- Nine D.C. charter school applicants to present ideas at public hearing
- D.C. schools brace for population boom
- Bill Gates: A fairer way to evaluate teachers
- Barry Pushes Preschool Legislation [AppleTree PCS mentioned]
The Washington Post
By Emma Brown
April 3, 2013
Nine groups seeking to open new charter schools in the District will present their ideas at a D.C. Public Charter School Board hearing Monday. The hearing is a chance for charter board members to ask questions before voting to approve or deny each of the nine applications on May 20. It is also the public’s opportunity to weigh in on the proposals; community members can sign up to testify by calling the charter board at 202-328-2748 by 3 p.m. on Friday.
The nine applicants include eight local groups and one nationally known charter management organization, Connections Education, which is seeking to open a blended-learning high school in Ward 2. The other proposals include three alternative high schools for at-risk young adults and two Montessori programs for younger children. They also include a Ward 4 middle school; an adult GED program in wards 5 and 8; and a shuttered Ward 7 private school seeking to convert to public funding.
Groups that win approval from the charter board could open their doors to students as early as fall 2014. The hearing is scheduled to begin at 6:20 p.m., at Carlos Rosario International Public Charter School at 1100 Harvard St. NW.
The Washington Examiner
By Rachel Baye
April 3, 2013
City needs space for 33,000 youngsters over next five years The District is seeing a boom in its population of children younger than 5, prompting local education experts to question whether the city's schools can handle the growth. The District had 33,348 children under 5 in 2011, according to census figures, accounting for more than a quarter of the city's 94,429 youths age 19 and younger. The increase has been driven by an influx of adults younger than 35 to the District over the last 10 years, said Peter Tatian, a senior research associate at the Urban Institute's Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center. With drops in crime in the city and housing prices in the suburbs soaring, many of these young adults have decided to raise their families in the District.
But keeping them in the city requires the schools, which currently enroll 80,230 in traditional public schools and charter schools, to keep up. "There's a lot of young families, and if we offer them high-quality schools, many of them will stay," said DC Public Charter School Board Executive Director Scott Pearson. "If we don't offer them high-quality schools, we think they will leave." The largest group -- 20,157, or 60.4 percent -- of the District's children under age 5 are younger than 3, indicating that the city's schools are just beginning to see the population growth affect their enrollment as the children enter prekindergarten and kindergarten. The city is expected to add an average 2,850 children ages 5 to 17 per year until 2017, a growth of 20.5 percent, and an average 4,810 children per year for each of the following five years, a growth of 28.7 percent, according to a recent report by Mayor Vincent Gray's office.
Some D.C. Public Schools have begun adding prekindergarten seats for next year. For example, Garrison Elementary -- which was on Chancellor Kaya Henderson's initial list of underenrolled schools slated to close but was saved in January -- expects to fill one more class, bringing the Ward 2 school to five prekindergarten classes, said Principal Collin Hill. The report forecasts a more than 200-seat deficit at schools in one-third of D.C. neighborhoods. Other neighborhoods likely will continue to have empty seats despite the growth, the mayor's report said, partly because the traditional public schools and charter schools have planned campuses independently of each other.
The Public Charter School Board plans to start advertising to prospective charter school operators where the city needs new schools to accommodate population growth, Pearson said. "We don't want to tell a charter, 'You can't go here,' or 'You can go here,' because charters are citywide schools of choice," he said, "but we do think we should take into account where the need for schools is greatest." DCPS spokeswoman Melissa Salmanowitz said the school system is working with the D.C. Office of Planning to incorporate population growth in decisions regarding future school openings and closings.
The biggest challenge is going to be making sure the District offers high-quality schools from the early years through 12th grade, said David Pickens, executive director of DC School Reform Now. He emphasized a need for more high-quality middle schools, especially among traditional public schools. Given the small number of children the District has compared with other urban areas, making sure every student has a seat at a quality school should be manageable, said Gwen Rubinstein, deputy director of DC Action for Children, which plans to release a report on the issue in coming weeks. "The city's future depends on us getting this right, and we can and we should."
The Washington Post
By Bill Gates
April 3, 2013
Tom Brady may be the best quarterback in football, but he is also infamously, hilariously slow. YouTube videos of his 40-yard dash have gotten many thousands of hits from sports fans looking for a good laugh. If the New England Patriots had chosen a quarterback based only on foot speed, they would have missed out on three Super Bowl victories. But National Football League teams ask prospects to run, jump and lift weights. They interview them for hours. They watch game film. In short, they use multiple measures to determine the best players.
In much the same way that sports teams identify and nurture talent, there is a window of opportunity in public education to create systems that encourage and develop fantastic teachers, leading to better results for students. Efforts are being made to define effective teaching and give teachers the support they need to be as effective as possible. But as states and districts rush to implement new teacher development and evaluation systems, there is a risk they’ll use hastily contrived, unproven measures. One glaring example is the rush to develop new assessments in grades and subjects not currently covered by state tests. Some states and districts are talking about developing tests for all subjects, including choir and gym, just so they have something to measure.
In one Midwestern state, for example, a 166-pagePhysical Education Evaluation Instrumentholds teachers accountable for ensuring that students meet state-defined targets for physical education, such as consistently demonstrating “correct skipping technique with a smooth and effortless rhythm” and “strike consistently a ball with a paddle to a target area with accuracy and good technique.” I’m not making this up! This is one reason there is a backlash against standardized tests — in particular, using student test scores as the primary basis for making decisions about firing, promoting and compensating teachers. I’m all for accountability, but I understand teachers’ concerns and frustrations.
