NEWS
- Charter school finds home at military retirement center in D.C. [Creative Minds International PCS mentioned]
- D.C. charter school protests possible closure over misuse of funds allegation [Dorothy I. Height Community Academy PCS mentioned]
- Some needy DCPS students are getting a lot less funding than others
- Pro-charter school group estimates 14 percent enrollment gain nationwide
- Report on black males’ graduation rates shows that data are muddy
Charter school finds home at military retirement center in D.C. [Creative Minds International PCS mentioned]
Watchdog.com
By Moriah Costa
February 11, 2015
WASHINGTON, D.C. — About 250 charter school students will attend classes in the historic Sherman building at the Armed Forces Retirement Home next fall.
Creative Minds International Public Charter School signed a 10-year agreement with the home, making it the first charter in D.C. to lease federal property. The school will occupy 32,000 square feet, with 16 classrooms and an acre for student use.
“We at Creative Minds International are very fortunate to have found a long-term facility here at Armed Forces Retirement Home,” Golnar Abedin, founder and head of the school, said at a signing ceremony Monday.
Affordable real estate is scarce in the city, and securing a location for a school can be difficult.
U.S. Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-Washington, D.C., praised the retirement home for working with the school. Noting the growth of charter schools in the city, Holmes said, “It has been almost easier to start a charter school than it has been to find a place for that charter school.”
A supporter of charter schools, Holmes worked with the retirement home to ensure the lease was approved by Congress in time for the school to open in the fall, at 140 Rock Creek Church Road in Northwest D.C.
Scott Pearson, executive director of the D.C. Public Charter School Board, said the school was one of his favorites, and that it stands out as one of the best charter schools in the city.
The charter first opened in the 2012-2013 school year and hasn’t yet been ranked by the charter board. The board ranks charters into three categories each year based on data available from the prior year. Creative Minds will move out of its current location at 3224 16th Street NW.
“We are really pleased that we have a school with hundreds of younger children on the grounds of a military retirement facility where our children can learn from and be mentored by our nation’s heroes and where folks who have given so much already have a chance to give more by acting as volunteers and mentors for our children,” Pearson said at the ceremony.
The charter serves prekindergarten through fifth-grade students with an international, arts-based curriculum. It is the fifth-highest school in demand, with 870 students on the waiting list.
The retirement home was approved by Congress in 1851 and houses more than 500 military retirees. It includes a pond, golf course and recreation room. The home plans to lease an additional 80 acres as a much-needed revenue source, according to the Washington Post.
Steven McManus, chief operating officer of the retirement home, said, “We were impressed by the school’s rigid philosophy, staff and the performance since they began.”
Abedin said she plans to engage students with the retirees, both as classroom guests and to share the school’s music and drama performances.
“We really look forward to having that multigeneration exchange with them,” she said.
D.C. charter school protests possible closure over misuse of funds allegation [Dorothy I. Height Community Academy PCS mentioned]
WJLA
By Caroline Tucker
February 10, 2015
WASHINGTON (WJLA) – The Dorothy I. Height Community Academy Public Charter School (CAPCS) launched in 1998. There are now 1,600 students across multiple campuses, which also includes D.C.'s only "online" campus for elementary students. Those students, in preschool through eighth grade, may have to find another school if the D.C. Public Charter School Board revokes the CAPCS charter, due to what it says is a mismanagement of millions of dollars of funds by the school's founder.
"It means a lot. It's fun, it's awesome," said student Ke'ola Campbell. In June, a legal complaint was filed against Kent Amos by D.C. Attorney General Irvin Nathan. That complaint alleged that $13 million dollars in public funds were funneled to a for-profit management company owned by Amos. That complaint stated, "The diverted funds were used to enrich the company and Amos, to the detriment of the school."
Amos' attorney denied the allegations at the time. The D.C. Public Charter School Board voted unanimously last month to initiate revocation of the school charter due to "the school's engagement in a patter of fiscal mismanagement and violation of the SRA (School Reform Act) as a result of the CAPCS Board's breach of its fiduciary duties."
