- D.C. charter reform provides accountability [FOCUS op-ed; Options mentioned]
- Two D.C. Council members oppose Gray's pick for state superintendent of education
- D.C. Council Members Challenge Schools Superintendent Nomination
- A winning lottery
- Four development teams vie to rehabilitate Franklin School in downtown D.C.
- You call this an 'education election?'
- D.C. schools gave 44 teachers mistaken job evaluations
D.C. charter reform provides accountability [FOCUS op-ed; Options mentioned]
The Northwest Current, pg. 9
By Robert Cane
December 25, 2013
The District’s independent Public Charter School Board decided unanimously to close Options Public Charter School last week. This follows the recent civil lawsuit brought by the D.C. attorney general against three former senior administrators of Options — a tragic turn in the history of the 17-year- old school, which enrolls at-risk youth from the sixth through the 12th grades.
The attorney general contends that the administrators engaged in a “pattern of self-dealing,” profiting from a complex scheme to provide Options with needed services at greatly inflated prices.
The lawsuit alleges that the administrators created two corporations, of which the former chief executive of Options was named president. These companies were awarded lucrative contracts by the school, including management services and bus transportation worth more than $3 million. According to the complaint, school officials also received sizable bonuses before taking management positions at the companies.
Officials at the D.C. Public Charter School Board, which oversees the charter schools, acted quickly once they learned of the alleged abuses, providing the information to the attorney general’s office that forms the basis of the lawsuit. The board also started proceedings to revoke the school’s charter while a D.C. Superior Court judge appointed two receivers — one to manage the school and another to manage the two for-profit companies set up by school officials.
Of course, swift action by District authorities, though laudable, is no substitute for the prevention of the kinds of abuses alleged in the suit. To this end, the charter board has established new controls to ensure greater scrutiny of contracts that charters enter. The board also is pursuing tighter policies on contracting and conflicts of interest. And the U.S. attorney’s office is looking into the possibility of criminal liability.
As distressing as the Options affair is, it should not obscure the overwhelmingly positive influence of the District’s public charter school reform over the last 18 years.
Long-term neglect of public education in the nation’s capital led to the passage of D.C.’s charter school law in 1996. The law permitted education reformers to start and run schools that would be fully public. These tuition-free, non-selective public schools, funded by city dollars, are able to choose their own instructional methods, hire and fire teachers as needed, and control their finances — while being held strictly accountable for improved student performance.
By 1996, when the first two charters opened, D.C. Public Schools had lost nearly half of its enrollment. Many schoolhouses lay derelict, or had been sold to become luxury condominiums. Many schools were greatly underenrolled, and some were unsafe. About half the students dropped out before graduating.
Not surprisingly under these circumstances, parents flocked to public charter schools, whose enrollment has now swelled to 44 percent of public school students. District charter schools received 22,000 applications surplus to places last school year. Today, the District’s charters have an average on-time high school graduation rate that is 21 percentage points higher than the average for the D.C. Public Schools system. And at many public charter high schools — including east of the Anacostia River — 100 percent of graduating students are accepted to college.
D.C. charter students also outperform their D.C. Public Schools peers on the city’s standardized math and reading tests in all wards except Ward 3, where there are no charters. Charters’ superior academic performance is particularly pronounced in economically disadvantaged wards 7 and 8, where charter students score on average 19 percentage points higher in reading and 25 points higher in math on standardized tests.
The charter reform’s success was critical in the 2007 decision of the D.C. Council to make the mayor directly accountable for the school system. This led to the appointment of two reforming chancellors — Michelle Rhee and Kaya Henderson. A six-year improvement in D.C. Public Schools student performance followed, although school performance lags behind charters.
In the context of the D.C. charter school success story, the Options affair should be seen for what it is: an aberration. Let’s do everything we can to ensure that it doesn’t happen again, and, while we’re at it, let’s rededicate ourselves to pulling charters from school operators who fail to significantly improve the academic performance of their students. But all the while, let’s remember the public charter reform’s shining record of success— especially among the District’s most disadvantaged students.
Two D.C. Council members oppose Gray's pick for state superintendent of education
The Washington Post
By Emma Brown
December 31, 2013
Two D.C. Council members are opposing Mayor Vincent C. Gray’s nominee for state superintendent of education, arguing that Gray’s pick — former city parks director Jesús Aguirre — lacks the experience and management skills needed for the job.
