- D.C. mayor to seek chartering authority for schools chancellor
- Mayor Gray competes with Chairman Catania for true school reform leader
- SIMMONS: Yes to more charters, but let's head off the unions
- Linda Moore [Elsie Whitlow Stokes mentioned]
The Washington Post
By Emma Brown
May 31, 2013
Mayor Vincent C. Gray is set to introduce legislation that would give the D.C. schools chancellor authority to approve new charter schools, a measure meant to improve academic options in long-struggling neighborhoods.
Gray is expected to announce the proposal in his weekly radio address Sunday morning, according to spokesman Pedro Ribeiro.
The aim is to give Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson a way to attract successful charter operators and a tool to turn around chronically low-performing traditional schools, according to remarks prepared for the mayor’s Sunday address. Gray’s office also made a summary of the legislation available.
“We’ve seen some major improvements in our schools,” according to Gray’s text. “But I want to see more gains, and I want to see them faster.”
His proposal is another sign of the city’s tilt toward charter schools, publicly funded and independently operated schools that have grown quickly in recent years and now enroll 43 percent of the city’s students.
Henderson first expressed an interest in chartering authority more than a year ago, arguing that it would allow her to create schools free of bureaucratic rules and regulations that she said hamper traditional schools.
A number of outside charter operators have expressed interest in working with the school system, benefiting from its resources and purchasing power, according to Henderson.
“I think the time is now to learn from the past and think toward the future for what our students need,” she said in a statement.
“Chartering authority is another tool we can use to help improve student achievement, one that we will use only in the right situations, as strategically as possible, to provide better outcomes for students.”
Besides giving new authority to the chancellor, the mayor is also proposing to allow some charter schools — those located in “high need” areas of the city — to become neighborhood schools, which students living nearby would have a right to attend. “High need” has yet to be defined.
Charter schools enroll students from across the city, holding lotteries when demand exceeds space. That policy is meant to offer equal access to all children but has led to outcry from District residents clamoring for stronger neighborhood schools that can help define communities.
The District’s old school board had chartering power until 2007, when Mayor Adrian M. Fenty took control of the city’s traditional school system. The board — mainly responsible for running a troubled urban school system — struggled to provide oversight of its charters and allowed problems to go too long unaddressed, according to a 2005 report by the Government Accountability Office.
Now the independent D.C. Public Charter School Board is the only entity that can authorize new charter schools in the city. The charter board supports the mayor’s proposal, said spokeswoman Theola Labbé-DeBose, and is willing to help the chancellor become an effective authorizer.
Schools chartered by the chancellor would operate with the same independence as existing charters, with control over budgets, curricula and staff. But test scores posted by chancellor-chartered schools would count toward the school system’s overall proficiency rates.
Like existing charters, employees of the city school system’s charters would not be required to unionize, according to Gray officials. Washington Teachers’ Union President Nathan Saunders said he could not comment until he sees the legislation, expected to be introduced in the D.C. Council next week.
Longtime education activist Cathy Reilly, president of the Senior High Alliance of Parents, Principals and Educators, wondered why the chancellor needs to bring in outside organizations to improve the city’s schools.
“I feel she’s given up being a leader of the municipal system,” Reilly said. “Why can’t we do good DCPS schools without an outside operator?”
D.C. Council member David A. Catania (I-At Large), chairman of the education committee, also questioned whether the chancellor needs chartering authority in order to provide schools with more flexibility.
“But if the case can be made that giving the chancellor chartering authority would improve student achievement, I would welcome that,” Catania said. “I look forward to the conversation.”
The Examiner
By Mark Lerner
June 3, 2013
Mayor Gray used his weekly radio address Sunday to announce that he plans to provide DCPS Chancellor Henderson with the authority to create charter schools. This would give the District of Columbia two chartering bodies as it had in the past when the Board of Education also was permitted to create charter schools.
Competing chartering authorities is one of four characteristics the Center for Education Reform looks for in judging the quality of charter school laws in the states.
Mr. Gray, working through his Deputy Mayor of Education Abigail Smith, is also moving to have a common DCPS and charter school application process ready for next year. For Ms. Smith this continues the project she was working on for the D.C. Public Charter School Board.
These moves come on the heels of the D.C. Council's Education Chairman David Catania's suggestion of changes to the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula.
