Charter Schools

John Oliver’s demeaning segment on charter schools

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It’s not enough that here in the District of Columbia we had the opportunity a couple of weeks ago to hear highly inaccurate statements about charter schools from Elizabeth Davis, the president of the Washington Teachers’ Union.  Our movement was hit again just last Sunday evening when comedian John Oliver spent over 18 minutes tearing apart these innovative public institutions.

I will leave it up to people like my friend Nelson Smith, senior advisor to the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, and others such as the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, to point out that the statistics used by Mr. Oliver regarding student academic achievement are outdated and wrong.  His commentary struck a pretty significant chord so I will concentrate on a personal reaction to the piece.

Many will state that the problems he highlights are the exception rather than the rule.  But they are much more than a variance.  The stories he discussed are by miles directly opposite from my 20 years of experience with the numerous heroes that on a daily basis have unselfishly shared their time, money, and talent to improve the education of children with whom they have no connection.  They go to work simply because of their passionate and stubborn understanding that every student can learn.  A great number of the kids that they help, if it was not for their efforts, would most likely end up in jail or worse because that has been the pattern for those living at the lowest rung of the economic ladder.

To say that these pupils were not well served before the charter movement came about does not depict in any sense the recent history of the total collapse of public education in the nation’s capital.  We had a system that did not provide textbooks, could not say for certain how many employees worked for it, had buildings in which walls were crumbling by the hour, and characterized by hallways crowded with gangs, weapons, and drugs.  It was often safer for parents to keep their kids home than send them to school.

Much has greatly improved in the last two decades because of the competition for students that charters have provided.  But there is much more that has to be done.  Let me state this as plainly as I can.  Charters now consistently outperform DCPS academically while simultaneously continuing to struggle to obtain permanent facilities, and while being funded at a level $100 million a year less than the traditional schools.  Even if a charter obtains a shuttered DCPS facility it must practically beg a financial entity to lend it money based upon its per pupil revenue to fix the structure.  You see, these buildings are turned over to charters missing even the copper pipes used to carry running water.  For this opportunity charters get the privilege of paying rent.

Yet, for sending students to college who in the past would be dead, we get comments such as those by Ms. Davis that are not challenged by one public official in our city.  Not one.  It is enough to drive those working in charters to go home and figure out something else to do.

But they won’t because that simply would not be right.  They will continue to get up at 4 a.m. and not leave the office until the sun goes down seven days a week because that is what they are about.  Anything less would not be serving our children.

 

 

8,640 kids on D.C. charter school waitlists are 8,640 too many

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The DC Public Charter School Board is touting the fact that four new charter schools are opening this school year.  These are Breakthrough Montessori PCS, Washington Leadership Academy PCS, Goodwill Excel Center PCS, and Rocketship Rise Academy PCS.  The total number of seats these institutions will provide at this time is 985.

Please excuse me if I don’t jump up and down about the news.  It has been estimated by the PCSB that there are 8,640 students on charter school waitlists for the 2016 to 2017 term, an increase of 1.3 percent from last year.  This is an incredibly frustrating situation.

What is a parent of one of these children on a waitlist supposed to do?  For all you charter supporters out there we are sending a clear message that the answer may be to get out of town.  When my children were small my wife and I would do anything we needed to do to obtain a quality education for them.  There is perhaps nothing more important to increase the odds of them enjoying a successful life.   I can only imagine the agonizing conversations around the dinner table about what steps to take when as a mom or dad you cannot get your son or daughter into the school of your choice.

In addition, the situation is only going to get worse.  At this rate of opening new spots it would take almost nine years to eliminate the waitlist.  But more and more people are moving into our city.  Scott Pearson, the PCSB executive director, estimated that the nation’s capital will need 50 new schools in the next 10 years.  The way things are going we are almost guaranteeing these will be DCPS facilities.

During the last school year charters enrolled 44.5 percent of all public school students.  This number has been about the same for several terms.  But if charters were able to absorb all kids on waitlists they would be educating just a fraction shy of half of all pupils in public schools.  Reaching the 50 percent mark would dramatically change the political landscape for these innovative schools.

We are fortunate in that we have some really smart people living in our community.  I bet that the heads of FOCUS, the DC PCSB, CityBridge Foundation, Building Hope, Ten Square, New Schools Venture Fund, the D.C. Association of Public Chartered Schools, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, and the Center for Education Reform can solve this puzzle.  Please remember that our Deputy Mayor for Education, Jennie Niles, founded E.L. Haynes PCS, one of the leading charters in our town.

