- New Count Could Cut High School Graduation Rates 20 Percent
- OSSE Narrows Probe of Suspect Test Erasures
- Obama: 10 States to Receive No Child Left Behind Waivers
- D.C. Targets Kids Who Skip Class [Paul PCS is mentioned]
- D.C. Buys “Don’t Skip School” Ad Campaign
- Former Fenty Official to Bridge DCPS, Charter School Sports
- Where Are the DCPS Enrollment Figures of Yesteryear?
- 35 D.C. Classrooms Investigated for Possible Cheating
- Kline Releases Final Bill to Replace No Child Left Behind
- Education Gap Grows Between Rich and Poor, Studies Say
The Washington Post
By Bill Turque
February 9, 2012
High school graduation rates in the District, long thought to be inflated by generous counting methods, will be adjusted downward by about 20 percent under a new, more accurate formula, officials at the Office of the State Superintendent of Education confirmed this week.
It means that the 2010 completion rate of 73 percent — just under the national average — will be closer to fifty percent when the 2011 data are released within the next few days. A study last year by Education Week placed the city’s 2008 graduation rate at 43 percent.
States and school districts have been historically slipshod about counting who finishes. Under the old formula, OSSE divided the number of graduating seniors by that number plus the sum of those who left in each of the preceding four years. But the U.S. Department of Education now requires the “adjusted cohort” method, which will use improved data collection methods to track every individual student from ninth to 12th grade, accounting for factors such as transfers and years repeated.
The expected 20 percent drop was first reported by WAMU.
The Washington Post
By Bill Turque
February 9, 2012
OSSE has winnowed from 128 to 35 the number of classrooms that it will ask an independent contractor to investigate for possible cheating on the 2011 DC CAS, the agency announced Thursday.
The 128 classrooms, spread across 54 public and public charter schools, represent less than three percent of classrooms citywide in which tests were administered last April. They were identified in a study last July by CTB/McGraw-Hill, publisher of the DC CAS, as having “inordinate numbers” of wrong-to-right erasures on answer sheets. The study, which wasn’t made public by OSSE until late December, said the data “may indicate inappropriate intervention on students’ answer documents by an educator.”
But in a statement, OSSE said only 35 classrooms met the expanded set of criteria the agency is now applying to determine whether a classroom’s test results should be fully investigated. These are: unusual test score gains by individual students from 2010 to 2011; wide variances or unusual patterns of scores within a classroom, and prior year’s test results that showed inordinate wrong-to-right erasures in that teacher’s classroom. OSSE said it consulted with an independent advisory committee of testing experts to develop the criteria.
“Erasures themselves are not an automatic flag,” said OSSE spokesman Marc Caposino.
The CTB/McGraw-Hill analysis of 2011 scores also cautioned against using elevated erasures as the sole criterion for investigation:
“We emphasize that the results from this study may be used in conjunction with other information to investigate whether inappropriate interventions may have taken place. Inordinate WTR [wrong-to-right] answer change rates, by themselves, may simply be coincidental and do not necessarily indicate inappropriate behavior,” the study said.
OSSE has been taking bids for an independent contractor, or “test integrity vendor,” and will recommend a firm to city contracting officials early next week. The agency declined in December to name any of the 54 schools involved. Caposino declined again on Thursday to name the schools, saying the agency would not until the investigation was complete.
Last year, OSSE investigated just 18 of the 110 classrooms flagged for elevated erasures on the 2010 DC CAS. Based on the work of Caveon, a test security firm hired by DCPS, D.C. State Superintendent Hosanna Mahaley invalidated test scores last May in three classrooms (at Noyes, C.W. Harris and Leckie elementary schools). Two DCPS teachers were dismissed.
Caveon founder John Fremer said that Henderson never asked the company to use all the forensic tools at its disposal, some of which seem to be covered by OSSE’s expanded criteria. It is not known whether Caveon is bidding on the OSSE contract.
A USA Today investigation published last March found that classrooms in more than 100 D.C. public schools showed higher-than-average rates of erasures from wrong to right answers on the annual tests between 2006 and 2010 (It did not include public charter schools in its analysis). Henderson asked D.C. Inspector General Charles Willoughby to investigate the newspaper’s findings. His office is reportedly receiving assistance from the U.S. Department of Education.
