- 11 Apply to Open New D.C. Charters [Basis PCS is mentioned]
- A Grim Report Card on D.C. Schools
- DCPS Lottery: A Look At the Available Seats
- In D.C. Schools, Early Lessons in Gay Tolerance
11 Apply to Open New D.C. Charters [Basis PCS is mentioned]
Examiner
By Mark Lerner
February 7, 2012
The D.C. Public Charter School Board announced yesterday that they had accepted the applications of 11 organizations attempting to open new charter schools in the fall of 2013.
I'm encouraged by what I see. There is one school that would focus on Arabic language emersion, another on teaching Hebrew. Three would focus on adult education.
To my pleasant surprise we do not see charter school chains trying to move into the area. I was afraid that after the approval of Basis last year, and the open statements by many PCSB members that the application by an established charter school network was a positive sign, it appears that no others got the message. Perhaps these operators astutely realize that what works in one locality may not be transferable to another.
The proposed schools list their desired geographic location. It will be interesting to see whether there will be an attempted coordination of sites by the PCSB based upon the Illinois Facility Fund Report.
The Washington Post
By Editorial Board
February 6, 2012
A new study of the District’s public schools has the teachers union bristling about jobs, defenders of traditional schools fearing further gains for charter schools and some neighborhoods worrying their schools will close. Getting short shrift are the 14,236 children in the 46 schools where learning is judged so abysmal that projections show little or no improvement over the next five years. At the current rate of improvement, it will be 2045 before 75 percent of D.C. students are at grade level in math and 2075 before they are at grade level in reading. That’s unacceptable, and it is why we hope the information gleaned from this analysis will lead to new solutions.
The independent study, commissioned by Mayor Vincent C. Gray’s administration, takes a supply-and-demand approach to public education. The Chicago-based nonprofit IFF examined traditional public and charter schools in each of the city’s 39 neighborhood clusters and identified 10 communities with the greatest gap between student demand and supply of high-quality education. Not surprisingly, the greatest need for high-performing schools is in poor neighborhoods in Ward 7 and 8. Most top schools are in the northwest and central areas of the city.
The report makes a number of sensible suggestions: ensure that all classroom seats are filled in the high-performing schools; focus attention and resources on Tier 2 schools to get them to top-performing status; and close underutilized, outmoded and badly performing schools.
Clearly, the city is not about to close 46 schools overnight and, as Deputy Mayor for Education De’Shawn Wright stressed, the study is the starting point for coming up with solutions. Nonetheless, as The Post’s Bill Turque reported, pushback was almost immediate. Washington Teachers’ Union President Nathan Saunders assailed the “assault on traditional public education” and the threat to public school jobs, while others attacked the use of test score data to judge a school’s worth.
Doing things the way they have always been done helped contribute to a public education system in which fewer than half of students perform on grade level. School reforms started in the previous administration, and continued by Mr. Gray, have improved teaching and boosted student performance, but, as this report attests, the bulk of the work is still undone. Critical to this effort is better cooperation and more rational use of resources between charters and the public school system; the only criterion should be student success.
City officials, mindful of the turmoil when former chancellor Michelle A. Rhee closed schools, said any restructuring will not be made for at least a year. Mr. Gray is right to want to consult with affected communities in making informed decisions, but he also must be mindful that children stuck in failing schools don’t have a day to waste.
The Washington Post
By Bill Turque
February 6, 2012
Here’s a list of seats available in the pre-school, pre-K and out-of-boundary lottery for 2012-13. As you can see, the traditionally coveted schools in upper Northwest have little-to-no space. That includes the bursting-at-the-seams Deal Middle School and Wilson High School.
It’s much the same for the upper Northwest elementary schools. Outside of pre-K openings, there are no out-of-boundary seats at Janney or Lafayette. Mann has one seat apiece in grades 4 and 5; Murch has one in grade 5. The major exception is Hardy Middle School, one of two sites for next year’s new gifted-and-talented program: 40 apiece in grades 6 and 7 and 20 in grade 8.