But many parents at the schools don't want to see them shut down.
"This is an adult problem, this is not a children problem. They are getting what they need at CAPCS," said parent Tijwanna Phillips.
Parents, staff and students took to the streets outside the Wilson Building Tuesday afternoon.
"It is illogical to take this out on the children and their families. Surely, there are other alternatives," said CAPCS spokeswoman Cecelia Blalock. Many families don't know where students will go if CAPCS closes, especially families who have relied on the online program.
"My husband, daddy, had some health problems. We needed another way to keep him close to us, to keep him in school. And this has been the best experience we have ever had," said parent Summer Campbell.
"I was worried and kind of a little frightened, because you wouldn't want to lose your school and stuff," said Ke'ola Campbell.
The D.C. Public Charter School Board is not making any statements at this time.
"I want to see the board change around and keep the school open, because it is really not fair. There are too many kids that are going to be left out in the dust where nobody else cares," said student Jeremy Phillips. The D.C. Public Charter School Board will make its decision about the future of the school Thursday at 8:30 am. The meeting will be held at 3333 14th St. NW. It can also be watched online here.
Some needy DCPS students are getting a lot less funding than others
Greater Greater Washington
By Natalie Wexler
February 10, 2015
Last year, the DC Council passed legislation designed to ensure that additional funds would be distributed equally among the District's neediest students. A new interactive graphic shows that instead, some of those students are getting a lot less money than others.
The DC Council decided that schools should spend an additional $2,000 dollars per year on each "at-risk" student in traditional public or public charter schools. The at-risk category includes students who are in foster care, homeless, receiving welfare or food stamps, or at least a year behind in high school.
The Council didn't specify what kinds of programs the money should fund. Charter schools are free to spend it however they want, and the DC Public Schools administration is supposed to delegate the decision about how to spend the money to individual schools.
But DC Public Schools said it didn't have enough time to allocate the additional funding on a per-pupil basis this year, as the law required. Instead, it used the money to fund initiatives it had already planned, saying they lined up with the needs of at-risk students.
The result is that some DCPS schools are spending much less on each at-risk student than others, according to a data tool developed by the DC Fiscal Policy Institute and Code for DC, a volunteer group of data enthusiasts.
Mann Elementary in Ward 3, for example, spent over $15,000 on each of its at-risk students. That's partly because there are only two such students there, making up just 1% of the school's total enrollment, according to the data tool.
By contrast, Ballou High School in Ward 8 spent only about $5,000 on each of its 470 at-risk students, which represent 72% of the school population. And Beers Elementary in Ward 7 spent a mere $168 on each of its 259 at-risk students, 60% of its enrollment.
At-risk money is benefiting a broader range of students
Of course, as the data tool also reveals, that doesn't mean each at-risk student is getting exactly that amount of extra help. In line with DCPS's priorities, much of the additional money is going to efforts that benefit a broader range of students: expanding curriculum, enrichment activities, and mental health support for middle-grade students; extending the school day at schools that chose to do so; and focusing on literacy at low-performing schools.
At Ballou, for example, over $100,000 went to hiring an assistant principal for literacy. Middle schools got additional staff and money for field trips and extracurricular activities.
At many schools, though, it's not clear where the money is really going. Many DCPS schools received grants designed to increase student satisfaction, which count as part of their at-risk funding. Each school can use that money for things it determines will help students enjoy school more, such as extracurricular activities or technology.
But the data tool doesn't detail what exactly the schools did with those grants, called Proving What's Possible for Student Satisfaction Awards. Mann and Beers each got all of their at-risk funding in the form of one of those grants, so it's unclear what they're doing with any of the money.
The data tool also doesn't include charter schools, so it's also unclear what they are doing with their at-risk funds.
How will DCPS allocate at-risk money in the future?