When it comes to the charter school waitlist, enough is really enough.

The academic achievement gap in D.C. might be much wider than we think

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A fascinating article by Susan Dynarski, a professor of education, politics, and economics at the University of Michigan, appeared in the New York Times Business Section last Sunday that made the case that the academic achievement gap in this country is actually much wider than has been estimated.  Here is the basis of her argument:

“Nearly half of students nationwide are eligible for a subsidized meal in school. Children whose families earn less than 185 percent of the poverty threshold are eligible for a reduced-price lunch, while those below 130 percent get a free lunch. For a family of four, the cutoffs are $32,000 for a free lunch and $45,000 for a reduced-price one. By way of comparison, median household income in the United States was about $54,000 in 2014.”

The author’s point is that when the public school academic achievement gap between the affluent and poor is measured in this country, the classification for children as low-income is made when they come from families qualifying for free or reduced lunch.  But in the preceding paragraph Ms. Dynarski illustrates that the cutoff for the definition of poverty is not far from the median household income level.  She takes her assertion further:

“In Michigan, as in the rest of the country, about half of eighth graders in public schools receive a free or reduced-price lunch. But when we look more closely, we see that just 14 percent have been eligible for subsidized meals every year since kindergarten. These children are the poorest of the poor — the persistently disadvantaged.”

Professor Dynarski’s conclusion:  “The achievement gap between persistently disadvantaged children and those who were never disadvantaged is about a third larger than the gap that is typically measured.”

This statistic has practical results when it comes to the classroom.  When Ms. Dynarski looked at the differences in academic standing for eighth graders in math she found a two-year deficit for those qualifying for free or reduced meals but a three-year difference for the chronically disadvantaged.  In addition, this gap did not first manifest itself when the students made it to the eighth grade.  Ms. Dynarski determined that for persistently poor kids the knowledge variance was there in the third grade.  Moreover, when it comes to these pupils, living in poverty can be traced back to the time that they were in kindergarten.

Here in the nation’s capital, last year’s first administration of the PARCC assessment clearly demonstrated the city’s stubborn and highly disturbing academic achievement gap. In English language arts the variance between white and economically disadvantaged students was 79 percent and 14 percent, respectively, in the college readiness score of four and above.  That is a difference of 65 points with charter schools scoring only slightly better than DCPS.  For math the achievement gap is slightly lower with white students at 70 percent in level four and above and poor pupils at 15 percent for a span of 55 points, with charters results again somewhat narrower.

However, if we are to believe the thesis of Professor Dynarski, the real variation between these results is a third higher for the chronically disadvantaged.  These academic achievement gaps would then grow to a shocking 86.7 percent in English and 73.3 percent in math.

Why is this important?  Ms. Dynarski opines that “many federal, state and local programs distribute money based on the share of a district’s students who are eligible for subsidized meals. But schools that have identical shares of students eligible for subsidized meals may differ vastly in the share of students who are deeply poor. The schools with the most disadvantaged children have greater challenges and arguably need more resources.”

What all this means in Washington, D.C. after 20 years of hard-fought public school reform is impossible to say.

D.C.’s charter school movement can learn much from Denver, Colorado

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I spent perhaps two of the most exhilarating days of my life last week as I, together with 49 other education bloggers, was invited to attend the Amplify School Choice 2016 Conference held in Denver, Colorado. The event was sponsored and expertly facilitated by the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, a public interest nonprofit centered on investigative journalism that is based in Alexandria, Virginia.  Picture this:  a full morning and afternoon of lectures about the current state of school choice in Denver and across the nation from representatives of leading organizations such as the Institute for Justice, the Independence Institute, and the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice (now EdChoice).  The program’s agenda included a site visit to a couple of high performing local charter schools.  To say that I was a kid let loose in a candy store may be the understatement of the century.

The program began with a fine talk by Dan Schaller, director of advocacy of the Colorado League of Charter Schools.  Think of his group as the Denver version of FOCUS.  From the very first sentence of Mr. Schaller’s presentation I could see that the situation with charters in Colorado is much different from the environment in Washington, D.C., and almost as immediately, I discovered that we have much to learn from their experience.  The main takeaway from his talk, and I hope you are sitting down, is that the traditional and charter schools in Denver get along.  In fact, they oftentimes share educational campuses that were built for them utilizing bond financing by the school district.  The Denver School District is the authorizer of both traditional and charter schools.

