- D.C. school facilities plan considers charters for the first time [FOCUS mentioned]
- Report: D.C. lacks plan for school buildings
- 2013 Public Education Master Facilities Plan destine for recycling bin
- D.C. Council committee approves amended truancy bill
- Beleaguered? Not Teachers, a Poll on ‘Well-Being’ Finds
D.C. school facilities plan considers charters for the first time [FOCUS mentioned]
The Washington Post
By Emma Brown
March 27, 2013
Neighborhoods in Southeast Washington, on Capitol Hill and along the eastern border of Rock Creek Park are among those most in need of school renovations, according to a school facilities plan the Gray administration released Wednesday. While previous facilities plans outlined projected timelines for individual school construction projects, the new document offers few specifics and no estimate for how much taxpayer money will be needed to meet the projected demand for improved schools.
Instead, the report suggests broad strategies based on expected population growth and current buildings’ capacity and physical condition. Along with investing in certain high-need neighborhoods, the plan recommends upgrading the main entrance of every school and sharing half-empty District facilities with charters and community organizations. It also recommends an overhaul of middle schools, as the city’s schools tend to lose enrollment at those grade levels.
The decision to avoid specifics is a sign that city officials are grappling with unanswered questions about how to plan for thecoexistence of traditional and charter schools. The 2013 facilities plan is the first in the city’s history to consider charters, the taxpayer-funded, independently run public schools that have grown quickly in recent years and now enroll more than 40 percent of the city’s students. “We want to take the time to think about how we invest in public education facilities,” said Jennifer Leonard, interim deputy mayor for education, whose office produced the study. She said the data compiled in the plan should inform further discussion. “Some of our policies still need to be fleshed out.” Some details about specific school construction projects should become available Thursday, when Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) is scheduled to release his fiscal 2014 budget, which will include his spending plan for next year’s school renovations.
The master facilities plan, meanwhile, covers the next five years, a period in which the Office of Planning forecasts an annual growth of about 2,850 school-age children across the city. Focusing only on physical buildings, the plan does not address school quality or programs and does not discuss the affects of the school system’s plan to redraw school boundaries and feeder patterns for the first time in three decades. The deputy mayor's office produced the plan in consultation with a working group of government and charter-school employees. Scott Pearson, executive director of the D.C. Public Charter School Board, said in a statement that he is “pleased to have a seat at the table” in discussions about improving school facilities.
Modernization of the city’s crumbling schools was a cornerstone of efforts by Gray’s predecessor, Adrian M. Fenty, to improve public education. Since 2008, the District has been on a school-construction blitz, spending nearly $1.5 billion on more than 60 schools. Despite the investment, enrollment in traditional schools has been stagnant in recent years, and Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson is planning to close 15 underenrolled schools in the next two years. Charters, on the other hand, are growing quickly. They receive a $3,000-per-student facilities allowance, money they often use to rent real estate wherever they can find it — including in non-traditional space such as church basements and storefronts.
Students in traditional schools enjoy more space than students in charters, according to the master facilities plan. The contrast is especially striking in the middle schools: The traditional system has 436 gross square feet per student, while charters have 121 gross square feet per student. The difference demonstrates both that traditional middle schools are underenrolled and that charters often lack space for art, music, science and sports.
Robert Cane, executive director of the pro-charter Friends of Choice in Urban Schools, criticized the plan for failing to address that inequity. Cane has long argued that the city should more often transfer empty traditional school buildings to charters.“It doesn’t deal with some of the most fundamental issues, such as, if DCPS is shrinking every year or occasionally staying flat, why are we spending all this money?” Cane said. “And how are we going to spend it more wisely?”
Ten traditional school buildings are vacant, according to the facilities plan, and several more will become vacant as the chancellor closes schools in June. The plan doesn’t address what should happen to those schools.
The plan now goes to the D.C. Council for approval.
The Washington Examiner
By Rachel Baye
March 27, 2013
The District's lack of a citywide plan for school buildings has led to conflict between traditional and charter schools and an inefficient use of funds, according to a report Mayor Vincent Gray released Wednesday. The city has spent nearly $1.5 billion renovating DC Public Schools buildings over the last four years and has completed renovations at 64 schools. DCPS plans to close 13 schools in June and two more at the end of next school year.
