FOCUS DC News Wire 12/13/13

 

 

 D.C. education officials are set to debut a new lottery system that aims to simplify the application process.

 

Starting Monday, the revamped lottery will allow every D.C. family to submit up to 12 applications for any of the District’s traditional public schools and most of its charter schools, using the websitemyschooldc.org. For the first time, families will no longer have to keep track of different deadlines for traditional public schools and charters.

 

D.C. Public Schools official Kari Brandt gave a presentation about this new system to Ward 2 parents and education activists Nov. 16 at School Without Walls at Francis-Stevens.

 

“This is one-stop shopping,” she said, noting that a list of participating charters is available on the website.

 

Brandt said parents logging onto the website will need to create only one online account, regardless of how many children they have. The goal is to eliminate redundancy, preventing students from ending up on waiting lists for multiple schools, for example.

 

“You will only be waitlisted at schools you ranked higher than the school where you were given a seat,” Brandt said. 

 

Under the new system, families will still need to be mindful of several key dates. Those applying for high schools must have their applications submitted by Feb. 3, whereas families applying for lower grades have until March 3.

 

As she described this timeline, Brandt reassured parents that it isn’t necessary to race onto the website on Dec. 16. “There’s no preference for applying sooner rather than later,” she said.

 

Dupont Circle advisory neighborhood commissioner Stephanie Maltz raised an issue of logistics: “If you are a parent that doesn’t have an Internet connection, is there a way you can participate in this process?”

 

 Brandt said such parents could use computers at public libraries or contact D.C. Public Schools at 202-478-5738.

 

In an interview, Maltz said she appreciated the presentation, but she added that the need for an elaborate application procedure highlights a problem that the city fails to address. 

 

“If there were a quality neighborhood school in every neighborhood, you wouldn’t have to be doing this,” said Maltz. “It makes me really sad that there doesn’t seem to be a commitment to a right to a neighborhood school.”

 

 

 

The Blue Castle, one of the most recognizable buildings in the District's Barracks Row neighborhood, is being offered for sale to interested buyers.

 

Madison Marquette, which has been planning a mixed-use redevelopment of the site at 770 M St. SE, recently retainedCassidy Turley to seek buyers for the property after assembling the site, which is also known as the Navy Yard Car Barn. The "compelling future opportunity," as Cassidy Turley phrased it in a marketing flyer, takes up an entire city block and could be an attractive offering for developers looking to buy into the area.

 

Representatives from Madison Marquette could not be reached for comment. Cassidy Turley Executive Managing Director Jayne Shister, who is leading the marketing effort, said she has already received a significant amount of interest from prospective buyers since issuing a flyer on the property in late November. She said interest will likely be driven by both the property's existing rental income and its redevelopment potential.

 

The 100,000-square-foot car barn is 97 percent leased but with the owner's option to terminate the leases in 2018, according to Cassidy Turley. The tenants include PSI Services Inc. and the Richard Wright Public Charter School, which has a letter of intent to expand its space in the building. That expansion would bring the building to full occupancy.

 

Shister noted the property is zoned to allow for up to 213,768 square feet of commercial redevelopment under existing zoning. She said that figure could increase through a PUD application with the city. What's more, she said, there are several other properties in the same area that are also ripe for redevelopment, increasing the potential value for the Blue Castle property.

 

Madison Marquette had proposed launching a redevelopment tying into Barracks Row's connection to the emerging Capitol Riverfront neighborhood. Redeveloping the property could be a challenge, though, since there are limited parking options for potential retailers and the site is a long walk from the Navy Yard and Eastern Market Metro stations. There are other challenges as well, such as the imposing views of the walled-off Navy Yard itself and a proposal by CSX Corp. to expand its tunnel under Virginia Avenue SE.

 

 

On education issues, D.C. mayoral candidate Andy Shallal isn’t keeping anyone guessing.

 

The Busboys and Poets owner made himself a crowd favorite at a Washington Teachers’ Union debate Monday night, drawing applause by sharply critiquing the education reform policies of D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson and her predecessor Michelle Rhee. In an hourlong interview Monday afternoon, Shallal pledged to fundamentally alter the District’s education strategy if he is elected, saying the status quo has D.C. headed in the wrong direction.

 

 “We keep trying to put lipstick on this pig,” said Shallal, who is seeking the Democratic mayoral nomination. “We’ve tried these reforms. They haven’t worked.”

 

 Shallal points to the District’s 2013 National Assessment of Educational Progress results, which  showed overall gains for the school system, but a persistent and pronounced student achievement gap along racial and socioeconomic lines.

