- Review finds serious test-taking violations in four D.C. schools [Ideal Academy PCS and Cesar Chavez PCS mentioned]
- What's behind one charter high school's success, and can it be replicated? Part 2 [Thurgood Marshall PCS mentioned]
- Mayor Gray needs to fill the vacant seat on the PCSB
- Parents, students praise D.C. TAG in effort to shore up congressional support
- Data, data all around, but not the test data we need
Review finds serious test-taking violations in four D.C. schools [Ideal Academy PCS and Cesar Chavez PCS mentioned]
The Washington Post
By Emma Brown
March 19, 2014
Test administrators in four classrooms at four D.C. schools appear to have violated rules on standardized tests last year by helping students arrive at correct answers, according to a city report.
An annual review, conducted by the consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal, found less-serious violations of test security at 13 other schools. Those offenses included unauthorized use of cellphones, inconsistent monitoring of test materials and missing test-security documents.
Jesus Aguirre, the District’s state superintendent of education, said that despite the problems, there is no evidence of systemic cheating on the citywide tests, known as the D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System, or D.C. CAS. Aguirre’s office issued its report on the tests Tuesday night.
“The latest results show that the overwhelming majority of District educators are committed to maintaining the integrity and security of our DC CAS process for our students,” Aguirre said in a statement.
In the city’s traditional public schools, students’ D.C. CAS scores play a key role in teacher and principal evaluations, and charter schools can be closed for failing to show adequate achievement or progress on the test. That so many people have a stake in test results has stoked suspicions of cheating in the District and other cities across the country. In response, the superintendent’s office commissioned an annual test-integrity review in recent years.
The four schools cited for “critical” violations during testing in spring 2013 were flagged in part because of a high number of wrong-to-right erasures. Two were part of the traditional D.C. Public Schools system.
To avoid conflicts of interest, the school system prohibits teachers from administering exams to their own students, but at both schools — Plummer Elementary and Oyster-Adams Bilingual — investigators found that test administrators assisted students by explaining questions and urging students to go back and check certain answers.
School system officials said they are reviewing the findings and deciding whether personnel action is warranted. Individuals implicated in testing impropriety will not participate in administering the 2014 D.C. CAS, which begins in two weeks.
“We take any incident of impropriety very seriously and will work to hold any person responsible accountable for their actions,” Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson said in a statement. “We are proud to see that our stringent test security protocols are working and that nearly every single one of our impressive, talented teachers and school-based staff are following the rules.”
Test administrators provided similarly inappropriate assistance to students at two charter schools cited for critical violations: Ideal Academy and the Parkside Middle School campus of the Cesar Chavez Public Charter School for Public Policy.
Test scores from the four classrooms with critical violations will be invalidated, and the schools will be subject to additional monitoring during the tests this year.
D.C. Public Charter School Board officials said they take test integrity seriously and will take action on the violations after the superintendent’s office recalculates the schools’ proficiency and growth rates.
Six additional schools were found to have “moderate” violations, and seven were found to have “minor” violations. All schools identified in the report will be reprimanded and required to submit a corrective-action plan.
The annual review has consistently reported isolated problems. Investigators do not examine every test or every classroom; instead, they focus on a small subset of classrooms whose results have been flagged for extra scrutiny because of an unexpectedly large improvement by students, a high number of wrong-to-right erasures or some other anomaly.
For the first time, the superintendent’s office randomly chose some classrooms for the review of 2013 testing — a move required under a new city law. Of the 17 randomly chosen classrooms, none were found to have the kind of critical violations that amount to test-tampering, but about one-third were found to have minor or moderate violations.
Altogether, the superintendent’s office flagged 45 classrooms out of the 2,032 in which testing took place. Investigators followed up by interviewing school personnel and students.
What's behind one charter high school's success, and can it be replicated? Part 2 [Thurgood Marshall PCS mentioned]
Greater Greater Education
By Natalie Wexler
March 19, 2014
Thurgood Marshall Academy, a charter school in Anacostia, has had a track record of success with a tough population: low-income high school students. What is its secret, and is it something DCPS and other schools can replicate?
