- Sunday Reflection: School reform is helping make D.C. safer
- Examiner Local Editorial: Seeds of school choice are now blooming in D.C.
- Looking at charter schools, apples to apples
- D.C. school closures are focus of hearing
- Four takeaways from the D.C. Council's school closure hearing
- What will come of the buildings on D.C.'s closed-school list? [Mary McLeod Bethune Day Academy PCS and Washington Latin PCS mentioned]
- Council: D.C. schools need thorough improvement plan
- DCPS gives parent the bum's rush
-
Quality controls lacking for D.C. schools accepting federal vouchers [Ideal Academy PCS mentioned]
Sunday Reflection: School reform is helping make D.C. safer
Robert Cane
The Washington Examiner
November 17, 2012
The nation's capital -- once one of America's most violent urban centers -- now ranks only 16th in the annual Forbes ranking of dangerous U.S. cities. The District has gone from 2,452 violent crimes per 100,000 people to just 1,130. The District had almost 500 homicides in 1991, but the total for this year is projected to be about 100.
There are many reasons why D.C. is becoming safer -- more effective policing, increased economic opportunities and the District's bulletproof status during the financial crisis. Some people even claim that the widespread use of cellphones has made the reporting of crime easier, causing it to fall.
But there also is a link between crime and education, an area in which significant changes have taken place in the District.
Research from the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston shows that one in 10 high school dropouts is caught up in the nation's criminal justice system. Among those earning a high school diploma and stopping there, it's one in 35. Among college graduates, it's just one in 190.
Our city has been doing a much better job of ensuring that its young residents graduate high school and are accepted to college than it did in the mid-1990s. At that time, about half of D.C.'s public school students graduated high school, frequently after more than four years in high school.
Today, the 43 percent of District public school students who attend independently run but publicly funded charter schools have a 77 percent four-year high school graduation rate. And most of the city's public charter high schools have 100 percent of their graduating class accepted to college. The four-year high school graduation rate for D.C.'s traditional public school system, at 56 percent, also is much higher than it was in the mid-1990s.
Many charter high schools have introduced more academically rigorous Advanced Placement courses. Some emphasize specialized areas of study, such as law or public policy. All of them are involved in the hard but rewarding work of securing college scholarships for students, without which thousands of children from the city's most vulnerable families would not be able to afford to attend college.
Economically disadvantaged students, of whom D.C. charters educate a larger share than the traditional school system, are more likely to score advanced or proficient on D.C.'s standardized reading and math tests than their peers in the city system.
Charter schools are disproportionately located in vulnerable District neighborhoods, where poverty and crime are widespread. They can create their curriculum and school culture independently of the city-run school system's central office and the union contract. Many of them have become catalysts for improvement of the long-neglected communities they serve by renovating formerly derelict or underused buildings that attracted criminal activity, replacing them with thriving schools that are community assets.
D.C.'s charters have also pioneered investment in early education, which studies show has pronounced benefits for children later in life. A long-term study of the HighScope Perry Preschool Project in Michigan found that at-risk children left out of the high-quality program were five times more likely to be chronic offenders by age 27 than children who did attend, according to research from Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, a national nonprofit organization of law enforcement officers and violence survivors.
Children who attended the Chicago Child-Parent Center early-learning program were 29 percent more likely to graduate from high school than those who did not, research has found.
D.C. is reaping the benefits of education reform through schools that are systematically increasing the life chances of our children, benefiting every resident.
Examiner Local Editorial: Seeds of school choice are now blooming in D.C.
The Washington Examiner
November 15, 2012
Why has DC Public Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson announced plans to close 20 underenrolled D.C. public schools -- one of every six DCPS campuses -- even though the District's population has been growing at its fastest pace in 60 years? Henderson's decision -- which makes economic sense -- is a tacit admission that the school choice movement has gone mainstream in the unlikeliest of places.
DCPS is on the ropes because, in six of the city's eight wards, public charter schools have been drawing away a larger and larger number of District families who are not satisfied with its poor performance. The seeds of school choice planted three decades ago are now blossoming.