Post columnist Robert McCartney excoriated District officials Thursday for the slow pace and limited scope of inquiries.
The Washington Post
By Lyndsey Layton
February 9, 2012
The Obama administration is freeing 10 states from the requirements of No Child Left Behind, responding to complaints from teachers and school administrators across the country that the nation’s main education law is outdated and punitive.
“We’ve offered every state the same deal,” President Obama told educators gathered at the White House on Thursday. “We’ve said: ‘If you’re willing to set higher, more honest standards than the ones that were set by No Child Left Behind, then we’re going to give you the flexibility to meet those standards. We want high standards, and we’ll give you flexibility in return.’ We combine greater freedom with greater accountability. Because what might work in Minnesota may not work in Kentucky, but every student should have the same opportunity to reach their potential.”
Obama said he was awarding waivers because Congress had failed to revamp the 10-year-old law, despite broad, bipartisan agreement on Capitol Hill that it is in need of an overhaul.
The waivers will free the states from some of the law’s toughest requirements, including that schools prepare every student to be proficient in math and reading by 2014 or risk escalating sanctions.
In exchange for relief, the administration is requiring a quid pro quo: States must adopt changes that include meaningful teacher and principal evaluation systems, make sure all students are ready for college or careers, upgrade academic standards and lift up their lowest-performing schools. Historically, the federal government has left such decisions to states and local communities.
Lawmakers have been trying to rewrite the law for five years, but they have been unable to come to consensus on the appropriate role of the federal government in local education. A Senate committee approved a bill last year with bipartisan backing, but in the House, Republicans and Democrats are divided.
On Thursday, Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, accused Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Obama of usurping the role of Congress. Kline released the final bills in a series of five proposals to replace No Child Left Behind. Only one, aimed at expanding charter schools, has attracted Democratic support.
“Rather than work with us to get it changed, he [Duncan] and the president decided to issue waivers in exchange for states adopting policies that he wants them to have,” Kline told a gathering at the American Enterprise Institute. “. . . This notion that Congress is sort of an impediment to be bypassed, I find very, very troubling in many, many ways.”
Still, several Republican governors celebrated Thursday’s announcement.
“This is not about Democrats or Republicans,” said Gov. Chris Christie (R) of New Jersey, which received a waiver. “It’s about pursuing an agenda in the best interest of our children whose educational needs are not being met and those who are getting a decent education but deserve a great one.”
Joining New Jersey are Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma and Tennessee. New Mexico was the only state to apply and not receive a waiver, and Duncan said the state was continuing to work on its application and approval is likely to be forthcoming.
Florida, Georgia and Oklahoma need action by their state legislatures or boards of education, Duncan said, or their waivers will be revoked.
An additional 28 states, including Virginia and Maryland, as well as the District of Columbia, have indicated that they intend to apply this month for a second round of waivers.
After states applied for waivers, their plans were read by peer reviewers, and the administration suggested changes.
“There’s a huge gap between what the states asked for and what they ended up with,” said Michael J. Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative think tank. “The states asked for a mile, and the administration is giving them an inch.”
But some said the administration might be giving too much leeway. Amy Wilkins of the Education Trust, an advocacy group that seeks to close the achievement gap, said she is concerned that plans submitted by Indiana and Oklahoma don’t do enough to hold schools accountable for educating Latino, African American and other minority children.
When Congress passed No Child Left Behind in 2001, it was a bipartisan effort to hold schools accountable to parents and taxpayers and a federal commitment to attack student achievement gaps.
For the first time, the law required schools to test all children annually in grades 3 through 8 and at least once in high school and report results by subgroups — including race, English learners and students with disabilities — so it was clear how every student was faring.
But administrators and teachers complained that the law unfairly labeled schools as “failures” if just one subgroup failed to meet annual goals and that it focused too much attention a single high-stakes test as opposed to student academic growth over the school year.
According to the Center on Education Policy, 48 percent of the nation’s schools were “failures” last year under No Child Left Behind.
States that receive waivers will still test students annually, but in September, their schools will no longer face the punitive measures outlined in No Child Left Behind, such as firing half a school’s staff members, removing the principal or even shutting down a school altogether.
