Exclusive interview with Katherine Bradley, president CityBridge Foundation

December 14, 2015mlerner10 Charter Schools, DCPS Leave a comment

I had the distinct honor of sitting down recently with Katherine Bradley, the co-founder (along with her husband) and president of the CityBridge Foundation. I have been a tremendous admirer of the work of Mrs. Bradley for some time. Her passion for assisting those at the low end of the economic scale turned me into an instant supporter from the first time I heard her speak years ago at a charter school conference.

I asked her about how CityBridge Foundation got its start. “CityBridge began in 1994,” Mrs. Bradley explained, “as the Advisory Board Foundation, inside our two best practices research companies, the Advisory Board Company and the Corporate Executive Board. Our original purpose was to deploy the talent inside the companies as a meaningful community engagement force in Washington. Around 1990, we began looking for a project to support in the Philippines, where my husband David had been a Fulbright Scholar in 1978.”

The CityBridge president continued, “But our first several attempts failed quite spectacularly. In one of those early, misguided projects, we partnered with a Catholic church affiliate to provide a home for children living in the streets of Manila. But almost immediately, several of the children ran away, prompting a call David received from one of the nuns running the home. She was asking if David wanted her to find the runaway children and bring them back. David calls this the ‘nuns with nets’ problem. We realized we had violated our own operating principles: we were investing without actually doing the research to understand the facts on the ground. We had failed to bring what we knew from our day jobs into our philanthropy. We finally got it right when we offered paid ‘Manila Fellowships’ to our own research team in Washington. They figured out that the root cause of the street children phenomenon was not homelessness; children were choosing the streets to escape abuse in their homes. As a result, we helped establish a network of child protection facilities around the country. Today, there are more than 75 centers, which assist children who have experienced sexual or physical abuse. David still chairs the board, and we travel to Manila every year.”

In 2000, the Bradleys decided to focus their efforts on improving the lives of the underserved in Washington, D.C. A local focus appealed to them because they felt the city was small enough to allow them to have a significant positive impact. Mrs. Bradley and her then colleague, Arthur McKee, started holding seminars discussing books written about ending multi-generational poverty. They studied prisoner re-entry programs, job training, literacy interventions, and teen pregnancy programs. It was during this period they went to New York City to meet with Geoffrey Canada, now president of the Harlem Children’s Zone. What he told them brought an epiphany to their minds.

“Mr. Canada explained to us during our visit,” related Mrs. Bradley, “that even if he could fix every problem for every child in the Zone, he would still not succeed in ending the cycle of poverty unless he also changed the schools at the center of the families’ lives and at the center of their neighborhoods. He framed for us that the school was the essential lever in ending poverty, the one place that provided a natural point of intervention, where significant public resources were already dedicated. We went home, narrowed our research, and eventually settled on the early childhood field as our first point of investment.

“We were ready to launch our first portfolio of work, the Early Years Education Initiative, in 2004. The Early Years portfolio included investments in schools, childcare centers, teacher pipelines, teacher training, and general support for Pre-K For All, the advocacy campaign to champion universal Pre-K in Washington. Beginning in 2006, we supported two of the city’s best charter schools, KIPP and DC Prep, to grow down to the early childhood years, as both charter schools had been middle schools only. I always try to join whatever great work is already happening, and then our method is to figure out how to expand that success.”

“And I have learned from watching great people. Charter school funding for three- and four-year-olds was only possible because of the pioneering work of our recent Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services, BB Otero, who figured out how to blend existing charter school funding and child care subsidies to create full-day ‘school’ for three- and four-year-olds.” CityBridge also invested in Jumpstart for Young Children, whose executive director was Sekou Biddle. In 2008, D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray spearheaded legislation to provide early childhood education at no cost to all children living in the city.

The next stage for CityBridge Foundation was to encourage whole-school turnaround. “Michelle Rhee had been appointed Chancellor under Mayor Fenty,” Mrs. Bradley detailed, “and we offered our team to do anything we could to help. Our investments in school turnaround include Scholar Academies, responsible for the work at Stanton Elementary, and the New York-based Turnaround for Children.”