In the first part of this post, I looked at how Thurgood Marshall (TMA) uses a summer prep program to help entering 9th-graders, who usually come in well below grade level, catch up academically and understand the school's expectations. I also discussed the school's promotion policy, which usually results in about 12% of students being asked to repeat 9th grade.
Another factor in the school's success is a consistent, predictable disciplinary system. Teachers don't necessarily need to enforce that themselves. There are deans for each grade who are available to handle difficult situations, and who are also well acquainted with each student.
If, for example, "your shirt is untucked, you know you'll get a detention," says Alexandra Pardo, the school's executive director. That means staying after school for an hour and working on a reflection activity. There are escalating consequences from there, but the school tries to ensure that students don't miss classwork.
Last year the Washington Post highlighted a case involving expulsion proceedings at the school in 2011, but last year there were no expulsions.
And the short-term suspension rate was only 8%, significantly lower than the District average of 21% for high schools. The school has no metal detectors, but, says Pardo, "we've never had an incident."
Teacher turnover
And then there are the teachers. Pardo says the school looks not only for good teachers, but also for those who are committed to the profession and willing to engage in a constant process of self-assessment. The school's overarching philosophy, she says, is "we are never good enough."
Teacher turnover is fairly low, with 5 out of 36 teachers leaving last year, mostly because they were moving from the area. The average teacher has over 4 years of tenure at the school, and 36% have been there for 5 years or more.
Pardo says that's partly because the school has created support systems that allow teachers to focus on teaching, and partly because it's possible to combine the job with other demands, such as raising a family. The school day is only 15 minutes longer than the standard one, so teachers can leave at 3:30 if they need to.
TMA does offer a wide range of extracurricular activities in its afterschool program, but teacher participation is voluntary.
Could DCPS manage to achieve the same results in its high schools? Pardo, who worked within DCPS for 4 years before coming to TMA, answers with an unequivocal "yes." The measures the school has put in place are all "scalable," she says, "but they do require work" in terms of creating systems and monitoring them.
DCPS has been "very open to collaboration," she says, and she's worked closely with administrators there on things like formulating graduation requirements and crafting a summer prep program.
Advantages over DCPS
But TMA does have some advantages over a neighborhood DCPS school. It's true that the school draws from the surrounding area: about 95% of students come from Wards 7 or 8, and Pardo says that requiring the school to implement a preference for neighborhood students would make no real difference. But the fact is that, as at any charter school, parents need to take the initiative to apply, and that may indicate a greater level of engagement.
While the school is high-poverty, with 80% of its students qualifying for free or reduced meals, it's possible that poverty rates at some DCPS high schools are higher (because DCPS is using new methods of counting kids who are eligible for free or reduced meals at some schools, it's not always clear what the actual poverty rate is). That could make a difference to school culture.
And the percentage of special education students at TMA is only 9%, whereas at comparable DCPS schools it ranges from 24 to 33%.
TMA also gets a good deal of private help and money. With its law-related focus, a number of law firms help with tutoring and other activities, and about 20% of the school's $8.5 million budget comes from fundraising.
Lastly, TMA generally doesn't take new students during the school year, whereas DCPS schools are required to. At Ballou last year, for example, 21% of students entered after the start of the school year, and the average for the District was 17%.
Obviously, bringing that many students in during the year can be disruptive. Could TMA achieve the same results if it had to admit them? Pardo says it would depend on how many the school got.
"But if you have a strong culture," she said, "kids tend to adapt to the culture. At low-performing schools, the school is led by the students."
From abysmal to award-winning
Yes, DCPS high schools are generally in pretty bad shape, and it may seem unlikely that they could transform themselves into something like TMA. But not that long ago, TMA itself was in pretty bad shape.
Pardo says that 8 years ago, TMA was doing so poorly its charter was in danger of being revoked. "Our test scores were abysmal, quite frankly," she says. "And we didn't have a curriculum in place."
