NEWS
- Parents want school choice
- Struggling readers in DC's high schools need help from professional tutors
- Many U.S. schools still resist challenging all their students
- Report: Chicago schools chief takes leave as feds probe no-bid contract
Parents want school choice
The Washington Post
By Kara Kerwin
April 17, 2015
While I’ve lived in this area for only five years, my family is rooted in almost every corner of this state — from the Eastern Shore to Hagerstown, from Baltimore to Bethesda. I’ve spent my career counseling thousands of parents and lawmakers across the country to bring about much-needed change in their communities, and now I’m desperate to bring change to my own back yard.
With about 150,000 students, Montgomery County is one of the largest school districts in the country, and it is only getting bigger — actually bursting at the seams. The solution always seems to be to remodel or add mobile classrooms. What we need are more schools — of choice.
We have a growing achievement gap, especially between poor and minority students and white and Asian students. This is uncomfortable for most in my community because Montgomery County Public Schools is not serving all its students well. Gov. Larry Hogan’s (R) original proposal to expand charter schools would have been a boost for my community and would have helped ensure that achievement is possible for all.
Charter schools started in Minnesota in 1991 because educators and parents believed there were more solutions, programs and ideas that even the best school districts could use. The early supporters of the charter school idea were especially concerned about the schools that were not working for most children and about which poverty had become the excuse for failure. Teachers wanted more autonomy to teach, parents wanted more options for their students, and most believed that status quo of the school district model of governance needed serious restructuring.
It was about empowerment then. It still is.
The data on student progress and achievement in charter schools demonstrate the power of autonomous schools that create personalized learning environments for students, are open by choice and are held accountable for results.
Before the Maryland Senate gutted it, Hogan’s proposal would have made three significant changes that, while modest, are important for improving opportunity for parents and creating school environments for teachers and communities to thrive.
First, the charter school governing board should be able to make decisions that matter most for student success. Our local school districts are not equipped for school-based budgeting, decision-making and personnel decisions that are critical to the charter school concept and seek to attract talent outside of traditional education.
Contrary to a campaign launched by the Maryland State Education Association that scared teachers at charter schools, Hogan’s proposal would empower teachers to make a choice. All teachers still would be a part of the state’s pension program.
Second, clarifying the state board of education as the authorizer on appeal is a minor but significant improvement for Maryland’s charter law. The state can act as a critical check and balance when districts and charter schools clash. This necessary route of appeal with a binding decision is missing from the existing law. Charter schools across Maryland have had to sue to receive a more equitable share of funding, have had to close because of conflicts with union-opposed extended-day instruction and have discouraged other applicants from opening.
Demand for charter schools far outstrips supply with more than 12,000 students on waiting lists in Maryland, and adding schools can be an effective strategy for dealing with the public system’s challenges. Providing the state board with the authority to issue a binding appeal decision will give voices to thousands of parents and educators across Maryland vying for alternatives.
Last but not least is the need for more equitable funding for Maryland’s public charter school students. The proposal would validate the importance of equity for every public school child and public school program, whether charter or traditional. Charter schools receive no facilities funding, thus making the inequitable funding even more dramatic.
Success is possible for every child, but the governor should veto the legislation the General Assembly passed and work with lawmakers to return to a plan that will create more effective public school options for Maryland children.
The writer is president of the Center for Education Reform, which advocates for the creation of charter schools.
Struggling readers in DC's high schools need help from professional tutors
Greater Greater Washington
By Paul Penniman
April 17, 2015
Many students in DC's high-poverty middle and high schools have reading skills far below their grade level, and they've become disengaged from school as a result. We can get them back on track if we're willing to invest in paid, professional tutors who will work with them intensively.
In Ward 8's three DC Public School middle schools, only about 25% of students read on grade level, and when they leave many are several grade levels below where they should be. The percentage of students reading at grade level in Ward 8's two high schools, Ballou and Anacostia, is even lower, about 17%.
I run an organization that has partnered with DCPS to provide professional, paid tutors to students at Ballou and Anacostia, and about 10% of our freshmen read at the first-grade level or lower.
Currently, struggling readers in DCPS middle and high schools get help in the form of smaller classes, reading circles, and tutoring from fellow students. But from what I've seen, these strategies aren't working.
An expanded volunteer tutor base won't solve the problem
Mayor Muriel Bowser recently announced a plan to recruit 500 volunteer tutors to work with male students of color in DC Public Schools. While that may be a worthy effort, it won't address the difficult problem of students reading far below grade level in high school.
