- Hearing on Community Schools Bill Cancelled at Last Minute
- D.C. Council Cancels 'Community Schools' Hearing
- Simmons: More Merry Mischief From D.C.’s Little Elves
- IMPACT Study Scuttled by Differences Over Method
- 5 Ways to Save American Education
- Record Numbers Fail to Clear No Child Bar
Hearing on Community Schools Bill Cancelled at Last Minute
The Washington Post
By Bill Turque
December 14, 2011
Advocates for legislation to convert several public schools into community hubs for health care, adult education and other services had spent weeks preparing for a D.C Council hearing Wednesday afternoon. So they were mighty ticked when Chairman Kwame R. Brown cancelled the session with just three hours notice.
Brown said he wanted representatives of D.C. public schools and of the Office of the State Superintendent of Education to attend, and that “unavoidable scheduling conflicts” made that impossible. But that’s not quite the whole story. Sources at the Wilson Building familiar with the behind-the-scenes wrangling say DCPS never committed to sending anyone to offer testimony on the “Community Schools Incentive Amendment Act.”
When the hearing was set up prior to Thanksgiving, D.C. State Superintendent of Education Hosanna Mahaley said she would testify, according to spokesman Marc Caposino. But that was before Mahaley started to take heat for missing D.C. State Board of Education meetings and promised to start attending. As it turned out, one was scheduled for early Wednesday evening. Sources said Mahaley waited until late Wednesday morning to tell Brown she couldn’t make the council hearing. Assistant superintendent Ellen Durso was available, but Kwame Brown wanted the superintendent.
Supporters of the bill, led by D.C. Voice executive director Jeff Smith, led a group of about 40 to Brown’s office to register their unhappiness. The council chairman, not having the best day, was actually driving his son to the emergency room at Childrens National Medical Center for an undisclosed problem.
“I didn’t create this,” he said of the busted meeting, talking to the group from his car by speakerphone. He stuck by his decision to reschedule the hearing for a time when agency officials would be available.
Earlier the bill’s sponsor, Council member Michael A. Brown (I-At Large) tried to reassure supporters that the bill was likely to pass and that this was a temporary--if quite annoying--setback.
“I hate to use the word apology, because I didn’t do anything wrong,” Michael A. Brown said. “But I want to apologize for the system, because this is sometimes what happens in public policy.”
D.C. Council Cancels 'Community Schools' Hearing
The Washington Examiner
By Lisa Gartner
December 14, 2011
Update, 4:25 p.m.: Witnesses who planned to testify at a 4:30 p.m. hearing on community schools plan to instead march on D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown's office, after the chairman's staff canceled the roundtable with less than three hours' notice.
Jeff Smith, executive director of D.C. Voice, said parents and students have begun arriving at the Wilson Building, and more students are arriving as their school day ends.
"We're meeting them down there, waiting for other kids joining us from Ward 7, and parents," Smith said. "At 4:30, we hope to have enough people to march up to Kwame Brown's office."
Karen Sibert, the chairman's deputy chief of staff, said Kwame Brown will meet with the witnesses if they come to his office.
"We welcome them here. The chairman fully supports the bill, and is desirous of a comprehensive hearing on the matter," Sibert said. "Unfortunately, that can't happen without the participation of government witnesses."
Smith said At-large Councilman Michael Brown, who introduced the bill, tried to salvage the hearing. Kwame Brown's office canceled when the mayor's witnesses were unable to attend; Smith said Brown was trying to make it a hearing of just community members, with government witnesses testifying at later date, but did not succeed.
While prior school hearings have been similarly split, Sibert said the chairman preferred to have both camps of witnesses testify together.
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D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown's office canceled a hearing on a bill to create "community schools" in at-risk neighborhoods Wednesday, less than three hours before the roundtable was scheduled to begin.
Karen Sibert, deputy chief of staff for the chairman, said that the hearing on the Community Schools Incentive Amendment Act was canceled because the mayor's witnesses were unavailable.
"It has not been rescheduled as yet, but official notice of the new date for the hearing will be circulated at a later date," Sibert wrote in an email.
"A later date" isn't flying with D.C. Voice. The nonprofit, which focuses on involving the community in school reform, was none-too-pleased that the hearing was canceled on such short notice, and executive director Jeff Smith told The Washington Examiner that he — and the 35 other witnesses the group recruited — may head down to the Wilson Building anyway.
"If it's true that they just found out about this, the chairman should have a big gap in his schedule from 4:30 p.m. to about 7:30 p.m., and we'd like some of that agenda time," Smith said.