Now you may be thinking that this is only the opinion of Mr. Schaller, but in this you would be mistaken.  The same viewpoint was expressed by Colorado General Assembly House Representative Angela Williams, Stand for Children policy manager Chelsea Henkel, and Denver School of Science and Technology chief executive officer Bill Kurtz.

Before explaining the reason for the collaboration allow me to provide some background on the Denver charter school movement.  Charter schools in the mile high city started similarly to the experience in the nation’s capital.  The education system was facing a crisis.  As Mr. Schaller detailed, in the mid-2000s Denver Public Schools had the poorest academic growth of any of the mid-sized or big school districts in Colorado.  There were 31,000 vacant seats out of a total of 98,000 open spots.  Under 39 percent of high school students graduated in four years.  Parents were voting with their feet; 25 percent of kids left Denver Public Schools to attend private institutions, charter schools, or enroll in other districts.  The result was a loss to DPS of $125 million a year.

To the rescue came school superintendent, now U.S. Senator, Michael Bennet.  Some will say that his primary contribution was to decentralize decision making to the school level.  But I see his efforts concentrated in a different direction.

Mr. Bennet’s major accomplishment was to institutionalize the value of equal treatment of the charter and traditional school sectors.  In 2008 he helped institute a sophisticated School Performance Framework, similar to the DC Public Charter School Board’s Performance Management Framework, that graded all schools in a transparent manner.  The following year DPS initiated a Request for Proposal process to provide an incentive for the formation of quality schools.  Innovative Schools were created, which are traditional public schools given much of the independence charter schools possess.  Following Mr. Bennet’s appointment to the Senate, a Collaboration Compact was formed in 2010 which provided the same funding, facilities, accountability, and enrollment process to the two sectors.  This led in 2012 to a common application tool being implemented called SchoolChoice, similar to My School DC.

Since 2005, according to Mr. Schaller, “DPS has closed or replaced 48 schools and opened more than 70, the majority of them charters.”  Low performing charters have also been shuttered.  For example, during the 2010 to 2011 school year 25 percent of schools up for renewal were closed.  Today there are 55 charter schools in Denver out of a total of 223, teaching 18.3 percent of all public school students.

The results of these initiatives have been nothing short of amazing.  The Denver Public School system is now the fastest growing urban district in America.  The high school graduation rate has jumped to 65 percent in four years.  From 2004 to 2014, the proportion of students at or above grade level in reading, math, and writing has climbed from 33 percent to 48 percent.

Now don’t get me wrong, everything is not perfect in Denver regarding the state of public education.  Conflict does still occasionally arise between the regular and traditional schools.  Charters are closed much more commonly than regular schools, although there has been a renewed commitment to hold them to the same standards.  Furthermore, academically, only 50 percent of minority students and 25 percent of low income pupils perform at grade level for all subject areas.

Still, consistently throughout the conference you could feel the strong cohesion between the two sectors.  When I asked for the reason behind this emphasis on cooperation I received the same answer no matter which stakeholder I questioned.  “We are all in this together for the children,” they responded.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The DC Public Charter School Board Summer Graduation Ceremony

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This past Tuesday the DC Public Charter School Board held its first ever Summer High School Graduation Ceremony honoring about 60 seniors at the Thurgood Marshall Center in Northwest Washington, D.C.

The room for the event was packed with school leaders, teachers, parents and relatives of the students.  David Grosso, the chairman of the D.C. Council’s education committee was in attendance.  The Master of Ceremonies was Walter Deleion, who holds the dual distinctions of being the youngest elected representative in the nation’s capital as an ANC Commissioner and being a graduate of Washington Latin PCS.

Naomi Rubin DeVeaux, the deputy director of the PCSB, kicked off the ceremony, beaming as she explained to the enthusiastic audience that graduation events such as this are the reason she comes to work everyday.  The quick-paced agenda included a Presentation of the Colors by IDEA PCS’s Junior ROTC, a highly emotional signing of the National Anthem by Angela Moore, an operations assistant at the PCSB, and a poem by Michael Moore from National Collegiate Preparatory PCS.

The keynote address was provided by Quentin Liggins, the acting executive director of the D.C. region for Leading Educators, a group that provides teacher leadership training to improve the quality of classroom instruction.  Mr. Liggins spoke eloquently about the power of perseverance, asking the matriculating seniors to go boldly forward in life by having a vision for their future, to win or learn but never lose, and to not be afraid to ask for help.  His third piece of advice echoed a similar recommendation offered by Ms. DeVeaux.

