- David Catania, Marion Barry want to spend extra D.C. revenue on schools
- Charters Show "Slow and Steady Progress," Multistate Study Finds
- A day at Friendship Public Charter School’s Collegiate Academy [Friendship PCS mentioned]
- Common Core foes spreading misinformation, Duncan says
The Washington Post
By Emma Brown
June 25, 2013
D.C. Council members David A. Catania and Marion Barry are pushing to spend more than $40 million of the city’s projected — and unexpected — additional revenue on public education, funds that would be distributed to schools as extra dollars for poor children. Under the lawmakers’ proposal, the traditional school system and each charter school would receive $744 for every student who qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, a common measure of poverty.
Catania (I-At Large) and Barry (D-Ward 8) estimate the spending would result in an additional $25.5 million for the city’s traditional schools and $17.5 million for charter schools. They plan to introduce a budget amendment Wednesday, when the council is scheduled to take its final vote on the fiscal 2014 spending plan, according to a letter they sent to Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) on Tuesday afternoon.
That vote will come days after city officials forecast a jackpot for the District — an estimated $92 million in extra revenue that was not anticipated. The council has authority to spend $50 million of the surplus; to spend the rest, the council will have to pass a supplemental budget. Catania, chairman of the council’s Education Committee, proposed increasing funds for poor children in a package of legislation introduced this month. Hearings on those bills begin next week.
“This unexpected windfall that we’ve received that comes at the tail end of the appropriations process is an opportunity to correct an error in the existing budget,” he said, criticizing Gray for a spending plan that cut local spending for traditional schools by $1.8 million. Catania, often mentioned as a potential 2014 mayoral candidate, and Gray, who has not said whether he will run for reelection, have both sought to drive public conversation on education policy.
Gray has his own spending priorities for the extra revenue. The mayor is seeking to allocate $10.2 million to charter schools to use as they wish and $12.7 million to the traditional school system to upgrade technology and library resources. He also is seeking $6 million in senior grants, $7 million in arts funding and $11 million to expand day care for infants and toddlers. “The mayor said what he would like to do with the funds,” said Gray spokesman Pedro Ribeiro, adding that a school-funding study is underway and that administration officials believe it makes sense to wait for its results before making big changes.
Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) is expected to present his own proposal Wednesday for spending up to $50 million of the extra revenue. Mendelson had not released details about his plan as of Tuesday afternoon.
Education Week
By Katie Ash
June 25, 2013
Charter school students are outpacing their peers in regular public school districts in reading and performing at about the same level as traditional public school students in math, according to a new multistate study by Stanford University's Center for Research on Education Outcomes. The study, which analyzes charter school performance in 25 states, the District of Columbia, and New York City, found that students attending charter schools gain an additional eight days of learning in reading over the course of a year compared to regular public school students. Charter school students experience about the same amount of learning gains in math as their regular public school peers do.
Both findings indicate an upward trend in performance for charter school students, when compared with the research center's 2009 survey, which looked at charter school student performance in 16 states and found that those schools lagged behind their regular public school counterparts in both reading and math.
In the 2009 study, 17 percent of charter schools outperformed their regular public school counterparts in math, about half showed no difference, and more than a third (37 percent) performed worse. In contrast, the new study shows that a quarter of charter schools outperformed regular public school districts in reading, and 29 percent of charters outperformed their local districts in math, while only 19 percent performed significantly worse in reading and 31 percent performed significantly worse in math. That shift represents a significant turnaround for charter school performance compared to the showing of students in regular public schools.
"There's been slow and steady progress in the charter schools, but there still remains more to be done," said Devora Davis, a research manager at CREDO, in an interview. The report noted that there are significant numbers of charter schools that are "either substantially worse than the local alternative or are insufficient to give their students the academic preparation they need to continue their education or be successful in the workforce."
Progress Through Closures?
The study also looked specifically at the 16 states studied in the 2009 report and found that overall, charters in those states experienced academic gains in both reading and math. Researchers attribute those gains to both the closures of low-performing charter schools as well as an overall decline in performance of the regular public schools.
Another difference researchers saw since the 2009 study was that charter schools are educating more disadvantaged students than they were four years ago. More than half of the charter school population—54 percent—live in poverty, a higher percentage than reported in the 2009 study. Charters are also educating more Hispanic students, although they still enroll a lower number of white and Hispanic students than regular public school districts. Charters enroll a higher percentage of African-American students than do regular public school districts.
