- Language immersion programs growing in D.C., but only west of the river [Washington Yu Ying PCS mentioned]
- Unaccompanied minors wait in limbo, dreading deportation [Next Step PCS mentioned]
- Low-income DC students get a helping hand to make it to college graduation [Thurgood Marshall Academy PCS, KIPP DC PCS, and SEED PCS mentioned]
- Eva Moskowitz: Charters Drive Improvement in N.Y.C.'s Regular Schools
Language immersion programs growing in D.C., but only west of the river [Washington Yu Ying PCS mentioned]
The Washington Post
By Michael Alison Chandler
December 1, 2014
Jimell Sanders and Antawan Holmes started looking at schools before their daughter, now 15 months old, was born. They wanted to find a school that emphasized foreign languages.
“We think bilingualism and biliteracy are a gift,” said Sanders, who grew up in a military family and lived abroad. “By speaking another language, it will open her up and allow her to engage the world in a different way.”
Citywide, they found lots of options — 13 elementary schools that offer dual language programs — but they were all far away. There was nothing near their Deanwood neighborhood near Prince George’s County, or in all of Ward 7. “Actually, there’s no language immersion programs east of the river,” she said. “It’s disheartening.”
So the couple got involved with the DC Language Immersion Project, an advocacy group organized recently to expand such programs across the city.
“We realized that if we want to see this happen, we have to take it upon ourselves to help grow a program,” she said. The couple hopes to bring a dual language program to their neighborhood school, Houston Elementary, so they don’t have to travel across town.
Demand for foreign language programs is strong and growing, evidenced by applicants from across the city and long waiting lists at the seven traditional public schools and six charter schools that offer immersion programs.
Nationally, the majority of school districts begin foreign language instruction in middle or high school, a starting point that experts say misses important early years when language learning happens more easily. The District offers more foreign language options in elementary schools than many surrounding school districts. And this year, the chancellor expanded funding for foreign language classes in more schools, mostly in the form of introductory level classes.
But Vanessa Bertelli, a parent whose children are learning Mandarin at Yu Ying Public Charter School, said providing greater access to more intensive foreign language instruction, particularly in wards 7 and 8, is an important fairness issue in the city, because such programs have proven to improve students’ college and career prospects.
“We are at a tipping point,” she said. “The world is more and more globalized and the needs of D.C. are not changing…We need more and more people who speak other languages.”
The DC Language Immersion Project is hosting its inaugural event on Thursday evening at the MLK Library. It’s a panel discussion about the benefits and challenges of language immersion in urban public schools. The DC Public Library and DC State Board of Education are co-hosts. Education councils and parent groups from around the city have also signed on.
Unaccompanied minors wait in limbo, dreading deportation [Next Step PCS mentioned]
Al Jazeera America
By Kara Andrade
November 28, 2014
WASHINGTON, D.C. — It’s hard to separate Denis from the loud throng of high school teenagers in line for their after-school Frappuccinos at a Starbucks in the upscale neighborhood of Tenleytown in Washington. Except he sits alone at a corner table checking his cellphone, looking over his shoulder from time to time with a glance of uncertainty and a need for invisibility. When he stands, he is tall and thin, wearing skinny jeans and purple and gray Puma sneakers.
He is one of the estimated 45,000 unaccompanied immigrants living in the United States who arrived as minors. Four years ago, when he was 16, he set out alone on a 3,200-mile trek from his home in San Miguel, El Salvador, to reach his uncles in Washington, D.C. He arrived after many weeks on the road.
In November President Barack Obama unveiled an executive order that would extend temporary deportation relief for undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country before 2010. Still, that will exclude the tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors who crossed U.S. borders earlier this summer.
While the surge this summer of unaccompanied minors from Central America apprehended after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border grabbed headlines and became a political nightmare for Democrats ahead of the midterm elections, area social workers say they have been working with unaccompanied minors for years.
“We have always dealt with this population. It’s nothing new to us. We have worked with [them] since the 1980s,” said Juan Carlos Martinez, the evening principal of the Next Step Public Charter School, which originated as a program for young parents developed by the Latin American Youth Center in D.C. “I myself am one of those people who came here in the 1980s who spoke no English. I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life.”