Aguirre, who has been acting state superintendent since October, will be confirmed automatically in February unless the council takes action. Council members Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) and David Grosso (I-At Large) have asked the chairman of the Education Committee to hold a vote on Aguirre’s nomination so their opposition can be recorded.
“We do not believe that he is best suited for the role,” they wrote in a Dec. 17 letter to David A. Catania (I-At Large).
“Mr. Aguirre failed to properly manage and provide oversight for the charter school he founded in Arizona. More recently he has shown a lack of management skills and an unwillingness to be responsive to Council requests as head of the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation,” they wrote in the letter, first reported by the Washington Informer. “These poor past performances have caused great concern about how he will perform as the new Superintendent.”
Pedro Ribeiro, a spokesman for Gray, said the letter is a political stunt that comes amid a heated 2014 mayoral race. Wells is one of four council members running against Gray in the Democratic primary in April.
“This has nothing to do with a qualified individual being nominated. This has everything to do with politics,” said Ribeiro, praising Aguirre’s record at the Department of Parks and Recreation. “Jesús transformed an agency that was in desperate need.”
The Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) has been wracked by leadership turnover and is widely viewed as being in need of transformation after struggling to find its footing since its inception in 2007.
The agency funnels federal money to schools and has responsibility for a number of citywide education initiatives, including administering standardized tests and providing buses for students with disabilities. While the office has had some notable successes, including winning freedom from court oversight of the bus program, it has also stumbled. In 2013, OSSE came under scrutiny for its method of scoring standardized tests and its handling of a $90,000 no-bid grant awarded to an acquaintance of a senior OSSE official.
“I’m confident in my ability to run this agency, the mayor has confidence in me, and I wouldn’t have taken on this challenge if I wasn’t convinced I’m the right person for it,” Aguirre said.
Aguirre began his career as a teacher in Los Angeles before starting an Arizona charter school in the 1990s with his wife, who also is an educator. The charter school was later closed in part because if its failure to meet federal grant-reporting requirements, a problem Aguirre attributed to focusing too much on academics and too little on business operations.
“We learned a ton, and frankly, I think that is helping my approach to how we’re supporting charter schools here” in the District, he said.
Aguirre came to the District in 2007 as part of the transition team for then-Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee. He was the school system’s director of operations until 2009, when he took over the parks department under then-Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D).
A November hearing on Aguirre’s nomination was filled with supporters who said that he proved himself to be an able administrator at the parks department, managing to open swimming pools and recreation centers on time.
But several council members questioned whether Aguirre would be strong enough to do what is best for the city’s children even when it’s politically inconvenient for the mayor. And Wells, who chaired the council committee that oversaw parks during Aguirre’s tenure, accused him of being unresponsive and failing to innovate.
Aguirre objected to Wells’s characterizations of his leadership. “There are some things where he and I didn’t agree,” Aguirre said. “Just because I didn’t do what he wanted me to do doesn’t mean that I’m not responsive.”
Grosso also has said that Aguirre’s poor leadership of the parks department led to an atmosphere of lax security at recreation facilities, including at Wilson Aquatic Center, where young women alleged that they were sexually assaulted in at least two separate incidents. The alleged attackers were employees who used their keys to gain after-hours access, according to parks officials, who said that the incidents revealed that alarm systems have repeatedly been left unarmed at the city’s indoor pools.
Aguirre has denied that the alleged assaults represent systemic failure, calling them an “aberration, not the norm.”
Two other members of the council’s education committee, Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) and Yvette M. Alexander (D-Ward 7), have expressed strong support for Aguirre. The committee is likely to vote on the nomination at its monthly meeting in late January, according to a spokesman for Catania.
A majority vote by the full council would be required to block Aguirre’s nomination.
D.C. Council Members Challenge Schools Superintendent Nomination
The Washington Times
By Dorothy Rowley
December 27, 2013
Jesús Aguirre is set for confirmation next month as D.C.'s new state schools superintendent, but two City Council members are opposing his nomination, saying he lacks innovation and experience.
David Grosso (I-At Large) and Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) wrote to the chair of the Committee on Education, claiming Aguirre isn't qualified to run the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) and requesting that his nomination not receive "passive" approval.
Aguirre, who had been director of the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation since 2009, has been the acting chief administrator at the OSSE since October, when he was appointed by Mayor Vincent C. Gray. The following month, Gray nominated Aguirre for a four-year term.
