FOCUS DC News Wire 10/21/13

 

 

The combination of energized, knowledgeable teacher leaders and a grant program supporting new school development will change the K-12 landscape in Washington DC.  The CityBridge Foundation was formed by Katherine and David Bradley in 1994. For the last dozen years it has served as a best practices shop for D.C. schools with an initial focus on early learning.

 

In 2013, CityBridge and NewSchools launched the Education Innovation Fellowship, a extraordinary opportunity for a dozen teacher leaders. They met monthly for a year and visited innovative schools in New York and the Bay Area. I met with the Fellows in June to discuss 10 Big Blended Learning Questions. The Fellows learned about next-gen tools and models over the course of the year. They brought their principals with them to three sessions to get them excited about the opportunity. The Education Innovation Fellows are ambassadors for the implementation of effective blended learning models in D.C.

 

The Fellows have help infect the city with interest in blended-learning models:

 

In 2012, DCPS brought New Classrooms' innovative Teach to One model to Hart Middle School. Ingenuity Prep, a new public charter school operating on a blended model, will open in Ward 8 in Fall 2013.

DCPS is investing in the blended redesign of a four-school feeder pattern in Ward 8 for Fall 2013. Rocketship Education, a charter management organization recognized nationally for its high-performing blended schools in California, received approval from the DC Public Charter School Board to open as many as eight schools beginning in 2015.

 

The Big Breakthrough.

In September, CityBridge announced Breakthrough Schools, a new school development grant program in partnership with Next Generation Learning Challenges (see Getting Smart feature).

 

Many of the Fellows are likely to be involved in proposing new and transformed schools. The combination of training teacher leaders and then offering new school grants is a unique and potent combination.

 

Breakthrough Schools are likely to be an interesting mixture of district and charter schools, new and redesigned schools, and led by locals as well as a few national recruits.

 

Katherine Bradley assembled a really talented team at CityBridge. Executive Director Mieka Wick came from New Profit and chairs the board for the DC Scholars Public Charter School. Margaret Angell directs the Fellowship program. She worked for DCPS, Boston Public Schools, and served as a White House Fellow.

 

"The most important was change in the Fellows was orientation--we challenged them to figure out how they are going to do something different that will really benefit student," said Angell. "While most PD is about conveying information, we said there is awesome stuff going on out there but only you know your kids."

 

As Diane Tavenner from Summit Public Schools told the Fellows in her session, "This is not a training on what to do, it's a mindset of improvement." She stressed "humility when sharing with their colleagues" and a focus on what's working.

 

With $1 million in support from Microsoft the 2014 fellowship will be extended to up to 20 participants.

 

Turnaround. Mieka has worked closely with Pam Cantor and the team at Turnaround for Children which has supported improvement efforts at five high challenge schools including Wheatley, a k-8 school. It's likely that Turnaround will join at least one Breakthrough applicant in proposing a blended and fortified environments that supports the needs of individual students.

 

 

Friendship Public Charter School, explained Damon Metz, the school’s Chief Technology Officer, recently faced an information technology challenge not too dissimilar from that being experienced by many educational institutions across the country, Administrators wanted to be able to provide computers to their student body but the high cost of frequent laptop replacement was unsustainable. So, Mr. Metz revealed, they looked around at best practices. It was the KIPP network that tipped them off to a solution.

 

“We decided to provide our students with Chromebooks,” which the CIO stated is Google’s answer to the personal computer. According to Mr. Metz the devices look like a laptop, weigh about 2.5 pounds, and have a 10 inch monitor. In addition, he added that the keyboards on the units are good for both adults and students as they are slightly smaller than the traditional size. The price, at about $270 a piece, also makes them an affordable option, the Friendship CIO asserted.

 

“We studied the reasons that students take advantage of information technology and discovered that it is mostly to be able to surf the web,” Mr. Metz said. “These units are great at that function and they are easy to operate.” The CIO remarked that the Books take two minutes to deploy and eight seconds to boot up.

 

I was extremely fortunate to be able to spend some time recently with Mr. Metz. He spoke to me in a warm manner demonstrating his extremely deliberate use of words and sentences, a fact that most likely mirrors his ability to make wise decisions in the fast-paced field of technological innovations.

 

“The overriding goal of the employment of computers at Friendship is to drive academic achievement,” Mr. Metz related. He described the school leadership’s four aims that they were trying to achieve through the new technology. First, he said, Friendship administers MAP testing three times a year to its students. He clarified that the MAP is an internal assessment tool the network of charters uses to measure student achievement in addition to the DC CAS. He stated that the test is administered on computers.

