NEWS
- Rocketship breaks ground on new District charter school after delays [Rocketship PCS mentioned]
- Report offers case study of turnaround at J.C. Nalle Elementary in the District
- Senate panel takes up No Child Left Behind rewrite
Rocketship breaks ground on new District charter school after delays [Rocketship PCS mentioned]
The Washington Post
By Michael Alison Chandler
April 14, 2015
Construction for the new Rocketship elementary school, a high-tech public charter elementary school in the District, got underway Tuesday in Ward 8.
The D.C. Public Charter School Board gave the California-based operator conditional approval in 2013 through an expedited application process, but opening day was ultimately pushed back a year, following a lengthy search for a location and some local opposition.
The facility will serve kindergarten through fourth grade in a 54,000-square-foot, two-story building with a glass entrance and nature trails on a wooded Anacostia hilltop. It is scheduled to open in August 2016.
After a groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday, Scott Pearson, the charter board’s executive director, said Rocketship has made “great strides” in building community support in the neighborhood and throughout Ward 8 in recent months. He called it an “auspicious sign” for the new school.
Rocketship, which opened its first school in San Jose in 2007, quickly gained national attention with its low-cost, blended-learning approach and strong test scores. Its model has inspired excitement among philanthropists, though its heavy reliance on technology is a matter of controversy. Rocketship also has schools in Nashville and Milwaukee.
Rocketship officials announced the new D.C. location last summer — a spacious three-acre parcel across from a public housing development — and heralded it as an opportunity to build a striking facility in an area where the demand for quality schools is high.
But by the fall, some neighbors were protesting the site at 2335 Raynolds Pl. SE. They said it was unsafe, located just steps from the city’s largest halfway house for hundreds of returning felons. They also said a new charter school would undermine turnaround efforts underway at a nearby traditional public school.
The land deal was secured by an outside developer, Turner-Agassi, and Rocketship officials last fall said they had not been aware of the halfway house nearby. The charter board delayed approval of the construction plans until the operator signed an agreement with Hope Village, the halfway house, and developed a security plan for the school.
Jacque Patterson, regional director for Rocketship Education in the District, said the charter has been working hard to prepare for the new school and build community support. The operator organized a tour recently of its Nashville school for some families from Woodland Terrace, the public housing development across the street from the site. The goal of the out-of-state visit was for them to get “immersed in Rocketship” and ask questions about the school and its educational model, he said.
Patterson, who lives near the future school in Ward 8, said Rocketship also has been working with contractors to advocate for more construction jobs for people living near the school.
The operator ultimately plans to expand into more campuses in the District. But Patterson said Rocketship has written into its charter that it will not grow unless it is a “Tier 1” high-performing school. “We are trying to make sure we do this right,” Patterson said.
Report offers case study of turnaround at J.C. Nalle Elementary in the District
The Washington Post
By Michael Alison Chandler
April 14, 2015
J.C. Nalle Elementary School was at risk of closure in 2011 because of low academic performance and flagging enrollment. Two years later, the school had the highest math test score gains in D.C. Public Schools, with a 27 percent increase in math proficiency rates.
A report being released Wednesday by Child Trends, a Bethesda-based research center, found the improvement to be a result of a series of interventions that could be replicated in other schools.
“If you look at the research, there are plenty of school turnaround efforts that don’t work,” said Daniel Princiotta, principal research scientist for the study. He said the growth in math at J.C. Nalle was rapid and substantial.
The positive results were not mirrored in reading performance, which actually declined over time. But the interventions the report found to be effective in math included:
— Increased use of technology. New investments in tablets and laptops as well as math-related software, specifically ST Math and First in Math, helped personalize lessons and gave students a way to continue working on their skills out of class.
— Extended school day. The school used a $275,000 grant from D.C. Public Schools to add about 75 minutes to the school day for students in grades three to five, allowing for more academic instruction and one-on-one teaching.
— Saturday school. A family-oriented program was offered on Saturdays, including academic interventions and parent workshops.
The report also noted a $6.8 million renovation of the school during summer 2012 as a contributing factor to the turnaround, as well as many years of sustained support from community partners.
“It’s important to recognize that all of these interventions built on earlier, longer-term investments by the school and community partners that addressed both academic and non-academic barriers to learning,” said Zakia Redd, a senior research scientist at Child Trends and the lead author of the study. “The staff and families of J.C. Nalle were primed to take advantage of this kind of investment.”
J.C. Nalle, which opened in 1950, became the city's first community school in the late 1990s. It was redesigned on the principle that to help vulnerable children achieve, a school must also meet their needs outside of school.
Community schools partner with outside organizations to provide supports such as health care, enrichment, mental health services, and counseling for the whole family. The D.C. Council voted to expand the model to five more schools in 2013, and advocates are hoping to expand it further.
For well over a decade, J.C. Nalle has partnered with the Freddie Mac Foundation and the National Center for Children and Families.