For one thing, Bowser is partnering with tutoring organizations that primarily serve elementary school students. Moreover, middle and high school students who are three years or more behind grade level in reading need experienced, professional tutors who can work with them at least three hours a week.
Improvement won't happen overnight, but a student receiving that kind of consistent, intensive tutoring during school hours could be back on track in two years.
My organization, Resources for Inner City Children (RICH), has seen good results: almost all the low readers we have worked with who attended 80% or more of tutoring sessions made significant reading gains for the first time in years. During the four years we partnered with Anacostia High School, approximately 40% of the 90 students we targeted moved up three or more grade levels in reading.
The vast majority who didn't make significant progress were students who simply stopped coming to school regularly because it just became too hard and discouraging. That's why even intensive, professional tutoring isn't enough. We also need a well-coordinated effort by school administrators and social service workers to re-engage students who have become disaffected.
A truant, dyslexic child can't wait for a bureaucratic process that involves mailing letters, making threats, and scheduling meetings. School personnel need to visit students' homes and tell them a tutor is ready to shepherd them along a path that has become too overwhelming for them to navigate alone.
Professional tutors are expensive, but not having them is even more costly
Of course, all this will cost money. Professional tutoring can be expensive. RICH has been able to pay its tutors well below the market rate, $40 an hour, because the individuals we hire feel a sense of mission for helping low-income students. At that rate, three hours of weekly tutoring over the course of a school year adds up to about $4,000 per student.
It's also very possible that the school system would need to pay more than $40 an hour for professional tutors who meet the need.
One way to lower costs would be to tutor students in pairs or even threesomes that are compatible both socially and in terms of ability level. One model that uses a semi-professional tutor corps has found that one-to-two is an ideal tutor-to-student ratio.
But the cost of not addressing this problem is much more daunting. Consider that only 39% of the freshmen entering at Anacostia in 2010 graduated on time. That number only got up to 50% at Ballou. Nationally, over half of African-American males who drop out of high school have prison records by their early thirties.
And at each of those schools, 29% of students qualify for special education. Individuals in that category are disproportionately represented in the prison population.
Recruiting volunteer tutors to work with younger children is a well-meaning, and low-cost, effort. But if we want to solve the most intractable aspects of DC's reading crisis, we'll need to invest in luring our most disconnected older students back to school and providing them with high-quality professional tutoring once they get there.
Many U.S. schools still resist challenging all their students
The Washington Post
By Jay Mathews
April 19, 2015
When my wife and I lived in Scarsdale, N.Y., in the 1990s, I was surprised that our son Peter had to take an entrance exam to get into the Advanced Placement U.S. History course at the local public high school. I remembered the five years I spent writing a book about an inner-city East Los Angeles school that had great success letting anyone who wanted to work hard have a chance at tackling AP.
I discovered that that California school was an exception to a national, unwritten rule restricting access to those courses. Most high schools did not go as far as Scarsdale in requiring entrance tests, but students usually could not get into college-level AP courses unless they had a strong grade point average, a good grade in the AP subject the year before or a teacher’s recommendation.
That seemed idiotic to me. Why would anyone stand in the way of motivated kids who would be better prepared for college if allowed to struggle in the most demanding courses available? When we moved back to the Washington area in 1997, I saw the beginnings of a change. The Fairfax County schools opened their AP and International Baccalaureate courses to all students. Not long after, nearly every district in the metropolitan area had done the same.
The Washington region has become a national model for challenging high school students. Many more students here have a chance to do AP, IB or the Cambridge University courses that can lead to the Advanced International Certificate of Education (AICE) diploma. Many more succeed in those courses than do in other parts of the country. According to the College Board, Maryland ranks first and Virginia third in the nation in the percentage of graduating seniors who have passed an AP exam.
Yet a survey I did as part of the latest Washington Post America’s Most Challenging High Schools list — the 2015 edition was released Sunday night — shows many schools still keep average students out of their best courses even though research shows they do better in college when given that opportunity.
Thirty-four percent of the 1,403 high schools that responded to the question said they had traditional rules barring enrollment in AP, IB or AICE if a student lacked the necessary GPA, teacher’s recommendation or good grade in a previous course. This suggests that many U.S. schools still have such rules, since I was surveying only the top 11 percent of schools as measured by participation in AP, IB and AICE.
One reason why 89 percent of U.S. public schools don’t make The Post’s list is that rules limiting access are still widespread. About 75 percent of Washington-area public high schools make the list every year.
The list is based on what I call the Challenge Index. Schools qualify only if they give at least as many AP, IB or AICE exams in a year as they have graduating seniors. They are then ranked by their tests-to-graduates ratio. I also include a sampling of private schools.
