- Options charter revocation on hold [Options PCS mentioned]
- Jonetta Rose Barras: Relisha Rudd and the unbroken cycle of bad D.C. schools
- DC's planned Common Core tests aren't yet ready for prime time
Options charter revocation on hold [Options PCS mentioned]
The Examiner
By Mark Lerner
April 24, 2014
Last evening the D.C. Public Charter School Board held the second consecutive meeting in two days to consider applications for new schools for the 2015 to 2016 term. If you missed the session or was unable to catch the live feed of the event you did not miss much. Two applicants presented and neither one stands a good change to be given the green light to accept students.
Xcelerate Institute is a proposed charter for young adults who fail to graduate from high school in four years. The 400 student body school would prepare individuals to enter the workforce by providing an academic curriculum centered on preparation to pass the GED as well as teaching the soft skills that will assist them in being successful in their careers.
The major issue regarding this application revolved around the plan to teach using a blended learning approach. I have now seen a number of charter proposals self-destruct when school representatives start talking about instruction utilizing technology. The most common cause is a failure to be able to adequately describe exactly what this model looks like on a day-to-day basis. So was the case with Xcelerate.
The discussion around the Student Parent Achievement Center of Excellency (SPACE) application unfortunately mostly focused on the school's proposal from two years ago when it was denied a charter and how it had been revised based upon feedback from the PCSB's staff. The school's representatives denied ever having received the information even after several requests by phone and email. This appeared odd since each of the board members had the document as part of their materials for the meeting. But the candidates must have learned something from their experience because missing now is the idea of a fee-based pre-school. It's too bad things went so poorly because SPACE would be a 400 Pre-Kindergarten through eighth grade Arabic immersion school, and the first charter to be located in Ward 3.
The session started with a public hearing regarding Options Public Charter School. Here we learned a couple of new details about the troubled charter. First, Court-Appointed Receiver Josh Kern just yesterday was also given the title of Custodian of the school, thereby officially allowing him to make decisions far beyond the financial matters he was initially brought on to address. In addition, a Memorandum of Understanding has now been drafted between Options and the PCSB, which if approved by the D.C. Superior Court and the Board would allow the school to continue operating through the 2014 to 2015 term. But what was abundantly clear was how far the PCSB's attitude has changed. At first, the discussion only revolved around charter revocation. Last night's conversation began with Board member Don Soifer asking what his group could do to support Mr. Kern in his effort to keep the school operating. The matter will be taken up by the PCSB on April 29th.
Jonetta Rose Barras: Relisha Rudd and the unbroken cycle of bad D.C. schools
The Washington Post
By Jonetta Rose Barras
April 24, 2014
“The school system had failed them,” former Post reporter Leon Dash wrote in his book “When Children Want Children,” about teen parenthood in the District.
“All of the adults and adolescents I met started elementary school as enthusiastic children,” continued Dash. “But by the second grade, academic deficiencies appeared and remained uncorrected. By the sixth grade, these children knew that they would not finish school.”
The cycle continues: In 2011, there were 54.5 pregnancies per one thousand girls, ages 15 to 19 years old, according to the D.C. Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. In 2013, more than 40 percent of black students failed to graduate high school on time, according to the Office of the State Superintendent.
Shamika Young is testimony to the devastating and cascading consequences of family deterioration. She was placed in foster care at age 6 and moved around in that system until she was 18. A year later, Young gave birth to a daughter: Relisha Rudd, the 8-year-old who has been missing for two months. Young, now 27, subsequently had three other children.
Government social workers reported signs that Young’s children were neglected and abused. She certainly didn’t care for them properly. Neglect breeds neglect. Given her background, who would expect Young to know about family and good parenting, really?
Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) recently said he continues “to be distressed” about Relisha’s disappearance. He asserted there was “no indication that District government agencies or staff failed to fulfill their duties.”
Did the government fail its duty years ago? Is it doing the same now with other Shamikas and Relishas? If you believe securing a quality education is a key element in becoming a contributing adult in society, then the answer to those questions can only be yes.
Too many D.C. children, especially those in families in which the parents are undereducated, are trapped in poor-performing public schools. Most of those children are destined to become adults stuck in low-wage jobs or relegated to some abandoned public hospital warehousing homeless families. Was Relisha on the path to becoming Shamika?
The city has the resources to help redirect children’s lives. Gray proposed spending $1.5 billion for public education — charters and traditional schools — in fiscal 2015; $63 million of that money is supposed to help schools that serve a preponderance of at-risk children. As currently written, the mayor’s proposal doesn’t offer many specifics about how those funds will be spent,
Next week, the D. C. Council’s education committee is expected to discuss the mayor’s proposal with D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson, whose operation will receive $44.5 million of that $63 million for at-risk students. In an April 22 letter posted on the DCPS Web site, Henderson said, “We have ensured every dime of that funding went to students who need it most.” She also promised the instructional day will be extended at all 40 low-performing schools. But what does that mean?
The council is expected to explore in depth how Henderson intends to use those new funds to improve academic achievement for low-income children in underperforming schools. It may also want to determine how that mission could be affected by the boundary and student assignment recommendations offered by Abigail Smith, the deputy mayor for education. She and her team deserve credit for creating an inclusive process for examining the city’s public education delivery map. But let’s be clear: The crowding that prompted the boundary proposal is a symptom. The disease is insufficient high-quality schools, particularly in low-income communities.
Gray shouldn’t take action on Smith’s proposals — not because he’s a lame duck or because of any other political consideration but rather because it’s time to end the madness.