 

“We need to do something drastic,” he said. “I don’t think schools are failing. I think we’re failing them.”

 

Specifically, Shallal believes many policies that aim to hold teachers accountable for student performance unfairly expect educators to compensate for poverty and other societal ills. What the District really needs, the restaurateur argues, is an increase in wraparound social services for low-income students.

 

“We cannot keep demonizing  teachers,” he said. As mayor, Shallal would also seek to deemphasize standardized testing, which he describes as a punitive means of assessment for students and teachers alike. He said he worries about the sheer number of school days required for preparation and examination. 

 

“To me, those days are a loss — a loss of learning, of creativity, of imagination,” he said. More broadly, Shallal finds fault with D.C.’s much-vaunted focus on school choice, saying education shouldn’t be driven by a marketplace.

 

“In the market, you have people at the top and people at the bottom. You’re always going to have people at the bottom. That doesn’t seem right,” he said.

 

To that end, Shallal proposes a moratorium on school closings, explaining his stance in a campaign statement on education policy:

 

“The truth is parents don’t so much want choice as they want good neighborhood schools within easy walking or biking distance of where they live,” the statement reads. “Charter schools are here to stay, but should not be in a position to compete directly with and destroy neighborhood schools.”

 

All of these positions place Shallal at odds with D.C.’s education establishment. Though he has declined to say whether he would  replace Henderson as chancellor if he were elected, Shallal has explicitly argued that he is “the only candidate who is committed to making changes before it’s too late.” He has also proposed several original school initiatives.

 

The first is the creation of a six-week summer academy to ensure students learn about “life skills” like conflict resolution and appropriate behavior before entering middle school.

 

“I would eventually like to make it mandatory,” Shallal said, arguing that the academy would foster cultural cohesion between students of different backgrounds. He also believes the training could be provided by area universities at no cost to taxpayers.

 

Another proposal from Shallal would create  students in their senior year of high school. Shallal wants seniors spending more time examining local legislation, hearing from District politicians and taking field trips to the Wilson Building. As an incentive to get them engaged, he proposes that D.C. follow the example of Takoma Park, Md., and lower the voting age a year or two.

 

“Young kids start driving at 16, so I don’t see why they couldn’t start voting at 16 or 17, especially in local elections,” he said. “I believe in young people. I believe in their voice.”

 

 

T he Eastern High School auditorium was packed Monday night. The Washington Teachers’ Union was hosting an education forum on, we think, the future of education in our city.

 

We say, “we think,” because the forum was chaotic, noisy and uninformative.

 

None of the teachers in that auditorium would put up for a minute in their classrooms with the rowdy behavior the teachers themselves displayed.

 

The format was quite simple. The union invited candidates for mayor to come answer questions about education. The event officially could not be advertised as a political debate, but that was the real intent.

 

For example, the Rev. Graylan Hagler asked a simple question: Did the candidates support continued mayoral control of the schools? The activist minister took his seat and waited on the answer.

 

Mayor Vincent Gray spoke with passion about how anything that was done ought to be done for the children. But he didn’t answer the question.

 

(We should just stipulate that every candidate wants to do what is “best for the children.” It’s a

meaningless phrase if you really think about it.)

 

Ward 2 D.C. Council member Jack Evans had no problem answering whether he supports continued

mayoral control of schools. He bluntly said he had voted for mayoral control and it was the right way to

go because the schools had been failing for at least 15 years before that.

 

Many in the crowd hooted and jeered, but Evans stood his ground. He tried to use his remaining time to talk about why he felt that way, but the audience wouldn’t let him.

 

When newcomer candidate Andy Shallal — owner of the popular Busboys and Poets restaurants — said he wouldn’t close any schools, the crowd cheered. When he later defended tough teacher evaluations, he was jeered.

 

Candidate Tommy Wells, the Ward 6 council member, kept reminding the audience that his ward has a waiting list for its schools because parents have been part of the planning. He says as mayor he would make walkable schools available for every neighborhood in the city.

 

Christian Carter, the least known candidate and not an officeholder, won cheers as he attacked everyone else on the stage, as well as Chancellor Kaya Henderson and former Chancellor Michelle Rhee. Carter also stalked toward Gray as if he were going to directly challenge him. Gray tensed up, but didn’t fall for responding to Carter’s theatrics.

 

At-large Council member Vincent Orange kept to his script, that he’ll educate everyone’s child, getting them ready for college or the workforce. Newcomer Reta Jo Lewis got a bit tangled trying to answer a specific question on “excessed teachers,” asking that it be repeated twice. It was another indication that she’s an earnest candidate but lacks real knowledge about many local issues.

