- D.C. Schools With More Low-Income, Academically Troubled Students Should Get More Money, Panel Recommends [Washington Latin PCS is mentioned]
- DC Education Officials Developing Plan to Administer Assessment Test on Kindergarten Students
- D.C. to Begin Assessment Tests for Kindergartners
- Simmons: Closing All City Schools is the Only Remedy
- Why Common Core Standards Will Fail
- Charter Schools Grow in Prince George’s County
- D.C. Mayor Gray Gets What He Wants Out of School Funding Equity Report [FOCUS is mentioned]
D.C. Schools With More Low-Income, Academically Troubled Students Should Get More Money, Panel Recommends [Washington Latin PCS is mentioned]
The Washington Post
By Bill Turque
February 22, 2012
CORRECTION: This post has been updated to correct an inaccurate description of the commission’s recommendation on how building maintenance, utilities and custodial services should be funded. The commission did not explicitly propose that such expenses be removed from the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula.
The Public Education Finance Reform Commission never had the time or resources to fully meet the ambitious charge set by the D.C. Council, which was to address equity, adequacy, affordability and transparency issues in school funding.
But the 15-member panel concluded its work last week with a series of recommendations to the Gray administration that, as its final report says, “offers a starting point for the design and implementation of a sound and equitable education financing system in the District of Columbia.”
Among the recommendations:
--Add an additional “weight” to the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula so that schools receive more money for serving larger numbers of students who are both from low-income households and far behind academically.
--That the mayor revise the way that building maintenance, utilities and custodial services are funded. Such expenses are currently covered in the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula, which is based on enrollment. Charter advocates assert that their schools are shortchanged because DCPS has funding streams outside the uniform formula to cover such costs. But some commission members concluded that DCPS may actually be underfunded because its aging and oversized building stock is more expensive to maintain than some newer charter facilities. They asked the mayor to consider developing a new formula that takes into account the unique characteristics and needs of each school building, including age, renovation history and size in square feet. Three charter school representatives to commission dissented, calling for funding to remain on a per-student basis under but incorporating other funds spent outside the uniform formula.
--Form a technical working group under the auspices of Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) to issue annual reports on needed changes to education funding within and outside he uniform formula.
--Perhaps its most significant recommendation to Gray was for another study: this one a year-long look at what an adequate public education really costs in the District. Many states have used adequacy studies to revise their school funding.
There was no consensus on other key matters, including the city’s practice of giving DCPS supplemental funding during the fiscal year while charters have received none. The commission’s findings are not likely to end the debate about whether charters are funded equitably. Mark Lerner, president of the Washington Latin PCS board of governors, makes that clear in his Examiner blog.
Among the big remaining questions is the appropriate role for the District in funding and/or finding buildings for charter schools. Although it was not part of the commission’s charge, it got considerable discussion. “The commission did have a pretty significant undercurrent of wanting more efficient use of public school space,” said chairman Ed Lazere.
The commission was created by the council in mid-2010, but didn’t convene until late September, with a Jan. 31 to deliver a report that could be used to inform the FY 2013 budget process. Then it essentially disappeared for a month because of its own budget and procurement problems. In all, the commission met five times for three-hour evening sessions, and then twice on conference calls.
“I do this work professionally and for me taking on half of what the commission took on would have taken four, five, six months to get the data, understand it and figure out what you didn’t get,” said commissioner Mike Siegel, a public and environmental finance consultant. “It was a fairly herculean task.”
Lazere, executive director of the DC Fiscal Policy Institute, said he feels pretty good about what the panel was able to accomplish.
“We were charged with broad goals and I think we looked at all of them,” he said.
The Washington Post
By Associated Press
February 23, 2012
District of Columbia officials are developing a plan to begin assessment testing on kindergarten students.
Assistant superintendent of early childhood education Annette Bridges tells The Washington Examiner that the plans are in the preliminary stages and are subject to change as the Office of the State Superintendent for Educators moves forward.
Bridges says the test would focus on things like physical and motor development, scientific thinking and some math concepts.
The test would label students as “below basic” through “advanced” and be administered within the first six weeks of the start of school.
Officials are hoping that the “readiness assessments” will be tested voluntarily in some schools this fall and eventually extended to D.C. Public Schools and charter schools by the 2013 school year.
The Washington Examiner
By Lisa Gartner
February 22, 2012
The District is planning to begin testing its kindergarten students, labeling them "below basic" through "advanced" within the first six weeks of the start of school, in an effort to provide more tailored instruction to young learners in their very first days of school.
Officials in the Office of the State Superintendent for Education are hoping that these "readiness assessments" will be tested voluntarily in some schools this fall and rolled out to all kindergarten classrooms in D.C. Public Schools and charter schools by the fall of 2013.
