Mayor’s below-inflation budget proposal is unsustainable for our schools
Unless the City Council intervenes in a big way, our schools will be badly hurt by the Mayor’s proposed education budget. This will be the third straight year in which per student funding for public schools will decline in real terms.
Because of the way DC Public Schools (DCPS) allocates funds to schools, the most severe effects are felt by the largest schools, at all grade levels. At Wilson High School, the citywide high school located here in ward 3, eight staff will be cut, including two counselors. This is on top of 9 staff cut last year and 12 the year before: A total of 29 staff cut in three years.
These cuts will affect schools across the city. At the only somewhat smaller Columbia Heights Education Campus, 5 staff are being cut. At Eastern and Ballou, two other large high schools, schools are losing some combination of teachers, counselors, art programming, office and custodial staff.
This is a key time to tell members of the City Council that the proposed education budget must be raised and that new funds must get to the schools that are most affected.
Please do three things:
1.Please sign this petition, which will be submitted to the Council, calling for the full 3.5% increase and an assurance that added funds are allocated directly to schools, especially those that have been most damaged by the proposed cuts.
2. Please circulate this petition to your family, friends, neighbors, and colleagues.
3. Please email City Council members: Please talk about the specific issues facing your school, the citywide need, and the importance of a more transparent, sensible
DCPS process for allocating funds to individual schools.
pmendelson@dccouncil.us
abonds@dccouncil.us
dgrosso@dccouncil.us
esilverman@dccouncil.us e
rwhite@dccouncil.us
bnadeau@dccouncil.us
jevans@dccouncil.us
mcheh@dccouncil.us
btodd@dccouncil.us
kmcduffie@dccouncil.us
callen@dccouncil.us
vgray@dccouncil.us
twhite@dccouncil.us
(and I’d love if you’d bc me: ruth4schools@yahoo.com)
Mayor’s proposed education budget decreases real dollars for city’s schools
City Working Group calls for 3.5% boost
Proposed 1.5% education increase below inflation; will lead to staff/program cuts
Alert: The City Council’s education committee will hold hearings on the DC Public Schools budget this Thursday, April 27, at 10AM and 5PM. To sign up, click here.
Reminder: PARCC testing begins this week. As anyone who reads this newsletter knows, I believe that our school system relies too heavily on PARCC scores for school accountability and am working to reduce it. But, PARCC provides important information on how our students are progressing; and, our schools and school staff are evaluated largely based on PARCC scores. For all these reasons, I hope you encourage your children to do their best on them. No stress, no hype, just doing their best to show what they know.
Mayor’s proposed education budget decreases real dollars for city’s schools
It’s budget season, and the education budget proposed by the Mayor is not good news for our schools. While the Mayor’s budget document calls its 1.5% education increase “historic,” the proposal actually means fewer real, inflation-adjusted dollars per student than last year’s budget—and that decrease means reductions in staff and other cuts at our schools.
It’s particularly bad news for the city’s largest high schools: Wilson, Ballou, Eastern, and CHEC (Columbia Heights Education Campus). Each of these schools appears to face particularly severe staff cuts because of the way D.C. Public Schools (DCPS) allocates funding to each school. For Wilson High School, the proposed budget, as allocated by DCPS, translates into cutting 8.8 staff positions. These cuts are on top of 9 positions cut last year and 12 positions the year before that. Read the Wilson High School Budget Primer here.
Here are a few important facts: 1. Education costs increase when a) the actual costs of education (staff, supplies, etc.) increase due to inflation and b) when enrollment increases, requiring increased resources to meet the needs of a larger student body (more books, more teachers, etc.) In addition, costs can increase if new programs are added or existing programs are beefed up. 2. Since the 1999-2000 school year, the main unit for education budgeting has been “per student funding,” known as UPSFF, the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula. By tradition, the City has increased the UPSFF base each year, by roughly 2%, as a way of addressing increased costs due to inflation. You can see how the UPSFF has increased over the years in this letter from Council Member Vincent Gray.
3. After reviewing per student costs, a specially convened city Working Group called for a 3.5% increase in per student base funding. The Working Group was named by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE–DC’s state education agency) to review the current level of DC’s UPSFF. The Task Force was convened amid a variety of concerns, including that education funding had lost much ground to inflation and that for some time the UPSFF hasn’t fully reflected the cost of providing an adequate education. (See here for “Cost of Student Achievement,” a report on funding adequacy in DC, released in 2003.) Click here to read the report of the UPSFF working group, which determined that this year’s per pupil base needed to increase by 3.5%. 4. The Mayor’s proposed 1.5% increase is much lower than what was recommended. 5. The proposed 1.5% increase will not cover the costs of inflation. A parent on Oyster-Adams Bilingual School’s Local School Advisory Team, Emily Mechner–who usefully is also a Harvard-trained economist!–researched DC’s education budget when her children’s school faced staff cuts. She found that the proposed 1.5% increase in UPSFF will not even cover “DCPS’s own estimate of employment costs” and “represents a devastating 3% cut over last year’s levels.” 6. Inadequate funding of the UPSFF causes schools to cover the rising costs of their general, special, and English-language learner education programs with their “at-risk” funds, which are supposed to be reserved to cover the extra costs of providing a strong education to the most vulnerable students. For information on this, inadequate funding for school modernizations (which mainly affects schools in other wards), and other ways in which the proposed budget will leave schools underfunded, see this research conducted by the DC Fiscal Policy Institute.
