Some D.C. public charter schools continue selective admissions practices that discourage special-needs students from enrolling, and students citywide with possible disabilities still face delays in special education evaluations, a federal court monitor said this week.

"Charter schools . . . generally have not enrolled students with significant disabilities who required extensive hours of special services or education," the monitor, Amy Totenberg, wrote in a report prepared for a court hearing yesterday.

The report casts a somewhat harsh light on a fast-growing sector of public education in the city. Charter schools, which receive public funding but are independently operated, have siphoned many students from the city's troubled public school system and have posted somewhat higher test scores than regular schools in recent years.

But Totenberg said some charter schools explicitly limit the number of hours of special education they will provide and counsel parents to enroll their children at regular public schools or at private or other public charter schools that focus on students with disabilities. D.C. law prohibits charter schools from asking about learning disabilities or emotional problems during the admission process.

"There are a number of challenges for us to correct," said Josephine Baker, executive director of the D.C. Public Charter School Board. She said the number of schools with special education problems is small and getting smaller.

D.C. schools are under a federal court order from the late 1990s to improve the timeliness of their response to special-needs children. About 23 percent of the 46,000 students in the D.C. public school system receive special education services. Many receive services from private schools at taxpayer expense.

By contrast, in the 2007-08 school year, 12 percent of the 21,800 students in D.C. public charter schools -- which are also subject to the court order -- received special education services.

Charter school leaders project enrollment of about 28,000 students in the next school year, up from about 25,000 in the year that just ended. But many charter schools are small and ill-equipped to handle the additional services special-needs students require.

Charter school advocates say it is likely that some students in regular public schools are placed in special education because overworked teachers aren't able to attend to their needs.

Charter schools "tend to be much smaller and more personalized," said Robert Cane, executive director of Friends of Choice in Urban Schools, a charter school advocacy organization. "So many of the students are handled in the course of things" without special services, he said.

At yesterday's hearing in U.S. District Court, Totenberg said schools are "still no good with timely evaluations of students" across all sectors of city education -- public, charter and private.

But D.C. education officials said they have made significant progress in reducing a backlog of evaluation requests.

"Things are not falling through the cracks the way they used to," said Richard Nyankori, the city's deputy chancellor for special education. Before the D.C. school system was reorganized in 2007, 20 percent of requests for student evaluations were resolved within 90 days. Nyankori said the rate is now 56 percent, and he predicted it would reach 90 percent by next year.

The Current
Development plans a sham at Stevens
By Robert Cane
19 June, 2009

The Stevens school has an incredible history,” says newly appointed City Administrator Neil Albert. Yet Mr. Albert has decided not to honor that history by making education part of this historic public school building’s future, as it was in its past.

The Stevens school building was the first school for freed slave children in the District. Now, this historic school building is slated to join the many other D.C. public school buildings that have been sold by the District government to private developers.

In accordance with D.C. Law — which states that public charter schools have the right to negotiate to buy or lease surplus public school buildings before private developers can — no fewer than four D.C. public charter schools made bids on Stevens. All were ignored by the government.

Firmly in the tradition of the old Stevens school, D.C.’s public charter schools are educating children from some of the city’s most vulnerable communities. With higher shares of African- American and economically disadvantaged students than in the city-run schools, charters ensure that when their students reach middle and high school they are nearly twice as likely to be proficient in reading and math as their peers in regular D.C. Public schools.

Increasingly popular with parents, public charter schools educate 36 percent of District public school children. Taxpayer-funded like regular public schools, open to all and tuition-free, charters receive only half as much school building funding per student as does the D.C. Public Schools.

And while the school system pays nothing to acquire its buildings, charters must use this funding to buy or lease their space. Because the government favors developers over public charter school children, many are in unsuitable facilities.

D.C. law says that the city government must negotiate in good faith with charters to buy or lease surplus school buildings before hawking them on the open market. There are many such buildings in the District, but the government permits few of them to be acquired by public charter schools, ignoring its legal and moral responsibilities to D.C. public school children whose parents happened to choose to put them in public charter schools.

This tradition is far less honorable than that which the Stevens school represents.

The Current

Development plans a sham at Stevens

by Robert Cane

“The Stevens school has an incredible history,” says newly appointed City Administrator Neil Albert. Yet Mr. Albert has decided not to honor that history by making education part of this historic public school building’s future, as it was in its past.

The Stevens school building was the first school for freed slave children in the District. Now, this historic school building is slated to join the many other D.C. public school buildings that have been sold by the District government to private developers. In accordance with D.C. law — which states that public charter schools have the right to negotiate to buy or lease surplus public school buildings before private developers can — no fewer than four D.C. public charter schools made bids on Stevens. All were ignored by the government.

Firmly in the tradition of the old Stevens school, D.C.’s public charter schools are educating children from some of the city’s most vulnerable communities. With higher shares of African-American and economically disadvantaged
students than in the city-run schools, charters ensure that when their students reach middle and high school they are nearly twice as likely to be proficient in reading and math as their peers in regular D.C. publicschools.

Increasingly popular with parents, public charter schools educate 36 percent of District public school children. Taxpayer-funded like regular public schools, open to all and tuition-free, charters receive only half as much school building funding per student as does the D.C. Public Schools. And while the school system pays nothing to acquire its buildings, charters must use this fundingto buy or lease their space. Because the government favors developers over public charter school children, many are in unsuitable facilities.

D.C. law says that the city government must negotiate in good faith with charters to buy or lease surplus school buildings before hawking them on the open market. There are many such buildings in the District, but the government permits few of them to be acquired by public charter schools, ignoring its legal and moral responsibilities to D.C. public school children whose parents happened to choose to put them in public charter schools.

This tradition is far less honorable than that which the Stevens school represents.

The Washington Business Journal

Starting, stopping on vacant schools

by Johnathan O'Connell

On Wednesday and Thursday nights, developers will present their ideas for the most sought after of the vacant schools Mayor Adrian Fenty is looking to leverage for economic development, Hine Jr. High School and Stevens Elementary. The city announced last night that it had again cut the list of competitors for Hine, this time down to four, and there are three left on the island battling for Stevens. Those just eliminated from Hine contention are Quandrangle Development and Equity Residential.

Two other schools the mayor is looking to move, however, were lassoed by the D.C. Council last week. In budget support legislation, the Council handed Bernie Backus Middle School to the University of the District of Columbia, saying in the bill that UDC "shall have exclusive use of the closed Bertie Backus Middle School building and site located at 5171 South Dakota Avenue, N.E., in Ward 5 to expand upon its collegiate mission.” The Council required that space in Grimke Elementary, just off U Street, be reserved for the African American Civil War Museum.

I still don't know whether the Council action will hold up -- the deputy mayor's office has not ended those solicitations. But if it does, I can't imagine anyone is more frustrated than the folks at Capitol City Public Charter School, who bid on both. Capitol City has become highly popular in Columbia Heights but has been stymied in multiple efforts at vacant schools. “We were surprised to see those items in the council legislation," Anne Herr, executive director of Capitol City, told me last week. "I guess those were put in during the first reading of the Budget Support Act and that was really the first we had heard that that was even an issue.”

I'm not so sure Herr would have gotten a school anyhow, given the slim percentage of vacant schools that Team Fenty seems to send to charters. But I can understand her frustration at having the rules changed midway. “It’s surprising and frustrating that there could be two processes happening at the same time," she said. " I’m not sure that’s good city governance.