- Shallal criticizes D.C. school reform efforts, saying he would chart a different course
- Three Friendship Collegiate seniors surprised with Hanover College scholarships [Friendship Collegiate Academy PCS mentioned]
- Teacher evaluations, part 1: To keep teachers in low-performing schools, DCPS needs to change how it evaluates them
- States Fall Short on Linking Data for Youngest Children, Study Says
- Exclusive interview with Abigail Smith, D.C. Deputy Mayor for Education [Options PCS and D.C. International Charter School mentioned]
Shallal criticizes D.C. school reform efforts, saying he would chart a different course
Washington Post
By Emma Brown
February 18, 2014
The District’s high-profile efforts to improve public schools have largely failed, said restaurateur Andy Shallal, the first mayoral candidate to challenge the fundamental policies that have driven D.C. education reform under Mayor Vincent C. Gray and his predecessor, Adrian M. Fenty.
“Education reform is just not working in Washington,” Shallal wrote in a white paper released Friday, criticizing the city’s emphasis on using standardized tests to judge educators and schools as a “war on teachers” and a strategy of “intimidation and punishment.”
Gray (D) has highlighted education as a strong point in his campaign for reelection, citing national standardized test results that show the District — while still performing far below average — has made larger gains over the past two years than any state or other large city.
But Shallal — who has made the city’s growing income inequality a central theme of his campaign — (D) argues that the citywide figures mask a large achievement gap between the city’s low-income and affluent students, and between black, Hispanic and white students.
Poor black students in the D.C. school system continue to trail their counterparts in other cities; only 9 percent of those students scored high enough in fourth grade to be considered “proficient” in reading, compared with 78 percent of white students.
“If we keep harping on this idea that the schools are doing great, we are misleading people,” Shallal said in an interview Monday.“We should not be married to an ideology at the expense of our children.”
Gray spokesman Pedro Ribeiro said that black students made statistically significant gains in all grades and subject areas on the most recent national exam and that the bottom-performing 10 percent of students made some of the largest gains across the city.
While some of Gray’s challengers have criticized him as moving too slowly on improving middle schools or precipitously in overhauling school boundaries, most have supported the main elements of his education policies.
D.C. Council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), for example, said in a policy proposal released last week that he would require every school to have a librarian and teachers for the arts, physical education and music, and he promised stronger after-school programs for all children. But Evans has said he would seek to continue Gray’s policies and would keep Gray’s schools chancellor, Kaya Henderson.
Shallal’s 13-page white paper, the most detailed and confrontational education proposal released by a candidate to date, outlines a different course. Hinting that he would drop the school system’s controversial IMPACT teacher evaluations, he said he would focus on reducing class sizes, developing strong leaders and teachers, broadening the curriculum, establishing wraparound social services for struggling families, expanding summer school programs and extending the city’s early childhood programs to more 3-year-olds.
Chuck Thies, Gray’s campaign manager, accused Shallal of “playing with fire” by casting doubt on the city’s education efforts.
“What Andy Shallal wants to do is mess with success, and the only reason he wants to mess with success is an effort to get attention and be elected mayor,” Thies said. “Turning around an education program that was as poor as was the District’s is not going to happen overnight, but it is happening. The progress is clear.”
Shallal’s criticisms of Gray’s education policies made him a crowd favorite at a December mayoral candidates’ forum sponsored by the Washington Teachers’ Union. But it is not clear how widely his ideas will be embraced, particularly in a city where nearly half of its public school students are now enrolled in charter schools.
While many D.C. leaders praise charters as an essential component of the city’s improving education landscape, Shallal describes their growth “helter-skelter” and says it is contributing to the destabilization of neighborhoods.
“Parents don’t fundamentally want choices,” Shallal wrote. “They much prefer quality schools within walking distance from where they live.”
He would seek a moratorium on closing neighborhood schools and would limit the growth of charters, prohibiting them from establishing themselves near to any traditional schools. Shallal also would seek to require charter schools to share more information publicly, including about their executive and teacher salaries.
Three Friendship Collegiate seniors surprised with Hanover College scholarships [Friendship Collegiate Academy PCS mentioned]
Washington Post
By Emma Brown
February 18, 2014
Three seniors at Northeast Washington’s Friendship Collegiate Academy went to school Tuesday expecting nothing more than an ordinary February day. And then, in the middle of class, they were ambushed with a surprise announcement: Each had won a scholarship to Hanover College, a small liberal arts school in southern Indiana.
“I’m so excited. I’m ready to go now!” said Takima Johnson, who won a four-year full ride worth more than $135,000 and who — according to her mother and teacher — hasn’t stopped talking about Hanover since she visited the campus earlier this school year.