More must be done to close low-performing charter schools and replicate the high performance of successful charters, the study says. "We really want the positive performance in that growing number of charters to be looked at and find out how they can transfer what they do in terms of operating and instructional skills to other charters and public education in general," said Davis, of CREDO. "We really think it's time to start and do more of that transfer."
Andy Smarick, a partner at Bellwether Education Partners, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, said the study was evidence of the charter sector's ability to constantly improve, particularly in certain states. Bellwether is a research and consulting organization, whose clients include charters, districts, and states. "Chartering is a continuous improvement system," he said. "If you do the process right, you're going to see this kind of systemic effect."
Some of the most valuable information from the study comes from the differences shown in charters' performance by state, Smarick added. A common feature of the jurisdictions that fare well in the study—he cited the District of Columbia as an example—is that they have strong, independent authorizers, and do not simply "leave chartering in the hands of districts." Smarick, who has studied urban education, said the results should compel states to eliminate caps on the number of charters.
In the District of Columbia, for instance, where the study found that charters had made significant gains since 2009, "charters are approaching 50 percent [of the overall public school population] and getting better results than other schools," he said. "It begs the question 'why can't we have 75 percent, 90 percent or even 100 percent?' It forces you to ask 'do we need to keep the district around?'"
Others were not convinced that the results were a reason for supporters of charter schools to celebrate. Andy Maul, a fellow at the National Education Policy Center and an assistant professor of research and methodology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, said that overall effect sizes in the study showing differences in academic performance between charters and traditional public schools are "trivial in magnitude." Backers of charters, he said, are "making a lot out of a little."
The policy center has published numerous reports on charters, some of them critical of either those schools' academic performance, or of the cost of operating high-performing ones. Davis said charter school authorizers should tie schools' applications to stricter assurances of quality and performance. More research must be done to determine which factors have the greatest impact on charter school performance, she said.
The Stanford researchers drew comparisons between charter school students' and regular public school students' performance through a "virtual-control method" in which charter school students were compared to "virtual twins" who attend regular public schools where the charter students would otherwise have been enrolled.
Virtual twins are chosen to match charter school students' standardized-test scores, race and ethnicity, special-education considerations, free- or reduced-price lunch participation, English proficiency, grade level, and grade retention in order to provide a comparison between schools with similar characteristics.
'Indistinguishable' Differences?
Maul questioned the methodology of the report, saying that Stanford University researchers could have used more common research techniques, and arguing that the "virtual control" model used in the study warranted more scrutiny. Ultimately, the study will join a "growing list of reports that show essentially no overall difference in test scores between students who attend charter and traditional public schools," Maul told Education Week in an interview.
Similarly, the director of the National Education Policy Center, Kevin Welner, said in an e-mail that the study's findings mirror the overall thrust of past research on charters. "Test-score outcomes for the charter school sector are indistinguishable from the test-score outcomes of the public schools in general," Welner said.
Policymakers and researchers would be wise to move beyond debates about comparing charters versus regular public schools, and shift to examining "how to improve both of these sectors," Welner said, "starting with the basic realization that little will be accomplished by merely propping up charters, or by other changes in who runs schools. The most successful charter schools and the most successful non-charter public schools offer greater opportunities, resources and supports for students and teachers."
Greg Richmond, president of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, a Chicago-based organization that attempts to improve the quality of charters, said the study's state-by-state analysis should allow the public and policymakers to dissect what kinds of policies for governing the sector work best. "Rather than pretending that the differentiation doesn't exist, and proclaiming that there's some kind of national truth," Richmond said, "we instead need to say we can now see and learn what's happening where [charters are] doing well, and apply those lessons."
Even in states where charter schools are underperforming, Richmond said he's optimistic the study will provide a roadmap for improvement. In some of those states, he said, lawmakers have recently put in place tougher requirements on charters. Richmond took note that the study found that 8 percent of charters are closing after failing to meet various standards. That's a sign that many charters are being held accountable for academic performance, he argued, even if a greater number of ineffective schools need to be shut down.
"Charter schooling is getting better, but we're not there yet," he said.
A day at Friendship Public Charter School’s Collegiate Academy [Friendship PCS mentioned]
The Examiner
By Mark Lerner
June 26, 2013
Wow. I had the thrill of a lifetime a few weeks ago when I had the tremendous opportunity to visit Friendship PCS's Collegiate Academy. The highlight was being able to sit in Daniel Moses’ Advanced Placement world history class. I’m not sure I can accurately describe with words what I saw but I’m going to take a shot.