This isn't the first time DCPS has been forced to retrench. Four years ago, then-Chancellor Michelle Rhee, Henderson's mentor, closed 23 schools -- triggering a fierce backlash. Henderson hopes to mollify parents and community members still angry about the last round of school closings by holding public hearings in the six targeted wards later this month. But hearings won't erase the bitterness that city residents feel as another neighborhood school is boarded up, especially since none of the high-performing, fully enrolled schools in Ward 3 will be affected.
A recent study recommended that 38 schools citywide be closed for academic failure -- some of them have student proficiency as low as 20 percent in math and reading. But only seven of those failing schools are on Henderson's chopping block, including four in Ward 8. The chancellor admits the proposed closings are based partly on considerations besides student achievement. If DCPS were getting its students to achieve, she wouldn't need to close schools because parents wouldn't be fleeing them.
Students displaced by Rhee's school closures were twice as likely to enroll in the city's burgeoning public charter schools, and it is likely that this will happen again. That will merely hasten the day -- now just three years away if current enrollment trends continue -- when charters are educating the majority of D.C. public school children.
Henderson has already anticipated this historic shift by asking the D.C. Council for authorization to set up her own charters within DCPS. The Washington Teachers' Union also sees the handwriting on the wall, and wants to unionize charter school teachers. But that would just inject the worst aspects of DCPS -- central planning and union control -- into a school system specifically designed to circumvent them.
Looking at charter schools, apples to apples
The Washington Examiner
By David Freddoso
November 18, 2012
In Washington, D.C.'s Ward 3, the average family income is $260,000 per year. A middling home there sells for about $900,000. As of 2010, fewer than 500 people out of 77,000 were on welfare or food stamps.
The District's culture and history -- past and present -- are black, but Ward 3 is about as white as Utah. And it's about as black as Utah, too.
I do not live in Ward 3 I have nothing against the place, but we can probably agree that it's not representative of the District. Nor are its public schools.
So it's a bit misleading, for example, to say that 46 percent of DCPS students meet or exceed proficiency standards in math. A more accurate way of putting it is that in Ward 3 public schools, math proficiency is 77 percent, and it's just 41 percent in the other seven wards. The story is the same with reading: 78 percent DCPS proficiency in Ward 3, 38 percent in the rest of the city, based on my calculations from the school profile information on the DCPS website.
This should shed a bit of light on the charter school craze that has taken hold among parents outside of Ward 3 -- there are no public charter schools within Ward 3. Charters, which now teach 43 percent of all public school students in the District, perform at a somewhat better rate than the DCPS system. But when you compare the charters to the DCPS schools they're actually competing with -- the ones outside of Ward 3 -- the gap becomes more dramatic: The proficiency rate among charter students last year was about 34 percent higher in math and 30 percent higher in reading. The four-year graduation rate for all charter high schools is 77 percent, which is actually four points better than Wilson, the DCPS high school in Ward 3, and more than 20 points better than DCPS overall.
In an age when everyone is concerned about racial gaps in learning, it's also important to note that charters are getting these results while serving a more heavily black student population than DCPS, and with a greater share of low-income students who are eligible for free lunches.
This is why parents in most of D.C. are overwhelmingly choosing charter schools and leaving DCPS withering on the vine. When Chancellor Kaya Henderson announced the closure of 20 DCPS schools (all outside of Ward 3) last week due to under-enrollment, it was not for a lack of children in the District. There are actually more children enrolled in D.C. public schools today (charters and DCPS combined) than there were in 2002.
Not all charters are created equal. Some of them outperform the schools in Ward 3. Some of them -- about 10 of the 57 in town -- appear to be completely failing. But one reason the charter system works, and will continue to improve, is that its independent board can (and does) shut down worst laggards each year and replace them with new and better charter schools. Contrast that with DCPS, where the teachers' unions would rather spend $1 million defeating a sitting mayor at the ballot box (as they did in 2010) than go along quietly when a few underperforming teachers are fired.
