FOCUS DC News Wire 11/14/13

 

 

The D.C. Public Charter School Board will vote next week on whether to allow Harmony Public Schools to open its doors in the District next fall, amid questions about its leadership and business practices.

 

Harmony, the largest charter-school operator in Texas, has a solid academic record but faces lingering questions about its contracting and immigration policies, as well as allegations of connections to a controversial Muslim cleric.

 

There has also been a recent change in the group that would lead the effort to establish the D.C. school. A member of the group who has been involved in a controversy in Prince George’s County school system resigned in late October, and has been replaced, Harmony’s superintendent told the Washington Post in an interview.

 

In its application, the charter network listed three members of the D.C. founding group: Harmony Superintendent Soner Tarim, Communications Director Julie Norton and local educator Sharif Salim.

 

Salim, a former administrator in D.C. Public Schools, was co-founder and principal of Village Learning Center, a D.C. public charter school that was closed in 2004 for fiscal mismanagement and other problems.

 

Salim went on to work for Prince George’s County Public Schools, according to the resume submitted as part of Harmony’s charter application.

 

According to county court records, Salim was demoted in 2011 from his position as a middle-school principal after an employee at his school — who was also his son — admitted to hitting a disabled student. Salim has sued the school system, alleging that he was the victim of discrimination because he was the only practicing Muslim among the county’s public school principals.

 

Neither Salim nor his lawyer responded to requests for comment.

 

Asked about Salim’s work history, Tarim said Salim resigned from the founding group in late October “for personal reasons.” Tarim said that he met Salim at a conference last year and was impressed with his reputation in the community, but was unaware of the details of Salim’s past employment.

 

Tarim said he had identified a new member of the founding group, a lawyer for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, an advocacy group. The lawyer, Renita Thukral, could not be immediately reached for comment.

 

 

Students, teachers and school administrators showered praise Wednesday on a D.C. lawmaker’s plan to give high school graduates as much as $100,000 each in taxpayer money for college as a powerful incentive to keep at-risk kids in class.

 

Testimony from a nonprofit that awards college scholarships in Washington state also suggested that the plan by D.C. Council member David A. Catania (I-At Large) could increase graduation rates in public schools and give more D.C. families their first college graduate.

 

But amid a show of public support for Catania’s proposed legislation, he and Mayor Vincent C. Gray’s (D) administration sparred over the unknown cost of the subsidies and whether they would eat into city funding to operate and continue improving D.C. classrooms.

 

“Respectfully, I think we can do both,” Catania said, pointing to projected budget surpluses in the city for the next several years.

 

Catania's bill would give students from households that make up to the twice the federal poverty line, as well as any child in foster care, up to $20,000 annually, and a maximum of $100,000 over five years for post-secondary school.

 

The grants would phase out on a sliding scale. Students in households that earn up to $250,000 a year would be eligible for the smallest grants of $5,000 per year, and a total of $25,000, should they take five years to complete college.

 

The money would be available to D.C. public school and charter school graduates to defray college tuition and fees once other options for grants and scholarships have been exhausted. To be eligible, students would have to have attended a D.C. public or charter school from sixth through 12th grades; smaller grants would be available for those who only attend high school in the District.

 

Nine council members signed onto Catania’s plan when he introduced it last month.

 

At a public hearing Wednesday, however, Jesus Aguirre, Gray’s acting state superintendent of education, offered only tacit support for the idea.

 

“Certainly, we support anything that is going to help kids get into college and have access to college,” Aguirre said. “My concern is looking at how we are going to fund this and fund everything else that we’re trying to do.”

 

The city’s chief financial officer has yet to estimate the cost of the legislation, but Catania estimated that the program could cost a maximum, “worst-case-scenario ... of $50 million” a year.

 

He said he had no intention of seeking to bankrupt the city, and expected that costs would gradually grow over several years, allowing the city to easily cover the increasing expenditure if it was a priority. And Catania left no doubt he thought it should be a priority — and perhaps the only way to help level the city’s intense income inequality.

 

“The only way I see to make sure that people who are born here can stay here is through education. We’re not permitted to play Robin Hood and redistribute what we have, so the only anecdote to this is education ... these micro-investments, one student at a time,” Catania said.

 

“Because of the failure of our public education system, for years we’ve left entire pockets of the city behind. We have to be able to talk openly about it. We can’t pretend that it isn’t happening.”

 

About 50 students, teachers and guidance counselors filled the council chambers Wednesday, with nearly all speaking in favor of the bill.

 

Among those who expressed doubt, most wanted the requirements for eligibility expanded to all District students, or at least to low-income students who may be on scholarships at private schools. Others wanted the bill to clarify whether room and board and tuition for two-year and technical programs could also qualify.

 

Scott Pearson, executive director of the D.C. Public Charter School Board, said the measure not only would give a leg up to poor students, but also could be a “powerful antidote” to keep more affluent families – who often move to the suburbs or opt for private schools by the time their kids reach junior high – to stay in the city’s public schools.

