NEWS
- Deputy mayor launches task force to improve school planning with charters [Harmony PCS and Washington Global PCS mentioned]
- DME launches Cross-Sector Collaboration Task Force with plenty of dangers for D.C. charters [Washington Global PCS mentioned]
- Charter Schools Lead The Way With S.T.E.A.M. Academics [Friendship PCS and Excel Academy PCS mentioned]
- Charters that don't fill student vacancies may find it easier to boost test scores [Achievement Prep PCS, DC Prep PCS, E.L. Haynes PCS, BASIS DC PCS, Washington Latin PCS, and KIPP DC PCS mentioned]
Deputy mayor launches task force to improve school planning with charters [Harmony PCS and Washington Global PCS mentioned]
The Washington Post
By Michael Alison Chandler
August 19, 2015
A long-anticipated task force will work to improve coherence and coordination between the District’s charter schools and its traditional school system, city officials announced Wednesday, part of a broader effort to streamline two disjointed public school sectors that compete for students and resources.
As charter school enrollment has grown in the city, many residents have become concerned about the locations and the types of schools that are opening — and the sheer number of them — as well as the complex experience of plotting a course from preschool to 12th grade through a continually changing array of schools. Jennifer Niles, the deputy mayor for education, said it is time to ensure that charters and traditional schools are working together.
“With 56 percent of kids in D.C. Public Schools and 44 percent attending public charter schools, the next chapter of improving education in D.C. is for both sectors to work together,” Niles said.
The task force will have an array of goals, including improving the experience for families as they try to navigate their public school options, increasing methods for sharing information across schools and promoting stability in enrollment.
Thousands of students change schools each year, often moving between traditional to charter schools. Officials hope to find ways to discourage unnecessary student transfers that can be disruptive to learning, and they want to encourage schools to share information about students who transfer so they can understand their academic histories.
One of the most challenging issues the group will tackle is improving the process for facilities planning, including the coordination of school openings and closings.
The D.C. Public Charter School Board oversees 63 charter organizations with more than 100 campuses. The D.C. school system operates more than 100 schools.
All are taxpayer-supported institutions, and many residents have questioned whether there will be enough student enrollment to support new facilities or sufficient interest to support the dozens of specialized — and sometimes overlapping — programs that charter and traditional schools are investing in.
Eboni-Rose Thompson, who chairs the Ward 7 Education Council, said the task force is important and long overdue. If such planning had happened before, she said, the city would not have “holes” in neighborhoods with no schools and “over-saturation” in neighborhoods with too many schools.
“We wouldn’t have charter schools that don’t have adequate facilities. We would not be double-spending or overspending on programs,” she said. “All of those things are symptoms of us not planning for one education system.”
Last year, many criticized the location of a new campus belonging to Harmony Public Schools, a Houston-based network, which opened a science-and-technology-focused elementary school across the street from Langley Elementary, a traditional school in Northeast with the same academic focus.
Washington Global, a charter middle school opening this school year with an international program, drew criticism for opening its doors near Jefferson Middle, a traditional school that is working to build a similar program.
Niles said she expects that D.C. Public Schools and the charter board will continue to make their own decisions about school openings and closings. But she said the task force will identify potential ways to coordinate their efforts by sharing demographic information they are using to make decisions, or by coordinating their decision-making timelines.
D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson and D.C. Public Charter School Board Executive Director Scott Pearson released statements Wednesday supporting the effort. Henderson said “the time is right” for such an initiative. Pearson said the board looks forward to “participating and finding new ways to improve public school for all students in the District.”
Niles highlighted the voluntary nature of the effort.
She cited the citywide enrollment lottery as a successful example of charter and traditional school leaders creating a unified system that was more logical and user-friendly for parents.
The cross-sector collaboration task force is expected to meet for two years and present a report with recommendations for improving the coherence of public education and increasing collaboration among traditional and charter schools.
The meetings will be closed to the public, but relevant data, presentations and meeting summaries will be posted on the deputy mayor for education’s Web site, said Claudia Lujan, a senior policy adviser for the deputy mayor who will be the task force’s lead project manager.
Community meetings, focus groups and surveys also will be scheduled to allow for public participation.
The task force will have between 23 and 25 members, including administrators from charter schools and traditional schools as well as representatives of District agencies, public school parents and community members. The agency will consider nominations during the next month. People who are interested can send an e-mail to collaboration@dc.gov.
DME launches Cross-Sector Collaboration Task Force with plenty of dangers for D.C. charters [Washington Global PCS mentioned]
parentshaveschoolchoicekidswin.com
By Mark Lerner
August 20, 2015
D.C. Deputy Mayor for Education Jennie Niles announced yesterday the creation of the long anticipated Cross-Sector Collaboration Task Force that will investigate ways in which DCPS and the charter sector can collaborate on improving public education in the nation’s capital.
The group poses several dangers for our local charter school movement.