DCPS is encouraging prospective out-of-boundary parents to look at some lesser-known schools that Chancellor Kaya Henderson calls “gems.” Bancroft Elementary in Ward 1 has 57 pre-school and pre-K seats in what officials describe as a strong early childhood program. There are also two seats in grade 1, six seats in grade 2, and eight in grade 4.
Francis-Stevens Education Campus, where both math and reading scores grew last year, has 22 pre-school seats, three in kindergarten, four apiece in grades 2 and 3, and 2 seats each in grades 4 through 7.
Kelly Miller Middle in Ward 7, the other gifted and talented school, has five seats each in grades 6 to 8. Powell Education Campus in Ward 4, which offers a Dual Language program and the widely-praised Tools of the Mind early childhood curriculum, has seats at nearly all levels. Takoma Education Campus, also in Ward 4, offers Reggio Emilia early childhood education and a building nicely renovated after last year’s fire. It has 30 preschool seats and spots in grade 2, 3 and 4.
DCPS cautions that these numbers might change before the lottery closes on Feb. 27. To apply, go to the DCPS Web site here and access the Preschool/Pre-K/Out-of-Boundary application.
Those applying for preschool or pre-K must do so online, even if they are seeking space in their in-boundary school. If you have questions about the application, you can call the DCPS Critical Response Team at 202-478-5738.
The Washington Post
By Michael Alison Chandler
February 4, 2012
In the national push to prevent bullying, more elementary schools are introducing lessons about gay tolerance. Some lessons begin before the first day of kindergarten.
One fall day at Oyster-Adams Bilingual School in Northwest Washington, Scarlette Garnier and her pre-kindergarten classmates drew pictures of their families and talked about their similarities and differences.
They found that some children live with grandparents, some have a mommy and a daddy, and some, like 5-year-old Scarlette, have two mommies.
Teacher Melissa Grant said she doesn’t put any weight or value on one family structure over another. At this age, she said, children are very accepting. “They just kind of find it interesting,” she said.
The District, which legalized same-sex marriage in 2009, is joining San Francisco, Minneapolis and Cambridge, Mass., at the leading edge of an effort to make public schools more welcoming to gay students and families. A committee, organized in January 2011 with support from D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson, developed a plan to increase awareness of gay issues and foster a more supportive environment in school. Twenty new school-based liaisons to the gay community are helping train teachers this year, and a contingent from the school system marched in the gay pride parade in June.
School officials say it’s important to start early, before children’s perceptions of gay life are dominated by playground put-downs.
Two national gay rights organizations have proposed new elementary teaching guides. Under the banners of “Ready, Set, Respect!” and “Welcoming Schools,” they offer lesson plans and tips for introducing diverse families, challenging gender stereotypes and countering hurtful language. (One popular tip sheet: What do you say to “That’s so gay?”)
Homosexuality remains a taboo subject in many public schools, and decisions about how — or whether — to include it in middle or high school health lessons provoke controversy. After two years of debate, Montgomery County’s school board updated its sex-education curriculum in 2007 to include information about homosexuality. In Loudoun and Prince William counties, the curriculum remains officially silent on gay issues in health classes.
But the topic is becoming harder to avoid in school. Highly publicized teen suicides tied to anti-gay bullying have galvanized administrators to introduce tolerance and safety programs. These days, many openly gay and gay-friendly teenagers are bringing same-gender dates to the prom, putting on gay-themed school plays and creating gay-straight alliances.
In elementary schools, a growing number of openly gay — and legally married — parents are also pushing for change. They want their families to be reflected in classroom discussions and on back-to-school-night bulletin boards. Responses vary widely from school to school.
At Oyster-Adams, which serves 662 students from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade on two campuses, parents from some of the 20 or so gay families at the school met with teachers and the principal in January. The group helped persuade administrators to rethink the school’s approach to how classes handle Mother’s Day activities. This spring, the school will observe a “Family Day” that won’t exclude gay dads or other nontraditional families.