DCPS has tried to improve its schools, and its current chancellor seems committed to the effort. Unfortunately, parents can't put their kids into suspended animation until she succeeds. They keep getting older, and they need a school that works now, not 10 years from now.
Whomever you want to blame -- the union, the educational bureaucracy, the prevailing teaching philosophies -- something isn't working in DCPS schools in most of our city's wards. One can forgive the parents in those parts of town for not hanging around until somebody figures out exactly what it is.
D.C. school closures are focus of hearing
The Washington Post
By Emma Brown
November 15, 2012
Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson’s plan to close 20 under-enrolled schools across the District drew a throng of parents, teachers and activists to a packed D.C. Council hearing room Thursday evening, the first opportunity the public has had to weigh in on the proposal that would close one in six of the city’s schools.
Some made impassioned pleas to save particular schools, while others voiced fear that shuttering half-empty schools would drive students out of the system and into public charter schools, leading to further enrollment losses, more closures in the years to come and eventually an unrecognizably shrunken city school system.
“It is treating a symptom in a way that can only worsen the disease,” said Mary Levy, an education finance lawyer and researcher who has been through eight previous rounds of closures.
Council members agreed that the chancellor must address the root problems that are driving families away — and develop a more comprehensive strategy to keep them.
“When we can answer the question as to why our schools are under-enrolled, as to why our parents are making other decisions, as to what we can do to bring our students back to neighborhood schools — then we can be on the road to success,” said Yvette M. Alexander (D-Ward 7).
Council members quibbled with some elements of the plan, which has roiled communities and provoked questions about how the city’s traditional public school system will coexist with the District’s fast-growing public charter schools.
But for the most part, the members appeared to agree with Henderson that after decades of dwindling enrollment, the school system must downsize in order to concentrate resources on improving academic programs instead of operating half-filled buildings.
“The best metaphor I can think of for what you’re doing is delivering very tough medicine for a sick patient,” said David A. Catania (I-At Large).
He said Shaw Middle School at Garnet-Patterson illustrates why under-enrolled schools are an expensive problem for the city: The school has 131 students and employs more than 26 adults — only nine of whom are teachers. “There seems to be something out of whack,” Catania said.
Henderson has promised to listen to community feedback and tweak her plan in response to what she hears. But the chancellor, who has the authority to close schools without council approval, also has made it clear that 20 schools must close unless the council is willing to spend considerably more money.
Some of the strongest outcry Thursday came on behalf of Garrison Elementary in Northwest, which is slated to be shuttered and its students sent to nearby Seaton Elementary.
With about 228 students, Garrison is operating at about two-thirds capacity. But parents say the school is building momentum, drawing more of the neighborhood’s many young families with the help of a new, energetic principal.
“We will prove to DCPS that we have strength not only in numbers, but in passion and spirit, and we’ll go down fighting,” PTA officers wrote in an e-mail to their school community.
They already have launched an online petition and social media campaign, and they have won support from two council members — Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) and Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) — for keeping the school open. Graham said if all Garrison students go to Seaton, Seaton would be overcrowded by more than 100 students.
“Doesn’t that send the message that you really don’t want students to stay in DCPS? You want them to go to charter schools?” Graham said to applause.
Evans and several parents also spoke out against the plan to close Francis-Stevens Education Campus in Foggy Bottom. Others challenged the distribution of proposed closures, which would be concentrated in Northeast Washington and east of the Anacostia River.
Under the chancellor’s plan, the closures would displace about 3,000 students, who would be sent to nearby schools with extra space. School system officials said they could not say how many employees might be laid off as a result of the closures.
Several speakers expressed concern that there will be turf battles when students from different neighborhoods are moved into the same school.
In 2008, there was trouble when P.R. Harris Middle School was consolidated with Hart Middle, said Trayon White, the Ward 8 representative on the D.C. State Board of Education.
“We are putting a lot of mixed ingredients [together], and we know there is going to be an explosion,” White said.
More than 50 people were scheduled to testify at Thursday’s hearing, the first of several public discussions of Henderson’s closure plan. Five hours into the hearing, fewer than half of them had been able to speak.
