- Preschool Network Puts 'Innovation' Grant to Test [AppleTree Early Learning Public Charter School mentioned]
- D.C. library budget boosted at schools' expense, Councilman David Catania says
- Empower DC Lawsuit Lands in Federal Court
- D.C. starts over with Franklin School redevelopment
- SIMMONS: Lawsuits start to pile up on plans to close schools
Preschool Network Puts 'Innovation' Grant to Test [AppleTree Early Learning Public Charter School mentioned]
Education Week
By Christina A. Samuels
April 10, 2013
At the start of the school day at AppleTree Early Learning Public Charter School’s campus in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of Washington, the 20 wiggly students in Monique Twyman’s preschool class are as attentive as a group of 3-year-olds can be. Ms. Twyman leads the children through a brisk review of letter sounds and tells them the plans for the day: Some will choose to dig through a sand table to discover dinosaur “fossils,” while others may play with classroom toys, like blocks. Still others can choose to work with clay, or stamp paper with the letter E with the help of the classroom’s second teacher. The day also will include monitoring the progress of students at the school, one in a network that has received a $5 million Investing in Innovation grant from the U.S. Department of Education. Children will be pulled out of the classroom individually for quick assessments designed to gauge their mastery of the building blocks of literacy and math.
Tapping Into Aid
The $650 million “i3” competitive-grant program awarded up to $50 million to 49 recipients in 2010. AppleTree’s program, the top-ranked proposal with an exclusive focus on early-childhood education, received one of the smaller “development” grants, for promising but relatively untested ideas, and is putting its money toward meeting the needs of its students, primarily minority and from low-income homes. The organization, with seven campuses in the District of Columbia, pledged to use its $5 million grant to take the program it calls Every Child Ready—a blend of early-learning academic content, professional development for teachers, and student-progress monitoring—and create a curriculum that can be used by other preschools around the country. The grant will also pay for a research evaluation of the program.
With the federal government making high-quality preschool a priority, programs such as AppleTree’s are expected to receive renewed attention. Policymakers will be working to define what programs are worth scaling up and supporting.In the District of Columbia, which provides free preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds, AppleTree’s preschool campuses are already oversubscribed. The school must hold a lottery each year to fill its 640 slots.
The Every Child Ready program is also in use in 20 additional classrooms run by other charter providers in the District of Columbia, so the program educates about 1,000 young children, said Jack McCarthy, AppleTree’s founder and managing director.“We’re really focused on the children who are starting the furthest behind. They’re the ones who make the most gains through our program,” Mr. McCarthy said. “It’s not rote learning, and it’s not reciting the letters of the alphabet,” he added. He called the curriculum evidence-based, child-centered, and tied to the Common Core State Standards.
Home-Grown Incubator
The AppleTree Institute was formed in 1995 as a charter school incubator in the nation’s capital and supported the creation of two charter high schools and the conversion of a traditional middle school into a charter program. But members of the organization believed that AppleTree’s impact could be greater if it supported efforts to give children a good academic start, well before they arrived in middle and high school. The first AppleTree Early Learning Public Charter School opened in 2005, and the preschool years are the program’s sole focus. The administrators started by purchasing Opening the World of Learning, a language and literacy preschool program sold by Pearson. But that program left some gaps in students’ math foundation skills said Lydia Carlis, the director of education at the charter school group. AppleTree bought a program to plug that hole. The charter schools adopted a math program geared to preschoolers, “then we heard from our teachers that some students were not ready socio-emotionally to learn, no matter what curriculum we used,” Ms. Carlis said. So, AppleTree adopted another program, Second Step, that addressed that issue.
The schools wanted to incorporate sign language into the school day, which meant another program. The costs and the time needed to train teachers to use all the different curricula were becoming a burden, Ms. Carlis said.
Then Susan B. Neuman, a prominent education researcher at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, visited AppleTree and suggested that the organization develop its own instructional program. That suggestion came on the heels of a curriculum-mapping effort that showed that even though children in AppleTree were showing progress, the instructional model in place still didn’t hit all the academic standards expected of District of Columbia students once they arrive in kindergarten. “That was a big ‘Aha!’ moment for us,” Ms. Carlis said. “As we were using these five different curricula, our data were getting better, but we were having to have teachers and coaches do so much extra work to get those outcomes. It didn’t make sense if you could create something that, at the foundation, would be really strong.”
