FOCUS DC News Wire 3/5/14

 

 

WASHINGTON — Michelle Obama is heading to China in about two weeks and wants advice on what to do and see when she gets there.

 

Of course, the State Department is involved in planning her schedule. But on Tuesday the first lady picked the brains of sixth-graders who visited the Asian powerhouse last year. The Washington Yu Ying Public Charter School has a dual English and Mandarin Chinese immersion program.

 

“I have all of these wonderful policy people that help me prep, but I figured since you actually visited some of the cities that I’m going to go to that I would get a good sense of what to expect, what you learned, what you liked, what you didn’t like, some of the questions that you think I should ask and be prepared for,” Mrs. Obama said.

 

She listened to a presentation by the sixth-graders on their trip and later followed along as pre-kindergarteners helped teach her how to say “hello,” ‘’bye” and “thank you” in Chinese. The younger kids did a dance using red, hand-held fans and finished by throwing them to the floor so they could do some of the moves to “Gangnam Style,” by the South Korean singer Psy.

 

The first lady asked the older kids how they dealt with the jet lag and they told her about some things to watch out for.

 

“Be prepared for people staring at you,” one student said. Another cautioned about the “super different” toilets in China. A third sixth-grader warned Mrs. Obama about pickpocketing, which isn’t really a concern for someone who is always surrounded in public by armed Secret Service agents.

 

The first lady announced Monday that she will travel to China, without President Barack Obama, from March 19-26, stopping in Beijing, Xian and Chengdu.

 

Mrs. Obama told the students to expect to get more questions from her about their experiences in China.

 

“I’m going to look to you guys to be like my advisers on this trip,” she said.

 

 

D.C. Public Schools

 

Bowser: For good or bad, Bowser is the only candidate who has boiled down her education platform into a sound bite: "Alice Deal for all." The council member says middle schools are the urgent and next frontier in education reform, and she would seek to replicate D.C.'s most successful middle school citywide. Bowser says she would begin by making all academic programming equal to that at Deal. When asked at a debate if she would keep Gray school's chancellor, Kaya Henderson, Bowser responded, "Sure."

 

Evans: Evans raised triplets from age 6 after his wife died, and the experience deeply affected his view on schools and how working parents manage. He thinks the city needs more extended-hours offerings, including tutoring programs run with the help of local college students. Evans would also lower the entrance age for preschool to 2 and push for more frequent and high-tech interactions between busy parents and teachers, including online parent-teacher conferences. Of Gray's challengers, Evans has been most clearly committed to keeping Chancellor Kaya Henderson.

 

Gray: Adrian M. Fenty introduced radical change when he took control of schools in 2007 and hired the young, hard-charging Michelle Rhee to transform them. Gray and his chancellor, Kaya Henderson, who was Rhee's deputy, have largely continued on the track laid by their predecessors, including controversial teacher evaluations that link job security and compensation to student scores on standardized tests. Like Fenty, Gray has shuttered struggling neighborhood schools, including 13 that closed in June.

 

Orange: As a council member eight years ago, Orange pushed to insert language into a budget bill to spell out what might have seemed like an obvious goal: make sure publics school students can read and solve basic math problems by fourth grade. He still doesn't think the city is focused enough on that goal. "It's critical because after that you're not learning to read, you're reading to learn," Orange said. "And if you can't add ... you can't be introduced to decimals." Orange has also blasted academic program cuts at the University of the District of Columbia.

 

Shallal: Shallal has cast D.C.'s eight-year school reform effort as being at a crossroads, charging that hard-nosed reforms of firing teachers and closing schools have so far produced "surprisingly little fruit." In a position paper his campaign released in mid-February, Shallal said D.C. needs to "stop the fixation" with standardized testing, support teachers in a more meaningful way, expand art and music offerings and stop closing neighborhood schools. Shallal says city leaders have not put enough emphasis on closing the achievement gap between those of different income brackets.

 

Wells: Wells is quick to tout the success during his tenure of Capitol Hill area elementary schools, which have growing waiting lists and some of the most economically diverse classrooms in the city. He says boosting neighborhood elementary schools -- both public and charters -- should be the prime focus of city leaders. Wells has been highly critical of Gray for closing neighborhood schools. He has also lambasted Bowser's "Alice Deal" proposal as "a slogan, not a plan," calling it unworkable without massive gentrification.

 

Charter Schools

 

Bowser: With one of the highest concentrations of charter schools in the city, Bowser says her experiences from Ward 4 have taught her that D.C. needs to better coordinate public and charter school offerings. Bowser's concern is similar to one raised by Evans and Wells, but none of the three have offered details for how they would do so. "We need to come up with a way that they can complement one another, quality seats, whether they be at charter or D.C. public schools, are available to families in each neighborhood," Bowser said.