Following Mr. Liggins were some remarks by Dr. Darren Woodruff, the PCSB chair.  Dr. Woodruff commented to me about the graduation ceremony, “This year marks the 20th year that public charter schools have been in Washington, DC. Our first ever summer graduation is a fitting way to kick off the celebration and put a spot light on the accomplishments of all of our graduates.”

The names of each of the graduates was then read aloud by Scott Pearson, the PCSB executive director, to wild cheers from the audience as each scholar dressed in their graduation cap and gown traversed the stage.  It was about the classiest sixty minutes that you will ever see.

 

 

Lars Beck stepping down from Scholars Academies

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An item on the agenda of last night’s monthly meeting of the DC Public Charter School Board caught my eye.  All it said was “DC Scholars PCS – Governance Structure Amendment.”  Of course, I’m extremely familiar with DC Scholars PCS.  The pre-Kindergarten to seventh grade school is one of two in Washington, D.C. that utilizes Scholars Academies as its management company, and whose founding board chair was Mieka Wick, the executive director of the CityBridge Foundation.   Interestingly, Scholars Academies also manages Stanton Elementary, a DCPS facility with grades pre-Kindergarten to five.  These institutions have something extremely important in common.  Both DC Scholars PCS and Stanton Elementary specialize in teaching children living in poverty.  Each school population is comprised of 100 percent of students coming from low income households.  So to find out what was going on I called Lars Beck, Scholars Academies’ CEO.  What I learned greatly surprised me.

Mr. Beck explained that Scholars Academies is taking the highly unusual move of dissolving it central corporate structure.  He related that more than a year ago the organization figured out that it could be much more responsive to the schools being served by bringing management closer to those it assists.  Therefore, the decision was made to give up the main office and create three regional centers, with each given the autonomy to make decisions about how best to serve students in that particular area.

Just as I was about to compliment Mr. Beck about how innovative I thought this approach was, since I don’t think up to now I’ve ever heard anything similar to a home office deciding to voluntarily give up authority over those under it, he hit me with a bombshell.  “I’ve decided to leave Scholars Academies,” Mr. Beck informed me.

In fact, it was Mr. Beck’s move that prompted the strategic discussion leading to the conclusion that students and parents would best be served by Scholars Academies separating into three regional networks.

I first met Mr. Beck a couple of years ago.  He impressed me from the second I introduced myself with his sincere interest in helping those that others had abandoned.  From my interview which took place in April, 2014:

“I came from the business world,” Mr. Beck answered. “My job was marketing and management for a firm in Canada. My mom for years ran a private faith-based school in Philadelphia for students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds characterized by exceedingly strong academic results. I wanted to do more with my life and the inequities between people of various races and income levels continuously gnawed at me.”

Former U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan described the work being done at Stanton Elementary as “remarkable.”  Mayor Gray commented that “We simply need to bottle this and figure out how to proliferate it all around the city.” Kaya Henderson has said that she wants to replicate what is taking place there.  Academic proficiency rates have doubled from the absolute bottom of the ladder.  But almost more importantly, Mr. Beck portrayed the school as one in which a culture of high performance has now infused the building.

Mr. Beck relayed that he will leave in September and that after 13 years in his current position he has no real plans for what he will do next.  It is a supreme understatement to say he will be missed.  Again from our interview:

All of these educational endeavors regarding improving the lives of the less fortunate are consistent with the life-long efforts of Mr. Beck’s mother. “Our drive is to transform low performing schools,” Mr. Beck commented towards the end of our discussion. “We believe in what is possible for students and then we try and let them realize their hopes and dreams.”

 

William E. Doar, Jr. PCS to change name to City Arts & Prep

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Tonight at the monthly meeting of the DC Public Charter School Board a vote will be taken to change the name on August 1, 2016 of the William E. Doar, Jr. PCS to City Arts and Prep PCS.

The move makes sense since none of the creators of WEDJ are currently associated with the school.  Julie Doar-Sinkfield, Mr. Doar’s daughter, who was the first board chair and executive director, had a public battle with the charter in 2011 when she and the two original founders, Mary Robbins and Nadia Casseus-Torney, attempted to wrestle control of the school from its board of directors.  The issue made it to D.C. Superior Court with a judge issuing a restraining order blocking the three women from involvement with the charter before they decided to drop their effort.  WEDJ received legal assistance from Stephen Marcus, the same attorney who is now facilitating the FOCUS engineered lawsuit against the city regarding inequity charter school funding, and ironically, the lawyer who negotiated WEDJ’s original lease with the landlord at 705 Edgewood Street, N.E.

