NEWS
- Charter school signs 10-year lease at Old Soldiers’ Home in D.C. [Creative Minds PCS mentioned]
- Don’t close Dorothy Height charter schools [Dorothy I. Height Community Academy PCS mentioned]
- Starting to feel that education reform has run out of steam in Washington, D.C. [FOCUS mentioned]
- Cheh challenges legality of Henderson’s minority male school initiative
- Any rewrite of No Child Left Behind should keep annual testing provisions
Charter school signs 10-year lease at Old Soldiers’ Home in D.C. [Creative Minds PCS mentioned]
The Washington Post
By Michael Alison Chandler
February 9, 2015
Creative Minds International Public Charter School has signed a 10-year lease on a historic building surrounded by green space at the Armed Forces Retirement Home.
School officials hosted a “lease-signing ceremony” Monday afternoon at the site, also know as the Old Soldiers’ Home. Starting next fall, the charter school plans to open doors to 250 students in the Sherman building, a former dormitory used more recently as art studio space for residents.
Finding adequate facilities with outdoor space is a steep challenge for the city’s charter schools. In a statement, Golnar Abedin, the school’s founder, said the school community is “grateful for this wonderful opportunity.”
The history of the retirement home dates back to the mid-19th century, when Congress established an “asylum for old and disabled soldiers.” Today it’s home to more than 500 military retirees who have access to a nine-hole golf course, a pond, gym, and trails.
The home operates as an independent federal agency with a trust fund, but it has been struggling financially in recent years amid declining revenues and growing costs associated with residents who are living longer and require more specialized services.
In addition to leasing the Sherman building, the home has plans to lease 77 acres for a mixed use development, including retail, housing, and offices.
The community is gated, and visitors must come and go through a secured entrance.
Steven McManus, chief operating officer for the home, said he thinks that having a school on the property will “be a great fit,” because the site offers rich historical resources. The Lincoln Cottage, where the former president drafted the Emancipation Proclamation, is on-site. And students can learn from the residents who are veterans of the Vietnam and Korean wars and World War II.
And for the retirees, he said, “It’ just nice to have kids around.”
Officials posted the building for lease in December 2013, and interviewed at least one other charter school operator, McManus said.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) was scheduled to speak at the lease-signing ceremony Monday. In a statement she called the partnership “not only innovative but increasingly necessary in a city where land is scarce and the unoccupied space is often on federal land.”
Don’t close Dorothy Height charter schools [Dorothy I. Height Community Academy PCS mentioned]
The Washington Times
By Deborah Simmons
February 9, 2015
By week’s end, an estimated 1,600 children could be school-less because the D.C. Public Charter School Board might vote to close the Dorothy I. Height Community Academy Public Charter Schools, which has three D.C. campuses.
The vote is on the calendar because the founder of the schools, Kent Amos, is accused of financial improprieties. His case is in the hands of the courts.
But the charter board and city officials should not throw the babies out with the (possibly dirty) bath water.
The council did not declare itself defunct lawmakers were caught with their hands in the cookie jar.
The city didn’t give vouchers to tens of thousands of families so their kids could attend private and parochial schools when DCPS academics were in the toilet.
Don’t muddy the name of the late civil rights giant Dorothy I. Height because of what Mr. Amos or others may have done.
More important, do not block the schoolhouse doors to children because of what adults did or did not do.
Punish the offender, not the children.
Starting to feel that education reform has run out of steam in Washington, D.C. [FOCUS mentioned]
The Examiner
By Mark Lerner
February 10, 2015
I know it is extremely early in Mayor Bowser's Administration but I'm beginning to get the idea that education reform has stalled here in the nation's capital. I remember when Mr. Gray came into office and there was detailed discussions about numerous serious issues needing to be resolved around our public schools. Controversy surrounded a new proposal to close numerous DCPS schools due to under-utilization. Charters continued pressing for the turnover of shuttered traditional school buildings, and there was agreement by Deputy Mayor Smith that the pace of these transfers should accelerate. The Mayor said over and over he was committed as well to bringing revenue equity to this sector. The Illinois Facility Fund took a shot at trying to anticipate the educational needs of kids in the city. A task force established by Mr. Gray investigated, and then largely rejected, the concept that charters have a neighborhood preference. The Adequacy Study performed by the Deputy Mayor for Education documented in print for the first time the illegal taxpayer revenue going to DCSP outside of the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula.
Then Mr. Gray's term in office came to an end.
So far the major uninspiring initiative we have seen from the Mayor is to create college preparatory high school for minority boys east of the Anacostia River. Today, the the Washington Post's Michael Alison Chandler and Mike DeBonis report that D.C. Councilwoman Mary Cheh is challenging the move on legal grounds. I'm convinced that Ms. Bowser has the right to create the school if she wants to but the greater question is why? As Ms. Cheh correctly observes, "“What I’m saying is that you can’t just do for one group what you’re not doing for another. Even if their scores are a little bit better, both groups' ( minority boys and girls) scores are abysmal."
There is no more talk of solving the facility issue for charters. Not a word about the FOCUS coordinated funding inequity lawsuit now going through the courts. No, the theme out there currently appears to be about cooperation; the notion being that charters and the traditional schools need to find ways to work better together.
