- D.C. charter board releases school ratings [IDEA, Community Academy PCS and FOCUS mentioned]
- Most D.C. charters adequate but need improvement, board finds [DC Prep, KIPP DC AIM Academy, KIPP DC KEY Academy, Achievement Prep, Washington Latin Upper School, SEED Middle School, Thurgood Marshall Academy, Latin American Montessori Bilingual, KIP DC Will Academy and Two Rivers PCS mentioned]
- D.C.'s PCSB releases 2012 PMF results [Washington Latin, DC Prep Middle, Two Rivers, Thurgood Marshall, Center City, SEED, Capital City, Elsie Whitlow Stokes, Septima Clark, Tree of Life, William E. Doar, Arts and Technology Academy, Howard Road, Ideal and Booker T. Washington PCS mentioned]
- Heated Debates Expected over School Closures
- Study chides D.C. teacher turnover
- Mixed Responses to Teacher Incentive Program
- Moving the best teachers to the worst schools
D.C. charter board releases school ratings [IDEA, Community Academy PCS and FOCUS mentioned]
The Washington Post
By Emma Brown
November 7, 2012
The D.C. Public Charter School Board released charter-school ratings Wednesday that aim to provide a way to assess and compare education choices across the city.
This is just the second year for the rating system, which scores schools on a 100-point scale. The schools are sorted into high, low and middling performers, based on their students’ progress and achievement on standardized tests, graduation rates and other measures.
Although some schools earned higher or lower ratings than last year, the majority did not change.
Of the 64 campuses assigned ratings, 20 were “Tier 1” high performers, making them eligible for rewards that include priority in competitions for surplus city school buildings and a streamlined process for expanding enrollment.
More than half of the rated charter school campuses — 35 — are rated Tier 2.
“The $10,000 question is how do we help those schools move forward and get better,” said Darren Woodruff, a member of the charter board. “That’s going to be the work this year.”
Nine campuses fell into the bottom tier, making them subject to greater charter board scrutiny and, if performance doesn’t improve, possible closure. The middle grades at the Integrated Design and Electronics Academy (IDEA) Public Charter School scored low enough that the school is automatically a candidate for closure. There is no firm timeline for the charter board to decide whether to close the school.
The charter school board nearly closed IDEA for poor performance last year, but the school survived by promising a radical restructuring: new leaders, new staff and new curriculum.
School leaders argue that IDEA shouldn’t be closed until they have more time to see whether those changes are making a difference. David Owens, chairman of the school’s board, said they hope to be out of the bottom tier within three years.
“We want to demonstrate that the transformation will work,” Owens said.
Last year, a poor ranking led to the closure of the Rand Campus of the Community Academy Public Charter School. Since 2000, 28 charters have been closed for various reasons.
Robert Cane, executive director of the pro-charter group Friends of Choice in Urban Schools, said it is critical that poor performers aren’t allowed to stay open.
“If your results aren’t good after a fair period of time, you need to lose your right to operate,” Cane said.
The rating system is designed to get tougher each year so that schools must improve their performance in order to earn the same score, said Naomi DeVeaux, deputy director of the D.C. Public Charter School Board.
“You can’t tread water and stay a Tier 2 school,” she said. “Each school has to continue to become better.”
There are 102 charter campuses in the city. Those that aren’t subject to standardized testing — such as early childhood and adult education schools — are judged by different standards and aren’t assigned a tier.
The charter board plans to implement a rating system for those schools next year.
Most D.C. charters adequate but need improvement, board finds [DC Prep, KIPP DC AIM Academy, KIPP DC KEY Academy, Achievement Prep, Washington Latin Upper School, SEED Middle School, Thurgood Marshall Academy, Latin American Montessori Bilingual, KIP DC Will Academy, Two Rivers and Center City PCS mentioned]
The Washington Examiner
By Lisa Gartner
November 7, 2012
Most D.C. charter schools met minimum standards but fell short of high performance on ratings released Wednesday by the DC Public Charter School Board.
Of the 64 campuses evaluated on factors ranging from test scores and graduation rates to attendance and re-enrollment rates, nine schools' "inadequate performance" merited a Tier 3 label and promises of increased oversight from the charter school board.
But several of last year's Tier 3 schools climbed into the middle rung, Tier 2, where the majority of campuses, or 35, ranked.
(See link above for chart.)
Meanwhile, 20 schools were put in top-performing Tier 1, two fewer than in 2011.