It has been a growing issue that the school has continued to tackle despite lack of funding for pressing needs like mental health counseling, legal representation, gang prevention and school services for minors who are reunited with families. But years after their arrival, many minors remain in a holding pattern as political gridlock delays comprehensive immigration reform.
Denis, who asked to be identified by his first name only, is considered a success story at Next Step, where he studied English, prepared for his GED and applied for community college and scholarships. But it is a haunting memory from his migration that pushes him today toward getting his degree in nursing at Montgomery College.
Along the way to the U.S., he met a young woman, also a minor, emigrating from Peru. During the last stretch, she got heat exhaustion after days of walking. “It wouldn’t have helped her if I stayed. We would have both died,” Denis explained. “It hurt me a lot because it’s terrible to see someone fainting and asking you not to leave.”
Today Denis lives with foster parents in Silver Springs, Maryland. He is enrolled in a transitional 18-month program that allows him to work and get his associate’s degree in nursing, and he is learning how to better help people in need. It’s what he promised his friend. He dreams of attending Princeton, but his future is uncertain, and the fear of deportation always near.
Without legal status or a Social Security number, he has to pay out-of-state tuition — nearly double what in-state students pay. Each month he sends $300 to his family in El Salvador, which he saves from his part-time job with a catering company.
“I always think of one day seeing my family, even if it’s in 10, 15, 20 years,” Denis said.
Low-income DC students get a helping hand to make it to college graduation [Thurgood Marshall Academy PCS, KIPP DC PCS, and SEED PCS mentioned]
Greater Greater Washington
By Natalie Wexler
December 1, 2014
It's tough for low-income minority students to make it through college, especially if they're first-generation college-goers. But thanks to the efforts of one DC nonprofit and several charter schools, students from the District may have a better chance than most.
More and more DC students are taking the SAT and applying to college, but how many are actually graduating?
Because it often takes low-income students more than four years to get a BA, the six-year rate has become the standard for measuring college completion for that group. DC's Office of the State Superintendent of Education has only recently begun to track college graduation rates and won't have the six-year figure available until next spring.
But the DC College Access Program (DC-CAP), a nonprofit that offers college support to all DC public school students, says the six-year graduation rate for the students it serves, most of whom are low-income and minority, is 44%.
While that may sound low, it's far better than the 11% national average for low-income first-generation (LIFG) college students, a category that includes many alumni of DC high schools. Overall, the average six-year completion rate at four-year colleges is 59%.
LIFG students can encounter any number of obstacles on the way to a degree. Even those who excelled at their high schools may feel lost academically. Socially, they may feel out of place, especially at elite institutions. And, even more than other students, they may not have a clear idea of the connection between college courses and what they want to do in the future.
The biggest problem, though, is usually financial. Even after cobbling together scholarships and loans, students may find themselves forced to choose between attending class and showing up for jobs that make it possible for them to stay enrolled.
Often, what should be a minor setback ends up derailing a college career. Students may not want to ask for help or may not know who to ask.
But if you're a low-income college student from DC, you have a better than usual chance that someone from home is trying to make sure you stay on track to graduate.
DC-CAP supports students after high school graduation
For many, that person is an adviser from DC-CAP. A group of DC business leaders started the privately funded organization 15 years ago to fill a void in college advising services in DC Public School high schools. Six years ago it began serving charter schools as well. DC-CAP says the college enrollment rate in DC is now about 60% , double what it was when the organization started.
During that same time, the college completion rate has tripled. DC-CAP's college retention advisers, building on relationships that start in 9th grade, keep track of students across the country through email, social media, and phone calls. On campuses that have a lot of DC-CAP students, the organization asks upperclassmen to act as peer mentors and liaisons.
DC-CAP also works with students' families on financial planning and gets regular reports directly from colleges so its advisers can monitor students' progress and intervene when necessary. Also, advisers can check on students during emergencies, as one recently did with students in upstate New York during a massive snowstorm.
Charter schools visit freshmen
But some DC charter high schools that send many low-income students to college go even further. Three schools—Thurgood Marshall Academy, KIPP DC, and SEED—not only stay in touch remotely but also try to visit all students during their freshman year.
"The visit makes a huge difference," says Tevera Stith, director of the KIPP Through College program, which serves both alumni of KIPP DC's own high school and those who go on to other schools after attending a KIPP middle school. "For some of these kids, they won't have a family member who will visit them."