D.C. Targets Kids Who Skip Class [Paul PCS is mentioned]
The Washington Examiner
By Lisa Gartner
February 9, 2012
The District began an initiative Thursday to clamp down on the 20 percent of District students who are "chronically truant," skipping class at least 15 times each year.
An advertising campaign -- dubbed "The More You Learn, The More You Earn" -- features students from D.C. Public Schools' Anacostia, Ballou and Cardozo senior high schools, as well as Paul Public Charter School, sharing how they stopped missing class and shored up failing grades.
D.C. officials have been struggling to stem truancy for years, noting that other school reforms can't be effective if kids don't show up to class. Most recently, a task force of six D.C. government agencies began tracking 120 high school freshmen who were on the verge of becoming "chronic truants," in an attempt to figure out, then curb, their motivations for cutting school. So far, no reports have come since the May kickoff.
While targeted at middle and high school students and parents, the ad campaign seems to reflect a more external approach to engage the community as truancy watchdogs. Ads will run on the radio and on Metro transit, with posters and educational materials distributed to schools and libraries, as well as local businesses and nonprofits.
Mayor Vincent Gray said the spots will "start a much-needed conversation about truancy and school attendance around the dinner table, in houses of worship, at the barbershop and in other places in our community."
Officials estimate that one of every five District students is chronically truant. DCPS refers students to D.C. Superior Court after 25 unexcused absences.
Jeff Smith, executive director of the nonprofit DC Voice, told the D.C. Council last week that some students are late or absent from class because they don't feel safe walking to school.
"Sometimes we don't feel comfortable parking our own cars, or going with our own families, to these areas, and we're sending young people, very young people, into gang-infested territories, drug-infested territories, places where people are advertising and soliciting," Smith said.
The Washington City Paper
By Shani Hilton
February 9, 2012
Today Mayor Vince Gray will be introducing a new anti-truancy ad campaign alongside Deputy Mayor for Education De'Shawn Wright.
The District has long had an issue with truancy, Wright told me yesterday. "We think part of the issue is that parents and kids don’t understand the linkage between a day’s absence and how much learning is lost," he says. The campaign—which included a back to school campaign in the fall—will cost between $500,000 and $700,000 "spread across several agencies."
There will be radio ads targeting parents on stations like Majic 102.3 and Praise 104.1, and banner ads on buses and bus shelters for teenagers (one slogan:"The more you learn, the more you earn"). The greatest challenge, Wright says, is reaching ninth graders, a group whose school attendance tends to predict future success.
But as we noted a couple of days ago, there are predictors that are helping researchers find potential dropouts as early as the third grade. An ad campaign is certainly a well-meaning effort, but it's hard to believe that ninth graders will all of a sudden be moved to stop cutting class because an ad says they should. I asked Wright whether there would be metrics for measuring the success of the campaign; half a million bucks is a lot of money, after all.
He says that while the message is intended to help create a "schoolgoing culture" citywide, they'll be targeting three truancy-heavy high schools in particular: Cardozo, Ballou, and Anacostia. Students at those schools will be asked to sign an attendance pledge, and there are plans to measure student response and attendance over the course of the school year.
The Washington Examiner
By Lisa Gartner
February 9, 2021
Former parks director and gay rights activist Clark Ray has been named the first district-wide athletic director, in a bid to unite D.C. Public Schools and charter schools on the playing field.
A spokesman for the Office of the State Superintendent for Education, which will house the bridged program, confirmed Ray's appointment (which The Washington Blade first reported). We'll speak with Ray shortly about his plans for school sports.
In the meantime, however, a cursory backround check: Ray was the director of the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation under former Mayor Adrian Fenty, but was abruptly fired in 2009. (Ironically, his replacement was a DCPS employee with no parks experience.)
From an Examiner report at the time:
The mayor would not get into specifics on Ray's firing, except to say that "sometimes you need a new set of eyes." He also would not say whether the removal was tied to a lawsuit filed by a former Ray deputy who alleges he was dismissed for questioning why Fenty's 9-year-old twin boys were playing in an 8-and-under basketball league.