First and foremost, the committee may try and prevent new or replicating charters from locating near traditional schools where they could draw students away from Chancellor Kaya Henderson’s system. Sure enough in the article about the Task Force by the Washington Post’s Allison Michael Chandler the reporter immediately brings up the controversy around Washington Global PCS. She writes:
“Washington Global, a charter middle school opening this school year with an international program, drew criticism for opening its doors near Jefferson Middle, a traditional school that is working to build a similar program.”
There are other fears about potential conclusions of this group. For instance, it could recommend, as Mayor Muriel Bowser has advocated, that charters be required to provide an admission preference to neighborhood children, thereby limiting school choice to those living in low income areas of the city as another task force determined. It could codify the position of Ms. Henderson that no other shuttered DCPS facilities be turned over to charters because DCPS is growing in enrollment. Finally, it could call for a cap on the number of charters as a way to decrease competition for students with the regular schools.
When I interviewed DC Public Charter School Board chairman Dr. Darren Woodruff recently he was looking forward to the work of the Task Force as a mean of spreading the high academic expectations of charters to all educational institutions across town. Let’s sincerely hope for the future of our kids that he is correct.
Perhaps Ms. Niles should include me as a member so that I can support the PCSB chair. I wouldn’t hold your breath on this one.
Charter Schools Lead The Way With S.T.E.A.M. Academics [Friendship PCS and Excel Academy PCS mentioned]
The Washington Informer
By Dr. Ramona Edelin
August 19, 2015
As the cutting-edge of education shifts from STEM—science, technology, engineering and math—to STEAM, adding the arts as core disciplines, we are reminded that schools change with the world.
The skills required for the new century need to be taught early on, because our children will require them to succeed in an increasingly competitive global economy. In this, the District of Columbia’s chartered public schools, with their freedom to innovate while being held accountable for improved student performance, can lead the way.
Educating 44 percent of District public school children, charter schools have been trailblazers in education reform. When the first charters opened nearly 20 years ago, an estimated half of D.C. students dropped out before graduating. Today, graduation rates have never been higher, with charters 10 percentage points higher than the traditional public school system. The more students who graduate high-school, the greater the number who can be accepted to, and graduate from, college.
Tuition-free and open to all D.C.-resident students, many public charter schools STEAM subjects to prepare their students for college and life.
One such school on Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue opened a brand new $18 million high-school campus only last school year. The state-of-the-art facility at Friendship’s Technology Prep Academy boasts a SMART lab, designed to provide the STEAM skills necessary for the 21stCentury. This is more than about teaching students how to use technology; the idea is to offer the opportunity of using technology to learn.
Also situated within the newly-built school building are robotics and other science labs, as well as a greenhouse. This year, the first seniors of this public charter high school graduated, and 97 percent were accepted to college.
The principal of Tech Prep middle school, Patrick Pope, with three and a half decades’ experience in D.C.’s traditional public schools, has articulated the value of adding the “A” for arts to “STEM.” In an interview with D.C. education blogger Natalie Wexler, Pope said of the arts side of STEAM: “it is an easy way to get kids engaged," giving them "the opportunity to feel school is a positive, challenging place, where their particular talents will be tapped and grown."
Just down the road from Tech Prep, another public charter school, Excel Academy, also on Martin Luther King Jr. Ave., in D.C.’s historically underserved Ward Eight, offers STEAM academics through an all-girls school, a first for the city’s public charter schools.
Charter schools such as these are providing important and relevant education in the form of STEAM, and preparing the next generation in the nation’s capital for their future, which has been chronically ignored in the past. More than providing quality time in class with highly-skilled and devoted instructors, charters also teach the rising generation how to be lifelong learners--perhaps the most important skill of all.
This need has been too long neglected. One third of African-American students nationwide drop out of high school, according to John Hopkins University. Only one in 10—representing half of our community here in D.C.—access education beyond high school, the Center for American Progress has found. Two-thirds of those who do enroll in full-time four-year college courses do not graduate, usually for non-academic reasons.
These alarming facts translate into even more worrying realities. African-Americans are twice as likely to be unemployed as their white peers; and African-American children are three times more likely to live in poverty, U.S. government statistics report.
STEAM education offers the adults of tomorrow the skills they will need to thrive and raise future generations. But D.C.’s chartered public schools do not stop there. They also are persistently proactive in providing the social and emotional supports that children from underserved communities too often cannot access—and without which, they will struggle to take advantage of educational opportunities.
As the new school year begins, let us make a commitment to extending STEAM curricula in both chartered public schools and their traditional counterparts—and let those schools learn from each other. It is only by applying best practices and changing the game for urban youth that all of the District and our nation can move forward as one. We’ve been waiting for too long.