 

It was the third face-off of candidates early in this campaign for the April 1 primary. Ward 4 Council member and mayoral candidate Muriel Bowser didn’t attend, citing a previous commitment. 

 

Washington City Paper’s Loose Lips columnist summed up the evening for the audience: grouchy. It was an unusually undisciplined forum for a professional educator’s group. But one candidate muttered later that “it won’t be the worst one” they attend. Let’s hope that’s not true.

 

 

 

DC Councilmember David Catania answered questions Monday night from Greater Greater Education contributors and readers. In the course of a wide-ranging discussion, he called for empowering parents, improving middle school options, and generally addressing DC's education issues with a fierce sense of urgency.

 

Drawing on an impressive fund of knowledge acquired during the 102 visits to DC schools he's undertaken as chair of the DC Council's education committee, Catania balanced his criticism with praise. He said he's seen impressive principals and teachers during his visits, and impressive results across both the DCPS and charter sectors. But he also believes there's much that needs to be improved.

 

If you weren't able to join us, you can read the Storify version here, or view the videos of the event at the end of this post. Or read on for an account of the highlights.

 

Catania spoke of a tendency towards "silo-ization" in the DC government's approach to education, with social services being treated as largely separate from education. He pointed out that at some schools a significant proportion of families are homeless and the rest are receiving government assistance.

 

"The most efficient way to defeat poverty that has ever been constructed is education," he said. "And when you have the inequality that exists in our city, I don't think the current pace of change is acceptable."

 

He mentioned his bill to increase funding for "at risk" students as one way to speed change. He said he also hopes to see a rise in the basic amount of money DCPS spends per student, as a study commissioned by the city has recommended. That study also recommended additional funds for at-risk students, but the recommendation was less far-reaching than Catania's.

 

And he pointed to his proposal to provide college tuition aid to DC students whose families make below $215,000. That bill, scaled down somewhat from the original proposal, passed a committee vote unanimously yesterday. Catania said a similar program in Washington State has increased the graduation rate for low-income students from 59% to 78%. That figure went up to 90%, he said, at Tacoma schools that had a college counselor in place.

 

Need for more communication

One theme that emerged from Catania's comments was the need for greater communication between sectors and individuals. He urged that principals at feeder schools talk with their counterparts at destination schools, to ensure that students at one school are prepared to go to the next.

 

And he said that DCPS should be talking to successful charter schools to learn from their experience. He interpreted DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson's comments about middle schools at a recent DC Council hearing as supportive of that view.

 

According to the Washington Post, Henderson said that "perhaps the city should figure out how to funnel children to charter schools in the middle grades, arguing that 'they know how to do middle school really well.'" The Post also reported that Catania had "bristled" at that suggestion and declared that he was "not going to outsource middle schools to charters."

 

Asked whether he thought Henderson had seriously meant to suggest such a thing, Catania implied that the apparent conflict between himself and the Chancellor had been exaggerated. "I think she meant we should explore more how to use charter schools, perhaps," he said Monday night.

 

But he added that Henderson didn't seem to have a plan to improve DCPS middle schools, which, with the exception of Deal MS in Ward 3, have had difficulty attracting families. In the absence of a plan, Catania said, her remarks "left people with the impression that she was abandoning middle schools."

Catania said he expects to receive a middle school plan from Henderson on December 15, and he understands it will be a "work in progress." One way of improving middle schools, he said, would be to equalize their offerings. He noted that students at Deal have higher-level math options than students at the far less popular Hardy Middle School, not far away.

 

Although he recently announced the formation of an exploratory committee for a mayoral bid, Catania deflected questions about what he would do as mayor. Asked what he would look for in a chancellor, Catania said it was "really premature to start doing personnel."

 

Truancy and preschool absenteeism

On truancy, Catania said that tightening up sanctions has led to improvements in younger grades, but it's still a problem at the high school level. He predicted that hisbill to end social promotion before high school would ultimately reduce truancy by ensuring that students who reach 9th grade would function at grade level and therefore be less likely to become disengaged.

 

He also noted that absenteeism is a huge problem at the pre-K level, and school attendance for 3- and 4-year-olds isn't required by law. Noting that there are waiting lists for many pre-K programs, Catania suggested that families who miss a certain number of days of pre-K should be required to give up their preschool slots.

 

Catania also talked about the need to foster effective parent organizations across the District, and described a recent event at which parents heading established organizations gave tips to representatives of emerging parent groups in Ward 8. His office is now creating an "online toolkit" that will help parents organize and maintain PTAs.