Parts of these announcements are concerning. The Mayor wants to allow charters under Ms. Henderson and the PCSB to become neighborhood schools if they are operating in "high need areas." I would love to know what parent living in the nation's capital doesn't think they are in a high need area for top performing public schools. As in the past I'm not a fan of any plan that would limit school choice from improving education for all children.
Also, as Washington Post reporter Emma Brown describes the new on-line application process parents would rank their school preferences and then a computer would make the final admission selection based upon the supplied criteria. Again, in keeping with the goal of maximum school choice I want children to be able to admitted to several schools and then parents to be able to make the final choice.
But the most interesting part of all of this news may be in reference to the funding equity issues between DCPS and charters. For example, would charters formed under the Chancellor have access to the same school modernization funds that the other DCPS schools receive but PCSB charters do not? Would these schools not have to pay for buildings, maintenance, or legal fees as those operating under Chairman McKoy do? And which charter would have first rights to a closed DCPS facility?
These are important questions that the Mayor and Mr. Catania need to answer quickly.
The Washington Times
By Deborah Simmons
June 2, 2013
When you dance to the music, sooner or later you’ve got to pay the piper.
D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray announced Sunday that he will send legislation to the D.C. Council to grant the city’s schools chancellor the power to authorize charter schools.
At first blush, the mayor’s proposal seems as innocent as the IRS video that shows a group of employees trying to dance.
But as we now know, nefarious movements were afoot.
Teachers unions and other organized labor groups are trying to infiltrate public charter schools, publicly funded schools that, by and large, are free of union demands and growing by leaps and bounds.
Largely independent of the push me-pull me strings operated by traditional public-school bureaucracies, charters in California, Louisiana, Michigan and other states are finding labor groups balking, organizing and making the same worn-out mo’ money overtures that they always have.
And, as usual, they want to collectively bargain their way on salaries, school rules and regulations, and any other issues.
These are, by the way, some of the very same teachers, principals, counselors and other unionized workers who have lost their jobs because of the growth of the school choice movement and because school systems around the country are shuttering aging, unaffordable schoolhouses.
D.C. officials, for example, have more than a dozen schools on closing list, while charters educate 43 percent of the city’s school-age population.
New Orleans, on the other hand, didn’t have a choice after its public school system was ripped apart by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. If it weren’t for charters, New Orleans wouldn’t have a public education system for the most part.
Moreover, look at Boston, where city officials want charter-like schools that are more innovative, flexible and able to incorporate longer, alternative school days into their calendars but are opposed by the Boston Teachers Union.
And in Chicago, officials are slated to make history by implementing the largest-ever school-closure list of 50 schools amid incredible union opposition.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, a Democrat and President Obama’s former chief of staff, said he’s willing to take the political hit from unions.
Meanwhile, his D.C. counterpart, also a Democrat, is trying to pay if forward.
Full article at link above
Linda Moore [Elsie Whitlow Stokes mentioned]
The Washington Examiner
By Rachel Baye
June 2, 2013
The founder of Elsie Whitlow Stokes Public Charter School, Moore will be inducted into the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools Hall of Fame on July 1.
Why do you think you were chosen for the Hall of Fame?
I'm the founder of one of the pioneer [charter] schools in Washington. We're in our 15th year now. There were only a handful of charter schools in the city before we -- and the cohort of schools that were approved the year we were approved -- came along, and we are one of the few survivors of that group.
Why did you name your school after your mother?
My mom was a first-grade teacher in Arkansas. She was very focused in having all of her students achieve. In addition to teaching them how to read, write, add and subtract, there was a lot of emphasis on becoming a responsible citizen in one's community. She always made an effort to expose her students to a greater world, and it's much of what we are trying to do here.
Why is Stokes unique among D.C. charter schools?
We are distinguished by being the only public school in the District that offers two languages in addition to English. We offer French and Spanish, and we are the oldest language immersion charter school in the city.
How is Stokes unique on a national scale?
We have sixth-graders right now who are in Martinique using their French language skills. They're visiting pen pals they've established. They are visiting rainforests, doing analyses of water samples and comparing them to what they've done here. We absolutely want to teach them that books can open up new horizons, that it's great to know scientific method. But we also want them to understand that once they get the knowledge that it's important to use it for the betterment of their communities.
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