- Why charters shouldn't be 'neighborhood schools' [FOCUS Op-Ed]
- New poll shows backing for charter schools [FOCUS Op-Ed]
- A high-quality school anchors a changing neighborhood [Two Rivers PCS mentioned]
- Report: Charters should accommodate students of closing DCPS schools
- Charters: Everyone's doing 'em
- 56 D.C. charter schools don't have nurses
- D.C. parents develop alternatives to chancellor's school-closure plan
Why charters shouldn't be 'neighborhood schools' [FOCUS Op-Ed]
The Washington Post
By Mark Schneider and Robert Cane
December 28, 2012
We both served on the Neighborhood Preference Task Force, which has just issued its final report. A parting gift of former D.C. Council chairman Kwame Brown, the task force was charged with recommending whether public charter schools should be required to grant an admissions preference to residents who live near them. Right now, charters are schools of choice and accept students from all over the District, while it is the responsibility of the D.C. Public Schools (DCPS) to provide neighborhood schools. But as higher-performing charter schools in their wards become the preferred choice for parents, some on the D.C. Council want “their” charter schools to fill up with neighborhood kids.
The task force recommended against turning charters, which educate 43 percent of the District’s public school children, into neighborhood schools. This was the right decision; indeed, neighborhood preference is a distraction from the real challenge, which is how to expand the supply of high-quality opportunities for students to learn. A recent study commissioned by Mayor Vincent Gray’s administration estimated that, in spite of the success of charter schools, the District needs 39,000 more seats in quality public schools. How to get them is the question that should occupy us, not how, through neighborhood preferences or other means, to ration the inadequate number we have.
Early in its deliberations, the task force discovered that neighborhood preferences would deny educational opportunities to Ward 7 and 8 students, more than 5,000 of whom, faced with bleak opportunities in their home wards, travel across the river to enroll in charter schools.
Just how bad are the schools in those wards?
Consider that only one of the 39 DCPS schools in Wards 7 and 8 was above the average on the D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System (DC CAS) test in 2012, compared with a third of the 25 public charter schools in those wards. Consider further that six of the 10 neighborhoods most in need of seats in quality schools are in Wards 7 and 8.
If these numbers don’t tell the story clearly enough, head over to the high-performing KIPP public charter school on Douglass Place in Ward 8. KIPP enrolls more than 1,000 students, 70 percent of whom score proficient or better on the DC CAS. Not surprisingly, the school’s waiting list is the same size as its enrollment. Now walk five minutes to Moten Elementary, a failing DCPS school with 150 empty seats and academic performance that is a shadow of Kipp’s, with only about 20 percent of its students proficient or better. Imposing a neighborhood-preference requirement on charters would drive Ward 7 and 8 kids back across the river, condemning them to schools like Moten.
It was not in the task force’s mandate to look at how the District could create more space in high-quality schools in Wards 7 and 8 and the rest of the District. That’s a shame, because there are two concrete steps we can take to accomplish this vital task.
First, we need to encourage and support the expansion of high-performing charter schools such as KIPP, Ward 6’s Two Rivers Public Charter School (with 1,300 students on its waiting list) and the equally high-flying Thurgood Marshall Academy in Ward 8.
Second, we need to make it easier for nationally recognized chains of charter schools to enter the District or to expand their enrollment here.
But there’s a problem. Successive city administrations have been reluctant to provide our charter schools with buildings that DCPS can no longer fill. And even when a building is made available, it can take two years or more for it to get through the disposition process. This makes no sense in a city so desperate for better public schools.
The District is about to miss another opportunity to create high-quality schools. Recently, it announced a plan to close 20 schools, almost half of them in Wards 7 and 8. But under the plan, hardly any of these buildings will go to charter schools. And the Gray administration appears to believe that charters that don’t offer a neighborhood preference should never get a public building.
Perhaps the task force report will cause the administration to change its mind. Our high-performing charter schools provide a quality education to District students without regard to where they live. Neighborhood preferences have nothing to do with creating more seats in quality schools and everything to do with reallocating them at the expense of our most underserved students. So let’s start talking about what really matters: how to provide a good public education for all D.C. kids.