Comprehensive Approach
That was the start of Every Child Ready. A typical day in the program starts with a 15-minute “morning meeting,” then moves to “centers,” where one teacher works with a small group of children on language and literacy skills while the other children move through guided free play that relates to one of 10 thematic units explored throughout the year. Every day, the pupils have story time, outdoor play, “journaling” under the guidance of an adult, and whole-class instruction in science concepts or development of social and emotional skills. There’s also nap time and time for snacks. At least four times a year, the children’s preacademic skills are measured through brief assessments that give teachers a chance to reinforce skills with some students or offer more advanced work to children who are ready for it. The assessments include a combination of self-developed and prepackaged tests, including Get Ready to Read, a free test of phonological awareness and print concepts. Every Child Ready has an explicit academic focus, but within the structure of play, said Mary Anne Lesiak, the chief of staff at AppleTree and the architect of the program. There’s no reason why programs can’t do both, she said. “You can do it all with children in an intentional, fun, engaging way,” she said. And the intentional focus on preacademic skills is particularly important for children whose backgrounds may not have prepared them for the academic and social requirements of elementary school, she added. “It takes something beyond good care in order to increase the number of words that kids know,” Ms. Lesiak said. Preschool programs such as AppleTree have only two years to introduce all those concepts; some preschools, which start at age 4, have even less time.
The explicit instruction extends to social and emotional learning. Ms. Lesiak said AppleTree is trying to give children an emotional toolbox they can use to deal with challenges in a school environment; for example, learning to take three breaths to calm down instead of lashing out. W. Steven Barnett, the director of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., said that good preschool programs generally include language and literacy skills, social and emotional learning, and an introduction to science and math skills, all areas that Every Child Ready says it supports. Many curricula support those activities, but they have to be implemented well, he stressed.
For many programs, “the bulk of the day is spent in having lunch in the cafeteria, play where the teacher is not engaged, transitions [from activity to activity], and naps,” Mr. Barnett said. “If 50 percent of your time is spent in those activities, I guarantee you, kids don’t learn much,” he said. AppleTree does feel a sense of urgency with its children, who often start behind their peers in preacademic skills. “The role of what early childhood is supposed to do has changed in the past 10 or 15 years,” Ms. Lesiak said. “Our goal is to get them to be ahead of the curve.” Though the academic program is the most tangible part of Every Child Ready, its professional development for teachers is what the charter organization points to as innovative. AppleTree is in the process of creating Web-based professional-development modules. The program also requires individual coaching for classroom teachers. “We want to show teachers what to teach, how to teach, and how they can go about improving their effectiveness,” Mr. McCarthy said.
The Washington Examiner
By Rachel Baye
April 10, 2013
D.C. Council Education Committee Chairman David Catania questioned Mayor Vincent Gray's proposal to add 132 jobs to the city's public libraries while cutting full-time librarians from more than a dozen public schools.
Gray proposed adding $10 million to the D.C. Public Library's budget, including $8 million to staff extended hours slated to start Oct. 1. Since both the D.C. Council and Congress have to approve the District's budget, the library system may not get the funding for new hires approved until mid-to-late summer, which would make staffing the extended hours starting Oct. 1 unrealistic, Catania warned. That probably will be made more difficult by the fact that the libraries have 28 funded but vacant positions, many of which are expected to oversee the hiring process, he said.
According to Chief Librarian Ginnie Cooper, the libraries are interviewing to fill or have already selected people to fill those vacancies. Meanwhile, DC Public Schools changed the way it allocates librarians. This year, every school with at least 300 students has a full-time librarian, while smaller schools have none. Next year, every school with at least 400 students will have a full-time librarian, and smaller schools will each have a part-time library position.
As a result, 28 schools that have between 300 and 400 students and received funding for a full-time librarian this year are slated to receive funding for a part-time librarian instead, said DCPS spokeswoman Melissa Salmanowitz. Of those, 12 will have a part-time librarian, 11 will have a full-time librarian -- at the expense of another position -- and five will have a "library aide." Catania questioned whether it makes sense to reduce services at schools to pay for library staff.
"Does it make sense to park all the money somewhere where we may not be able to hire?" he asked. "This committee has two budgets, schools and libraries, and unfortunately, it is a zero-sum game."
