- Washington Latin opens year in expanded Ward 4 Campus [Washington Latin PCS mentioned]
- The Deputy Mayor for Education explains her role
- Bricks and Mortatboard: Can New Buildings Turn Around D.C.'s Public Schools?
- Should Charters be Allowed to Give Neighborhood Preference?
- Kevin Chavous says President Obama is biggest threat to school vouchers
Washington Latin opens year in expanded Ward 4 Campus [Washington Latin PCS mentioned]
The Northwest Current, pg 3
By Graham Vyse
September 4, 2013
Washington Latin Public Charter School began its academic year with major changes, having traded a three-campus model for a single facility and placed the entire student body under the same roof for the first time in half a decade.
The high-performing charter opened its doors yesterday at 5200 2nd St. NW, the former Rudolph Elementary School, christening a refurbished building that includes a new library and parking lot as well as an athletic field.
The five-acre campus put students in grades five through 12 in the same location; they had been divided among three campuses along 16th Street. Now, students share a single building divided into three wings — one for high school students, another for middle school students and a third for shared space.
“The building is just fabulous,” said head of school Martha Cutts. “For the school to finally have a space commensurate with the quality of the educational program is a dream come true.”
Cutts said an Aug. 25 open house for students and their families drew a crowd of approximately 1,000 to the new building. The updates on display included a new library with a reading room and a research space; a new 80-space parking lot that doubles as a basketball court; and an extended handicap ramp in front of the school. The building has separate entrances for middle and high school students as well as new windows and heating, Cutts said.
Washington Latin received the building permit for its new location in February and was issued its certificate of occupancy last month.
The city agreed last year to provide the charter with a 25-year lease for he red-brick Rudolph school, which had closed in 2008.
Cutts said yesterday’s school opening came a week later than usual, but the Sept. 3 date was picked to ensure the building would be ready for use. Asked about future upgrades at the facility, she said the school has raised $1.2 million for faculty support and the construction of a new gymnasium. The goal is to raise $4.5 million for these projects.
Thus far, the changes at Washington Latin appear to be benefiting students and teachers alike. Courtney Farrell Brouse, who teaches seventh-grade Latin as part of the classical curriculum, said she previously shared classrooms with other faculty members, but now has a room of her own.
“It has walls and a window that looks out over the field,” she said. “It’s perfect.” Farrell Brouse also said having every student in the same building will give her an unexpected pleasure this year: She will have the chance to
spend time with the seniors, the first crop of students she taught as seventh-graders, before they graduate next spring.
The Deputy Mayor for Education explains her role
Greater Greater Education
By Abigail Smith
September 4, 2013
We asked Abigail Smith, the Deputy Mayor for Education, to tell us about her job. Here's her guest post.
I often hear the following question: With a Chancellor, a Public Charter School Board, and a State Superintendent of Education, what does the Deputy Mayor for Education do? There are lots of cooks in DC's education kitchen, and it can be hard to sort out who does what.
Basically, I advise the mayor on education policy and coordinate activities among a variety of agencies that have a role in educating students in the District. But let's start with what those other key players do.
The Chancellor, Kaya Henderson, serves as the chief executive of DCPS and is responsible for operating a public school system that serves 46,000 of our city's students. Since 2007, the Chancellor has reported to the Mayor rather than to a school board.
Scott Pearson serves as the Executive Director of the Public Charter School Board (PCSB), whose members are appointed by the Mayor. The PCSB authorizes new charter schools, reviews and monitors existing public charter schools, and holds them accountable for delivering results. Our public charter schools serve 34,000 students in the District.
And while the District of Columbia is, of course (and unjustly!), not technically a state, the federal Department of Education views us as a state for the purposes of federal funding, compliance, and accountability. The Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE), led by Emily Durso, oversees these typical state functions for both District and public charter schools.
Clear enough. So where does that leave the Deputy Mayor for Education (DME)? I serve several functions that intersect but do not overlap with the ones described above.