New poll shows backing for charter schools [FOCUS Op-Ed]
The Current Newspaper
By Robert Cane
December 26, 2012
Politicians take note: Education is the most important issue to D.C.’s voters. Approximately 39 percent believe that education should be the top priority for the mayor and city council.
In a new poll by TargetPoint Consulting, the 800 registered D.C. voters surveyed have a more favorable view of public education offered nationally than that which is available in the nation’s capital. While nearly a third of the voters were prepared to give U.S. public
education an “A” or “B” grade, slightly fewer than a quarter gave D.C.’s public education those grades.
Some 37 percent of District voters feel that the city’s public schools are “failing,” and a further 48 percent describe them as “struggling,” with a mere 11 percent prepared to describe them as “succeeding.”
An increasing number of city voters have become aware of public charter schools, which educate 43 percent of D.C. children enrolled in public schools. Some 73 percent have recently read, seen or heard something about these publicly funded institutions that are operated independently from the District’s traditional public school system — up five points from TargetPoint’s 2011 survey.
The electorate’s knowledge of public charter schools also has grown, according to the poll’s results. Charter schools are tuition-free, non-sectarian public schools that cannot select their students according to academic ability.
Three-quarters of D.C. voters approve of how the city’s charters are making it possible for more District students to earn a college degree by graduating a significantly higher share of high school students compared to the city-run school system.
Almost as many are impressed that, on average, economically disadvantaged students in D.C. charters score 14 percentage points higher on standardized reading and math tests than do their peers in the traditional public schools. In total, some 55 percent of District voters favor charter schools, with only 21 percent opposed.
Two-thirds of voters say that the D.C. government should let charter schools buy or lease buildings that the city’s school system can’t fill. Voters recognize that successful charters are being forced to occupy and expensively renovate warehouse, retail and office space.
There also is significant voter disappointment at the city’s record on fairly funding all its public schools — which D.C. law requires and which Mayor Vincent Gray promised, but failed, to deliver.
Some 62 percent agree that the city’s school capital funding should be equalized per-student. Charter students currently receive half of what is allotted to their
city-run school peers in city school capital funds. A further 59 percent want the city to ensure that charters receive the same city services as traditional public schools, such as school nurses and crossing guards.
Fully 35 percent of respondents said that candidates’ positions on charter schools matter in determining how they vote.
Mayoral candidates may also like to take note of voters’ views of an idea, touted by some D.C. Council members representing gentrifying neighborhoods, to restrict charter enrollment in those areas to favor locally resident students. Some 55 percent of voters in Southeast D.C. say they will oppose this proposal if it reduces educational choices for students who live east of the Anacostia River.
Voters in Southeast and Northeast D.C. are particularly concerned about Mayor Gray’s unfulfilled promise to fund D.C.’s public charter schools equally with D.C.’s traditional public schools. Some 69 percent of Northeast voters and 60 percent of Southeast voters say
D.C.’s next mayor should fund all D.C. public schools, traditional and charter schools equally — and say Gray has not done so.
D.C. voters differ in their experience of public charter schools — charters serve a higher share of children from low-income families than D.C.’s traditional public school system — but support is strong. D.C.’s current mayor has tested voters’ patience. When will one deliver for them?
A high-quality school anchors a changing neighborhood [Two Rivers PCS mentioned]
The Washington Examiner
By Ann Gosier
December 22, 2012
Neighborhoods are changing throughout the District of Columbia. The newly rebranded NoMa community, a long-neglected area south of K Street, has seen much development since the Metro station which bears its name was opened.
Close to the intersection of New York and Florida Avenues in Northeast D.C., Two Rivers receives city funds to provide tuition-free public education, filling available places on a first come, first served basis. The school is one of 57 D.C. public charter schools that together educate 43 percent of all District children enrolled in public schools.
Free to decide their own school curriculum and culture, charters are held accountable for improved student performance on the city's standardized reading and math tests, as well as other performance measures, such as attendance and governance.
D.C. charter schools are not given a building by the city; they must find their own space for a new or expanded school. Two Rivers attempted to negotiate for 20 sites -- before finding warehouse space requiring substantial renovation.
Fortunately, the founders persevered. Today, Two Rivers educates 450 pre-K through eighth-grade students on two campuses -- the original renovated space, plus a new building across the street.
Two Rivers is one of only 20 D.C. charter schools classified as "high performing" by the city's charter board. Some 73 percent of the school's elementary school students pass D.C.'s standardized tests; 69 percent of the middle school students do the same.
To place the school's reading and math scores in context, Two Rivers' elementary students score 29 percentage points higher, and its middle school students 21 percentage points higher, than do students in city-run D.C. public schools overall.
Importantly, while the school's students perform very well on reading and math tests, they learn much more.
Two Rivers is an expeditionary learning school, using an academically rigorous, project-based educational method grounded in research. Students learn by solving problems, not by rote memorization.
The school aims to foster students' ability to work with others; to be reflective, self-critical and adaptable; to learn early in life to analyze what is before them and synthesize information; and to collaborate with others to generate solutions. As they learn, students engage the many resources of our city.
The premise of the school's founders is that by teaching students how to learn from the earliest age, they will become lifelong learners, able to master the 21st-century skills needed.
Two Rivers students, educated in the art of mastering difficult tasks, need only to look at their innovative school buildings as an example. Two Rivers was built in partnership with local architect Milton Shinberg of local firm Shinberg Levinas. Many challenges were met in the process.
While renovating warehouse space was not the school's first choice, the formerly abandoned building that today houses its elementary school campus accommodates a common area and playground space. Squares of glass on the ground floor let in light on the previously windowless wall facing busy Florida Avenue. The nearby middle school campus has added gymnasium space and a roof garden.
NoMa is changing fast -- a large apartment and retail complex is being built at the junction of New York and Florida Avenues, a grocery store recently arrived, and thousands of square feet of new office space are being constructed. Previously, the traffic intersection and three drive-through fast-food outlets dominated the landscape.
Two Rivers will continue to be a part of this thriving community as it grows, develops and changes. Our students will continue to be involved in many aspects of community service. Schools are a vital part of all of our communities. What better contribution to the area than a high-performing public school?
Report: Charters should accommodate students of closing DCPS schools [KIPP DC mentioned]
The Washington Examiner
By Lisa Gartner
December 25, 2012
A task force of city and school leaders is recommending that District charter schools reserve seats next year for students who attend neighboring DC Public Schools campuses that have been recommended for closure.
The task force, which includes DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson, DC Public Charter School Board Chairman Brian Jones and Washington Teachers' Union President Nathan Saunders, among others, said in a 46-page report that they believe this would "ease the transition for students, families and communities impacted by these closures."
Henderson proposed in November closing 20 DCPS campuses, mostly neighborhood schools that would shutter by the time the next school year began in 2013. These schools are significantly underenrolled and generally underperforming, and Henderson said closing the schools would allow her to pool resources and provide better academic and extracurricular programs for children. The school system has declined to say how much money the closings, which are expected to be finalized next month, would save.
Before the long-anticipated closures were announced, the D.C. Council convened a task force to explore the possibility of requiring charter schools to give preference to students who live in the same neighborhood or ward of the school. Admission to D.C. charter schools is determined through a citywide lottery, with preference given only to the children of the school's founders and the siblings of current students.
The task force, which also includes the deputy mayor for education and the chief of staff of the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, shot down such a systemic change. Many charter schools already enroll the majority of their students from the surrounding neighborhoods, and such a preference could end up hurting students in the low-income areas of Ward 7 and Ward 8, who most frequently enroll in charters outside of their neighborhoods, the group's report said.
Charter schools should open up slots to students displaced by DCPS closures for at least a short window of time, the task force recommended. Students who attended or were zoned for closing DCPS schools would have priority enrollment at nearby charters before the charters accepted students from the lottery.
The decisions would be school-by-school and voluntary, but some charter leaders say they're ready to sign up. Susan Schaeffler, the CEO of KIPP DC, said the KIPP campus on Benning Road Southeast would be happy to accommodate students from nearby Davis Elementary, which has been targeted for closure.
"We really want to open up seats to kids who can walk to the campuses," Schaeffler said. "We try to locate our schools the best we can in the neighborhoods that are underresourced, and I understand every charter school is different, but it works well for us."
Charters: Everyone's doing 'em [Friendship Collegiate Academy Mentioned]
Washington City Paper
By Martin Austermuhle
December 21, 2012
In late October, D.C. officials proudly announced that enrollment in nonprivate schools had ticked up 5 percent over the course of a year, putting the overall number of students in public schools at a level not seen in more than a decade. The hitch was where that growth was concentrated: Public charter schools saw an enrollment jump of 11 percent, while growth in the traditional D.C. Public Schools system was just under 1 percent.
In the 15 years since charters were first authorized by Congress, the schools have blossomed: There are now 57 charter schools on 102 campuses serving roughly 41 percent of all D.C. school kids. (In Ward 5, it’s 54 percent, while in wards 1 and 7 it’s 51 percent.) Charter school students show higher proficiency in math and reading, and of the city’s 15 high schools with the highest graduation rates, nine are charters. Even in athletics, charters are winning out: Friendship Collegiate Academy bested Dunbar High School in the city’s inaugural state football championship earlier this month.
To critics, though, not all is well in charter world. The schools can be as inconsistent as their public school brethren, they can cannibalize neighborhood schools, and they expel students at much higher rates—students who then either end up back in DCPS or out of school altogether.
Still, the numbers don’t lie: Charters are blooming, and depending on how DCPS responds, public education in D.C. could look very different in a decade.
56 D.C. charter schools don't have nurses
The Washington Examiner
By Lisa Gartner
December 23, 2012
Less than half of the District's public charter schools employed a school nurse this year, leading to spotty tracking of students' allergies and inconsistent responses to injured students, school officials told The Washington Examiner.
"To me, it's like a ticking time bomb," said Scott Pearson, executive director of the DC Public Charter School Board.
Of the 103 charter school campuses in the District, only 34 have a full-time nurse provided to them by the city, as all schools in the traditional D.C. Public Schools system do. Nine other charter schools have part-time services, and four have hired a private nurse for whom they pay out of pocket. Two schools normally have a nurse, but the positions are vacant.
That leaves 56 campuses without a nurse.
When a student enrolls who needs regular medication, such as insulin for diabetes, the school ensures that a staff member is trained to administer it. And when there's an emergency, the schools know to call 911. But without a school nurse, no one is consistently reviewing students' health records for food allergies.
"If they're not reviewed correctly, there's a real possibility a school could serve peanuts not knowing there's an allergy," said Richard Fowler, an operations associate at the charter school board.
As for kids getting sick or injured, "When there's a Department of Health nurse in the facility, there's a protocol. Without that, they're sort of on their own when little Johnny has a stomachache or little Johnny falls off the monkey bars," Fowler said.
The main reason that the schools lack nurses, charter officials say, is their facilities. The city has extensive regulations for what a "nurse suite" must provide: electrical outlets every 6 feet; a waiting area with four chairs for every 300 students; a rest area with "adjustable overhead lights"; and 26 other regulations. The idea is to provide a safe and positive environment for students needing medical attention.
Unlike DCPS, charter schools are on their own to find school buildings. It's not uncommon, then, for charter schools to operate out of storefronts, church basements or other unorthodox spaces.
Dr. Saul Levin, interim director of the D.C. Department of Health, said he was aware of the situation and would meet with the charter school board to discuss possible flexibility in the city's code. But he cautioned that the city set specific standards like an in-room sink for a reason.
"If a nurse is going to examine three boys, the first one with possibly an infectious disease, she can't be in a basement and have to go upstairs to a water basin to wash her hands," Levin said. "There are some bottom-line criteria."
D.C. parents develop alternatives to chancellor's school-closure plan
The Washington Post
By Emma Brown
January 1, 2013
When D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson outlined a plan this fall to close 20 city schools, she did not call it a plan. Instead she said it was a proposal, a pliable draft meant to be refined with input from parents, teachers and community members.
But Henderson was clear: Heartfelt pleas and save-my-school rallies would not be enough. She was going to need concrete alternative proposals that would attract more families to the schools and help fill half-empty buildings.
“Don’t come to me with 500 people saying, ‘Don’t close my school,’ ” she said at a community meeting at Brightwood Elementary in early December. “Come to me with 500 enrollment forms.”
