- Officials Introduce New Method to Evaluate Public Charter Schools [Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom, D.C. Prep School, KIPP DC, Paul, Washington Latin, Center City, and Achievement Preparatory Academy PCS are mentioned]
- City Seeks Education Use for Stevens
- Failure Rate of Schools Overstated, Study Says
-
Police Called to D.C. Schools Hundreds of Times [DC Prep PCS is mentioned]
Officials Introduce New Method to Evaluate Public Charter Schools [Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom, D.C. Prep School, KIPP DC, Paul, Washington Latin, Center City, and Achievement Preparatory Academy PCS are mentioned]
The Washington Informer
By Barrington M. Salmon
December 15, 2011
Some officials associated with the District's public charter schools are lauding an initiative that will streamline the way these schools are evaluated.
The Public Charter School Board, parents and other stakeholders spent almost three years developing the Performance Management Framework (PMF), which will be an evaluation tool to assess and monitor charter school performance. Schools that are rated will fall into one of three tiers. Tier 1 schools will have met standards of high performance; Tier 2 schools are those which fall short of high performance standards but meet minimum overall performance; and Tier 3 schools are those which fall significantly short of high performance standards and show inadequate performance. Tier 3 schools that fall below 20 percent of an established number of points may have their charters revoked.
One educator said the new system will help parents see where their children's schools fit, explain in greater detail elements of the assessment and show how individual schools rank against their peers.
"PMF is designed to give the public an opportunity to assess the success of schools pairing like with like; there really is no other measure," said Linda Moore, founder and executive director of the Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom Public Charter School in Southeast. "Students absolutely gain over time to the extent that it gives the public more information. I think that's good."
"The initial iteration was said to not provide an adequate snapshot and the board listened to community leaders. The biggest change was how growth was measured. It was reconfigured but it still does not capture goals specific to individual schools. Parents can get an understanding about how students are achieving, how that achievement is reached and where we're doing a good job."
Ramona Edelin, executive director of the D.C. Association of Chartered Public Schools, agrees.
"We've gotten to a very good place and our kids are winners even though D.C. has the highest achievement gap in the country," she said. "Among the top tier are some schools which overwhelmingly serve children of color, those from impoverished backgrounds and a mixture of both. It's very interesting that schools are so different and the approaches they bring are so different, too."
Edelin named the D.C. Prep School, Edgewood, three KIPP campuses, Paul Junior High School, Washington Latin Public Charter School's Upper School and two Center City Public Charter Schools – operated by the Diocese of Washington – as some of the most successful institutions according to the evaluation model, but which offer curriculums and serve populations that traditionally might be thought of as being unable to make good grades, learn and test well.
"The one that's really amazing is Achievement Preparatory Academy (in Congress Heights), which serves almost entirely, kids from Ward 8. There is nothing comparable. No other schools are doing as well," she said.
If there is a weakness, Edelin said, it is in the lack of research into some areas that can enhance the job charter schools are doing.
"We need better research on what works for whom and why," she explained.
While Moore is pleased with the new evaluation system, she said educators are still not able to capture data that reflects the variety of schools and what they offer.
"This includes alternative schools such as special education, schools with students who have a history of difficulties or those with English language learners, and data that captures how schools are doing with the students they get," she said. "We have some really good schools and schools that don't look good based on the evaluations."
Moore, whose school falls into the top tier, said she has another apprehension too.
"My concern has to do with the quality of education available to some of the most vulnerable in the District," she said. "The range of what children were asked to do academically doesn't fit with their skills."
Exodus of Students from DCPS
The first charter schools were opened in the District of Columbia about 15 years ago. Since that time, and particularly in recent years, there has been an exodus of students from District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) to these schools. In 2004, for example, DCPS had an enrollment of more than 62,000 students. Today, that figure stands at a little more than 45,000.
Edelin said her association serves all charter schools, and all but four of the 53 schools on campuses scattered across the District, are members. These 53 schools, on 98 campuses, serve 41 percent or 32,000 of the children attending school in the District.
"One of the greatest things charter schools has done is to provide leverage for DCPS to reform itself," Moore said. "Charter schools and DCPS are reforming. I don't necessarily see this as 'either/or.' The goal should be to provide the best education for children. I don't think charter schools will ever replace traditional schools but they are on the cutting edge of what's working.
Moore used her school as an example.
"Every student learns in two languages," she said. "In almost every country, students speak more than one language. We live in a global society with a global economy. It is very important to communicate with and understand other cultures. We incorporate technology into learning strategies as much as we can and we use small groups."
