Month: October 2015

Education Secretary Duncan may have hurt education reform by trying to help

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Following Mr. Duncan’s surprise announcement that he would be stepping down as the U.S. Education Secretary in December there has been an outpouring of compliments regarding his tenure by the education reform community.  Here are a few:

“We applaud Secretary Duncan for his leadership on behalf of all the nation’s students and schools. Duncan placed a priority on working to ensure equity for all students, advanced innovation in education, and has been committed to ensuring students from all backgrounds have access to high quality public schools.”  Nina Rees, president and CEO of the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools

“Arne Duncan is the most consequential Education Secretary in our nation’s history.  He has consistently and courageously stood for students, especially those least advantaged.  Arne has been a true partner in our efforts to improve public education in Washington, DC, and we’ll be forever indebted to his efforts.”  Scott Pearson, executive director of the DC Public Charter School Board

“@ArneDuncan has been the most important Secretary of Ed in history.  Thank you for your work over the past 7 years.”  Tweet by Eva Moskowitz, founder and CEO Success Academy Charter Schools.

But here is the problem.  Mr. Duncan primarily utilized two tools at his disposal to drive change in public education.  The Education Secretary gave points toward his $4.3 billion Race to the Top Competition and waivers from the No Child Left Behind Act by having states implement certain policies.  Among these included the creation of charter schools; the tying of teacher evaluations partially to test scores; and the improvement of academically low performing schools, which often led to the ending of teacher tenure.  The favored reforms also included adoption of the Common Core Standards. 42 states and the District of Columbia have signed up for the Common Core.

The Common Core Standards are the hope of many that it will lead to gains by American students on the international PISA examination; a test in which pupils of this country have traditionally scored well below those of most other countries.  Common Core is also a solution to a major weakness of NCLB.  When it came to accessing proficiency in math and reading, states ended up using a variety of measures and in many instances students were judged proficient in these subjects when this was not the finding of the NAEP examination, a tool often referred to at the nation’s report card.

But because Mr. Duncan strongly encouraged states to convert to the Common Core, republicans and libertarians often view it as part of a government takeover of public education, a policy area most often left up to local communities.  The backlash against the Standards has been particularly strong.  For example, there is only one candidate for the Republican nomination for President that currently supports use of this tool.  There are also plenty of Democrats that dislike it for the same reason.

It could be that the opposition to the Common Core results in states turning away from these standards, just as Indiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Louisiana have already done.  This move may gain momentum as student test scores begin to come out which, if the most current experience holds true, will be lower than results in previous years.  Rejection of the Common Core Standards would be a tremendous loss.  This may also be the final legacy of the Duncan Administration.

D.C. charter school funding equity lawsuit lives on another day

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Yesterday, the Washington Post’s Michael Allison Chandler revealed that U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan refused to throw out the charter school funding inequity lawsuit brought against D.C. by the Association of Chartered Public Schools, Eagle Academy PCS, and Washington Latin PCS.  Washington Latin PCS agreed to be a party to the legal action when I served on the school’s board of directors.

Stephen Marcus, the attorney for the FOCUS coordinated lawsuit, according to Ms. Chandler, referred to the finding by the federal judge as a “favorable opinion.”

As you may recall, when we last discussed this issue former Attorney General Irvin Nathan had asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit on the grounds that the Mayor and D.C. Council had the authority to make spending decisions regarding DCPS, the school system it oversees.  There is only one problem with this argument.  The law states that all funding for both the traditional schools and charters must come through the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula.  It has been estimated that DCPS receives about $100 million a year more than charters get outside of this statute.

The new Attorney General Karl Racine and Mayor Muriel Bowser have not officially commented on the funding challenge by charters.

The Judge did, however, get part of the law wrong.  She ruled that the city had not violated the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause which designates acts by Congress the “law of the land.”  The UPSFF legislation originated with Congress and if this opinion was correct then the D.C. Council could have thrown out the federal law that first created charter schools in the nation’s capital as well as the Opportunity Scholarship Program written in part by U.S. House Speaker Boehner.  Perhaps Mr. Marcus should appeal this part of the decision.

“We need to make sense of how these two systems fit together”

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DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson made this assertion when asked by Jim Vance of Channel 4 news about the co-existence of charters and traditional schools in the nation’s capital.  The occasion was Ms. Henderson’s annual State of the Schools remarks, and, according to the Washington Post’s Michael Allison Chandler, it appears that the leader of DCPS thinks that competition for students may have outlived its usefulness.  Ms. Henderson commented:

“I think what has happened is the charter sector has grown unchecked. We don’t have any coordinated planning, and so families are like how do I make sense of these two systems and when do we stop duplicating some of the things we are doing similarly and do we really believe that competition is the thing that provides excellence in the system.”

This observation by the Chancellor is especially instructive as any minute the 23 to 25 person membership of the Deputy Mayor of Education’s Cross-Sector Collaboration Task Force is to be named.  The list was expected to be released by the end of September.

Charter advocates fear that one goal of this group is to limit or end the growth of these innovative schools in the city.  But we really can’t afford to take that step.  The academic proficiency of our children in the traditional schools stands at about 50 percent.  The four year graduation rate, although it demonstrated a strong gain this year, is only at 64 percent.  The gap between standardized test scores between black and white and rich and poor is widening after almost 20 years of public school reform.  Parents are frustrated that they cannot get their kids into some of the highest performing schools.  This town is miles away from the goal of providing a quality seat for every student that needs one.

In fact, instead of limiting options for children, it is time to put school choice in overdrive.  We must determine the quickest way to have our best charters replicate.  We need to bring proven charter operators to town.  We must refuse to accept mediocrity by closing those facilities that are not serving our young people.

Ms. Henderson seems to recognize these things as well.  In her conversation with Mr. Vance this is how she describes the history of D.C.’s charter movement:

“For a really long time, DCPS was not responsive to the needs of families, and families were stuck. They did not have choices the way other people did and so the beginning of the charter movement was how do we provide some choices and options for families and how do we create spaces that are free from some of the bureaucratic entanglements that I have to put up with so we can see innovation really quickly. Those are all good things.”

Well, parents are still stuck, and I will not rest until every family in Washington, D.C. can get for their children the same level of public education that my kids received.  It’s only fair.