This is the second year that the charter school board has released the Performance Management Framework, with the goal to hold campuses accountable for serving students and to help inform parents who are considering charter schools for their children. About 43 percent of public school students in the District attend charter schools, the second-highest rate in the nation to New Orleans. On average, the charter schools boast higher standardized test scores and graduation rates than the traditional DC Public Schools system.
"We're spending tens and tens of millions of dollars on public education in this city. At the very least, we should be able to say, to taxpayers and to parents, 'These are the results,' " Mayor Vincent Gray said.
DC Prep Public Charter School, in the Edgewood neighborhood of Northeast D.C., retained its status as the top-ranked charter school with a score of 90.8 percent. Two schools, Center City Public Charter's Brightwood campus and SEED Public Charter School's high school campus, moved from Tier 2 to Tier 1. At the same time, four schools that were top rated in 2011 stumbled and fell into Tier 2.
Scott Pearson, executive director of the charter board, said he hesitated to make much of year-to-year changes but believed students' scores on the DC Comprehensive Assessment System can make schools vulnerable to tier shifts. Pass rates on the standardized tests count for 30 percent of a high school's rating and 25 percent of an elementary or middle school's rating; additionally, individual students' growth on these tests counts for another 15 or 40 percent, respectively.
The charter board also is rolling out a parent guide to the ratings, which will be available in coming weeks. Irene Holtzman, a policy director and senior adviser for KIPP DC, where all four campuses were rated Tier I, said the ratings do sway parents' decisions.
"It's a really strong talking point for the school, when the parents are wavering between two charters," Holtzman said. "But of course, there are so many other factors, such as school climate and size and location. It's one thing, but not everything."
D.C.'s PCSB releases 2012 PMF results [Washington Latin, DC Prep Middle, Two Rivers, Thurgood Marshall, Center City, SEED, Capital City, Elsie Whitlow Stokes, Paul, Septima Clark, Tree of Life, William E. Doar, Arts and Technology Academy, Howard Road, Ideal and Booker T. Washington PCS mentioned]
The Examiner
By Mark Lerner
November 8, 2012
Yesterday, the D.C. Public Charter School Board released the findings of their Performance Management Framework for the second year in a row. From the press release:
20 charter schools are ranked at Tier 1, meaning they meet standards of high performance;
35 schools are ranked at Tier 2, meaning that they fall short of high performance but meet minimum overall performance,
9 schools are ranked as Tier 3, meaning that they show inadequate performance.
There are some interesting observations contained in the information provided by the PCSB. For example, Washington Latin, the charter school for which I serve as Board President, had one of the highest high school attendance and re-enrollment rates. It also had the best PMF score of all charter high schools while pulling students from all Wards of the city.
In addition, DC Prep’s Middle School at the Edgewood Campus had the highest elementary and middle school math scores on the 2011 DC CAS. For the second year in a row this middle school led all charters with the greatest PMF grade.
A school I’ve written about numerous times and which I greatly respect, Two Rivers, had the greatest proportion of pupils who are proficient or advanced in reading on the DC CAS. And despite the departure of Josh Kern from Thurgood Marshall Academy this Ward 8 charter continues to record impressive gains. The PCSB states that this school “had the highest student growth in academic performance in math and reading, and scored the highest out of any charter high school for Advanced Placement classes and International Baccalaureate programs, SAT results, and 10th grade reading and math proficiency.” This is, of course, all fantastic news for these students.
What intrigues me about the scores are the changes from last year. So here they are:
Center City Brightwood Campus and Seed moved from Tier 2 to Tier 1.
Capital City Upper Middle School, Center City Trinidad Campus, Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom, and Paul went from Tier 1 to Tier 2.
Center City Congress Heights Campus, Septima Clark, Tree of Life, and William E. Doar, Jr. are now Tier 2 schools but were listed at Tier 3 in 2011.
Tier 3 schools that were Tier 2 last year include Arts and Technology, Howard Road Academy Martin Luther King, Jr., Middle School Campus, Ideal Academy, and Booker T. Washington.
The PCSB reminds us that 38 charter schools do not receive a tier ranking due to the population of students they serve or the fact that last year was their first year of being open.
Finally, the Board also released a new parent guide to the PMF. While it appears this document will be extremely helpful to consumers, I wish it had included some information regarding how the PMF score is determined.
Heated Debates Expected over School Closures
The Washington Informer
By Dorothy Rowley
November 7, 2012
A maelstrom of controversy is erupting over a list of District of Columbia Public School [DCPS] closings that made its way onto the Internet last week. As a result, pressure has been put on D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson to come clean about which schools are marked for closure or consolidation.