"We wanted to give all students the best – at least what the research says that is, in terms of skills and resources. There are so many resources and so much opportunity in the District and children should have the opportunity to learn about the history and culture that is here. I see it as a complement. I think it's important for parents to have a range of options for students."
She said her school has grown exponentially since its doors opened.
"We have 350 three-year-olds through 6th graders," said Moore. "We have seen a 10-fold growth in enrollment. We started with 35 kindergarten and first-graders."
And Moore and her staff continue to cater to all of her children's needs, while countering the effects of family, neighborhoods, the Internet, TV and other influences.
She said students are provided with three meals a day, teachers are now making home visits and the staff uses a variety of methods to integrate parents into the learning continuum.
"There is no reason for schools to stop playing the roles they have in the past. Our opinion is that the role of the school is to do whatever is necessary to help our children," said Moore. "We place great emphasis on supporting children and their education. We identify the needs and help them get what they need."
"Becoming an educated person is not solely being able to read or write. Being an educated person is being a good citizen, getting along and working successfully with people from many different backgrounds."
City Seeks Education Use for Stevens
The Dupont Current
By Brady Holt
December 14, 2011
As the District moves forward with its effort to redevelop the former Stevens Elementary School site in the West End, officials say they have taken to heart lessons learned during a previous attempt, which deteriorated amid protests from neighbors. The two “requests for expressions of interest” issued Nov. 29 incorporate residents’ aim to preserve an educational use at part of the 1050 21st St. property, and highlight the importance of community input. One of the request documents asks commercial developers to submit economically viable concepts to build on the site, which also touches a section of L Street, while funding renovations of the 1868 school building for an educational user.
The second seeks interest from those educational users — a school or other organization that could make use of the facility. “We think we’re going to get a great response,” Jose Sousa, spokesperson for the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, said in an interview,“There’s a lot of interest in the Stevens School site.”Developers, school representatives and interested community members will tour the school at 10 a.m.tomorrow, meeting at the back entrance off L Street. Sousa said Monday evening he’d already heard from more than 50 people interested in the site visit.
The Stevens documents bear the headline “A Historic Opportunity in the Foggy Bottom Neighborhood,” and describe the building as “deteriorated from lack of maintenance” but still having “remarkable integrity to its original character and appearance.” Interested companies and educators have until March 1 to submit concepts for the property, and the District will weed out responses that don’t meet the city’s stated requirements. Remaining applicants will then pair up, with each developer presenting in more detail how its plan would accommodate one or more specific educational uses, and vice versa, with responses due in May.
“We want to make sure we have a quality development that generates enough value to renovate the school, and a quality educational user to fill it,” Matt Troy of the economic development office told residents at last Wednesday’s meeting of the Foggy Bottom/West End advisory neighborhood commission. The process calls for numerous community presentations from the parties interested in Stevens School before a final selection in late spring. The requests also include the neighborhood commission’s April 13 resolution on the subject, and instruct applicants to consider it an important guideline. “The success of any development project hinges on the inclusion and support of the local community,” the documents read. “Responses must consider and incorporate stakeholder and community preferences, to the extent practical.”
This tone represents a far cry from the earlier process, under former Mayor Adrian Fenty, in which residents called for a school, yet only commercial projects made the District’s shortlist and the city selected an apartment building that neighbors opposed. Neighborhood commission chair Rebecca Coder said the community’s willingness to accept a for-profit development to fund the school — as expressed in the commission’s resolution — helped move things forward.
“The last time around, we just felt like something was happening and we were not involved,” she said. One difference between the District’s requests for interest and the neighborhood commission’s resolution is the type of school facility. The city documents are open to any facility “that supports the academic needs and/or career development of any type of student,” but the commission specified “public educational use” and cited a strong preference for elementary or secondary schools.
Failure Rate of Schools Overstated, Study Says
The New York Times
By Sam Dillon
December 15, 2011
When the Obama administration was seeking to drum up support for its education initiatives last spring, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told Congress that the federal law known as No Child Left Behind would label 82 percent of all the nation’s public schools as failing this year. Skeptics questioned that projection, but Mr. Duncan insisted it was based on careful analysis.
President Obama repeated it in a speech three days later. “Four out of five schools will be labeled as failing,” Mr. Obama said at Kenmore Middle School in Arlington, Va., in March. “That’s an astonishing number.”
Now a new study, scheduled for release on Thursday, says the administration’s numbers were wildly overstated. The study, by the Center on Education Policy, a Washington research group headed by a Democratic lawyer who endorses most of the administration’s education policies, says that 48 percent of the nation’s 100,000 public schools were labeled as failing under the law this year.