But Gray's office said Catania's logic was flawed. "Unfortunately, Mr. Catania is comparing apples to oranges here and conflating two very separate issues," said Gray spokesman Pedro Ribeiro. "The [fiscal] 2014 budget increases library hours significantly and brings the Northeast [and Woodridge branches] back online, which requires more librarians to be hired."
The Washington Informer
By Barrington Salmon
April 10, 2013
The lawsuit filed in D.C. Superior Court last week by Empower DC has been bumped up to federal court, and a judge there has set a May 10 date to hear arguments as to why he should act on the organization's legal request. Empower DC, a local grassroots organization, is seeking to block D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson from closing 15 of the city's traditional public schools slated to be shuttered by the end of the 2014 academic year. "The case was moved to federal court because we raised federal questions," said Empower DC's lead attorney Johnny Barnes. "They [lawyers for the District of Columbia Public Schools] thought they could slow it down but the judge was very gracious and set May 10 as the date for the preliminary hearing. He will decide the case before May 22." "What you have here is that the government is treating people differently and that's a prima facie case of discrimination. D.C. Public Schools (DCPS) is treating people of color and special needs students differently from other people, and that is illegal and unconstitutional." Barnes, 64, said that the legal team's goal is to seek a decision from Judge James Boasberg before May 22. Empower DC is asking the judge to grant them a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction. May 22 is the day the D.C. Council votes on the 2014 District budget.
"If [the] judge does not grant the temporary restraining order and the preliminary injunction by May 22, it's a done deal. It is a tight schedule but we will be heard and have an outcome by May 22," said Barnes. "We're very pleased with that. Our action would stop DCPS from closing those schools. I think they'd be loathe from doing it again but one doesn't know what resides in the minds of those people." The lawsuit is the tip of a contentious, high-stakes power struggle between parents and DCPS over the direction of the city's traditional public schools. Educators and education advocates across the country are watching the D.C. case closely since this is the first city where opponents of school closings have filed a lawsuit. Barnes also said he'd been contacted by other lawyers who asked to see the filing and he said he hopes they will join in the legal fight.
In Chicago, angry parents and frustrated teachers have taken to the streets to protest the decision of Mayor Rahm Emanuel and school officials to close 54 elementary schools and save $1 billion over 10 years. Much like the complaints in the District, critics and opponents of Emanuel's plan accuse school officials of not inviting parental input, putting students at risk by moving them to schools in rival neighborhoods and they add that the proposal will not improve the schools. The battle is being waged in other cities, including Baltimore, Detroit, Philadelphia and New Orleans, said Empower DC's Education Director Daniel del Pielago. Northwest-based Empower DC and concerned parents are incensed by Henderson's January announcement of a decision to close the schools, all of which are located east of Rock Creek Park in Northwest, a historical dividing line in the District between whites and blacks, the wealthy and the working class in the city.
Barnes said it's obviously discriminatory when public schools east of the Park are closed because of under-enrollment while schools west of the park and near Capitol Hill were kept open when their enrollment numbers dipped significantly a number of years ago. "With the lawsuit, we're going to let that take its course. We're working with parents to see what they want to do," said del Pielago during an interview on Saturday, April 6. "I'm at a conference with the American Federation of Teachers ... looking at national actions along the same issues. We're looking at joining forces. I've been telling people now it's national. There is still a lot of resistance. Parents still want to fight to make sure schools stay open."
Del Pielago, 39, said outside of the lawsuit, the focus remains on strategic planning, providing information and support and the political education of parents. "We're letting folks know that this is a long, hard fight," he said. "We have to be organized and strong on a national level to be contenders in this fight – define who and what we are." Tamara Gorham's 13-year-old son is confined to a wheelchair and is an 8th-grader at Sharpe Health School in Northwest. The school is one of the 15 on the chopping block. "I'm not happy at all. It's very disturbing because a lot of factors have not been considered," said Gorham, a medical receptionist at Children's National Medical Center in Northwest. "The school is close to Children's Hospital. Transportation, the way it's structured, and loading and unloading children in wheelchairs are not a problem at Sharpe."
Gorham, 39, said Henderson and other school officials did not consult with parents, Sharpe administrators, teachers or aides before deciding to move students to River Terrace Elementary School in Southeast. She fears the disruption the move will cause the children, and expressed concern that River Terrace residents may be resistant to Sharpe students being relocated there. "It makes me go wild thinking about it," she said, as she tried to contain her irritation. "Plans have been made already. They never asked what properties would work best for us. They need to halt all plans, get with us and let us tell them what we need. We have a beautiful garden, a playground, and a brand new therapeutic pool for the children. They're telling us to make do."