However, those plans do not address uneven enrollment growth across the city -- which is putting too many students in some schools and leaving empty seats in others -- or the numerous DCPS schools that have sat empty since being closed in 2008 "without a long-term plan for future use or an interim plan for the reuse of these facilities," the report details.
Meanwhile, "charter schools open wherever they can find space that is both affordable and sufficient for their needs, and many remain in substandard facilities," often in conflict with DCPS. To address these imbalances and prepare for an expected boom in student enrollment, the report, overseen by Interim Deputy Mayor for Education Jennifer Leonard, recommends changing the way the city funds public schools. Currently, school funding is based on the number of students enrolled at a school, so the more students a school enrolls, the more money the school gets. The report recommends concentrating funds in schools that are in neighborhoods with a high number of school-age children but have low enrollment, as a way to attract parents and students.
In the short term, DCPS should share buildings that have extra space with charter schools. In the more distant future, the school system should offer space to startup businesses, libraries, senior services, health clinics or other community facilities, the report advises. DCPS also should adjust its renovation plans in the short term to make sure the entrance to every school is upgraded to present a more welcoming environment, and in the long term to ensure schools in neighborhoods with the largest populations of school-age children are prioritized.
Middle schools should be renovated before other schools to stifle a pattern of students leaving the District's public schools -- both traditional and charters -- during the middle school years. DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson and Public Charter School Board Executive Director Scott Pearson praised the report for its efforts to improve school facilities. "Charter school students attend public schools, and they need access to first-rate facilities," Pearson said.
The Examiner
By Mark Lerner
March 28, 2013
Well it finally arrived. The Master Facilities Plan that was promised to us by the Deputy Mayor of Education’s office to be completed by January was released yesterday, and as we could have predicted it offers nothing in the way of solving the critical problem of physical classroom space that D.C. charters face. It does, however, contain eight strategic goals. Here’s my favorite: “Upgrade the main entrance of every school that is yet to be modernized.” I’m so glad we didn’t hold our breath waiting for this study.
What is clear is that the authors do not understand for a minute the dynamic nature of school choice that currently exists in the nation’s capital: “Enrollment is uneven across the District and, as a result, DCPS has now completed a closure and consolidation plan, which will close as many as 15 schools. Additionally, several schools in the DCPS inventory have sat vacant since they were closed in 2008 without a long-term plan for future use or an interim plan for the reuse of these facilities. Many of the schools that remain open are closed to the broader community.
At the same time, the network of charter schools is growing haphazardly. Charter schools open wherever they find space that is both affordable and sufficient for their needs, and many remain in substandard facilities. Charter schools’ facility needs are not coordinated with DCPS facility plans and conflict at times.” I get the sense that those behind this report would want nothing more than another bureaucrat to mandate how many charters are allowed to exist and where they must be located. Or perhaps they would rather these alternative schools that now educate 43 percent of all public school children to simply disappear.
Evidence for this assertion is that fact that the document does not even provide a hint of a proposal for equitable funding of facility needs between the two school systems. Alternatively, it does contain material that will almost certainly raise the blood pressure of any charter leader who wades into its pages: “As part of the reform effort, the District has undertaken a substantial rehabilitation program to modernize the physical infrastructure for our public schools since 2008. The District has spent nearly $1.5 billion and completed work at 64 schools, encompassing 7.3 million square feet.” And just think the city is only halfway through this work.
So I guess those of us involved with these alternative schools are supposed to just sit still, happy that this year we get our $3,000 per pupil facility allotment that still remains on the books at $2,800. Around us sits 10 vacant DCPS buildings that are providing a ready source of copper pipes that can be sold on the black market. We wait for 15 additional traditional sites to be closed that will never be designated as surplus so that they can remain safely in the DCPS inventory. We teach kids in storefronts, church basements, and warehouses and spend every waking moment in a panic over where we will find permanent space. Then, perhaps after another fourteen hour day, we go to bed thanking our lucky stars that Malcolm Peabody and some bold politicians created charters in Washington, D.C.
The Washington Post
By Emma Brown
March 27, 2013
A bill meant to curb the District’s rampant truancy moved forward in the D.C. Council on Wednesday after its sponsor stripped out a controversial provision that would have mandated criminal prosecution of parents of chronically absent children. The council’s Education Committee voted unanimously in favor of the amended bill, which specifies how and when a student’s unexcused absences would trigger the notification of parents and government intervention.