The center is the only research group that has compiled an annual report of how many schools nationwide have run afoul of No Child Left Behind. The center calls its 48 percent figure an estimate, but it is based on a tally of schools that 49 states have reported as failing. (New York has not yet released its 2010-11 figures.) Final numbers are not expected until next year, but the center said the 48 percent estimate was unlikely to change by more than 1 percentage point.
Forty-eight percent, up from 39 percent in 2010, is the highest proportion of schools labeled as failing since President George W. Bush signed the education law in 2001. Schools acquire the label when they fail to raise student reading and math scores enough to keep up with testing targets set by their states.
Mr. Duncan, in a statement issued on Wednesday, brushed aside the discrepancy. “Whether it’s 50 percent, 80 percent or 100 percent of schools being incorrectly labeled as failing, one thing is clear: No Child Left Behind is broken,” Mr. Duncan said.
Asked why the Education Department’s projection was so far off, Justin Hamilton, a spokesman for Mr. Duncan, said, “Our intention was to look thoughtfully at the data and show how the law would impact schools and students if left unchanged.”
Almost everybody agrees that the law is broken. With Congress making little progress rewriting it, the administration announced this fall that it would issue waivers of its central requirements to states that outlined credible plans to hold schools accountable for student progress. Eleven states have applied for the waivers. An additional 28 states have said they intend to apply; applications for a second round in the waiver process are due in February.
Back in March, Margaret Spellings, Mr. Duncan’s predecessor as education secretary under Mr. Bush, accused the administration of floating an exaggerated projection of failing schools to build support for a rewrite or reauthorization of the law in Congress.
“They’re overstating the numbers to make a political point for reauthorization,” Ms. Spellings said.
Jack Jennings, the president of the Center on Education Policy and a Democrat, said Wednesday: “I still don’t understand why their estimate was so far off. Obviously they didn’t use the right methodology.”
Police Called to D.C. Schools Hundreds of Times [DC Prep PCS is mentioned]
The Washington Examiner
By Lisa Gartner
December 15, 2011
From death threats to sexual assaults, nearly 400 incidents brought D.C. police into schools -- mostly D.C. Public Schools -- in the 2009-2010 school year.
Ballou Senior High School and Wilson Senior High School tied for the most crime reports, with 22 police write-ups each between July 2009 and April 2010, according to Metropolitan Police Department records first obtained by TBD.com.
Of roughly 370 incidents, about 70 percent occurred in D.C. Public Schools. The rest were split among public charter schools, which serve 40 percent of the city's public school students, and private campuses.
More than 60 incidents involved theft, along with 21 more serious burglaries and 20 cases of destruction of property valued under $200. Police most frequently intervened over simple assaults -- 137 of the cases.
Some of the reports detailed disturbances far beyond the typical schoolyard scuffle.
Among Ballou's 22 police reports, three described fires set to the school, and one a student threatening to "shoot the s--t out of" another person. Across the city, 16 felony threats were reported.
Police responded to Wilson after baggies full of crack cocaine were uncovered from three students in a fistfight.
At Bell Multicultural High School in Columbia Heights, witnesses say the dean of students became angry with a student for wearing a hat while playing pingpong. The dean threw the student onto the table, breaking it to the floor, according to the report. Even after the student was restrained, the dean choked and punched the student.
D.C. Public Schools did not respond to requests for comment.
But problems have persisted. At Wilson, for example, a fire in the school bathroom in October caused an evacuation and more than $150,000 in damages.
Even the city's top-performing schools had to call the cops. Stolen laptops and a misplaced backpack brought police to Sidwell Friends School, the elite private Quaker school that President Obama's daughters attend. Thefts were also recorded at Oyster-Adams Bilingual School and Duke Ellington School of the Arts, among DCPS' top campuses.
At D.C. Prep Public Charter School, ranked the city's best by the charter school board, authorities were alerted in January 2010 that an 8-year-old male student forced another to perform oral sex on him in a school bathroom.
Emily Lawson, chief executive officer and founder of D.C. Prep, confirmed an incident at the elementary campus in Edgewood, but believed the students involved were younger, in the first grade. A female teacher lined students up for the bathroom, and peeked in when the two boys didn't come out.
The school contacted the parents and police. The perpetrator was suspended and moved out of the other boy's class, while both received counseling.
"We obviously take the safety of our students very seriously, and events like this are really rare, so when they do happen we act right away," Lawson said.