Ray also ran (unsuccessfully) in 2010 for the at-large D.C. Council seat retained by incumbent Phil Mendelson. He worked as Tipper Gore's chief of staff during the 2000 presidential campaign, and she returned the favor by supporting him at at least one fundraiser during his council bid.
Mayor Vincent Gray announced the districtwide AD position a couple months ago, explaining that it would enable charter schools — which enroll 40 percent of the city's public school students — to compete alongside DCPS in events like the Turkey Bowl.
The new position is also likely to make charter school sports run a little more smoothly. Under the current system, charter schools must apply for a sanction to play any team outside the D.C. Public Charter School Board’s purview.
That has become an issue, charter leaders say, when teams are set to play in an out-of-state tournament but DCPS’ computers go down — or DCPS loses the papers — and the team can’t play.
The Washington Examiner
By Lisa Gartner
February 9, 2012
Last year, D.C. Public Schools celebrated its first enrollment increase since we first landed on the moon.
It was a big to-do. "This historic reversal in enrollment proves that our hard work over the past three years has created quality schools that appeal to families and set a foundation for future growth," then-Mayor Adrian Fenty said when the rough count came out in November 2010.
An audited report released last March showed that enrollment had, in fact, increased by 913 students to a head-count of 45,631. In the past, fewer parents had been signing up their kids for seats in the troubled school system, but this, officials said, marked a turnaround.
Suffice it to say, this year's enrollment count is just as important. Last fall, the Office of the State Superintendent for Education estimated that 46,191 students had enrolled in DCPS this year, which would signal a second year of growth, and add fuel to last year's claim that more parents have faith in the city's schools after reforms instituted by former Chancellor Michelle Rhee.
But the audited, official count is typically lower than the inital count. In fact, when DCPS had its historic enrollment increase last school year, the number it originally projected in the fall was higher than this fall's estimate of 45,631, signifying that a decrease is just as likely as an increase.
Last fall, OSSE promised the audited results in January. Talking with staff last month, The Examiner learned that a Jan. 30 release date was planned. That came and went.
We were told OSSE was waiting for Mayor Vincent Gray to be briefed, and that he was briefed, last Thursday. Still no release.
However, the mayor's State of the District address was Tuesday evening. If DCPS has continued to grow, it's sane to surmise the mayor would have touted that success.
What he said, though, was: "The fact is, more and more parents are finding good reason to have confidence in District schools. And for the first time in decades, enrollment in D.C. Public Schools is stabilizing."
After talking with the mayor's office and OSSE, The Examiner learned that the enrollment figures — with school-by-school breakdowns — were to be released Thursday. However, late Wednesday night, the release was postponed.
A spokesman for OSSE said, "We are preparing an electronic format for the first time so that it is user friendly for researchers for the first time, which has taken longer than expected."
So, expect enrollment figures any day now. If they're good, a release early next week or even later this afternoon is possible. If they're bad, watch out for a Friday afternoon news dump. Either way, The Examiner will keep you posted.
The Washington Examiner
By Lisa Gartner
February 9, 2012
Thirty-five District classrooms are being investigated for possible cheating on last spring's standardized tests, nearly double the number of classes investigated in 2010, school officials said Thursday.
The Office of the State Superintendent for Education quietly concluded its analysis of anomalies on the 2011 D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System by recommending that nearly three dozen classrooms -- less than 1 percent of the 4,279 classrooms tested -- be further investigated by an independent firm that OSSE is expected to choose Monday.
A spokesman for OSSE declined to comment on which classrooms were being investigated and why. But school officials picked them after zeroing in on unusual gains in student test scores from 2010 to 2011, and abnormal numbers of wrong answers that were erased and corrected.
Test score gains account for up to 50 percent of D.C. Public Schools' teachers' evaluations, which some observers say creates pressure that could make doctoring students' exams seem tempting.
D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson told The Washington Examiner last summer that one teacher already had been fired for a "testing impropriety" in 2011.
"The call for total transparency and accuracy demanded that we take the time to bring in an independent agency to put to rest any amount of suspicion regarding our students' performance," Superintendent Hosanna Mahaley said late Thursday afternoon.
