NEWS
- D.C. students become advocates at Cesar Chavez Public Charter High Schools [Cesar Chavez PCS mentioned]
- Cheh calls for audit of D.C. Public Schools food service contracts
- The District’s food-services investigation should continue
- Student poverty, lack of parental involvement cited as teacher concerns
D.C. students become advocates at Cesar Chavez Public Charter High Schools [Cesar Chavez PCS mentioned]
Watchdog.org
By Moriah Costa
June 10, 2015
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Shayla Johnson, a senior at Cesar Chavez Public Charter High School, believes police militarization and racial tension needs to end. But she did more than post a Facebook status about it — she dedicated her senior thesis to finding a solution to the problem.
Johnson joined two of her other classmates, Monet Deadwyler and Damani Jasper, at Georgetown University last week to present their senior thesis to the public.
While Johnson addressed the issue of police brutality, Jasper looked at the causes and solutions of college debt, and Deadwyler argued for a one-state solution to the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
The thesis is the capstone project of students at Cesar Chavez that addresses a public policy issue. Students must present their findings, give both sides of the debate, develop their own solution to the problem, and write a 15-page analysis. The top three students are then asked to defend their policies to a panel of professionals.
Joan Massey, CEO of Cesar Chavez, said the thesis is used to teach students skills they need to become civic leaders, such as public speaking, research and forming their own opinions.
“We can’t assume that just because they’re going through a rigorous academic program, that they could put it all together into this type of accumulating project and this is what they need in order to really be successful in college and be successful after college,” said Massey.
On Friday, Johnson, Jasper and Deadwyler put those skills to use as they addressed a crowd of about 200. They were joined by officials from the Obama administration, the U.S. Department of Education and education experts. They discussed racial tensions, how to combat inequality and the role community plays in expanding education.
It’s programs like Chavez that help students succeed and end inequality, Johnson told the audience.
“One of the things that makes Chavez stand out from regular public schools is that the rigour in our course work and the expectations that our teachers and our parents have for us is so much higher,” she said.
Massey agrees.
“I have been in this career for 30 years and when you see the difference between these students being able to stand up and speak versus going to your typical, low-income school districts where they graduate less than 20 percent of their students, you know the difference,” she said.
The charter school was founded in 1998 by Irasema Salcido in a basement with 60 students. Now the school serves over 1,400 students in grades 6-12 on four different campuses throughout the city.
One of its two high schools is ranked in the top tier by the D.C. Public Charter School Board, which authorizes and oversees charter schools in the city. The other high school is ranked in the second tier.
“Our theme of public policy and civic leadership is really at the center of what we do and it’s for a reason,” Massey said. “Because we want to make sure that our students are insiders, not outsiders, and that they can lead us through the change that we need.”
Cheh calls for audit of D.C. Public Schools food service contracts
The Washington Post
By Michael Alison Chandler
June 9, 2015
Council member Mary M. Cheh (Ward 3) is requesting that the District auditor conduct an investigation into D.C. Public Schools’ performance and monitoring of its food service contracts, after the school system’s largest food vendor agreed to pay $19 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that the company overcharged the city and mismanaged the school meals programs.
The settlement agreement is the result of a whistleblower lawsuit waged by Jeffrey Mills, a former director of food services for D.C. Public Schools against Chartwells-Thompson Hospitality, which has provided food services for schools in the District since 2008. The lawsuit led to an investigation and then a complaint from the D.C. attorney general’s office.
Officials from Chartwells, which is a subsidiary of Compass USA, denied any wrongdoing and said the settlement reflects a desire to resolve the issues and move forward. And school system officials said Friday they planned to continue their contract with Chartwells, which ends June 30, 2017, and said that any concerns about the prior contract have been addressed.
In a letter to D.C. Auditor Kathy Patterson sent Monday, Cheh said she is “especially concerned” with the decision to extend the contract.
She said, “this large settlement is only the latest development in a long series of documented performance and management issues with this vendor and with DCPS’s management of its food service contracts.”
She asked for the auditor’s opinion as to whether Chartwell’s conduct should preclude the company from future contracts with the District, and she requested a review of the school system’s performance in monitoring and awarding food service contracts, as well as a determination as to whether the school system’s desired benefits of privatizing the food program, which was previously managed in-house, have been met.
“DCPS, it would appear, has continuously turned a blind eye to Compass /Chartwell’s poor performance and over-billing,” she said.
Cheh’s letter details a history of problems, dating to 2011 when the company was in danger of losing its contract because of poor performance. After the school system renewed the contract in July 2012, she said, nine council members wrote a letter stating concerns.
In 2012, an independent audit commissioned by the school system found that the food program had been operating at a loss of more than $10 million per year since the contract began in 2008, prompting a hearing before the D.C. Council’s Committee of a Whole. At the time, Cheh told The Washington Post that the outsourcing of food had been “a failed experiment.” Before 2008, food services were managed in-house.
In 2012, Compass USA paid $18 million in a settlement in a New York lawsuit involving more than three dozen school districts that alleged they were overcharged.
