- D.C.’s odd resistance to more charter schools [Rocketship mentioned]
- Examiner Local Editorial: D.C. Council member David Catania should welcome new charter schools [Rocketship mentioned]
- D.C. will invest more in schools next year, Gray says
- Mayor Vincent Gray proposes 2 percent more in school funds
- D.C. Mayor Gray to sink more money into traditional schools, charters benefit [FOCUS mentioned]
- Catania aims to end ‘social promotion’ in D.C. schools
D.C.’s odd resistance to more charter schools [Rocketship mentioned]
The Washington Post
By Editorial Board
February 14, 2013
LY 34 PERCENT of D.C. public-school students are in top-quality schools. The District — particularly struggling neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River — is in urgent need of schools that can perform. So one would think that the city would be clamoring to welcome a renowned charter nonprofit that wants to bring its record of educational success with disadvantaged students to the nation’s capital.
Instead, there is misplaced concern about the growth of charter schools and worrying talk about whether they should be curtailed.
Rocketship Education, which operates some of the highest-performing elementary schools in California, has submitted an application to open charter schools in the District, targeting underserved students in Wards 7 and 8. The proposal — as well as interest from other national charter networks — comes, The Post’s Emma Brown reports, as an increasing percentage of public-school students attend charter schools instead of traditional schools. The 34,673 students enrolled in charter schools last fall represent 43 percent, up from 41 percent in 2011, of the city’s public-school students, and officials envision a day when half the city’s public-school students will attend charters.
Some worry that this growth weakens traditional schools and could lead to a shrunken system that could not operate a viable system of neighborhood schools. Never mind that the competition from the charter schools helped spur traditional schools to undertake needed reforms or that recent years have seen a stabilization of enrollment in the public-school system and even a slight increase this school year.
D.C. Council member David Catania (I-At Large), chair of the newly created education committee, said that he doesn’t want to stand in the way of charter expansion. But he expressed concern that the two systems have too long operated in isolation from each other. His suggestion in the Post report of “a momentary pause” — and his hint that lawmakers might withhold the facilities allowance from some charters — has alarmed charter advocates.
Why, they ask, pause a reform that is clearly working? Charters boast a higher graduation rate than does the traditional school system, and students in charters, on average, perform better on standardized tests. These accomplishments come even as charters educate a higher share of students eligible for federal lunch subsidies.
There is no question that performance among charters varies greatly. But the D.C. Public Charter School Board, particularly under the leadership of Executive Director Scott Pearson, has shown a willingness to close underperforming schools. Since charter schools were established in 1996, nearly one in three charters has been closed, and for every application the board accepts, two are rejected.
Mr. Catania is right about the need for better collaboration, which appears to be improving under Mayor Vincent C. Gray’s administration. Issues — such as the outmoded funding system and stinginess in making shuttered school buildings available to deserving charters — still demand attention. But with such hunger for better schools — 15,000 applicants were turned away by D.C. charter schools last year — those willing to tackle the city’s educational challenges should not be discouraged.
Examiner Local Editorial: D.C. Council member David Catania should welcome new charter schools [Rocketship mentioned]
The Washington Examiner
Opinion: Local Editorial
February 13, 2013
David Catania, chairman of the D.C. Council's newly reconstituted Education Committee, was out of bounds when he suggested that the council attempt to slow down the proliferation of charter schools in the city by deliberately withholding $3,000 in per-pupil facilities funding "to help manage the process" by discouraging new applicants.
Charter schools are "popping up everywhere," as Catania correctly observed, because District parents have enthusiastically embraced them, putting D.C. at the forefront of the growing school choice movement. Charter enrollment is up 10 percent this year, compared with the less than 1 percent increase for DC Public Schools. DCPS will be closing 15 half-empty schools; charters, meanwhile, are experiencing growing pains. As Catania himself acknowledged, charters will likely surpass DCPS' "within two years."
So charter schools should be getting more funding for facilities, not less.
Besides, the council relinquished control over the creation of charter schools in 1996, when an amendment to the D.C. School Reform Act established the DC Public Charter School Board as an independent entity to authorize, evaluate and, in some cases, terminate publicly funded charter schools.
In 2007, the council transferred oversight for charter schools from the D.C. Board of Education to the PCSB, which, according to all indications, is doing its job. The number of top-rated Tier 1 charter schools has increased to 22. And earlier this month, PCSB trustees recommended the closure of Imagine Southeast, a charter school that has the lowest average attendance in all of Ward 8 and that has failed to meet four of its five academic goals.
