NEWS
- The next phase of D.C. education reform should include more school choice
- The next phase of D.C. education reform
- Despite Obstacles, Charter School Movement Making Gains In Virginia
- Some states would lose big money with proposed education funding changes
The next phase of D.C. education reform should include more school choice
The Examiner
By Mark Lerner
July 13, 2015
A beautiful weather-wise Washington D.C. weekend was partially diminished by the appearance of two opinion pieces appearing in the Washington Post on Sunday. The first, by Aaron Hanna, simply repeats the old tired bromide that our local charter schools are skimming the best students, leaving DCPS to educate those that are most challenging. The facts simply do not support this claim. Data from the DC Public Charter Schools Board shows that after 20 years of operation the statistics for charters compared to DCPS are practically identical for enrolling under-served pupils. For example, charters teach about the same proportion of children who qualify for free or reduced lunch (75 percent DCPS versus 82 percent charters), who are at-risk (51 percent DCPS versus 49 percent charters), who are English-language learners (10 percent DCPS versus 7 percent charters), and who need special education services (14 percent DCPS versus 13 percent charters.) All information is from the 2013 to 2014 school year.
In the second column Michelle Rhee supporter Richard Whitmire calls for the control of all public schools in the nation's capital, both charter and traditional, to be placed under one central authority. In the vision of this writer:
"Imagine if outstanding D.C. charters could get quick access to empty buildings, if a failing DCPS school could get turned over to a great charter or if DCPS could form deep partnerships with charters in the city’s attempt to serve every child."
The thought immediately had me singing in my head the words from a John Lennon song.
"Imagine no possessions. I wonder if you can. No need for greed or hunger. A brotherhood of man. Imagine all the people sharing all the world."
Fortunately, for our kids we have as much a chance of the first situation becoming reality as the second.
Turning the future of education in Washington, D.C. over to one body will return us to the dark days before school reform began. Government bureaucracies that are not subject to the forces of the marketplace view the hierarchy as the customer instead of those it is supposed to be serving. The result will be missing supplies, crumbling buildings, and a sharp decrease in human productivity, exactly the same outcome that we saw in communist countries when personal property was converted into a collective good.
A far much better use of your time than reviewing these articles would be to do as I recently did and read Joel Klein's book Lessons of Hope: How to Fix Our Schools (HarperCollins, 2014). The work, which chronicles Mr. Klein's exemplary efforts as the first Chancellor of New York City Schools, concludes this way:
"In the end, choice among schools won't guarantee a good outcome for everyone - just as choice among hospitals or air carriers doesn't always ensure a good outcome - but choice gives us the best chance of getting the best results for the most people. Again, look at what people who can afford choice do, and let's let others have what they're having." (page 288)
The next phase of D.C. education reform
The Washington Post
By Richard Whitmire
July 10, 2015
School reform in the District is looking sweet. Public charter schools, which now educate half of the students in the District, boast a promising track record. And everyone agrees that things have vastly improved in D.C. Public Schools.
That’s not just my opinion. A long-awaited report released by the National Research Council concluded that all students, including low-income minorities, are doing better. For an area whose schools were considered among the worst in the nation not too long ago, that’s remarkable.
The reason for charters’ success is simple: great leadership that closes bad charters and offers a tailwind to the best ones. And DCPS schools have benefited from consistent reforms overseen by two chancellors and three mayors.
So we should be happy, right? Not really. What worked to make things better won’t work to make things truly great.
For starters, the District’s school leaders — Scott Pearson, who oversees charters, and Kaya Henderson, who runs DCPS — are national education rock stars. They could get snapped up at any moment. What then?
District schools have improved only because the two chancellors and three mayors agreed on what needed to be done. That’s rare, and it won’t last forever.
In addition, the governance overseeing schools is antiquated. As the NRC report made clear, no one anticipated that half of District students would end up in charters.
Education reform efforts are at a crossroads. The crux is this: District leaders need to be more aggressive about transforming underperforming schools, and charter schools need to get better at serving all students.
One example: Henderson probably should turn over Ward 8’s struggling Moten Elementary School — where 15 percent of the kids are proficient in reading and 17 percent in math — to a good charter. Not Moten? Pick another of the District’s low-performing schools.
One reason there’s little change is that Henderson is judged on metrics that include only DCPS, such as whether enrollment is growing and academic outcomes are improving. If she turns a school over to a charter, she is blamed for losing enrollment rather than lauded for making a bold decision for students.
