Archives for category: District of Columbia
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Valerie Jablow: D.C. Chancellor Ferebee is Cutting the Budgets of Public Schools While Shifting Funds to New Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
June 17, 2019 //
7

Valerie Jablow, parent activist and blogger in D.C., wrote a scathing indictment of the leadership of the District of Columbia Public Schools.

She is sure that the districts leaders are actively undermining public schools–a policy of benign neglect– and promoting charter expansion.

A few weeks ago, the D.C. Public Charter School Board [sic] approved five new charter schools, despite the large number of empty seats in both public and private charter schools.  Only one of the new charters will locate in Anacostia, the city’s highest poverty district.

Many of the public schools enrolling students with high needs are suffering devastating budget cuts. At the same time, the Deputy Mayor for Education Paul Kihn testified that the city was “over investing” in these same schools. She notes that the Deputy Mayor sends his own child to an expensive private school where it is just fine to “overinvest” in education.

Chancellor Lewis Ferebee was hired away from Indianapolis, where he was actively collaborating with those who supported the privatization of public education. Now he oversees the harsh budget cuts inflicted on D.C.’s public schools, while declaring that more seats are needed for charter schools. Conditions are so bad in many of the district’s public schools that students are literally being pushed out of public schools and forced to seek “choices” other than their neighborhood public schools.

Chancellor Ferebee is a member of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change, which actively promotes vouchers, charter schools, and high-stakes testing.

And here is a voice in the D.C. wilderness, a teacher and Vice Chair of the Ward 7 Education Council, calling for a moratorium on charters in D.C., because they open and close at will and have no allegiance to their community, nor do they fill any need. Venola M. Rolle wrote in a letter to the Washington Post:

Stories regarding sudden closures and substandard performance justify a moratorium on establishing charter schools in this city. I do not know what information could be more damning. It’s time to have an open discussion about how to cease the proliferation of charter schools in the city and, instead, devise approaches to strengthening the schools we already have and that are the anchors of our communities.

With the current leadership of D.C., its mayor, its deputy mayor for education, and its chancellor, that discussion is not likely to happen.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, District of Columbia, Education Industry, Education Reform, Indianapolis, Privatization

Peter McPherson: The District of Columbia Needs an Elected School Board

By dianeravitch
May 8, 2019 //
2

 

Peter McPherson, a former parent of students in the District of Columbia public schools, describes the failure of Mayor Bowser’s leadership of the city’s schools. He lists her many poor decisions, her authoritarian style, and her refusal to take responsibility for scandals on her watch. She seems determined to keep the Rhee agenda intact. About half the children are enrolled in charter schools, with more on the way. This is an admission of failure on the part of the mayor and her chancellor. For the record, D.C. has the largest achievement gaps of any urban district in the nation.

In Chicago, as he notes, the new mayor Lori Lightfoot, is committed to restoring a locally elected board. In New York City, Mayor Bill DeBlasio is determined to hold onto autocratic rule of the schools.

I was reminded as I read his article about having been invited to meet with the D.C. City Council education committee before it endorsed local control on 2007. I warned them not to do it and told them that the story about the “New York City Miracle” was fantasy. Obviously I was not persuasive.

I think the Mayor should appoint a significant number of board members but the board should choose the leader, not the Mayor.

There is no ideal way to govern schools but the worst way is to vest control solely in the hands of one person.

Categories District of Columbia, New York City

D.C.: Charter Schools Ignore Suicide Prevention Training, and a Charter Student Hangs Herself

By dianeravitch
May 2, 2019 //
18

This post about D.C. charter schools asks why these schools are free to choose which laws to obey and which to ignore.

One that they chose to ignore is suicide prevention training for their staff.

The leaders of the charter sector complained about the rules and regulations that the city wanted to impose on them.

The author, Jonetta Rose Barras, writes:

“When I read the email exchange between Michael Musante, a lobbyist for local charter schools, and Scott Pearson, executive director of the DC Public Charter School Board (PCSB), I became enraged. I think, perhaps, you would have had a similar reaction.

“In discussing the introduction of the Youth Suicide Prevention Act in the DC Council, Pearson wrote on Sept. 22, 2015, “Unbelievable. Does it ever stop?”

“I wouldn’t be able to take trips to Europe every summer if it stopped,” Musante replied in the email chain, a copy of which was provided to The DC Line.

“I guess we can just add it to the pile of requirements that don’t get enforced,” replied Pearson about the law created to protect District schoolchildren.”