I then inquired from Mrs. Bradley what her goal was for public education in the nation’s capital. She answered almost before the last word of my sentence was uttered. “A Tier 1 school for every child,” was her response. “My ultimate goal is that when you look at academic outcomes, no one will be able to tell which child comes from Ward 8.”

When I asked her how we were going to get there, Mrs. Bradley had clearly thought this question through many times before. “We believe we need to take a portfolio approach to investing in schools, all with the goal of reaching a place where we have the needed inventory of excellent schools, DCPS and charter, to serve all children. For us, that investment strategy falls into three buckets: We need to replicate our highest performers, the ‘blue chip’ part of the portfolio; we should invest in real turnaround of poor performers; and we need a ‘venture’ arm, bringing the best of school innovation from around the country to D.C.”

The CityBridge president then discussed the foundation’s Education Innovation Fellowship, which is now in its third year. As explained on the organization’s website, “the yearlong program introduces teacher leaders to the most promising innovations in personalized learning and offers them opportunities to pilot personalized learning models in their schools.” Mrs. Bradley related that the program is a partnership between CityBridge and NewSchools Venture Fund that is supported by a $1 million grant from Microsoft Corporation. “We select a new cohort of 20 to 22 Fellows each January. These teachers are with us one day a month, plus a week in February to visit schools in California and three days in April to visit schools in Chicago, and they have an opportunity to pilot what they have learned at their own schools. We believe that empowering teachers to innovate in their classrooms will move us closer to a system in which education is personalized to every child’s needs.”

Mrs. Bradley revealed that CityBridge Foundation also plays a managing role in Breakthrough Schools: D.C.,which is one of six regional grant competitions in partnership with Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC). The competition is for school teams interested in designing new, whole-school models built on next generation school design principles such as personalization, blended learning, and mastery-based learning. The competition was built on the highly successful national competition started by NGLC that has awarded grants to more than 40 schools across the country. Ingenuity Prep Public Charter School in Ward 8 was a national competition winner prior to the creation of the regional challenge.

The goal of the $6 million challenge is to fund the design or redesign of 20 traditional and charter public schools in Washington by Fall 2018. The CityBridge president pointed out that the scope of this project would impact 15 percent of the Washington, D.C.’s student public school population. She noted that each cycle of grants includes up to $2 million for winning teams, with 50 percent coming from NGLC’s funders, including the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. CityBridge brings together funders to match their share. To date, educators from 70 schools have participated in pre-application workshops; 41 school teams have submitted applications; and 13 schools have received grants. “When we reach 20 schools,” Mrs. Bradley commented, “DC will have a concentration of talent and innovation that leads the nation. Along with the significant work DCPS is doing, Washington will be a true hub of innovation.”

Mrs. Bradley is extremely optimistic about the future of personalized learning in public education. “Let me just relay one example of what is possible. Two years ago, in a high school physics class at E.L. Haynes Public Charter School, half of the students failed the course. Then, the teacher tried a method where each student controlled the pace at which he or she accessed the class material. Students not only passed in much greater numbers, but they also began to own their learning and plan their learning, skills that are non-negotiable in college. Personalized learning gets around the problem of the wide range of academic abilities that is typical of most public school classrooms. When the teacher is teaching all students at the same time, that teacher has to choose which part of the curve to teach to, and it is usually the middle. Personalization, supported by adaptive technology, eliminates the teacher’s need to make that choice.”

At CityBridge, through the Education Innovation Fellowship and Breakthrough Schools: D.C., they have embraced the notion of educator-led innovations in classroom and school design. This work builds on and further leverages work in this area throughout the city, not only the work at Ingenuity Prep, but also DCPS’s extensive investment in broadband access for schools, education technology, and blended learning. CityBridge highlights its partnerships with Next Generation Learning Challenges, Microsoft, DCPS, and NewSchools Venture Fund, an approach to coalition-building that is in the DNA of the organization.

I asked Mrs. Bradley about the state of public education in the District today, and her response echoed the opinion of many in this town. She believes we are making progress, as is clearly demonstrated on the 2013 NAEP exam results. However, given huge unmet demand for entry into high-performing schools, Mrs. Bradley stated that the pace is still not fast enough, although she acknowledged that the work is incredibly hard. One area of concern for the CityBridge president is the exceedingly long pipeline that it takes to bring strong new charter schools to D.C. and to expand and replicate the high-performing ones that are already here. She also feels that we have to “double down” on the development of excellent teacher and school leader talent. However, Mrs. Bradley is as confident as ever that we can and will eventually provide a quality seat for every child.