Cora Smallwood and Tynisha Little each received partial scholarships worth more than $80,000. Hanover representative Monica Green delivered the news to the unsuspecting winners as their classmates and parents cheered them on.
“Words cannot express how proud I am of my daughter,” said Jeanette Watkins, Takima’s mother, who brought a bunch of balloons to celebrate.
Friendship Collegiate is a large charter school that serves primarily African American and low-income students. It has one of the highest four-year graduation rates in the city — above 95 percent — and has more graduates each year than every city high school except Wilson, in Northwest Washington.
Michelle Little, Tynisha’s mother, said she was a little heartbroken that Hanover is so far from Washington. “But I’m going to let her go,” Little said. “I don’t want her to ever say I stopped her from achieving something.”
Teacher evaluations, part 1: To keep teachers in low-performing schools, DCPS needs to change how it evaluates them
Greater Greater Education
By Angel Cintron
February 18, 2014
DCPS has said it wants to invest in its 40 lowest-performing schools. If that's the case, the school district needs to change its teacher evaluation system, which penalizes and discourages the teachers who work in them.
DCPS and the Washington Teachers Union will soon begin negotiating a new contract. As a teacher at a high-poverty DCPS school in Ward 8, I hope that one issue on the table is revising the IMPACT evaluation system. The current system creates unfair distinctions, stifles creativity, and has led to a high turnover rate among teachers at schools with the greatest needs.
DCPS introduced the IMPACT system in 2009, in an effort to provide educators with the tools necessary to become more "effective." DCPS has made changes to IMPACT since its inception, and we're now operating under version 2.0. But the system is still deeply flawed. Let's hope the coming contract negotiations result in version 3.0.
The system divides employees into 20 different groups. Mathematics and English Language Arts (ELA) teachers are designated as Group 1. General education teachers, such as science and electives teachers, belong to Group 2. Special education teachers are designated as Group 3, and so on. Since DC's standardized test, the DC CAS, only tests math and reading, Group 1 teachers are the only ones held accountable for student test scores.
As a result of their evaluations, all teachers receive one of 5 ratings, ranging from "Highly Effective" to "Ineffective." Teachers with low ratings can be fired, and teachers with high ratings are eligible for additional compensation.
The Value Added Model
ELA and math teachers in certain grades are evaluated partly on the basis of a Value Added Model (VAM). According to DCPS, this model measures the impact of an individual teacher on students' learning. The model calculates how a class is likely to do on the DC CAS, based on the average class score the previous year. It then compares that "likely" score with the actual score and determines how much "value" the teacher has added or subtracted.
One problem with the VAM model is that it can only apply to teachers whose students have taken the DC CAS the previous year. In a recent interview, Chancellor Kaya Henderson said that only 14% of DCPS teachers fall into this category.
But there are other problems as well, as this video explains. Although the model purports to take account of factors like students' learning disabilities or the resources they have at home, in fact teachers' VAM scores often vary depending on things they can't control.
In addition, DCPS uses its VAM only to capture student growth as measured by grade-level proficiency scores on the DC CAS. Students in low-performing schools are far more likely to be below grade level than students in other schools. And if a student who is multiple grade levels behind randomly selects answers because he doesn't understand the test questions, is that an accurate representation of a teacher's ability to instruct?
There are fairer ways to measure a teacher's impact. Schools already use assessments that measure actual growth, such as Lexile scores for reading and MAP for math, to diagnose students' strengths and weaknesses. DCPS could base its VAM on these tests to evaluate teachers instead of on the DC CAS.
For example, let's say a 6th-grade student enters middle school reading on a 2nd-grade level. If a teacher manages to bring the student up to a 4th-grade level, that should be celebrated rather than ignored. Sure, that student isn't on grade level yet, but two years of growth is a realistic goal. Asking a teacher to bring a student up 4 grade levels in a single year is highly unrealistic.
Including test scores can make an evaluation plummet
A teacher's rating can actually go from "minimally effective" to "highly effective" in one year, depending on whether or not DC CAS scores are included in his evaluation. I know, because it happened to me.
In 2011-12, when I was a Group 1 teacher, I scored just under highly effective on observations of my teaching and effective for my contributions to the school community (CSC). Yet, the test scores, which at the time counted for 50% of a Group 1 teacher's evaluation, caused my overall rating to plummet to "minimally effective." (DCPS has since changed the weight of test scores for Group 1 teachers to 35%.)
The following year I was a Group 2 teacher. I scored highly effective on observations and CSC. As a Group 2 teacher, 15% of my score was based on assessments other than the DC CAS, and I scored effective in that category. Needless to say, I finished the year with a "highly effective" rating.
So comparing Group 1 teachers in the lowest-performing schools to their counterparts in high-performing schools on the basis of "value added" is unfair. But the system also has negative consequences even within low-performing schools.