Next step: the City Council
The proposed budget is now in the City Council’s court. It’s up to them to find the additional funds to bring the proposed budget up by the needed 3.5%, not the proposed 1.5%.
The Council’s Education Committee will hold its budget oversight hearings next week. The oversight hearing for DCPS will be on Thursday, April 27, with one hearing at 10AM and another at 5PM. Hearings are held at the City Council at the Wilson building. To sign up to testify, click here. You must sign up by COB Tuesday, April 25.
The Mayor’s proposed budget and the Council hearing are the first key steps in DC’s annual budget process. I will do my best to keep you posted as more information becomes available about the effects of the proposed budget and Council efforts to improve it.
Update: New accountability plan is adopted by the State Board of Education
I’ve reported a number of times that the new federal law, the Every Student Succeeds Act, gave every state a chance to change how it evaluates its schools. The law replaces the old No Child Left Behind Act, which required states (including DC) to evaluate schools almost exclusively based on reading and math test scores and on the proportion of students who reached the score threshold deemed “proficient.”
After many months of discussion, testimony, and two drafts, the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) brought its final accountability proposal to the State Board of Education (SBOE) for a vote at the end of March.
I voted against the proposal, along with my colleagues from wards 6 and 8, because I didn’t believe the plan moved far enough towards judging schools based on more than just reading and math scores. I also was disappointed that it didn’t move further towards crediting schools for their students’ progress, especially at the high school level, where schools will continue to get no credit for their students’ test score growth. This Washington Post article explains the issues surrounding the new proposal, and this Post op-ed explains the additional changes my colleagues and I had hoped for.
Without question though, the new policy is an improvement over the previous system. Moreover, I credit my colleagues on the State Board for encouraging OSSE to improve on its original January proposal and OSSE for incorporating some of these improvements. All involved are committed to further improving the process over time.
The State Board will be establishing a task force and a process for following up on some of the commitments made in the final proposal, including a way to measure high school “growth” and an indicator for “access and opportunities,” aimed at encouraging schools to provide students with a well-rounded education.
I look forward to working with my SBOE colleagues, OSSE, and the community to bring about the improvements we all still hope to see.
Calling all District Students!
Would you like to serve as the student representative to the Dc State Board of Education or to join the Student Advisory Committee which advises the State Board of Education. Apply here. Applications are due May 30th. Click here for more information on the work of previous student reps, including video interviews with prior members.
School budget news–More $$$,but less staff for many schools; Murch and Fillmore funding in jeopardy, “Assessing-out” proposal withdrawn, Data/research on DC schools conference draws large audience… More…
The Mayor’s city budget includes a funding increase for public schools of $75 million, which covers additional per student funds for increased enrollment and a 2% inflation adjustment (which is typical, though it was not provided to schools last year). This should have left schools with roughly the same staffing levels and funds as they had last year–and with the resources for increased staffing to handle increased enrollment.
In fact, many schools in Ward 3 and around the city report that despite these increases they must cut their teaching staff. Wilson high school is set to lose 7 positions; various elementary schools appear as though they will lose the equivalent of one or more direct service positions (i.e. classroom teacher, intervention specialist etc.) To see overall budgets from each school, use this data tool from Coalition for DC Schools.
Why???—
An analysis released by the Coalition 4 DC Schools explains why there is more money but less “buying power”: First, the costs of almost all positions (principal, teacher, etc.) rose a small amount (which is indeed the kind of cost the inflation adjustment should be covering); Second, DCPS “has shifted certain costs that had not been carried on school budgets to school budgets.” In other words, schools must now pay from their regular budgets the cost of programs that previously had been funded by DCPS central office funds. This makes sense in terms of budget transparency, as it becomes easier to see exactly what is being spent in different schools. And insofar as the program cost is sent to the school along with the funding that DCPS previously used, there’s no harm to education. But, when formerly centralized programs are sent to the schools without funds, the result is that schools need to cut elsewhere.
Big reason is “unfunded mandate”
And that is the third and biggest reason that many schools have been left with less: a new, substantial unfunded mandate. As reported in the Washington Post earlier this year, DCPS has eliminated its Master Educator system, through which a good deal of teacher evaluation and teacher professional development was handled. Instead of the centrally funded ME’s, this year, existing school staff (mainly principals and assistant principals) will handle evaluation–taking these staff away from other duties–which must now be covered by other staff. Plus, most schools will be required to fund from their school budgets the costs of the new Teacher Leader Innovation program to provide the professional development previously provided by the Master Educators. In this analysis, DC schools budget pro Mary Levy estimates that the cost will be approx. $7m citywide, roughly equal to the new dollars that are not already dedicated to covering rising costs and the cost shifts explained above.
The result: It looks like increased funding for DC schools–but thanks to the shell game, many DC schools have less buying power.
Study shows that at-risk funds are being diverted to support core education
Two years ago, the DC City Council started appropriating special, additional funds to defray the costs required to provide a high quality education to the city’s most at-risk students. Known as “at-risk” funds, a new analysis from the DC Fiscal Policy Institute indicates that “unfortunately, there is a pattern of using significant portions of the allocated at-risk dollars for general education purposes, thereby merely supplanting general education dollars.” Among the inappropriate ways in which at risk dollars are being used: to pay for guidance counselors, teachers, and other core staff that should be funded through the general education funds.
