- Gray names Abigail Smith deputy mayor for education
- D.C. names new deputy mayor for education [E.L. Haynes PCS mentioned]
- What we already know about next year's DCPS budget
- Matching teachers and schools using the online dating model [Achievement Prep PCS, SEED PCS, and DC Prep PCS mentioned]
- School consolidations need more planning
- Expanding pre-K
The Washington Post
By Emma Brown
March 21, 2013
D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray on Thursday named Abigail Smith, a former Teach for America executive with leadership experience in both traditional D.C. schools and charters, as the city’s next deputy mayor for education.
If confirmed by the D.C. Council, Smith will replace De’Shawn Wright, who resigned in the fall to take a job in his native New York. Wright’s chief of staff, Jennifer Leonard, has been serving in an interim capacity.
“Abigail has devoted her entire career to working with families, teachers and schools to deliver on the promise of a great public education for all children,” Gray (D) said in a statement. “She’s extremely well qualified to steer my administration’s efforts to ensure that every child in the District has access to a top-quality education.”
The deputy mayor is responsible for coordinating the District’s many education-oriented agencies. It is a key position in Gray’s effort to develop a comprehensive plan for the coexistence of traditional public schools and public charter schools — two sectors that compete for students and resources and operate independently.
Smith, a well-known figure in D.C. education circles, has worked in both sectors. But she said she sees the city’s challenges from the perspective of a mother of two children. “I really believe that at the end of the day, what parents care about is great schools for their kids,” she said. “I want every parent to have good information about their choices . . . and to be able to access those in ways that are true to the notion of a public education system.”
This is not Smith’s first stint in city government. When Mayor Adrian Fenty took over city schools in 2007, Smith aided the transition to mayoral control as an employee in the office of the deputy mayor for education.
She then moved to D.C. Public Schools, where she worked under former chancellor Michelle A. Rhee and current Chancellor Kaya Henderson as chief of transformation management from 2008 to 2011.
“Abby’s deep knowledge and experience in both traditional DCPS schools and in DC charter schools makes her especially qualified to help us improve collaboration and coordination to ensure that we really are one city where every student can succeed,” Henderson said in a statement.
Smith has been an independent consultant for the past year, working most recently with the D.C. Public Charter School Board to establish a common application deadline and lottery date for charter schools.
“We’re thrilled. We think it’s an inspired choice,” said Scott Pearson, executive director of the charter board.
Smith began her career with Teach for America in a first-grade classroom in rural North Carolina. She continued with the organization in a number of roles, including as executive director of its D.C. office. She is the chairman of the board of her children’s school, E.L. Haynes, one of the city’s best-performing charters. She plans to leave that position to take on her new job, which begins April 10. The new deputy mayor has a tough task ahead in building trust among activists and parents, said Daniel del Pielago, of the community group Empower DC. “If they’re saying they’re going to include the community, I want to see real clear plans,” del Pielago said.
Last year, Wright, the deputy mayor, released a controversial study that recommended opening more high-performing charters and turning around or closing dozens of low-performing traditional public schools.
Wright’s staff then held a series of community meetings that drew hundreds of attendees, many of whom were fiercely critical of the study and of the direction of education reform in the city. The nonprofit entity that ran the meetings, Public Agenda, produced a report in the fall summarizing that feedback. The report still has not been released directly by city officials.
“The community was betrayed in this process,” activist Virginia Spatz told the mayor and Leonard, the interim deputy mayor, at a recent town hall meeting. “What citizens experienced through those conversations was the opposite of engagement.”
Leonard said Thursday that she will not return to her position as chief of staff and will seek opportunities elsewhere.
D.C. names new deputy mayor for education [E.L. Haynes PCS mentioned]
The Washington Examiner
By Rachel Baye
March 21, 2013
D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray appointed education consultant Abigail Smith as the District's new deputy mayor for education, the mayor announced Thursday. A resident of Ward 1, Smith is currently the board chairman at E.L. Haynes Public Charter School. She has previously served as a special assistant in the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education, the chief of transformation management for D.C. Public Schools and both Teach For America's vice president for research and public policy and its executive director for the District.
"I've spent enough time in District schools to see the best of the District's public education in both DCPS and public charter schools, and to know that there's an urgent need to do more as quickly as we can," said Smith, who Gray's office labeled a "reformer" in a statement released Thursday.
Smith will take over the job from Jennifer Leonard, who has been filling the position on a temporary basis since De'Shawn Wright vacated the seat last year, on April 10.
Greater Greater Education
By Soumya Bhat
March 21, 2013
While most District agencies are eagerly awaiting the mayor's budget to be released on March 28th, leaders at DC Public Schools have already received their initial budget allocations for the next school year.