Group 1 teachers are under particular pressure because they're the only teachers held accountable for their students' performance on tests under the VAM model. But reading comprehension must be taught in all subjects. Why not hold all teachers accountable for a student's Lexile score, rather than ELA teachers alone?
That approach would also encourage collaboration between Group 1 teachers and those in other disciplines. If our aim is to educate every child, we need to implement the same accountability standards across the board.
In part two of this post, I'll look at how another component of teacher evaluations, classroom observations, can work against teachers in high-poverty schools.
States Fall Short on Linking Data for Youngest Children, Study Says
Education Week
By Julie Blair
February 18, 2014
Only one state—Pennsylvania—currently links its K-12 data system and data from all of five key early-childhood education, health, and social services programs, although 30 states now link some of that information with their K-12 systems, a new report says.
States could—and should—do far more to provide governmental institutions, teachers, and families with a comprehensive view of student populations, according to the study entitled "2013 State of States' Early Childhood Data Systems," released Wednesday by the Bethesda, Md.-based Early Childhood Data Collaborative.
"States really acknowledged the need for this information by the number of states linking or planning to link [information] and developing governancy systems for them," said Carlise King, the executive director of the umbrella advocacy organization. "The question for us is, 'How can we support states in these efforts?'"
The group, which encourages the use of data to improve the quality of and access to early-childhood education, includes six partner organizations: The Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at U.C. Berkeley, Child Trends, the Council of Chief State School Officers, the Data Quality Campaign, the National Conference of State Legislatures, and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices.
It asked all 50 states and the District of Columbia in July 2013 to assess how well they link data between their K-12 systems and what the group identified as five major state or federally funded early-childhood programs, including preschool special education, state and federally funded Head Start, state pre-K, and federally funded child care.
Among its findings, the report says that:
- There are 26 states which link early-childhood education data across two or more publicly-funded early-care and education programs;
- 36 states collect state-level child-development data from early-childhood education programs, and 29 states capture kindergarten entry-assessment data;
- States' coordinated early-childhood education data systems are more likely to link data among programs for children participating in state pre-K and preschool special education than for children in Head Start or subsidized child-care programs.
The study argues that if data were collected and housed in one place, it would be easier to track student progress, pinpoint problems, identify underserved groups, allocate resources, and inform instruction.
"Most states cannot answer key policy questions about all children served in publicly-funded early care and education programs because [early-childhood education] child-level data is not linked," the report says. Currently such information typically is stored in multiple, uncoordinated systems managed by different state and federal agencies, it states.
That said, 22 states are working to link health information with early-childhood education records, and 18 states are aiming to link social services program information to early-childhood education information.
In addition, 32 states have set up governance systems to guide the development and use of linked information, the report states.
The information in the study was provided by state education, health and social services program staff.
Exclusive interview with Abigail Smith, D.C. Deputy Mayor for Education [Options PCS and D.C. International Charter School mentioned]
The Examiner
By Mark Lerner
February 19 , 2014
I was extremely honored to sit recently with Washington D.C.’s Deputy Mayor for Education Abigail Smith. Our conversation started with me asking for her opinion on the state of public education in the District today. She answered almost before I could finish getting the words out of my mouth. “I think we are in an incredibly good place,” Ms. Smith replied. “There is a real optimism out there. We still have an incredibly long way to go, but we are now seeing both qualitative and quantitative progress across both the traditional and charter school sectors.” I then inquired of her to name specifically the quantitative indicators to which she was referring. “There are huge indicators,” Ms. Smith responded. “Enrollment is going up in each school system; families have faith and optimism in our offerings. The rich choice we have here locally certainly helps. The test scores are also a positive indication of how the quality of public education is rising. Some people may criticize the recent NAEP scores, and we know they are not at the level that we want them to be, but the jump in the scores has outpaced everyone else. This is a big deal. We have a momentum that we could not say that we had just a few years ago.”
Ms. Smith continued, “The other aspect of public education in the District that really excites me is the kind of collaborative work between schools and between sectors that we are now seeing. There are tons of individual examples of this activity. In addition, we have had a tremendous response to the common lottery. By the close of the first round application period for high schools, over 3,000 children had applied for the high school lottery through MySchool D.C. For the Pre-Kindergarten to eighth grade lottery so far over 9,000 kids have signed up and the application period will be open until March 3rd. When we look at who has participated it is distributed across the city and across sectors. This is a great example of something people said could not be done in this town. But we were able to accomplish this feat by bringing stakeholders together and listening to what they had to say.”
I had never before personally met the Deputy Mayor. My only experience with her was in meetings. But I did have an overwhelming immediate reaction to the information she was providing. I can sum it up in one word: competence. I asked Ms. Smith what direction Mayor Gray has provided to her in completing her work. Again, she answered without hesitation.