His organization did the bulk of the research that started the legislation, originally introduced by At-large Councilman Michael Brown in 2010, and co-sponsored in 2011 with Kwame Brown, Ward 5 Councilman Harry Thomas, Jr., Ward 1 Councilman Jim Graham, and then-At-large Councilman Sekou Biddle.
The council wanted to hear the bill, introduced in January, by the end of the year, Kwame Brown said Tuesday.
The act seeks to establish at least five "community schools" in poor neighborhoods. Using grants of up to $200,000 per year, the schools would establish after-hours initiatives like adult-education courses and health clinics.
Smith said his dozens of witnesses are ready to go. Kids have been excitedly memorizing their testimony for days, and because they're in class, don't yet know that the hearing was canceled — they're expecting shuttles to pick them up at 4 p.m.
National experts, grandparents, teachers and principals are also lined up, Smith said. The National Council of Negro Women sent him written testimony at 11:45 p.m. Tuesday after holding a special meeting to develop their stance.
"That's the kind of work people have put in to make sure this is not simply a dog-and-pony show, as we often unfortunately see in that building... It's disrepectful to this process and people to cancel like this," Smith said.
Simmons: More Merry Mischief From D.C.’s Little Elves
The Washington Times
By Deborah Simmons
December 14, 2011
Here we go again.
The District’s mayor and lawmakers make up their minds to do a thing, throw a dart at a dollar sign and pretend to hold public discussions on the thing.
If you don’t look closely, the thing appears to be a proposal.
Think Internet gambling, which landed in the D.C. book of laws last December, when city hall knew taxpayers were preoccupied with the tidings of creature comforts and Christmas joy.
This year’s merry mischief comes in the form of the D.C. Community Schools Incentive Act, on which the D.C. Council was scheduled to hold a hearing Wednesday evening. Except that the hearing was canceled.
The legislation appears worthwhile, calling for the mayor and his education minions to unite with the private sector on behalf of young people and their families inside public schools.
The proposal mandates that these “community schools” would provide services in an idyllic environment to help curb illiteracy, truancy, substance abuse, poor eating habits, bad sportsmanship, poor parenting and reverse such trends as high unemployment, high health-risk factors, high crime rates and lack of parental engagement.
Oh, and these schools, all five of them, would turn apathetic residents into self-driven go-getters.
For seed money, the council is considering $200,000, a heck of a down payment when you consider such a sum could at the very least cover part-time salaries to legal D.C. residents who, through no fault of their own, coincidentally find themselves unemployed.
A job would provide a quick lift for a dad who is willing but unable to care for his family at this time of the year.
The second obvious problem is that city officials are trying to turn our nine-month school system into a year-round school system - sans careful deliberations. If that’s what city hall wants, then the lawmakers should stiffen their backbone and propose a dramatic change. After all, the nine-month thing isn’t producing the needed outcomes anyway.
And then there’s this: I’m willing to wager that $200,000 is hardly a realistic down payment on the annual utility, personnel and wear-and-tear costs the community-school programs will incur.
As it reads now, the legislation calls for establishing five community schools within a year or so that will offer “primary medical and dental care” and treatment for mental-health issues for students and community residents. It also mandates that these schools deliver “school-age child care services including but not limited to before- and after-school services, and full-day programming that operates during school holidays, summers, vacations and weekends.” This baby boomer is visualizing ruckus rooms instead of romper rooms, a picture that council member Michael A. Brown crystallizes with his cost estimate that each school could easily need an additional $1 million to $2 million every year - just to fulfill the “community” aspect of the proposal.
Keep in mind, Mr. Brown is the same lawmaker who ushered the Internet gambling bill into reality last December, when voters and taxpayers were preparing for the yuletide season.
If education dollars are splintered into programs that have nothing to do with academics, what’s going to become of your school’s budget?
Bah humbugs can be sent Mr. Brown’s way at 202/724-8015 or to mbrown@dccouncil.us.
If you want to contact a higher authority, Chairman Kwame R. Brown can be reached at 202/724-8032 or kbrown@dccouncil.us, and you can express yourself to the mayor’s office by contacting 202/724-6300 or em@dc.gov. A reminder: Neither Kwame Brown nor Mayor Vincent C. Gray is up for re-election next year. Michael Brown, an independent, wants to be reseated.
The elections are in April.
