- What's behind one charter high school's success, and can it be replicated? Part 1 [Thurgood Marshall Academy PCS and KIPP DC College Prep mentioned]
- Two charter school's DC CAS scores thrown out due to irregularities [Community Academy PCS, Options PCS, Friendship PCS, Achievement Prep PCS, Maya Angelou PCS, Cesar Chavez PCS, Perry Street Preparatory PCS, Paul PCS, and Ideal Academy PCS mentioned]
- Catania Bills Highlight Needs of Special-Education Students
- Cheh introduces bill to provide poor D.C. children with meals on snow days
- On Race to the Top funds, D.C. stumbles
What's behind one charter high school's success, and can it be replicated? Part 1 [Thurgood Marshall Academy PCS and KIPP DC College Prep mentioned]
Greater Greater Education
By Natalie Wexler
March 18, 2014
Thurgood Marshall Academy, a charter school in Anacostia, has had a track record of success with a tough population: low-income high school students. What is its secret, and is it something DCPS and other schools can replicate?
The entering 9th-graders at Thurgood Marshall (TMA) are generally on a 5th- or 6th-grade level in reading and math. But for the past 9 years, 100% of its seniors have been accepted to college, and 65% of them graduate within 5 years. In Ward 8 as a whole, only 10% of the population has a college degree.
How does the school manage to pull this off? While some have accused TMA of cherry-picking its students or falsifying results, its executive director Alexandra Pardo says that's not the case. The "secret sauce," she says, is simple: good teaching.
There's been a lot of talk lately about the deficiencies of DCPS's middle schools, but in fact their problems are minor compared to those at DCPS's non-selective high schools. Aside from Wilson in Ward 3, the proficiency rates on DC's standardized tests at neighborhood high schools range from 17% to 46%, with the majority below 30%.
That's a problem not only for families who already have their kids enrolled in those schools, but also for parents of younger children who are planning for the future.
At TMA last year, 87% of students scored proficient in math and 62% in reading, which is higher than the rates at Wilson (60% and 61%, respectively). And the school did far better than average in helping its students advance. In fact, on a measure of academic growth, the school ranks first in DC.
No pipeline to draw on
Among DC charter schools serving a high-poverty population, KIPP DC College Prep is a close competitor. But KIPP DC is a network of high-performing schools that begin in pre-K, so its high school can draw on a pipeline of students who have already been acculturated and educated in its system.
TMA, on the other hand, draws its students from about 60 different middle schools, with many coming from low-performing DCPS schools in Wards 7 and 8. "We never have more than 12% coming in on grade level in math," Pardo says. For reading, she says, about 22% are on grade level.
While Pardo says the secret of TMA's success lies in good teaching, there are obviously other factors at work as well. For one thing, there's a summer prep program that gets entering 9th-graders accustomed to behavioral expectations before school starts. It also enables the school to administer diagnostic tests, start getting kids caught up on math and reading skills, and determine what classes students should be placed in.
The school isn't allowed to make attendance at the summer program mandatory, but Pardo says that usually about 90 out of an entering class of 120 to 130 will attend.
Once school starts, students who are advanced in a particular subject can take an honors class. And students who are well below grade level in a subject get "tons more support," Pardo says.
But all 9th-graders get a double dose of reading and math, with 90-minute blocks of each daily. They all take Algebra I, and those who need basic pre-algebra skills also get an additional 90-minute class focusing on those.
The curriculum isn't all about reading and math, however. Ninth-graders also take world history, Spanish, and earth science or biology.
Nor is it all about remediation. Students in 11th and 12th grade can take AP classes, although those are also 90 minutes long, in recognition of the fact that TMA students may need additional support. And those who are advanced in math can take two full years of it in 10th grade so they can take AP Calculus later on.
There's also an emphasis on writing throughout the curriculum, with a set of common standards and goals, although every teacher takes a somewhat different approach.
Each student accumulates a portfolio over the course of the school year, which includes academic work and a record of behavior. Students develop public speaking skills by giving oral presentations based on their portfolios to panels of staff and parents, explaining why they did or didn't meet the goals they set for themselves.
Promotion policy
And if 9th-graders aren't ready to move on to 10th grade, the school doesn't let them. Students who fail up to 3 core classes can move up if they pass at least 2 of the courses in summer school, but those who fail 4 core classes are required to repeat the grade.
Every year about 15 students are in that situation, and Pardo says about half of them choose to return and repeat. The others go elsewhere.