Annette Bridges, assistant superintendent of early childhood education, told The Washington Examiner that plans are in the preliminary stages and subject to change as OSSE moves forward.
"This will be a developmentally appropriate assessment -- no bubbles, nothing with a pencil," Bridges said. The test would focus on physical and motor development, scientific thinking, language arts and some mathematical concepts.
At an internal OSSE meeting this week, officials sketched out a plan to rate students "below basic," "basic," "proficient" or "advanced," the scale that is used to score older students on the D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System standardized exams.
For example, a student might be asked to write his name. A scribble would be "below basic;" a few recognizable letters, "basic;" a clearly written name, "proficient;" and a properly capitalized name, "advanced."
"Any school needs to know what kind of skills children are entering kindergarten with, so they know what kind of supports, what kind of interventions, are needed," Bridges said. Scores would not be used on teachers' Impact evaluations, as they are with older grades.
About half of states assess kindergartners' readiness as they begin school. The Maryland Model for School Readiness groups students as "fully ready," "approaching readiness," or "developing readiness," and has found that kindergartners who begin school "fully ready" are eight times more likely to pass third-grade reading and math exams.
HyeSook Chung, executive director of D.C. Action for Children Now, and parent of two Janney Elementary students, said she thought the D.C. test could be a good tool to help teachers get children up to speed, but was concerned about the consequences of labeling a 5-year-old student.
"We know families in certain pockets of the city don't send their kids to pre-K, and those children are going to test much poorer," Chung said. "... Teachers could use this as a way of stigmatizing and labeling students, and we have to be careful to not do that."
The Washington Times
By Deborah Simmons
February 22, 2012
This column reflects major attitude today, and if you don’t want to read it, go ahead and flip the page. Or, if you’re on the Internet, scroll elsewhere on The Washington Times site.
Won’t hurt me a bit, though I do want you to think about the kids, because I’m beginning to think D.C. schoolchildren and taxpayers would be a lot better off if D.C. officials sold off or rented out all city-owned school buildings and dished out vouchers to all of the city’s school-age children.
Sounds extreme, eh?
Well, the situation is politically dire, and I don’t think it will change to benefit youths if drastic measures aren’t taken soon - and here’s why.
I’ll take it nice and slow for all you knuckleheads, newcomers and die-hard traditional public school enthusiasts who don’t know the definition of the word “public.”
So here’s the short, sweet version: Public school dollars should follow the student. The bricks-and-mortar school building, the quality of the teaching corps and, to a measurable extent, the location of the schoolhouse are irrelevant.
Give the kids a voucher and leave all the other decision-making up to their parents.
Now, the longer version: In 2010, D.C. officials established the Public Education Finance Reform Commission, whose mission was to study adequate, affordable, equitable and transparent measurements regarding per-pupil spending and make recommendations to top officials. Well, guess what, the panel gets a big red D.
First, the panel did meet, which is the only reason it didn’t get an F.
Second, the mayor and the D.C. Council all know that the D.C. public school system consistently overspends its budget and regularly gets additional funds or reprogramming options to close perceived gaps, while charter schools regularly are forced to live within their means. The panel offers no positive changes for charter school students in that respect.
Third, the overarching school-budgeting process remains a shell game, inherently favoring funding for traditional schools, magnet programs such as the School Without Walls, schools with unionized workers, as well as the costs of utilities and maintenance, and such demographics as family income and English-language learners.
This sleight of hand is precisely as a former D.C. mayor once told me. That is, there are and always will be “three sets” of school-funding books, one for the public, one for city officials and one with the truth, and nobody has access to all three.
To its credit, the panel suggested that funding for custodial and maintenance services and the cost of utilities be removed from the per-pupil funding formula, which could in turn lead to increased transparency.
But the panel also recommended more panels, seeking a pass because it didn’t have enough time or resources and because it discussed but failed to come to a consensus on some issues.
Think Seinfeld and ya-da, ya-da, ya-da. Or, if you’re still in a Mardi Gras mood, think gumbo ya-ya.
It simply doesn’t matter because if our military or law enforcers or first responders failed in their missions as miserably as this bunch, we would be replacing the Occupy D.C. crowd in Freedom Plaza and setting up a guillotine.
Do not be surprised if this school-funding debacle stokes the simmering flames of the recall movement and the next three D.C. elections.
Remember, this is about children, children who continue to be used as political pawns while we pray the next mayor and the next council will squash the status quo.
So closely - very closely - pay attention to Vince, Kwame, Phil, Michael, Jim, Vincent, David, Yvette, Tommy, Marion, Jack, Mary and Muriel, who have about three months to do what the school-funding panel failed to do.