Another 50 are scheduled to testify at a second council hearing Monday, to be followed by four school-sponsored community meetings in late November and early December. Henderson has said she will finalize the closure list by mid-January.
Four takeaways from the D.C. Council's school closure hearing
The Washington Post
By Emma Brown
November 16, 2012
Thursday’s D.C. Council hearing was the first opportunity for public debate over D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson’s plan to close 20 of the District’s schools. It lasted seven hours. Here are four takeaways:
Council members appear to agree that schools must close. Now the question is: Which schools?
Henderson argues that under-enrolled schools end up spending a disproportionate number of dollars on custodians, administrators and other non-instructional personnel. Council members seemed to buy her logic.
“Consolidation makes sense,” said Chairman Phil Mendelson (D-At Large).
But council members signalled their intent to oppose the closure of certain schools in their own wards. Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) mentioned Ferebee-Hope Elementary. Yvette Alexander (D-Ward 7) flagged Smothers Elementary. Kenyan McDuffie (D-Ward 5) said he had many questions about plans for Marshall Elementary.
And Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) opposes closing the Ward 2 schools on Henderson’s list: Garrison Elementary and Francis-Stevens Education Campus. Parents are up in arms at both of those schools.
Henderson told reporters earlier this week that if one school comes off the list, another must be added. “If it’s not this school, it’s that school,” she said.
There’s a general consensus that the last round of closures was a bust. So what will the chancellor do differently this time?
Then-Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s closure of 23 schools in 2008 cost far more than anticipated and led to the exodus of thousands of kids from the school system.
“Why would we do this again?” asked Mary Levy, an education finance lawyer and longtime DCPS budget watchdog who warned of a vicious cycle of decreasing enrollments and more closures in the future.
Council members agreed that the 2008 closures hadn’t achieved their goals. (“Atrocious,” said Barry, who said the closures led to violence when kids were moved into schools with kids from rival neighborhoods. “They were handled poorly from the very beginning.)
The council members said the chancellor’s job is to avoid the mistakes of the past.
That means coming up with a strategy to retain students, council members said, and ensuring that whatever money is saved through closures is directed toward better academic programs for kids.
“Whether or not this succeeds depends I think upon its execution,” said David Catania (I-At Large). If we are going to go through this we have to learn from our mistakes. ... We have to make sure that the money follows the kids and it actually results in substantive improvements to education.”
The school system needs to figure out why families are leaving — and then fix the root problems.
“We need a plan that’s forward looking and attempts to save our schools, not wait until things are on a downward spiral and then say we have to close some,” said Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3).
Parents and activists also called for a comprehensive plan — a vision for how the school system will attract families and coexist with charter schools.
Some said the school system needs to be more sensitive to what parents want and provide them with the academic programs — such as foreign-language instruction in elementary schools — that they’re seeking.
Others said DCPS could attract parents by simply treating them with more respect.
Many said Henderson’s plan doesn’t appear to have been crafted carefully enough to keep families in the system.
Cathy Reilly, director of SHAPPE, questioned whether the plan to create two 6th-12th grade campuses at Cardozo and Roosevelt would drive middle-school students into charter schools.
And parents at Garrison Elementary, who have mounted a social media campaign and are circulating an online petition to save their school, warned that they will take their kids out of the system if the school is closed.
Ann McLeod, president of the Garrison PTA, said she would either consider a charter school “or I might have to become the biggest hypocrite and move to Maryland.”
Mendelson said city leaders have to pay attention to the role of school closures in creating an instability that repels parents. He asked the chancellor to come to Monday’s hearing prepared to address the call for a comprehensive vision for D.C. schools.
“There is a certain amount of trauma around proposing to close schools … and I’ve often felt that DCPS is insensitive to the fact that those traumas really make the commitment of parents more fragile,” Mendelson said.
“When a parent places their child in a school, they’ve invested in that school, and we don’t want that investment to be fragile.”