As in years past, principals and Local School Advisory Teams (LSATs) were given only about a week to digest the changes in the FY 2014 Budget Development Guide and make decisions about how best to staff their school, with their final school budgets submitted to DCPS last Thursday.
Here is the DC Fiscal Policy Institute's summary of the major changes schools will see next year, based on the DCPS FY 14 budget guide and initial school allocations. Note that these figures are preliminary and may change when the Mayor's budget is released, so, check back for updated analyses in the coming weeks.
School funding will decrease from FY 2013 to FY 2014
Mayor Gray announced that the new Uniform Per Student Funding Formula foundation level, which is used to fund both DCPS and public charter schools, will increase by 2% in FY 2014, to $9,306. Despite this increase, analysis of the preliminary allocations by DCPS to local schools shows an $8 million reduction in general education funding, from $358 million to $349 million. (See DCPS General Education Spending Tables)
General education spending per pupil—which excludes federal funds and funds for special education, Title I and ELL—will increase for elementary schools and education campuses but will fall for secondary schools, particularly magnet high schools, saw the steepest decline in average per pupil spending.
Investments increase at the primary school level
The local school allocations reflect an increased emphasis on literacy and language at the elementary school and education campus levels. Small elementary schools serving fewer than 250 students will receive 2.5 staff to fund their required art, music, PE, and world language positions, while elementary schools between 250 and 400 students will receive three full-time allocations for these four staff positions. Schools serving over 400 students will be allocated 4.5 for all four positions.
Change in small school size
DCPS allocates staff differently to schools defined as "small." For FY 2014, the enrollment level used to define a small school increased, which means more schools will get the reduced staffing associated with smaller schools. Smaller schools were defined this year as those with fewer than 300. Next year, schools enrolling at least 400 students will qualify as a small school. This is the second year in a row that this definition has been changed.
Small schools, under this new definition, get less funding for administrative staff. For example, schools serving fewer than 400 are only funded for a half-time business manager and do not receive a clerk allocation, while larger schools get full-time staff for these positions. Small elementary schools between 300-400 that were funded for a full-time art, music, and PE teacher in the current year's budget will only see 0.75 allocations for the required art, music, PE and world language teachers for next year.
Special education student-teacher ratios
The student-teacher ratio for some special education classrooms appears to have increased. This year, students with learning disabilities who needed full-time specialized instruction had student-teacher ratios of 12:1 at the high school level and 10:1 at the elementary and middle school level. Those have both increased to 15:1 this year. Early childhood autism classrooms have also increased from 3:1 ratios to 8:1 ratios.
School librarians
Last year, schools enrolling fewer than 300 students were not funded for a librarian position. In the FY 2014 initial budget allocations, every school is funded a librarian, with small schools (under 400 students) receiving a half-time position and large schools receiving a full-time position.
However, because the new definition of a "large school" is enrollment of at least 400 students, schools serving between 300 and 400 students that had funding for a full-time librarian this year will get funding only for a half-time librarian next year.
Out-of-school time programs
There is a change in how out-of-school time funding will be distributed to schools next year. Funding for afterschool program staff now appears within individual school budget allocations to ease the hiring process for schools. The new line item, which encompasses Afterschool Programs, Evening Credit Recovery (ECR), and Proving What's Possible extended-day grants, amounts to less than $5 million across DCPS schools.
DCFPI was informed that some additional funding for curriculum, security, supplies, field trips and other support is expected to be available again from the Out of School Time Program (OSTP) central office, and should appear in the Mayor's budget. Total funding for OSTP is $6.7 million total (including what is in school budgets), which keeps in place the cuts that were made for the current year. According to the budget guide, 15 schools will receive ECR funding and 59 schools will receive Title I and TANF funded afterschool programs.
Proving what's possible funding
Last summer, DCPS announced that $10.4 million in grants would go to 59 schools to implement innovative programming. For next year, the total Proving What's Possible (PWP) funding totals $6.5 million, which will go towards continuation grants (which will be specified in the Mayor's budget next week), staff positions focused on literacy, and the extended day programs mentioned above.
According to the budget guide, the PWP funding distributed to schools in FY 2013 were mostly one-time awards. However, 9 schools that began implementing extended-day programs in 2013 will be funded again next year to continue their programs. Eleven of the 40 lowest performing schools will receive PWP funds to focus on literacy, including an assistant principal and reading specialist positions.
Looking for even more budget information? See below for a few handouts that DCFPI passed out at last night's DCPS budget briefing:
• Budget Timeline for Education
• DCPS Budgeting Basics
• DCPS General Education Spending Tables
There will be more information to analyze when the mayor's budget does come out later this month, providing the full funding picture for DCPS and Public Charter Schools. DCPS staff have also committed to another budget briefing prior to the April 17th budget hearing.