And yeah - I’m taking the extreme liberty of referring to the mayor and council members by their first names. For all of them, their honorifics lose a little cachet every time they create a monster that gobbles up children and tax dollars.
Thank you for your time.
The Washington Post
By Jay Mathews
February 22, 2012
While Maryland, 44 other states and the District are spending billions of dollars to install new national standards for their schools, Virginia has stuck with the standards it has. Mounting evidence shows Virginia is right, and the others wrong.
Common Core standards are the educational fashion of the moment, but your child’s teacher can name many similar plans that went awry. I was impressed at first with the brainpower and good intentions behind the Common Core standards, launched by non-government groups with the support of the Obama administration and governors of both parties. I thought the change would elevate instruction and end the distressing difference between what defined student proficiency in Massachusetts (pretty high) compared with Mississippi (quite low.)
But I have been talking to Brookings Institution scholar Tom Loveless, a national expert on this topic, and read his latest research paper: “Predicting the Effect of Common Core Standards on Student Achievement.” He reviewed the research. He assessed the chances of the Common Core standards making a difference. It turns out this is another big disappointment we should have figured out long ago.
As Loveless notes, there are three main arguments for having all public schools teach the same subjects at the same level of rigor and complexity. First, students will learn more if their learning targets are set higher. Second, students will learn more if the passing grade for state tests are set higher. Third, students will learn more if lesson plans and textbooks are all made more complex and rigorous through required high standards.
Loveless analyzed all available research and found that none of those arguments holds enough validity to risk all that money and effort.
The notion that high-quality standards correlate with higher student achievement was disproven long before Loveless wrote his paper. His Brookings colleague Russ Whitehurst showed in 2009 that states with weak content standards, as judged by the American Federation of Teachers and the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation (not ideological bedfellows), had about the same average scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests as states with strong standards. Loveless investigated the possibility that strong standards might predict future achievement gains. They don’t.
Similarly, states that required students to have higher scores on their state tests in order to be judged proficient did not have stronger NAEP scores than states that grant proficiency status even to students who miss half of the questions. Loveless notes that states that made their tests tougher to pass did show improvement in NAEP scores, but that is likely the result of a phenomenon that does not depend on better standards. States are likely to raise the minimum proficiency score only after they see their scores going up, not before.
The idea that common standards might create efficiencies and motivations that raise achievement is disproved by what has happened in the many states that created their own standards. Those states still have some schools scoring very well and others scoring miserably. That variation has not declined, defying happy talk from Common Core advocates.
Our way of thinking about standards has always been wrong, Loveless says. We speak of them as a system of weights and measure, as benchmarks to which schools must adhere. But that’s not it. “Standards in education are best understood as aspirational,” Loveless wrote, “and like a strict diet or prudent plan to save money for the future, they represent good intentions that are not often realized.”
I have interviewed hundreds of teachers who significantly raised student achievement. Not one has ever said it was because of great state learning standards. Good curriculums help, but high-minded, numbingly detailed standards don’t produce them. How teachers are trained and supported in the classroom is what matters, even in states as enlightened as Virginia.
To read previous columns by Jay Mathews, go to postlocal.com.
The Washington Post
By Ovetta Wiggins
February 21, 2012
Over the past few years, Prince George’s County has quietly amassed the largest cluster of charter schools in the Washington suburbs.
Three of the independently run, publicly funded schools opened this school year in Prince George’s, bringing the county’s total to seven. That is the highest concentration in Maryland outside of Baltimore. The growth is a sign that charter schools are a key component in School Superintendent William R. Hite Jr.’s efforts to expand the county’s menu of education options.
“I support the expansion of quality schools, that’s regardless of the type of school,” Hite said. “It’s all about more choices for our parents.”
Although the charter sector is booming in the District, there are no charter schools in Northern Virginia. Montgomery County approved one last year, but it has yet to open. And a few charter schools are scattered in Frederick, Anne Arundel and St. Mary’s counties.
Hite, meanwhile, is scouting for more.
One of the latest additions to the Prince George’s cadre of charters is Chesapeake Math & IT Academy in Laurel.
At Chesapeake, housed in a nondescript office park building off Interstate 95, students gather in classes of 25. One day this month, they were learning a computer program created by MIT in a “Berkeley” computer lab and calculating kinetic energy in the “Harvard” science class.
Chesapeake opened with 300 sixth- and seventh-graders and hopes eventually to have 700 students in grades six through 12. The academic program, which focuses on mathematics, science and information technologies, aims to prepare students for college. The idea has drawn interest: The school has received 400 applications for 50 slots next school year.