Parents, activists and some council members are concerned that Henderson’s plan will accelerate a divide between communities west and east of Rock Creek Park.
The chancellor didn’t propose any closures in Ward 3, where schools are overcrowded. Instead, the closures are concentrated in Wards 5, 7 and 8 — areas of the city where many families are already choosing public charter schools.
Activists see the possibility of a strong neighborhood school system in more affluent parts of the city and a dominant network of charter schools in less affluent parts.
“What we are rapidly approaching is a DCPS system concentrated west of Rock Creek Park and perhaps around Capitol Hill,” Levy said, “and a separate charter school system filled by lottery in most of the rest of the city.”
Is that a problem? Ken Archer of Greater Greater Washington articulates why he thinks it is.
At Thursday’s hearing, Ward 7 parent Alicia Rucker said she feels that the city has been more willing to come to the aid of schools in wealthier neighborhoods, and more willing to let schools in poor areas flounder and be out-competed by charters.
“The schools in the most affluent neighborhoods are the better resourced,” Rucker said, “and the ice is colder too.”
Henderson, for her part, has said she is trying to build a strong system of neighborhood schools across the city.
What will come of the buildings on D.C.'s closed-school list [Mary McLeod Bethune Day Academy PCS and Washington Latin PCS mentioned]
The Washington Post
By Jonathan O'Connell
November 18, 2012
It prompted hours of D.C. Council testimony, public shouting matches at neighborhood meetings and street demonstrations where protesters called on the mayor to be jailed.
Then-Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and his schools chancellor, Michelle Rhee, closed 23 schools four years ago. Once the schools were closed and the students relocated, the mayor transferred a dozen or more of the buildings to his deputy mayor for planning and economic development, Neil O. Albert, to see what the market value for the properties were.
Fenty was heavily criticized for his efforts to redevelop schools he and Rhee had closed. With Mayor Vincent C. Gray’s schools chancellor, Kaya Henderson, proposing to close 20 schools last week, memories of Fenty’s school redevelopment plans have been rekindled even though Henderson has proposed retaining most of the current buildings. What did Fenty achieve for his troubles? What became of those buildings?
Of 11 former school buildings that Fenty offered to the real estate market in December of 2008, none have been fully developed for commercial uses. This is in large part because of the economy; Fenty and Albert issued solicitations for the schools just three months after the collapse of Lehman Bros., when many real estate developers were scrambling for cash and not in a position to take on new projects.
Now, some of them are getting close. In August, three organizations began construction on a project that will turn the former M.M. Washington Career High School, at 27 O St. NW, into 82 subsidized apartments and 15,000 square feet of community space.
Two valuable properties that Fenty made available — the former Hine Jr. High School on Capitol Hill and the former Stevens Elementary School in the West End — are on their way to development as well. Hine is set to become a mixed-use project led by District developers EastBanc and Stanton, while District-based Akridge and Ivymount School plan to turn Stevens into an office building and special education center.
Many remain tied to education
Three of the schools Fenty proposed developing will assume new educational uses. Bertie Backus Middle School, at 5171 S. Dakota Ave. NE, is used by the University of the District of Columbia’s community college. Mary McLeod Bethune Day Academy Public Charter School took over the former Slowe Elementary School, while Washington Latin Public Charter School plans to open in the former Randolph School.
Of the remaining five schools Fenty proposed for redevelopment, three remain vacant (Langston, Randall Highlands and Young) according to the office of the deputy mayor for planning and economic development.
The former John Fox Slater elementary school has been used for a child care facility while the former Grimke School, on Vermont Avenue Northwest just south of U Street, contains some District and cultural offices currently but is viewed as a future development site.
Two other schools not included in Fenty’s original solicitation, Bruce Monroe on Georgia Avenue and Gage-Eckington in LeDroit Park, were torn down and turned into parks.
Henderson reiterated before the D.C. Council last week that she would like to retain most of the 19 buildings currently occupied by the schools she plans to close, with a final decision on the closures expected in January.
