- D.C. parents, politicians seek to slow school boundary overhaul
- Charter coordination with DCPS would end school reform
- Parents air boundary plan concerns
D.C. parents, politicians seek to slow school boundary overhaul
The Washington Post
By Emma Brown
June 24, 2014
Dozens of parents and several D.C. Council members called on city officials Thursday to slow their effort to overhaul public school boundaries, arguing that education leaders should focus on improving schools before redrawing maps.
“I just want to be clear that we need to take time,” said D.C. Council member and mayoral candidate David A. Catania (I-At Large), speaking during a six-hour hearing on the boundary effort. He said that further study is needed to understand the long-term impact of the latest proposal on the city’s schools.
“It’s not a not-now, not-ever proposition, and it’s not catering to folks who have a particular point of view,” said Catania, chairman of the council’s Education Committee. “It’s making sure we don’t do this in a way that spooks our parents and this very tenuous confidence that we’re trying to build.”
D.C. Council member Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4), her party’s mayoral nominee, said she would like to find an immediate way to deal with acute overcrowding at Northwest Washington schools so that other schools have time to improve before boundary changes take effect.
The council has no official role in approving the boundary revisions, as that is entirely the responsibility of Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D). Gray is expected to announce a boundary plan in September that would take effect in fall 2015.
But because Gray’s term ends in January, implementing his plan — which is certain to be controversial — will fall to his successor. Catania said he believes that a new law would bar any changes from taking effect earlier than fall 2016, and Bowser said she wants to see millions of dollars allocated for new middle schools before the boundary changes take effect.
D.C. Deputy Mayor for Education Abigail Smith, who has led the effort, pushed back against the suggestion that the city should wait. She argued that it makes no sense to hold off on fixing a system left “irrational and inefficient” by decades of school closures and demographic change.
“It’s simply unrealistic to think that we can improve schools without addressing the core questions of how students are assigned to them,” Smith said, adding that the city’s patchwork of boundaries and feeder patterns has made it difficult for education officials to do long-term planning and establish programs that meet community demands.
“Waiting for a new administration won’t make it easier,” Smith said, calling on the council and the city to have “the courage and conviction to make much-needed changes.”
Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson, making her first public remarks about the boundary overhaul, said she’s been troubled by criticism that the city is redrawing maps before improving schools. She said principals and teachers are working every day to improve schools.
“Nobody believes that just by changing boundaries and feeder patterns are we going to improve D.C. Public Schools,” Henderson said. “I hope people see this as not just a solution, or the solution, but part of a series of strategically sequenced interventions that we need to do to build a system of neighborhood schools.”
Thursday’s hearing drew many parents seeking to advocate for their families and neighborhoods. Parents from the Crestwood neighborhood, east of Rock Creek Park, argued that the boundary proposal is unfair because it would cut them out of two sought-after Northwest schools: Alice Deal Middle and Wilson High. Parents from Mount Pleasant, another east-of-the-park neighborhood, praised the proposal because it would maintain their access to those schools.
But several broad questions arose from the testimony, including whether — and how — the city can overhaul school boundaries and student-assignment policies without simultaneously considering the significant role of charter schools.
“If our goal is to have citywide student-assignment policies that are coherent and efficient, charter schools must be part of the conversation,” said David Grosso (I-At Large), who said he supports the direction of the boundary proposal and believes it is necessary but wants to see more concrete proposals for coordinating with charters.
Currently, the D.C. Public Charter School Board approves charters without considering their impact on existing schools and often without knowing where they will be located.
Charter advocates say that such independence has been critical to their success and must be protected; critics say that the lack of coordination makes rational long-term planning impossible, especially given that charters are growing quickly and now enroll 44 percent of city students.
“Thoughtful planning around school boundaries is meaningless if it only involves half our public school system,” said Caryn Ernst, a Capitol Hill parent.
Henderson included herself among the critics, saying she was “looking for a little more” on charter-DCPS coordination from the boundary proposal. A new science- and technology-focused charter school recently decided to move in across the street from a traditional school that emphasizes science and technology, she said — a sign of the need for greater coordination.
All but a handful of the parents who testified represented areas west of the Anacostia River, mirroring participation in recent community meetings on the issue. Those have skewed heavily toward residents of Northwest Washington.
D.C. Council member Yvette M. Alexander (D-Ward 7) said that many in her ward view the boundary proposal as a move toward “new-age segregation” by encouraging families to attend neighborhood schools, which tend to be much lower-performing east of the Anacostia River than in areas west of Rock Creek Park.
“What are we left with?” Alexander said. “We’re left with the short end of the stick.”
Charter coordination with DCPS would end school reform
The Examiner
By Mark Lerner
June 27, 2014
The Washington Post's Emma Brown reports that during a six hour D.C. Council hearing to discuss the Deputy Mayor for Education's school boundary proposal several individuals mentioned that charters must be part of the equation before final decisions are made. One of those critical of a lack of coordination was DCPS Chancellor Henderson, who, according to Ms. Brown, pointed to the fact that "a new science- and technology-focused charter school recently decided to move in across the street from a traditional school that emphasizes science and technology." This type of coordination would kill the local charter school movement.