Testify on School Budgets
On April 14, individuals and school leaders are invited to testify before the City Council’s Education Committee about the DCPS budget. For information and to sign up, click here. You must sign up 24 hours in advance to testify. If you testify, please consider raising the issues above, and noting that they effect schools in Ward 3 and around the city.
Fillmore Arts Center–“Stay of Execution” seems more rhetorical than real
At the 11th hour, literally as school budgets were being sent to schools, the schools that depend on the Fillmore Arts Center to provide arts education, were informed that Fillmore was being eliminated. The effected schools, including Stoddert and Key in Ward 3, would have to provide arts in their own schools. Huge problem: Neither Stoddert nor Key has any extra space in which to house adequate art classes! As importantly, Fillmore represents a phenomenal model of great arts education. I visited and was blown away by the extraordinary quality of its program. In a city where so many students still don’t get strong exposure to arts education, Fillmore shows what we should be reaching for–not what we should be eliminating. Under pressure, DCPS agreed to maintain Fillmore through next year and to undertake discussions about how to move forward.
But reports suggest that the Fillmore staff is already being dispersed, meaning that Fillmore’s arts program will already be much weaker next year, all but assuring that not only won’t students get the arts they need but that the program’s ability to replicate and provide a model will be lost. That would be a huge shame for DC. For more info on the program and on how to help, click here.
Murch funds in jeopardy again….
Murch Elementary has not been renovated for 85 years. Promises to renovate it were followed by repeated delays. Now, months after a modernization plan was finally agreed to by all the relevant parties and funding was allocated to build it, it turns out that the estimate for how much it would cost were wrong! The Murch community was told that no more funds would be forthcoming; it would have to downsize the original plan. Councilwoman Mary Cheh just led a discussion with all the key players–including leaders from Murch’s PTO and School Improvement Team, key officials from DCPS and the DGS (Department of Government Services) and the architect—to identify ways to bring down costs without losing essential components of the previously approved plan. For more info, click Murch Elementary
Update: Controversial “Assessing-out” regulation is pulled back. Yay!!
In previous newsletters, I alerted you to a proposed regulation that would open the door to widely enabling students to earn high school graduation credits by taking assessments rather than courses. OSSE Superintendent Hanseul Kang deserves great credit for withdrawing this proposal from consideration after hearing how much concern there was about it. Thanks to the many DC residents who filed comments with OSSE, signed petitions, spoke up at meetings and otherwise expressed to both OSSE and the State Board of Education the many reasons that this proposal caused great concern.
Strong attendance at conference to discuss need for better data/research on DC education
Last summer, the National Academy of Sciences issued an evaluation, requested by the DC City Council, on DC’s educational progress. The overwhelming finding of the report, as I wrote about in the Washington Post last summer, was that so much of the information necessary to conduct the evaluation was unavailable. The NAS couldn’t even report on whether achievement among the city’s most vulnerable children had improved. An ad hoc group of DC residents, including myself, has been meeting with city education leaders, including Council Education Chairman David Grosso and Deputy Mayor Jennifer Niles about strategies for resolving this unacceptable situation.
One step towards a solution was a half-day conference held at the end of March among interested stakeholders, convened by the Urban Institute. Big thanks to all the key education leaders in the city who attended and spoke—including Grosso, Niles, State superintendent Hanseul Kang, DCPS chancellor Kaya Henderson, and DC Public Charter School Board director Scott Pearson. The attendance was over 150—suggesting that interest in this issue is huge. I should note that the conference was held during spring break week, greatly lowering the number of parents who could attend.
Let’s hope this is the first step towards a solution, not just a conference that goes nowhere!
To get on my regular email list, email ruth4schools@yahoo.com. Follow me on twitter @ruth4schools. Email me at ruth4schools@yahoo.com.
Wilson Budget Saga–better, but continuing; Free Metro; PARCC Standards; What We Need to Know About DC Schools and Don’t; Credit Flexibility for HS students? Diplomas for GED recipients?
For those of you with kids in school, I hope you’ve had a great first week! I joined Councilwoman Mary Cheh on one day of her annual Ward 3 school readiness tour, which was also joined by new Ward 4 Councilman Brandon Todd. I saw the final touches of fix-up going on at Janney, Murch, Deal, and Wilson and met the new principals of Janney (Alysia Lutz) and Wilson (Kimberly Martin). Good luck to both of them and to everyone leading our schools, teaching and staffing our schools—and especially attending them.
As the school year starts, I want to share a few updates. As always, feel free to email me at ruth4schools@yahoo.om. You can also follow me on twitter @ruth4schools, which is the fastest way for me to get news out.
The Wilson HS funding saga—DCPS dribbles out additional funds.
As many of you know: Last spring, DCPS announced a cut for Wilson High School that amounted to a per-student cut of $1.8 million, equivalent to 10%. The Wilson community and CM Cheh, asked for one-half of it, $900,000, to be restored. Following a great deal of community advocacy, the Education Committee, chaired by David Grosso, added funding to the DCPS budget, with the intention that roughly $300,000 of the new funds would go to Wilson. Later, the full City Council, added more funding, with the intent of restoring full $900,000 to the Wilson budget.