When I started the list in 1998, I could find only 243 public schools that qualified. The 2015 list, based on 2014 data, has more than 2,300 schools.
That’s progress, but not nearly enough. In one recent year, 300,000 students who showed readiness for AP based on their PSAT scores were denied a chance to take those courses, according to a College Board study. That waste of time and talent is rarely discussed in education conferences or political platforms.
One Texas study showed that even mediocre students who failed an AP exam had better grades in college than similar students who took no AP courses at all.
Qualifying for the Post list is not that difficult, and schools know how they can make the list and move up on it. A school need only have half of its juniors and half of its seniors take one AP course and exam in each of those years.
Educators sticking to the old access rules “believe that schools are a true meritocracy, which they are not,” said Carol Burris, New York’s 2013 High School Principal of the Year. “Studies consistently show that students from upper middle homes have an advantage in placement in ‘high track’ classes that goes beyond test scores and grades. There remains a stubborn resistance to opening opportunity.”
Daniel A. Domenech, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators, was superintendent of Fairfax County schools when they opened AP and IB classes to all. The district required that all AP or IB students take the independently written and graded exams at the end of those courses, and the district paid the test fees. Many more students passed AP and IB exams than before. Even in schools with a majority of students from low-income homes, achievement soared. “Education should be inclusive, not exclusive,” Domenech said.
Some administrators at schools that are on the Post list but still have the old rules say they try not to lock the door to AP.
“Students have the option to override a teacher’s recommendation,” said Parry Graham, principal of Nashoba Regional High School in Bolton, Mass. Letting anyone into AP “is a positive idea so long as the school is providing the academic supports necessary . . . to experience success,” he said.
Jeffrey J. Thoenes, principal of Williamston High School in Williamston, Mich., said his students must have at least a B in a previous course in the AP subject and a teacher recommendation to get into an AP course. An override form allows a parent to put a student in AP without meeting those requirements.
“The form is seldom used, but it provides clear knowledge to all parties that the students will be in the class but may not have strong prerequisites,” he said.
That seems like ancient history to Washington-area AP, IB and AICE teachers. They tell stories about students who struggled in their classes but found later that the experience eased their adjustment to college.
That message is spreading, but more slowly than it ought to in a country where high school students on average have made no significant reading or math gains in 40 years.
Report: Chicago schools chief takes leave as feds probe no-bid contract
The Washington Post
By Emma Brown
April 17, 2015
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s schools chief has taken leave from her job amid a federal investigation into the school system’s $20 million no-bid contract with her former employer, Chicago officials said Friday.
Barbara Byrd-Bennett has been the chief executive of Chicago Public Schools since Emanuel appointed her in 2012.
Her attorney, Michael Scudder, said Byrd-Bennett submitted a letter to the Board of Education requesting a leave of absence effective Monday. “I believe that my continuing as CEO at this time would be a distraction,” Byrd-Bennett wrote, Scudder said.
Instead, Board of Education President David Vitale announced Friday that her leave would begin immediately “in light of the ongoing federal investigation and its impact on her ability to effectively lead Chicago Public Schools.”
Although Byrd-Bennett is on leave, she has not been accused of a crime or ethics violations. In her absence, Board of Education Vice President Jesse Ruiz will lead the school system, Vitale said.
Emanuel spokeswoman Kelley Quinn issued a statement saying that the mayor supports the move.
“Though there have been no formal allegations, the mayor has zero tolerance for any type of misconduct from public officials and welcomes today’s decision to help ensure this issue does not distract from the incredibly important work happening in our neighborhood public schools,” Quinn said.
The school system, among the nation’s largest with more than 400,000 students, awarded a $20.5 million contract in 2013 to SUPES Academy, a for-profit company based in Chicago’s suburbs. SUPES provides leadership training for principals and superintendents nationwide.
Catalyst Chicago, a news organization focusing on education, first reported on the contract in 2013, raising questions about its propriety given that Byrd-Bennett had previously worked for the company as a consultant. The school system’s inspector general has been investigating since then, Catalyst reported.
The Chicago Teachers Union issued a statement accusing Emanuel of appointing a board that “blindly award[ed] the SUPES contract without stronger scrutiny.” The union, which is negotiating a new contract, has been pushing for an elected school board.
Emanuel’s office declined to comment on the union’s allegation.
Emanuel (D) won reelection in a runoff this month. Education was a key issue in the race, and Emanuel faced criticism over the closure of dozens of city schools under Byrd-Bennett’s watch. He defended Byrd-Bennett’s leadership.
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