerSchool.
Cost is free!
To register, click here, or visit www.focusdc.org/workshops.
Questions? Need special accommodations?
Contact Alison Collier at acollier@focusdc.org or 202.387.0405.
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.