Instead of welcoming new charter school applicants such as Rocketship Education -- a nonprofit whose individualized game-based approach to teaching has resulted in some of the highest test scores for low-income students in California -- Catania is trying to set up a roadblock.
Charter schools already receive significantly less facilities funding per pupil. This has forced some to set up classrooms in less-than-optimal church basements, storefronts and warehouses, which D.C. taxpayers pay $100 million annually to rent. Even though charters are legally entitled to unused public school buildings, at least 10 already vacant school buildings owned by DCPS still have not been offered to the charter board.
Charter schools are here to stay. Instead of trying to delay the inevitable, Catania and his colleagues on the council should manage the $100 million currently being wasted on charter school rent when so many suitable school buildings sit empty, collecting cobwebs.
D.C. will invest more in schools next year, Gray says
The Washington Post
By Emma Brown
February 14, 2013
D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) wants to give the city’s schools more money next year, raising the basic allocation for each student from $9,124 to $9,306.
The 2 percent raise in per-pupil funding, which is the main source of dollars for both traditional and charter schools, would match the two-percent increase that schools received this year.
“This funding will help undergird our efforts to continue improving our public schools and preparing our residents to compete in the emerging economy,” Gray said in a statement.
Gray’s office couldn't immediately supply an estimate for the total cost of the increase in per-pupil funding. (This year’s 2 percent hike was budgeted at $86 million, but that was before officials knew how many students actually enrolled.) The impact on individual schools won’t be clear until later this year, when school-level budget allocations are released.
But, unsurprisingly, Chancellor Kaya Henderson and D.C. Public Charter School Board Executive Director Scott Pearson hailed the mayor’s move as an important and needed investment for the city’s 80,000 students.
The District has among the highest per-pupil spending in the country. But activists say that the traditional school system has been squeezed in recent years, particularly as the system began footing the bill for teacher bonuses and merit-based salary increases, which previously had been paid for by private donations.
The city’s funding formula — also known as the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula, or UPSFF — establishes a base amount that schools receive for each student ($9,124 this year) and additional amounts that schools receive for children with extra needs.
Theoretically, according to D.C. schools budget guru Mary Levy, a school could receive a maximum of about $44,000 for a pre-school level 4 special education student who also is learning English as a second language.
You can see the whole UPSFF laid out here.
The city has asked the Finance Project, a Washington consultant group, to study the funding formula and recommend how it should be tweaked to ensure that all kids get an adequate education.
For example, right now schools get extra dollars to teach students who are learning English as a second language and students with disabilities. One big question is whether they should also get extra money to teach poor children, who often come to school with needs and challenges that their middle-class peers are less likely to face.
Soumya Bhat, education policy analyst for the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute, wrote in an e-mail that the so-called “adequacy study” will “answer the question of whether or not we are spending enough to meet the educational needs of DC students, particularly those who are low-income and struggling academically.”
Consultants will base their recommendations on suggestions made by groups of D.C. teachers and principals, who will be convened to talk about what schools need and should have in order to make sure all kids can learn. The researchers also will examine spending patterns of successful D.C. schools.
Defining an “adequate” education and a “successful” school will perhaps be among the more important and difficult parts of the study.
The work is underway now. Recommendations are due to the deputy mayor of education in September.
Mayor Vincent Gray proposes 2 percent more in school funds
The Washington Examiner
By Rachel Baye
February 14, 2013
D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray announced Thursday he wants to give the District's public schools a 2 percent funding increase next fiscal year.
The hike, from $9,124 to $9,306 per student, would match this year's 2 percent increase to the formula that provides the basis for funding DC Public Schools and public charter schools.
"This funding will help undergird our efforts to continue improving our public schools and preparing our residents to compete in the emerging economy," Gray said.
DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson and DC Public Charter School Board Executive Director Scott Pearson both praised the additional funds as evidence of support for improving public education.
Though the per-pupil funding level starts at $9,124 this year, schools receive money above or below the base amount depending on which grade a student is in and whether the student has special needs. For example, a kindergarten student costs $11,861, while a high school student costs $10,584. A special education student can cost up to $28,284 if the school system enrolls the student in a private school.
Charter schools receive additional funds for facilities.
All told, the District spends more per student than any state in the country, with more than $18,600 spent per student on average after each of these add-on costs is factored in, according to census
data released last summer.
Representatives of Gray's office and the office of Deputy Mayor for Education Jennifer Leonard could not say how much the funding increase is expected to cost the District overall. Last year's 2 percent increase was initially budgeted at $86 million.