Chief policy advisor to the Mayor on issues of education from early childhood through post-secondary and adult education. It is my job to help the Mayor ensure a policy environment that supports the goals of equity, access, and quality across the public education landscape: DCPS and charter, early childhood, K-12, and adult education. For example, we are currently examining how to revise the funding formula for schools and the way payments are made to DCPS and public charter schools, to better support student needs.
Oversight and support for all education-related agencies in the district (DCPS, OSSE, and PCSB, along with the University of the District of Columbia and its Community College, and DC Public Libraries). These agencies have varying governance structures and levels of independence. It is my role to identify and support opportunities for collaboration across this landscape, to ensure the Mayor is aware of the progress and priorities of each agency, and to hold agencies accountable for their strategic use of government resources.
Interagency coordination. While much of the work of education happens within schools and their dedicated agencies, there are many issues that benefit from—or even require—reaching across the government into non-education agencies. From crossing guards, to mental health workers, to support for truancy prevention and intervention, our partner agencies across the government play a critical role in the success of our schools.
My office ensures that these outside supports are in place and coordinated effectively across government clusters. I co-chair the city's Truancy Taskforce, and I work closely with the Deputy Mayors of Health and Human Services, Public Safety, and Planning and Economic Development on a range of issues to ensure that we are maximizing District resources in support of our education priorities. This includes leading the re-use process for vacant DCPS buildings that are candidates to house charter schools and working closely with the Department of General Services.
Convening and coordinating hub for projects that involve multiple players in the education space, particularly across the DCPS and charter sectors. With each education entity focused on its particular interests, it is helpful to have a convening party that can manage projects across these entities to leverage our full range of public education assets and resources. For example, my office is currently overseeing a "Graduation Pathways" study, which will help DCPS, public charter schools, and community-based organizations better plan for programs to address the particular needs of our youth population that is struggling to graduate.
Similarly, I chair the executive team of representatives from DCPS and charter schools overseeing the design and development of a common application and lottery system across both sectors, which will simplify the way families access schools. As one more example, the Office of the DME will take the lead on the process of updating school boundaries and feeder patterns. It is critical that our public school sectors—DCPS and charter—work together for the best interests of all students and families, not in isolation or zero-sum competition. It is my responsibility to create the space and incentives to make this happen.
As the Mayor laid out in a recent speech on education, this Administration is focused on scaling up existing pockets of excellence to serve more students; strengthening existing schools and programs; and simplifying the way families access all aspects of our education system. As DME, I help the Mayor ensure that we have a citywide approach for public education that coordinates strategies across our full range of educational entities and aligns government resources towards the common goal of high-quality educational programs and great outcomes for every student, in every neighborhood in the District.
Bricks and Mortatboard: Can New Buildings Turn Around D.C.'s Public Schools?
The Washington City Paper
By Aaron Weiner
September 4, 2013
As class let out last Monday, the scene outside Dunbar High School felt like the close of a typical school day. Teenagers in black polos streamed into the street, where friends and family waited. A security guard urged them along, shouting repeatedly, “C’mon, let’s clear the front. Let’s go. Let’s go!”
But there was an extra charge of excitement running through the crowd. No longer were the students departing a drab 1970s-era fortress; this was their first day in the new Dunbar, a $122 million building at New Jersey Avenue and N Street NW with bright, airy common areas and a polished auditorium and gym. The new building sits on the former playing fields of the old one, which is still awaiting demolition and now serves only as a foil, reminding students how much more attractive their new surroundings are.
“It’s awesome,” gushed 12th-grader Imane. “In the old building, we didn’t have no windows. Now we have a much better environment.”
Fellow senior Vernon agreed. “It’s real elegant,” he said. “It’s a good learning environment. You can’t be in a top-notch school and not want to do better.”
