- Judging Schools By Advanced Scores [FOCUS is mentioned, Washington Latin, D.C. Prep, Capital City, KIPP DC, E.L. Haynes, Dorothy I. Height Community Butler and Two Rivers PCS are mentioned]
- Which Schools Feed Banneker and Walls? [Paul, KIPP and Howard University Math and Science PCS are mentioned]
- Senior Management Moves at DCPS
- Civil Rights Icon Robert Moses Promotes Middle School Algebra
Judging Schools By Advanced Scores [FOCUS is mentioned, Washington Latin, D.C. Prep, Capital City, KIPP DC, E.L. Haynes, Dorothy I. Height Community Butler and Two Rivers PCS are mentioned]
The Washington Post
By Jay Mathews
September 11, 2011
Journalists like me get into ruts. We pick one way of describing data and stick with it. I tell myself that I would confuse readers if I made changes. That might be an excuse for laziness and lack of imagination.
A habit I share with many education writers is presenting school test results one way: the percentage of students who score proficient or above. I ignore a subset of that proficient group, the percentage who achieve at the higher, advanced level.
The advanced percentages are impressive in the Washington suburbs, because they have some of the highest average family incomes in the country. The District is different. Most of its public school students are from low-income families. But I have been noticing some D.C. schools with impressive percentages of students scoring not just proficient but advanced. What would those schools look like if we reported that higher order of achievement? In the long term, don’t we want as many students as possible to be learning at the advanced level?
Jeff Noel of Friends of Choice in Urban Schools (FOCUS), a pro-charter organization that watches these numbers closely, helped me create a list of D.C. schools with the largest portion of advanced students.
Here are the top 25, followed by two numbers. The first is the percentage of D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System test-takers whose family incomes were low enough to qualify for federal lunch subsidies. The second, in bold, is the basis for the rank: the sum of the percentage of students who scored advanced in reading and the percentage who did the same in math. (I excluded schools with a high number of alternate tests, designed for special education.)
1. School Without Walls (magnet high school): 15, 107
2. Janney Elementary: 0, 86
3. Deal Junior High: 23, 81
4. Murch Elementary: 16, 79
5. Key Elementary: 0, 78
6. Banneker High (magnet): 54, 77
7. Mann Elementary: 0, 74
8. Lafayette Elementary: 7, 68
9. Oyster-Adams Bilingual (4th-8th): 33, 66
10. Washington Latin Charter Middle: 6, 64
11. Stoddert Elementary: 20, 58
12. D.C. Prep Charter Middle: 77, 55
13. Capital City Charter (elementary): 41, 49
14. KIPP KEY (charter middle): 76, 47
15. Eaton Elementary: 14, 45
16. Hyde-Addison Elementary: 22, 45
17. KIPP College Prep (charter high school): 83, 42
18. Wilson High School: 42, 41
19. Haynes Charter (3rd-8th): 69, 40
20. Height Community Charter Butler (elementary): 100, 40
21. Ellington School of Arts (high school): 42, 39
22. Stuart-Hobson Middle: 40, 37
23. Two Rivers Charter-Elementary: 28, 37
24. KIPP WILL (charter middle): 82, 36
25. Ross Elementary: 40, 36
As in the suburbs, family income in the District has a strong effect on advanced scores. Thirteen of the schools on the list, and nine of the top 10, have a student poverty rate below the national average of 40 percent.
The only school above that average in the top 10 is Banneker, a magnet that picks students based on academic success. Number one School Without Walls has that same advantage, although it also has a much smaller poverty rate.
Could alleged tampering with tests have affected the ranking? D.C. officials have not released data on which schools had unusual levels of wrong-to-right erasures in 2011. The only school on this list that has faced significant erasure questions in the past was Wilson, where eight classrooms were flagged for erasures in 2008. What those data mean, we still don’t know.
Of the 12 schools on the list with student poverty rates at or above 40 percent, seven are charters. All schools on the list with poverty rates above 60 percent are charters. But on average, regular D.C. schools and charter schools do about the same on this measure, with one out of 10 students scoring advanced.
Both types of public schools have had some success producing students even better than proficient. It would be useful to learn how they did that.
Which Schools Feed Banneker and Walls? [Paul, KIPP and Howard University Math and Science PCS are mentioned]
The Washington Post
By Bill Turque
September 9, 2011
Last year’s ninth-grade classes at the two top application-only high schools in D.C. Public Schools had distinctly different profiles, according to an analysis provided to D.C. Council Chairman Kwame R. Brown.
At least 60 percent of Banneker’s 2010 freshmen came from public charter middle schools--the biggest share from Paul, KIPP and Howard University Math and Science, according to the analysis by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education. At least 34 percent came from DCPS schools, including Hardy (6 percent) Stuart-Hobson and Jefferson (5 percent each), and Deal (4 percent). The rest came in smaller proportions from Brightwood, Sousa and other DCPS middle schools (The origin of the remaining six percent could not be ascertained by OSSE).