 

 

Some D.C. parents are apoplectic because Mayor Vincent C. Gray’s administration has begun the process of redefining boundaries used to assign students to traditional public schools. The effort comes way late in the education reform process — after dozens of schools have been shuttered and many others have undergone multimillion-dollar renovations.

 

Better late than never, right?

 

Besides, Deputy Mayor for Education Abigail Smith appears to have developed a good process that includes the citizen-anchored D.C. Advisory Committee on Student Assignment. She will co-chair that panel with John Hill — a highly respected business leader who, as president of the public library board, helped to lead a renaissance of the city’s neighborhood libraries. Technical support is being provided by individuals such as Smith’s policy adviser, Claudia Lujan, who, in another incarnation, helped Capitol Hill parents advance their plan to revitalize D.C. Public Schools (DCPS) middle schools. Multiple portals — focus groups, small working committees and an online survey — have been established to facilitate additional public input. A report is expected in May.

 

Many parents of children who attend schools outside their neighborhoods worry that those students will be forced to leave. Their concern is understandable, though District officials have offered assurances that this won’t happen. But is spitball-throwing a fear-allaying exercise? Perhaps they really don’t want change. Many parents have learned how to exploit DCPS’s gerrymandered boundaries. Others have mastered the out-of-boundary lottery, which is de facto school busing.

 

The complainers have ignored an unvarnished truth: The current anachronistic system, the result of ill-conceived efforts to desegregate the city’s schools, is inequitable and injurious to thousands of children. It has stripped some neighborhoods — not just those that are poor — of vital socioeconomic resources.

 

Middle-class Ward 4 families, for example, have been encouraged to abandon their high schools for others, particularly Wilson High School in Ward 3. Its boundary tracks through Wards 1, 2, 4 and 6. That has meant persistent overcrowding at Wilson, as Ward 4 schools such as Roosevelt High School have gone underused. And since school budgets are based on enrollments, that has meant Wilson can offer academic programs that other schools, including some in Ward 4, cannot afford.

 

“The [entire] ecosystem is under great stress,” said D.C. Council member David A. Catania (I-At Large), chairman of the Education Committee; he has scheduled a hearing for Friday on the boundary review process. “Any conversation that does not address quality is going to miss the mark.”

 

Lujan said the aim is “fair and clear school-choice and student-assignment policies” that provide families with “clarity, predictability and access to high-quality school options at locations that make sense for them.” She said the process also is meant “to support and strengthen neighborhood schools.”

 

One stumbling block: The assignment committee appears intent on pursuing “cross-feeder patterns” that would steer some DCPS students directly into charters. Children who might attend specialized DCPS academic programs at the elementary level that are not offered in succeeding grade levels at a traditional public school could opt to enroll in a charter to continue their course of study.

 

Implementing such cross-feeder patterns would require council approval. Catania is not keen on the idea, asserting that DCPS ought to be able to provide programs across grade levels. Many parents agree and have been advocating just that.

 

These parents understand that quality schools are not the exclusive domain of any particular education sector or geographic area. Rather, they are created mostly by families who are fully invested in their children, unwilling to accept excuses and ready to do hard work in collaboration with innovative teachers and experienced principals who receive sufficient financial support.

 

There has been talk of creating a satellite middle-school campus for the highly successful Benjamin Banneker Academic High School. In Hillcrest, a middle-class community in Southeast, residents, supported by Catania, have been negotiating with Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson to create an application-admission middle or high school. They are conducting a survey, pushing to receive comments from 2,500 residents citywide. “We are trying to develop programs that appeal to residents across the district; this survey will help us get there,” said Jeanne Contardo . She, her husband and their neighbors are determined to spark a rebirth of their neighborhood schools.

 

Many students in Wards 7 and 8 “are being forced to cross the river to attend a quality school. That is fundamentally unfair,” said Contardo, whose daughter attends Anne Beers Elementary. “We’d like to create a model and provide opportunities so they don’t have to. . . . In fact, we think people from the other side of the river will want to come here,”

 

Contardo said Hillcrest residents hope to open their new school in the fall 2015. “It’s crazy aggressive.”

 

But not impossible — especially if the boundary advisory committee and parents are unwaveringly dedicated to the vision of a high-quality, equitable traditional public school system serving all residents right where they live.

 

 

Months after President Obama proposed a new federal initiative that would expand preschool to every 4-year-old in the country, members of Congress unveiled legislation Wednesday morning that would accomplish it.

 

The measure was presented as bipartisan, although just one Republican, Rep. Richard L. Hanna (N.Y.), joined top Democrats in the House and Senate to craft the legislation. In addition to Hanna, the authors include Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chairman of the Senate education committee, and Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the House education panel.

 

“Decades of research tell us that from infants and toddlers to preschoolers, early learning is the best investment we can make to prepare our children for a lifetime of success,” said Harkin, whose bill was endorsed by 10 Democratic senators and one Independent, Bernie Sanders (Vt.), but no Republicans.

 

“Today, 39 states and the District of Columbia offer state-funded early learning programs, but without stronger investments, millions of children will continue to go without access to these crucial programs” said Harkin, who plans hearings on the bill early next year. “No child should be denied this opportunity because of family income or where they live.”