That should have been the end of it. But, DCPS refused to pass on the funds to Wilson. At one point, the intent was to pass on just the initial $300,000. Then, it was just over $400,000. Then it was announced two weeks ago in the Northwest Current that it would be $640,000. Now, I’ve heard it might be up to $680,000.
Why this budget restoration, still incomplete, had to happen in dribs and drabs–and not fully and early–so that Wilson could properly plan for the fall is baffling. Meanwhile, DCPS has said many times that if, indeed, enrollments are as high as projected this fall, it stands ready to work with Wilson to make sure the school is properly staffed. Stay tuned.
Strong schools need adequate funding; they also need that funding to be stable and predictable. Next year, I intend to be a more careful and early observer of school budgets here and citywide. If this is how Wilson is treated, what’s happening elsewhere?
Free Metro for students going to and from school/school events.
If you’re not already aware: Starting this school year, students can ride the Metro to and from school and school events for free. The free fare is handled through your student’s DC One Card. To sign up for the DC One Card or to sign the Card up for the free fare, go to https://idmsprdweb.dc.gov/manage/index.jsf.
What we need to know about DC schools—and don’t. See my Washington Post op-ed!
As we know from our own Wilson saga, school budget transparency is minimal. But, there’s no public reporting of how high teacher turn-over is around the city (though anecdotes suggest it is very, and especially, high in high-poverty schools) or how much testing there is or whether it is eroding the science, history-social studies, and arts curriculum. We don’t really know how much progress students or schools are making!!! And, I could go on. A recent report commissioned by the DC Auditor and conducted by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences lays it all out, and it’s not pretty. See my op-ed on this in the Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/all-opinions-are-local/wp/2015/08/27/what-we-need-to-know-about-d-c-schools/
. PARCC Tests How will PARCC tests be scored? I went to one of the Scoring Conferences! PARCC is in the final phase of determining the scoring standards for last year’s tests. I was invited by the Office of the State Superintendent (OSSE) to observe one of the PARCC scoring conferences, where teachers and curriculum/instructional experts for each grade/subject work to recommend the standards that will be used to score each test. Participants included four teachers from DC! I was very impressed with the seriousness of the effort and the thoughtfulness of the participants.
The conference ran for five full days. Participants first took the test themselves and discussed and familiarized themselves with the official descriptions of what each score point (5,4,3,2,1) is supposed to represent. In a very systematic way, over three “scoring rounds,” participants discussed their scoring decisions with their peers, considered such additional information as how students actually fared on each question, reflected on the scoring decisions they had made, and modified their decisions if they so chose. The emphasis was not on consensus, but on “reflection.” The result was a final set of (median) scores that reflected where the group thought the “cut scores” should be set—that is, how many score points students must receive in order to reach each level (5,4,3,2,1).
So, how hard will it be? Based on what I saw the scoring will be pretty tough, and not too many students will be earning the top scores. Get ready for scores to be fairly low compared to the DC-CAS, DC’s previous test.
But, keep in mind the scores across the two tests are not meant to mean the same thing. Under DC-CAS, the key score point was “proficient,” with students also able to earn scores above and below that. With PARCC, the key question is: Is this student on-track to “likely” enter college without having to take remedial, non-credit-bearing courses. Going forward, PARCC will be following its students and adjusting the scoring thresholds based on evidence of how students actually fared in college and the workplace. For more on PARCC and its scoring, go to Parcconline.org.
When will we get results?
In the future, PARCC plans to report results soon after the school year ends. But, as this is the first year and scoring guidelines and other protocols and policies had to be established, results won’t be reported until late in the fall, probably November.
Please send me comments and observations on the PARCC. The State Board has been and will continue to provide feedback and advice to OSSE on the PARCC. I am very interested in any advice/feedback you have. Please email me at ruth4schools@yahoo.com. I will be providing informal feedback at our working meeting on Sept 2 and likely more formal comments at our public meeting on September 16.
Coming up at the State Board: High School Issues
The Board will be considering two revisions to high school graduation requirements, as described below. I am a member of the Credit Flexibility Task Force (chaired by Ward 1 State Board member Laura Wilson Phelan) and am leading the State Board’s work on determining whether to award diplomas to students who earn high school equivalency certificates. I’m very interested in hearing your thoughts on both of these.
High School Credit Flexibility Task Force: This Task Force, which will ultimately make a recommendation to the State Board, is considering whether there are circumstances under which students should be able to earn high school credit (known as a “Carnegie” unit) for activities other than semester and year-long courses that provide a required number of instructional hours. On the one hand, this could allow sensible changes such as allowing students to earn foreign language credit for demonstrated proficiency in languages they learned abroad or at home. But, on the other, if not well-structured, it could easily open the door to awarding credit for substantially less or less rigorous work, which could undermine the meaning of DC high school credits—and exacerbate curricular inequities across DC schools. The Task Force, which I sit on, will be hearing testimony over the course of the fall.
High School Diplomas for High School Equivalency Recipients? The State Board will be considering whether recipients of the GED and another high school equivalency test, the NEDP, should be awarded DC high school diplomas. The GED has substantially raised its passing standard, fueling the case for this change. On the other hand, DC high school students are required to take a breadth of courses, participate in a range of class assignments, and attend school regularly over a sustained period of time, giving them a different set of qualifications. Should both groups of students get the same diploma? The Board will be looking at many aspects of this, including the rigor of the new GED standards.