Grosso and Wells said they are concerned how Aguirre's limited experience might affect education policy. In their Dec. 17 letter to council member David Catania, the two said that in order to reject the nomination, they wanted a markup of Aguirre's past jobs, including what they describe as a lackluster performance when he headed DPR.
"He has shown a lack of management skills and an unwillingness to be responsive to Council requests as the head of the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation," the letter states. "These poor past performances have caused great concern about how he will perform as the new Superintendent at OSSE. Furthermore, his answers during Council member Grosso's one-on-one meeting and his performance at the nomination hearing have not allayed those concerns."
The letter also took Aguirre to task for his oversight of Tertulia Pre-College Community, a charter school in Phoenix that Aguirre founded.
Despite the opposition from the council, Aguirre's nomination has the backing of the mayor, as well as Council members Marion Barry (Ward 8) and Yvette Alexander (Ward 7).
"Jesús has extensive experience in educational operations and administration and has a true educator's heart, and I think he is a natural choice to direct OSSE's efforts to ensure every child in the District has access to a high-quality public education," Gray said in announcing the appointment.
Aguirre, who launched his career in education more than 20 years ago with Teach for America, served for two years as director of school operations for the District's public schools system before taking the helm at DPR, where he managed a $40 million operating budget.
The Texas native was also highly supported during a hearing in November, where it was suggested that his charter school background serves as an indication that charter schools in the District are poised for "funding equity."
A winning lottery
The Northwest Current, pg. 8
By Davis Kennedy and Chris Kain
December 25, 2013
This year, for the first time, nearly all applications for space at the city’s public and public charter schools for the next school year will be handled via one lottery. The application website, myschooldc.org, was launched last week, allowing parents to list up to 12 desired schools. The deadlines are Feb. 3 for high schools and March 3 for lower grades.
Unfortunately, the new lottery won’t change the fact that there will likely not be enough highly desirable slots to go around. But it will help with the chaotic dance that takes place each year as parents scramble to find satisfactory seats for their children. (Returning students and those planning to enroll in their in-boundary or feeder-pattern school for kindergarten or above are unaffected.)
In the past, each charter school ran its own lottery, and D.C. Public Schools conducted its own, causing both a lot of work for parents and the possibility — and actuality — of some families gaining admission to multiple popular schools and others winning a seat at none.
This year, the system will aim to match as many students with a preferred school as possible.
All things considered, this seems like an improvement. Streamlining the process will reduce headaches for parents and administrators, and hopefully it will mean more students get a spot in a school they’ll be pleased to attend.
We’ve seen some debate online about whether there’s anything to be gained by listing preferences strategically — naming a less-popular school at the top of one’s list, for instance, simply because it’s a more likely “get.” City officials say that’s not the case — that parents should list schools in their true preferred order to achieve the best-matching result — and we believe that’s correct. Nobel Prize-winning economist Alvin Roth created the lottery, with one of his goals being to make it impossible to game the system. But perhaps releasing more details on how the algorithm works would set minds at ease.
It’s unfortunate that 14 of the city’s charter schools are not participating, as parents wishing to include some of those schools on their lists will have to submit separate applications to those programs. But we can understand exercising some caution while the city works out the kinks; we’ll be surprised if the effort proceeds this year without any growing pains.
Four development teams vie to rehabilitate Franklin School in downtown D.C.
The Washington Post
By Jonathan O'Connell
December 29, 2013
The irony of the Franklin School is that although it is one of the District’s more revered and historical buildings, it is also one of the more difficult to return to robust economic use.
Designed by Smithsonian architect Adolph Cluss and built in 1869, the Franklin School was the site of experiments by telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell and became the District’s first high school. It later served as the headquarters of D.C. public schools and as a homeless shelter.
Then-mayor Adrian Fenty closed the shelter in 2008, and the building has sat empty overlooking Franklin Square, spoiled by a leaking roof and infested by rodents.
Estimates for the cost of saving the building and rehabilitating it to modern standards run from around $15 million to more than $30 million. Despite its location at 13th and K streets NW, however, experts say the payoff isn’t likely to be that great. The building is 51,000 square feet, but only 33,000 to 38,000 square feet of that is usable floor space. There is no underground parking.
On top of that, the school is a National Historic Landmark, making any dramatic changes or additions very difficult. It is one of the few buildings in the city with interior features that are protected from undo alterations, including its stairwell, original mural paintings (frescos) and a timber-frame roof truss system.