"It's never an easy decision" to require a student to repeat, says Pardo. "But it's not helping you in the long run if we promote you."
That policy is one reason the school's 4-year graduation rate was only 76% last year. That's certainly respectable; the overall 4-year graduation rate for DC was 64%, with a rate of only 58% for DCPS as a whole. But among charter schools, the average was 79%.
But Pardo says that the school's 5-year graduation rate is 96%, with about 15% of seniors graduating in 5 years.
In the next part of this post, we'll look at other factors in the TMA's success, and whether they can be replicated at DCPS high schools.
Two charter school's DC CAS scores thrown out due to irregularities [Community Academy PCS, Options PCS, Friendship PCS, Achievement Prep PCS, Maya Angelou PCS, Cesar Chavez PCS, Perry Street Preparatory PCS, Paul PCS, and Ideal Academy PCS mentioned]
The Examiner
By Mark Lerner
March 19, 2014
Yesterday the Office of the State Superintendent of Education released their review of the integrity of the 2013 DC CAS administration by all of public schools in the nation's capital. Identified problems are broken down into three categories as explained by the D.C. Public Charter School Board:
Minor, with procedural infractions,
Moderate, which includes anomalies with defined violations but not test tampering or fraud; and
Critical, which includes test tampering or academic fraud. Schools in this category have their results invalidated.
In the minor category are Community Academy, Options, and Friendship Tech Prep Public Charter Schools. Moving to the moderate group the charters listed are Achievement Prep, Maya Angelou, Cesar Chavez Parkside High, Perry Street Preparatory, and Paul. Finally, those with the most serious findings and detailed as having critical issues in administering the 2013 DC CAS are Ideal Academy and Cesar Chavez Parkside Middle Public Charter Schools.
The PCSB states that they take standardized testing irregularities extremely seriously which indeed they do. Last year those schools found to have critical and moderate violations ended up replacing staff in addition to developing new procedures around administration of the examination. The DC CAS is of course central to the ranking of charters because its scores determine to a large degree their Performance Management Framework grade and therefore impact the Tier that these schools find themselves in. As an indication of the accountability that the Board is exerting in this area, the body pointed out that both Perry Street and Ideal recently received renewal of their 15 years charters. But because of these violations the DC CAS results will be recalculated the schools could now face repercussions from the PCSB.
On the DCPS side four schools, Patterson, Nalle, Shepherd, and Wilson had minor irregularities. Only Kimball was listed in the moderate group, and Oyster Adams and Plummer were found to have critical violations in the way the DC CAS was administered.
For the charters landing in the moderate and critical categories the first step the PCSB will take it to approach the schools' trustees to determine the steps that will be taken to prevent these findings going forward. We can expect much discussion of these violations at the Board's upcoming monthly meetings.
Catania Bills Highlight Needs of Special-Education Students
The Washington Informer
By Dorothy Rowley
March 18, 2014
D.C. Council member David Catania introduced three different bills Tuesday aimed at overhauling special education in both District public and charter schools.
In announcing the wide-ranging "Special Education Quality Improvement Act of 2014," Catania said the legislation was crafted with three main points in mind: to expedite delivery of services to students, provide their parents the same rights afforded parents in high-performing special education jurisdictions outside the District, and to wield more force getting charter schools to improve their policies for teaching students with disabilities.
"The three measures are in direct response to the crisis facing special education in the District of Columbia," Catania said, describing the bills as the most comprehensive reform of special education in the history of D.C. home rule. "Students are not getting the supports they need, families feel powerless in ensuring appropriate services for their children, teachers and principals don't have the resources they need, and weak procedural protections result in limited accountability and transparency."
Catania added that following "hundreds of hours" of best practices studies involving research and meetings with parents, educators and advocates, his team developed a set of priorities for reform that supports teachers and improves both quality and capacity throughout the special-education system, as well as protecting student rights.
Catania, chair of the council's Committee on Education, has become one of the District's most staunch proponents of education reform. In June, he introduced a seven-bill package to overhaul the city's schools system. A council member since 1997, he recently tossed his hat in the mayoral race as an independent.
He was accompanied for Tuesday's announcement at the John A. Wilson Building in downtown Washington by Judith Sandalow, executive director of Children's Law Center. Several families of special needs students and about 40 special education advocates also attended.
In partnering with Catania and the education committee, the center engaged in a large-scale cooperative effort that drew from the experience of parents, teachers and other experts to determine how to best meet the needs of special education students.