A 12-year-old student at the SEED charter school hung herself in 2018. This was one of those “miracle” schools celebrated in the propaganda film “Waiting for ‘Superman,'” which is now streaming on Amazon and other services. Did the child’s parent see the film and win the lottery to get her into this boarding school, which costs the District nearly $40,000 per year?

The parent of the child is suing the school and the foundation that operates the school for negligence.

Charter school leaders seem to be against any regulations, suggesting that they interfere with their independence. They currently are fighting a legislative proposal introduced by Ward 6’s Charles Allen that would subject all charter schools to the city’s existing open meetings and Freedom of Information Act requirements. That proposal doesn’t go far enough, however. It’s time to reassess the exemptions provided to charter schools, imposing many of the same regulations that apply to DC Public Schools.

Should a charter school be free from all regulations, all accountability, all transparency, even regulations protecting the lives of children?

Apparently, charters believe that they are above the law and outside of any accountability for their finances or their students’ lives. The laws and regulations are for other people, not them.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, District of Columbia, Education Reform, Safety, Students

Peter Greene: Democracy Prep Has a Lot to Learn…from Public Schools

By dianeravitch
April 29, 2019 //
9

 

Peter Greene found an insightful article at The 74 about the serial failures of the Democracy Prep Charter Chain.

Betsy DeVos gave the chain $21.8 million to expand but it is having trouble growing beyond its New York City home base.

It was invited to take over the massive disaster that was Andre Agassi’s charter school (which had principal churn, teacher churn, abysmal academics, etc.), and Democracy Prep is struggling to hold on to teachers and students. (Andre Agassi, of course, has abandoned the role of charter founder to become a builder of charter schools in partnership with a venture capitalist. More money, fewer headaches.)

Democracy Prep was asked to take over a failing charter in D.C., where it too failed.

Greene notes:

“The DC school was in trouble from the start. The Executive Director was Sean Reidy who graduated from Loyola with a BS in business administration, did two years with TFA, taught another two years at Harlem DP, went on to get his MBA from Georgetown, and then took over the DC school. (DP, like many charters, likes its TFA recruits, but Mahnken doesn’t really address that, though I’d argue that the culture of edu-amateurs is part of the root of DP’s problems.)”

Greene concludes:

Educational amateurism combined with Big Apple hubris leads to people who don’t think they have to learn anything about the culture where they want to set up shop. This is not unique to DP, or even charters, or even education– it’s just extra-ironic because DP is supposed to be all about being informed effective citizens. Of course, public schools that are owned and operated by the people in the community (and not run from an office thousands of miles away), aren’t so prone to this problem.

No excuses schools are a lousy idea. I know there are students here and there who thrive in them, but they’re still a lousy idea. No wealthy white parents would put their kids in a No Excuses school.

One size does not fit all. Charter folks insist that charters are the solution to OSFA [Editor’s Note: “One Size Fits All”], but their insistence on having everything under one roof be a tightly united philosophical whole has the opposite effect. Public schools have room for many cultures and many philosophies under one roof, which means that students can find a corner of the school that “fits” without having to start over at a whole new school. There’s no reason that charters can’t operate the same way.

Solve problems; don’t walk away from them. This article just gives a peek at the world where charter after charter after charter is taken over, turned around, handed off to some other business. DP moves in, tries their one thing, waits, makes some tiny tweaks, and if it fails, they walk away. Public schools may not always live up to the promise of their commitment, but they don’t just walk out the door saying, “Good luck, kid. Hope somebody happens by to help you out.”

Education concerns and business concerns don’t fit together. Again– business concerns are not evil or wrong, but they don’t match the considerations of education. Good business decisions are not good education decisions.

One of the selling points of charters has always been that they will figure out great new things that the rest of the education world can then pick up and run with. But most of what Democracy Prep needed to know they could have learned from a public school teacher.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, District of Columbia, Education Industry, Education Reform, Nevada, New York City, Privatization

D.C. Public Schools Are Facing Budget Cuts: Here is What You Can Do

By dianeravitch
April 23, 2019 //
5

Valerie Jablow, parent activist in the District of Columbia, offers advice here about what YOU can do to stop budget cuts and demand transparency and accountability for ALL schools (including charter schools).

Take Valerie’s advice.

Get active.

