- Charter schools still treated like second-class
- Inside the Increase in D.C. charter school enrollment
- Students flood into D.C.-area schools
- D.C. State Board of Education candidates face challenge: What does the board do?
Charter schools still treated like second-class
The Washington Examiner
Examiner Editorial
October 30, 2012
Of all the statistics cited by Examiner reporter Lisa Gartner to document the increase in student enrollment in the Washington region's public schools for the 2012-2013 school year, one stands out. While 1.4 percent more students enrolled in DC Public Schools, 11 percent more students signed up for the city's public charter schools -- the largest enrollment surge of any system in the metropolitan area.
So during the District's largest increase in public school enrollment in 45 years, about 85 percent of the new students (3,457) chose to attend charter schools rather than enter the centralized, traditional public system. Charter schools are attractive to parents because they are free to choose their own policies and curriculum, adopt innovations such as longer school days, and they are not hamstrung by contracts with the Washington Teachers Union, which opposed their existence from Day One. Students at charters -- most of which serve low-income neighborhoods and have a greater percentage of black and Hispanic students -- have reading and math proficiency rates 10 and 20 percent higher (respectively) than those of students in the traditional public system.
Charter schools are not only accepted by the public, but they have in fact become the preferred educational option. Charter schools now educate 43 percent of D.C.'s public school students. It seems only a matter of time before charters exceed DCPS in total enrollment.
Perhaps anticipating that eventuality, Mayor Vincent Gray recently announced that the District has finally agreed to use $7 million in unspent funds from its 2012 operating budget to pay for charter school facilities that are currently covered by federal funds.
The city has long dragged its feet on fulfilling its legal obligation to support charter facilities. For years, it has failed to give them first access to empty school buildings, even though this is required by law. This better-late-than-never infusion of city money will free up an equal amount that the charter schools can use on other crucial needs.
But the capital funding gap between DCPS and charter schools still remains unacceptably high. The District currently spends about $6,000 per student on construction and renovation of DCPS facilities, but charter schools receive only about half that amount to cover their leases and mortgages.
When charter students finally outnumber students enrolled in DCPS, this unfair system will make even less sense than it does now.
Inside the Increase in D.C. charter school enrollment
The Examiner
By Mark Lerner
October 29, 2012
Courtesy of Audrey Williams, PCSB Government and Public Affairs Manager, we have access to some extremely interesting statistics regarding the 11 percent increase over last year in students attending charter schools in the nation's capital. She points out that 1,600 of the new enrollees are accounted for by the opening of four new schools, which accounts for 47 percent of the jump.
Another 20 percent comes from expansion of Peformance Management Framework Tier 1 charter schools. At the same time there was a 10 percent decrease in the number of pupils attending Tier 3 institutions, two trends that are extremely positive.
Lastly Ms. William's press release indicates that all charter school grades saw growth over last year but the increase was most pronounced in elementary school, demonstrating 1,409 more students over 2011, and high school with 1,000 more pupils enrolled in charters.
The end result of all this is a fantastic 35,019 students now attending charters, which represents 43 percent of all public school students.
Commenting on the increase PCSB Chairman Brian Jones stated, "We look forward to the day when no DC family must choose to send their children to anything less than a high-performing school.”
Could not have said it better myself.
Students flood into D.C.-area schools
The Washington Examiner
By Lisa Gartner
October 27, 2012
The top-performing public school systems in Montgomery and Fairfax counties have been ballooning with students in the last several years, sending school officials scrambling to find more space and beg for
larger budgets to accommodate the influx of new faces. True to form, both school systems grew by more than 2,500 students this year, according to preliminary counts.
And this year, they're sharing the wealth.
(See link above for chart.)
A decade of declining enrollment in Prince George's County Public Schools has seemingly come to end, with the suburban Maryland school system counting 828 more students than last year, school officials say.
In the District, an initial head count suggests the largest enrollment increase in 45 years -- if the numbers hold up come the official audit early next year -- fueled by another year of dramatic growth in the city's public charter schools.
The smaller school districts in Arlington and Alexandria grew this fall, too, adding hundreds more children to their rosters.
Younger families are moving into the area, particularly Hispanic women with higher birth rates and Asian families drawn to clusters of their immigrant populations, according to Larry Bizette, a demographer for Fairfax County Public Schools. New additions are also coming from the private schools, as parents' checkbooks are still red from the recession.
"At the forefront of every discussion we have, it's making sure we provide an education that our students can be proud of, that any kid attending private school would want to return to the public school system," said Monica Goldson, the acting chief operating officer of Prince George's County Public Schools.
Enrollment in Prince George's schools has been steadily dropping since 2004, as the system has worked to improve its test scores and reputation while competing for students with top-of-the-nation neighbors Montgomery and Fairfax counties. This year, about 124,660 students are in Prince George's seats, a small but noticeable increase from last year's 123,833. The numbers must be audited by the state's Education Department, but Goldson doesn't expect them to change. Larger enrollments among prekindergarten and kindergarten students are driving the increase, but Prince George's school officials will wait until later in the school year to look deeper into the trends behind the growth.
