NEWS
- Time of transition for some prominent D.C. public charter schools [E.L. Haynes PCS, Washington Latin PCS, and Thurgood Marshall Academy PCS mentioned]
- BASIS, one of America’s top charter school networks, seeks new turf: China [BASIS DC PCS mentioned]
- D.C. Education Board revisits flexible routes to high school graduation [Goodwill Excel Center PCS mentioned]
Time of transition for some prominent D.C. public charter schools [E.L. Haynes PCS, Washington Latin PCS, and Thurgood Marshall Academy PCS mentioned]
The Examiner
By Mark Lerner
July 30, 2015
Several head of schools have left or are leaving their current positions which could greatly impact the future direction of the nation's capital's local charter movement. We are all aware that E.L. Haynes PCS's executive director and founder Jennie Niles left to become the Deputy Mayor for Education. Ms. Niles has stated that this was an extremely difficult decision and I guess it was. At a recent reception for the opening of the D.C. chapter of Democrats for Education Reform Mayor Bowser shared that she had to ask Ms. Niles five times to accept the job before she would agree to do it.
In addition, this week I published my interview with Martha Cutts, the head of school for Washington Latin PCS. Ms. Cutts has announced that she is retiring at the end of the next school term. Washington Latin is an academically high performing school that boasts the only charter high school that has been ranked as Tier 1 on the DC Public Charter School Board's Performance Management Framework for all four years that the tool has been in existence. The institution also has a 750-pupil waiting list with no immediate plans to replicate.
Finally, Alexandra Pardo, the Executive Director of the award winning Thurgood Marshall Academy PCS, who announced in September that the 2014-15 term would be her last, has announced she will join the Ten Square Consulting Group. Thurgood Marshall's claim to fame is to take kids living in poverty and bring their reading and math proficiency rates soaring to the sky. Of course, Ms. Pardo worked with the head of Ten Square Josh Kern when he was leading the school. I spoke to both of them back in 2011.
All of this comes, as WTOP reported the other day, that a new study claims our city has the second worse school system in the nation. The news radio station reveals, among other things that:
"The city’s graduation rate is disturbingly low, committee members reported: In 2014, the rate was 59 percent for public schools and 69 percent for charter schools. In the findings, the committee discovered low proficiency rates on math and science exams, and inadequate monitoring of English language learners and students with disabilities." In addition, "the city has the lowest math, reading and SAT scores of any school system in the U.S. It has the highest dropout rate and ranks last in school safety, according to the study."
An interesting period ahead.
BASIS, one of America’s top charter school networks, seeks new turf: China [BASIS DC PCS mentioned]
The Washington Post
By T. Rees Shapiro
July 29, 2015
Each new BASIS school that has sprouted across the country since 1998 has been grounded in a curriculum based on the best concepts from Asian and European classrooms. Now, BASIS plans to export its successful model to one of the most competitive turfs in the world: China.
When Michael and Olga Block opened their first BASIS school 17 years ago inside a tired Tucson shopping mall, they wanted to cultivate a new standard for education in America in which students would be taught progressively more rigorous lessons than in traditional public schools. The BASIS name is now known for its academically challenging schools, both public and private, from Silicon Valley to the District. Last month, BASIS announced a new independent campus opening in fall 2016 in McLean, Va.
The BASIS network has had success with its U.S. schools, and in 2015, it took the top two spots on The Washington Post’s Most Challenging High Schools list, with three of its Arizona schools in the top six. The BASIS charter school in the District was rated a Tier 1 school in 2014 — the highest level — with 85 percent of its students in grades five through nine scoring proficient or advanced on D.C. reading exams and 81 percent scoring proficient or advanced on D.C. math exams.
In September, BASIS.ed — BASIS’s education management company — will be testing its brand of reinvigorated American education in Shenzhen, a pulsing financial hub with more than 10 million people on the southern edge of mainland China, near Hong Kong.
“When American education is good, American education is the best in the world,” said Mark Reford, vice chairman of BASIS Independent Schools. “What we want to create is this new kind of education network that is globally offering the best of American education around the world and really preparing kids for the global culture of international life.”
The expansion will be the first foreign campus for BASIS. The pre-K through 12th grade school is slated to open Sept. 1 in a glittering steel and glass building in Shenzhen.
Prominent cities such as Beijing and Shanghai already host international schools, and Reford said BASIS specifically picked Shenzhen because it is a booming city with a market ripe for its offerings. Already, Reford said, the school has seen surprising demand and expects to enroll 400 students when it opens.
Tom Loveless, a Brookings Institution senior fellow and education expert, said American-style schools are extremely popular in China, where for centuries students have been taught strictly through rote memorization in preparation for critical exams.
