FOCUS DC News Wire 9/26/13

 

 

THE D.C. Council’s education committee, chaired by Council member David A. Catania (I-At Large), will meet Thursday, ostensibly to hear details of how the city’s 2013 standardized tests were scored. What’s really on the agenda, though, is the advancement of Mr. Catania’s political interests. Such grandstanding — not the arcane intricacies of scoring methodology — should be the issue of greatest concern to those who care about public education in the District.

 

Since taking over the newly resuscitated education committee in January, Mr. Catania has sought to establish himself as a sort of schools czar, one who knows better than anyone — especially Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) and Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson — what is good for the District’s schools. He has launched a series of misguided initiatives that would rewrite education policy. Now he’s aiming to manufacture controversy over progress made by students on state standardized tests.

 

He has accused administration officials of “manipulating” and “cheating” in scoring the 2013 D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System. At issue are problems — not unique to the District — caused by the transition to tougher Common Core State Standards and the lag in developing an assessment for the new curriculum. Some states opted to reset the test scale to make it harder to achieve proficiency and saw big drops in test scores. The District didn’t reset the proficiency scale but maintained a level of difficulty similar to previous years; it was able to report gains in both math and reading. Even using the tougher scale, District students would have shown big gains in reading.

 

The issues are complicated, and Mr. Catania, as has been his wont, has thrown out a flurry of numbers to buttress his contention that school officials knowingly misled the public to make themselves look good. Never mind, as experts told The Post’s Emma Brown, that the approach the District used is reasonable. That view was seconded by experts we consulted, including Michael Casserly of the Council of Great City Schools. “What they did was not untoward; it was not beyond regular practice,” Mr. Casserly told us.

 

Perhaps officials could have been more open about some of these background issues, and certainly the council has a right to ask questions. But it’s long been apparent that Mr. Catania, contemplating a run for mayor, is less interested in information than in scoring points. Witness his behavior Tuesday morning, when he walked out rather than let an official from the Office of the State Superintendent for Education explain its decisions.

 

Expect similar histrionics at Thursday’s hearing. That the District has a real chance to improve public education makes these games distressing. Progress is being made, and more is possible — if public confidence is not undermined. Ms. Henderson is widely regarded as one of the best school superintendents in the country, and she has expressed a willingness to stay here for as long as it takes to do the job. Not only do Mr. Catania’s actions make her job harder, but they might well cause her to not to want to do it.

 

 

Stressing belief that in the coming months District leaders and residents will be engulfed in a formidable debate over education policy, an advocacy group led by attorney Matthew Frumin has developed a report detailing their analysis of D.C. Council member David Catania’s seven-bill school reform legislation.

 

Among the group’s chief concerns are challenges that hinder properly educating DCPS students. The group also wants adequate funding and management of schools so that students aren’t frequently “either willingly or with a push,” moving from school to school.

 

Catania, who has chaired the council’s newly-revamped education committee since January, introduced the wide-ranging legislation that’s currently before the 13-member council, saying the bills serve as a blueprint for the future of public education in the nation’s capital. Among Catania’s focus areas are funding, school accountability, assessments, facilities, parental engagement, school lotteries, and governance.

 

“There are parts that we’re in favor of, so it’s hard to say that we’re against or for it, but we crafted what we think is essential in seeing where the city goes with education,” Frumin said of the 22-page document. “People who have endorsed it, gave it a lot of thought,” he said, adding that the endorsers went through the seven bills one-by-one, and laid out their views and concerns, then offered recommendations.

 

Frumin admitted however, that the most challenging part of the legislation is that it contains multiple bills.

 

Eboni-Rose Thompson, president of the Ward 7 Education Council, who signed the report on behalf of her organization, said that when they heard about Catania’s legislation they immediately decided to get involved.

 

“There are seven [bills], not one,” Thompson said. “At one point there were like 11 education bills before the council because our council member introduced some items and the mayor wanted the chancellor to have charter authority.”

 

Thompson, 26, said that there exists enough difficulty in making “serious attempts” at analyzing one piece of legislation, and that as a result, members of her committee pondered how they might look at the legislation more comprehensively.

 

“Several of the schools that were closed were written into the legislation to be surplus [property],” she said, alluding to the facilities bill. “Because we have such a large charter population in Wards 7, 8 and probably 5, that [bill] was written for parts of the city like ours. We’re the ones who are bearing the brunt of the school closures, and we’re the places that when charter schools say there’s a need, they approach the charter school board and say they want to locate in Ward 7 or 8,” Thompson said. “But there’s no kind of planning to say where they should actually locate.”

 

Thompson also harped on the legislation’s fair funding bill, saying it “cuts out” funding in areas with the greatest need.

 

“I don’t think there’s a bill written that doesn’t affect Wards 7 and 8 in some way, because together, we comprise about 50 percent of DCPS’s population.”

 

Overall, the legislation has been described as the council’s most aggressive effort to overhaul the District’s 111 schools since 2007 when they fell under mayoral control.