I ended our conversation by inquiring of Mrs. Bradley why she has so strongly dedicated her life to this cause. She replied without hesitation. “I realized that if my children had been born just four miles away, their lives might have had a completely different outcome. Is that either right or fair? I think about what it’s like to be in another person’s shoes, what it would be like to desperately want a great school for your child, and not to have it, when someone four miles away, or someone who won the charter lottery, does. If you can feel that injustice, the only real choice is to be committed until you see that it is fixed.”

Donald Hense to step down as Friendship PCS CEO

December 9, 2015December 10, 2015mlerner10 Charter Schools Leave a comment

It was announced late yesterday that my hero Donald Hense, a member of the National Charter School Hall of Fame, will relinquish his role of chief executive officer of Friendship Public Charter School on June 30, 2016. The founder of Friendship PCS will retain his title of chairman of the board of directors. Patricia Brantley, the school’s chief operating officer, will assume the position of CEO once Mr. Hense steps down.

Mr. Hense created one of the first charters in the District of Columbia in 1997. From the press release announcing the change:

“As chairman Hense has overseen the development and expansion of Friendship’s network of charter school campuses as well as the renewal of the school’s charter after its first fifteen years of operation. Friendship now educates more than 4,200 students in pre-K through the twelfth grade at 11 charter campuses in the District, three of which are classified by the D.C. Public Charter School Board as Tier One, high-performing charter schools. Friendship’s two D.C. high schools, Friendship Collegiate Academy and Friendship Technology Preparatory Academy, have on-time (within four years) graduation rates of 92 and 97 percent, respectively; outperforming the average rates for D.C. public schools (64 percent) and D.C. public charter schools (72 percent).”

Especially impressive is what Mr. Hense has been able to accomplish with a student population that has been one of the most challenging to educate: 99.7 percent are African-American; 75 percent are from Ward Seven and Eight; three out of four students qualify for free or reduced price lunch; and 15 percent have special needs.

The Friendship founder has also expanded his reach to two partnerships with Baltimore public schools, a campus in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and an online institute. Mr. Hense was also instrumental in making sure that no child was disrupted in his or her education when the DC Public Charter School Board this year closed the 1,600 student Dorothy I. Height Community Academy.

I could go on and on about Mr. Hense’s accomplishments and his leadership regarding school choice in the nation’s capital. At an event last night Linda Moore, the founder of the Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom Public Charter School, described the news regarding Mr. Hense as “the loss of a true pioneer of D.C.’s public charter school movement.” The move comes as we have seen Irasema Salcido leave Cesar Chavez Public Charter Schools for Pubic Policy, Martha Cutts announce her retirement from Washington Latin PCS, and Alexandra Pardo resign as the executive director of Thurgood Marshall Academy PCS. Jennie Niles, who founded E.L. Haynes PCS, resigned her position as executive director to become Mayor Muriel Bowser’s Deputy Mayor for Education. Ms. Moore stepped down as head of Whitlow Stokes a couple of years ago.

I recently wrote about the elegant Friendship Teacher of the Year ceremony, and I interviewed Mr. Hense back in 2011.

Quality seats trumps diversity as a goal for D.C. public schools

December 7, 2015December 7, 2015mlerner10 Charter Schools Leave a comment

In yesterday’s Washington Post Michael Allison Chandler had a long and meandering article about the quantity of diversity found in D.C.’s charter schools. The story focused heavily on Washington Latin PCS (I served on the Washington Latin PCS board of directors) and one paragraph stood out:

“As Washington Latin’s academic reputation has grown, so has interest, particularly among wealthier families. Last year, there were 1,600 applications for 119 available seats (including 46 seats offered to siblings of current students.)”

After removing the sibling preference seats the admission rate for Washington Latin was 4.6 percent. I’m not sure that there are Ivy League colleges that have that low an acceptance rate, a statistic which is especially striking considering it is based on a random lottery for oversubscribed seats.

