- Education advocates help draft new D.C. mayor’s to-do list [Community College Prep PCS mentioned]
- On Verge Of Being Closed, D.C. Charter School Fights Back [Potomac Prep PCS mentioned]
- White House promotes public-private plan to pump $1 billion into preschool
- Fight for Children's CEO co-chair of Mayor-elect's education committee [FOCUS mentioned]
Education advocates help draft new D.C. mayor’s to-do list [Community College Prep PCS mentioned]
The Washington Post
By Michael Alison Chandler
December 10, 2014
Scores of education advocates crowded into a conference room at Judiciary Square on Wednesday to help Mayor-elect Muriel E. Bowser shape her to-do list for improving public education in the District.
Career training, adult literacy programs, school modernizations and improved discipline policies were among the priorities that parents, school leaders and community activists shared during the four-hour forum hosted by Bowser’s education transition committee.
“I’m here because when Mayor-elect Bowser released her education plan, there was no mention of adult education,” said Liam Ball, a teacher at Community College Preparatory Academy, a charter school in Ward 8 that offers career and job training. He requested more investment in programs to help adults with few high school credits or marketable skills. “Every month, more and more Washingtonians are left behind the incredible progress the city is making,” he said.
Lissa Rosenthal-Yoffe, director of the D.C. Arts and Humanities Education Collaborative, said she came to thank the mayor for her campaign pledge to support arts education.
More than 120 people signed up to speak; about half actually testified. The District’s mayor has unusual control over education in the city, and speakers had three minutes to make their pitches to the two co-chairs of Bowser’s education committee: Michela English, president and chief executive of Fight for Children; and Wayne Frederick, president of Howard University.
Some speakers recommended increasing “community schools” that offer more social services for families and children on-site. A Montessori school leader advocated for expanding Montessori programs citywide, and a Ward 7 parent asked for investment in language immersion programs east of the Anacostia River.
Some advocates asked for changes to discipline policies, including more restorative justice programs and District-wide regulations governing how and why students can be disciplined.
“We still get calls from parents of elementary kids who are up for expulsion,” said Timothy Riveria of Advocates for Justice and Education Inc.
A spokesman from the National Black Child Development Institute requested more investments in early childhood education starting with infants and toddlers. And a spokeswoman from Asian American Lead, another advocacy group, said that the needs of Asian Americans students often go unnoticed in the city.
Some speakers asked for more collaboration between charter and traditional public schools, particularly when it comes to locating new school programs and facilities.
Nancy Huvendick, the D.C. program director from the 21st Century School Fund, urged the incoming mayor to create a more transparent process for determining which schools will be renovated. She noted that although about half the schools have been modernized, the other half are only partially finished or have not been touched.
Terry Goings, a member of the alumni association at Coolidge High School, said the Northwest school is the last comprehensive high school to be modernized. He said that the school has rotated through eight principals since 2002 and that he wished the new leader could have a three-year contract to bring some stability.
The comments are to be assembled and given to the broader transition committee, which will prepare recommendations for the new mayor.
Other forums conducted by the mayor-elect’s transition teams during the past week include Health, Human Services and Homelessness; Housing; Education; Economic Development and Jobs; Arts and the Creative Economy; Open and Good Government and Full Democracy; and Transportation, Environment, Sustainability & Infrastructure.
On Verge Of Being Closed, D.C. Charter School Fights Back [Potomac Prep PCS mentioned]
WAMU
By Martin Austermuhle
December 9, 2014
A D.C. public charter school on the verge of being closed is asking for more time to prove that it can effectively educate its students — a request that's rarely granted in the fast-churning world of charter schools.
Last month, the D.C. Public Charter School Board voted to initiate the revocation of Potomac Prep's charter, a death knell for the nine-year-old charter school that serves students from pre-kindergarten to eight grade at its Michigan Park campus.
According to a board report, the school has not met academic expectations, has "weak economic viability" and has suffered from years of staff and administrator turnover. It was rated poorly during it's five-year review in 2010, and earlier this year was warned that if test scores didn't increase the school would face closure during a review of its 10-year charter.
But the school — which now has a new principal, new board and many new teachers — is pleading for more time to prove that it can serve the academic needs of its 425 students, many of whom come from wards 6, 7 and 8.
After the board's vote, the school requested a public hearing on the charter revocation. That hearing is set to take place on Wednesday, giving teachers, administrators and parents a last chance to make the case that the school is worth saving.
"We’re making progress, and we’re asking the charter board to give us another two to three years to show that we can be the magnet school that we believe we can be," says Marian White-Hood, the school's new principal.
White-Hood, who worked in Prince George's County public schools for 30 years, conceded that Potomac Prep had suffered from "shaky management, poor academics, struggling test scores, low morale, big turnover in teachers" during the nine years that it was managed by Lighthouse Academies, a charter school operator with campuses in seven states.