 

The Republican who chairs the House education panel, Rep. John Kline (Minn.), is cool to the idea of creating a new program.

 

“We can all agree on the importance of ensuring children have the foundation necessary to succeed in school and in life,” Kline said in a statement Wednesday. “However, before investing in new federal early childhood initiatives, we should first examine opportunities to improve existing programs designed to help our nation’s most vulnerable children, such as Head Start and the Child Care and Development Block Grant.”

 

Kline said he will plan hearings not on the House version of the bill, but on the issue of early childhood education and ways to improve current offerings.

 

Advocates for early childhood education say it is politically difficult to win support for the programs because the dividends that come from preschool investment — higher rates of high school graduation and employment, lower rates of incarceration and teen pregnancy — don’t materialize until years later, way past the next election.

 

The legislation announced Wednesday would give federal aid to states that offer pre-kindergarten to 4-year-olds from low- and moderate-income families. States would have to contribute to the cost of the program, paying 10 percent of the federal amount in the first year and up to 50 percent of the federal amount by the eighth.

 

Unlike Head Start, which is run by the federal government, the preschool initiative would be run by the states. States would decide to give grants to public schools or to preschool providers, as long as they were “high quality.” Under the legislation, that is defined as a full-day program of small classes taught by educators who hold at least a bachelor’s degree.

 

To meet those quality standards, the bill would make $750 million available to states to improve their programs. Only states that provide kindergarten would be eligible to seek the grants, and they have to agree to add data from preschool to the data they collect for K-12.

 

The bill, which is estimated to cost more than $30 billion in the first five years, closely resembles a proposal pitched by Obama earlier this year. The president had suggested raising the tobacco tax to fund that plan, but the congressional version is mum regarding a funding source.

 

Obama has said that raising the tobacco tax would serve a dual purpose of generating $75 billion in federal money for preschool while discouraging people from smoking. His proposal also called for mandatory funding, which means that the dollars for preschool would be insulated from the annual budget wars on Capitol Hill. Republicans have shunned any tax increase.

 

Preschool education has become a hot policy topic around the country. From Democratic-controlled Massachusetts to Republican-led Michigan, governors have announced plans to expand preschool, especially for low-income children. The initiatives have drawn strong backing from business groups, which say more action is needed at the federal level.

 

In San Antonio, Mayor Julian Castro (D) pushed through a new pre-K program aimed at low-income families, financed by an eighth of a cent increase in the local sales tax. New York Mayor-elect Bill DeBlasio (D) wants to increase taxes on the city’s wealthiest residents to raise money for preschool and after-school programs.

 

Under Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D), the District of Columbia has become a leader in universal preschool. Last year, 92 percent of the District’s 4-year-olds were enrolled in public pre-K, along with 69 percent of 3-year-olds.

 

As states expand preschool, the federal commitment to early childhood education has been shrinking, in part because of the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration. Head Start programs across the country eliminated services for 57,000 children in the current school year to balance budgets diminished by the federal sequester, slashing 1.3 million days from Head Start center calendars and laying off or reducing pay for more than 18,000 employees, according to federal officials.

 

 

The former executive director of a D.C. public charter school admitted in federal court Wednesday that she embezzled $29,000 in school funds, according to U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr.’s office.

 

Monique S. Murdock, 44, also acknowledged using a government-issued purchase card to buy thousands of dollars in gift cards while working as director of an Army day-care center in Virginia, court records show.

 

Murdock, who entered a guilty plea to a charge of theft from a program receiving federal funds, is scheduled to be sentenced in February in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. She faces six months to a year in prison and has agreed to make restitution payments to the Defense and Education departments.

 

Murdock’s attorney, Manuel J. Retureta, declined to comment Wednesday.

 

Murdock co-founded Southeast Washington’s Nia Community Public Charter School in 2006, and she served as its executive director until 2008, according to court documents. In that time, she used the school’s account to write five checks totaling $29,000 to a foster child in her care. She then transferred all but $100 of that money to an account in her name, the court documents show.

 

Murdock was fired from her post at Nia in November 2008, according to a wrongful termination suit she filed in 2009. The lawsuit was settled before the case went to trial, according to court records. Nia’s charter was later revoked by the D.C. Public Charter School Board, which cited the school’s poor academic performance and failure to develop a curriculum.

 

Murdock went on to work for the Army’s Cody Child Development Center at Fort Myer, first as assistant director and, starting in 2010, as director.

 

Between February and December 2012, she used a government-issued purchase card to buy gift cards worth $11,773.92, according to a statement of offense Murdock signed this week. Those purchases from Wal-Mart and Target — for gift cards for International House of Pancakes and Applebee’s, among others — were not authorized, according to court documents.

 

Murdock was charged with the charter-school theft in January and has not been employed by the Army since May, an Army spokesman said. She was suspended from the Fort Myer day-care center last winter after allegations of its workers’ abusive behavior made headlines that December.

 

Surveillance cameras showed two employees dragging and pinching toddlers, prompting a review that said more than 30 employees had backgrounds that should have disqualified them from working with children.