“He said to me during our very first meeting that he absolutely believes that having high performing schools in every part of the city has to be our main objective. In his view charter schools play an important role in this effort. At the same time, the Mayor has unwavering support for DCPS and Chancellor Henderson’s leadership.. He is not interested in competition between public schools. He wants to see all of us working together to achieve the basic goal of quality in every corner of the city.”
I then reminded Ms. Smith of the goals she identified for her department last June when she met with charter leaders. They are:
1. Provide DCPS with chartering authority with the ability to have schools with a neighborhood preference,
2. Create a data system to assess programmatic education needs across the city,
3. Provide facilities to charter schools,
4. Access city’s ability to serve various student subgroups focusing on at-risk children,
5. Update the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula to provide funding equity between the two systems,
6. Institute a common lottery,
7. Form “Re-Engagement Centers” which are “a one-stop shop” for disconnected youth that will reconnect them with appropriate educational and support services, and
8. Simplify student assignment by initiating feeder patterns from DCPS schools to charters and the reverse.
I then asked the Deputy Mayor for updates on each item. Regarding providing the Chancellor with chartering authority Ms. Smith stated that not much progress has been made in this area. “We introduced a bill, but we are also exploring other alternatives to give Ms. Henderson the flexibility she desires so that she can reach her goals,” the Deputy Mayor explained.
Ms. Smith indicated that her office has done much work around design of a data warehouse. “We have culled information around facilities, test scores, and demographics across sectors, along with population projections by neighborhood. We recently released the Adequacy Report which contains a wealth of information regarding school financing. We have also made a lot of headway in terms of making data on public schools more accessible to families. Along with the D.C. Public Charter School Board, The Office of the State Superintendent of Education, the Office of the Chief Financial Officer, and District of Columbia Public Schools we developed the Equity Report that compares schools to one another across various characteristics. Parents also have access to Learn DC which has a host of statistics regarding traditional schools and charters.”
I gave Ms. Smith credit for identifying 16 shuttered school buildings that can be leased to charters or for other community uses. But the Deputy Mayor is not satisfied. “We want to improve the Request for Offer procedure regarding these buildings. The goal is to do a better job of identifying the needs of the community and to become smarter about where we site programs. Something that is extremely important to me is that facilities that were school buildings remain as school buildings.”
I discussed with Ms. Smith the issue of the city serving at-risk children in terms of the recent decision by the PCSB to begin the revocation process against Options PCS. The Deputy Mayor had much to say on this topic. “Options PCS has presented us with a complicated and difficult challenge. The charter is not serving these children well. Providing severely emotionally and physically disabled students a quality education has been a challenge across the country. Many of these kids have already been moved from school to school. Collaboration between all parties is really important right now. We have to take the attitude that this is not your problem or my problem but our problem. When we all come together then the right outcome becomes apparent.”
I changed the subject to her department’s outreach to the public around the common lottery. Here Ms. Smith became excited. “We are receiving many positive comments about the process from both parents and schools. Our staff has knocked on thousands of doors concentrating on areas of town where parents may not have as much access to information about picking schools for their children. People were able to signup right then. We have had office hours, people can call our hotline, and staff in all libraries are available to assist with access to the lottery.”
I then asked the Deputy Mayor about goal number 7 around disconnected youth. The Deputy Mayor answered, “Students that leave school that are in the 16 to 21 years of age group are often lost forever. These are the people that often end up in jail or worse. When they become disconnected like this it becomes much harder to reach them. My office, OSSE, and D.C.’s Department of Employment Services, are working together to launch a Re-Engagement Center. We have developed a proactive outreach strategy. The goal is to conduct a pilot plan this spring with an implementation of a full scale program the next fiscal year.” Re-Engagement Centers frequently offer individuals who have left school assistance with tutoring, child care, job training, and other services so that they can graduate from high school or obtain a GED.
I concluded my time with the Deputy Mayor by asking about the move to have DCPS elementary school students feed into charter middle schools. She informed me that a number of interesting conversations have taken place between DCPS and the D.C. International Charter School, although nothing definitive has been worked out. She said that this type of collaboration was also on the table to be discussed during the student assignment review process. Ms. Smith revealed that changes to the School Reform Act would be required to make new feeder relationships between charters and traditional schools a reality.
We then engaged in a general philosophical discussion around school choice during which the Deputy Director paused to make sure I knew how proud she was of her 10 person staff that has been able to achieve so much over just the last 10 months that she has been in her position. Her kindness to me over the hour and her compliments to her team reinforced to me how fortunate we are to have Abigail Smith as our Deputy Mayor for Education.