- Let charters use shuttered school buildings
- DC students test scores better on health than reading and math
- D.C. officials call first school health test results valuable
- Parents prod Henderson for specifics
Let charters use shuttered school buildings
The Current
By Tom Nida
December 12, 2012
Last month, the city announced plans to close 20 public schools. This follows a city-commissioned report highlighting poor academic performance in many District public schools.
The report underscored the need to add 39,758 quality seats for every child to receive the same quality schooling as in D.C.’s top-performing public schools. The report recommends closure or new management for the worst performers.
Many of the city’s underperforming schools are under enrolled. Enrollment in the city’s traditional public school system is about one-third of what it was when I graduated from Anacostia High School in 1966.
While school system enrollment has been flat for the past five years — after decades of decline — the system retains more building space than it requires. Cardozo High is one example. Built in 1928 to house 1,500-plus, it enrolls one-third that number. Many other school buildings lie derelict or are used for non-educational purposes while charter schools are often forced to find inadequate facilities in the commercial market.
But D.C. Public Schools is not the sum total of public education in the District. Some 43 percent of District public school students are educated in publicly funded charter schools independently of the traditional school system. Based on historic trends, charters will soon have the majority of D.C. public school enrollment.
Unlike traditional public schools, charters must find a building in which to operate. Almost always, this means buying or leasing space and renovating it — competing for commercial real estate and loans.
For years the city has allowed many school buildings that it could no longer fill to rot, or sold them to private developers for luxury condominiums. Meanwhile, charters have had to convert office, retail or warehouse space at great expense, or even locate in church basements. A lucky few have paid millions to repair, restore and renovate derelict school buildings, after the city agreed to lease or sell them. Financing these renovations has been very difficult for most charters in this economic climate.
Charters’ lack of city funds — charter students receive half the city facilities funds as their D.C. Public Schools peers — is not because of inferior academic performance.
D.C. charters have a high-school graduation rate that is 21 percentage points higher than the school system’s, and much higher college-acceptance rates.
D.C. charters post higher student test scores than the traditional system, especially among disadvantaged students. Charter test scores among D.C. students eligible for federal lunch subsidies are 12 percentage points higher in reading, and 16 points higher in math than those of D.C. Public Schools. Some 77 percent of charter students qualify for these while 69 percent of the school system’s students do so.
District law requires the city to allow charters to offer to buy or lease school buildings no longer used by the school system before developers can. Successive administrations flouted this by failing to request offers on surplus school buildings, rejecting multiple charter bids, opening some facilities to private development, or using them for government office space.
This latest round of closures is the eighth downsizing of the school system’s real estate inventory. Of the 19 proposed building closures, the government is making only three available to charters — and these only if the charters agree to partner with the school system, creating a new school.
In two years, Mayor Gray has requested offers on 11 vacant D.C. Public Schools properties. Of these, four buildings received multiple charter bids, all of them rejected. An additional four buildings were awarded to charters. One building is in such a state of disrepair that no charter schools bid for it. The remaining two are slated for non-charter uses.
The D.C. government knows that it needs nearly 40,000 new seats in high-performing schools and that charters have 15,000 more student applications than spaces but can’t find adequate and affordable facilities.
Why empty more school buildings of children when tens of thousands of District children cannot access a quality public education? And how can the mayor justify allowing the school system to retain control of the buildings being closed, mothballing a number of them in case D.C. Public Schools enrollment grows between now and 2022?
The District’s children — especially those who live in our most vulnerable communities — need charter schools to be able to offer quality seats in these school buildings now.
Tom Nida, former chair of the D.C. Public Charter School Board, is regional vice president of United Bank for D.C. and Maryland.
DC students test scores better on health than reading and math
The Washington Times
By Tome Howell, Jr.
December 13, 2012
Standardized test scores released Wednesday show select students in the nation’s capital answered questions about disease prevention and nutrition correctly last spring at better rates than they did on the reading and math sections of their tests.
Among high school students, 75 percent correctly answered questions about sexuality and reproduction as part of the ground-breaking effort to assess youths’ knowledge of health topics such as emotional health, safety skills and physical education, according to figures released by the D.C. Office of the State Superintendent for Education (OSSE).
More than 11,000 students from high school and grades 5 and 8 —who are enrolled in health courses — took the exam in April as part of the regularly scheduled standardized test called the D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System.
Overall, students in both D.C. Public Schools and D.C. Public Charter Schools answered an average of 62 percent of the questions correctly, according to OSSE. The results exceeded the public school students’ proficiency on in math and reading, at about 49 percent and 46 percent, respectively, in scores released in July.
However, respondents to the health questions may have included students who did not take the traditional DC CAS in those core subjects.