Not mentioned by Ms. Chandler is that fact that this school recorded some of the city’s highest PARCC standardized test results which for the first time measured student academic readiness for college based upon the Common Core Standards. Overall, across all public schools in the nation’s capital elementary and middle school students scored in the 25th percentile for proficiency in math and reading. Last year using the DC CAS the number was about half.

Therefore, it appears to me that we are never going to be a great place for public education until we grow those institutions that are providing a quality education for our students.

In all the talk about neighborhood admission preferences, priorities for low income students, increasing student body diversity, and helping kids of color, one mission stands out.

Let’s just remember to teach our children.

Exclusive interview with Shavonne Gibson, Director of Instruction Center City Public Charter Schools

November 18, 2015November 21, 2015mlerner10 Charter Schools Leave a comment

I recently had the great pleasure of sitting down with Ms. Shavonne Gibson, the director of instruction for the six campuses of Center City Public Charter Schools. I had met Ms. Gibson a year ago at an Ahead of the Curve conference sponsored by Fight for Children and the DC Public Charter School Board. At the time she was the principal of the Center City PCS Brightwood Campus, and upon hearing her lead a session I was immediately impressed with both her knowledge and intensity. Now that she has transitioned to her new position her energy level has not subsided a bit. In fact, it was a challenge to keep up with my note taking as she spoke.

“There are three parts to my job,” Ms. Gibson eagerly explained. “First, in my capacity I support school leaders with the goal of improving instruction going on in our facilities. Part two involves planning professional development for our instructors which encompasses designing and leading sessions. These first two components take up much of my day. The final segment of my responsibility is supporting the development of teacher leaders within our schools.”

Ms. Gibson appears to be the ideal candidate for the role she is currently playing with Center City. She spent four years as the Brightwood principal. When she began the student reading proficiency rate was at 39 percent and the math proficiency rate of the pre-kindergarten to eighth grade school was at 24 percent. By the time she left her position the reading proficiency rate had jumped to 64 percent, with math proficiency climbing all the way to 67 percent. She reached this attainment with an enrollment that is about 40 percent English Language Learners, 50 percent Latino, and 50 percent African American, with almost 90 percent of kids qualifying for free or reduced price lunch. Additionally, in her second year at Brightwood, she had the second highest composite growth for all ELL’s in the city. After one year as the principal of Brightwood, the school moved from Tier II to Tier I as measured by the DC Public Charter School Board’s Performance Management Framework tool.

Naturally, I wanted to know from the director of instruction what led to this strong academic success with her students. Ms. Gibson modestly pointed to four factors; stabilizing talent management, teacher observation and feedback, use of data, and increased family engagement through initiative sponsored by the Flamboyan Foundation.

Upon coming to Brightwood she found not a lot of teachers who had worked there when it was a Catholic school prior to the conversion to a charter. She immediately noticed a disconnect between the standards in the classroom and the rigor of instruction. “There were a lot of worksheets being utilized and not a great many opportunities for pupils to apply what they had been taught,” Ms. Gibson related. “I had to emphasize that you cannot lead a classroom from an office. We instituted side-by-side coaching of our teachers. We did a lot of work in small groups. There were difficult decisions around talent after the first year. Initially a stigma existed because we drilled down data to petite points and tried to get the teachers to respond. During this time, about twice a week, I would have teaching staff in my office crying that they could not do this difficult work. But we desperately wanted to establish a growth mentality, we wanted everyone to be better, and that applied to the employees as well as the students.”

Ms. Gibson also addressed her emphasis on the use of data. She remarked, “Of course, we looked at test scores. But I also focused on absences and tardiness. It was vital that we built structures and set expectations. If a child was sick and I didn’t receive a call then I would contact the parents. Some would say, ‘You mean you want me to let you know, and I would say you bet I do.'”

We then moved on to talk about the value of the help provided by the Flamboyan Foundation. Ms. Gibson was only too eager to speak about her experience working with this group. “The organization showed us how to approach parents as individuals. This was the key to presenting quantitative information to them and to explain where their kids could benefit from additional instruction and practice. During our first year of engagement with them we implemented the Academic Parent Teacher Team approach which replaces the traditional parent teacher conference. During the second year we utilized APTT’s and put home visits in place. During the third year we started having middle school kids facilitate their own student led conferences.”

