- More students attending D.C. public schools [FOCUS mentioned]
- D.C. charter school enrollment outpaces that of DCPS
- D.C. considers crackdown on cheating by teachers
- D.C. Mayor Gray creates education cabinet
More students attending D.C. public schools [FOCUS mentioned]
The Washington Examiner
By Rachel Baye
February 6, 2013
Public school enrollment in the District climbed 5 percent this school year, the largest growth rate in more than 40 years, city officials announced Wednesday.
Charter schools accounted for the majority of the growth, with a 10 percent increase. The public charter schools now enroll 43 percent of the city's 80,230 students, or 34,673 kids, compared with traditional schools' 45,557 students, the data show.
By comparison, DC Public Schools' enrollment grew by just less than 1 percent, or 366 kids.
"I think charter schools will make up the majority of our public school population within two years," said D.C. Councilman David Catania, who heads the council's new Education Committee. "The trajectory is pretty stark."
The new data comes just a few weeks after DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson announced the school system would close 15 underperforming
schools, although the enrollment data released Wednesday forecast a trend of climbing enrollment, with the growth concentrated in younger grades as the city's population grows.
With enrollment on the decline for years, the District has been actively targeting young children by expanding prekindergarten programs, a fact that Mayor Vincent Gray touted in his State of the District Address on Tuesday night.
But the new data don't change the need to close schools, said Melissa Salmanowitz, Henderson's spokeswoman.
"We are glad to see that enrollment has increased," she said. "We still had many significantly underenrolled schools, which prevent us from providing the opportunities that we know all students deserve."
Between 2008 and 2010, then-Chancellor Michelle Rhee also closed 25 schools.
DCPS' closures of traditional public schools is likely part of the reason parents are increasingly choosing charters, said David Pickens, executive director of DC School Reform Now. "You have a bunch of parents who are disgruntled with the traditional system ... and they're not really sure where they're going to go, what their options are."
He said charters' growth is fueled by their aggressive marketing, pointing to events like the DC Public Charter School Expo every January.
Since the District has no true uniform system of comparing the qualities of charters versus traditional schools, parents are relying on these marketing campaigns and word of mouth to determine the best education options for their children, Catania said.
If traditional public schools want to compete, individual school leaders should start marketing their schools themselves, not waiting for DCPS' central office to do something, Pickens said.
The District should learn to embrace the charter schools, said Robert Cane, executive director of Friends of Choice in Urban Schools, which advocates for charters.
"The government has never embraced the charter schools, so all of this growth is happening, in a manner of speaking, in spite of the government," he said.
See link above for chart.
D.C. charter school enrollment outpaces that of DCPS
The Washington Post
By Emma Brown
February 6, 2013
The District’s public charter schools are growing far faster than the traditional school system, according to audited enrollment figures released Wednesday by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education.
The audited figures confirm a trend first apparent when unaudited numbers were released in October: Charters now enroll 43 percent of the city’s public school students, up from 41 percent in 2011.
Charter schools enrolled 34,673 students in fall 2012, a 10 percent jump from fall 2011 that continues more than a decade of steady growth.
D.C. Public Schools’ enrollment, meanwhile, grew 1 percent between 2011 and 2012 to 45,557.
Total enrollment in both school sectors increased about 5 percent to more than 80,000 students — the fourth consecutive year of citywide growth.
The school system, which lost tens of thousands of students after its enrollment peak in the 1960s, has held more or less steady since 2009. But competition from charters has been a challenge for DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson, who is closing 15 schools for low enrollment.
The school closures have led to calls from activists and parents for city leaders to develop a comprehensive plan for how the two school sectors should coexist. Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) said Tuesday in his State of the District address that his education cabinet is in the midst of forming that plan.
D.C. considers crackdown on cheating by teachers
The Washington Examiner
By Eric P. Newcomer
February 5, 2013
Teachers caught altering students' scores or answers on standardized tests administered District-wide could face serious penalties if legislation introduced by D.C. Councilman David Catania on Tuesday becomes law.
Under the proposal, school officials who violate the law could face up to a $10,000 fine, the loss of their teaching certificates or administrative credentials, and the cost of covering "any expenses incurred" by the city because of a finding of testing violations.