In 2005, the city leased the building to a group led by developer Herbert S. Miller, but a year later, it opted to retain the homeless shelter. Fenty attempted to re-use the building, but did so during the economic downturn and received only two proposals from developers, later choosing Cana Development on a preliminary basis to turn the property into an extended-stay hotel. The deal failed to progress.
Economic development officials under D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) succeeded in ginning up wide interest for the building this year and narrowed the pool of candidates to four.
Gray and his team are expected to make a choice imminently and announce their selection in January.
The community weighs in
In an industry that sometimes suffers from a herd mentality, the proposals are all remarkably different. Two of the proposals recently won the support of Advisory Neighborhood Commission 2F, which represents that part of downtown. The first, by the Institute for Contemporary Expression and D.C. developer EastBanc, proposes a contemporary art museum and a ground-floor restaurant by famed chef José Andrés.
The other is a 40-room boutique hotel with a rooftop lounge and two or three restaurants by D.C. developer Doug Jemal. Kimpton Hotels and Gemstone Hotels & Resorts have both signed letters of intent offering to operate such a hotel, according to Douglas Development, and other operators including Grupo Habita (a Mexican firm) have expressed interest.
Neither of the community’s favorites is likely to be a blockbuster financially. Backers of the museum concept, led by local art collector and businessman Dani Levinas need to find at least $10 million to $15 million in charitable donations to restore the building. They plan to open the museum five days a week and charge around $10 a ticket for entrance. Philip Kennicott, architecture critic for The Washington Post, wrote that the museum would “offer the city more flexible space for arts events and give local audiences access to the broader arts conversation that can’t be experienced in museums constrained by government overlords.”
‘Not a moneymaker’
Jemal and his son, Norman, want the Franklin School so badly that they have offered to put up a combined $10 million of their own money to turn it into a boutique hotel. Eagle Bank has also offered to back the project with a $15 million to $20 million mortgage, according to Paul Millstein, vice president of Douglas Development.
“We love the building. We want to see it done properly,” Millstein said. “I will tell you unequivocally this is not a moneymaker.”
CoStar Group, the real estate data firm that is headquartered on L Street NW and expanding dramatically, has proposed moving 150 of the firm’s software engineers and data scientists into open office space in Franklin School. After submitting a bid with Abdo Development, Andrew Florance, CoStar chief executive, called the building “one of the city’s most important architectural gems.”
“I could see that some of that highly creative space could turn off a lot of tenants. It’s something that would be far more attractive to a company like us. All of CoStar’s offices globally have an open floor plan,” Florance said in the spring.
In trying to harness the city’s growing technology sector, developer Lowe Enterprises proposed creating the Franklin Digital District, which Lowe and its partners described as “a central node and catalyst for future growth of the innovation economy in the District.” It would combine elements of office space, training, residences and a café.
Whichever team the District government selects, there are plans in the works to rehabilitate Franklin Park into a vibrant urban oasis. It remains to be seen if the old school next door gets treatment to match.
You call this an 'education election?'
The Washington Post
By Jonetta Rose Barras
January 1, 2014
Mayor Vincent C. Gray and other officials were giddy last month when they announced D.C. Public Schools’ test scores. But a closer examination of the 2013 Trial Urban District Assessment exposes troubling weaknesses and disturbing class-based fault lines in the city’s seven-year-old education reform movement.
It’s true that scores for fourth-graders increased by five points in reading and seven in math. Eighth-graders saw their numbers rise by eight points and five points, respectively. Those numbers sound good. Chancellor Kaya Henderson declared herself “super-duper thrilled” and characterized the results as “leapfrogging growth.”
I wish I could celebrate with her. I can’t. There is more to the story — depressingly more.
Scores for D.C. Public Schools (DCPS) actually lagged behind those of other big-city school districts. For example, in 2013, the average reading score for eighth-graders in large cities was 258; for DCPS it was 245; interestingly, in 2002, the D.C. average was 240. In 2013, only 18 percent of DCPS eighth-graders scored at or above proficient in reading.
Anyone who thinks that’s worth a jig may be a practitioner of what former president George W. Bush called “the soft bigotry of low expectations.”
There was a 64-point spread between the reading scores of white DCPS eighth-graders (301) and blacks (237). The achievement gap between the two groups remains one of the widest in the country.