But that relationship was ended in June, and the school is now run by a new organization, has a new board of directors, more students, and a renewed sense of purpose, she says. The school was "re-dedicated" in October, and despite the management churn, was upgraded from a Tier 3 to a Tier 2 school during the 2013-14 school year.
"I would never have taken this position if I thought that the school did not have the potential to turn around," she says.
At Wednesday's hearing, the school and its supporters — some of whom have started using a Twitter hashtag, #donotrevokePPPCS, to rally support for the school — will make their case to the board that it should remain open. But considering almost two decades of charter schools coming and going, it will be an uphill battle.
Since 1996, 49 charter schools have been closed. Of those, 16 had their charter revoked and 10 closed campuses, while the remainder relinquished their charters willingly or never even opened after being granted a charter. Only two schools have appealed their charter revocations, and neither succeeded, even after taking the matter to court.
The board may not be persuaded by Potomac Prep's pleas. "PCSB staff does not find the school's arguments for continuance persuasive," said the report advising the board to revoke the school's charter. "PCSB cannot base a charter continuance on a new leadership staff and/or strategic plan launched in the school's tenth year, just as the tenth-year review began, after a decade of poor performance."
That hasn't dissuaded White-Hood, who says that it would be unfair to revoke the school's charter before test scores for the 2014-15 school year are published in June 2015.
"We’re asking them for a year or two to see what this turnaround is going to do," she says. "My suspicion is that the turnaround will show great and positive results, but if you close the school in June 2015, you really haven’t given us a chance to show the data and prove that we can do what we said we can do."
White House promotes public-private plan to pump $1 billion into preschool
The Washington Post
By Lyndsey Layton
December 10, 2014
The Obama administration today announced a public-private partnership designed to pump $1 billion into public preschool programs around the country.
At a White House summit on preschool education Wednesday, Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced his agency is awarding $250 million to 18 states to either create or expand existing preschool programs. The states are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia. In all, 36 states had applied for the grant money.
And the Department of Health and Human Services said it was giving $500 million to more than 40 states to expand Early Head Start and child care programs for youngsters from birth to 3 years old.
About 63,000 children would benefit from those grants, the administration said.
President Obama has tried for two years to convince Congress to dramatically expand preschool for 4-year-olds in a way that would add another year to public education and create a preK-12 system. But those calls have gone unheeded, despite bipartisan support among governors for more access to preschool, especially among low-income children.
The administration said Tuesday that a group of private companies and philanthropists have pledged another $330 million to expand preschool programs as part of a campaign called Invest in US. Donors include the Walt Disney Co., which has pledged $55 million and the the J.B. and M.K. Pritzker Family Foundation, which is giving $25 million.
As part of the effort to promote the campaign, Duncan and pop star Shakira held a Twitter chat Wednesday about early childhood education. In explaining the rather unusual pairing, Duncan tweeted that Shakira “is a strong advocate for education & serves on the President’s Advisory Commission on Ed Excellence for Hispanics.”
Fight for Children's CEO co-chair of Mayor-elect's education committee [FOCUS mentioned]
The Examiner
By Mark Lerner
December 11, 2014
I woke up highly encouraged this morning regarding the future of public education in the nation's capital as I learned from the Washington Post's Michael Alison Chandler that one of the co-chairs of Mayor-elect Muriel Bowser's transition eduction committee is Michela English, president and CEO of Fight for Children. The other co-chair is the president of Howard University Wayne Frederick.
Ms. Chandler reports that there was a public forum yesterday held at a Judiciary Square conference room in which 120 people signed up to testify regarding education issues facing the District. About half that number had the opportunity to speak for three minutes each. So of course you are asking what I would have spoke about if I had the chance.
First and foremost I would have demanded that the unequal funding of charters schools compared to DCPS be immediately rectified. All money for public schools should flow through the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula as is required by law. This would bring an immediate end to the pending FOCUS lawsuit and bring some desperately needed dollars to charters, assuming that the Mayor would want to maintain revenue to the traditional schools at its current level.
Next, I would ask that the charter school facility allotment be substituted with a new formula that would guarantee charter schools a building once they are approved to open. Since charters are public schools like the regular ones they should have classrooms on par with the renovated spaces DCPS now operate. We need to end once and for all charters opening in church basements, storefronts, and warehouses.
My final request would be that the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program be expanded. U.S. House of Representative Speaker Boehner once again saved the private school voucher plan in the latest omnibus spending bill, and the federal Department of Education is currently working to have a firm other than the D.C. Children and Youth Investment Trust Corporation administer it. Joe Robert's organization, the Washington Scholarship Fund, used to manage the OSP when it was first created and so as the head of the other group that Mr. Robert founded Ms. English most certainly understands the value of giving kids in poverty a choice as to where to go to school.
I think my three minutes must be up.