The proposal comes in the face of widespread allegations that school officials cheated to boost test results in the District. In August, the D.C. inspector general determined that teachers at the Noyes Education Campus cheated on standardized tests in 2010. It remains unclear whether similar cheating extended throughout the city.
During the tenure of D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, teachers and school administrators faced mounting pressure to see test scores improve. Since Rhee's departure, test scores have continued to play a significant role in evaluating school officials.
"It's your livelihood. I don't see how the pressure could be greater than that," said Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh, who co-introduced the bill. "What we want to do is assure in the future that these results are reliable."
Nathan Saunders, president of the Washington Teachers' Union, said he had some reservations about the proposal.
"I'm concerned that only teachers would be the victims and not enough management," Saunders said. "We want the machine that promotes cheating to be attacked."
Saunders said the union would draft changes to the legislation and bring them to the council. Still, he said, "It's movement in the right direction."
As it stands, the Testing Integrity Act applies to "any person who violates, assists in the violation of, solicits another to violate or assist in the violation of this act ... or fails to report such a violation."
The law contains a number of specific prohibitions, including altering test procedures articulated in manuals for test administrators, possessing answer keys to "secure" tests and allowing students to use notes that aren't permitted.
The legislation mirrors laws in a number of states, including Florida, Oregon and Virginia, according to Catania's spokesman.
D.C. Mayor Gray creates education cabinet
The Examiner
By Mark Lerner
February 7, 2013
Tuesday night's State of the District speech by Mayor Gray Tuesday evening included this bombshell. Apparently he has formed an education cabinet composed of representatives from DCPS, the State Superintendent of Education, the Public Charter School Board, the Interim Deputy Mayor for Education, and his office. The goals of the cabinet are as follows:
"To empower families to understand and access all aspects of our education system;
To promote equity across our education sectors so that all children, regardless of which school they attend, have the resources they need to succeed;
To plan across our education sectors in a way that ensures access to quality educational seats in every neighborhood; and
To develop a transparent way to hold District government leaders and their education partners accountable for these outcomes."
Of course, goal number two is the most interesting one because a few paragraphs earlier in his address the Mayor provides a long list of dollars provided to the traditional schools that charters cannot access:
"Since I took office, we have opened a brand-new H.D. Woodson Senior High School along with modernized Anacostia and Wilson Senior High School and Turner and Moten Elementary Schools. We’re also constructing a new Dunbar Senior High School that will be ready next school year and have unveiled the breathtaking design for a brand-new Ballou Senior High School.
In addition, full modernizations of Cardozo Senior High School and Stuart-Hobson Middle School are well underway, and we completed Phase 1 modernizations for Amidon-Bowen Elementary, Brookland Education Campus at Bunker Hill, Bruce-Monroe at Parkview Elementary, Ketcham Elementary, LaSalle-Backus Education Campus, Leckie Elementary, Nalle Elementary, and Ross Elementary.
And we are initiating the transformation of Spingarn High School, which is, of course, located along our new H Street streetcar line. We’re turning it into a Career Technical Education campus with a special focus on transportation careers."
Let's pretend you are a member of the board of directors of a D.C. charter, sitting in the audience as the Mayor proudly reels off the millions he has allocated to renovate DCPS buildings. You try to remain silent as you recall you have just spent the last two years of your life fighting every day for an award of a shuttered traditional school. The lease is running out on the current inadequate location and without this award there will be nowhere to go. You did this as a volunteer struggling mightily to balance work and family with the needs of your students. You did it because it is the right thing to do since you know in your heart and in your head that kids are getting a tremendously better education compared to the one they would obtain at the neighborhood facility. It is the public education they and every child deserves as a civil right. But it is hard, extremely hard work. You are just about to close on a double-digit bank loan with six trailing zeros that modernizes the closed DCPS site that has been vandalized to the point that the copper piping inside has been stolen. The loan will be paid back with every dime of the $3,000 per student facility allotment that has not been increased in years. And if for some reason enrollment drops then you have no idea how to make up the lost revenue to pay the mortgage.
You sit there, griping your hands tightly so as to not starting screaming, listening to a man who ran for office on equity between the two school systems. Nothing has so far been done and it is difficult to believe that you are the last person to go through this hell.