By law, charter schools have the right of first refusal for buildings the city decides that it does not need. But some buildings may be required for swing space as other schools are renovated, while others may be needed as the city grows.
Council member Yvette Alexander (D-Ward 7) said with so many apartments being built in her ward, some of the buildings may be needed in the near future. “We want to have schools in the community to accommodate them,” she said.
Council: D.C. schools need thorough improvement plan
The Washington Examiner
By Lisa Gartner
November 15, 2012
The D.C. Council called for a more comprehensive plan for improving DC Public Schools than the school system's proposal to close 20 campuses, as dozens of parents lined up Thursday night to protest the closings.
"We have a situation where we have schools in a downward spiral, and what happens is they're in this downward spiral, and resources are cut, so they're in a further downward spiral," Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh said at a hearing on the proposed closings that stretched well into the night. "We need a plan that's forward-looking to save our schools."
Mary Levy, an education finance lawyer who has done budget work for the council, said she has been involved in eight rounds of school closings, and this proposal "is more troubling than any of its predecessors. It is misplaced and mistimed, because it deals with a symptom in a way that can only worsen the illness it brings about": parents' unwillingness to send their children to DCPS campuses.
DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson announced Tuesday that the school system was targeting 20 schools for closure, including 18 neighborhood schools that would shut by next year.
Because schools are funded according to how many students attend them, underenrolled schools need to be "subsidized" by DCPS to pay for administrative and facility costs, Henderson said. By closing some of those schools, she could use those dollars to ensure every school has librarians, art teachers and multiple classes per grade level.
But lawmakers questioned why school closings were happening in a vacuum, when other, intertwined issues remain unaddressed, such as new school boundaries and feeder patterns, how DCPS should work with -- rather than against -- public charter schools, and the underlying reasons that schools couldn't attract enough students.
"We really need to get to the root causes for why our schools are closing," said Ward 7 Councilwoman Yvette Alexander.
Why was Francis-Stevens Education Campus closing to make room for School Without Walls to expand, instead of focusing on a long-term approach to the magnet high school's overflowing success? When boundaries are redrawn to relieve crowding in Ward 3, where will students go? Why was Garrison Elementary closing, when its parents were rallying around the school and starting projects to improve the facilities? What would it take to make Ward 7 schools attractive to parents?
Though Henderson explicitly said schools are not closing because of low performance, she has acknowledged that it's a significant factor in underenrollment.
Parents were frustrated that in some cases, their children would be sent to schools with lower math and reading proficiency rates than their current schools up for closure.
"It's not safer. It's not better," said Tom Martin, a parent at Francis-Stevens. "If your goal is to keep students in the DCPS system and attract new students, this closure would further erode parents' trust in your system."
DCPS gives parent the bum's rush
The Washington Examiner
By Jonette Rose Barras
November 15, 2012
Parents and advocates calling for a moratorium on school closings are not obstructionists. They have legitimate concerns about DC Public Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson's proposal to shutter or consolidate 20 facilities.
Why would the city proceed without first reviewing an independent evaluation of mayoral control of public education expected next year? Henderson finally has agreed to propose changes to school boundaries that have not been altered for decades. Those adjustments won't come until June 2013 and could affect building use. Why the bum's rush?
"A lot of other work has not been done, that's our big concern," said Daniel del Pielago, with the nonprofit Empower DC that has been working with parents affected by the closings. Several testified Thursday at the first of two public hearings before the D.C. Council.
"I don't think you wait," council Chairman Phil Mendelson told me prior to the hearing. He said closing underused buildings "makes sense" but noted during previous closures one or two schools came off the list after public hearings.
"I wouldn't be surprised if something like that happened this time," continued Mendelson, cautioning the council has no "formal approval role."
But, they should rigorously examine Henderson's plan, which advocates said lacks sufficient details.
Jeff Smith, a parent with DC Voice, a nonprofit education advocacy group, said they would like more specifics about the benefits that would accrue to consolidated schools. "Those should be spelled out." Then, there is the matter of "costs, savings and layoffs" of personnel. "The mayor should not come in moving people out of their school homes without being required to provide detailed information."