The approximately 30 high school juniors were divided into two teams at the north and south ends of the classroom. Mr. Moses, who won the 2012 Friendship Teacher of the Year Award, began the period by passing out a two page handout which contained a factual story. The students had a set amount of time to read the passage, identify the main theme of the material, and then to support the thesis with evidence contained in the piece. I learned later in a fascinating conversation with Dr Arsallah Shairzay, Friendship’s extremely knowledgeable Dean of Early College and Director of Advanced Placement, that this exercise is modeled on a skill assessed on the A.P. exam.
Next the class was asked to provide the who, what, when, where, and why of four historical genocides. Again, it was a fast paced exercise that the students had 10 minutes to complete. Next it was on to a debate between the two groups of pupils on the question of whether the United States has a moral obligation to provide funding, weapons, and soldiers to prevent genocide in other regions of the world. Students did not know whether they would be taking the affirmative or negative on the position before they were separated into groups. It was fun to see the reaction on their faces when they learned which side they would be on.
Each team received points when various criteria were met. Credit was given when a new speaker joined the conversation, an original line of reasoning was offered, a direct counter argument was provided, or when a historical example was added. Teams lost points when a student interrupted another, even if it applied to one of those in their own group.
Mr. Moses moved the debate quickly between the two sides. There was a specific interval allowed for the initial contention, then another limit on the rebuttal. Sometimes one group was permitted to have many students speak before the other side received a turn, at other portions of the debate it was as if I was watching a professional volleyball match. The students were as articulate as those you would find attending universities.
I had a couple of observations from the class. My first impression was that Mr. Moses made it appear that he was not teaching the students. In an almost magical way he drew information from the pupils in a manner that looked like they were instructing themselves. The second overwhelming take away revolved around the portions of the class alloted to the work accomplished during my visit. There was a palpable excitement created by having to complete a task in five, two, or ten minutes.
In an interview after the class with Mr. Moses I learned that this focus on specific blocks of time for work is called pacing. The instructor talked about its importance in the supporting material distributed at the Teacher of the Year Ceremony:
“In the glossy brochure that accompanies the event Mr. Moses explains his philosophy of teaching. He has four principles. First, he explains that every child can learn. Next, he said he places a great emphasis on rules being maintained consistently in the classroom. His third principle is that ‘his classroom is one in which rigor and pacing is obsessed over.’ But I think it is Mr. Moses’ final point that is the most important one, which he explained in his acceptance speech. ‘All you really need is love; love for teaching, love for history, and love for the kids.’”
The instructor went on to explain to me that teaching is individualized to the student. Mr. Moses pointed out that although all of the pupils received material to read at the start of the class the worksheets were not all at the same academic level. Once thing this allows Friendship to do is to include special education students in mainstream classes. Mr. Moses related that there were special education kids in the class I observed which is something I never would have guessed.
The individuals Mr. Moses’ taught were not the only impressive young people I met that day. I began my visit at Friendship Collegiate with a panel discussion involving six students. Dressed as if they were about to go on job interviews were Jay Common (sophomore), Anthony Green (senior), Phillip Pride (senior), Kendra Spruill (senior), Alassane Traore (senior) and Brian White (senior).
There were many similarities among these pupils. All the seniors are attending college. They uniformly have taken one or more A.P. classes. As a group they had extremely positive comments about Friendship Collegiate. There were common themes. “Outstanding support; high expectations; school teaches you to be a better person; the staff cares about you,” they proudly remarked.
One issue that is often brought up about public charter schools is that they separate kids from others where they live that go to the neighborhood school. Since almost all of these students come from Wards seven and eight I asked if this was a problem. Mr. Common said it best in response to my inquiry when he commented, “Usually, if they are not going to Friendship they are not my friend.”
One area where these students get a heads up on going to college is through taking courses at universities over the summer. Mr. Common will spend three weeks at Cornell through an OSSE Scholarship. Ms. Spruill, a POSSE Scholarship winner who is attending Bucknell University, spent a couple of weeks at Boston University. Mr. Pride, who was also awarded a POSSE Scholarship and will attend Sewanee: the University of the South, has been to Carnegie Mellon, also on an OSSE scholarship.