Pardo was brought in to turn the school around. Now, TMA has been selected as a finalist for an "Excellence in Urban Education Award."
Update: Pardo says that the turnaround at TMA was a group effort. While she was brought in to revise academics and introduce data-driven instruction, other individuals worked on many aspects of the school's improvement. Most importantly, she says, the school's Board and leadership at the time took the crucial step of recognizing that change had to happen.
There's no guarantee that a DCPS high school using TMA's methods would achieve the same results. But TMA can only admit 125 or so students a year, and its waiting list this year was 412. If there's a chance that other schools, including DCPS schools, could bring even a fraction of TMA's success to more students, it seems like it's a chance worth taking.
Mayor Gray needs to fill the vacant seat on the PCSB
The Examiner
By Mark Lerner
March 20, 2014
It was announced at last month’s meeting of the D.C. Public Charter School Board that Emily Bloomfield had resigned. She is now working on founding a new charter servicing kids from foster homes. The vacant position should be filled as quickly as possible by the Mayor.
I know Mr. Gray has a few things on his mind right now. But there is an important election for his position coming up soon and if someone else wins the highest elected office at the Wilson Building who knows how friendly that individual will be to charters.
The local movement has certainly had it problems with the Mayor. He ran on a promise of financial equity between the two school systems and yet three years later the situation remains the same. But there are encouraging signs on the horizon. Shuttered DCPS buildings have been turned over to charters at a much faster rate than in the past and there is a commitment to do much more. The Adequacy Study, prepared by his Deputy Mayor for Education, detailed for the first time in print the government’s illegal funding of the traditional schools outside of the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula, providing DCPS with millions of dollars each year charter don’t receive. The fiscal 2015 budget proposal is expected to be the first shot at correcting this injustice.
There is also a new cooperation between charters and regular schools. The campuses that now educate 44 percent of all public school students are no longer the enemy. Traditional schools and charters now share a common lottery, professional development, school fairs, and a seat at the table when education policy decision are being made.
Mr. Gray needs to continue his support of charters by nominating someone to the PCSB friendly to the education reform efforts of the last 17 years. He should do this as part of his commitment not to turn back the clock on advancements made since Mr. Fenty came into office. It is his duty to not leave the seat empty.
Parents, students praise D.C. TAG in effort to shore up congressional support
The Washington Post
By Emma Brown
March 19, 2014
D.C. parents, students and college graduates gathered on Capitol Hill this week to share their praise for a federally funded program that helps city students pay for higher education.
“Coming from D.C., it’s just a real assurance, a faith and a belief in you going on to do bigger and better things,” said Channell Autrey, a 2005 graduate of the School Without Walls. Autrey used the money she received from the program to attend Pennsylvania State University and now works as a public defender in Baltimore.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) convened the roundtable discussion at the Rayburn House Office Building on Tuesday night to draw attention to and shore up congressional support for the D.C. Tuition Assistance Grant program, known as D.C. TAG.
“I thought it appropriate to have it right here where the appropriators are,” Norton said, adding that she wanted members of Congress to hear how TAG has affected real people’s lives. “I’m trying to say: Well, this is the program you always liked, I hope you continue to like it.”
Since TAG’s inception in 2000, more than $317 million has gone to help more than 20,000 students pay for college. Congress appropriated $30 million this year for the program, which provides up to $10,000 per year for students to attend out-of-state public schools and up to $2,500 for historically black universities and private schools in the Washington area.
But Norton has warned that those funds might be in danger because of the D.C. Council’s move to create a new, locally funded college-aid program known as D.C. Promise, meant to offer students additional funds to meet the rising cost of higher education.
Appropriators would see no need to continue funding TAG, Norton argued, if the city showed the ability to pay for its own scholarship program. “D.C. wants to fool with that,” she said. “It must be crazy.”
Greta Kreuz, a local television news broadcaster whose two children attended private schools in Washington, said at the roundtable that TAG has served as an incentive to stay in the city for many families who might otherwise have moved to the suburbs.