 

While he said he didn't believe that DC should return to having an elected school board with authority to make operational decisions, he defended his aggressive oversight of education from his perch as chair of the education committee. He criticized those, such as the Post's editorial board, who he said see the Council's involvement in education as representing "nothing but mischief."

 

"I have a different point of view," he said to the audience. "I think we represent you. And if you're not getting your middle school, then you have to prevail upon me to do my job, and on the other 12 to do their job."

 

Once PTAs are organized across the District, he said, "then you spring to life, and you start saying 'we demand this.' But nothing short of really intense community pressure is going to move the direction of the system."

 

 

More and more of the city’s elementary schools have significantly improved in recent years. Some are now bursting at the seams as residents rely less on private education and as newcomers moving to the District use the D.C. Public Schools system.

 

But the same is true of only one middle school in the system: Ward 3’s Alice Deal. That school has already outgrown a recent expansion and is now undergoing another, with no shortage of demand. In other parts of the city, middle schools have been merged or shuttered, leaving the survivors underenrolled or relying heavily on out-of-boundary students. That’s in large part because so many parents of graduating fifth-graders opt for private or charter schools — or decide they have no choice but to move to the suburbs.

 

Fortunately, there’s a growing sense of urgency among city officials that D.C. Public Schools needs to focus on substantially upgrading middle schools. The system itself has identified this as a priority, and D.C. Council members are rallying behind a resolution from Ward 4’s Muriel Bowser — dubbed “Alice Deal for All” — saying that the system’s other nine middle schools need to match that program’s quality.

 

Part of the problem is fundamental to the middle school model: A neighborhood elementary school has the key advantage of convenience. But since middle schools tend to require further traveling anyway, parents who have the means to do so are more likely to consider a wider set of options.

 

Nevertheless, some improvements are possible.

 

For instance, we support a proposal from Chancellor Kaya Henderson to standardize middle schools’ curricula, as is already done with elementaries. We, too, believe that top-quality programs should be more widely available throughout the city.

 

We would also like to see greater collaboration among elementary, middle and high schools within a feeder pattern, and we think students who enjoy specialized elementary school programs should be able to go to a middle school that also offers them. Both are issues that have been raised by at-large D.C. Council member David Catania, chair of the Education Committee.

 

Clearly more work is needed than these few proposals to improve D.C. middle schools and retain students beyond the fifth grade. We’re encouraged by the attention middle schools are getting, and we look forward to seeing what other ideas emerge as a result.

 

 

 

D.C. Public Schools announced Thursday that it has purchased 85,000 new books for school libraries around the city, an investment that comes after years of pressure from parents and activists.

 

Schools also have received 4,000 new musical instruments, 2,000 desktop computers and more than 1,300 laptops and tablets, as well as art supplies and science lab equipment.

 

The new materials cost a total of about $10 million, money left unspent because of unfilled personnel vacancies and reduced benefits costs, officials said.

 

“When we realized these funds would be available, we came up with a thoughtful and strategic plan to make purchases that would both help our students learn and achieve, and support our teachers with new, modern equipment and supplies,” Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson said in a statement. “The action at DCPS is in the classroom, and that’s where we’re putting our resources.”

 

Several renovated and rebuilt schools, which opened with brand-new libraries but very few books, received full collections. They included Anacostia High School, Kramer Middle School and the McKinley and Cardozo Education campuses.

 

But every school in the city received some new books, and the infusion of current titles came as a thrill to librarians who are used to holding book sales and soliciting donations in order to improve aging collections.

 

“It’s wonderful,” said Currie Renwick, the librarian at Watkins Elementary on Capitol Hill, which received more than 200 fiction and nonfiction titles. “We’re just so pleased.. . . For many children, there are not books at home, so it’s critical we have the best books that we can get.”

Renwick said that before the new books arrived in November, the average copyright date in the Watkins library was around 1994, a vintage that is “unacceptable,” she said. Science books, in particular, need refreshing more often, she said.

 

“You know the phrase, ‘You can’t judge a book by its cover’? That is true to some extent, but you certainly can judge a nonfiction book by its copyright date,” said Renwick. “And with fiction, you have to have fresh material.”

 

Renwick said she’s hopeful that in the future, the school system will make a practice of earmarking money in the budget for library materials.

Peter MacPherson, a parent who has long pushed for more investment in and attention toschool libraries, also said the libraries will need a regular influx of dollars in order to update their collections. But this infusion of books is “a fabulous development,” he said.

“The work is not done, but it’s a great, great first step.”

 

The school system is considering the possibility of budgeting for regular updates of library materials, said spokeswoman Melissa Salmanowitz.