IMPACT Study Scuttled by Differences Over Method
The Washington Post
By Bill Turque
December 14, 2011
Plans for Harvard economist Roland Fryer to conduct an independent study of the IMPACT evaluation system are off, scuttled by DCPS’ reluctance to employ what he called “the gold standard in empirical research.”
DCPS said it will work with the Washington Teachers’ Union to find a replacement for Fryer, founder and director of Harvard’s Education Innovation Laboratory (EdLabs). The selection of a researcher to study IMPACT’s effectiveness, and to make recommendations for improvements, was included as a side letter to the 2010 collective bargaining agreement. Many teachers have said that IMPACT’s criteria disadvantage instructors who work in high-poverty schools with challenging student populations. Very few teachers judged “highly effective” under IMPACT work in schools in Wards 7 or 8.
The project was a sticky issue from the beginning. The selection of an outside researcher was supposed to be mutually acceptable to the union and the District. But former WTU president George Parker said he never signed off on Fryer. His successor, Nathan Saunders, also balked. There was no question about Fryer’s credentials (MacArthur Fellow, one of Harvard’s youngest tenured professors), but Saunders said he was troubled by his connections.
Saunders cited Fryer’s prior experience as a contractor hired by former Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee to assess the now-defunct “Capital Gains” program that paid cash to middle schoolers for good grades and behavior. There was also the issue of EdLab’s funders, which included private foundations underwriting performance pay bonuses that are part of the IMPACT system.
Saunders said Fryer “might be predisposed to a certain point of view.”
What ultimately sank the venture was Fryer’s interest in randomly assigning some teachers into “treatment” and “control” groups. Random assignment is considered one of the strongest research designs because it ensures that the sample selected represents the characteristics of the entire group under study.
But Jason Kamras, DCPS chief of human capital, said in an e-mail that Fryer’s design “was not practical from our perspective for the efficient running of schools.”
“We worked together for quite some time to try to make it work, but ultimately couldn’t come up with an approach that wouldn’t disrupt instruction for students,” he said.
Kamras explained that Fryer’s plan would have required suspending the contract provision for “mutual consent,” under which a principal and a teacher must both agree on the educator’s assignment to a given school.
“Given this, we came to a mutually agreeable and amicable conclusion that the study was not going to work,” he said. “I’ve informed President Saunders of this, and we will be meeting shortly to identify another research partner.”
Fryer said he retains “tremendous respect” for Kamras and Chancellor Kaya Henderson, but that he had no choice but to move on.
“I am a pointy-headed economist who refuses not to aim for the gold standard in empirical research (i.e. randomization) whenever possible,” he said in an e-mail Wednesday morning. “Anything less is not fair to kids, their parents, or the policy makers who use the research.”
5 Ways to Save American Education
The Washington Post
By Jay Mathews
December 14, 2011
A research team led by Marc S. Tucker, a relentless advocate for adopting successful international practices in U.S. schools, recently concluded that we, in essence, are doing almost nothing right.
His investigators could find no evidence, Tucker said, “that any country that leads the world’s education performance league tables has gotten there by implementing any of the major agenda items that dominate the education reform agenda in the United States, with the exception of the Common Core State Standards.”
Congratulations, I guess, go to the 45 states implementing that new common curriculum. Other American approaches, such as charter schools, vouchers, computer-oriented entrepreneurs and rating teachers by the test scores of their students, are rarely found in the overseas systems showing the greatest gains, according to Tucker’s new book, “Surpassing Shanghai: An Agenda for American Education Built on the World’s Leading Systems.”
On Monday, I listed several false assumptions that Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy, says have caused us to go astray. They include our view that our mediocre scores on international tests are the result of too many diverse students, that more money will help schools improve and that it is better to focus on lowering class sizes than raising teacher salaries.
Today, I offer the solutions Tucker and his team propose.
They are heavily influenced by what is working overseas, particularly in Japan, Korea, Finland, Shanghai, Singapore and Canada. Can these reforms blossom in our very different culture, with stronger local control of schools and less respect for teachers? I guess at the chances of success here for each suggestion.
1. Make admission to teacher training more competitive, pegged to international standards of academic achievement, mastery of subject matter and ability to relate to children. Most U.S. education schools can’t survive financially without enrolling many average or below-average students, so this has only a 20 percent chance.
2. Raise teacher compensation significantly. Initially, this has the same bad odds, a 20 percent chance. But over time, standards and salaries could rise if education schools developed special academies — similar to undergraduate honors colleges — that were as selective as the Columbia, Harvard and Stanford education schools and the Teach for America program. Tucker says that with better pay, fewer teachers would quit, saving money now spent to train replacements.
