- Many Public Schools in D.C.’s Poorest Area Should be Transformed or Shut, Study Says; More Charters Recommended [Achievement Prep, Friendship, Center City, and Imagine Southeast PCS are mentioned]
- The Illinois Facility Fund Report [FOCUS is mentioned]
- A Few Interesting Statistics About D.C. Students
- Schools to Serve More-Nutritious Meals Under New Guidelines
Many Public Schools in D.C.’s Poorest Area Should be Transformed or Shut, Study Says; More Charters Recommended [Achievement Prep, Friendship, Center City, and Imagine Southeast PCS are mentioned]
The Washington Post
By Bill Turque
January 26, 2012
A new study commissioned by D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray recommends that the city turn around or close more than three dozen traditional public schools in its poorest neighborhoods and expand the number of high-performing charter schools.
The findings of the study by the Chicago-based IFF, to be made public Thursday, are likely to rekindle impassioned debate about possible school closures and the future of public education in the District. The study also signals the start of an unprecedented attempt to coordinate decision making between two school sectors that have operated independently and at times competed for funding and other resources.
More than 40 percent of the city’s 78,000 public students attend publicly funded, independently operated charter schools, the largest concentration in the nation outside of New Orleans. At current rates of growth, a majority of the city’s public enrollment could be in charters within three to four years.
Some advocates of traditional public schools have raised questions about possible bias in the study. IFF, which provides financial support and real estate consulting to nonprofit organizations, has made more than $57 million in loans to charter schools, according to information it provided the District. The study was underwritten by a $100,000 grant from the Walton Family Foundation, one of the nation’s leading benefactors of charter schools. Walton is also a major private donor to D.C. Public Schools. Company officials have said that their work looks at both school sectors objectively.
The study could also eventually serve as the basis for another major round of traditional public school closures, a politically and emotionally bruising process last undertaken by then-Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee during Mayor Adrian M. Fenty’s administration. Although traditional public school enrollment has leveled off at about 46,000 after decades of decline, the system still has an excess of capacity. More than 40 schools have 300 or fewer students, many of them struggling academically.
City officials said that decisions about any major restructuring will not be made for at least a year and only after close consultation with affected communities.
Gray (D) said Wednesday that there is no basis for concerns that he will hand the city school system over to charter schools, especially given the hundreds of millions of dollars the District has invested in renovating and rebuilding traditional school campuses.
“It’s ludicrous,” he said. “I believe very strongly in both sectors, and I’m looking for the best education solutions.”
De’Shawn Wright, the deputy mayor for education, said the plan is to meet with Chancellor Kaya Henderson, who heads the school system, and charter school leaders to map out a scenario for meeting the needs of underserved neighborhoods.
The report is organized as a supply-and-demand analysis that divided the city into 39 groups of neighborhoods.
Using a formula based on standardized test score trends and projections to 2016, it separated eligible public schools into quartiles, or four performance tiers. Schools without adequate test data were excluded from the study.
In schools designated Tier 1, anywhere from 60 to 100 percent of students tested at or above grade level and showed the steepest improvement curves.
Researchers then looked at student populations in each neighborhood cluster to determine which communities had the largest shortage of seats in top-tier schools.
The biggest shortage — about 27,000 seats — is concentrated within 10 neighborhood clusters, most of them south and east of the Anacostia River in wards 7 and 8 and others cutting across portions of wards 1 and 5 in Northeast and Northwest Washington. More than half of the shortfall is for kindergarten through fifth grade.
The bulk of IFF’s findings are not new, but they place in bolder relief than ever the dearth of good schools in the city’s poorest neighborhoods. Of the 45 schools assessed by IFF as Tier 1, just six are in wards 7 and 8. All are public charter schools. Of the 39 schools in Tier 4 — the lowest rating — 22 are in wards 7 and 8. Eighteen are traditional public schools; four are public charters.
Among the areas identified by IFF as having the greatest need is the group of Ward 8 neighborhoods that includes Congress Heights, Bellevue, Washington Highlands and Bolling Air Force Base. Only two of the 14 schools studied in those neighborhoods are in Tier 1, and they are both charters: Achievement Prep and Friendship Tech Prep. The firm recommended attempting to turn around or close all four traditional public schools in Tier 4 — Simon, Patterson, Terrell-McGogney and Ferebee-Hope elementary — and closing two bottom-rung charter schools, Center City Congress Heights (pre-K to 8) and Imagine Southeast (pre-K to 5). It also suggested investing more resources into improving a Tier 2 charter, Friendship Southeast elementary.
The report says that any closures of traditional public schools should be offset by new charters or building new traditional schools.
Most of the other surveys of the 10 critical neighborhood clusters follow the pattern. In all, 38 traditional public schools and three charter schools were recommended for turnaround or closure.
In the report, IFF urges the city to consider expanding the footprint of charter schools in the 10 targeted neighborhood clusters. It calls for the D.C. Public Charter School Board to authorize about 6,500 new charter seats (current enrollment is about 32,000). It also recommends that the board “actively recruit the highest performing charter school operators and ask them to replicate their performing school model” in the top 10 clusters, using former public school buildings as incentives.