It remains to be seen what DCPS will do with the at-risk money next year, when there's enough time to allocate it on a per-pupil basis and let individual schools decide how to spend it. Will administrators at the central office be tempted to continue using the money to fund priorities they have already set, like improving high schools?
Aside from the temptation to follow through on existing plans, DCPS may find it hard to come up with initiatives focused exclusively on at-risk students. If a school hires an additional reading specialist, adopts an extended day, or plans a field trip, can it—and should it—try to limit those services to kids who are homeless or on welfare?
A better approach might be to fund "high-dosage" tutors for kids in the at-risk category. When it's done intensively and integrated into the life of the school, tutoring can have a dramatic impact on achievement. A side benefit might be the kind of mentoring that at-risk students are likely to need.
Even with that kind of targeted program, there will inevitably be funding disparities. A school with only two at-risk students will probably have to pay more per pupil for on-site tutoring than a school that has several hundred. But it's unlikely to cost 89 times as much per student, which is the difference between what Mann and Beers are supposedly spending on at-risk students now.
It's great that DCPS wants to increase field trips, beef up the middle school curriculum, and do other things that will benefit a larger group of students. But the system should be funding those initiatives with its general operating money. The fact is, the law requires DCPS to funnel its at-risk money to students facing the greatest challenges. And that may be what's needed to give them a real chance to succeed.
Pro-charter school group estimates 14 percent enrollment gain nationwide
The Washington Post
By Emma Brown
February 11, 2015
The National Alliance of Public Charter Schools estimates in a new report that 2.9 million children now attend U.S. charter schools, up 14 percent from last school year.
More than 500 new charter schools opened in the 2014-2015 school year and 200 charters were closed for reasons ranging from poor academic performance to financial problems, according to the organization.
California, Florida and Texas had the largest numbers of new schools as well as the largest numbers of closures. Eighty-seven schools opened in California, for example, while 34 closed, a net gain of 53. California now has 1,184 charter schools, according to the report, with an estimated enrollment of nearly 550,000, by far the largest charter enrollment of any state.
Charter schools are publicly funded and independently run. Nationwide there are now more than 6,700 charter schools.
Report on black males’ graduation rates shows that data are muddy
The Washington Post
By Emma Brown
February 11, 2015
The Schott Foundation for Public Education released its biennial report about black males in U.S. public schools on Wednesday, estimating that 59 percent of black males graduated from high school on time in the 2012-2013 school year, compared to 65 percent of Latino males and 80 percent of white males.
But because those figures are estimates, even the Schott Foundation said it’s not clear how accurate they are. And while there is no dispute that black males are much less likely to graduate from high school than their white counterparts, the report does not offer a clear look at whether black males’ graduation rates are improving or backsliding.
Many states and localities do not regularly report graduation rates separated by race and gender, so the Schott Foundation arrived at its estimates by analyzing several years of federal data on high school enrollment and diplomas awarded.
“This highlights a need for a process where the data is collected regularly and reported regularly,” said John Jackson, the foundation’s president. “It highlights the need for actual data.”
The previous Schott report, published in 2012, estimated that 52 percent of black males graduated on time nationwide in 2009-2010. Compared to that estimate, the new Schott report suggests a notable gain of seven percentage points. It also suggests that the graduation gap between black and white males narrowed from 26 percentage points to 21 percentage points.
But compared to a different reference point — a onetime release of federal data separated by race and gender, which was published after the last Schott report — black males’ graduation rate fell from 61 percent to 59 percent. And the graduation gap widened from 19 to 21 points. States did not begin reporting graduation rates in a uniform way until the federal government began requiring it in 2012, for the class of 2011.
“This variance underscores the necessity for consistent reporting,” Jackson said. “In the midst of this whole movement around My Brother’s Keeper,” he said, alluding to President Obama’s initiative to support young men of color, “how can you keep a population that you’re not tracking?”
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