“After age 12, you’re spending all your time to take a test,” Loveless said.
Loveless said wealthy Chinese families have escaped the national system by sending their children to high schools in the United States in the hopes of preparing for an American college education. As acceptance letters to prestigious U.S. universities become even more elusive, parents are willing to move to American schools even earlier for any possible advantage.
The BASIS International Shenzhen school will offer a U.S. education closer to home for many Chinese families.
Unlike some other international schools in China — including the well-known Shanghai American School, which serves only foreign passport holders — Reford said the BASIS school in Shenzhen will serve Chinese children and eventually students from other countries.
Reford said the school will offer instruction in English and will be seeded in its initial years with American teachers from current BASIS schools.
“They will be doing the exact same curriculum as they do in American schools,” Reford said, noting that the chief tenet of the classroom experience will be intellectual curiosity paired with innovative thinking.
Shaun Rein, founder of the China Market Research Group and author of two books analyzing the Chinese economy, said there is surging interest among Chinese families for American-style schooling and that parents are willing to spend hefty amounts of money to give their children high-quality educations. The annual tuition for kindergarten for the BASIS school in Shenzhen will be equivalent to $25,258 in the United States, and high school parents will pay the equivalent of $30,468.
“Chinese families put so much emphasis on education, and for the most part only have one child and spend much of their disposable income on education,” Rein said. “With so much competition and so few good opportunities, people really spend as much as they can on education and enrichment for their children because they are so worried about their futures.”
Reford said the BASIS expansion overseas will continue, with a total of 30 international schools within the next decade, in addition to a growing cadre of BASIS private and public charter schools in the United States. Reford said the goal is to become a premier American school system with global reach.
“What BASIS offers is an American education at its finest, a fusion of intellectual depth with creativity,” Reford said. “That’s what people want.”
D.C. Education Board revisits flexible routes to high school graduation [Goodwill Excel Center PCS mentioned]
The Washington Post
By Michael Alison Chandler
July 30, 2015
The D.C. State Board of Education is launching a task force in late August to develop recommendations for how the District can offer more flexible ways of awarding high school credit.
The proposal would move the District away from a system based solely on the age-old “Carnegie unit,” which grants credit according to seat time in favor of a system that rewards how much a student knows or can do.
The task force will pick up on an effort that stalled last winter, when the board tabled a vote on proposed revisions to graduation requirements. Board members said they wanted to give the community more time to respond to the proposal, which came to the board for a vote before the 30-day public review period had expired.
The proposal, developed by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, would have offered students multiple ways to earn credit starting this school year, including passing a state-approved test or participating in a “course equivalent,” such as an internship, community-service project, portfolio or performance that can be tied to the academic standards.
It also would have created a “state diploma” for students who pass the GED anytime after January 2014.
Many charter leaders and D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson have been strong supporters of increasing flexibility.
Proponents say students often need more or less time to demonstrate their understanding of a subject. And seat time requirements make it difficult for students who drop out or fall behind to catch up and pursue a diploma, an increasingly important consideration as the District works to improve its graduation rate and bring back young people who have dropped out.
Some teachers and parents are concerned, though, that a shift to competency-based education could reduce course work to test preparation, and lead students to rush through such courses as U.S. history or world literature, even though it could be their only exposure to the material.
This week State Board of Education member Laura Wilson Phelan (Ward 1) outlined a public process for exploring the move to credit flexibility more systematically, with a goal of bringing proposed regulations back to the board for a vote by January in time for implementation next school year.
The citywide task force will be charged with developing a set of recommendations for how alternative ways to earn credit would be offered. It is expected to consider benefits, disadvantages and possible unintended consequences of offering credit flexibility. It will consider the types of students it could help and whether there are some subjects that would be better suited to a more traditional approach.
It is also expected to look outside of the District at states or school districts that are already awarding credit for different routes to graduation.
The proposal to offer a state diploma to those who pass the GED is not expected to be included as part of this proposal, but it is being reviewed separately by the board.
The task force will meet twice monthly between late August and November, and it is scheduled to make its recommendations to the OSSE in late November.
The task force will include representatives from the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education, D.C. Public Schools, D.C. Public Charter School Board, OSSE, the D.C. Council Committee on Education, Washington Teachers’ Union, high school students, Senior High Alliance of Parents, Principals and Educators, as well as representatives from various schools.
Phelan said that three of the meetings will be open for public comment.
The D.C. Public Charter School Board this spring conditionally approved an alternative high school run by Goodwill Excel Center that plans to offer a competency-based approach to students who are 16 and older.
Naomi Rubin DeVeaux, deputy director for the D.C. Public Charter School Board, said in a statement after the vote that the board plans to work closely with the State Board of Education to update the graduation requirements in time for the new school to open.
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