There’s plenty of room for Dunbar to improve. Only 16.8 percent of the Dunbar sophomores who took the D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System test this year were proficient in math—a decline from 19.7 percent last year, at a time when most D.C. schools raised their test scores. In reading, 17.9 percent were proficient, an even bigger drop from 27.7 percent in 2012. In both categories, Dunbar ranks among the 10 worst schools in the city, excluding schools for children with disabilities.
It’s possible that the bleak surroundings have dragged down Dunbar’s test scores, and that the new building will boost them along with morale. But there’s still a glaring incongruity between the building and the students it serves: With enrollment at struggling D.C. public schools continuing to dwindle, the gleaming new Dunbar is half-empty.
The building’s capacity is 1,100 students, according to Department of General Services spokesman Darrell Pressley. Last year, Dunbar’s enrollment was just 504. Enrollment this week stands at 546, though DCPS is projecting a total of 584.
“The new Dunbar is actually built for 100 more students than the old Dunbar,” says At-Large Councilmember David Catania, who chairs the Council’s education committee and has sparred recently with Mayor Vince Gray over education policy. “I support new state-of-the-art facilities, but I think there’s something to be said for aligning the size of the buildings with the population.”
Earlier in the day last Monday, Gray and DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson visited several schools, including the freshly renovated Cardozo High School at 13th and Clifton streets NW. In addition to its spiffy new glass atria and commemorative murals, the building also now hosts the Shaw Middle School—without which it, like Dunbar, would be half-empty. Gray and Henderson stopped into a sixth-grade classroom, where Henderson asked the students what they thought of their building.
“It’s new,” said one student. “It’s big,” noted another. “A lot of stairs,” added a third. “It cost a lot to get it rebuilt,” chimed in a perceptive fourth.
$130 million, to be precise. Gray thinks the investment is worth it. “It sends a tremendous value statement,” he told me as we departed the school. “When they walk into a school that looks like a dump, that’s a statement about what their value is.”
But does throwing money at a school building actually improve performance? Cardozo, like Dunbar, has struggled with academics as well as enrollment. Its sophomores’ reading proficiency fell nearly six percentage points from 2012 to 2013, dropping to under 20 percent.
Glen Earthman, a professor at Virginia Tech’s School of Education who has studied the relationship between school buildings and student performance, says his research has shown that new buildings do boost test scores, sometimes as much as 10 percent.
“It’s a very simple reason: Older buildings do not contain the building elements that new buildings do that impact learning, such as air conditioning, proper lighting, controlled acoustics, proper equipment, and even the absence of graffiti,” he says. He’s found aesthetic improvements can actually have a bigger effect on student performance than structural ones.
But Earthman’s studies haven’t gone on long enough to determine whether the performance boost is a permanent one or just a short-term bump that fades with time. “I don’t know if it’s just the newness that they react to, or the amenities in there,” he says. “But I think if there is a bump, it’s a long-lasting one, in terms of years, not in terms of months.”
There’s some evidence that D.C.’s school modernizations have brought a bump. At Anacostia High School, whose renovation was completed a year ago, combined math and reading proficiency jumped from 14.5 percent in 2012 to 19.1 percent this year, though it’s too soon to say whether that improvement will last.
Still, critics like Catania argue that the Gray administration isn’t getting at the root of the problem: the systemic obstacles to higher enrollment at schools like Dunbar and Cardozo.
Catania says the schools modernization program has brought “a disproportionate investment in high schools,” where enrollment is slipping, rather than in the feeder elementary and middle schools that could help reverse the declining enrollment at high schools. According to a chart prepared by his staff, the Office of Planning expects elementary schools to account for 97 percent of DCPS population growth by 2017, but they’re set to receive only 46 percent of the school modernization investment in that time period. High schools, by contrast, are expected to shed students, but they’ll receive 37 percent of the total investment.
Enrollment data show that while the number of students starting kindergarten, first grade, and second grade at traditional public schools increased from 2011 to 2012, enrollment in 10th, 11th, and 12th grades dropped. There were 4,123 children starting kindergarten at DCPS schools last year, but just 2,558 starting 10th grade.