Where particulars have been offered, they are confusing. Henderson has used a projected decline from 2012 to 2015 in school-age children to justify the closings, which begin with the 2013-2014 school year. But her data also indicate a correlating population uptick citywide beginning in 2015 through 2020.
Despite 64 percent occupancy, Garrison Elementary School is on the closure list. It and Francis-Stevens were identified by former Chancellor Michelle Rhee as growth schools. "Francis-Stevens can also become a school that has a lot of demand, if we do things right," Rhee told me in 2010.
Somebody dropped the ball. So parents are getting jerked around. Francis-Stevens initially was a middle school. Under Rhee, it became pre-K through 8th grade. Now, Henderson wants to make it a satellite high school.
That sound you hear is parents racing to the nearest charter school, where viable education programs are created with populations less than 300. Achievement Preparatory Academy in Ward 8 has only 202 students. DC Prep-Edgewood Middle in Ward 5 -- the city's top-rated charter -- serves 260, according to Public Charter School Board documents.
Henderson has said money is being spent on buildings and staffing -- not on classrooms. Is that a problem related to leadership priorities or financial pressures? Further, how much is DCPS spending on central administration? And should the consistent reduction in DCPS' portfolio -- students and buildings -- mean a correlating reduction in salaries, including Henderson's?
I'm just asking.
Quality controls lacking for D.C. schools accepting federal vouchers [Ideal Academy PCS mentioned]
The Washington Post
By Lyndsey Layton and Emma Brown
November 17, 2012
Congress created the nation’s only federally funded school voucher program in the District to give the city’s poorest children a chance at a better education than their neighborhood schools offer.
But a Washington Post review found that hundreds of students use their voucher dollars to attend schools that are unaccredited or are in unconventional settings, such as a family-run K-12 school operating out of a storefront, a Nation of Islam school based in a converted Deanwood residence, and a school built around the philosophy of a Bulgarian psychotherapist.
At a time when public schools face increasing demands for accountability and transparency, the 52 D.C. private schools that receive millions of federal voucher dollars are subject to few quality controls and offer widely disparate experiences, the Post found.
Some of these schools are heavily dependent on tax dollars, with more than 90 percent of their students paying with federal vouchers.
Yet the government has no say over curriculum, quality or management. And parents trying to select a school have little independent information, relying mostly on marketing from the schools.
The director of the nonprofit organization that manages the D.C. vouchers on behalf of the federal government calls quality control “a blind spot.”
“We’ve raised the question of quality oversight of the program as sort of a dead zone, a blind spot,” said Ed Davies, interim executive director of the D.C. Children and Youth Investment Trust Corp. “Currently, we don’t have that authority. It doesn’t exist.”
Republicans in Congress established the D.C. voucher program eight years ago to demonstrate the school-choice concepts that the party has been espousing since the 1950s. Vouchers were once thought to be moribund, but came roaring to life in 2010 in states where Republicans took control. Fourteen states have created voucher programs or expanded existing ones in recent years.
Some states, such as Wisconsin, now include middle-class families in their voucher programs. Other states, including Virginia, have begun indirectly steering public dollars to private schools by offering tax credits to those who donate to scholarship funds.
In some cases, the public has pushed back against the idea of routing state dollars from public to private schools. Legal challenges are pending in Colorado and Indiana. In the November elections, Florida voters rejected a ballot amendment that would have permitted tax dollars to flow to religious institutions, including parochial schools. That would have enabled the state to revive a voucher program that had been declared unconstitutional in 2006 by its highest court. Yet Florida continues to offer vouchers for disabled students who want to attend private schools and awards tax credits to corporations that donate to private-school scholarship programs.
In the District, it’s clear that vouchers have provided many children with an education at well-established private schools that otherwise would have been out of reach, and their parents rave about the opportunity. Of the 1,584 District students now receiving vouchers, more than half attend Catholic schools and a handful are enrolled at prestigious independent schools such as Sidwell Friends, where President Obama sends his daughters.
See link above for full article