That means African American students in the District scored lower than their counterparts in other cities. For example, only 9 percent of black eighth-graders scored at or above proficient in reading, according to the report. This alarmingly poor performance comes even as the number of African Americans enrolled in DCPS has fallen. In 2007, for example, 88 percent of eighth-graders were African American. In 2013, they constituted only 74 percent of that student population.
The income gap is equally disconcerting. According to the report, low-income eighth-graders in DCPS scored 40 percentage points lower on reading than other students. That’s 17 points wider than in 2002.
Why is a predominantly African American government with an African American chancellor having such difficulty educating African American children, particularly those who are from low-income families?
The District’s education reform movement was expected to assault and eliminate such disparities, which could only perpetuate the economic woes of many communities while increasing social-service spending by the government. Instead, there have been tons of excuses from local officials for their failure, coupled with extensive masking of the truth.
Chuck Thies, the manager for Gray’s reelection campaign, has said that 2014 is an education election. Was he serious or simply trying out political slogans to determine which might better assist his severely tarnished candidate?
Until last year, education reform under Gray (D) was — to use one of his favorite words — moribund. He started to rise to the challenge and responsibility only after the D.C. Council created a separate education committee, headed by David Catania (I-At Large). Catania and council member David Grosso (I-At Large) spent last summer breathing life into the movement through a series of ward-based meetings with parents and education advocates.
But if this is indeed an education election, then we’re all in trouble. Neither Gray nor any of the other candidates vying for the Democratic Party’s mayoral nomination has offered a cogent, innovative or aggressive plan for improving public education.
Andy Shallal actually wants to repeal mayoral control, taking a step back in time. Except for allowing preschool enrollment of children 2 years of age, council member Jack Evans (Ward 2) essentially would stay the course. His colleague Vincent B. Orange (At Large) told me he would provide opportunities from preschool through college — specifically the University of the District of Columbia.
Council member Muriel Bowser (Ward 4) has focused on middle school, introducing legislation that advocates for the proliferation of Ward 3 institutions, in the model of Alice Deal Middle School, in every community. Tommy Wells, who once served on the school board, told me he has a “very clear blueprint” that would, among other things, allow neighborhood preference for charter schools. Mostly, he would replicate what happened in his Ward 6: a resurgence of traditional elementary schools and a push to revive middle schools and Eastern High School.
Ironically, public education is the one area where the mayor has near-absolute control. That’s why this absence of thoughtful or bold plans is surprising. It means the DCPS achievement and income gaps exposed by the Trial Urban District Assessment report likely will grow wider. Every D.C. resident should be troubled by that possibility.
D.C. schools gave 44 teachers mistaken job evaluations
The Washington Post
By Nick Anderson
December 23, 2013
Faulty calculations of the “value” that D.C. teachers added to student achievement in the last school year resulted in erroneous performance evaluations for 44 teachers, including one who was fired because of a low rating, school officials disclosed Monday.
School officials described the errors as the most significant since the system launched a controversial initiative in 2009 to evaluate teachers in part on student test scores.
Half of the evaluations for the 44 teachers were too high and half too low, said Jason Kamras, chief of human capital for D.C. Public Schools.
Those affected are about 1 percent of about 4,000 teachers in the school system. But they comprise nearly 10 percent of the teachers whose work is judged in part on annual city test results for their classrooms.
Kamras said the school system will leave unchanged the ratings that were too high and will raise those that were too low. He said the school system is seeking to reinstate the fired teacher and will compensate the teacher — whose identity was not revealed — for lost salary.
“We will make the teacher completely whole,” he said.
In addition, Kamras said, three teachers whose ratings are being revised upward will shortly receive bonuses of $15,000 each.
The evaluation errors underscore the high stakes of a teacher evaluation system that relies in part on standardized test scores to quantify the value a given teacher adds to the classroom. The evaluation system, known as IMPACT, has drawn widespread attention since it began under former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle A. Rhee. It remains a centerpiece of efforts to raise the performance of long-struggling schools in the nation’s capital — and a flashpoint in the national school-reform debate.
Backers of IMPACT say it is essential to hold ineffective teachers accountable for poor results and reward those who are highly effective. Critics say efforts to distill teaching outcomes to a set of numbers are misguided and unfair.
Elizabeth A. Davis, president of the Washington Teachers’ Union, said the disclosure of mistaken teacher ratings for the 2012-13 school year was disturbing.
“IMPACT needs to be reevaluated,” Davis said. “The idea of attaching test scores to a teacher’s evaluation — that idea needs to be junked.”