 

Catania was not immediately available for comment, but his spokesperson Ben Young, said they’ve already held five hearings, hosted public meetings on the legislation in every ward and that the first two hearings were slated for a mark-up on Sept. 25.

 

Young said that while Frumin attended all the meetings, he didn’t raise any of his group’s concerns, despite agreeing for the most part, to the legislation. He also said that Catania’s staff will include many of the suggestions and recommendations that were expressed at the hearings and community meetings.

 

“Like all processes that the council goes through, bills get amended and adjusted,” Young said. “You solicit the public’s input and make the changes [we] agree with, and that sometimes, [we] don’t agree with it. That’s just the way the process works.”

 

 

The U.S. Department of Education this week recognized seven Washington-area schools with National Blue Ribbon awards for exemplary performance.

 

The schools in the Washington region — including two traditional public schools, one public charter school and four private schools — were among 286 schools honored across the country.

 

“Excellence in education matters and we should honor the schools that are leading the way to prepare students for success in college and careers,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a statement.

 

Blue Ribbon schools are named either for exceptionally high performance or improvement.

 

The sole public-school winner in the District was a top-ranked charter, D.C. Preparatory Academy’s Edgewood Elementary, recognized for its high performance.

 

In Maryland, local winners included one public school, Montgomery County’s Robert Frost Middle School in Rockville, and two parochial schools: Holy Cross in Garrett Park and St. John the Evangelist in Silver Spring.

 

Virginia winners included Westbriar Elementary in Fairfax County and St. Veronica Catholic School in Chantilly.

 

D.C. Prep, the Northeast Washington school that received the honor, was founded a decade ago with the aim of closing the city’s persistent achievement gap. It serves nearly 400 mostly low-income children in preschool through third grade.

 

By the time they leave third grade, more than 70 percent of D.C. Prep students are proficient in math and reading, according to standardized test scores, far outpacing the city average. School officials said the Blue Ribbon award announcement has been exciting not only for teachers, but also for students and their families.

 

“It’s an awesome acknowledgment and reinforcement of the great work that’s happening here,” said Nicole Bryan, Edgewood Elementary’s principal from 2010 to 2013. “We’re going to continue doing what we’re doing and get better for our kids and our community.”

 

Bryan has now stepped into a new role: overseeing early childhood education for the D.C. Prep network and planning for further expansion.

 

D.C. Prep currently operates a total of four schools serving about 1,200 children in preschool through middle school. Eventually, it plans to run 10 schools enrolling about 3,300 students.

 

The Blue Ribbon award “gives us a great platform to think about how we want to serve more families in D.C. moving forward,” said Rick Cruz, D.C. Prep’s chief executive officer.

 

The other District winner was St. Peter School, a 145-year-old Catholic school on Capitol Hill.

 

“We are absolutely thrilled,” said Principal Jennifer Ketchum in a statement. “As a community, our ambition is to ‘always reach higher.’”

 

Federal officials will honor all the winners at a ceremony in Washington in November.

 

 

About 3 out of 4 DCPS schools now require uniforms, according to a DCPS spokesperson. Although there are currently no statistics available for charter schools, it's clear that many if not most of them have their students wearing uniforms as well.

 

The benefits of such policies are well-documented. A study of urban high schools in Ohio found that while uniforms didn't directly affect academic performance, they had a positive impact on attendance, graduation rates and rates of suspension. Long Beach, California reported a dramatic increase in school safety after implementing a uniform policy in all K-8 schools. As a teacher, I also observed some positive effects of having students wear uniforms, such as fewer distractions in the classroom and a shift in student focus away from physical appearance.

 

Now, as a parent, I'm seeing the issue from a different angle. The problem for parents comes down to the cost of uniforms, and in some cases, the effort of procuring them. My son's private school requires students to purchase polo shirts with the school logo at a cost of $18.50 apiece, with an additional charge of $9.50 for shipping. A friend had a similar experience when her children attended Community Academy, a public charter school. Shirts plus pants plus shoes add up quickly, so I was not surprised to find that the average cost of school uniforms for parents is $249.

 

The DCPS schools requiring uniforms that I have encountered generally have a more flexible policy than my son's school or Community Academy. They dictate a specific color or two of polo shirt for students to wear, along with khaki bottoms.

 

This approach allows parents to shop around for affordable options. And according to DCPS regulations, students who do not wear a uniform because they can't afford one are not subject to disciplinary action. DCPS schools are also required to establish a mechanism for providing aid to students who cannot afford the uniform.

 

Some DC charter schools, like KIPP DC and Mundo Verde, have an even easier, more affordable uniform strategy. While these charters expect parents to independently provide pants, shorts, or skirts for their children, the schools contract for custom t-shirts that parents can purchase directly from the school at a low cost. KIPP gives its students one shirt as a gift at orientation. By providing the shirts directly, schools are also able to assist low-income families without extra steps like vouchers or reimbursement.

 

Parents, have you had any positive or negative school uniform experiences, either in DCPS or at a charter school? Leave us a comment and tell us about them. 