 

Evans: Evans said he would support a mix of public and charter schools, but like Bowser and Wells, he has offered few details. The candidate published an education plan that did not distinguish between the two. "The biggest issues right now with charters is they can locate wherever they want, and they don't have to admit neighborhood children," Evans says. "Can we come to some agreement that charter schools will indeed admit neighborhood kids?"

 

Gray: Gray has won plaudits from charter school advocates for announcing this year that he would lease more than a dozen surplus public school buildings to charters. But the charter school members have been disappointed with Gray's budgets, which they say have failed to correct unlawful inequities between charter and traditional public schools. During Gray's tenure, and particularly since he appointed Abigail Smith as deputy mayor for education, charter and traditional school leaders have collaborated more closely, including streamlining the school enrollment process and planning for an overhaul of school boundaries.

 

Orange: Orange wants a moratorium on new charter schools. "They have developed quite a niche," Orange says, and with roughly half the city's students now attending charter schools, the District needs to step back and "make sure both are working equally" to produce useful diplomas for students. Orange has also called the scandal over kickbacks at Options Public Charter School "concerning" and reason for further scrutiny.

 

Shallal: D.C. should stop allowing charter schools to be built in close proximity to public schools so the two do not compete for students, Shallal says. "Parents don't fundamentally want choices. They much prefer quality schools within walking distance from where they live." Shallal wants a moratorium on closing more public schools until a citywide feeder plan is finished. " Helter-skelter, high-volume charter school expansion leaves neighborhood schools less viable," he said. Shallal also says the city needs better oversight of the charter school board.

 

Wells: Wells has criticized Gray for not doing more to coordinate public and charter schools. He has said that he would do better. But like Bowser and Evans, Wells has not explained in detail how he would do so. "The fact that this administration has not been able to blend the resources of the charter schools in an accountable way with the traditional public schools is a lack of leadership at the top," he said. "That will be different. I will lead education reform."

 

 

The 3 challenger candidates for the at-large seat on the DC Council all support the idea of extended school hours or afterschool programs to increase the pace of progress at DCPS's lowest-performing schools.

 

Asked whether they would support some form of an extended school day, Nate Bennett-Fleming, Pedro Rubio, and John Settles all unhesitatingly said they would. Settles and Rubio identified the main obstacle as the teachers' union and its demands for additional compensation for longer hours.

 

Settles said he had seen signs of some flexibility on the teachers' part, suggesting they might be willing to accept perks like more vacation time rather than increased pay. And Rubio advocated funding more afterschool programs that involve volunteers and community organizations.

 

Bennett-Fleming offered a similar solution, calling for increased funding for enrichment programs after regular school hours.

 

"I believe that what happens outside of the classroom, after school, is just as important as what happens during the school day," he said.

 

Both Settles and Bennett-Fleming also advocate establishing community schools, which would serve as a base for social- and health-service providers. They also mentioned increasing teacher retention rates in high-poverty schools by focusing on student growth rather than measuring student achievement against a set proficiency rate.

 

Pedro Rubio talked about the need to understand the differences between schools with large proportions of Latino students and schools that are 99% or 100% African-American, saying that members of different groups may have different needs. (Incumbent At-Large DC Councilmember Anita Bonds is also in the race but didn't respond to interview requests.)

 

Bennett-Fleming's proposals

 

Of the 3 candidates, Bennett-Fleming had the most fleshed-out array of ideas to increase student achievement and, as he put it, "raise expectations." He mentioned a number of changes to the curriculum, including a greater emphasis on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) and a greater focus on developing analytical skills rather than preparing students for multiple-choice standardized tests. Schools should use technology to personalize instruction, he added, and every school should have a library.

 

Bennett-Fleming listed innovations that he said would show students they're expected to go to college, some of which have been tried in other cities. Among them were giving every pre-K student some money to start a college savings fund and offering "education cafés" throughout the District, where students could meet with college counselors and use computers for test prep classes and college applications.

 

He also said he's exploring the idea of making community college free for all DC students. He mentioned the possibility of setting up guaranteed-admission agreements between DC's community college and 4-year colleges around the country.

 

"I've been to some of our lowest-performing schools," Bennett-Fleming said, "and taught classes—Anacostia, Ballou, H.D. Woodson. Part of the problem is that the students know that the teachers do not expect much from them."

 

Boundaries and feeder patterns

 

In his answers, Rubio also drew on his own experience as a volunteer who has worked with at-risk youth and as a student who was "average" and "made some mistakes," but he offered less in the way of policy analysis than the other two candidates.