That’s likely due in part to the increasing number of young professionals choosing to raise their children in the District. But if middle and high schools fail to improve and these parents continue to follow the trend toward charter schools—or move to private or suburban schools—high school enrollment will remain low. (Charter enrollment grew by 10 percent last year, compared to just 1 percent for traditional public schools.)
“We’ve built these fantastic structures,” says Catania, “but unless there are improved feeder patterns and improved middle school options, there are going to be these beautiful buildings that are unused.”
Henderson, who has pointed to improved test scores across the city to argue that her approach has been working, says the new buildings will make “a tremendous difference.” But she says they’re ultimately not what’ll make or break the schools.
“I don’t think it’s the building that’s going to make the increase in scores,” she says. “I think it’s leadership.”
Under Gray, DCPS hasn’t made the kinds of radical changes undertaken by Henderson’s predecessor, Michelle Rhee, and Gray has emphasized the need for continuity rather than some of the reforms pushed by Catania. Henderson has credited some of her more modest policies, like new curricula and experimenting with longer school days, as well as personnel changes, for improving test scores.
* * *
A week before the new Dunbar opened to students, Ada C. Banks sat in its spacious auditorium, watching as Gray, a fellow alum of the school, dedicated the building. Banks first came to Dunbar more than 70 years ago, graduating in the class of 1934. I asked her how the new building compared to the Dunbar she remembered, when it was housed in a building even older than the one that now sits vacant.
“Boy,” she said with a wide smile. “It’s like another world.”
The question is whether an otherworldly building can help Dunbar match the prestige it had back in Banks’ days there, when it was one of the premier African-American schools in the country. It has a long way to go.
Should Charters be Allowed to Give Neighborhood Preference?
The Hill Rag
By Jonetta Rose Barras
August 31, 2013
“I was just unwilling to throw my kids in the car and drive what felt like half way around the world,” said Jeanne Contardo, a Ward 7 resident, explaining why she and her husband, Christian, decided to enroll their child in DCPS’ Anne Beers Elementary School.
Beers may be a secret as well kept as Hillcrest, a middle-class community east of the Anacostia River. The Contardo’s daughter attended a nearby daycare; when she was ready for pre-kindergarten, they chose their neighborhood school.
That’s what Michelle Phipps-Evans, the first vice president of Hillcrest Civic Association, also wanted to do. She and her husband had friends with children about the same age. “We’re always doing things together, and we thought it would be good if the kids could be educated together.
“All of us are middle-class blacks,” continued Phipps-Evans. “We said if we got behind the school, we might help turn it around faster.”
Parent-driven reforms have occurred across the city. Unfortunately, DCPS’ antiquated boundary system denied Phipps-Evans the opportunity to participate in the one at Beers. She was forced into DCPS’ out-of-boundary lottery; her daughter eventually enrolled in Ward 6’s Maury Elementary School.
“Everyone should have a solid neighborhood school,” said Ayanna Smith, vice president of the Penn-Branch Citizens Civic Association. She and Contardo are the lucky ones—as are many parents in Wards 2, 3, 4, and 6, where some of the city’s better schools with consistently high rates of student achievement are located.
Parents in other communities, particularly Wards 5, 7 and 8, are part of what At-Large DC Council member David Catania has called the “morning Diaspora.” They are forced to travel miles from their homes to attend the kind of quality facilities they believe their children deserve. As a testament to the daily public education migration, the council recently approved legislation allowing District children to ride the subway and Metro buses free.
“We talk about food deserts; there are school deserts,” said Eboni-Rose Thompson, chairperson of the Ward 7 education council.
Middle-class families are skilled at navigating the system. But low-income and working-class families not so much. They often are stuck in neglected buildings with under-funded academic programs and insufficient staff.
“It’s inappropriate to tell a group of poor black kids that if you want to get quality education you have to go across town,” said Contardo. “We have to figure out how to keep Ward 7 kids in Ward 7 [schools].”