Matching teachers and schools using the online dating model [Achievement Prep PCS, SEED PCS, and DC Prep PCS mentioned]
WTOP
March 22, 2013
WASHINGTON - It works to find love, so it could work to find a job. That's the idea behind a new job-searching service that matches teachers with schools using online matchmaking technology. Three D.C. charter schools have already signed up for the new matching service.
MyEDmatch.com launched two weeks ago and so far, 3,500 teachers nationwide have signed up with the education technology start- up out of Kansas City, Mo. Teachers sign up for free and create an online profile to essentially brand themselves by highlighting their strengths and experience. They are prompted to outline their teaching beliefs as part of their profiles, and that helps the site match them with schools on the same educational page.
A school pays a subscription fee, allowing it to further explain its mission and needs. Then, both teachers and schools can search for their best fit. "Teachers traditionally look for jobs in a very information-poor environment. School websites are inconsistent in terms of the quality and kinds of information that's available. There's no single place where teachers can go and find information about a school," says Munro Richardson, co-founder and chief operating officer of myEDMatch.com.
Finding the right teaching environment is essential to an educator's success, he says. One in four new teachers who has been in the classroom less than four years, points to dissatisfaction with the working conditions as the No. 1 reason to leave the classroom, Richardson says. "It's not because they don't like teaching. It's not because they don't like the kids. It's not because they don't think they can do the work. It's because they're not happy with where they are at," Richardson says of teacher attrition.
Nationwide more than 600,000 teachers change schools every year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. It's a problem that Richardson says the Department of Education has been desperate to solve for years and has been a focus of education policy.
Charter schools have an especially difficult time finding the right fit as they look for teachers who match up not only with their teaching style, but their mission, Richardson says.
In the District, the SEED school, Achievement Prep and DC Prep have signed up with myEDmatch.com. The site will save DC Prep administrators time in the interview process, says school Chief Executive Officer Rick Cruz.
The site allows schools to search by experience, specialization and see whether a teacher would be willing to move for a job.
"I think it's a great tool to identify teachers outside of the local region that we might want to bring to our organization. We also think about it as, 'Gosh is this going to be a tool for us to get poached from,'" Cruz says.
It's easier to search for a type of restaurant you might like than a type of school that fits your teaching values. Richarsdon makes that analogy when explaining the need for the matching service -- not only for teachers to find the specific job they want, but for the schools to recruit educators. "It allows them to look through a large number of teachers in a very quick and efficient way by identifying those particular factors they're looking for whether it's certification, specific background or content expertise," Richardson says. The search function could prove helpful for teachers, especially in shrinking districts such as Washington, Richardson says.
In November, D.C. Public School Chancellor Kaya Henderson announced the likely closure of 20 schools across six wards in the fall of 2013. Though D.C. Public Schools launched a campaign in early March to recruit top talent into the classroom, the school system had not heard of myEDmatch.com and is not considering it as a recruitment option at the time, says Melissa Salmanowitz, district spokeswoman.
So far, 16 states are represented on myEDmatch.com, a number Richardson says will grow. No schools in Virginia or Maryland have signed up for the service yet. Both the schools and teachers manage their profiles on myEDmatch, so Richardson says there is the possibility that they can paint the rosiest picture possible. But he says, that is just like any resume. "Just like anyone who is on an online dating profile, you have to make your own assessment. And obviously the more honest you are, the more successful you're going to be to be able to hire the right teachers," Richardson says. Objective data are posted on each school's profile, including a school's student achievement scores, its size and average class size.
The Northwest Current
By Terry Lynch and Lee Granados
March 20, 2013
As longtime D.C. public school parents, we are disheartened by the closure and consolidation plan put forth by Chancellor Kaya Henderson.
When it comes down to it, the results of the plan are that if you live west of the river, your kids might be OK and make it through public schools in D.C. as long as you have the resources, time, ingenuity and determination to stick it out. Not so for those living on the east side. Had the consolidations been thoughtfully considered, they could have been used to demonstrate bold leadership to realign the schools in the system to serve the educational needs of all of our children.
That is the first step needed — we must provide quality education to all District children, regardless of where they live. Bridging east and west through “sister programs” that share resources for professional development and classroom resources is just one option that the school system has not adequately adopted. Instead of closing a school, why not keep it open and have that facility shared by a charter program that has a specific innovative focus or a proven track record? Charter schools are clamoring for better facilities at reduced costs. D.C. Public Schools is facility-rich but tragically mothballing schools that could be used right now by charter schools desperate for space to meet their growing enrollments. Why keep schools from being used for our children?