It’s virtually certain that city officials will tinker with IFF’s recommendations. The report lists for turnaround or possible closure, for example, schools that have received tens of millions of dollars in capital investment, including the new H.D. Woodson High School in Ward 7.
Wright said the IFF study would be just the beginning of a lengthy review requiring “lifting the hood” over each underserved area for a close look at its needs.
“This is complicated work,” he said, “and it’s got to be done on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis.”
The Illinois Facility Fund Report [FOCUS is mentioned]
Examiner
By Mark Lerner
January 26, 2012
Today, the long awaited report on charter and DCPS facilities conducted by the Illinois Facility Fund is being released to the public. I, like others, received an advanced copy, and my first reaction is that the Walton Foundation did not get a lot for the $100,000 in seed money for the study.
The paper reinforces the American Enterprise Institute examination of education patterns in the nation's capital. The main finding was that although there is much school choice in the District there are a shortage of high quality seats.
The IFF came to the same conclusion. It turns out that many communities lack top Tier schools and this is important since most families attend institutions near where they live. So what is the PCSB and FOCUS supposed to do with this information?
The IFF recommends supporting Tier 1 schools, pushing Tier 2 schools to improve to Tier 1 and closing those that are on the bottom. Apparently, the group believes that charters can replicate or grow to meet the needs of specific communities.
But in a City that finds millions of extra dollars and then blindly hands them over to DCPS, that makes it almost impossible to get access to closed DCPS buildings, and funds charters at a rate 40 percent less than the traditional schools, I'm not going to hold my breath for these changes to occur in my life time. I think it would have been much more helpful for the IFF to tell us how to bring about this transformation through specific public policy decisions.
The Washington Post
By Staff
January 26, 2012
Statistical data from the new D.C. school study
The new IFF study of school location and performance in the District is the most detailed look at the city’s public schools in several years. Some key points:
67 percent : Proportion of children in traditional public schools living in households with income at or below 185 percent of U.S. poverty guidelines.
75 percent : Proportion of public charter school children living at or below 185 percent of poverty.
67 percent : African American enrollment in traditional public schools.
87 percent : African American enrollment in public charter schools.
2045 : The year 75 percent of D.C. students will test at grade level in math if trends hold.
2075 : The year 75 percent of D.C. students will reach grade level in reading if trends hold.
The Washington Post
By Dina ElBoghdady
January 25, 2012
School cafeterias will be serving more-nutritious meals with twice as many fruits and vegetables, more whole grains and less sodium and fat under new guidelines that will revamp the federally backed school meals program for the first time in 15 years.
The meals will continue to include pizza and french fries because Congress, after heavy lobbying from the food industry, derailed the Obama administration’s original plan to limit tomato paste and starchy vegetables such as potatoes.
Even so, consumer groups hailed the changes as a major improvement over the current standards, echoing remarks by first lady Michelle Obama when she unveiled the new nutrition rules Wednesday at Parklawn Elementary School in the Alexandria section of Fairfax County.
“When we send our kids to school, we expect that they won’t be eating the kind of fatty, salty, sugary foods that we try to keep them from eating at home,” said Obama, who has championed efforts to combat childhood obesity.
Under the guidelines, which cover breakfast and lunch, schools that participate in the federal program must offer a mix of fruits and vegetables daily and offer double as much as currently required. In return, the schools get a federal subsidy on the cost of the food.
Schools also must offer only fat-free and low-fat milk, limit calories based on the age group served, gradually lower the amount of sodium in meals, and stop serving foods or ingredients that have trans fat.
As the Agriculture Department was crafting the final guidelines, opponents raised concerns about the program’s estimated $6.8 billion price tag over the next five years and the financial burdens it would place on school districts.
In response, the administration slashed the cost to $3.2 billion. It did so by abandoning plans to have schools offer meat or meat alternatives for breakfast. The administration also decided to phase in the standards over three years for the breakfast program, which should reap additional savings. The rules will kick in for school lunches next school year.
The program’s costs also will be offset by a number of revenue-raising measures, USDA officials said. For instance, schools that meet the new standards will get an additional 6-cent increase in lunch reimbursements — the first increase in 30 years.
“The only disappointment is that Congress did not allow USDA to limit french fries and that they were forced to continue to count pizza as a vegetable,” said Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. “But at least that pizza will be lower in sodium and have a whole grain crust and be served with an additional vegetable on the side.”
The USDA had initially proposed a one-cup-per-week limit on the amount of white potatoes and other starchy vegetables served to schoolchildren.
The proposal also would have nixed the favorable treatment of tomato paste. Currently, one-eighth of a cup of tomato paste is credited with as much nutritional value as a half-cup of vegetables and thus counts as one vegetable serving. In effect, that enables food makers to market a slice of pizza as a vegetable. The USDA wanted to bring tomato paste in line with the standards granted to fruit pastes and purees, such as applesauce.
With a strong push from potato growers and some food manufacturers, a group of Senate and House lawmakers agreed to scrap the USDA’s tomato and potato proposal when negotiating an agriculture spending bill.
But Kevin Concannon, a USDA official, said he’s not concerned that these elements are missing from the final package. “What is really important is that for the first time we’re recommending minimum amounts of all the food groups,” said Concannon, USDA’s undersecretary for food, nutrition and consumer services.
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