‘Hidden curriculum’
Some people who believe homosexuality is immoral oppose the notion of introducing young children to gay issues, even in the name of tolerance training.
Concerned parents can opt their children out of sex education lessons. Now some want to shield their children from diversity lessons or anti-bullying programs that mention homosexuality, said Candi Cushman, an education analyst for Focus on the Family, a Colorado Springs-based Christian group that promotes what it calls traditional family values.
One father in Lexington, Mass., lost a legal battle in 2007 in which he fought his school system for the right to receive parental notification any time a child might encounter instructional materials or discussions that reference gays. The battle was triggered in part by a children’s book that was sent home in a “diversity book bag” that depicted a family with gay parents.
In a “hypersexualized” society, parents “want to protect their children’s innocence for as long as possible,” Cushman said.
Gay-rights advocates say that early lessons aren’t about sex. Instead, they say, the lessons are about families and aim to counter messages children are already hearing on the school bus.
Anti-gay slurs “are part of the hidden curriculum in schools from Day One,” said Eliza Byard, executive director of the New York-based Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network. “To let that stand with no balance and no response is an abdication of the responsibility on the part of schools, starting in kindergarten.”
The network launched a No Name Calling Week campaign eight years ago. It was initially aimed at middle school students, but many of 30,000 educators who downloaded the materials were from elementary schools. “By the time students are in middle school, the problem is at a fever pitch,” Byard said.
Julie Garnier, one of Scarlette’s mothers, said she was surprised how soon her older son encountered bullying. Jourdan was 7 years old when he came home from summer camp two years ago and asked, “What is gay?”
Even though he is growing up with lesbian moms and surrounded by friends with gay parents, Jourdan had never put a word to what might be different about his family, until some teenage counselors began teasing him.
Garnier said her goal has been to find — or help create — a school environment that doesn’t tolerate similar teasing. “I created these kids. The least I can do is try to give them a better world and a safe space to learn in,” she said.
Education destinations
The quest often leads gay couples to private schools. Georgetown Day School is widely known for its gay-friendly instruction, but D.C. public schools are also becoming an education destination for some gay families.
Garnier and her partner, Charlene Evans, plotted a reverse migration — from the suburbs to the city — soon after they had their first child, moving from Upper Marlboro to a neighborhood near the former Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Northwest Washington. They decided to leave, Garnier said, because “we were basically looking around and not seeing any rainbow flags.”
The African American women, both federal employees, chose a Mexican American sperm donor for their two children, and they are raising them to be “biracial, bicultural and bilingual.”
They applied for a lottery to attend Oyster-Adams because of its reputation for diversity and its Spanish-immersion program.
Unlike in the District, the policy in many school systems is to avoid gay topics, particularly in younger grades.
Catherine A. Lugg, an education professor at Rutgers University, called the approach “an elementary school version of ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell.’ ” But school officials say they must balance widely disparate community beliefs.
Most school officials in the area, including in Fairfax, Prince William and Loudoun counties, advise teachers to tell students who have questions about homosexuality to take their questions home.
In a national survey released in January by GLSEN, elementary school teachers reported that although diversity training is commonplace, training about gay issues is not. And while nearly 90 percent of respondents said they teach about different kinds of families, only about 20 percent said they mention families with gay parents.
Kenn Bing, a gay father in Crofton, said his daughter’s school in Anne Arundel County declined to alter a Mother’s Day class activity to allow students to make cards to someone other than their mothers. “They didn’t want to be the ones to say there are other kinds of families out there,” he said.
Anne Arundel school officials said no policy prohibits class discussions about different kinds of families but that teachers’ comfort levels may vary. The school system recently invested in some children’s books about gay families that counselors or teachers can use to help lessons, said school counseling specialist Lucia Martin.
Patricia Silverthorn, a gay technology specialist at Armstrong Elementary School in Reston, said most people at the school know that she is raising her son, a fifth-grader there, with her wife.
When kids ask her about it, Silverthorn said, “I say, ‘Some families have two moms or two dads. There are all kinds of families.’
Mailing Archive: