- D.C. parents raise questions about funds for at-risk students, school
- Predictability and access
- Parents question boundary changes
D.C. parents raise questions about funds for at-risk students, school renovations
The Washington Post
By Emma Brown
April 17, 2014
D.C. parents and education activists on Thursday praised Mayor Vincent C. Gray’s proposal to invest tens of millions of extra dollars to help at-risk students in the city’s traditional schools next year, but they criticized Gray’s administration for failing to explain how and where those dollars would be spent.
“We are highly supportive of the new funding for at-risk students, but we’re concerned that the funds are not equitably distributed,” said Soumya Bhat, an analyst for the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute who was one of more than 80 people who testified on the school system’s budget before the D.C. Council. “We want to make sure that the D.C. schools with the biggest concentration of need are seeing their fair share of this investment.”
In his fiscal 2015 budget, Gray (D) proposes sending the school system at least $9,492 per student, with additional dollars for special education students, children learning English as a second language and, for the first time, at-risk students — those who are homeless or in foster care, are on welfare or receiving food stamps, or are a year or more behind in high school.
The school system is slated to receive an additional $2,079 per at-risk student, a total investment of $44 million meant to help close enormous achievement gaps between affluent and poor children.
In December, the council passed a law requiring those dollars to be distributed based on the number of at-risk children at each school, with principals deciding how the money should be used. But the school system has taken a different tack, investing in three priorities that Chancellor Kaya Henderson laid out last year: strengthening middle schools, offering longer school days and other services at more low-performing schools, and improving students’ satisfaction with their school.
As a result, some high-poverty schools are not slated to receive more money next year. For example, nearly 80 percent of students at Anacostia High in Southeast are considered at-risk and the school is projected to have nearly 100 more students next year, but its budget is projected to shrink slightly.
David A. Catania (I-At Large), chairman of the council’s education committee and a candidate for mayor, said he is “willing to give DCPS the benefit of the doubt” because the funding bill — which he wrote — was passed so late in the year that the school system might need more time to implement it.
“I want to believe that next year’s budget will be better and next year’s budget will follow the law,” Catania said. “I will be pushing the chancellor on that.”
Henderson is scheduled to testify before the council April 28, and she was not at Thursday’s session. In written responses to the council’s budget questions, schools officials said that distributing at-risk funds proportionally on such short notice would have been difficult and disruptive, making some new investments impossible and eroding other important programs. But they said the investment in low-performing schools has increased this year, and 90 percent of at-risk funds will be used in schools with a high concentration of need.
“We are proud of the investments we have made, grateful to Mayor Gray for his continued belief in and support of DCPS students and staff, and excited about what we will be able to do using these funds in a strategic and smart way,” spokeswoman Melissa Salmanowitz said.
Also a subject of much discussion Thursday was Gray’s proposal to spend $400 million for school renovation projects next year. Many parents complained that Gray’s plan delays renovations that had previously been planned for next year.
“Our school has so many issues that need to be addressed,” said Bernetta Reese, a parent at Watkins Elementary on Capitol Hill. The school’s fire alarm system is not up to code and there is no sprinkler system, Reese said, while its faulty heating system leaves students shivering in winter coats on cold days.
Catania signaled that he will seek to fund promised renovations at Watkins and other schools by shifting money away from a proposed renovation of the old Spingarn High.
Gray is seeking to spend $62 million during the next two years to reopen Spingarn as a vocational education center with a special focus on training for transportation-related careers.
Catania said it makes no sense to spend those capital dollars on Spingarn because another career-oriented school — Phelps ACE High — is next door and underenrolled.
Ann McLeod, a parent leader at Garrison Elementary in Logan Circle, said that modernization decisions seem to be random and politically motivated and that the constant shifting of renovation schedules — and testifying before the council -- takes parents’ time and energy away from volunteering in schools.
Garrison’s renovation funds have been yanked and restored several times in recent years, and the school is now scheduled to be fully modernized by fiscal 2016, a victory that McLeod compared to surviving a plane crash in which others are not as lucky.
“We don’t understand what happened or why, and why we are the ones who survived and others did not,” McLeod said, adding that decisions should be driven by hard data and transparent analysis. “There is currently no strategy whatsoever in the whole modernization planning.”
Predictability and access
The Northwest Current
By Davis Kennedy and Chris Kain
April 16, 2014
The idea of changing the way students are assigned to public schools is enough to strike fear in the hearts of parents who live within the boundaries of a high-performing school — or even a campus on an upward trajectory.