Dr. Shairzay related to me other ways that Friendship prepares students for future success. It starts with a Summer Bridge Program in which incoming ninth graders come for tutoring before the start of the school year. Those behind grade level in English and Math take two blocks of these subject areas during the regular school year. Eleventh and twelfth graders, through the Pathway to Early College Program, have the opportunity to take college classes at the University of Maryland and at the University of the District of Columbia. In addition, Friendship is in the process of developing its own POSSE Program through the University of Wisconsin. The school is working to enhance its Student Ambassador Program at other institutions of higher learning, which provides a support network for students once they arrive at college.
Friendship has also been extremely successful with students winning D.C. Achievers Scholarships. These are awards of up to $50,000 toward college. This charter, according to Dr. Shairzay, has had over 600 students win the scholarship which represents about 37 percent of all students in the nation’s capital that have been provided with the Gates Foundation sponsored grant.
Friendship also provides classes in what are called the Academies. These include Arts and Communication, Engineering and Technology, Health and Human Services, Business Administration, and Allied Health. Interestingly, under the Engineering and Technology Academy students can take classes in CISCO. Since I am a hospital administrator I would love to volunteer lecture as part of the Introduction to Healthcare class which is part of the Allied Health major.
The programs and support provided by Friendship Public Charter School has had a measureable positive impact. Friendship Collegiate educates about 1,100 students in grades nine through twelve. 60 percent of the kids are males, 99.4 percent of all students are African-American. 72 percent of the children are eligible for free or reduced price lunch. The four year high school graduation rate is 91 percent, 35 percentage points higher than the average for regular D.C. schools and 14 points higher than the D.C. charter school average. 24 Collegiate students have earned POSSE college scholarships and three students have been awarded Gates Millennium Scholarships, which cover all college costs through graduate school. In all, students from this school have been awarded over $40 million in college scholarship money. 100 percent of each graduating class has been accepted to college.
During my student interviews my hero Donald Hense, Friendship’s founder and CEO, came into the room. The students’ faces lit up upon his entering. Mr. Hense then spent some time going around the room telling me interesting facts about each of the young people I had met. I was amazed understanding that Friendship now has about 8,000 children in its system. However, I realized at the same time that this is what is possible when someone wakes up at four a.m. each morning to start his work. If the love of students is what is allowing them to succeed when in other schools they have failed, then at least at Friendship it starts at the top.
The Washington Post
By Lindsey Layton
June 25, 2013
Education Secretary Arne Duncan planned a robust defense on Tuesday of the Common Core standards, new academic standards in reading and math that have been adopted by 45 states and D.C. The standards, which are rolling out in most states and will be in place by 2014, have been attacked in recent months by conservatives and tea party activists, who say they amount to a federal intrusion into local school systems.
In a speech before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Duncan called those criticisms “imaginary” and accused opponents of the Common Core of spreading misinformation. Here are his remarks to the gathering of newspaper editors, as prepared for delivery:
“The work you are doing to help the next generation become more sophisticated in understanding the news is absolutely vital. To have full power over their lives, young people must understand the world they live in. They have to read, they have to follow the news, and they have to vote. All that is such an important part of what it means to be educated. So, thank you.
Traditionally, this event has been an opportunity for federal leaders to talk about touchy subjects. For example, you asked President Kennedy to talk about the Bay of Pigs. So, thanks for having me here to talk about the Common Core State Standards.
Academic standards used to be a subject for after-school department meetings and late-night state board sessions. But now, they’re a topic for dueling newspaper editorials. That’s because a new set of standards — rigorous, high-quality learning standards, developed and led by a group of governors and state education chiefs — are under attack as a federal takeover of the schools. And your role in sorting out truth from nonsense is really important.
So I’d like to explain how we arrived at this place. I’ll talk about information and misinformation, and ask you to help Americans draw a bright line between the two. I’d like to make the case that these standards have the capacity to change education in the best ways – setting loose the creativity and innovation of educators, raising the bar for students, strengthening our economy and building a clearer path to the middle class. But for these new standards to succeed, Americans will need to be clear on what’s true and what’s false.
You and I wake up every day to similar worries and similar hopes. We just attach different labels to them. You wonder whether there’s a market for serious news. You wonder whether a generation that grew up on text messages and Twitter will read about interest rates and Iran. I worry about the one in four young Americans who don’t graduate from high school — and the three out of four high school graduates who are ineligible to serve in the military. I worry about the 90 million American adults with below-basic or basic reading skills.
If you don’t worry about these things — you will. Because they put your future at risk — and ours. For America to prosper — and for journalism to survive — we need a generation that reads, writes and thinks.
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