But even as Prince George's grows, it's not because it's stealing students from its neighbors: Fairfax County Public Schools grew from 177,506 students last October to a current head count of 180,282 students. Montgomery County Public Schools is hovering around 149,050 students, thousands above last year's roll call of 146,459 students.
"The Washington metropolitan area has gotten a lot younger," said Russ Whitehurst, director of the Brookings Institution's Brown Center on Education Policy. "Older people have been moving out, younger people have been moving in and younger people have babies who end up going to school," he said.
Nowhere is that more clear than in the District, which is touting about 4,100 new students over last year, an increase of 5 percent and the city's largest enrollment increase in 45 years. The lion's share of that growth is in the city's public charter schools, which grew by 3,457 students, or 11 percent. D.C. Public Schools' initial count shows 644 new students.
"Every student in a charter school is there because his or her family chose that school," said Scott Pearson, executive director of the charter school board. "This growth reflects the high demand for public charter schools by D.C. families."
The official audit by the D.C. Office of the State Superintendent of Education usually produces lower numbers than the October estimates, making it difficult to say whether D.C. Public Schools gained or lost students this school year. In the 2010-11 school year, the traditional school system's enrollment grew for the first time since 1969, but stagnated last year. Charter schools have been growing at a rate of about 8 percent each year.
D.C. State Board of Education candidates face challenge: What does the board do?
The Washington Post
By Emma Brown
October 30, 2012
Candidates for the District’s State Board of Education face a key challenge this election season: Five years after the board was created, many voters still aren’t sure exactly what it is or what it does.
“A lot of it is really down in the weeds, and therefore that only helps to obscure what the state board does,” said Ward 2 representative Mary Lord, who faces parent activist Marvin Tucker in a race for the board’s sole at-large seat.
The nine-member nonpartisan board was created by the same 2007 law that established the mayoral takeover of the city school system. The so-called state board replaced a traditional board that oversaw the school system’s facilities, operations and budget, in addition to setting academic policy for the school system.
The state board has a different and often lower-profile mission. Members are responsible for approving policies on academic standards, teacher certification and parent engagement. The board also sets — and is in the midst of revising — city graduation requirements.
Lord, 58, said those are powerful tools to shape the District’s public schools. She acknowledged, however, that it’s a difficult message to deliver to parents and community members who feel they have nowhere to take their immediate concerns.
“But the reality is, the old school board structure didn’t necessarily get kids where they needed to be,” said Lord, a longtime education journalist who has served on the board since its inception and is a member of the board of directors of the National Association of State Boards of Education.
Tucker, 54, argues that board members, whatever their legal authority, should use their status as elected officials to be stronger advocates for parents. A parent who was among the first to raise questions about cheating at the Noyes Education Campus, Tucker is a blunt critic of the city’s school reform efforts.
“When they did the reform act, they didn’t help our schools. They destroyed our schools,” said Tucker, a retired plumber who works part time in sales. “At the end of the day, if you’re a parent and you have a problem, you can’t get it solved.”
Besides the at-large race, there are also contested races for the board’s Ward 7 and Ward 8 seats.
In Ward 7, incumbent Dorothy Douglas, a longtime civic activist and perennial candidate for higher office, faces three challengers.
Villareal Johnson, 35, is an advisory neighborhood commissioner who previously worked as a field representative for the Washington Teachers’ Union and now works for an insurance firm.
Karen Williams, 64, is a former special education teacher and U.S. Park Police officer who works as director of Big Mama’s Children’s Center, an early-childhood program in Southeast Washington.
And Robert L. Matthews, 66, is a former teacher and counselor who retired from the District’s Cleveland Elementary School.
One pressing concern for some parents east of the Anacostia River is the impending closure of some D.C. public schools, expected to be announced soon. That’s an issue over which the state board has no control.
Ward 7 parent Greg Rhett said he wishes someone could bring together the disparate authorities that have a hand in city education — including the D.C. Council, the deputy mayor for education, the board for the city’s many charter schools and the chancellor of the D.C. school system — to create a comprehensive plan for schools before any are closed.
“We’ve created a quagmire where everyone’s in charge and no one’s responsible,” Rhett said. “It’s very frustrating.”
The Ward 8 state board race pits incumbent Trayon White, head of a nonprofit organization for at-risk youths, against challenger Philip Pannell, a longtime civic and HIV/AIDS activist.
White, 28, graduated from Ballou Senior High School a decade ago. He says his recent experience as a student struggling to overcome the challenges of life in the city’s poorest ward makes him uniquely qualified to connect with and represent his neighbors.
Pannell says he would bring decades of advocacy experience to the post. A five-time president of the Ward 8 Democrats, he also helped jump-start and sustain a parent organization at Ballou despite having no children in school there.
This is a rematch for the two men, who faced off against each other and seven other candidates in a 2011 special election to replace William O. Lockridge, who died while in office. White won that race by fewer than 200 votes with the endorsement of Lockridge’s widow and D.C. Council member Marion Barry (D-Ward 8).
Two other candidates are running unopposed for board seats. Jack Jacobson, a legislative analyst and Dupont Circle advisory neighborhood commissioner, is seeking the Ward 2 seat.
Ward 4 incumbent D. Kamili Anderson, an editor and writer, is seeking reelection. Anderson, 57, joined the board last year in a special election to replace Sekou Biddle.