For the Friendship Public Charter Schools -- the District's largest charter school with six campuses -- the increase will mean roughly $728,000, said Donald Hense, chairman of the school's board.
"For us, it would go toward trying to increase faculty salaries," he said. "That is one of the big things -- a problem that charter schools face -- that is, trying to attract the good teachers and keep the good teachers."
At E.L. Haynes Public Charter School, which serves roughly 1,000 students, the increase would mean about $185,000, said Richard Pohlman, the school's chief of operations and policy. Though the additional funds are small in the scale of the school's roughly $24 million budget, they could pay for two additional teachers.
"It's great to know we can have extra staff where we need it most," he said.
DCPS is developing its budget for fiscal 2014, which starts Oct. 1,
and does not know how the additional funds will be allocated, said spokeswoman Melissa Salmanowitz.
But according to DCPS budget expert Mary Levy, the increased funds will not have much effect on schools' bottom lines, since 2 percent roughly keeps up with inflation. The school system is also renegotiating teachers' contracts, which probably will include a pay increase.
"It's going to be tough for the local schools," Levy said.
D.C. Mayor Gray to sink more money into traditional schools, charters benefit [FOCUS mentioned]
The Examiner
By Mark Lerner
February 15, 2013
Mayor Gray announced yesterday that one of the most expensive school systems in the country is about to get richer. Mr. Gray wants to increase the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula (or as I like to call it the Cane Calculus, after FOCUS's Robert Cane) by two percent going from $9,124 to $9,306 for each pupil taught. This comes on top of the Mayor raising this figure by two percent last year.
In 2012 the U.S. Census calculated that DCPS spends $29,409 per student. And for this amount of taxpayer funding less than half of all students are proficient in math and reading (in 2012 the DCPS math proficiency rate was 49.3 percent, in reading it was 45.6 percent.)
It would be out of this world wonderful if increased revenue for the public school resulted in improved academic results. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth as the graph above indicates.
The charter schools will also benefit from this proposal, which is excellent. The extra money will make up for millions a year allocated to DCPS that these alternative schools do not receive. It would have been nice to get a bump in the facility payment which has not been increased in years after being lowered by the previous Mayor from $3,109 to $2,800 a child (charters now receive $3,000 a student through supplemental funding but this amount is not set in law). The additional dollars may also assist charters in obtaining bank loans for buildings since it improves a school's revenue to debt ratio.
It would, however, be much simplier for the city to do the ethical thing and just hand over the soon to be 25 vacant sites to D.C.'s explosive charter school movement.
Catania aims to end ‘social promotion’ in D.C. schools
The Washington Post
By Emma Brown
February 14, 2013
D.C. Council Member David A. Catania says he plans to introduce legislation to repeal a rule that requires most of the District’s elementary- and middle-school students to be passed along from one grade to the next.
“We have an inexplicable municipal regulation that forces social promotion,” said Catania (I-At Large), chair of the council’s new education committee, in a hearing Wednesday. “It has to stop.”
The regulation in question permits schools to flunk students only in grades three, five and eight. It also says that in most cases, a student can’t be held back more than once during his or her D.C. schools career.
The result, Catania says, is that too many children are pushed along despite lacking basic skills. Then they find themselves in high school facing graduation requirements that they’re not prepared to meet.
“Then truancy spikes. Failure is on full display,” and thousands of kids drop out, Catania said. “It’s not fair to those kids who aren’t ready to go forward to continue that kind of farce.”
Holding a child back should always be a last resort, Catania said, used only after schools try other avenues — including more instruction and different kinds of instruction. But he said retaining a child shouldn’t be against the rules — teachers and principals should have the option to hold a student back if they think it’s in the child’s best interest.
“What we’ve done is taken any manner of discretion away from the school system,” Catania said in an interview.
It remains to be seen how enthusiastic his colleagues — and D.C. educators — would be about opening the door to more retentions.
Studies have shown that young students who are held back are more likely to drop out as teens, and the working theory has long been that schools can provide whatever extra support a struggling child needs without resorting to retention and all its associated emotional damage and social disruption.
Many teachers and principals and parents still believe that, but it seems that the pendulum is beginning to swing.
Some charter schools, including in the District, have stringent standards that students must meet to be promoted. And in recent years, a growing number of states have passed laws requiring children to be held back at the end of third grade if they cannot read, with some, such as Florida, showing notably improved literacy rates.
D.C. Council Member Vincent Orange (D-At Large) has introduced a similar measure in the District. It calls for holding back third-graders who cannot pass a reading test after receiving extra support.