Of the 18 classrooms investigated last year, three had their scores tossed out for suspected or confirmed cheating. Those classrooms were at Noyes Education Campus, C.W. Harris Elementary and Leckie Elementary.
Teacher evaluations that rely on student test scores -- thus tying student performance to an adult's job security and pay grade -- have received increased attention this past year as cheating scandals have erupted nationwide.
In Atlanta, at least 178 teachers and principals at 44 public schools corrected students' tests to increase their scores, going so far as to hold "cheating parties" to cook the books together, according a state report in July.
A USA Today investigation cast doubt on dramatic testing gains made in some D.C. schools under former Chancellor Michelle Rhee. On the 2009 reading exam at Noyes, seventh-grade students in one classroom averaged 12.7 wrong-to-right erasures -- odds better than winning the Powerball.
Chuck Thies, a local political analyst and charter-school parent, said he hoped the increasing number of classrooms being investigated showed that school officials were cracking down on cheating -- not that more teachers were daring to cheat.
"Imagine if you knew you were being hyperscrutinized, that the eyes of the country were on you to see if you were cooking the books," Thies said. "The hubris of a teacher that would then engage in cheating. ... It's audacious and absolutely idiotic."
The Washington Times
By Ben Wolfgang
February 9, 2012
The Republican chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on Thursday released the final two pieces of his reform agenda, designed to replace the widely criticized and decade-old No Child Left Behind federal education law.
Rep. John Kline of Minnesota said he remains optimistic that, even in a highly partisan presidential election year, the measures can pass both the House and Senate.
“As a matter of principle, after 40 years of failure by the federal government, I believe decisions about education should by and large be made at the state and local level,” Mr. Kline said in a speech at the American Enterprise Institute.
Mr. Kline’s “Student Success Act” would eliminate the maligned “adequate yearly progress” (AYP) threshold instituted under NCLB, and replace it with state-designed accountability systems that must be implemented within two years of the act becoming law. It would also allow states to develop computer-adaptive assessments instead of the traditional pencil-and-paper exams used for the past decade.
Partly due to the objections of Democrats, the bill would restore an administrative cap to federal Title 1 money, meant to aid the most disadvantaged students. Rep. George Miller, California Democrat and his party’s ranking member on the Education and the Workforce Committee, had previously threatened “trench warfare” between the two sides if Title 1 dollars were allowed to be used for other purposes. The adjustment is intended to attract bipartisan support for the Republican plan, but committee Democrats remain opposed to it.
Mr. Kline’s “Encouraging Innovation and Effective Teachers Act” would eliminate the “highly qualified teacher” designation under No Child Left Behind, which many argue places gives too much weight to a teacher’s degrees and certifications, rather than his actual performance in the classroom.
The bill calls on states to develop their own teacher evaluation systems, which must include assessments of instructors’ classroom leadership and their students’ academic achievement, within three years.
Only one of Mr. Kline’s five bills, a measure promoting and providing start-up money for charter schools, has cleared the full House. The other two bills, one dealing with funding flexibility and the other eliminating dozens of duplicative federal programs, have passed the Education Committee and are awaiting votes on the House floor.
The New York Times
By Sabrina Tavernise
February 9, 2012
Education was historically considered a great equalizer in American society, capable of lifting less advantaged children and improving their chances for success as adults. But a body of recently published scholarship suggests that the achievement gap between rich and poor children is widening, a development that threatens to dilute education’s leveling effects.
It is a well-known fact that children from affluent families tend to do better in school. Yet the income divide has received far less attention from policy makers and government officials than gaps in student accomplishment by race.
Now, in analyses of long-term data published in recent months, researchers are finding that while the achievement gap between white and black students has narrowed significantly over the past few decades, the gap between rich and poor students has grown substantially during the same period.
“We have moved from a society in the 1950s and 1960s, in which race was more consequential than family income, to one today in which family income appears more determinative of educational success than race,” said Sean F. Reardon, a Stanford University sociologist. Professor Reardon is the author of a study that found that the gap in standardized test scores between affluent and low-income students had grown by about 40 percent since the 1960s, and is now double the testing gap between blacks and whites.
In another study, by researchers from the University of Michigan, the imbalance between rich and poor children in college completion — the single most important predictor of success in the work force — has grown by about 50 percent since the late 1980s.