“I do harder things,” sixth-grader Dorian Baldwin-Bott, 11, said of the charter’s classes. “Math is more challenging. . . . At my old school, we didn’t have computers too much. It was once a week. Here it’s once a day.”
Seventh-grader Michael Igoe, 13, adjusted the mouse on a Hewlett-Packard laptop, tapped the keyboard and began playing a computer game in Room 144, also known as the Berkeley lab.
A blue smiley face appeared on the screen and bounced from one colorful background to another while an animated voice shouted from the speakers: “Can I come and play?”
Michael created the game, part of the week’s lesson plan.
Providing an opening
About 2,500 students in Prince George’s attend charters, representing about 2 percent of the county’s public enrollment of 123,839.
State test scores for Prince George’s schools have been on the rise in recent years, but the school system’s academic performance remains uneven. Large numbers of children in the county schools come from low- or moderate-income families. Some advocates say these conditions provide an opening for charters.
“In more disadvantaged areas, whether suburban or urban, [charter schools] are being welcomed,” said Jeanne Allen, president of the pro-charter Center for Education Reform in Washington. “More and more people who live outside big cities are recognizing that this is a solution for some of their issues too.”
Allen said growth of charter schools in Maryland has been slower than in other states because some operators view Maryland’s charter law as restrictive.
Nationwide, most charter teachers are not unionized, but they are in Maryland. Charter schools in the state have flexibility in scheduling, staffing, program offerings, resource allocations and grade configurations, according to state officials. Local school boards have the authority to authorize charters, as well as the power to revoke them or deny renewal based on academic achievement, attendance, enrollment and finances.
The Center for Education Reform estimates there are 5,700 charter schools in the country serving nearly 2 million public school students. In the District, more than 40 percent of the city’s 78,000 public students attend charters, the second-highest concentration nationally.
Prince George’s officials said the modest growth of charters in the county is a response to charter applications and the desire of parents.
“If [applicants] come up with an idea that parents want and they can help children achieve, parents deserve that option,” said school board Chairman Verjeana M. Jacobs (District 5).
Since Maryland’s charter law was enacted in 2003, Prince George’s has received two to five applications each year to launch schools. Most of the county’s charter schools are run by small networks. Chesapeake, for example, is run by the nonprofit Chesapeake Lighthouse Foundation, which also has schools in Anne Arundel County and Baltimore. Prince George’s, which has closed a couple of charter schools because of financial and enrollment problems, opened its first charter school in 2006.
Mixed results
The three charter schools that have been running in the county for a few years have had mixed results, according to state records. Imagine Foundation met “adequate yearly progress” standards last year under the No Child Left Behind law and had higher pass rates in reading and math than the county average on the Maryland School Assessments.
Excel Academy and Turning Point Academy fell short of adequate progress under the law. Turning Point’s pass rates were comparable to the county average. Excel’s pass rate in reading was comparable to the county’s, but its pass rate in math was lower.
Jacobs said as long as an applicant adheres to the requirements of the State Department of Education in its application, “we can’t deny the opportunity.”
Hite said charters and some regular public schools with special themes known as “concept schools” can help improve the overall quality of the county system. Those schools that lose enrollment, he said, should face questions about how to get better.
“We can look at it as a market-driven model,” Hite said. “If I’m a school principal and I’m losing my population to another school, it’s incumbent upon me to improve my programs.”
D.C. Mayor Gray Gets What He Wants Out of School Funding Equity Report [FOCUS is mentioned]
Examiner
By Mark Lerner
February 22, 2012
The District of Columbia Public Education Finance Reform Commission released its report the other day which was supposed to look at revenue inequities between DCPS and charter schools around the Uniform Per Pupil Funding Formula. While FOCUS's Robert Cane gets all excited about an opening sentence like this one I realize that I'm writing about a highly technical subject for most of us, even for those involved in education reform.
Therefore, I'll save you the trouble of reading the 78 page study. What the Commission was able to do apparently without the slightest bit of guilt was ignore the annual $72 million to $127 million received by DCPS on an annual basis over the amount charters receive even though they are supposed to be funded according to the same standard.
It's just what Mr. Gray ordered up. You see the Mayor campaigned on equality. He called for equal treatement for all people of different races, income levels, and geographic location. Remember the "One City" slogan?
Well it turns out that the One education system he is looking after is DCPS. When he found an additional $42 million in the City's budget he immediately gave half to the traditional schools. No mention was made of shortfalls charters receive in facilities and other payments that he so eloquently spoke about when running for office.
So it turns out that he is really no different than his predecessor when it comes to education reform. The problem for me is that I really fell for his lies. I guess many of us did.
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