First, Ms. Henderson's comment ignores the reality of the intractable problem of charters locating facilities in which to operate. Thank goodness this new charter found a site. Many have not been able to solve this issue which has unfortunately meant the end of the existence of some schools, while others have had to severely curtail their programs due to the lack of affordable classroom space. It would also be better not to even discuss the quantity of time these alternative schools spend searching for buildings. The energy the entire process sucks out charters sometimes results in board of directors meetings more resembling those of a real estate company rather than an academic institution.
The other problem with Ms. Henderson's view is that it seems as if she wants the competition for students that has forced her school system to improve to simply go away. The concept of school choice exactly mirrors the situation the Chancellor describes. Let a science and technology charter open directly across the street from one of her neighborhood schools and see what happens. If the neighborhood school is meeting the needs of the parents then the impact on the student body will be nil. But if the same pattern repeats itself that has taken place across the city, the new charter, a school without a track record of successfully educating even one child, will find that people will be scrambling to get their kids admitted. The loss of students will then drive the traditional school to improve or eventually be closed.
I'm afraid that that the word "coordination" really means that the number of charter schools should be capped at the current level. But that is exactly the wrong direction to go. With thousands of students, as Ms. Brown has been highlighting for weeks, lacking a quality seat, the only way to go regarding our charters is forward.
Parents air boundary plan concerns
The Northwest Current
By Graham Vyse
June 25, 2014
D.C.’s plan to redraw school boundaries is on track to be finalized this summer, but many Northwest families want to slam the brakes on the whole effort.
A city task force is recommending a series of student assignment policy changes that would move some students from overcrowded schools to new or underutilized ones.
But with an August deadline looming for Deputy Mayor for Education Abigail Smith to submit a proposal to the mayor, community feedback on the process continues to be intense. One primary issue of concern is the plan to send some students currently slated for high-performing schools, such as Wilson High and Deal Middle, to schools with more capacity but lower test scores. Over the past two weeks, a pair of D.C. Council members have described that aspect of the latest draft proposal as one of its biggest faults.
In a letter sent to the deputy mayor yesterday, Ward 3 D.C. Council member Mary Cheh wrote: “I fear that moving students before their new schools are proven to be successful could ultimately harm them and shatter the confidence that has taken hold in many parts of the system.” She went on to tell Smith that the District should “err on the side of school improvement first and assignment changes later.”
At-large D.C. Council member David Catania, an independent mayoral candidate, has been an outspoken critic of planned reforms. “I cannot support a proposal that forces students from higher performing schools into lower performing schools,” Catania said in a statement last week. “I firmly believe that the real issue has been and continues to be the lack of high quality, matter-of-right neighborhood schools across our city.”
Ward 4 D.C. Council member Muriel Bowser, the Democratic nominee for mayor, has yet to offer detailed reaction to the latest plans, but she has not embraced the proposed boundary changes thus far. Her ward would face some of the biggest impacts of the proposed changes for Deal and Wilson, with the boundaries of those schools shrinking to exclude most areas east of Rock Creek Park except for Shepherd Park and Mount Pleasant.
A new middle school envisioned for the northernmost part of Ward 4 would serve graduating elementary school students from Brightwood, La Salle-Backus, Takoma and Whittier. These students would go on to high school at Coolidge.
In addition, a reopened MacFarland Middle in Petworth would serve students from Barnard, Bruce-Monroe, Powell, Raymond, Truesdell and West. That group would advance to high school at Roosevelt.
At a meeting last Thursday at the Takoma Education Campus, the deputy mayor faced a sea of concerned citizens, several of whom objected to the pace of the reform process.
“I can’t look out here and see all these people and imagine that you can actually resolve all the concerns they have between now and July,” said one attendee. “Why not wait six months? What’s the rush?”
Smith replied that Mayor Vincent Gray remains committed to a reform plan this year, citing dire concerns about overcrowding at some schools and underutilization of others.
A breakout session later that night demonstrated that the latest plans are of particular concern in Crestwood, a neighborhood that stands to lose its longtime rights to Deal and Wilson. Parents from that area were the most emotional as they insisted they would not send their children to MacFarland or Roosevelt High.
Crestwood resident Christine Churchill dismissed the fact that these schools are close to her home, saying their academic track records were far worse than those of Deal and Wilson. “I would love for my kids to walk to school, but until they’re walking to a school that’s as good as the school they’re in now, it doesn’t work,” she said to applause.
Sitting next to Churchill, Natasha Sanderson also spoke sternly to the deputy mayor’s aides: “You cannot tell me that you’re going shift my child to a school that has no data — no test scores, no highly qualified teachers, no
academic programs that are on par with the school you want to remove them from. That is unacceptable.”
In an interview with The Current, Jeff Steele, another Crestwood parent, cited isses with a plan premised on reopening a closed school like MacFarland. Saying the process would require enormous amounts of funding and programmatic planning, Steele suggested that the plan involves too much uncertainly. “We just don’t know anything,” he said.
Gale Black, Crestwood’s advisory neighborhood commissioner, also told The Current she hopes the neighborhood will retain access to high-performing public schools. “You shouldn’t have to take our a mortgage to educate your kids,” she said.
Black is among the witnesses scheduled to testify at a roundtable on school boundaries the D.C. Council’s education committee is holding tomorrow. The hearing is set to begin at 11a.m. in Room 412 of the Wilson Building.