Thus, it’s no surprise that an outcry has arisen over the three “policy examples” that Deputy Mayor for Education Abigail Smith recently rolled out for altering feeder and boundary systems. The concern is understandable: Two of the three would eliminate a child’s guaranteed spot at a local school, either in the upper grades or in all grades.
We understand the reasoning behind the concept. Deputy Mayor Smith said on The Kojo Nnamdi Show Friday that there’s an “inherent tension … between predictability and access to high-quality schools.” Parents with access to a high-quality school want predictability; those assigned to a poor-performing school want access to a better one. The latter parent is surely no less deserving.
Still, we’re skeptical about inserting more uncertainty into a school system that’s already so often tumultuous. Doing so would surely increase suburban flight — or add to the hordes applying to charter schools. So let’s not throw the concept of local schools out the window. Some proponents note that only a quarter of D.C. students attend their in-boundary school. That may sound low, but that’s a lot of people to displace.
We’re unconvinced of the benefits of “choice sets,” which would guarantee families access to one of a set of nearby schools. This system would be more predictable than a free-for-all, but not enough, and it wouldn’t bring about the diversity that some seek through the overhaul. Perhaps a pilot project in one or two areas could show whether the concept has promise in D.C.
We do like a few concepts. First, adding specialized offerings at schools that currently lack much appeal, or creating new specialty programs — such as a selective-admission middle school east of the Anacostia River — could benefit everyone. We also support having schools admit a certain percentage of out-of-boundary students, though implementation in some Ward 3 schools would require measures to mitigate overcrowding. Clearly, those overstuffed schools are a big reason for taking a comprehensive look at boundaries and policies, as are the patchwork approaches in some areas where the city has shuttered underutilized campuses over the years. It is undoubtedly necessary to redraw lines so every school can accommodate all of its assigned students.
Should the city proceed with one of the decreased-predictability options, there should be grandfathering of current students and their siblings, as well as some preferential access for children currently younger than school age.
Above all else, however, this effort must not detract from the need to create
more quality seats throughout the city, with bolstered offerings such as
reduced class sizes in schools with a high proportion of at-risk students. Ultimately,all D.C. parents should have a local school where they’re enthusiastic to enroll their children. Since any proposals Mayor Vincent Gray adopts this fall could be dismantled by the next mayor — and since both leading candidates have expressed support for guaranteed access to neighborhood schools — it seems foolhardy to embrace major changes now.
Parents question boundary changes
The Northwest Current
By Brady Holt, Kat Lucero and Graham Vyse
April 16, 2014
As parents and policymakers alike absorb and debate the far-reaching proposals for reforming D.C. Public Schools boundaries and feeder patterns, many are also looking at impacts proposed at their specific schools.
This month, Deputy Mayor for Education Abigail Smith released three possible outlines of the school system’s future. Two — dubbed options A and C — reduce the link between students’ addresses and which schools they are guaranteed seats in; the third, Option B, redraws boundaries and makes other policy changes within the existing structure.
Boundary reform was initiated to address the city’s current situation, in which high-performing schools burst at the seams in some parts of the city while struggling schools elsewhere continue to spiral and lose students. But options A and C have sparked an outcry from many residents, particularly those who live near successful Northwest elementary schools and fear that their children won’t be able to attend school there and that their property values will suffer.
“They’re going to wind up ruining Ward 3 schools,” Ward 3 D.C. Council member Mary Cheh said of those two options in an interview with The Current. “We’ve taken a lot of time to restore confidence in the school system, and what’s happening is parents are coming back because they have that confidence. And that confidence will be shattered if we go to some kind of crazy, unpredictable lottery system.
“It’s a formula that will result in ruining Ward 3 schools and not improving others,” continued Cheh. “They think they’re going to fix the schools by moving kids around. I think that’s probably folly, instead of fixing the schools by fixing the schools.”
Accordingly, Cheh said that these options should be a “non-starter … out of the picture.” But she and some parents have also criticized some of the particular boundary changes envisioned under Option B. Cheh said there needs to be a clearer vision for why boundaries should be in certain locations, and that the school system should look for alternatives to changing boundaries. “I would like to explore whether more space at the schools would resolve the problem,” said Cheh.
Ward 4 Council member Muriel Bowser — the Democratic nominee for mayor — also said school assignments should be based in geography. “I will only support neighborhood school assignment. This means that students must have by right, as opposed to lottery, an assignment to a school at the elementary, middle and high school levels in their area,” she said in a news release this week.
At-large Council member David Catania, head of the council’s Education Committee and an independent candidate for mayor, also objected to the deputy mayor’s proposals, including Option B as drafted.
“I will stand against any plan that removes students from a higher performing school and forces them into a lower performing one,” he said in a release. He urged a focus instead on improving schools across the District.