But a spokesperson for Henderson said she has no explanation regarding how the list that cited 38 schools was published on Nov. 1, except to say it's inaccurate.
"We have no idea where this list came from, but it's not from DCPS," said Melissa Salmonowitz in an email to The Washington Informer. "We look forward to announcing our proposed consolidations soon."
The Chicago-based Illinois Facility Fund [IFF] which provided the recommendations earlier this year, deals in real estate acquisitions and providing loans and equipment for nonprofits such as charter schools – already has oversight over several such facilities in the Midwest. In the event IFF recommendations are approved, plans call for lower-performing city schools to be consolidated with high-performing charter schools.
The majority of the city's under-performing and under-enrolled schools are in wards 5, 7 and 8. Listed among them are Anacostia and Ballou high schools in Ward 8, Kelly Miller Middle School in Ward 7 and Charles Young Elementary School in Ward 5.
Many of the parents and community leaders who are lashing out are reminded of the iron-clad will of Michelle Rhee who ordered the closings of some two dozen schools shortly after she took over as chancellor in 2008. They are looking forward to speaking during two public hearings slated for Thursday, Nov. 15 and Monday, Nov. 19 at the John A. Wilson Building in Northwest, where the testimonies are expected to be heated.
Dorothy Douglas who represents Ward 7 on the D.C. School Board, said she wasn't familiar with the bogus list, but she's known about talks to shutter schools.
"I know that the plans call for some of the schools like those in wards 7 and 8 to be closed due to low- enrollment, but I expressed [early on] to Mayor [Vincent] Gray and [Ward 7 Council member] Yvette Alexander that closing schools is not the solution without getting parents involved," Douglas said.
Annette Douglas, 43, who has a child enrolled at Howard Road Academy in Southeast, opposes combining District public schools with charter schools. "That's not going to work," she said, adding that "for one thing, you can't mix students from Southwest with students from Southeast without expecting issues like violence to occur."
Northeast resident Rita Jackson who has grandchildren enrolled in District public schools, said charter schools aren't necessarily better than DCPS facilities.
"Charter schools are basically run by corporations and they're doing these mergers, not to educate our children, but for the resources that they can get," said Jackson. "They're making sure that we don't create any more Malcolm Xs or President Obamas."
Ward 8 activist Phil Pannell, 61, said it makes good sense to close schools that are under-enrolled and to merge others. "This is something that's been decades in the making," said Pannell.
He said that in many instances, under-enrolled buildings negatively impact the ability to ensure key programs and services at other schools. "For example, the new Ballou Senior High School in Ward 8 lacks an ROTC program because the school can't afford it," Pannell said.
While Alexander, 51, has called for a moratorium on closures in her community, Ward 5 Council member Kenyan McDuffie, 37, said in a statement that in anticipation of the two hearings, he's been in touch with Henderson's office to schedule a discussion on the matter.
"At this juncture, DCPS has not made the closure list available to the [D.C.] Council or to the public," McDuffie said. "Once DCPS officially releases school closure information, my office will make it available and work with the community to respond accordingly."
Study chides D.C. teacher turnover
The Washington Post
By Emma Brown
November 8, 2012
The District has higher-than-desirable teacher turnover, but a report released Thursday finds that the public school system is succeeding in holding onto its best teachers at nearly twice the rate as its lowest performers.
Still, far too many excellent teachers are leaving the school system each year, according to TNTP, a nonprofit teacher recruitment organization that conducted the study.
“On the one hand, they’ve gone where no district has ever gone before: They’re retaining far more of their best teachers than their worst,” TNTP President Timothy Daly said. “On the other hand, they’re still losing too many of their best teachers for reasons they could address.”
The study, which included surveys of nearly one-quarter of the school system’s teachers, suggests that some teachers leave because of poor working conditions, weak school leadership and school cultures that lack mutual trust and respect.
Many others could have been persuaded to stay, the study found, but no one made an effort to keep them. More than two-thirds of District principals did not list talent retention as one of their top five priorities.
Former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle A. Rhee founded TNTP 15 years ago, and Chancellor Kaya Henderson served as vice president. The organization has a contract to provide teacher-recruitment services to D.C. public schools, but no money was spent on this research project.
TNTP studied four other urban school systems this year and found little difference in the retention of high-performing and low-performing teachers, as judged by students’ progress on standardized tests.
The District treats those two groups of teachers differently, and that sets the school system apart, TNTP found.
At the end of the 2010-11 school year, District officials retained 88 percent of teachers rated “highly effective” under IMPACT, the school system’s rigorous and controversial teacher evaluation system.