Despite all of the controversy I hate to see the change.  I was part of the founding group of the school who met in Ms. Doar’s basement apartment on Capitol Hill over a decade ago to write the charter.  She cooked dinner for us as we sought to develop the best charter school the nation’s capital had ever seen.  I went on to succeed Ms. Doar as WEDJ’s board chair for five years.

I never met Mr. Doar since he passed away in 1982.  But he was obviously a remarkable man.  Here is a small portion of his biography:

“During his lifetime, he took steps to initiate the desegregation of facilities at St. John’s Episcopal Hospital and is responsible for placing the first African-American doctor on its staff. He was a member continuously since 1945 of the United Bowling League of Brooklyn, the league most responsible for the integration of the American Bowling Congress. He helped to bring about the integration of the Nursing School at Brooklyn Jewish Hospital and was responsible for placing the first black youth in the biology laboratory of that hospital. He worked with the late Congressman Adam Powell in integrating the stores on 125th Street in Harlem. With the New York State Employment Service he brought the discrimination at Bell Telephone Laboratories and Western Electric to a halt with the cooperation of the NAACP.”

Mr. Doar was a member of the Kappa Beta Sigma chapter of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity for over 48 years, holding a variety of leadership positions.  His involvement led in 1995 to the international headquarters of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity on Kennedy Street, N.W. to be named the William E. Doar, Jr. Building.

While I did not get the chance to know him I spent many hours with his wife.  I found Mrs. Doar to be the epitome of class and kindness.  She has a fantastic sense of humor which she expresses with a broad smile.  I especially welcomed that look when Julie would become completely frustrated when she couldn’t get people to do exactly as she wanted.

Julie, as well as Mary and Nadia, taught me so much about charters, regarding both pedagogy and governance.  The potential of these individuals to do good in the world was never more evident than on one of the annual faculty performances that we held as fundraisers.  We spoke of everything that was being accomplished at the school and everything that was still be be done.  We laughed at the joy being brought to us by those gathered in the room.

And we talked about William E. Doar, Jr.

 

Charter school restarts should be exempt from Tiering for 2 years

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Scott Pearson, the executive director of the DC Public Charter School Board, wrote an extremely interesting article recently on lesson learned by his organization when turning over management of a charter that is being closed to another school.  For many years now  when the PCSB shutters a charter it tries to identify a Performance Management Framework Tier 1 school to takeover the facility instead of finding new places for the pupils to attend.  It is a great move in that it minimizes disruption for families while significantly increasing the quality of what is taking place in the classrooms.

Mr. Pearson indicates that one of the traits that will increase the probability that a restart will be successful is to allow the board of directors of the closing school to select, within parameters, the incoming charter.  This is an engagement tool for those that are being in the unfortunate position of having to give up their institution.  Another important observation discovered through this process is that the new school should bring strong resources to the existing site.  This includes hiring an experienced principal and “flooding the zone” with extra resources to ensure success.  Furthermore, Mr. Pearson writes that the staff should avoid trying to expand their program to areas that they lack prior experience in carrying out.  In other words they should stick to what they know they do best.

One crucial issue the PCSB executive director has found with restarts is that there may not be a school agreeing to assume the task.  This was the case this year with Potomac Prep PCS.  When I interviewed Mr. Pearson a couple of months ago he explained to me that another school could not be found to take it over.  One impediment to a charter being willing to enter into a restart relationship could be the fear that the move will negatively impact their PMF score.  Therefore, to provide a strong incentive for a charter to boldly go into a restart situation, the PCSB should exclude this campus from PMF tiering for two years; the first year of operation at the new campus plus another twelve months.

Mr. Pearson admits in his article that one charter taking over another is a daunting job.  I content that by holding off grading on the PMF for two years for charters initiating a restart we could see far greater replication of some of our highest performing schools.

Scott Pearson should replace Kaya Henderson as DCPS Chancellor

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In today’s Washington Post columnist Jay Mathews writes an open letter to Mayor Muriel Bowser begging her to cancel the national search for a Chancellor to replace Kaya Henderson.  He writes:

“The alleged stars hired in these fantasy adventures usually have little familiarity with the administrators, teachers, parents, students and power brokers in the school district or have little knowledge of its history. They lack trusted allies. Some of the most valuable people they must work with resent their presence.”

I agree.  Fortunately, we have someone here in D.C. that can ameliorate all of these concerns. That individual is Scott Pearson, the current executive director of the DC Public Charter School Board.