A Solution or More Problems
Mayor Vincent C. Gray and at-large Council member David Grosso have each introduced bills aimed at allowing charters to give preference to families in communities where their facilities are located. They say their measures will lead to more quality seats.
Speaking before a crowd of “education stakeholders” in June, Gray said his legislation would “rapidly expand the number of high-quality school programs for all learners.” It would allow chartering authorities to give permission to a school to “establish a preference in admission or right to attend” if it increases opportunities and wouldn’t adversely impact students who live in areas “identified as having a critical service gaps” between demand and need.
More than 37,000 children are expected to attend charter schools during 2013-2014, according to documents provided by the charter school board. By law, charters must accept children, regardless of where in the city they live, on a first-come, first served basis or through a lottery, when there are more applications than available seats.
That wouldn’t change with Grosso’s legislation. But charters would be allowed to “voluntarily” set aside 20 percent of the available seats for children from their neighborhoods. “Right now, they are not allowed to claim it, if they are doing it. And, they can’t do it even if they want to.
These neighborhood preference proposals and the mayor’s push to give chartering authority to DCPS have been roundly criticized. Many parents and education advocates say the plans would injure traditional schools. In fact, that may already have happened. Charters appear to be strongest in Wards 5, 7, and 8 where DCPS has shuttered its facilities; a total of 20,866 students are enrolled in charters in those three wards. That is more than half the charter population.
“It doesn’t solve the key problem,” said Matthew Frumin, a Ward 3 resident and cofounder of Parents and Communities for Neighborhood Schools. “It doesn’t provide the predictability that parents want from pre-K through high school. [Further] it’s still not a school of right. It’s a tip of the hat to the concerns.”
“Charters take away from neighborhood schools. But who am I to deny a parent an option,” said Smith, the rare preference supporter.
Many parents are focused on traditional schools. At meetings this summer called by Catania, Ward 2 parents complained of difficulties in securing a meeting with Henderson and getting her to listen to their ideas. But the issue of neighborhood preference never came up. To underscore connection to traditional schools, Catania reported the projected enrollment for 2013-2014 in Ward 2 DCPS schools is 3,192. Conversely, according to documents provided by the public charter board, only 858 children are expected to attend charters in Ward 2 during the same period.
“There is an intense interest for the restoration of public education,” said Catania.
Good neighborhood schools are a prime ingredient for strong, stable communities. Suzanne Wells, a Ward 6 parent and education leader, called the preference legislations “a slippery slope. If there’s one strong advantage DCPS has over charters, it’s their neighborhood schools.
“[Besides] there isn’t a real demand,” continued Wells. “Already 45 percent of the charter schools have about 50 percent of the students coming from the neighborhood. If you allow neighborhood preference [you] start decreasing openings for students across the city. “
In 2012, the council mandated a task force study the issue. Brian Jones, then-chairman of the charter school board, headed a 12-member panel. In a letter dated Dec. 14, 2012 to council chairman Phil Mendelson, Jones wrote an analysis “showed the impact of neighborhood preference would not increase the number of or access to quality seats in D.C. public charter schools.
“The data found there could be an adverse effect on access for certain students,” Jones continued. The task force agreed, however, it would be acceptable for charters to “voluntarily offer a time-limited preference for students in the enrollment zone of a recently closed DCPS school when a charter school would occupy that facility.”
Translation: Give charters buildings, they will take displaced students.
Management failure
The revival of neighborhood preference may be an acknowledgement of mission failure. The original plan in 2007, when then-Mayor Adrian M. Fenty won control over the city’s entire education apparatus, was to dramatically improve the network of traditional “matter of right” schools. By law, the DCPS must provide a free education to every child who comes to its door. Charters don’t have that same obligation.
There have been some improvements in DCPS. Math scores were up 3.6 percentage points from 2012. The average for reading was 4.0. DCPS may have bested charters in reading and composition, but drill down and things are not so rosy in either camp, noted Ward 6 Council member Tommy Wells. Of the 195 scores participating in the testing, 64 or nearly one-third had drops of 5 percentage points of more in 2013 from 2012.