Sheryl Brissett Chapman, executive director of the National Center, said it provides about $800,000 to $1 million annually worth of staffing and resources to the school. In addition to services such as dental care and counseling, she said the school has provided more specialized programs for grandparents and fathers who are re-entering their children’s lives after being incarcerated. It has offered employment and financial literacy courses for parents and after-school activities and tutoring for children.
The Freddie Mac Foundation, the biggest funder, dissolved this year. Chapman said the program has two more years of funding, but then will need to find a new philanthropic partner. The foundation also funded this study of the school’s turnaround efforts.
The community school partners helped fund the technology initiatives and Saturday school interventions detailed in the report.
The impact on math performance was substantial and lasting, according to the study, which looked at performance from 2010 to 2014. Students’ average annual math growth was the equivalent of almost five months more than that of students from other D.C. schools with similar demographics.
Students’ reading performance did not improve at the same time.
Some initial gains in reading proficiency rates were offset by an increase in the number of students performing below basic. Students at J.C. Nalle underperformed in reading in comparison to students at similar schools.
In 2014, 30 percent of J.C. Nalle students performed at proficient or higher in reading, while 52 percent performed at proficient or higher in math.
The report cited some possible reasons for poor results in reading, including later implementation of a reading software and the fact that the study focused on third through fifth graders, who take the city’s standardized tests, while younger children may have been more likely to benefit from reading interventions.
Senate panel takes up No Child Left Behind rewrite
The Washington Post
By Lyndsey Layton
April 14, 2015
The Senate education panel began marking up a bipartisan bill to replace No Child Left Behind on Tuesday, with Democrats and Republicans going to great lengths to hold together a delicately crafted consensus around the proposal.
Members of the Senate committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions withdrew more amendments than they acted on, as they tried to hold back proposals that did not have bipartisan support.
“I know you’ve been working hard to make this a bipartisan bill, so I’ll withdraw (my amendment) at this time,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), told the committee chair, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and the ranking Democrat, Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.). Warren was referring to an amendment she wrote that would require states to identify high schools with low graduation rates and devise a plan to improve those rates.
It was one of about a dozen amendments that committee members proposed but then withdrew when it was clear they didn’t have support across the aisle. The panel voted unanimously on several of the most innocuous amendments, including a proposal from Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) to allow states to use computer adaptive tests when they measure student performance annually. The only party-line vote occurred when Warren unsuccessfully tried to amend the bill to require states that evaluate teachers to publicly explain how the method they choose is “reasonable” and “reliable.”
They left the most contentious issues — regarding private school vouchers, equitable distribution of federal dollars and the best way to hold states accountable for educating disadvantaged students — to be debated by at a later point by the full Senate.
But sprinkled throughout the polite discussion Tuesday were hints of the larger political battles to come over the update of the country’s main federal education law.
Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), proposed an amendment that would let federal dollars designed to help states educate poor children “follow the child” if that student transfers from a high-poverty school to another public school or a private school.
Scott called the voucher plan a “Pell grant” for K-12, noting that the federal government gives financial aid to low-income college students to use at the college or university of their choice, whether public or private.
“If we’re really going to get serious about helping low-income children, school choice is the way to get them there,” Scott said. “I will withdraw my amendment and offer it on the floor. I do think we need a robust debate for a path to actually work for kids stuck in the wrong zip codes.”
Murray immediately said she was opposed.
“This allows federal funding to flow from the public school system to private schools,” she said. “It really dilutes the funds and stretches the dollars that are tight already a lot thinner.”
Scott said a “classic example” of a successful voucher program is the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship, which Congress created in 2004. A 2012 investigation by The Washington Post found problems with the program.
Scott drew a sharp rebuke from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who argued that Claiborne Pell, the late Rhode Island senator and namesake of the college grant program, would not support the idea of using federal tax dollars to pay tuition at K-12 private schools.
“Being from Rhode Island and having had a long and affectionate relationship with Senator Pell, we can have this discussion but please let’s not drag Pell grants in here,” Whitehouse said. “Nobody should believe Senator Pell would endorse such an amendment. I am certain he would not.”
Alexander said he would support Scott’s amendment during the full Senate discussion of the bill.
“The Pell grant is a voucher, and Sen. Scott is proposing a voucher,” Alexander said. “He’s proposed we take the $14 billion we spend for low-income kids and turn it into $1,500 vouchers and let it follow that child to the school that the child’s parent wants to attend. That is a very useful proposal. We’ll have other proposals about school choice. ... We’ll continue that discussion on the Senate floor.”
No Child Left Behind was due for reauthorization in 2007, but previous attempts to rewrite the law collapsed amid partisan debates on Capitol Hill about the proper role of the federal government in local schools.
“If fixing No Child Left Behind were a standardized test, Congress would have earned a failing grade for each of the last seven years,” Alexander said.
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