It retained only 45 percent of teachers rated ineffective or minimally effective. Many of the low performers who left the system were forced to do so; the school system has fired nearly 400 teachers for poor performance since 2009.
Overall, more than one in five teachers left at the end of the 2010-11 school year, higher than four other urban school districts TNTP studied, and more than three times the turnover rate in suburban Montgomery County.
“We’re very proud of the fact that we’re differentially retaining our teachers,” said Jason Kamras, the school system’s chief of human capital. “That is not a small thing, and that has real benefits for kids. But we certainly acknowledge that we have room to grow.”
Kamras said school system leaders have made changes aimed at encouraging principals to be more thoughtful about retaining good teachers. Starting this year, for example, retention rates factor into principals’ job evaluations.
The TNTP report confirmed a fact long debated among District educators and politicians: Highly effective teachers are less likely to teach in schools with large numbers of poor children. That either means that few of the city’s best teachers are working in needy schools, or — as many teachers contend — the IMPACT evaluation system is unfair to teachers working in the most difficult environments.
“I think, at the end of the day, we’ll find out that it may be a little bit of both,” Kamras said.
Meanwhile, the school system isn’t going to force highly effective teachers to transfer into needy schools. Instead, it has revamped the bonus pay system this year so that successful teachers in high-poverty schools can earn thousands more in merit pay than peers in low-poverty schools.
Mark Simon, a D.C. parent and activist who has tried to raise an alarm about high teacher turnover in the city, said the report’s recommendations to improve school culture fail to account for the possibility that IMPACT could be a key factor driving teachers away.
Highly effective teachers leaving the District ranked the evaluation system as fourth of 20 reasons for departing, according to the TNTP report. The school system made several changes to IMPACT this year to reduce teacher anxiety about it.
Toni Conklin, a highly effective teacher who retired from Bancroft Elementary School in spring, said the evaluation system has contributed to a “tremendous amount of stress and pressure” teachers feel on the job.
She decided to leave a year earlier than she had originally planned because of frustrations with leadership at her school. When she submitted her letter of resignation, she said, no one asked her why she was leaving or if there was any possibility that she would reconsider.
Bancroft Principal Zakiya Reid said she would have been happy to keep Conklin on staff but wanted to be “supportive” of the teacher’s decision.
“Given Ms. Conklin’s tireless dedication and service to our school community for almost 20 years,” Reid wrote in an e-mail, “I felt that I could only respect and honor Ms. Conklin’s decision to retire.”
Mixed Responses to Teacher Incentive Program
The Washington Informer
By Dorothy Rowley
November 8, 2012
An initiative introduced earlier this fall by District of Columbia Public Schools [DCPS] Chancellor Kaya Henderson that recognizes the best teachers, has received mixed reviews surrounding its effectiveness.
The program, for which more than 300 DCPS teachers participated during its development last year, is known as the Leadership Initiative for Teachers [LIFT], and involves an aggressive career plan that provides high-performing instructors with opportunities for advancement. LIFT's five-step career plan focuses on progression from beginner to expert teacher and enables them to become eligible to earn more than $100,000 in just five years, and more than $130,000 in just seven years.
LIFT also distinguishes DCPS as the first urban public school system to implement the comprehensive teacher career ladder.
"Our teachers shape the future for our children," said Henderson. "At DCPS, we demand excellence from our educators and we work hard to honor and recognize them as the professionals they are."
But the program contradicts actions undertaken four years ago under former Chancellor Michelle Rhee, who fired hundreds of teachers in her hard-nosed school reform and budget reduction plan. Among those terminated were veteran educators who'd dedicated their lives to ensuring the academic success of their students.
Former Ward 5 Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Kathy Henderson [no relation to Kaya Henderson] said she applauds incentives directed at keeping exceptional teachers, but that DCPS officials need to "stick with the basics" by focusing their attention on "research-based efforts" rather than touting acronyms that sound good.
"That's what gives us a foundation for what works and we need to stay away from fads [such as the acronym LIFT], said Henderson, 58. "We don't need a lot of meaningless acronyms to make the school system work. We need teachers who are committed and who like children."
Responding to reporters' inquiries, Kaya Henderson, 42, did not address specific questions about LIFT but her spokesperson said the program is the system's next step in developing struggling teachers and moving out those who are ineffective.
"She's never going to admit that it's a contradiction," Ward 8 activist Phil Pannell said of the chancellor's round-about response. "But it's a contradiction. I was at a function recently where a former Anacostia Academy principal mentioned how good teachers and administrators have been routinely weeded out of the system. And, now they come up with a program to try to keep good educators. It doesn't make sense."