“The people who need quality education are the ones most underserved,” said Ward 7 parent Greg Rhett.
Faced with the reality it hasn’t substantially improved the system for all children, there has been talk during the past 18 months about making charters and traditional schools collaborate. “We have the unique opportunity to show the country charters and traditional schools can work together,” said Mark Jones, a Ward 5 parent and state board of education member.
The Gray also is examining how traditional schools might feed into charters. That could be DCPS’ answer to its middle and high school problem.
“I helped write the legislation that created charter schools. We never envisaged they would grow the way they have,” said Mary Levy, a Ward 2 resident and one of the city best known education experts. “I think the trajectory is bad. The way we’re going DCPS is not going to be viable very long.”
As DCPS has failed to make radical improvements or introduce more innovative academic programs, parents have raced to charters. But is that changing? One week before school was scheduled to start, the charter board was advertising dozens of seats still available in high performing schools.
Still, many DCPS supporters worry giving Henderson the power to authorize her own brand of charter could accelerate the demise of traditional schools. “Been there, done that,” said Rhett, noting DCPS had chartering authority until 2007, when the reform act took effect.
“If they’re going to the New Orleans model, then don’t waste millions of dollars each year closing down more schools just do it,” Rhett added.
Gray has said chartering authority would allow Henderson to attract proven high-performing school operators to operate charters within the DCPS. It would provide an additional way to turn around low-performing traditional public schools and offer more independence to existing high-performing schools.
“[Henderson] is supposed to be the leader of DCPS. She is supposed to champion DCPS as a system, argued Thompson. “He tells people to preserve the Catholic Church. Our Pope is agnostic.”
Catania has said he prefers creating “innovation schools” that would allow the chancellor to bypass onerous rules and regulations and give parents and administrators a role in developing improvement plans. “Giving traditional public schools the resources they need and autonomy they need would be my preference.”
Gray has tried minimizing parents’ concerns about the potential destruction of DCPS. “There is a lot of fear in this narrative, and a lot of distrust."
He’s right. It and what parents call an uninviting DCPS, have caused more of them to question whether the city has the right education leadership team: “If our chancellor does not believe she can turn around low-performing schools by hiring strong principals and introducing innovative programs,” said parent-leader Wells, “then maybe we need a new chancellor.”
- See more at: http://www.capitalcommunitynews.com/content/should-charters-be-allowed-g...
Kevin Chavous says President Obama is biggest threat to school vouchers
The Examiner
By Mark Lerner
September 6, 2013
In a recent article by John Gizzi of Newsmax former D.C. Councilman Kevin Chavous bemoans the attempts by the Obama Administration to end private school voucher programs here in Washington, D.C. and in Louisiana. The reporter has Mr. Chavous getting right to the point:
"We have a 97 percent graduation rate for children in the Opportunity Scholarship Program in the District of Columbia, 92 percent college enrollment, and two valedictorians, and our biggest problem is fighting Obama."
Mr. Chavous went on to explain that every Federal budget year the President zeros out funding for the extremely popular Opportunity Scholarship Program but,
"House Speaker John Boehner always has put it back in, according to Chavous.
'John Boehner is our biggest champion in Congress,' Chavous said."
In Louisiana, Mr. Gizzi points out 5,000 students have been awarded vouchers after approximately 8,000 applied. Now the U.S. Justice Department has brought a lawsuit against the plan claiming that it increased segregation in the traditional schools. On this issue Mr. Chavous is no less direct:
"'In other words, this is another stall-and-delay tactic from the very same union that opposes educational choice. And under this lawsuit, only a federal judge should allow a poor black child to leave the failing school district.
'That's right, it's not up to the parent, but a federal judge,' Chavous said."
In standing up boldly to the President he used to support Mr. Chavous is nothing less than a hero to the school choice movement and to those parents fighting for a quality education for their children.