 

He revealed that computers are also relied upon for students to take advantage of Compass Learning, software designed for credit recovery for those pupils not at grade level academically. Mr. Metz informed me that Compass evaluates student knowledge and creates curriculum necessary to bring them up to the appropriate school level.

 

Another vital justification for the need for computers is to support the school’s curriculum. Friendship uses HMH, and all of the material from its textbooks can be found online, Mr. Metz stated.

 

Finally, the Chromebooks are an aid, according to Mr. Metz, to teach students 21st century skills, such as those tested on the upcoming Common Core standardized examination. He explained that the Common Core will evaluate a student’s ability to surf the web, create and edit files, and even looks at the ability to modify videos.

 

It became clear to me that information technology forms the bond linking each component of Friendship’s academic program. HMH provides the fundamental pedagogical curriculum, the MAP examinations test student achievement levels, and Compass aids in improving knowledge in areas of weakness.

 

Friendship Public Charter Schools piloted the Chromebooks beginning last April. The CIO exclaimed that the feedback has been extremely positive among both the faculty and students. They are going live with the conversion to this technology in a couple of weeks.

 

Mr. Metz related how the program will be structured. “This year fifth through twelfth graders will share Chrome books with a two student to one device ratio. Our goal for next year is to provide each student with a computer. Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten classes will receive the desktop version of Chromebook. Through the Chromebook students will have access to Gmail, Google Drive, which provides software similar to Microsoft Office, and a folder with 15 gigabits of memory.

 

I asked Mr. Metz if students will be permitted to take the portable Chromebooks home. “No, unfortunately not,” he replied. “With our student population individuals possessing expensive technology often become targets for crime.”

 

Lastly, the Friendship CIO wanted to make sure that I understood the charter school’s goal in making sure that students learn to be digitally responsible citizens. Mr. Metz commented that the charter takes this subject extremely seriously and has taken many steps in this area. First all students and their parents or guardians are required to sign information technology policy and privacy policy statements. In addition, Friendship has a partnership with ePals Technology which sits between the Google online search engine and the school. The software allows administrators to monitor electronic communication and warns of inappropriate use, similar to a spam filter. Finally, for fifth grade students and below their Gmail is configured as class accounts, instead of individual ones, that are supervised by their teachers.

 

Mr. Metz indicated that Friendship has invested over $540,000 in the Chromebooks program, money the school has obtained through grants and its own reserve funds.

 

 

Chancellor Kaya Henderson used her “State of the D.C. Public Schools” address Thursday evening to celebrate a “turning tide” that she said is beginning to transform the city’s long-struggling school system.

 

Enrollment has steadied after years of decline, and crumbling schools have been transformed by multi-million-dollar renovations, she said, praising the “renewed commitment, investment and excitement that is changing the face of education in DCPS.”

 

The school system still has a long way to go. Fewer than half of students are proficient in reading, according to standardized tests, and fewer than six in 10 students graduate from high school on time.

 

And while DCPS enrollment increased this year, the city’s charter schools grew even faster, continuing a tilt toward charters that some parents and activists fear is weakening neighborhood schools, particularly in some of the District’s poorest neighborhoods.

 

Henderson acknowledged “challenges ahead” but focused mostly on her optimistic vision for the future. Speaking on Thursday before a packed auditorium at the newly modernized Cardozo Education Campus in Columbia Heights, she said progress will come from investing in “great educators,” “rigorous academic content,” and “motivated students and engaged families.”

 

She said that the school system wants to increase study-abroad opportunities and improve career and technical education. And officials are “working on plans to rethink high schools,” she said, echoing an idea she's floated previously for citywide, theme-based academies.

 

“Close your eyes and imagine with me a different D.C. Public Schools,” she said. “We’re on the right track.”

 

Several parents in the audience said that while Henderson’s vision is attractive, it’s still not clear how it will translate into on-the-ground improvements in troubled schools.

 

“I didn’t hear anything about how she’s going to help our students east of the river,” said Wendy Glenn of Southeast Washington. “It just didn’t resonate with me.”

 

Glenn said her grandson will be old enough for pre-kindergarten next year, and she has no intention of sending him to the “failing” neighborhood school to which he is assigned.

 

D.C. Council Member David Grosso praised the event, which offered a showcase of DCPS programs following Henderson’s speech.

 

“I hope DCPS does more things like this to show off the positive side of the system,” Grosso said. “That’s the only way we’re going to get more parents engaged and involved.”