The changes are tectonic, a result of social and economic processes unfolding over many decades. The data from most of these studies end in 2007 and 2008, before the recession’s full impact was felt. Researchers said that based on experiences during past recessions, the recent downturn was likely to have aggravated the trend.
“With income declines more severe in the lower brackets, there’s a good chance the recession may have widened the gap,” Professor Reardon said. In the study he led, researchers analyzed 12 sets of standardized test scores starting in 1960 and ending in 2007. He compared children from families in the 90th percentile of income — the equivalent of around $160,000 in 2008, when the study was conducted — and children from the 10th percentile, $17,500 in 2008. By the end of that period, the achievement gap by income had grown by 40 percent, he said, while the gap between white and black students, regardless of income, had shrunk substantially.
Both studies were first published last fall in a book of research, “Whither Opportunity?” compiled by the Russell Sage Foundation, a research center for social sciences, and the Spencer Foundation, which focuses on education. Their conclusions, while familiar to a small core of social sciences scholars, are now catching the attention of a broader audience, in part because income inequality has been a central theme this election season.
The connection between income inequality among parents and the social mobility of their children has been a focus of President Obama as well as some of the Republican presidential candidates.
One reason for the growing gap in achievement, researchers say, could be that wealthy parents invest more time and money than ever before in their children (in weekend sports, ballet, music lessons, math tutors, and in overall involvement in their children’s schools), while lower-income families, which are now more likely than ever to be headed by a single parent, are increasingly stretched for time and resources. This has been particularly true as more parents try to position their children for college, which has become ever more essential for success in today’s economy.
A study by Sabino Kornrich, a researcher at the Center for Advanced Studies at the Juan March Institute in Madrid, and Frank F. Furstenberg, scheduled to appear in the journal Demography this year, found that in 1972, Americans at the upper end of the income spectrum were spending five times as much per child as low-income families. By 2007 that gap had grown to nine to one; spending by upper-income families more than doubled, while spending by low-income families grew by 20 percent.
“The pattern of privileged families today is intensive cultivation,” said Dr. Furstenberg, a professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania.
The gap is also growing in college. The University of Michigan study, by Susan M. Dynarski and Martha J. Bailey, looked at two generations of students, those born from 1961 to 1964 and those born from 1979 to 1982. By 1989, about one-third of the high-income students in the first generation had finished college; by 2007, more than half of the second generation had done so. By contrast, only 9 percent of the low-income students in the second generation had completed college by 2007, up only slightly from a 5 percent college completion rate by the first generation in 1989.
James J. Heckman, an economist at the University of Chicago, argues that parenting matters as much as, if not more than, income in forming a child’s cognitive ability and personality, particularly in the years before children start school.
“Early life conditions and how children are stimulated play a very important role,” he said. “The danger is we will revert back to the mindset of the war on poverty, when poverty was just a matter of income, and giving families more would improve the prospects of their children. If people conclude that, it’s a mistake.”
Meredith Phillips, an associate professor of public policy and sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles, used survey data to show that affluent children spend 1,300 more hours than low-income children before age 6 in places other than their homes, their day care centers, or schools (anywhere from museums to shopping malls). By the time high-income children start school, they have spent about 400 hours more than poor children in literacy activities, she found.
Charles Murray, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute whose book, “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010,” was published Jan. 31, described income inequality as “more of a symptom than a cause.”
The growing gap between the better educated and the less educated, he argued, has formed a kind of cultural divide that has its roots in natural social forces, like the tendency of educated people to marry other educated people, as well as in the social policies of the 1960s, like welfare and other government programs, which he contended provided incentives for staying single.
“When the economy recovers, you’ll still see all these problems persisting for reasons that have nothing to do with money and everything to do with culture,” he said.
There are no easy answers, in part because the problem is so complex, said Douglas J. Besharov, a fellow at the Atlantic Council. Blaming the problem on the richest of the rich ignores an equally important driver, he said: two-earner household wealth, which has lifted the upper middle class ever further from less educated Americans, who tend to be single parents.
The problem is a puzzle, he said. “No one has the slightest idea what will work. The cupboard is bare.”
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