 

Categories District of Columbia

Valerie Jablow: Watch D.C. Give Away Public School Space to Charters

By dianeravitch
March 17, 2019 //
8

Valerie Jablow, parent activist in D.C., seems to know the District’s laws better than the members of the City Council.

She knows that the city can’t just give away or lease property to charter schools without following the law. Apparently the City Council doesn’t know that.

Read this account. Apparently the City Council is ready and willing to hand off public schools without going through legally required process.

In one instance, the city leased a property to a charter owner, who in turn sublet it back to the city and is making $200,000 a year on the deal!

Does anyone care about protecting the students and property of the D.C. public schools or are they just an afterthought?

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, District of Columbia, Education Industry, Privatization

D.C.: Teachers Unfairly Terminated by Michelle Rhee Win $5 Million Settlement: VICTORY!

By dianeravitch
March 8, 2019 //
62

The Washington Teachers Union won a long-standing battle with the D.C. public schools caused by the unfair implementation of Michelle Rhee’s teacher evaluation program called IMPACT.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/04/AR2010080406934_pf.htmlhttps://www.dclabor.org/home/wtu-settles-excessed-teachers-case

https://www.dclabor.org/home/wtu-settles-excessed-teachers-case

 

 

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, hailed the settlement:

 

WASHINGTON—AFT President Randi Weingarten issued the following statement after the Washington Teachers’ Union reached a landmark settlement with District of Columbia Public Schools over teachers terminated by former Chancellor Michelle Rhee:

“This settlement doesn’t take away the hurt and shame Michelle Rhee inflicted on so many great D.C. teachers—but after a long fight, it is a small step toward vindication for those who suffered from her top-down, test-and-punish policies that have failed both the arbitrator’s test and the test of time.

“Instead of helping teachers get what students need, Rhee embarked on a blame-and-shame campaign that was as ineffective as it was indefensible. There is a straight line between the Rhee agenda—which tried to strip educators of any voice and dignity and reduced students to test scores and teachers to algorithms—to the current walkouts in which educators are fighting for an appropriate investment in public schools. Teachers fight for what students need. That is as true now as it was when Michelle Rhee denigrated their voice.

“What happened a decade ago still stings, but the teachers in Washington, D.C., who were wrongly fired will take some measure of comfort from this settlement; and their unions will continue to fight to make sure the wrong-headed mentality that pitted students against their teachers never arises again.”

Background

The Washington Teachers’ Union, an AFT affiliate, has reached a settlement with District of Columbia Public Schools over the union’s grievance involving teachers “excessed” in 2010. The overall value of the settlement agreement is more than $5 million.

Under the settlement agreement, each teacher who was terminated by DCPS as a result of this “excessing” will be entitled to monetary compensation.
Categories District of Columbia, Justice, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers

D.C.: A Rating System Designed to Destroy Public Education

By dianeravitch
February 27, 2019 //
17

 

This is not a well-known secret: every distribution will always have a bottom 5%.

In D.C., under the control of the Mayor, the school system had adopted a rating system that is guaranteed to produce winners and losers. The losers are set up for privatization.

Parent activist and blogger Valerie Jablow thinks this stinks. She’s right.

 

She writes:

It’s not merely that the relativity of the STAR rating means that we will always have 1-star schools–which is unbearably cruel, given what’s at stake. It’s also that it purports to be neutral. After all, who can argue with test scores? They’re numbers–and everyone knows numbers don’t lie! Numbers are neutral!

But the reality is that the STAR rating and others like it are most definitely notneutral. Rather, these ratings were created out of deeply political motivations to determine school winners and losers. And without infusions of real resources tied to those 1- and 2-star ratings (and not merely listening sessions mediated by private advocacy group PAVE), DC schools with low ratings stand to lose a lot.

Moreover, if the STAR rating were about ensuring quality in our schools, we would know exactly how far those Anacostia high school teachers moved their students every single year. And we would also know what resources they got–and the resources they needed–in doing so.

But these ratings not only don’t tell us any of that, but teachers at Anacostia will be penalized to the extent that their students do not score well on PARCC. Not to mention that those teachers get only a few years to move that bar. (See p. 35 of our ESSA plan to see what happens when a school doesn’t move that bar fast enough: privatizing.)

We thus find ourselves in a very interesting place–wherein we have a school ratings system that cannot really tell us about school quality, all the while it purports to do just that.

Soooo: why do we have this rating system?

It would appear to be about choice–but even then, in a very limited context.