In early 2013, Jeffrey Mills was fired from D.C. Public Schools, after serving as the Director of Food and Nutrition Services since 2010.
Mills had been a vocal critic of Chartwell’s performance, and he alleged in a lawsuit that he was terminated for raising flags about the system’s mismanagement of the contract. Last year, he settled the lawsuit with the school system for $450,000.
The District’s food-services investigation should continue
The Washington Post
Editorial Board
June 9, 2015
A COMPANY that provides food for the District’s public school system has agreed to pay $19.4 million to settle claims that it acted fraudulently in getting and then servicing the lucrative contract. The money is a welcome boost for the city’s coffers, but there are some critical unanswered questions. Foremost: Why can this company still work for the District while the city employee who blew the whistle on the alleged wrongdoing was fired?
Chartwells-Thompson Hospitality, the largest food vendor for the school system, agreed to the payment to settle a lawsuit brought by Jeffrey Mills, the system’s former director of food services. Mr. Mills’s suit, later joined by D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine, alleged that Chartwells caused the schools to pay millions more than they should have for the meals program. It also claimed there were repeated problems with the service, including food arriving at schools late, spoiled or in short supply.
The settlement contains no admission of fact or liability, and a spokeswoman for Chartwells stressed to us that there was no wrongdoing. She characterized the issues as related to contract disputes about cost overruns. A spokesman for the school system said officials are confident the issues have been resolved and Chartwells’s contract will continue until 2017. But the allegations detailed in the litigation by Mr. Mills and Mr. Racine are not so easily dismissed. Is it true that Chartwells got the contract in 2008 based on false promises and outright misrepresentations? Did Chartwells really mark up 8-ounce cartons of milk so that the District ended up paying $50,000 more a year than it should have?
What’s perhaps most troubling is that the only action that appears to have been taken by school officials was to fire the person who raised concerns. Mr. Mills, who had clashed with D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson over the direction of the program, was fired in 2013 and replaced by a former Chartwells employee. He received $450,000 from the city to settle his wrongful-dismissal suit and, under the law that allows private citizens to file civil lawsuits against companies that they say have made false claims to the D.C. government, will get a portion of the $19.4 million. What he should get is his old job back.
Likewise, D.C. residents should get some answers. Council member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3) has asked D.C. Auditor Kathy Patterson to audit food service contracts. In particular, she wants an opinion about whether Chartwells’s action should bar the company from future contracts with the District. We hope Ms. Patterson undertakes a review and that the council’s education committee also investigates the matter.
Student poverty, lack of parental involvement cited as teacher concerns
The Washington Post
By Lyndsey Layton
June 9, 2015
Student poverty is a major barrier to learning, according to teachers polled in a new national survey of educators released Tuesday.
Lack of parental involvement and overtesting were also identified as big problems, as well as student apathy, according to an online Public Opinion Strategies survey of 700 elementary and secondary teachers across the country.
And while nine out of every 10 teachers said they have spent their own money on school supplies, significant numbers say they also have given help to poor students: 51 percent said they have spent their own money to feed students, 49 percent report helping students get new shoes or clothes and 29 percent have helped them get medical care.
Teachers who responded to the poll said they were spending about 20 percent of their time helping students resolve non-academic problems that stem from their lives outside school.
“Twenty percent is the equivalent of one day a week or four days a month, or, extrapolated out, roughly 2.5 to 3 years out of a child’s 12-year career,” said Dan Fuller, vice president of legislative relations for Communities In Schools, a national nonprofit that commissioned the study. “This is time that teachers are addressing the needs of a few students at the expense of an entire classroom. Clearly poverty is an issue that impacts all students.”
The survey comes at a time when the percentage of public school children living in poverty is rising, and the findings echo other recent teacher surveys about the impact of poverty on classroom learning.
More than one out of every five school-age children in the U.S. were living below the federal poverty line in 2013, according to the federal government. That amounted to 10.9 million children — or 21 percent of the total — a six percent increase in the childhood poverty rate since 2000.
The youngest and newest educators — those between 18 and 34 or with less than five years of experience — spend the most time trying to help students solve problems that have nothing to do with classroom instruction, according to the survey.
Communities In Schools works to connect low-income students with social services, health care, mentors, counseling, academic help and other support. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 3.7 percent.
Asked to name the two biggest problems facing schools where they teach, teachers said overtesting and lack of parental involvement were the greatest challenges. They identified the other challenges, in descending order:
● Students distracted by problems outside of school
● Students disengaged from learning
● Class sizes that are too large
● Weak administrators
● Student poverty
Grouped by race, teachers offered slightly different perceptions. Slightly more than half of white teachers identified overtesting as the biggest problem, followed by lack of parental engagement. African American teachers gave equal weight to lack of parental engagement and overtesting while Hispanic teachers said their greatest problem is students coming to school distracted by problems outside of school, followed by too much testing.
A majority of teachers said there should be both school-based social services to help low-income students, as well as community partnerships and outside professionals who can come into schools and work with students.
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