The ninth-grade picture at School Without Walls is almost the opposite--at least 52 percent from DCPS. Just four middle schools accounted for all of it: Deal (28 percent), Oyster-Adams and Hobson (nine percent each) and Hardy (six percent) . At least 33 percent were from charters, with Paul, KIPP and Washington Latin dominating. Again, 15 percent of the enrollment was not identified by OSSE.
Data from both schools seem to provide more evidence of the poor job most traditional D.C. middle schools do in preparing their kids to excel in high school. But what accounts for Banneker’s charter-centric profile, or Walls’ tilt toward a select few DCPS middle schools is not completely clear. The overall strength of candidate pools may vary. School counselors may traditionally steer kids to certain schools. I’m asking the principals and will pass on their responses, if I get any.
Senior Management Moves at DCPS
The Washington Post
By Bill Turque
September 9, 2011
Chancellor Kaya Henderson announced a series of top-level management changes late Friday, including the departure of a key figure from the Michelle Rhee era.
Abigail Smith, chief of the DCPS transformation management office, will leave next month to consult with other school systems on reform issues. Cate Swinburn, currently president and executive director of the D.C. Public Education Fund, the city’s non-profit fundraising arm, will become the new chief of the Office of Data Accountability, replacing Erin McGoldrick, who left earlier this summer. Anthony deGuzman, director of facilities modernization, is the new chief operating officer, a post that has been vacant since Anthony Tata left late last year.
Smith was a major player in some of Rhee’s most controversial initiatives, such as the 2008 closure and consolidation of 23 schools and Capital Gains, the now-defunct program that paid cash to middle schoolers in exchange for good grades and behavior. She also took the lead in enrollment projections, the annual out-of-boundary lottery and the system of internal performance indicators known as SchoolStat. Henderson said her duties will be spread out across other offices.
A former vice president of planning and research for Teach for America, Smith was reportedly on the short list of candidates for executive director of the D.C. Public Charter School Board, but recently withdrew her name from consideration.
She joins several other key Rhee deputies, including McGoldrick and special education chief Richard Nyankori, who have left in recent months. In announcing Smith’s exit Friday, Henderson called Smith “one of our most passionate and effective leaders.”
The appointment of Swinburn, also a Teach for America alumnus, was a mild surprise. As head of the education fund, she has been point person in raising more than $80 million from private foundations to support changes at DCPS, including performance bonuses for teachers. She did the same job in New York City before coming to the District. As data and accountability chief, she’ll be responsible for the office that collects and analyzes test data. Henderson said in her announcement that she will continue to direct the fund’s flagship event--the annual “Standing Ovation” for teachers set for Sept. 19 at the Kennedy Center-- “and manage its strategic direction.”
Henderson called Swinburn “an ideal choice to lead ODA given her knowledge and familiarity with DCPS, her strong leadership and project management skills, and of course, her focus on supporting great teachers and using robust data to drive results.”
Civil Rights Icon Robert Moses Promotes Middle School Algebra
The Washington Post
By Bill Turque
September 9, 2011
There were more than three-dozen witnesses at this week’s D.C. Council roundtable on middle schools, but one appearance carried a special historic resonance. Robert Moses, the legendary SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) organizer, came to town for the cause that has taken up much of his last 30 years: algebra as a civil right for middle school kids.
Moses is founder of The Algebra Project, a non-profit that works with schools to make algebra more available to middle schoolers as a way of fostering careers in math, science and engineering. Algebra I and II are offered in high school in DCPS.
Moses, who risked his life organizing voter registration drives in Mississippi for SNCC in the early 1960s, became interested in math literacy as an engine for social change through his daughter Maisha. In 1982, she was entering the eighth grade when he discovered that her school did not offer algebra at that level. He used a MacArthur Fellowship to help set up The Algebra Project to train teachers across the country. Moses and his group also do community organizing around education issues.
Moses said there is a direct line connecting his work with disenfranchised sharecroppers for SNCC and with teachers and students for The Algebra Project.
“What is our problem?” he told the council Wednesday. “We run failing schools for the poor and rescue some of them by lottery and other education devices....The horizon of black sharecroppers’ education was to be no higher than the station of the work assigned them. We now run sharecropper education for the poor and the nation continues to wink and blink.”
Moses, who lives in Boston, came to D.C. to discuss bringing The Algebra Project to some city schools. His appearance reunited him with another former SNCC organizer, Council member Marion Barry (D-Ward 8). who praised him as “singularly responsible for the massive change in attitudes in Mississippi.”
“People have missed the significance of what you did,” said Barry, wants to see Moses and his organization active in Ward 8 schools.