Samuel Cuffee, a Coolidge High graduate attending Bowie State University, said he grew up without a lot of role models who had continued their education after high school. “D.C. TAG was just the push that I needed to get into college,” he said.
President Obama included $40 million for TAG in his proposed budget this year, a move that Norton said should help the program as Congress enters budget negotiations.
Data, data all around, but not the test data we need
Greater Greater Education
By Ken Archer
March 19, 2014
We appear to be awash in school performance data. But the data we have in DC can't answer some crucial questions about how much students are actually learning.
Teachers who want to know how much they have helped their students learn can't tell that from looking at DC's standardized test scores. But other states are using their test data to help teachers answer that question. The secret, testing experts say, is reporting how much each student has grown academically rather than just whether she's achieved a measure of grade-level "proficiency."
Questions that DC testing data can't answer
How much did a student grow from one year to the next?
It may be surprising to many, but DC test data cannot answer this question. For teachers like Dunbar High School math teacher David Tansey, that makes the data far less useful.
"If all I know is that a student isn't on grade level, that doesn't give me much information, " he says.
DC only reports the proficiency levels—Below Basic, Basic, Proficient and Advanced—for students and groups of students. Teachers are told how close students are to each level.
Tansey says he would like to know how much each of his students have grown academically from one year to the next. But without growth metrics, he only knows if they've moved from one proficiency level to the next. If they've grown but haven't changed levels, he has no way of capturing that information.
How much value does a school add to its students' growth above what parents provide?
Many parents feel that they invest a lot in their kids outside of school. They would like to see which schools add the most value on top of what they contribute.
But no DC test score can tell them that right now. A particular type of growth metric, known as value added, does measure precisely this factor. With value added growth scores, parents could see if a school is good at improving the academic achievement of a child like theirs.
Was a particular student's growth enough for him to move toward, or cross into, proficiency?
Colorado testing experts Dr Jody Ernst and Richard Wenning say a central question is "How much growth is enough?" The Denver public school system has found an answer. It's actually adopted the accountability framework developed by Denver's charter authorizer because of its sophisticated growth metrics.
Denver's School Performance Framework, or SPF, reports 7 different growth metrics for schools, including whether they are advancing lagging students at a pace fast enough to be proficient before graduation.
Is teaching strategy A more effective at advancing lagging students than strategy B? Is teaching strategy C more effective at growing advanced students than strategy D?
Dunbar's Tansey says he can't use DC test scores for feedback because they only provide precise measurements for students who are on grade level. He says that DC's test reporting gives him no credit for advancing a 10th-grader from a 6th-grade to a 9th-grade math level, and it doesn't even give him feedback on whether he's succeeded in doing this.
The secret is the vertical range of tests
That's because DC's current standardized test, the DC CAS, only assesses whether students are on a certain level. Testing experts refer to this as the vertical range of the test. In the case of DC CAS, its vertical range is a single grade level.
The Office for the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE), which oversees standardized testing in DC, has been planning to adopt tests from the PARCC consortium to assess students against Common Core standards next year. PARCC's vertical range is also a single grade level.
But many states are using tests from the other Common Core testing consortium, Smarter Balanced, which has a vertical range of three grade levels. Smarter Balanced tests can have a greater range because they are given on computers that adapt the test to the student's level of ability. The answer to one question determines the difficulty of the next question posed.
OSSE officials had intended to hold "a series of stakeholder discussions" on which test to use before making a decision this month, but according to an account of a meeting reported on Greater Greater Education, they decided not to do so after hearing opposition from DCPS. Some charter operators, such as KIPP and Friendship PCS, have said they prefer Smarter Balanced.
Dunbar's Tansey says he is going to testify at tonight's meeting of the DC Board of Education, which includes a discussion of PARCC on its agenda. The meeting is at 6:30 pm at the John A. Wilson Building, 1350 Pennsylvania Ave. NW.