Parents and activists at several schools have tried to respond to that call in recent weeks, studying neighborhood census data and surveying current and prospective D.C. public school families to find out what they want in a school.
They’ve developed student recruitment plans, five-year enrollment projections and building-renovation timelines. They’ve put together PowerPoint presentations and talking points. And they’ve held their fair share of rallies.
Now there’s not much more to do but wait to find out whether their schools will be spared.
“We laid it on the table, and there’s not that much else we can do,” said Ann McLeod, Garrison Elementary’s PTA president, who called the campaign to save the school “a second full-time job.”
Garrison’s PTA used an online survey of parents to develop its alternative proposal, a 46-slide PowerPoint presentation accompanied by a four-page plan outlining investments they’d like to see from the school system and commitments they will make in return.
The school, located in Logan Circle, enrolls 228 students in a facility built for more than 350. Parents say they can boost enrollment to 344 by 2016, and they are committed to hosting open houses and one-on-one meetings to woo prospective parents.
The parents also say they’ll sign a contract holding them to that commitment and to others: fundraising to help pay for teacher training, sponsoring after-school activities and launching an anti-truancy effort to help students get to school on time.
But they want the school system to make some investments, too: modernize the building immediately, start a foreign-language immersion program and add another classroom for preschool children.
“If you don’t invest in Garrison now, you, DCPS, will miss out on this whole wave of baby-booming children that are settling in this area,” said Garrison parent Vanessa Bertelli, who added that parents’ efforts in recent weeks demonstrate an energy and commitment that will lift the school, if it’s allowed to stay open.
Less than two miles away at Francis-Stevens Education Campus in Foggy Bottom, parents have promised to develop a brochure to market the school and to set up booths at local grocery stores to recruit new students.
The school, which has classes through eighth grade, enrolls 225 children in a facility built for 410. It’s slated to close and become an expansion site for the selective and over-subscribed School Without Walls. Instead, the PTA suggests co-locating the two, allowing Walls to move into part of the building while Francis-Stevens continues to operate.
Co-locating would allow the schools to share teachers and could allow older Francis-
Stevens students to take high school classes, which could be a magnet for parents seeking advanced academic offerings for their children, said Erin Martin, co-president of the school’s PTA.
“If you have a really strong institution, people are going to want to come and they’re going to want to stay,” Martin said.
East of the Anacostia River in Ward 7, Kenilworth Elementary is slated for closure. But the school is in the middle of a neighborhood that just won a five-year, $25 million federal grant meant to help poor communities build networks of support, including early-childhood education, after-school tutoring and crime prevention.
Leaders of the D.C. Promise Neighborhood Initiative, the organization that won the grant, have asked the chancellor to help Kenilworth Elementary become a community hub with office space for community groups, a K-8 school and a recreation center. The grant money may bolster their argument for keeping the school open.
Activists in Ward 4 have proposed that the school system renovate MacFarland Middle and keep it open instead of consolidating it into Roosevelt High. The ward’s fast-growing K-8 schools could become elementary schools, sending their older students to MacFarland to boost its enrollment.
That would avoid creating a sixth-through-12th-grade school that some MacFarland parents find unappealing.
“The weed smoking, the hanging out that they do” at the high school, said mother Maxine Harrison, “I just can’t see sending a sixth-grader into that kind of environment.”
Across the city, many other parents and activists have submitted proposals that have been posted online. It’s not clear how Henderson will weigh those ideas, particularly given that many ask the school system to invest more money for building modernizations, new academic programs or both.
The chancellor said in November that 20 schools must close in order for the school system to operate efficiently, but she has declined to say how much she anticipates saving through the closures.
Henderson wrote in an e-mail that she appreciates the “productive and informative” meetings she’s had with parents. But she offered no clues about how she intends to modify her own proposal before releasing a final closure list in mid-January.
Despite her call for input from the community, she has signaled her discomfort with listening only to those who fight the hardest and make the most noise.
Many mothers and fathers care deeply about their schools but don’t have time to demonstrate publicly or work up enrollment spreadsheets because they work multiple jobs or have other commitments, she said during a November D.C. Council hearing on the school closures.
“I want to make sure that this is not a case of the squeaky wheel gets the grease,” Henderson said.