 

 

Virginia students received their highest scores ever on the modern SAT college admission test this year, and scores also rose in the District even as national averages remained unchanged. Maryland’s scores dropped for the third straight year, according to data for the Class of 2013 released Thursday.

 

The College Board, the organization that oversees the test, reported that Virginia students who graduated in the spring scored 11 points better than those in the Class of 2012 who took the exam, with an average of 1528 out of 2400, beating the national average of 1498. Virginia officials attributed the boost to factors including increased rigor in classroom curriculum and improvements in teacher evaluation and preparation. All state-level figures from the College Board include public and private schools.

 

“It’s impressive to see such a significant jump in one year,” said David M. Foster, president of the Virginia Board of Education. “We saw increases across the board and some narrowing of the achievement gap.”

 

It made for Virginia’s best-ever overall score on the current version of the SAT, which dates to 2005. Reflecting statewide gains, Northern Virginia’s public schools fared better this year. Fairfax County public schools saw a four-point rise in overall scores, to 1663; Arlington County students also saw a four-point spike, to 1645; Loudoun County students saw an increase of 16 points, to 1606; and Prince William County reported an eight-point gain, to 1498. The City of Alexandria declined to release its SAT data.

 

The SAT and the other major college entrance exam, the ACT, are crucial for students seeking admission to selective schools. The ACT has recently surpassed its rival in market share, with about 1.8 million students from the Class of 2013 taking it, compared with 1.66 million who took the SAT. But the SAT has a much greater presence in Virginia, the District and Maryland.

 

Nationally, the results for the Class of 2013 mirrored those for the preceding year’s class. Average scores in critical reading (496), math (514) and writing (488) were all unchanged. Each section of the exam is worth 800 points.

 

What’s more, the share of students who met or exceeded a benchmark that the College Board considers a key predictor of “college and career readiness” — a composite score of 1550 — has been virtually unchanged for the past five years. The share now stands at 43 percent.

 

Considered another way, that means 57 percent of this year’s high school graduates who took the test did not meet the readiness benchmark.

 

“While some might see stagnant scores as no news, we at the College Board consider it a call to action,” David Coleman, the nonprofit organization’s president, said in a conference call with reporters. He said schools must expand access to rigorous course work for all students. “We are impatient with the state of progress.”

 

In February, Coleman said that the College Board plans a makeover of the SAT. He said Tuesday that the board expects to announce more about the test’s redesign in January.

 

 

 

U.S. education lusts for STEM. Prepare to be pitied if you ask at a school conference what the acronym means (science, technology, engineering, math). There are STEM schools, STEM programs, STEM books, STEM experts. STEM grant applications get more respect. Everybody says STEM careers mean more money. I Googled STEM and got 146 million results.

 

So I hesitate amid all that excitement to expose a flaw in the STEM movement. College Measures, a joint venture of the American Institutes for Research and Matrix Knowledge Group, has analyzed the data. The problem can no longer be ignored. The S in STEM has been oversold. Science might have created the modern world, but it is not a lucrative career choice.

 

“Employers are paying more, often far more, for degrees in the fields of technology, engineering and mathematics (TEM),” College Measures President Mark Schneider wrote in his report, “Higher Education Pays: But a Lot More for Some Graduates Than for Others.”

 

But “evidence does not suggest that graduates with degrees in biology earn a wage premium — in fact, they often earn less than English majors,” Schneider wrote. “Graduates with degrees in chemistry earn somewhat more than biology majors, but they do not command the wage premium typically sought by those who major in engineering, computer/information science, or mathematics.”

 

We might also reconsider our obsession with college name recognition. If grandma doesn’t smile when she hears the name of the college our children have been admitted to, we feel guilt and shame. Schneider’s data suggest that what you study matters more than where you study, at least in terms of salary. In Virginia, a master’s degree graduate in creative writing will make on average less than $32,000, while a master’s in nurse anesthesiology will get you about $130,000 a year.

 

The problem with majoring in science is dramatically illustrated by a chart in the report. In Virginia, the first-year earnings for a bachelor’s degree graduate in biology will average $25,347, while a bachelor’s in business administration and management will make $35,565.

 

A career in science has its psychic rewards. Exploring or teaching the roots of existence can be fun. It seems a shame to spoil a label as compelling as STEM. But it might be time for a reassessment.

 

“Politicians, policy-makers, governors and many others trumpet the need for STEM education to feed the STEM workforce,” Schneider wrote. “Despite such rhetoric and clamoring, the labor market is far more discriminating in the kinds of degrees it rewards.”

 

This is partly why the United States does not produce as many science graduates as the STEM folks think we need. U.S. undergraduates soon learn there is more money in business careers. Science programs tend to have more than their share of students whose families came from countries where scientists are admired despite their salaries.

 

I’m not saying that science is not a worthy pursuit. But for years we’ve heard that STEM is the path to success. Perhaps science will give you personal happiness, but it’s not going to pay you a lot of money.

 

Should we switch to TEM? So far that option doesn’t have much traction. Wikipedia defines the word as a small town in Tajikistan or a tribe in Togo. But give it time.