Charters that don't fill student vacancies may find it easier to boost test scores [Achievement Prep PCS, DC Prep PCS, E.L. Haynes PCS, BASIS DC PCS, Washington Latin PCS, and KIPP DC PCS mentioned]
Greater Greater Washington
By Natalie Wexler
August 19, 2015
Most DC charter schools have a policy of accepting new students at any grade level. But others refuse to take applications past a certain grade. Because students who arrive in later grades can bring down a school's overall test scores, we need to be careful when comparing schools that have different admissions practices.
All schools have some attrition from one school year to the next. Some charter schools backfill, which means they accept new students to fill slots that become vacant. Schools that don't backfill don't replace those students, allowing the size of a grade cohort to shrink from year to year.
In some places, like New York and Philadelphia, the backfill issue has divided the charter community. Some have argued it's unfair not to replace students who leave, given the length of charter waitlists. They also say schools that don't backfill are artificially inflating the percentage of students who score proficient on standardized tests.
That's because the most mobile students tend to score the lowest. And students who have been at a good school since early childhood are more likely to be on grade level and better accustomed to a school's behavior code than those arriving later on from weaker schools. So if a school doesn't replace those who leave, it can end up with a smaller cohort of higher-scoring students.
At one New York City charter school, for example, the percentage of students in one cohort who scored proficient in math was 94% in 3rd grade and 97% five years later, in 8th grade. But the number of students taking the test over that period declined from 88 to 31. That school is part of the Success Academy network, which doesn't backfill after 4th grade.
But schools that choose not to backfill aren't necessarily just trying to inflate test scores. The leader of the Success Academy network says she's protecting the interests of students who stay the course. When new students come in who are far behind, they absorb teachers' attention and hold back those ready to move at a faster pace.
And choosing not to backfill has a cost. In places like DC, where schools are funded on the basis of the number students they enroll, lower enrollment means less money.
Some DC charters don't backfill
DC charters aren't publicly sniping at each other over the backfill issue, but some schools here appear to be reaping the kinds of advantages critics have pointed to elsewhere.
Two DC charter middle schools, both of which include grades 4 through 8, don't accept new students after 6th grade. Both are high-performing and serve primarily low-income populations, and both had significant declines in enrollment for the cohort that graduated from 8th grade in 2014.
At one of the schools, Achievement Prep, that cohort dropped from 93 students in 6th grade in 2012 to 43 in 8th in 2014. The proficiency rates for 8th graders in 2014 were 90% in reading and 97% in math.
At the other, DC Prep Edgewood, the cohort dropped from 55 to 32. The proficiency rates for its 8th graders were 81% in reading and 100% in math.
Would those schools' 8th-grade scores have been lower if they'd filled vacancies with new students? It's hard to say. But another charter middle school that accepts new students at all grades, E.L. Haynes, maintained a class size of 101 between 6th and 8th grade for the same period. Its 8th-grade proficiency rates in 2014 were significantly lower than the two schools that don't backfill: 57% in reading and 70% in math.
Even high schools that backfill don't necessarily admit many new students
It's more common for charters not to backfill at the high school level. Eight DC charter high schools restrict applications to certain grades, with two high-performing ones—BASIS and Washington Latin—not accepting new students after 9th grade.
But even high schools that theoretically accept students at all grade levels can see their cohorts shrink dramatically. At highly ranked KIPP College Prep, the 2015 graduating class numbered 71 students, down from a 9th grade cohort of 134. Last year, the school enrolled only two new 10th graders and one new 11th grader, according to a KIPP DC spokesperson, Lindsay Kelly.
Why not more? "Unfortunately," Kelly said in an email, "many students who come to us in high school lack the credits needed to be on track with their grade level. Some families would rather have their child be promoted at a different high school than have them repeat a year as a student at KCP."
Should all charters be required to backfill?
Some argue that all charter schools should backfill, to level the playing field. New Orleans, where almost all students attend charter schools, has imposed that requirement.
But as KCP's situation illustrates, enforcing such a rule might not be that simple—or even desirable. It doesn't seem fair to hold back students who are capable of doing grade-level work or better by requiring their schools to admit students who are far behind.
Perhaps the better option is to be clear about what we're comparing. New York is considering investigating the amount of attrition and backfilling at its charter schools, which seems like a step in the right direction.
It would also help to look not just at a school's proficiency rates, but at how much its students test scores grow from year to year. DC's Public Charter School Board does take growth into account in evaluating schools, but it's hard for the public to tell how much weight they place on it.
And we should be able to compare test scores for students who have been at a school for several years against scores for newcomers. Right now, those two categories are lumped together, at least for public consumption. If schools that backfill are nevertheless able to boost achievement for kids they've had for a while, they should get credit for that.
The controversy over backfill is a variation on the controversy over charter schools in general. Yes, charter schools have an advantage over traditional public schools because, among other things, they don't have to take students midyear—and because families who choose to apply to charters are more likely to be motivated and engaged.
And yes, charters that choose not to backfill have advantages over charters that do backfill, as well as over traditional public schools that backfill. But rather than imposing the same burdens on all schools, we would do better to acknowledge that some schools have more obstacles to overcome than others.
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