- Perfect score predicting which charter applications would be given green light [Two Rivers PCS, Thurgood Marshall Academy PCS, Monument Academy PCS, Washington Global PCS, and Children's Guild PCS mentioned]
- Empower DC Holds City's Feet to Fire on School Closings
Perfect score predicting which charter applications would be given green light [Two Rivers PCS, Thurgood Marshall Academy PCS, Monument Academy PCS, Washington Global PCS, and Children's Guild PCS mentioned]
The Examiner
By Mark Lerner
May 20, 2014
A few weeks ago I sat through two consecutive evenings of D.C. Public Charter School Board meetings to listen to eight presentations on this year's applications for new charters to open during the 2015 to 2016 school term. The morning after each session I turned in my assignment of predicting the proposals that would be approved by the PCSB, and last night I obtained my grade. It turns out that I received an A with a perfect score of 100 percent.
The newly granted charters included Monument Academy, Washington Global, and Children's Guild. This means that the Board approved a little under 40 percent of those wanting to start schools, which closely matches the pattern of previous cycles. As I mentioned in an earlier article the quality of the applications has become stronger with most representatives promising to be Performance Management Framework Tier 1 on day one. This is a good development for the children of our city.
Most of the discussion revolved around Monument Academy, the charter for kids associated with the foster care system submitted by past PCSB member Emily Bloomfield. My sense was that the oversight group felt that there were aspects of the planned design that needed to be filled in more completely. In the end, the Board allowed the school's opening with conditions, the main one being that it serve grades five through eight with the proposed high school delayed for approval at a later date.
The most difficult one to anticipate was Washington Leadership Academy. While I wasn't thrilled with the group's presentation its founder is the same individual, Seth Andrew, who created the high performing Democracy Prep Charter Schools. But in the end the Board agreed with my analysis on this proposal and the others which can be reviewed here and here.
In other exciting news, Two Rivers, the Tier 1 charter with over 1,000 students on its waiting list, appeared at a public hearing regarding plans for replication. This was expected. But the surprise of the evening was the bid by Thurgood Marshall Academy to increase in size to 950 from its current enrollment of 420 students. This is another Tier 1 charter with plans to open a second campus in Ward 5 or 6. When I interviewed Josh Kern in early 2011 when he was executive director expansion was not even in the planning stage. It would do so by opening a ninth grade in 2015 and then add a grade a year up to twelve. Final approval for replication of these two excellent schools will come in June.
Empower DC Holds City's Feet to Fire on School Closings
The Washington Informer
By Dorothy Rowley
May 19, 2014
A spokesperson for Empower DC said the group recently returned to court to prove the city unjustly closed 15 District public schools last year.
Members of the grassroots community-advocacy organization and several parents teamed up in federal court Thursday to refute the shuttering of 15 schools, most which were located east of Rock Creek Park in Wards 5, 7 and 8.
The organization initially sued in the matter against the city in March 2013.
"We have not filed an additional lawsuit, but are continuing our efforts [regarding] counts in it which allege discrimination took place," said Daniel del Pielago, who manages education issues for Empower DC.
"The mayor filed for a motion for summary judgment, which means that the city essentially doesn't want to go forward with a trial, so they've asked the judge to make a decision," he said. "Obviously, they're saying that their case doesn't hold water."
Del Pielago said once the judge allowed counts involving discrimination to move forward, Empower DC began the discovery process.
"We literally have thousands of emails from the chancellor, people in the public schools system and the mayor, making their positions — and we've built our response, saying that there was an ulterior motive to closing the schools," he said.
Empower DC's opposition to the city's summary judgment coincided with the 60th anniversary of the Supreme Court's historic Brown vs. Board of Education decision, which ended segregation in public schools.
"The vision of high-quality and integrated public schools … has been steadily and intentionally replaced in the District of Columbia by a divided system in which certain, mostly white, affluent students west of Rock Creek Park enjoy the benefit of serious investments in their traditional public schools — while mostly black students, east of the park, witness their public schools being closed and increasingly and intentionally replaced by publicly funded, but privately operated charter schools," the organization stated in court documents.