3. Allow larger class sizes. More students per classroom means more money to pay teachers. The American trend toward smaller classes (down to an average of about 25 per classroom) has run its course. Some of the most successful public charter schools have 30 students in a class. Japan does well with large classes. Given those developments, chances are 70 percent this could be done.
4. End annual standardized testing in favor of three federally required tests to gauge mastery at the end of elementary school, 10th grade and 12th grade. The change has an 80 percent chance because it would save money and please many teachers and parents who think we test too much. Such tests overseas are of higher quality, not so much computer-scored multiple choice and would help raise American learning standards, Tucker says.
5. Spend more money on students who need more help getting to high standards. Based on data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Tucker favors a weighted pupil finance formula, which only a few U.S. districts have tried. There would be the usual per-pupil funds but extra money for students who need to be brought up to the standard. Americans favor more support for struggling students, but I give this only a 60 percent chance because of state and federal budget difficulties.
Making these changes seems daunting, but Tucker notes that the best school systems overseas took 30 to 100 years to get there. With some patience and luck, we could do that, too.
Record Numbers Fail to Clear No Child Bar
The Washington Times
By Ben Wolfgang
December 14, 2011
The numbers keep getting worse for the nation’s education system.
In the 2010-11 academic year, 48 percent of public schools - a record high - failed to meet the “adequate yearly progress” benchmarks established by the No Child Left Behind act, according to a new study by the Center on Education Policy, a nonpartisan think tank.
D.C. Public Schools ranked near the bottom, with 87 percent failing to clear the bar, the report says. Only Missouri was worse, with 88 percent of its schools falling short.
Wisconsin schools performed the best, with 11 percent missing the mark. In Maryland and Virginia, 45 percent and 62 percent, respectively, didn’t make adequate yearly progress.
Since No Child Left Behind was implemented a decade ago, each state has used standardized reading and math tests to determine schools’ progress and the number of students deemed proficient in both subjects. Each year, the federal bar is raised higher, which has consistently led to fewer schools meeting adequate yearly progress.
In 2006, only 29 percent of U.S. schools missed the targets. The percentage has risen gradually each year, before making the largest jump - 39 percent to 48 percent - between 2010 and 2011.
Schools that come up short are designated as “failing” institutions, a label based entirely on the year-end tests mandated by No Child Left Behind.
The law calls for 100 percent of the nation’s students to be proficient in reading and math by 2014, but that goal is widely viewed as unattainable by policymakers and education analysts, nearly all of whom agree the legislation has outlived its usefulness and is in need of an overhaul.
The results “show that NCLB needs to be amended. It’s just too crude a measure of accountability,” said Center on Education Policy President Jack Jennings, who also spent 25 years as general counsel to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
While reform efforts have gained traction in the House and Senate, Mr. Jennings and many others think it is unlikely Republicans and Democrats will pass such an important piece of legislation during the 2012 presidential election year. As a back-up plan, the Obama administration announced earlier this year it will begin granting waivers from No Child Left Behind to states that put forth their own reform proposals.
For now, however, Mr. Jennings said states have little choice but to take the results as gospel.
“The schools depend on those test scores” to determine how they stack up to other institutions across the state and nationwide, Mr. Jennings said.
But each year, the scores seem to follow no logical pattern, with the ethnic makeup of the various states bearing little resemblance to the states’ scores - despite long-standing racial achievement gaps on standardized tests.
Wisconsin, a predominantly white state, did the best, while about 72 percent of the schools in Vermont, another state with an almost all-white population, didn’t meet the threshold.
Texas, with a large Hispanic community, reported that only 29 percent of its schools failed to make adequate yearly progress. California and New Mexico, also homes to large Hispanic populations, are near the bottom, with 66 percent and 87 percent, respectively, coming up short.
State standards have also been called into question. While the act calls for students to be “proficient,” it does not establish a uniform benchmark. States are free to define “proficient” however they choose, often leading to dramatic swings in results.
Delaware, for example, recently lowered its targets after 60 percent of schools missed the mark in 2010. After the change, only 17 percent fall short, according to the survey. The opposite was true in Tennessee, which raised standards and, as a result, saw the number of schools failing to make adequate yearly progress rise from 29 percent in 2010 to 49 percent in 2011.
The Center on Education Policy figures used in the study are unofficial totals obtained from each state’s education department. They could be revised slightly before the Education Department releases official statistics next year.