DC-CAP, which has only four advisers for 7,000 students at 500 colleges, doesn't have the capacity to make those kinds of visits. The charter schools support only a few hundred alumni at any given time.
Of the three charters, Thurgood Marshall has the highest six-year graduation rate, 65%. KIPP DC hasn't yet had a cohort of alumni reach the six-year mark, but Stith says she thinks the rate will be about 45%.
SEED says that 33% of its students who graduated from high school at least five years ago have earned a BA, while another 10% have earned an associate's degree or are currently in college.
Finding the right match
But when a student goes to a college that SEED has identified as having stronger supports for low-income students, the completion rate rises to 54%. Staffers at DC-CAP and the three charter schools all keep lists of institutions where their students have done well, and they emphasize the importance of finding the right fit for each student whether it's an Ivy League university or a community college.
"We have institutions that will take students with less than a 2.0 GPA and be really committed to serving those students and making sure they're retained and graduate," says Tosha Lewis, Vice-President of Retention and Data Management for DC-CAP.
A good college match can help students avoid academic and social difficulties. And the college support staff in DC do their best to connect students with financial aid, sometimes providing funds to cover small but essential expenses. DC-CAP provides students with up to $2,070 a year for five years and has disbursed a total of about $28 million since its founding.
Any DC student can also take advantage of the DC Tuition Assistance Grant program (DC TAG), which provides up to $10,000 in tuition assistance at public four-year colleges across the country to help make up the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition rates. In addition, DC TAG provides up to $2,500 per year towards tuition at private colleges in the DC area, private historically black colleges, and two-year colleges nationwide.
OSSE will provide data on graduation rates and remedial classes
DC's Office of the State Superintendent of Education, which administers DC TAG, is also beginning to focus on college support and retention, according to Dr. Antoinette Mitchell, the assistant superintendent for adult and career education.
OSSE plans to publish a list of colleges where DC students have done well, Mitchell said. And beginning next school year, information about college enrollment and four- and six-year graduation rates for every DC high school will be available on OSSE's LearnDC website, along with information about how many students take the SAT and ACT and the average scores.
OSSE is also planning to begin tracking the number of DC students who need remedial classes when they get to college. While it's clear that many DC high school graduates fall into that category, a hard figure isn't currently available. And it's an important figure to have: generally, only 35% of college students who take remedial classes graduate within six years.
It's unrealistic to expect all of DC's high schools to ensure that the college careers of their low-income graduates will be entirely smooth, and support from the colleges themselves or non-profits like DC-CAP will continue to be vital in helping students cope with financial and social challenges. But it shouldn't be unrealistic to expect that, in the not too distant future, every DC high school will give its college-going graduates the academic skills they need to handle college-level work. After all, that's what high schools are supposed to do.
Eva Moskowitz: Charters Drive Improvement in N.Y.C.'s Regular Schools
Education Week
By By Arianna Prothero
December 1, 2014
A high-profile New York City charter school founder and advocate, Eva Moskowitz, says data show competition from charters is improving academic performance in the city's traditional public schools.
Moskowitz heads up the fast-growing charter school network, Success Academy, which has been at the center of a high-profile standoff with the city's mayor, Bill de Blasio, over forcing district schools to give building space to charters. Writing in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, Moskowitz uses the numbers to defend the controversial co-location policies her network has relied on to expand.
Finding and paying for facilities is a persistent problem for charters nationally, and is often cited by advocates has one of the biggest hurdles facing the charter school movement.
In the op-ed, Moskowitz drew parallels to free-market West Germany and communist East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall in arguing that competition from charters drives academic improvement in regular schools. She compared test results among areas of New York City with high and low numbers of charter schools:
"Of the 16 charter-rich districts, 11 rose in the rankings. And of the eight among those 16 with the highest charter enrollment, all rose save one. The district that jumped furthest, rocketing up 11 spots between 2006 and 2014, was District 5 in Central Harlem, which has the city's highest charter-school enrollment (43%)."
As for the city's 16 "charter-light districts," Moskowitz wrote that none rose in the state English and math proficiency rankings while 13 fell.
Although a problem for charters across the country, facilities is an especially charged issue in New York City where a state budget law passed last spring requires the city to either provide buildings or pay rent for new or growing charter schools.