Even in subjects where the assessments have been validated, such as literacy and math, test scores don’t show a teacher areas in which they need to improve. If we aren’t careful to build a system that provides feedback and that teachers trust, this opportunity to dramatically improve the U.S. education system will be wasted. The fact is, teachers want to be accountable to their students. What the country needs are thoughtfully developed teacher evaluation systems that include multiple measures of performance, such as student surveys, classroom observations by experienced colleagues and student test results.
Of particular concern is the possibility that test results alone will be used to determine a large part of how much teachers get paid. I have talked to many teachers over the past several years, and not one has told me they would be more motivated, or become a better teacher, by competing with other teachers in their school. To the contrary, teachers want an environment based on collaboration, in which they can rely on one another to share lesson plans, get advice and understand what’s working well in other classrooms. Surveys by MetLife and other research of teachers back this up. Teachers also tell me that while compensation is important, so are factors such as high-quality professional development opportunities, a strong school leader, engaged families and the chance to work with like-minded colleagues.
While there is justification for rewarding teachers based in part on how their students perform, compensation systems should use multiple measures, including classroom observation. In top-performing education systems in other parts of the world, such as Singapore and Shanghai, accomplished teachers earn more by taking on additional responsibilities such as coaching and mentoring other teachers and helping to capture and spread effective teaching techniques. Such systems are a way to attract, retain and reward the best teachers; make great use of their skills; and honor the collaborative nature of work in schools. States, districts and the U.S. Education Department would do well to encourage the right balance. States such as Connecticut, Delaware and Kentucky are showing leadership in creating feedback and evaluation systems that reflect the patience and involvement of teachers and administrators. This is what’s required to build the kind of infrastructure that stands the test of time.
Exciting progress is being made in education across the country. The challenge now is to make sure we balance the urgency for change with the need to ensure fair ways to develop, evaluate and compensate teachers for the work they do. Let’s be thoughtful about our approach so that one day we can say this was the moment we joined together to drive the long-term improvement our schools need.
Barry Pushes Preschool Legislation [AppleTree PCS mentioned]
The Washington Informer
By WI Web Staff
April 3, 2013
D.C. Council member Marion Barry is following President Barack Obama's lead to expand educational opportunities for the District's toddlers with a proposal that makes it mandatory for three- and four-year-olds to enroll in early childhood programs. But while the city already supports preschool education for that age group, Barry's legislation would change the minimum age at which children are traditionally required to attend school, from age five to three. In the process, Barry (D-Ward 8), believes the change might play an integral role closing the achievement gap between the city's minority and white students.
"My proposal will make a significant difference," said Barry, 76, who added that he's only waiting now for a hearing on the matter. "We need to get started as early as we can getting our children in these kinds of programs so that they'll be more likely to succeed in school – and later, in their careers," Barry said. "Right now, two-thirds of the 42,000 students who attend District public schools come from low-income communities where there are low test scores, high dropout rates and low graduation rates," he said, explaining that with the compulsory school ages in the District being 5 to 17, his legislation would help reduce those rates by reaching out to students as early as possible.
Information from Governing.com, a political-oriented website, states that currently, 13,000 out of 15,000 of the city's three year-olds are already enrolled in preschool. With his thrust toward guaranteeing improved academic outcomes for more children, Barry's bill would also require parents to take advantage of preschool education or enroll their children in private schools before they enroll at public facilities. For example, Governing.com further reports that the AppleTree Institute, a D.C. charter preschool in Northeast, teaches three- and four-year-old at-risk students, and that during their two years at the school, the average student improved academically moving from the 35th to the 75th percentile level.
Citing that Mayor Vincent Gray's administration is already focused on getting children into preschool earlier, Phil Pannell, a former school board candidate, said that anytime a child's formal education gets a jump-start is good because it helps them excel sooner in subjects like grammar and reading. "One of the biggest problems we have here in the District of Columbia is low reading scores among our students, and that's because a lot of them are not read to by their parents when they're younger," Pannell, 62, president of the Congress Heights Civic Association said. "So, when they start school [at age five], they're already handicapped." Obama unveiled his plan to expand preschool education in February during his State of the Union Address. At that time, he expressed his intent to work with states to make high-quality preschool available to every child in the country.
"The sooner children start learning, the better she or he is down the road," said Obama.
But speaking almost in contrast to Barry's proposal, the president acknowledged that most middle class parents can't afford the weekly bill of "a few hundred dollars" for private preschool and for poor kids who need help the most. "[As a result,] this lack of access to preschool education can shadow them for the rest of their lives," Obama said. On the other hand, Mary Filardo, executive director of the Northwest-based 21st Century School Fund – a nationwide nonprofit schools advocacy organization – said she isn't so sure preschool programs should be mandatory.
"As a mother, I'd want a choice as to whether my three-year-old was sent to school or kept at home with me," said Filardo. "And I think that would be true whether one was a low-income parent or not." She added that the notion that children are better off in a day care setting rather than at home, is simply not true. "So, if they want to talk about school choice, that should be one of the big choices parents would have," Filardo said. "But whether preschool programs should be available for women who want or have to work, I think absolutely."
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