 

All 3 candidates support ensuring that at least some out-of-boundary students continue to have a chance to attend higher-performing DCPS schools in Wards 2 and 3. But Rubio favored allowing greater access to those schools to kids from across the District, while Settles and Bennett-Fleming emphasized the need to improve schools in all neighborhoods.

 

"I feel like a child from Ward 8 should be able to go to school in Ward 2 or Ward 3 if they desire to," Rubio said, noting that he was able to avoid attending Roosevelt High School by going to live with an uncle in Prince George's County.

 

That experience was key to helping him flourish academically and setting him on the right track. "And I think other kids deserve a chance at the same opportunity," he said.

 

Speaking of the current review of boundaries and feeder patterns, Settles said he hoped that the new system would preserve at least some out-of-bounds seats at higher-performing schools. "But the reality is," he said, "there's going to be a lot of kids now who've had access to a quality seat that don't. And the reality is we haven't created enough quality seats across the city."

 

He advocated having "magnet and specialty programs in each of the schools, so that we have some incentive for parents to keep their high-performing kid in the neighborhood."

 

Bennett-Fleming agreed that the fundamental problem is a lack of high-quality schools across the District. "Increasingly, we cannot sustain a system that's built around 20 or 30 good schools and the overwhelming majority of schools not being functional," he said.

 

He said that he was in favor of a proposal to funnel additional money to schools that have more poor and at-risk students.

 

Asked whether the role of high-performing charters such as KIPP DC should be expanded, all 3 candidates expressed caution. Rubio advocated borrowing methods used by successful charters, such as an extended school day, and incorporating them into DCPS schools.

 

Settles echoed that, saying that charters should be "centers of innovation." He advocated increased collaboration between DCPS and charters, and said that as a founding parent of Inspired Teaching Demonstration charter school he was in a good position to help bring the sectors together.

 

Bennett-Fleming said that he doubted there were enough high-performing charters to fill the need and mentioned failed experiments with bringing in charter operators at Anacostia and Dunbar high schools. But he also said, "I think we should be replicating KIPP, we should be allowing KIPP to have as much of an impact on the city as it would like."

 

 

The D.C. Council gave final approval Tuesday to a new taxpayer-funded college scholarship program known as D.C. Promise, which will offer high school graduates up to $7,500 per year to help pay for higher education.

 

David A. Catania (I-At Large), who introduced D.C. Promise and is considering a mayoral bid, has framed it as an effort to both defray the cost of college for low-income students and boost high school graduation rates.

 

To be eligible, students must come from families earning less than 200 percent of area median income, or about $215,000 for a family of four. Scholarships will be awarded on a sliding scale, with the largest awards going to the students most in need.

 

Council members passed the measure without debate as part of the consent agenda despite earlier warnings from D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) that a city-funded financial-aid initiative could endanger a popular federal program known as the D.C. Tuition Assistance Program, or D.C. TAG.

 

President Obama’s proposed fiscal 2015 budget includes $40 million for TAG, up from $30 million that Congress appropriated this year. Obama is also proposing to limit eligibility for TAG to students from families earning up to $450,000 per year; currently, students are eligible if their families earn up to $1 million per year.

 

The new limit would take effect in the 2015-16 school year would not affect current TAG recipients.

 

 

Yesterday, President Obama visited Powell Elementary, a DCPS bilingual school that won Fight for Children's Quality Schools Award in 2012 and that participates with the organization's Joe's Champs initiative for training teachers and principals in early childhood education.

 

Also on Tuesday, first lady Michelle Obama traveled to Washington Yu Ying, a public charter school providing language immersion in English and Mandarin.

 

These events were only the beginning of news featuring the abundance of school choice available in the nation's capital. The D.C. Council, without debate, went ahead and gave final approval to education committee chairman's Promise Program which provides up to $7,500 a year for students to attend college. And there's more. The President's Fiscal Year 2015 budget, released while all of this was going on, increases DC TAG to $40 million from last year's $30 million that offers up to $10,000 for kids in the nation's capital to attend public universities across the country or $2,500 a year to enroll in private schools of higher education in the District or historically black colleges.

 

With all of these exciting events we should start up the band and pop open the Champagne, right? Well, not exactly. You see in keeping with all Federal budgets introduced by this President, Mr. Obama cannot seem to find a penny to continue the Opportunity Scholarship Program, our local private school voucher plan.

 

I wonder if while Mr. and Mrs. Obama had their motorcades jetting across town they stopped at their own children's school Sidwell Friends? But I'm sure they did not. For they might have accidentally bumped into disadvantaged students able to attend this prestigious private school through the OSP. Better to keep things on a positive note and just return to the White House.