Adam Tenner, executive director of the Metro TeenAIDS organization that aims to prevent HIV infection among youth in the D.C. area, praised the exam as “historic.”
“While the results are concerning to Metro TeenAIDS, they demonstrate exactly how serious this epidemic is and which schools are most in need of improvement. …To be clear, the reproductive health assessment questions on the CAS exam are not a ‘sex test’ but a necessary component of any holistic curriculum,” Mr. Tenner said.
D.C. officials established the health-related questions as a result of the Healthy Schools Act of 2010 pushed by council member Mary M. Cheh, Ward 3 Democrat.
The results will be presented to a pair of D.C. Council committees on Thursday, including one chaired by Ms. Cheh.
“Research shows that healthier students perform better academically,” Deputy Superintendent Sandra Schlicker said. “D.C. continues to be cutting edge by placing emphasis on student health, understanding that good health is critical to the success of our students and the future generation of leaders in our city.”
D.C. officials call first school health test results valuable
The Washington Post
By Rebecca Cohen
December 13, 2012
Students in the District scored an average of 62 percent on the nation’s first standardized health test, results that were better than education officials had expected because D.C. schools have not had a long history of teaching subjects the test covered.
The test, which examined students’ familiarity with nutrition, wellness, disease prevention and sex education, was administered to students in fifth and eighth grades and in high school in the spring. The District’s Healthy Schools Act of 2010 mandated the testing, which city officials said presented a good starting point for understanding students’ knowledge in those areas.
Sandra Schlicker, director of wellness and nutrition services for the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, told D.C. Council members that she was “pleasantly surprised” with the results when council member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3) asked her if a 62 percent score was one the city should celebrate.
“I think these results for a base line are fairly good,” Schlicker said, adding that because no other city or state has ever administered such a test, it’s difficult to know how D.C.’s scores would stack up.
More than 11,000 students in the D.C. public schools and public charter schools took the 50-question exam.
At the time, critics denounced the idea as excessive standardized testing and said city schools should focus on raising low math and English scores.
But leaders of organizations that work on teen health in the District said at Thursday’s hearing that the test results are a valuable evaluative resource.
Scores on the reproductive health section of the test, where high school students answered an average of 75 percent of the questions correctly, might improve if schools devoted more class time to that subject, said Shana Bartley, a peer health and sexuality education program coordinator at the Young Women’s Project. In her work with teenage girls, Bartley said, she hears from many who wish they had more chances to discuss the subject in class.
“They have one week to learn about condoms and anatomy, and then they move on to fire safety,” Bartley said.
She called for schools to provide a breakdown of which health subjects are being taught, and when. Right now, she said, it can be unclear what is included in a school’s health curriculum.
Geetha Ananthakrishnan, a public policy coordinator for Metro TeenAIDS, said the results will help her organization decide where to focus its attention as it works to educate young people.
But Ananthakrishnan said she was concerned by what she called the “extreme delay” in the release of the results. Results from other standardized tests D.C. students took in the spring came out in July.
Schlicker said officials in superintendent of education’s office will continue to refine the test. The office will evaluate the effectiveness of the questions in measuring what students have learned, and it plans to reach out to schools that underperform, she said.
Parents prod Henderson for specifics
The Current
By Deirdre Bannon
December 12, 2012
As the fallout continues from Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson’s proposal to close 20 under-enrolled D.C. public schools, hundreds of community members turned up at meeting she hosted last week. But what was billed as a “community dialogue” for wards 1, 2, 4 and 6 left many disappointed with a process that avoided providing direct answers.
Parents, teachers and community stakeholders came to the Dec. 5 meeting expecting a back-and-forth exchange with the chancellor. Instead attendees were asked to sit at tables in small groups — some designated for specific schools, including Garrison Elementary, Francis-Stevens Education Campus and MacFarland Middle — and discuss their concerns with a D.C. Public Schools representative.
In her opening remarks, Henderson explained that the “endgame” with the closures is “the best use of our resources.” She said she often hears complaints from stake-holders about how they “never hear why a school was closed,” but she emphasized “that will be different this time.”
The process for the meeting, though, in some ways played out like a condensed rerun of last month’s 16-hour, two-part D.C. Council hearing on the closures.
After 45 minutes of individual group discussions in the gym of Ward 4’s Brightwood Education Campus, a representative from each table reported highlights to the larger audience. Like last month’s council hearing, people pleaded for their schools not to be closed and some offered suggestions to help keep their schools open. The chancellor did not provide feedback to the specific comments or questions raised.
“The dialogue that was happening was between the communities and not between the communities and DCPS,” said Ann McLeod, president of the Garrison Elementary PTA, which opposes the proposed plan for Garrison to consolidate with Seaton Elementary. “We got none of our questions answered.”