But to entrust struggling schools with charters, the organizations need to serve students with special needs, enroll students midyear and serve adjudicated youth.
The NRC report recommends that the District devise an overarching authority to conduct “centralized, systemwide monitoring and oversight of all public schools and their students, with particular attention to high-need student groups.” That should be the Office of the State Superintendent of Education. But, as the report pointed out, it might not be up to the task. In building a local solution, D.C. leaders would be wise to tap into innovation happening across the country.
In Tennessee, Louisiana and Michigan (and soon in Nevada and Georgia), third-party governmental entities can transform any failing school, traditional or charter.
Patrick Dobard, a former public school teacher who oversees the Recovery School District in Louisiana, correctly sees himself more as a protector of equity than a traditional school superintendent. He’s not worried about who’s up or down in the enrollment competition; he wants to transform all failing schools and ensure that all schools are open to every student.
Chris Barbic, a former charter school leader, plays a similar role in Tennessee. In Michigan, the governor and the mayor of Detroit are negotiating an authority to oversee all schools in the city for performance and equity.
Imagine if outstanding D.C. charters could get quick access to empty buildings, if a failing DCPS school could get turned over to a great charter or if DCPS could form deep partnerships with charters in the city’s attempt to serve every child.
The District has the leadership, educators and resources to launch the next phase of public schooling in the United States.
It won’t be easy, but every time you think it can’t happen, think of the kids stuck at underpeforming schools. And then think again.
Despite Obstacles, Charter School Movement Making Gains In Virginia
WAMU 88.5
By Michael Pope
July 10, 2015
Advocates for charter schools in Virginia have been frustrated by a system they say is rigged against them. That’s why some are calling for a constitutional amendment to change the process. Others are focusing their attention at the local level in places like Loudoun County, where School Board members recently approved a second charter school.
“So school is closed, obviously," says Rebecca Fuller, opening the door to Hillsboro Elementary School. "But the administration is still here. The administration and the current principal is still here."
Next year, the principal will be reassigned and the school will be decommissioned and leased to a nonprofit organization. That’s because the Loudoun County School Board voted last month to create Hillsboro Charter Academy, which will open its doors in this building next year.
“I’m one of three children, and my parents exercised school choice before that was a phrase. They sent us some of the time to private school and some of the time to public school," says Fuller, who submitted the application to create the new charter school. “I recognize that I was very lucky that my parents were able to exercise that much choice, and I think that shouldn’t be something that’s available to the privileged few. It should be something that’s available to everybody."
In many states, charter schools can be authorized by a state board or a nonprofit organization. Some states allow universities or mayors to create charters. But Virginia is one of just five states where the charter must be approved by local school boards. They are often reluctant to give up money and authority, though, which might explain why the state has only seven charter schools. Hillsboro Charter Academy will be the eighth.
“By supporting this application, we are condoning the principal being hired by an all-volunteer board with no educational experience being required by those board members," says Loudoun County School Board member Brenda Sheridan, who cast the lone dissenting vote against the charter. “There’s no requirement for the principal to attend training or principal meetings as we do require all of our other Loudoun County Public Schools principals."
Although school boards across Virginia are typically reluctant to approve charter schools, several members of the Loudoun County School Board ran on a platform of expanding school choice, so they felt they had a mandate.
State Sen. Mark Obenshain (R-26) says he appreciates what the school board members in Loudoun are doing, although he says the rest of the state has been too slow to catch on. He says many of the large charter school organizations don’t even bother with the commonwealth.
"They have abandoned Virginia. None of the national charter organizations and charter schools are coming and asking for permission to open schools in our divisions," says Obenshain, who is widely considered to be the leading Republican candidate to run for governor in 2017.
Earlier this year, Obenshain introduced a constitutional amendment that would take the power to create new charter schools out of the hands of local school boards and put it in the hands of the Virginia Board of Education. He says even smaller charters have stopped applying to school board.
"Fact of the matter is that charter applicants have largely quit even asking for permission to develop their charter ideas and charter schools because they are so used to school boards saying no," he says.
Passing a constitutional amending in Virginia isn't easy. It requires two separate votes of two different General Assemblies, meaning members are up for election in between the votes. Then it goes on a statewide referendum for voters to approve.
“I’m not voting for that. It’s a Northern Virginia ripoff. I guarantee it," says Del. Dave Albo (R-42). “I’m telling you right now what’s exactly going to happen is that this law is going to pass. They are going to say, 'Fairfax County, build a school and you pay for it.' I’m not for that. If they want a charter school so bad then they can pay for it."