District families don’t need any more school lotteries — not mini, neighborhood lotteries, not citywide lotteries, not combined DCPS-charter lotteries. They need — and the council should demand — a specific, prescriptive Marshall Plan for public education that does not rely on contrivances. Residents in each of the eight wards must be guaranteed quality, matter-of-right neighborhood facilities — from elementary through middle and high school.
City leaders might consider deploying their arsenal of incentives, frequently provided to developers, to help transform underperforming schools by encouraging economic diversity; reports have shown that the achievement levels of low-income students can increase in such climates. For example, tax credits could be offered in targeted education zones to middle-class families who enroll their children in neighborhood schools while investing time and expertise. The faith community could be urged to create a mentorship system matching low-income public school families with middle-class or upper-income families.
With the steep increase in public school funding proposed in the 2015 budget, education reform should take on a new urgency. It may be too late to rescue Shamika Young — and, unfortunately, Relisha. But there are others.
We know education is a powerful elixir. If the system works, it can help strengthen the family structure, deter crime, end poverty and change values.
DC's planned Common Core tests aren't yet ready for prime time
Greater Greater Education
By Allyson Jacob
April 23, 2014
Next year DC will begin giving tests based on the new Common Core state standards. Judging from a practice test available online, these assessments will need major revisions before they'll come close to being able to measure students' actual capabilities.
This spring, the two consortia that are developing assessments based on the Common Core have been conducting field tests in the District and elsewhere. DC has chosen to use tests produced by the consortium called PARCC, which stands for Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers.
PARCC has made practice tests in math and English at various grade levels available on its website. I took the 10th-grade English Language Arts/Literacy assessment to see what it was like. And I found some serious problems.
The Common Core standards, adopted by 44 states and DC, have ignited debate among legislators, educators, and parents. Some love the idea of holding children across the country accountable on the basis of a common "master ruler" by which all students can be measured.
But some opponents fear the Common Core will place too many education decisions in the hands of the federal government. Others say the common standards are either too demanding or not demanding enough, or warn that teachers will still have to "teach to the test."
Even some who embrace the concept of the Common Core have raised concerns about how it's being implemented. And some states have provoked an outcry by giving their own versions of Common Core-aligned tests that parents and teachers have said contain unclear or confusing questions.
Some states that had signed on to the PARCC consortium have been having second thoughts. Kentucky pulled out in January, although it said PARCC would be welcome to bid when it issues a request for proposals for new tests. And this month Tennessee's legislature passed a bill that would have the same effect.
Problems with the PARCC practice test
Some procedural aspects of the PARCC practice test I took were unclear. There is no indication of the length of time students would be given to complete the test if it were real, for example.
Also, the introductory screen says that there are 23 questions on the test, when in fact there are 42 multiple-choice questions. Most screens contain two questions about the same text. It is not clear if these questions are scored as one item, or if partial credit is awarded if a student answers one question right but not the other.
The major issue I have with the test is this pairing of questions. A student first has to select the correct answer to a question about a passage. Then, in the next question, the student chooses which line from the passage best supports her first answer.
On the first screen, for example, question A asks the meaning of the word "resonant" as used in a passage. Question B then asks which of a number of quotations from the passage "helps clarify the meaning of resonant."
If you choose the wrong answer in the first question, you've gotten both questions wrong. That's true even if the passage you choose for the second question correctly supports your incorrect answer to the first question.
A testing no-no
In a story for NPR, reporter Cory Turner applauded the fact that the PARCC tests "ask kids to read a text closely and to write about it using evidence from the text."
His point is that this is an advance over previous tests that asked students to write responses to questions that had no right or wrong answers, like "What would you do if you were principal for the day?"
But having a second answer depend on whether you've gotten a previous answer correct is a big no-no in test-writing theory.
I spent 4 years editing curriculum at K12, an online educational publisher. Toward the end of my tenure, I worked extensively on editing standardized test questions, along with some leaders in the field.
From that experience, I learned that making the answer to one test question dependent on another is unfair. A standard text on writing multiple choice questions explains the problem: "If [students] get the first question wrong, they will automatically get the other question wrong as well, even if they understand the concept tested in the second question." And almost the entire practice test is in the form of interlocking questions.
Some of the other questions on the test are just poorly written. For one question that asks students to identify a literary theme, none of the possible answers is in the form of a complete sentence. I challenge you to find a teacher who would accept "the difference between illusion and reality" or "the contrast between reason and emotion" as a valid answer to an open-ended question.
The test also includes 3 essay questions. Even though we don't know how much time students will be given for the test, I'm not sure it's possible to allow enough time to craft an acceptable response to even one of them.
Two of the questions, which focus on characterization, are relatively easy, if time-consuming. But one asks students to write an essay "analyzing the arguments of those who believe certain kinds of free speech should be prohibited within an educational setting and those who believe the opposite."
Students must base their answers on passages from a Supreme Court majority opinion and dissent, along with a 4-minute audio passage on the historical significance of the case.
It's the kind of question that might appear on an AP US history test. But that test is typically given to 11th-grade students who have just finished studying the subject. The PARCC test will be given to 10th graders who will probably have no background knowledge on the issue they're being asked about.
So, as teachers are fond of saying, what have we learned? For one thing, asking students to identify textual evidence on a standardized test may be a good idea, but it's no substitute for giving them the opportunity to make a well-crafted argument.
It's possible that Common Core-based assessments will be an improvement over past state-mandated tests. But if the PARCC practice assessment I took is any indication, we still have a long, long way to go.