Melissa Salmanowitz, spokesperson for the chancellor’s office, said the meeting was designed to allow everyone a chance to be heard, and that remarks recorded by each table’s facilitator will be passed along to the chancellor.
Many communities have set up or sought future meetings with Henderson to discuss specific proposals in more detail.
At the beginning of last week’s meeting, Henderson emphasized that under-enrollment was the key factor when deciding which schools to close or consolidate. “Don’t come to me with 500 petition signatures saying don’t close my school,” she said, “Come to me with 500 enrollment forms.”
McLeod questioned the logic of that remark. Though as PTA president she often works to recruit new students, she said, “That shouldn’t be the parents’ responsibility — that’s DCPS’s job.” McLeod said Garrison has done everything the chancellor has asked in recent years to help strengthen the school.
Vanessa Bertelli, another Garrison PTA member, said in an interview that Henderson’s statement was “fundamentally flawed.”
“Why would a parent commit to a school before DCPS commits to it?” Bertelli asked. “We’re willing to work together, but DCPS can’t put that burden [of enrollment] on parents,” when factors that would help make a school more attractive “are in DCPS’s control” — including modern facilities and improved programming and feeder systems, she said.
Many attendees had hoped for more direct interaction with Henderson to understand why their school was slated for closure or consolidation, with some threatening to leave the school system if the proposed changes take place.
“It’s like the story of the blind men and the elephant — everyone comes away with a different idea of what happened at the meeting,” said D. Kamili Anderson, Ward 4 representative to the D.C. State Board of Education, of the small-group discussion format. “What we’re not getting from the chancellor is a comprehensive understanding of why each school is being closed, and that’s unfortunate.”
At the meeting, many community stakeholders at the MacFarland Middle School table expressed opposition to Henderson’s plan to consolidate Ward 4’s only standalone middle school with Roosevelt High School. They cited safety, educational and social concerns about mixing 11-year-olds with 18-yearolds in one school, and want Henderson to put the brakes on closing MacFarland until there’s more discussion on both the consolidation proposal and forthcoming school boundary changes that could impact Ward 4.
“It’s a crapshoot,” said Anderson. “The sixth-to-12th-grade model is largely untested in DCPS — we don’t have enough data to say this is the way to go forward, and yet they are asking people to accept it.”
Some parents said that if the two schools are combined, they will opt instead for charter schools or private schools — which would further diminish the student body at the under enrolled MacFarland and Roosevelt.
Parents said they’d be convinced to stay by stronger programming — like a global or international curriculum, language immersion, or vocational or technological curriculum — so MacFarland can compete with Ward 3’s Deal Middle.
To hear from more MacFarland parents, Ward 4 Council member Muriel Bowser is working to arrange a public meeting with Henderson to further discuss the consolidation. Unlike stakeholders at MacFarland, those from Francis-Stevens Education Campus said at the meeting that they would be willing to share their school with high school students if it means keeping the school open.
Henderson’s plan calls for School Without Walls, a magnet public high school, to take over the Francis-Stevens facility as a secondary campus. The pre-kindergarten to eighth grade students who currently attend Francis-Stevens would relocate to Marie Reed Elementary or Hardy Middle.
Francis-Stevens is the only elementary school serving the Foggy Bottom and West End neighborhoods, and it enrolls approximately one-third of its student body in its early childhood program.
“We’re open to a variety of different options,” said Tim Ryan, vice president of the Francis-Stevens PTA, in an interview. “We want to work with the chancellor to keep our school open.”
The PTA planned to meet with Henderson Wednesday morning to present a number of options for Francis-Stevens, such as educational partnerships with neighboring institutions like the Kennedy Center and George Washington University.
Ryan said if Francis-Stevens is closed, he is likely to pull his preschool- age child out of D.C. Public Schools in part because the commute would go from a short walk to one involving three public buses.
“You won’t lose students for one or two years, but for 18 years,” Ryan said. “Once we’re out of the public school system, we won’t come back, and the next choice would be to move out of D.C. altogether. The future of DCPS is at stake.”
Garrison parents were vocal in their opposition to merge with Seaton Elementary, located about a half-mile away. Critics argue that Seaton doesn’t have enough room to fit all the students.
About 60 percent of Garrison’s students are from lower-income families, and many receive special education instruction, according to McLeod, who said Seaton has a similar population. “Putting kids who need the most support in a crowded situation is detrimental,” she said.
Henderson will meet with Garrison’s PTA officers on Dec. 18 to review parents’ counter-proposal to the consolidation, which will focus on improving the facility and its feeder patterns, programming and communication strategies.