Gorham said Sharpe has caring and attentive teachers' aides "who have been with our kids for many years" who will have to re-apply for their jobs. She said newcomers will likely not do what current staff does routinely such as wiping a child's mouth, or a 'trach', or wiping and changing soiled clothes. "We have presented different options to them [DCPS]. They should combine Mamie D. Lee and Sharpe," she said. "They've thrown out so many excuses. Let us tell you where, let us tell you what we need. It's not fair, it's inconsiderate; they're not thinking about my child's safety, and they're not listening." "They just say, 'they're all retarded, put them in the back away from everything. They're not giving us a lot of information; they have not been forthcoming. It's not fair and it's not right.'"
Del Pielago and a chorus of critics in D.C. and elsewhere, continue to insist that businesses that created tests, the corporate interests behind school reform and charter schools are about making money. In that quest, he said, they are also taking advantage of minority communities. "This is all about the money," said del Pielago. "We're not seeing communities having access or input into the decision-making process. We're hearing this around the country. [DCPS] says it is working with the community ... but I'm not holding my breath."
"A lot of threads are unraveling. The way this corporate education reform is going, it's not working. There's a great deal of resistance. I think we're going to have a shift in thinking. We're working with folks around the country who are committed to fighting. There are very high stakes – either we lose or we keep neighborhood schools. Yeah, the fight is on," del Pielago said.
The Washington Business Journal
By Michael Neibauer
April 10, 2013
The District released on Wednesday arequest for qualifications for redevelopment of the historic Franklin School in the heart of downtown D.C. Despite its spectacular architecture and location at 925 13th St. NW, the 51,000-square-foot Franklin School has proved difficult to redevelop because it is relatively small and protected by its local and national landmark status. The D.C. government, led by the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, "is seeking a high-quality rehabilitation plan for the project that showcases the building's unique structure and pays homage to its history."
The RFQ suggests the Franklin School "presents an extraordinary opportunity for a flagship presence" downtown. But it will come at a cost: The District estimates that $20 million to $24 million will be needed to rehabilitate the building, and that does not include expenses associated with the redevelopment. D.C. expects to lease the building for 20 to 50 years. Franklin School, completed in 1869, was one of the first public education buildings in D.C. The building later was the site of Alexander Graham Bell's photo-phone experiments. It also housed the city's first high school, D.C. Public Schools' administrative offices and an adult education center. During its most recent incarnation as a homeless shelter, the school was allowed to deteriorate. Mayor Adrian Fenty shut down the shelter in 2008, but attempts to redevelop the building failed. One bid to renovate it as a charter school was ruled out, and a deal with Brooklandville, Md.-based Cana Development to transform the building into a 30-room, boutique hotel could not be worked out.
The Washington Times
By Deborah Simmons
April 10, 2013
There’s a list of them in Chicago, Detroit, Kansas City, Milwaukee, New York and the District, and major cities on the eastern and western ends of Pennsylvania have lists, too, as do other cities. As school districts grapple with dwindling public school populations, underutilized schoolhouses and what some cities are calling “dwindling” school funds, officials are proposing to close and consolidate schools something that never sits well with parents, unions or community activists, who often fight tooth and nail to keep neighborhood schools open. But don’t think those closing lists are written in ink.
With the nation’s urban school districts right-sizing themselves by closing buildings and consolidating student populations, federal authorities and local authorities find themselves grappling with a most prickly problem lawsuits and complaints alleging racial discrimination. Shades of Brown v. Board of Education in 2013. Take the District. The lawsuit, whose named plaintiffs are four D.C. families, claims the school closings will effect only two white students and says that such a “disparate impact” is unjust and violates federal laws.
Specifically, more than a dozen cities have filed complaints with the department’s Office of Civil Rights, claiming that school turnaround programs, which receive federal money, and school closing policies, which receive federal money, are violating Title VI, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin in programs and activities that receive federal funds. The lists go on and on, and, interestingly, they are cities with huge black and Hispanic populations. If school officials are prohibited from closing schools because one race or ethnic group is affected more than another, then it’s back to square one struggling to finance separate but equal school districts overburdened with aging, underutilized school buildings.
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