Cet Parks, 42, whose child doesn't attend a District school, however, he supports efforts to improve education. He also said LIFT appears to be redundant.
"It's always a good thing to reward teachers for their hard work and to try to keep them," Parks said. "However, my thing is that they should recall all the well-qualified teachers who were laid off [under Rhee]. They should be re-hired or still have the opportunity to have their terminations addressed."
Former National Education Association President Reginald Weaver said incentives can come in various forms and some can be questionable.
"But people should be asking if it's a fair program, if it's a program based on student performance, has it been sanctioned by the teachers' union – and how will it be perfected," said Weaver, 73.
Washington Teachers' Union President Nathan Saunders, 47, said Kaya Henderson, is not Michelle Rhee. "The DCPS system is light years ahead of where it used to be, with much more emphasis on staff development," Saunders said. "I'm not going to be critical of a program like LIFT that offers opportunities for teachers. If you look at the current numbers, we're getting fewer teachers terminated at the end of the year and more teachers who are achieving the designation of highly-effective."
Saunders added that while the teachers' union endeavors to "respect, support and commend good teachers" it also offers support to teachers who aren't performing as well.
"You can't fire your way to success, and it's not surprising that in order to keep good people, you have to offer new products and programs," he said.
Moving the best teachers to the worst schools
The Washington Post
By Jay Matthews
November 8, 2012
Here are two tough questions for D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson. They are suggested by a study from TNTP, a nonprofit teacher improvement organization for which Henderson once served as a vice president:
1. Will the chancellor transfer top-performing teachers to low-performing schools, where they are most needed?
2. Will she require principals to do all they can to keep their best teachers?
The study, “Keeping Irreplaceables in D.C. Public Schools: Lessons in Smart Teacher Retention,” was released Thursday and makes the D.C. schools look good in some ways. Predictions that top teachers would abandon the District because of its annoying new evaluation system have proved false. Teachers like the raises and bonuses they are getting for good evaluations. The study says the District leads the nation in keeping good teachers and getting rid of bad ones.
But in other ways, the city is failing its students and its best teachers. “In DCPS,” the study concludes, “highly rated teachers are much less likely to teach in schools with high concentrations of poverty than in other schools, and that disparity is greater than what we found in other districts.”
Top teachers make up 42 percent of the lowest poverty school faculties but only 11 percent in the highest poverty schools.
The study says that either the teacher distribution system or the evaluation system is to blame. I think it’s the former. National research has shown that experienced, effective teachers frequently seek transfers to high-performing schools because they get more support and have fewer difficult students. But maybe the new evaluation system, IMPACT, has a problem. There are indications that it is easier to get a good rating if your class is full of good students.
The D.C. salary system gives top teachers a chance to earn more in low-performing schools. But many prefer the reduced stress of a high-achieving school to a somewhat bigger paycheck.
The study also reveals another startling problem. The researchers surveyed 994 D.C. teachers and 144 D.C. school leaders. Top teachers were more likely to receive positive comments from their principals than low performers were. But they weren’t being recognized publicly or offered leadership opportunities to the extent recommended by previous TNTP reports.
Why? The report says principals showed little interest in keeping their best teachers happy.
“Principals do not consider smart retention a top priority,” the study concluded. “In fact, more than two-thirds of DCPS principals do not consider ‘retaining effective teachers’ one of their top five priorities.” The study suggests that the District provide better training for principals and convince them that their careers depend on keeping their best people.
Henderson’s predecessor as chancellor, Michelle A. Rhee, founded TNTP (formerly known as The New Teacher Project) in 1997. Henderson joined its staff in 2000. Both came to D.C. schools in 2007. TNTP has conducted several studies showing that U.S. school systems rarely differentiate between their most- and least-effective teachers. That has changed in the District, the report says, because under a new contract the best teachers “can earn total compensation of $100,000 after only four years in the classroom and a base salary of $100,000 after only six years.”
In the 2010-11 school year, the study said, D.C. schools kept 88 percent of their top performers as measured by an evaluation system based on classroom observations and test score progress. D.C. schools retained only 45 percent of their lowest performers, while other school districts kept about the same percentage of high- and low-performing teachers.
Spokeswoman Melissa Salmanowitz said Henderson won’t require top teachers to transfer, but she will rely on pay incentives and standards to nudge them and principals in the right direction. That hasn’t worked. To make her dreams a reality, Henderson might have to do more.