- Kwame Brown’s Omnibus Education Act
- D.C. Diverts Special-Ed Savings Away from Schools
- Federal Data Show Racial Gaps in School Arrests
The Washington Post
By Bill Turque
March 5, 2012
The bill’s title is longer than the lunchtime line at Ben’s Chili Bowl: “The Raising the Expectations for Education Outcomes Act of 2012.” It’s a consolidation of four education measures, three introduced by Council Chairman Kwame R. Brown, that are scheduled for a vote at Tuesday’s Committee of the Whole meeting. If the package is voted out, it will move to a first reading at the council meeting afterwards.
The provisions would:
— Devise an early warning system to identify and support middle and high school students at risk of dropping out.
— Require that every D.C. high school student take the SAT or ACT and apply to at least one post-secondary institution before graduation.
— Establish a pilot program to attract top teachers to four low-performing schools. The incentives would include a $10,000 bonus; homebuyer and other housing assistance; tuition relief; and income tax credits.
— Convert five existing D.C. schools into “community schools” that operate partnerships with providers of health, adult education, job training and other services. Schools that qualify would receive grants of as much as $200,000 a year from OSSE. The measure was originally introduced by council member Michael A. Brown (I-At Large).
If testimony at various hearings is any indication, DCPS and the mayor’s office are no better than lukewarm about any of them. That’s because they believe they’re already working effectively on these issues, or they’re not keen on adding new mandates, such as additional graduation requirements.
The Washington Examiner
By Lisa Gartner
March 5, 2012
Mayor Vincent Gray's office is diverting millions of dollars that the District has saved in special-education costs away from the city's public schools and into projects like the One City Summit, the Lincoln Theatre and the Southwest Waterfront, District officials told The Washington Examiner.
The District is required to pay private-school tuition for special-needs students whose services can't be met by the public schools' special-education program, a historically troubled program that is under federal court supervision.
But since January 2011, the number of students in private placements has dropped from 2,204 to 1,763 as most return to the public schools. As a result, the city is spending $16 million less on private placements than its budget of $150 million.
Gray's office so far approved $100,000 to be spent on the Lincoln Theatre; $155,000 on Southwest Waterfront development; $200,000 for a full-time employee focused on Ward 7's economic development; $1.5 million to the Department of Disabilities to offset the loss of a federal grant; and $76,000 to his One City Summit.
Staff in the mayor's budget office said another 10 items are pending, some of which are education-related. They could not say how much funding would go to the schools and for which projects.
Gray initially said the funds for his $600,000 One City Summit, a citizen-engagement event, would be split between taxpayers and private donors, but ultimately used $557,000 of city funds.
"We'd love to put all the money back in education -- there's no question about that," said Gray spokesman Pedro Ribeiro. "But at the end of the day, the District is legally required to have a balanced budget. Sometimes you have to change things around, and the first thing you do is look for savings."
Parents and educators said they were upset that the $16 million wasn't being spent on special-needs students. HyeSook Chung, executive director of D.C. Action for Children and a Janney Elementary parent, pointed out that as many as 23 D.C. schools aren't fully handicap-accessible.
"I'm a D.C. resident and I probably would not have wanted that funding to be used that way [on One City]. I would have invested in children," Chung said. "I know philosophically [Gray] wants that, I just wish he would do that, and show us he wants to do that."
Maria Angala, a special-education teacher at Jefferson Middle School, said her students could use additional support and that teachers could benefit from more specialized training. "I don't think it is possible to reprogram at least $2 million away from education without affecting our students; our kids could benefit so much from that amount of money," Angala said.
More than 100 of the students are in public schools not because the schools improved, but because Rock Creek Academy -- a private school that put misbehaving students in "isolation rooms" -- was closed.
"I understand the budget is driven by what's happening right now, but as someone who has a child on the spectrum, as someone who is in contact with other families, we're not just worried about right now," said Yetta Myrick, president and founder of D.C. Autism Parents. "We're worried about when they're adults. We're worried about what happens when we leave this earth. The reality is it's going to be the city's financial problem when these kids aren't functioning at the level they should be as adults."
The Washington Post
By Donna St. George
March 6, 2012
African American students in large school systems are arrested far more often on campus than their white peers, new federal data show.
The data, from an Education Department civil rights survey to be released Tuesday, provide the government’s most extensive examination yet of how public schools across the country bring police into the handling of student offenses.
The new figures also show continuing racial disparities in out-of-school suspensions and expulsions, which are far more common in schools than arrests and referrals to law enforcement.
“The sad fact is that minority students across America face much harsher discipline than non-minorities — even within the same school,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said. Duncan cautioned that the government is “not alleging overt discrimination in some or all of these cases.” But he said educators and community leaders should join forces to address inequities.
The department’s Office for Civil Rights collected data from 72,000 schools across the country for the 2009-10 school year.
Overall, the data showed that 96,000 students were arrested and 242,000 were “referred” to law enforcement by school leaders, meaning the students were not necessarily arrested or cited.
In a more focused analysis of school systems with more than 50,000 students enrolled, the data showed that African American students represented 24 percent of enrollment but 35 percent of arrests. White students accounted for 31 percent of enrollment and 21 percent of arrests. For Hispanic students, there was less of a disparity in arrests. They accounted for 34 percent of enrollment and 37 percent of arrests.
Such data about student contact with police had not been collected before on such a large scale.
Police action on campus has become a growing concern as law-enforcement presence has increased markedly in the past two decades, especially in the aftermath of the massacre at Columbine High School in 1999, and a zero-tolerance culture has taken hold in many schools.
“It’s an issue that’s gotten more and more attention, and it’s good that we finally have numbers,” said Russell Skiba, an Indiana University professor who has done research on equality in education. “Where there are clear disparities, that should be of concern to us as a nation.”
On arrests, no data were collected about the types of offenses involved. Critics say school arrests are too often made for adolescent misjudgments — such as insubordination, disrespect, class disruption and fighting — that, in previous generations, were handled with calls to parents and visits to principals’ offices.
“There are concerns that a lot of kids are winding up in custody or juvenile detention that probably shouldn’t be there,” said Daniel J. Losen, director of the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at the University of California at Los Angeles, author of a recent report on discipline for the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado.
Duncan himself has told stories about how, when he was schools chief in Chicago, he was stunned to learn that “the vast majority” of arrests of young people could be traced back to schools.
The stakes for students are high, said Matt Cregor of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
“The harms of suspension pale in comparison to the harms of arrest,” he said. “A first-time arrest doubles the chances a student will drop out. A first-time court appearance quadruples them.”
Cregor noted the example of a judge from Clayton County, Ga., Steve Teske, who led a community effort to curtail the surge in cases sent from schools to juvenile court.
Beyond police contact, the data show persisting disparities in out-of-school suspension. African Americans were more than 3½ times as likely to be suspended or expelled as white students, the data showed.
Black males stood out, with 20 percent being suspended from school during the 2009-10 school year. By comparison, 7 percent of white males, 9 percent of Hispanic males and 3 percent of Asian American males were removed from school for disciplinary offenses.
Students with disabilities were more than twice as likely to be suspended as students without disabilities.
Racial disparities in suspensions have been tracked by researchers for years. Experts say there are no studies to show that differences in behavior cause the gap between blacks and whites. Exactly why the gap exists is unclear.
Poverty is an important factor that affects rates of school suspension, but when researchers account for these and other factors, disparities by race still exist.
Many researchers say that unconscious bias is likely to be a factor, as is unequal access to highly effective teachers who do better at managing behavior and engaging students. The culture and leadership of a school are also important. But more research is needed, many agree.
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