The Washington Informer
Revamped Curriculums Come to D.C. Public Schools
By Norma Porter
06 August 2009
D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee announced on Tue., July 28 that
13 public schools will introduce specialty programs that include science and
technology, arts and world cultures into their curriculums. The Chancellor
made the announcement at Malcolm X Elementary School in Southeast.
Flanked by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D), Rhee said that she is broadening the
³portfolio² of schools by establishing special programs that often attract
families to charter and private schools.
³We want to offer the type of programs and initiatives in our DCPS schools
that first and foremost engage our students in learning, but second, really
excite, inspire, and compel our families and parents to want to send their
children to our schools,² Rhee said.
³This is what is so compelling about a lot of the private and charter
schools in the city and there¹s no reason why we can¹t provide those kinds
of programs within DCPS.²
In the last decade, enrollment in District public schools has declined as
parents opted, instead, to send their children to charter and private
schools. Last year, DCPS enrollment was slightly more than 47,000, Rhee
said, but this year she predicts that the enrollment number will be closer
to 45,000.
All 120 public schools were invited to submit applications for the D.C.
Catalyst Project. The application process required that parents, community
members and principals form teams and submit proposals detailing how the
school would integrate one of the themes in its restructuring plan.
Malcolm X Elementary School Principal Darwin Bobbitt, said his school
submitted a proposal for the science, technology, engineering and
mathematics (STEM) theme because the program was aligned with his goals for
the school and its students.
³We have been getting a lot of donations from private companies and trying
to get more computers and smart boards in our classrooms,² Bobbitt said.
³We want to give our children the opportunity to be on top of everyone else
in D.C. and the United States as far as technology, math and science. A lot
of our kids have a lot of potential, despite where they are from, and we
don¹t use that as an excuse. We really try to have them leaving out of here
prepared for the 21st Century.²
Residents in the Congress Heights community of Ward 8 said that they are
hopeful that a new science program might draw families back to Malcolm X
Elementary.
Robin McKinney, a DCPS bus driver and single mother of seven, said she has
raised all of her children in Congress Heights, but she, like many other
parents who live in the neighborhood, refused to send her children to
Malcolm X Elementary because of its reputation for low academic standards.
Instead, McKinney, 35, said she sent her children to Center City Public
Charter School, formerly known as Assumption Catholic School, in Northeast.
³None of my children ever attended Malcolm X Elementary School because the
criterion, as far as education, was very, very low. A lot of children in
this area don¹t attend the school. ?Many of the parents who live here will
bus their children to a charter school out of the area before they send them
to Malcolm X,² McKinney said.
³[However], with all of this new technology coming to the school, maybe this
will draw people in the community back to Malcolm X,² she said.
Parents, like McKinney, have noted the limited academic opportunities for
their children in DCPS and have enrolled their children in public charter
schools. DCPS enrollment has been significantly affected by the successful
charter school movement.
The new catalyst schools initiative is yet another effort to provide
challenging programs to parents in the hopes of bringing District students
back to the public school system.
Rhee said DCPS wants to expand programs offered at some of the most popular
schools sought after in the out-of-boundary application process, such as
Lafayette Elementary and Hardy Middle Schools in Northwest, that have arts
integrated curriculums, through the Catalyst School Project.
³Part of our theory is that we need to expand the number of schools who have
those kinds of compelling programs in them and this Catalyst School
Initiative is our attempt to make sure that we are growing those programs,²
Rhee said.
³We believe that every neighborhood school across the District should offer
incredibly compelling program and initiatives in it and this is a start in
that direction.²
STEM-themed schools will include Malcolm X Elementary School in Ward 8
(Southeast), Beers Elementary School in Ward 7 (Southeast), Burroughs
Education Campus in Ward 5 (Northeast), Emery Education Campus in Ward 5
(Northeast), Langdon Elementary School in Ward 5 (Northeast) and Whittier
Education Campus in Ward 4 (Northwest).
Arts-integrated themed based schools will include Ludlow-Taylor Elementary
School in Ward 6 (Northeast), Sousa Middle School in Ward 7 (Southeast),
Takoma Educational Campus Preschool in Ward 4 (Northwest) and Tyler
Elementary School in Ward 6 (Southeast).
World cultures theme-based catalyst schools will include the Columbia
Heights Education Campus in Ward 1 (Northwest), Eaton Elementary School in
Ward 3 (Northwest), and Payne Elementary School in Ward 6 (Northeast).
The upcoming academic year will be a planning year, Rhee said, but the
schools will begin to launch their respective themes into their curriculums.
The first three years of the catalyst project will be funded by the Philip
L. Graham Fund, the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation and the City Bridge
Foundation.