While all our charter schools are about choice, and now educate about half our students, most families attending DCPS also engage in choice of some sort, whether through the out of boundary process or through selective high schools. In fact, according to school analyst Mary Levy, about 25% of our high school students currently attend selective high schools–which makes DCPS’s choice to invest in a new one (Bard) and expand another (Banneker) on trend.

Except that the trend is a little concerning…

So, let me ask again: why do we have this rating system?

We have just spent a considerable amount of civic money and effort not only making it easier for families to reject schools with low test scores (the star rating appears on our lottery website), but also investing in tests that make it easier for schools with some of the city’s highest test scores to select out an already limited pool of high-scoring students.

All the while we learn nothing from the resulting ratings about the resources provided (or needed) at our schools or, for high schools, growth that teachers have been able to effect for their students–who more likely than not start out at or below grade level everywhere except for a relatively small number at only a small subset of our high schools.

Perhaps the worst part is how these ratings enable a grotesque educational bait and switch.

That is, the underlying assumption appears to be that the ratings enable parents to choose and thus helps students and makes schools better, presumably through competition. But the only competition herein is pitting public against the public, such that the public loses every time it wins, since our public schools are a system of, for, and by the public. Not to mention that “winning” in this context is very strange indeed: is it a slot at a selective high school for your child? Or your school not being closed down or privatized? All the while this so-called competition neither informs us about what is really going on inside our schools nor helps schools support the students they have.

So, gotta ask again:

Why do we have this rating system if it’s not really about quality or helping schools or truly informing parents or ensuring we have adequate resources for the majority of our schools that do not now (and may never) have many students getting a 4+ on PARCC?

Maybe this rating system, which appears so ill-suited for what it purports to do, is really about something else entirely–say, resources?

That is, because 1-star schools will always be with us (how convenient!), our city will thus ensure a steady flow of resources from closed or privatized 1-star schools (buildings, students, personnel, furniture, supplies) for, well, whoever would like to have them.

Now who’s winning?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, District of Columbia, Education Industry, Testing

Mark Simon: Can the Schools of D.C. Recover from More Than a Decade of Failed Reforms?

By dianeravitch
February 24, 2019 //
40

“

Mark Simon, a former teacher and current parent activist in D.C., is hopeful that the District is ready to reverse the failed policies launched by Michelle Rhee in 2007.

The district is under mayoral control, which itself is a failed structure that bears no relationship to improving schools. The mayor chose Lewis Ferebee as the new chancellor, who arrives with a reputation as a privatizer who aided in closing public schools in Induanapolis, which has been a target for the Disruption Movement.

Simon writes:

“The experiment of tying teachers’ evaluations and pay to student test scores is over. It captured the imagination of decision-makers in D.C., Denver and nationwide a decade ago. As Post columnist David Von Drehle pointed out, the demand to end the experiment motivated a citywide strike in Denver. An “innovation” when it began in 2006 has become what Von Drehle called “an anachronism.”…

“Acting D.C. Chancellor Lewis Ferebee, responding to questions at his nomination hearing before the D.C. Council this month, acknowledged he was brought to Indianapolis by reformers to be the disrupter of neighborhood schools. That’s not how he wants to be seen now. He’s spent the past two months listening to parents, principals, teachers and students, and he’s learned a lot.

“If policymakers pay close attention to what teachers, parents and students are saying, the District may stumble into insights to fix teacher turnover and tackle school instability. At public hearings, demoralized parents and teachers say teacher and school ratings over which they have little control feel inaccurate. Standardized test scores are driven by factors outside school, including the socioeconomic background of students and the quality of neighborhood assets, more than by what takes place in classrooms.

“Ferebee admitted that teacher turnover is a big problem in the District. He wants to take another look at the Impact evaluation system and the short-leash one-year contracts given principals. He’s heard there’s a culture of fear in schools. Teachers and principals are afraid to exercise their judgment or say what they think. He heard the District may, by design, have created a school system in which respectful relationships of trust have been undermined. In the rush to fix the outcome data on a few narrow indicators — test scores, graduation rates, attendance — we may have jeopardized the heart of what defines good teaching and what parents want from great schools.

“Listening to the questions D.C. Council members and the legions of public witnesses asked Ferebee, it’s clear that the tide has turned. There is a broad consensus that we need a correction in education reform in the District. Regardless of whether Ferebee gets confirmed as chancellor, the nominee, his overseers on the D.C. Council and teachers and parents who have lived through almost two years of scandals seem to have reached the same conclusions. The metrics used to judge schools and teachers have lost credibility. The voices of teachers and parents are starting to have newfound respect.