"Children's Law Center strongly supports this historic reform effort because we know it will make life-altering improvements for thousands of children across the District," Sandalow said. "We have waited for decades for special education reform — decades during which children have grown up and left school without the skills to support themselves."
Cheh introduces bill to provide poor D.C. children with meals on snow days
The Washington Post
By Emma Brown
March 18, 2014
D.C. Council Member Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) introduced a bill Tuesday that would require the District to provide free meals for poor children on days when schools are closed for snow or other inclement weather.
Under Cheh’s proposal, the Department of Parks and Recreation would be responsible for ensuring that meals are available to kids, with rec centers in low-income neighborhoods serving as distribution points.
Approximately 70 percent of the city’s public school students receive federally subsidized free or reduced-price meals, including breakfast and lunch. When schools close for snow, many of those children don’t have access to healthy food, according to anti-hunger activists.
“This year, D.C. Public Schools have been closed for six snow days,” Cheh said. “Through this bill, the District can ensure that these children do not go hungry on snow days next winter.”
On Race to the Top funds, D.C. stumbles
The Washington Post
By Lyndsey Layton
March 18, 2014
Of the 12 jurisdictions that won the earliest grants under the Obama administration’s Race to the Top program, the District of Columbia has come under extra scrutiny by federal officials concerned about its ability to manage the money.
The U.S. Education Department has placed a hold on $6.2 million of the $75 million it awarded the District — money that is supposed to be used to improve eight “persistently low achieving schools” — saying that local officials must first seek explicit federal approval before spending those funds.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Tuesday in a conference call with the media that the tighter management was due to “concerns with OSSE’s management,” a reference to the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, the local agency that manages federal money designated for D.C. schools.
The District and 11 states received Race to the Top grants in 2009 and 2010. On Wednesday, federal officials released a progress report showing problems with the District’s effort to improve the eight schools.
According to the report, the District is behind in its obligation to come up with a strategy for those schools — Browne Education Campus, Garfield Elementary School, Johnson Middle School, Kramer Middle School, Anacostia High School, Dunbar High School, Eastern High School and Luke C. Moore High School.
Ann Whalen, who oversees implementation of the $4 billion in Race to the Top grants at the Education Department, said that before OSSE can tap into the federal dollars it won to improve those schools, it will have to submit additional plans and “get our approval so the way they’re spending their money matches the commitment they made.”
OSSE, which is responsible for a number of citywide education initiatives, including administering standardized tests and providing buses for students with disabilities, has been roiled by leadership turnover and been widely viewed as struggling to find its footing since its inception in 2007.
Ayan Islam, an OSSE spokeswoman, said that the agency ran into delays in its dealings with D.C. public schools but that “we’ve since worked to rectify these challenges in partnership with them.”
Race to the Top, the Obama administration’s signature education policy, is a series of competitive grants that have been awarded to states willing to embrace the administration’s favored policies to improve public schools.
Since the contests began in 2009, the administration has given out $4 billion in federal dollars, most of it made available by Congress as part of stimulus spending after the 2008 recession. Eleven states and the District won grants in the first two rounds, and seven other states won grants in 2011.
The winning states agreed to make changes in four areas: adopting academic standards and related tests that would prepare students for college and careers; creating data systems to measure student academic growth; recruiting, developing and retaining effective teachers and principals; and improving the lowest-performing schools.
Although less than half the states won grants, Race to the Top inspired policy changes in many more because states had to make certain changes — such as adopting new academic standards in K-12 math and reading — just to compete for the money.
This “unleashed states’ and districts’ creativity and innovation even in states that didn’t win a nickel,” Duncan said.
“It’s too early to draw any big conclusions” about the impact of the grants, Duncan added. “But it’s exciting to see the changes districts are making."
Race to the Top has been controversial among teachers unions, which have argued that federal tax dollars should be spent equally among school districts instead of creating “winners and losers.” And critics on Capitol Hill say that the contest gave the Obama administration too much influence in education decisions that should be made locally.
This year was to be the fourth and final year of the Race to the Top grants for the 12 original winners, but nearly all have asked the Education Department for a one-year extension to meet all their commitments under the grant. The only state that has not sought extra time is Hawaii, which Duncan called “a rising star” in school improvement.
He also praised Delaware, Tennessee and North Carolina for making significant progress toward their goals under the grants. Other states that received grants in 2009 and 2010 include Maryland, New York, Georgia, Florida, Massachusetts, Ohio and Rhode Island.