“The committee has crafted an updated bill that ensures that parents know their responsibilities, that government agencies are held accountable for preventing truancy and that chronically truant students do not fall through the cracks,” said David A. Catania (I-At Large), the bill’s sponsor and the committee’s chairman, adding that he amended the bill to address concerns that Mayor Vincent C. Gray’s administration has raised. The bill now goes to the committee of the whole, which is expected to consider it next month.
Catania’s original proposal would have required officials to prosecute parents whose children reach 20 unexcused absences in a school year. That measure drew resistance from community members who called it overly harsh and from D.C Attorney General Irvin B. Nathan, who argued that it usurped his authority to determine when prosecution is appropriate. The amended version leaves the current law intact, allowing — but not requiring — prosecution after a student has two unexcused absences in a month.
All D.C. schools, including traditional, charter and private schools, would have to notify police after a child has accumulated 10 unexcused absences. Police would then send a letter to the child’s parents, alerting them that they may be subject to prosecution, and the Office of the State Superintendent of Education would send them a truancy prevention guide.
Currently, children age 5 to 13 are referred to the city’s Child and Family Services Agency after 10 unexcused absences. Children age 14 to 17 are not referred to court social services until they reach 25 absences. In an effort to reach those older truants earlier, Catania had proposed that they be referred to Child and Family Services at 10 absences. But Gray administration officials argued that the agency was not equipped to handle the volume and nature of those cases.
The amended bill calls for older children to be referred to court social services after 15 unexcused absences. The attorney general would also send parents a letter at that point. The new version of the bill also adds a provision requiring the attorney general to publish an annual report on the referrals it receives from each school and the outcome of each case.
The bill calls for city officials to issue recommendations for eliminating suspensions and expulsions at traditional and charter schools, except in cases when students pose a danger to themselves or others. The amended bill drew praise from members of the Education Committee. “I know how you operate, Mr. Chairman — put something out there so we can react to it and make some adjustments to it,” said Marion Barry (D-Ward 8), who co-sponsored the bill but did not support its mandatory prosecution provision. “I’m so glad you will listen.”
The New York Times
By Motoko Rich
March 27, 2013
Recent battles over school funding, performance evaluations and tenure have given rise to public perceptions of a beleaguered teaching corps across the United States. But a new analysis of polling data from the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index that examines “well-being” as measured by a number of indicators, including physical and emotional health, job satisfaction and feelings of community and safety, found that teachers ranked second only to physicians.
In addition, teachers ranked above all other professions in answers to questions about whether they “smiled or laughed yesterday,” as well as whether they experienced happiness and enjoyment the day before the survey. The findings initially may seem surprising given widespread reports that teachers are unhappy and demoralized. Just last month, the MetLife Survey of the American Teachergrabbed headlines when it showed that job satisfaction had dropped to a 25-year low among teachers.
The results of the Gallup poll, which was based on telephone interviews last year of nearly 172,300 people — 9,370 of whom were teachers — are actually not inconsistent with the MetLife findings. Although the MetLife survey showed that 39 percent of teachers were “very satisfied,” down from 62 percent in 2008, an additional 43 percent were still “somewhat satisfied,” leaving only 17 percent somewhat or very dissatisfied. The Gallup poll certainly found challenges among teachers. Teachers were second only to physicians in reporting having felt stress, and when asked, “Does your supervisor always create an environment that is trusting and open, or not?” teachers answered “yes” less frequently than respondents in any other profession, including workers in sales, construction and mining, and service occupations. With regard to overall job satisfaction, teachers ranked fourth, after physicians, business owners and nurses.
Brandon Busteed, executive director of Gallup Education, said that while certain lifestyle factors like longer vacations could contribute to teachers’ job satisfaction and sense of well-being, the actual work clearly drove their sentiments. In answer to the question, “At work, do you get to use your strengths to do what you do best every day, or not?” 91.5 percent of teachers polled answered “yes.” “The mission and purpose of teaching and the rewards they get on a daily basis, such as happiness and laughing and learning a lot, is definitely driving well-being,” Mr. Busteed said.“The only thing that is keeping them back from being off the charts in well-being,” he said, “is that they are not being well managed.”
In a blog post about the study, Mr. Busteed and Shane Lopez, a Gallup senior scientist, note that about two million teachers will retire in the next decade, making recruitment vital. The key, they wrote, is “finding better school leaders.”
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