What a perfect choice this would be.  In his five years at the job Mr. Pearson has demonstrated a laser focus on improving the quality of the schools his organization oversees.  In fact, almost all of the charters graded as Tier 3 institutions on the Performance Management Framework are no longer around.  According to the PCSB’s 2015 Annual Report “of 23 schools rated Tier 3 since 2011, 6 have improved and 19 have been closed.”  He is used to holding schools accountable for results and yet he is always conscience of the need to extend as much autonomy as possible.  In other words he is not a micromanager.

In addition, Mr. Pearson has proven himself to be a skilled administrator.  Under his direction, the PCSB has gained a reputation as being perhaps the best at what it does.  According to testimony given last year to the D.C. Council by past board chair John “Skip” McKoy “both the National Association of Charter School Authorizers and the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools have recognized D.C. as the strongest charter sector in the nation, and PCSB as a leading authorizer.”

Mr. Pearson already has a strong working relationship with all the major stakeholders in public education in the nation’s capital.  The PCSB executive director has had a particularly good rapport with Ms. Henderson, consistently treating her with dignity and respect.  He has worked collaboratively with the Deputy Mayor for Education, the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, and DCPS on highly successful projects such as the common lottery and the development of equity reports.

Finally, Mr. Pearson values the traditional schools.  In a 2015 Washington Post editorial written with Mr. McKoy he stated:

“Right now, the District has the best of both worlds: a vibrant charter sector that offers a wide range of learning models from some of the best school leaders and a strong, improving and growing DCPS that has responded to charter competition by revitalizing its commitment to quality. D.C. schools are nowhere close to perfect. But the current model, with two public school systems pushing each other to be better and cooperating whenever possible, is proving to be the right mix for the District’s schoolchildren.”

In making Mr. Pearson Chancellor we could get a true win-win situation.  Someone who knows and revers the major education players in the city, and at the same time, a leader who will try new ways in order to continue the rise in academic achievement demonstrated under Ms. Henderson’s tenure.

The decision for the Mayor is clear and simple.

 

 

 

Study on where charter students go to school points to need for more charters

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Last Thursday evening at the Donald Hense retirement and birthday celebration I had the honor of sitting next to Linda Moore, the founder and past executive director of the Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom Public Charter School.  I always enjoy catching up with Ms. Moore because she is such a strong and personable leader in our local movement, an achievement symbolized by her 2013 election to the National Charter School Hall of Fame.  It has been five years since I interviewed her so I asked her how things were going at her school.  “Isn’t the wait list for admission getting up to about 1,000 students?” I asked.  No, she replied, it is now grown to 2,000 pupils.   The last lottery cycle, Ms. Moore explained, there were that many children for 20 available slots.  She added that the Stokes is now considering replication but no decision has been made.

This conversation brings me to the study completed last month by the DC Public Charter School Board which documents how far students travel to attend our schools.  It turns out that the distance is not very far.  On average kids travel 2.1 miles to class, a statistic that has not changed from the 2014 to 2015 term.  The title of the report is “Choosing Quality” but it really could have been called “Keeping Young People Close to Home.”  According to Tomeika Bowden, the PCSB communications director, students do not travel farther to attend schools with larger wait lists, nor do charters ranked as Tier 1 on the Performance Management Framework draw kids living far away from these institutions.

In other words, as we already knew, parents want their children to attend schools where they live.  There could be many reasons for this phenomenon.  For instance, there may be a greater sense of community for families when kids from the same geographic areas go to the same school.  As Scott Pearson, the executive director of the PCSB, pointed out to me during our conversation, parent schedules may make it extremely difficult for them to travel long distances for the educational needs of their offspring.  Finally, it is expensive to commute.  While pupils now ride free on buses and Metro, the same benefit is not realized by the adults.

The study’s conclusions say loud and clear that we desperately need quality charters on every street corner.  The findings have important implications as to the question of whether there should be a neighborhood admissions preference (there probably should be one on a voluntary basis) and whether we should be concerned about a charter opening in close proximity to a DCPS facility (we should not care).  The bottom line here is that if there was a sufficient number of charters a preference for those living nearby would become unnecessary.  The supply would meet demand.

Finally, as I’ve called for in the past, we must figure out a way to expand great schools quickly.  I don’t know about you but as a parent I think constantly about those that are blocked from having their children attend their preferred site.  We pride ourselves in the amount of school choice we have here in D.C., but with wait lists like the one at Elsie Whitlow Stokes, we are really providing no choice at all.