Opportunities to participate
Collaboration between DCPS and Charters
The Deputy Mayor is forming a task force aimed at improving collaboration between DCPS and charters. For more information, http://dme.dc.gov/collaboration
Wilson Update… PARCC Testing Reduced… Curriculum Narrowing… DC Auditor on DC Schools… SBOE wants to fix broken oversight … DC Diploma for GED recipients?
Wilson Update…Again. DCPS fails (so far) to pass on to Wilson the funds allocated to it by the City Council.
This should not be so hard! After DCPS cut Wilson’s per student budget by the equivalent of $1.8 million, the city council adopted a budget on June 30 that allotted an additional $1.2 million to DCPS. The $1.2 million was based on Councilmember Mary Cheh’s request of $900,000 for Wilson High School, as well as another request of $300,000 for Ballou High School.
But as of two weeks ago, only about $300,000 worth of funding had been released to Wilson, and staff lay-offs were imminent. When I asked about the delay, I was told that DCPS was “clarifying” whether or not it intended to direct the full $900,000 to Wilson as intended by the Council! At the Ward 3 Education Town Hall, Councilmember Mary Cheh raised the problem, and the Deputy Mayor of Education (Jennifer Niles) promised to look into it.
Since then, Wilson has been offered the equivalent of another (roughly) $100,000. The Deputy Mayor of Education has told me that DCPS intends to direct a total of just $500,000 to Wilson and not the full amount voted by the Council. Wilson has now conducted lay-offs. (Wilson leaders have managed to spare teaching staff, but various support staff for the large school have been let go.) Wilson parent leaders (PTO President Kim Bayliss and LSAT Chair Jeffrey Kovar) are working closely with Council Chairman Phil Mendelson’s office to resolve this. As I say, this shouldn’t be so hard. DCPS can’t claim to not have the funds: It was given extra money by the City Council specifically for this purpose.
I keep thinking—If this is so hard for Wilson, with its very active parent community, how do other schools get treated in the budget process? There definitely needs to be more transparency, more communication, more input, and more predictability in how DCPS makes its budgets.
I hope I can report more positive news in the future.
PARCC Testing—Smoother than expected and changes for next year
First, kudos to DCPS, the city’s charter schools, and PARCC (the consortium that developed DC’s standardized reading and math test)! With very few exceptions, the testing went very smoothly, with few reports of technological failure. This was a huge first-time effort with much opportunity for problems. But, thanks to everyone, they were largely avoided. (The most serious complaint I’ve heard is that Wilson students uninvolved in testing were shut out of parts of the building during testing time, causing lots of problems.)
Second, kudos to PARCC for deciding to reduce the hours spent on testing next year. Clearly they heard the complaints and made it their business to respond quickly and substantively. PARCC will reduce its total testing time next year by 90 minutes (60 less in math and 30 less in English Language Arts)—and the tests will all be given in one “window,” not two, as was the case this past year.
… But we still have a testing problem.
Notwithstanding the deserved kudos, we still have a testing problem in DC, both in terms of time and the effect on the curriculum. Keep in mind that PARCC isn’t the source of most testing time. Much more time is likely taken up by standardized tests required by DCPS and individual charter schools. This was recently reported on in Greater Greater Washington/Eduphile
Narrowing of the Curriculum. More destructive is the extent to which class time (especially at the elementary level) has become narrowly focused on the heavily tested subjects (reading and math) and neglects less-and untested subjects. See this terrific article (How standardized tests are impeding learning in DC) from EduPhile, in which award-winning teachers worry that DC teachers have been led “to concentrate on reading and math at the expense of subjects like social studies and science.” I have now visited nearly 30 elementary classrooms across the city since being elected (DCPS and charters) and can report that with very few exceptions, the lessons I saw were almost exclusively focused on reading skills and math.
Cognitive scientists have made it abundantly clear: Reading comprehension depends on background knowledge. If we don’t teach these subjects well in elementary school, our kids won’t comprehend texts on this these subjects when they enter middle school.
DCPS named a committee to examine these issues some time ago. Neither the results nor the remedies were ever made public.
DCPS Cornerstone Curriculum Units Aim to Help.
But DCPS is taking a potentially important step. Teachers from around the city have been involved in creating lesson units across different subject areas. Teachers across the city will be required to address the material in one or more “cornerstone units” in several different subject areas in each grade. DCPS hopes this will help to bring about greater curricular equity and counter any skew towards curricular narrowing. I hope the lessons are terrific and that DCPS’s optimism proves merited. But with staff evaluations and school rewards based so heavily on reading and math scores, I’ll call myself hopeful but skeptical…
State Board of Education: Let’s look at the Evidence on Curriculum Narrowing.
I’d be more hopeful and less skeptical if I knew that the effects of the units–and the general state of curriculum-narrowing and testing–would be subject to independent examination.
The State Board of Education has called on the Office of the State Superintendent of Education to conduct a study on Testing and Curriculum Narrowing. How much narrowing is taking place? And how is it distributed across the city? As with so many other things, the students who are hurt the most by curriculum-narrowing are those from poorer families, who typically have fewer resources to expend on supplementing the school’s education.