The closings amount to the school system throwing up its hands and saying we can’t deliver quality programs in the poorer areas of the city, so let’s just shut them down and maybe save money in the process (though the savings are not fully clear). What happened to meeting the needs of every child? Those hit hardest in wards 5, 7 and 8 already lack basic resources. It isn’t unusual for PTAs in the wealthier wards of the city to raise tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to pay for staff positions, professional development courses for teachers, or state-of-the-art technology. When schools were closed five years ago, we were told great changes would occur over time, that we would have viable options for middle schools and high schools. Now we’re being asked once again to be patient for a new five-year plan, the “Capital Commitment,” to take hold. Yet this plan lacks comprehensive detail as to how schools will raise academic achievement, particularly for our neediest children. We can no longer wait for more costly studies. The District’s families need action today. Cookie-cutter programs don’t work for every ward or school. Why is the school system unable to engage its stakeholders — the children, their parents, school administrators and staff — in a meaningful, school-by-school dialogue on how to improve the entire system, one school at a time? There are 10,000 dropouts yearly, and the large majority of those students reside in the very areas where more schools are to be closed. We need to be strengthening these neighborhood schools, not shutting them down.
The parents at School Without Walls woke up to the news that the high school was suddenly a preschool through-12th-grade program (having merged with Francis-Stevens Education Campus) — with no consultation whatsoever with the Local School Advisory Team that is supposed to guide the school’s program and growth. D.C. Public Schools proposed splitting up one grade in the high school between the two buildings, separated by about a mile. Moreover, initial planning would have relocated the high school’s principal to the Francis-Stevens building, leaving the daily supervision of 500-plus students to an assistant principal! No other top preschool-through-12th-grade program in the region has its elementary, middle and high school students in the same building, but that is the proposal from D.C. Public Schools. It was not too long ago that officials tried to have the Hyde Elementary principal manage Hardy Middle School as well; that experiment didn’t last the year.
Closing east-side schools will push more families to charter schools unless they succeed in getting lottery spots to schools on the west side. That is simply the wrong approach to fixing D.C. Public Schools’ performance. The city needs to roll up its sleeves to work with the families and communities where performance ratings are low — not simply walk away.
Terry Lynch is a 16-year D.C. Public Schools parent and a member of the School Without Walls Local School Advisory Team. Lee Granados, a teacher and education consultant, has two children at Ross Elementary School.
The Northwest Current
By Davis Kennedy and Chris Kain
March 20, 2013
As the D.C. Public Schools system prepares to undertake the long-overdue process of revising school boundaries and feeder patterns, the crowding in many Northwest schools makes clear how urgent the review is. Years ago, out-of-boundary students filled seats left vacant by neighborhood residents — either because families opted for private schools or because there weren’t enough young children to fill the local schools. Modernized facilities, renewed confidence, the economic downturn and a baby boom have combined to change that in most classrooms west of Rock Creek Park — and more than a few elsewhere, too.
But crowded schools with demountable classrooms outside don’t tell the whole story. There’s a hidden population that school officials need to address, particularly if they are to fulfill the city’s rhetorical commitment to building universal access to quality prekindergarten.
The school system reported that the number of applicants citywide rose, and that roughly two-thirds of the applicants were offered a seat. Families are not guaranteed a place in their neighborhood school, as they are for other grades.
According to the school system’s website, the 548-student Janney Elementary filled its 57 pre-kindergarten seats; an additional 318 applicants — 58 of whom live within the Tenleytown school’s boundaries — were placed on a waitlist. So for every neighborhood child who won a pre-K seat, another lost. Those may be good odds for most lotteries, but not for this one.
Janney may represent the extreme, but the pattern is similar for many other nearby schools. Hyde-Addison, with 18 seats, has 12 in-boundary children (including one with a sibling accepted to the school) on a 130-person waitlist. Key, with 36 seats, has 15 in-boundary kids on a 160-person waitlist. And it’s not just west of Rock Creek Park: Bancroft, in Mount Pleasant, has 42 seats available and 20 in-boundary children on its waitlist of 206.
Meanwhile, many schools in eastern parts of the city have handily accommodated applicants.
Discussion of universal pre-K frequently focuses on its importance in closing the achievement gap, and that is indeed an essential element. We strongly agree with Mayor Vincent Gray and others that high-quality offerings throughout the city would pay off mightily in improved educational outcomes — and reduced social and criminal justice costs later on, as a decades-long study of Ypsilanti, Mich., has shown.
To accomplish that in the District, the boundary task force must find a way to increase capacity where there are insufficient pre-K seats, without squeezing out other grades. It will not be easy — but it is essential. Part of the solution requires quality programs across the city so there’s greater community confidence and a closer match between supply and demand.
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