Davis sent a letter to D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson demanding more information about the errors and the evaluation system.
Kamras said school officials moved to rectify the errors as soon they learned of them from Mathematica Policy Group, the research firm the city hired to crunch numbers used in the evaluations.
“We take these kind of things extremely seriously,” Kamras said. “Any mistake is unacceptable to us.”
The value-added calculations are complex. The first step is to estimate how a teacher’s students are likely to perform on the citywide D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System, based on past test results and other information. Then the predicted classroom average is compared to the actual classroom average. The difference is what school officials call the value that a teacher adds.
The value-added formula applies to English language arts teachers in grades four through 10 and to math teachers in grades four through eight — about 470 instructors in all. Kamras said the faulty calculations were the result of a coding error by Mathematica.
Under IMPACT, all teachers are evaluated based on classroom observations and other metrics. The value-added formula accounts for 35 percent of the evaluation for teachers in affected grades and subjects.
Teachers are given one of five ratings — ineffective, minimally effective, developing, effective or highly effective. Those rated ineffective are subject to dismissal. The same is true for those rated “minimally effective” two years in a row or “developing” three years in a row.
Kamras said that for the 2012-13 school year, 30 percent of DCPS teachers were rated highly effective, 45 percent effective, 19 percent developing, 5 percent minimally effective and 1 percent ineffective.
Of the 22 teachers whose ratings are being raised, Kamras said, three are moving to the highly effective rating; 12 to effective, six to developing and one to minimally effective. The latter is the teacher who was fired mistakenly.
In October, researchers from the University of Virginia and Stanford University who have examined IMPACT reported that its rewards and punishments were shaping the school system workforce, affecting retention and performance. The study found that two groups of teachers were inspired to improve significantly more than others: those who faced the possibility of being fired and those who were on the cusp of winning a substantial merit raise.
Q&A: Common Core on Education 'Re-set' for African American Students
The Washington Times
By Khalil Abdullah
Ed. Note: Louisiana adopted the Common Core State Standards in 2010, joining 44 other states and the District of Columbia. For BAEO (Black Alliance for Educational Options) President Kenneth Campbell, the move marks a step in the right direction for the state’s African American student population. He says the new standards will help “push the envelope for everybody,” ensuring that schools prepare all students for a world that is “getting more complex.” He spoke with New America Media’s Khalil Abdullah.
What is the conversation you’re hearing within the African American community around Common Core?
We find very few people interested in educating the black community, black families, and black parents about the Common Core. So we’re partnering with schools and states to get the word out because we’re not talking about this in our community. We don’t have enough of these conversations.
The NAEP (National Assessment on Education Progress) report came out a few weeks ago, once again describing the large and persistent achievement gaps for black children. I didn’t see a black publication or a black news program talk about it. I didn’t hear about it on the Tom Joyner Show. We’ve got to get in this game and start talking about education reform in ways that lead to us having an impact on education for our children.
Our kids are at the bottom in every positive educational measurement and at the top in every negative one. Our numbers are bad. Less than 10 percent of black kids nationwide are college-ready according to the ACT 2013 test. It’s not acceptable to keep things as they are. We need transformational change and black people have to be involved in making it.
Louisiana and the Common Core
The Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI) was developed by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. Common Core is designed to put in place uniform K through 12 standards, initially in math and English language arts. Proponents argue those standards, internationally benchmarked, would yield a more realistic assessment of how American students rank against those from other countries as well as preparing them for demands of college and the workforce in the 21st Century. Since Common Core was introduced in 2010, all but five states have chosen to adopt it.
Louisiana adopted the CCSS in 2010. Earlier this month, Louisiana's Board of Elementary and Secondary Education voted to continue with its plans to use PARCC testing, or Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, which are standardized assessments for K-12 math and English that are based on CCSS and currently being developed by a group of 18 states (as well as DC). But Louisiana has also decided to delay some aspects of implementation; for example, high school students will not be required to take PARCC tests in 2015.
What are the advantages for African American students with the Common Core?
One of the things I like about the new standards is that they offer teachers the flexibility to incorporate these kinds of broader curriculums into their lesson plans ... I’m always pleased when I walk into a school and they’re talking about the history of people of African descent. But even for the schools that do, you rarely hear about the kings and queens of Africa or African civilizations. Yes, you hear about Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X, and that’s well and good, but there’s a whole history well in advance that’s typically absent in education.
For full article, see link above.