I hope DCPS, OSSE, and our charter sector can cooperate on such a research study. That way, if there is a big problem, as my observations and the complaints of numerous teachers and parents suggest, the problem can be solved before it further jeopardizes kids’ education. That’s the point of doing the research. Nothing more, nothing less. Saying it’s not a problem, against all the circumstantial evidence that it is, doesn’t help our kids.
How goes mayoral control? New report from DC Auditor and National Research Council shows student achievement is generally up, but less so for poorest students.
Seven years ago, the City Council established mayoral control of DC Public Schools and eliminated the local school board that oversaw DCPS. Advocates argued that the dramatic change in governance was necessary to accelerate the pace of education reform, which in turn would drive up the achievement of DC students whose achievement had long been among the lowest in the country.
A 5-year evaluation of the law, commissioned by the DC Auditor and prepared by the prestigious National Research Council, has just been published. One set of conclusions is about student achievement. By various measures (the old DC-CAS tests and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), overall student achievement has risen between 2009 and 2014. But the gains “are much larger for economically advantaged students.” (p 6-8)
The report doesn’t note that according to the last four years of available NAEP data (from 2009-2013), on the all-important 4th-grade reading indicator, the lowest-achieving 25% of students made effectively no progress (down by one point among the lowest-achieving 10%; up one point among the lowest 25%).
DC Auditor’s Report: So much information is uncollected, unanalyzed or un-public! “No coordinated system of ongoing monitoring and evaluation.”
To me, the overwhelming finding of the report, on topic after topic, is how hard it is to figure out what’s going on in our schools, what’s working and what’s not. According to the report, information about many important topics is incomplete, much of the available information is not systematically reviewed or analyzed, and much of it is not made publicly available. Fundamentally, to quote the report:
“There is no coordinated system of ongoing monitoring and evaluation for learning conditions that covers all public school students.” And, “Education budgeting, resource allocation, and financial reporting are not clear and easily traceable processes in DCPS or charter schools.”
The report decries the lack of data, among other things, on learning conditions, school climate, facilities, academic supports for learning, outcomes for different groups of students, course-taking and completion, and “how well strategies for improving teacher quality are meeting their goals,” etc. The report notes that while charter schools generally report the least information, inadequate data, evaluation, and monitoring are a problem that greatly afflicts both DCPS and the charter sectors.
In addition to its call for a “data warehouse,” the report also calls for DC to consider “a program of ongoing evaluation that includes long-term monitoring and public reporting of key indicators, as well as a portfolio of in-depth studies of high-priority issues.” (p 7-13). I totally agree.
Fixing broken oversight system is an important goal of the State Board of Education.
In most states, the State Board of Education, working with the state’s education agency, is responsible for the oversight and monitoring of education. In DC, the state board has much less authority than similar boards have elsewhere. But we’re trying! In a March memo to OSSE (Office of the State Superintendent of Education), the Board called on OSSE to enhance what’s reported publicly about DC’s schools. Among the specifics that we called for:
**Reporting disaggregated achievement data (test scores) so that it’s possible to see how the city’s poorest and lowest-achieving students are faring.
**Studying the side effects of our state’s accountability system, especially reports of a narrowed curriculum and the loss of too much instructional time.
**Learning conditions, including school-by-school information on school climate, academic supports, teacher experience, and staff turnover.
**Budget transparency—especially about how funds targeted to at-risk students are used to support effective educational programs.
Next up on State Board Agenda: Should students who earn a high school equivalency certificate be awarded a DC high school diploma?
The State Board of Education is now considering this question. Currently, students who pass the GED exam or earn other equivalency certificates do not get a high school diploma. In our first set of hearings on this topic, (July15), we heard from leaders of the Academy of Hope and Next Step Public Charter School, two adult education charter schools that prepare students to take the GED or NEDP (National External Diploma Program) exams. These school leaders argue that the GED in particular has greatly raised its standards and that students who pass the exam possess skills and knowledge equivalent to their high school graduate peers. But, they say, these students, many of whom have overcome extraordinary obstacles to return to school, study, and pass the exam, are often discriminated against when they apply for jobs or 4-year college admission. (Community colleges typically welcome students with GED certificates.) According to these educators, fairness, as well as the ability of certificate earners to successfully move forward, requires that they should be awarded high school diplomas.
It’s a very compelling argument. On the other side, there is evidence from the National Bureau of Economic Research (though from before the GED raised its standards) that the ability to get a diploma via an equivalency certificate may encourage students to drop out, especially if schools have instituted higher standards, which DC has done in recent years. If you’re interested, you can view the Board’s hearing here. (The first portion is on proposed new health standards, followed by testimony on the new diploma.)
In the fall, the SBOE will conduct additional discussions at which we will hear from a wide variety of community voices and policy experts. If you have some knowledge or experience with this question, I’m very interested in hearing from you.
Happy Summer!!! If you want to keep up on DC/Ward 3 educational issues, follow me @ruth4schools. And, always feel free to email me at ruth4schools@yahoo.com.
May 7, 2015 Newsletter To get on my regular email list, please email me at ruth4schools@yahoo.com
Today’s newsletter is heavy on the DC education budget!!! Now is the time to Contact Education Committee Chair David Grosso (dgrosso@dccouncil.us) re: the Wilson budget cut! Also, two new education advocacy groups on the scene; how not to teach reading comprehension, reading comprehension; and School Events from Deal, Hardy, and Mann!