Loudoun County School Board member Jeff Morse agrees. Although he is one of the leading advocates for charter schools in the region, he also believes appointed officials in Richmond should not be given the power to control local tax dollars.
"They are not equipped to handle all of the details that go into a charter application, and they don’t understand the community well enough," says Morse.
The Loudoun County School Board recently approved two separate charter schools. But they also denied an application for a charter school that would have focused on science and technology. That charter was approved by the Virginia Board of Education, then denied by the Loudoun County School Board.
“If there are going to be a lot more charter schools popping up, for the state to be involved in the selection of charter schools overriding the community is something I don’t think is feasible or reasonable," says Morse.
Fuller says the whole point of having a charter school is that it will give the school a sense of independence from the School Board. She says she wants to create a model for project-based learning that would use taxpayer dollars to fund the school even though the principal would not be an employee of the School Board.
“They give us an opportunity to have our own management structure, and so the vision and mission of the school is run by our board of directors as opposed to the School Board," says Fuller.
Voters will have an opportunity to weigh in this November because every seat of the General Assembly will be up for election. Candidates will be asked about their position on charter schools. And if lawmakers approve the amendment again next year, voters will have the final say when it appears on a statewide ballot as a referendum in November of 2016.
Some states would lose big money with proposed education funding changes
The Washington Post
By Emma Brown
July 10, 2015
Congress’s debate about rewriting the nation’s main education law has featured high-profile disagreements over testing, vouchers and school accountability, but there is another issue that has just as much potential to derail the legislation: Money.
A forthcoming amendment from Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) would change the formula used to allocate Title I funds, a move that would create big winners and losers among the states.
Thirty-six states and the District of Columbia would gain Title I dollars, which are meant to educate poor children. But that leaves 14 states that would see cuts, including big losers New York (whose districts would lose $310 million), Illinois ($188 million) and Pennsylvania ($120 million).
“Every county in my state will lose money,” said Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), whose state stands to lose about $40 million per year, a 20 percent cut. Mikulski, speaking on the Senate floor Tuesday, said she plans to vote in favor of rewriting the No Child Left Behind law — unless it includes the Burr amendment.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), whose state stands to lose $22 million, called the Burr amendment a “poison pill” that could pose a real threat to the underlying legislation, which he supports. “An amendment like that, if it passed, it could knock the whole thing sideways,” Kaine said in an interview. “Other than that, I feel really good about this bill getting out of the Senate.”
The federal government sends about $14 billion in Title I funds to the nation’s schools, doled out via a complicated set of formulas that favors states with large populations and wealthy states that spend a lot on education. Rural states, and states with smaller populations, tend to receive less on a per-pupil basis.
Burr’s amendment would attempt to correct for that bias and would streamline the current set of four Title I formulas into one simpler formula. It essentially would dole out money based on the number of poor children multiplied by the national average of the cost to educate that child.
Many states in the South and West would see an infusion of federal dollars: Texas would get an additional $192 million; California $118 million; and Florida $106 million. North Carolina, Burr’s home state, would get an additional $72 million.
Many other states would receive smaller amounts that comprise a significant increase compared to what they get now: Utah would get an extra $17 million, an increase of 19 percent; Oklahoma would get an extra $30 million, also an increase of 19 percent; and Alabama would get an extra $37 million, an increase of nearly 17 percent.
About two-thirds of the nation’s public schools receive Title I dollars, according to the Center for American Progress.
Proponents of the proposal argue that their schools and their students have been shortchanged for decades, forced to make do with less simply because of arbitrary and arcane formulas.
But it’s almost always difficult for Congress to tweak funding formulas because changes produce such clear losers. Every school could use more resources, and no politician wants to have to explain why their states’ schools are losing money.
Sen. Dick Durbin (R-Ill.) said Wednesday on the Senate floor that he would fight the amendment. It would trigger a 28 percent cut to federal Title I funds in his state; Chicago public schools, which serves about 400,000 children, would lose $68 million.
“I don’t know what procedural tools are available to us, but when it comes to an amendment that takes that kind of money away from critically important school districts in my state, I am going to use every tool in the box to stop this from coming to the floor and passing,” Durbin said. “There is just too much at stake.”
No Child Left Behind expired in 2007, but Congress has been unable to agree on how to revise it. Now lawmakers are closer than ever to reaching a deal: The House passed GOP legislation on Wednesday, and the Senate is in the middle of debating its own bipartisan version.
Burr is expected to introduce his amendment on the Senate floor next week.
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