“I recently watched an amazing prekindergarten teacher, Liz Koenig, and her daughters, ages 2 and 4, at an EmpowerEd meeting. EmpowerEd was created two years ago by classroom teachers in D.C. Public Schools and the charter sector to elevate teacher voices and relational trust in each school and citywide. I watched Koenig as she allowed her daughters to make decisions while providing subtle feedback, building a sense of agency. It struck me that great teaching — the talent to nurture a child’s development — is personal, interactive and requires tremendous skill. I’ve seen the adoring letters from her students’ parents. She’s beloved. Teachers at her school voted her “best of staff.” So, it was a shock this week when we found out that the Bridges Public Charter School administrators have told her not to come back in the fall. It had nothing to do with the quality of her teaching, they said. The unspoken message was that charter operators are accountable only to the metrics that rate them as Tier 1, 2, or 3. There’s something wrong in DCPS and the charter sector when teachers are expendable.

“Teachers and public education have been subjected to one failed experiment after another over the past decade. It’s time to get back to measuring teachers and schools by the things that make them valuable and to admit that the past 10 years may have led us in some wrong directions. Schools are best measured by what parents, teachers and students say they’ve experienced: the learning culture.

“According to University of Massachusetts professor Jack Schneider, who spoke at a public Senior High Alliance of Principals, Parents and Educators meeting at the Columbia Heights Education Campus attended by the deputy mayor for education and other elected officials last month, there are excellent climate surveys of parents, teachers and students that should be on D.C.’s school report card, overseen by the state superintendent of schools on the My Schools DC website. Instead, most of the simplistic five-star rating is derived from the PARCC test.

“Teachers should be tapped and retained because they create a love of learning and change students’ lives — not just their standardized test scores. If we learn the lessons of this moment, and it looks as if there’s a good chance we are starting to, the District’s education future looks bright.”

Friends, the Corporate Reform Movement is dying.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Denver, District of Columbia, Education Industry, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations, Testing, VAM

District of Columbia: Broadies Take Control of All Top Leadership Positions

By dianeravitch
February 23, 2019 //
21

 

The Edythe and Eli Broad Foundation now owns complete control of the schoolsof the District of Columbia.

With the appointment of Lewis Ferebee, former superintendent of Indianapolis, where he collaborated with the Mind Trust to expand privatization, D.C. is now a Broadie district.

DCist.com reports:

“The top three educational leaders in the District of Columbia all have one thing in common: they’ve all studied under a wealthy philanthropist’s educational leadership program that promotes a business perspective in the management of public schools and the use of charters.

“The D.C. state superintendent Hanseul Kang, the deputy mayor of education Paul Kihn, and acting schools chancellor Lewis Ferebee have each been through training at the Broad Center for the Management of School Systems, which houses both the Broad Academy and the Broad Residency in Urban Education.

“Those who support the training program say it offers a unique corporate-like training experience for school leaders and helps them form lasting friendships. Critics of the program say the teachings encourage school leaders to undermine democratic control of public education by making top-down reforms and promoting charter schools.

“There have been hundreds of school leaders that have gone through Broad training, including former DCPS chancellor Antwan Wilson. Kaya Henderson was also named a superintendent in residence at The Broad Center in 2017. But, if Ferebee is confirmed, this will be the first time all of D.C. Public Schools’ top public education leaders will be Broad scholars.”

Michelle Rhee started the Corporate Reform takeover of D.C. in 2007, imposing a harsh evaluation system that led to high turnover of teachers and principals. She was not a Broadie, however; she came out of Teach for America. But after she became a superstar, she joined the board ofthe unaccredited Broad Superintendents’ Academy.

Since 2007, the district has experienced major cheating scandals and, recently, a graduation rate scandal that cast doubt on many of the claims of success.

Despite it’s “reform” leadership, D.C. continues to havethe biggest achievement gaps of any district in the nation, about double the size of the black-white, Hispanic-white gaps in other urban districts.

There is something strangely satisfying about knowing that disciples of Eli Broad have taken complete control of D.C. They will have no one else to blame if they don’t turn the District into one of the nation’s top-performing  districts, as Rhee long ago promised.

 

Categories Accountability, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, District of Columbia, Education Industry, Privatization
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