Severe 10% Wilson HS Budget Cut Moves Forward. Next Step is Up To City Council Education Chair David Grosso
As many of you know, DCPS’ proposed budget for the next school year singles Wilson High School out for a severe budget cut. The proposed cut of $350,000, combined with a projected enrollment increase of 176 students, will reduce per-student funding by 10%.
A terrific group of Wilson students–organized by PTA president Kim Bayliss–as well as Wilson’s LSAT chair Jeff Kovar and parent leaders from Murch and Shepherd, testified before the city council’s education committee (April 23), arguing forcefully for the funds to be restored. In response, Chairman Grosso agreed at the hearing that the Wilson budget cut needs to be addressed. He indicated his belief that DCPS Chancellor Henderson would, in fact, offer a solution when she testified in front of his committee the following week. I was optimistic when I left the hearing.
The response was disheartening. According to the Chancellor, no funding will be restored to Wilson. Instead, recognizing that the allocated funds are insufficient, DCPS will require that Wilson push out many of its out-of-bounds students, including by strictly enforcing a policy that dis-enrolls out-of bounds students with 10 absences. (Keep in mind: The way in which Wilson’s block scheduling policy interacts with DCPS’ scheduling policy means that students can be marked absent if they are just a little tardy—meaning in effect that students with one tardy a month can be kicked out.)
The Chancellor also testified that as the new school year approaches, if class size is a problem, DCPS will work with Wilson to find additional teachers at that time. But that just begs the question: We already know that the current allocation is inadequate to provide adequate staffing. Waiting until later just assures that the Wilson administration will be unable to plan properly and do the necessary hiring in a timely, responsible way.
Next week, the Council’s education committee will mark up the education budget. This is the time to reach out to Council Education Chair David Grosso dgrosso@dccouncil.us. Or call at 202-724-8105. Please let him know that it is important to you that the Wilson budget get restored. He is an at-large Councilperson. You may have voted for him!!!
Many schools are dropped from the modernization/renovation budget. Education Chairman Grosso seeks input on troubled process.
DC’s education spending includes an “operating” budget and a “capital” budget. Wilson is the target of the most devastating cut in a school operating budget. But many schools have been suddenly and without warning found cut from the capital budget. As a result, desperately needed modernizations and renovations at these schools have been further delayed, some of them for multiple years. As Chairman Grosso noted at the hearing, the way in which capital budget commitments have been made to schools, changed, and changed again year after year is not an appropriate or fair way to address the needs of schools.
Now you can see the facts for yourself! At the beginning of the budget debate, the “conventional wisdom” was that Wilson was losing so much money because DCPS was required to properly distribute a special allocation of funds for “at-risk” students made available by the city council. The suggestion was that somehow last year Wilson got more money than it should have to support education for its at-risk students and the proposed budget cut was just a righting of the ship.
This web-based budget tool gives the lie to that notion. Wilson got fewer dollars last year than it should have for its substantial at-risk population. Now that DCPS is being required by the City Council to properly distribute the at-risk funds, Wilson will receive more “at-risk” money than it did last year! Wilson’s very severe budget cut has nothing to do with the redirection of “at-risk” money. Wilson’s budget cut is due to a discretionary DCPS decision. With this tool, you can see where the money is going. You can look at the budgets of all schools across the city. You can also click on high schools to look at just the Wilson budget and other high schools.
Two new organizations to advocate for DC and Ward 3 schools
***Coalition for DC Public Schools and Communities.
Newly founded to champion high-quality neighborhood schools in every DC neighborhood, this new group was founded by the ward-level education councils that exist in every DC ward and several city-wide education advocacy groups. Its first product is the terrific web-based budget tool, developed by Code for DC. As described above, which is providing DC residents the facts they need to understand, analyze, and critique the proposed DCPS budget.
In its prior, less formal incarnation, the group hosted a forum for mayoral candidates last fall and has called for greater budget transparency in school funding and better planning around school facilities. See here for C4DC’s 6 core principles. See here for its website.
***Ward 3 –Wilson Feeder Education Network
Launched by PTA and LSAT leaders from Ward 3 and Wilson feeder schools, this new group gives Ward 3 an organization that already has a counterpart in every other ward–a formal structure for sharing information and building relationships among ward schools and advocating for public school children in the ward and across the city. The group’s next meeting is Thursday May 14, 7PM, at Shepherd Park Library. You can follow the Network @W3EdNet and at www.facebook.com/W3EdNet.
Cognitive scientist Dan Willingham (my colleague on the board of the Core Knowledge Foundation) explains why a curriculum that focuses on “reading” while deemphasizing science, history, social studies and the arts actually hurts reading ability! He did a series of pieces for Washington/Post online. Here’s one of them.
School News
Heartbreak for Hardy By a heartbreaking .2 seconds, Hardy’s incredible rocketry team lost its chance to be the first DCPS public school to get to the finals of the Team America Rocketry Challenge. The competition includes 689 teams, almost all high schools (while Hardy is a middle school), from around the country. Their .2 second loss was to Arlington’s famed science and tech magnet, Thomas Jefferson High School in Arlington. If you’re going to lose, that’s a pretty impressive team to lose to. Next year, Hardy!!