But cooperation is a code word for maintaining the status quo. Silence about surplus buildings can have the severely detrimental impact of essentially limiting the number of new charters that can open. There is simply not enough affordable commercial space to be had. An emphasis on collaboration may mean that it will not be permissible to charters to open anywhere near an established traditional school, no matter the student academic performance at that location and whether there are empty classroom seats.
Perhaps we should just accept things the way they are going. After all, education reform really moved into high gear in D.C. when Mr. Fenty took control of the regular schools. He was emulating the example of Mayor Michael Bloomberg. But just yesterday, in reaction to a New York Times article in which the Chancellor Carmen Farina essentially said she is no longer interested in judging schools by test score results, Campbell Brown tweeted "NYC now has a Chancellor restructuring schools to once again serve adults instead of kids." It looks like we are again following in the Big Apple's footprints.
Cheh challenges legality of Henderson’s minority male school initiative
The Washington Post
By Michael Alison Chandler and Mike DeBonis
February 9, 2015
D.C. Council member Mary Cheh is asking the Attorney General to investigate whether it’s legal for the city to move forward with plans to invest $20 million in extra supports and programs for minority male students.
Schools chancellor Kaya Henderson in January announced an “Empowering Males of Color” initiative, including opening an all-boys college preparatory high school east of the Anacostia River in 2017.
The push, which would be partially funded through private donations, is meant to improve outcomes for Black and Latino boys, who make up 43 percent of enrollment and who lag other groups on multiple measures of performance.
In a letter sent to Attorney General Karl Racine Monday, the Ward 3 Council member said the plans raise questions about gender inequality.
“Before any money is allocated or funds spent, I am requesting that you, as Attorney General, provide an opinion on the legality of these plans,” she wrote.
Specifically, she said the plans should be evaluated for their conformity with Title IX regulations, the D.C. Human Rights Act, and the Equal Protection Clause in the Constitution.
In the District, 48 percent of black male students and 57 percent of Hispanic male students graduate in four years, compared with 66 percent of their classmates. Only about a third of black male students are proficient in reading and math, according to the DC CAS scores, compared with almost 60 percent of students who are not black or Latino males.
The plan also includes school grants to support efforts to enhance the academic, social or emotional development of black and Latino male students and to engage their families.
Henderson tapped Tim King, the founder of a high-performing Chicago all-boys charter school, Urban Prep Academies, to open the all-boys high school.
The focus on minority males reflects a citywide push by Mayor Muriel Bowser to improve opportunities for young men of color, as well as a national effort by President Obama to raise private funds to support programs that help young men of color succeed in school and stay out of prison.
In an interview, Cheh said she took note of the initiative when it was first announced last month, but she said her qualms about focusing a significant amount of spending on boys grew quietly until she decided this past weekend to speak out.
“What I’m saying is that you can’t just do for one group what you’re not doing for another,” she said. “Even if their scores are a little bit better, both groups’ ( minority boys and girls) scores are abysmal. ... You have to provide substantially equal opportunities to the other group. That’s all I want. I want all of them to be better off.”
Any rewrite of No Child Left Behind should keep annual testing provisions
The Washington Post
Editorial Board
February 9, 2015
THE U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Council of La Raza, Business Roundtable and the Education Trust disagree about many things. That makes all the more significant their common accord that the country can’t afford to retreat from policies that aim to give every child — regardless of race, ability or family income — access to a quality education. We hope it’s a message that Congress doesn’t lose sight of as it undertakes a rewrite of the No Child Left Behind act.
“We come together at this critical moment . . . because of our common conviction that America cannot afford to keep squandering the potential of so many of her children,” read a letter sent from the coalition of business, education and civil rights leaders to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. The group, reminiscent of the alliance that helped enact No Child Left Behind under President George W. Bush, underlined the need to retain the testing, reporting and accountability measures that lie at the heart of the 2002 law and that — despite their success in lifting the achievement of minority and low-income children — are under attack.
Draft legislation authored by Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) doesn’t take a stance, offering the alternatives of continuing annual testing in third through eighth grades and once in high school or leaving it up to states to come up with their own testing regimes. Legislation released in the House Education and the Workforce Committee would keep in place the federal requirement for an annual testing schedule but would leave accountability measures pretty much in the hands of the states.
Annual assessments are vital in providing objective and timely information on student achievement. This is information that parents need to know, and it helps school officials to see where to target resources. It lets taxpayers know what they are getting in return for billions of education dollars.
Among those seeking to undermine annual testing are teachers unions that give lip service to accountability as long as their members aren’t the ones held to account. Consider, for example, the latest “compromise” plan backed by the American Federation of Teachers: It would continue the practice of annual tests and publication of results, but most tests would not count in judging how well schools are performing. As for whether test scores should be a factor in teacher evaluations, as rightly advocated by the Obama administration, lawmakers from both parties are showing a lack of interest, The Post’s Emma Brown reported.
There are valid concerns about over-testing; states and localities should take a hard look at whether they have a structure of unnecessary or duplicative tests. But the federal government must not back away from the common-sense principle that states need to test students, use the results to judge if schools are showing growth and take action against those that consistently fail to do so.
__________
FROM FOCUS
 |
Upcoming events
Click Here > |
__________