You might wonder, as I did: What does a rocketry team do to win a place in the national competition? According to Marcio Duffles, PTO president and team coach, “Design, build, and launch a rocket to a height of 800 feet, land within a window of 46 and 48 seconds and not break the “eggonaut” ????!!!!
Deal’s Spring Musical—Guys and Dolls
Three great shows: Thursday, May 7– 7PM/ Friday May 8—7PM/ Saturday May 9-2PM
Hardy’s “Night in Rio” Gala and Auction
May 15, 6:30-9:30pm. Hardy’s off and running with its first auction in six years! At the home of PTA president Marcio and Tracey Dufles-Andrade. 4770 Reservoir Rd. NW Additional parking available at the Lab School across fro the venue. To purchase tickets, Click here.
Horace Mann’s Summer Bash
June 8, 5-8pm. End the week with lots of family fun. Bring the kids–lots of games, lots of food, lots of fun!
Councilwoman Mary Cheh greets Wilson High School students testifying at City Council education committee hearing.Wilson students address the DC city council’s education committee.
Lots of school news! Budget cuts proposed for Wilson… State Board of Education calls for study of over-testing and curriculum narrowing… Language Immersion Schools… Parent Cabinet… PARCC Comments?
Quick Communications Logistics: Some of you are receiving this on a listserve; others as an email. If you’re reading this on a listserve and would like to receive a regular email, please send me an email at ruth4schools@yahoo.com. If you’re receiving this as an email and don’t want to be on the regular email list, you should send me an email asking to be taken off the list!
The proposed budget for Wilson High School has been severely cut at the same time that its projected enrollment is up. It amounts to a 10.5% per pupil spending cut from last year. This is likely the largest cut proposed for any school and means that Wilson will likely have the lowest per pupil spending in the city. For information on the cuts and their likely effect, please see this letter from Wilson’s PTA president and LSAT to Mayor Bowser and this one from Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh to DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson.
2) consider testifying at the City Council when it holds its hearing on the DCPS budget on April 23, 10AM. If you’re interested in testifying, contact: Christina Henderson, chenderson@dccouncil.us or by calling 202-724-8191.
State Board of Education Adopts “ESEA Waiver Report,” calling for a review of the side effects of DC’s accountability system, enhanced school report cards, more meaningful reporting of test scores
The No Child Left Behind law requires every state (and for this purpose DC is a state!) to adopt academic standards for each grade, to administer annual tests in reading and math, to report these test scores by school and subgroup, and hold schools accountable for student achievement. NCLB required schools to get 100% of their students to the “proficient” level by 2014 or face sanctions. Given that the 100% threshold is, practically speaking, an impossible goal (at least if you maintain a high standard), the Department of Education allows states to apply for “waivers” of the law. In return for adopting its own accountability system (that meets a number of federal guidelines), a state can get a waiver of certain NCLB rules. DC applied for and received such a waiver several years ago. It’s now time for DC to apply for a renewal. The renewal is handled through DC’s state education agency, the Office of the State Superintendent (OSSE). OSSE has filed an initial waiver request and will make additional amendments later, after further discussions.
The State Board of Education thinks this is the right opportunity to revisit several aspects of our accountability system. I was the chair of the SBOE committee on the Waiver Renewal. The committee recommended, and the full SBOE adopted, a set of recommendations that we hope OSSE will include as it pursues our city’s waiver renewal. You can see the full report here. Some highlights are:
**Examine the side effects of DC’s accountability system—specifically, the excessive time spent on testing and test prep and the narrowing of the curriculum, especially in elementary grades, to the heavily tested subjects, meaning that history-social studies, science and the arts get squeezed out. And, establish a task force to figure out how we can promote these subjects.
**Enhance the state report cards to or provide a broader view of school quality. These report cards are heavily relied on by parents as they choose schools for their kids, and they send a signal to schools about what is regarded as important.
**More transparent, relevant reporting of key school data.
What do you think about these issues? Your responses will help determine how we pursue these issues. Please email me here.
For a great piece on the growing interest in the connection between high-level reading comprehension and students’ knowledge of history-social studies, science, and the arts, see this article by Natalie Wexler in Greater, Greater Washington.
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Interested in getting DCPS to open up more language immersion programs? There’s an app a group for that.
The DC Immersion Project wants DCPS to open up more language immersion schools. Its leaders argue that lottery results show that parents want these programs. Find out more here. I’ve certainly heard this from a lot of parents!!!
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DCPS Parent Cabinet—Congratulations to new members!
DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson has named a new Parent Cabinet, charged with discussing policies and programs with the chancellor over the next year.
Special call-out to the new members from Ward 3 and/or with kids in Ward 3 schools—Andre Carter and Thomas Strike (Stoddert); Vivian Guerra and Sweta Shah (Oyster-Adams); Corinne McIntosh Douglas (SWW), Michael Koppenheffer (Lafayette/Deal). Click here for their bio’s.
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Parents/Teachers: What was your experience with PARCC???
According to the reports that I’ve gotten, the PARCC testing went pretty smoothly at most schools. The big exception has been Wilson, where the logistics were very challenging. I’m interested in any specific reports, good or bad, that you can share with me. I’ll be passing them on at the right point so they can inform improvements next year. Email your comments to ruth4schools@yahoo.com.
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Happy Holidays to those who celebrate Easter and Passover, and Happy Spring, finally, to all!