All of these efforts were assisted, Ms. Gibson stated, by the introduction of the Common Core Standards. “We started laying the foundational pieces of the standards in every lesson. At the end of the class teachers have an exit ticket which allows instructors to know if the students have mastered the day’s material.”

She also utilized short-cycle assessments in between interims to gain an understanding of student mastery of subject matter. “If the scholar is not meeting the level of mastery then we created strategies around bringing them up to where they needed to be.”

I then wanted to know Ms. Gibson’s opinion of the Common Core. “I think it has received a bad rap,” the Center City director of instruction expounded. “I appreciate that we now have tests to assess high levels of comprehension for every student. I want my son to have a deep understanding of subjects. I want him to understand how numbers work. I was not particularly good in math growing up. In class my fellow students moved on to other material and I was left wondering why I was not grasping the details. I want our kids to be ready for the 21^st century workforce, and I contend that this is what the Common Core Standards will allow our schools to do.”

As I believe you can see from the above statement, Ms. Gibson has a passion about her work that infuses every part of her being. It is the drive that began when she first joined the New York City New Teachers Fellows. It was there when she started practicing her profession at a highly sought after middle school in Brooklyn. The student population at this school closely mirrored Ms. Gibson’s own community where she grew up in Brooklyn. It traveled with her next to the private St. Patrick’s Episcopal Day School where she became the associate director of admissions. Ms. Gibson’s enthusiasm for her career then led her to gain entry to a residency program through New Leaders for New Schools, which brought her to Arts and Technology PCS first as an assistant principal.

Ms. Gibson left Arts and Technology before it was shuttered by the DC Public Charter School Board to join Center City where she recorded the student gains detailed earlier. About her move to becoming the director of instruction she would only say, “Approximate 30 point gains in four years is nice but I didn’t think I was the one to move the dial even higher. Besides, what we accomplished should be replicated throughout our system, not to pat myself on the back, but it’s because what all children deserve.”

Re-write of No Child Left Behind appears on right path

November 16, 2015November 16, 2015mlerner10 Charter Schools Leave a comment

Last Friday the Washington Post’s Lyndsey Layton wrote about the emerging Congressional bill that will replace the expired No Child Left Behind. There were a number of fears expressed by education reformers about this legislation, the main one being that it would eliminate mandatory testing of public school students. It appears that this is not going to be the case. From the article:

“The agreement maintains the federal requirement that states test students annually in math and reading in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school, and publicly report the scores according to race, income, ethnicity, disability and whether students are English-language learners.

It also requires states to intervene in schools where student test scores are in the lowest 5 percent, where achievement gaps are greatest, and in high schools where fewer than 67 percent of students graduate on time.”

But in a bow to Republicans, the new law would leave it up to the States to decide how to fix under-performing schools. Ms. Layton explains that these plans would have to be approved by the U.S. Department of Education. Those institutions that are doing well can decide for themselves the role of standardized tests at their facility.

The House and Senate are also taking steps to make sure that the next Education Secretary cannot have the influence over policy that Arne Duncan enjoyed “prohibiting the secretary from influencing state academic standards and assessments, requiring teacher evaluations or using grant programs to influence state education policy.” No more Race to Top competitions.

This is all good news. Going forward, the kids would be tested according to the currently utilized subgroups and these scores would be publicly available which were the main innovations of the original NCLB. States would still be required to take steps to improve schools not making the grade. Moreover, now that almost all localities have adopted the Common Core Standards as well as uniform measures of proficiency, we are on our way achieving the pillars of high standards, accountability, and autonomy that has led to significant improvements in public education in the District of Columbia. But we have to be watchful. The final bill has not yet been released.

Thurgood Marshall Academy offers bright spot in PARCC scores

November 2, 2015November 2, 2015mlerner10 Charter Schools Leave a comment

Thurgood Marshall Academy Public Charter High School has since its inception been a leading academic institution teaching at-risk students in Ward 8. Over 70 percent of the school’s population qualifies for free and reduced lunch and practically all of its pupils are African American. Yet it has boosted some of the city’s best marks on the DC CAS and has been a DC Public Charter High School Tier 1 school for each of the years that the tool has been utilized. I interviewed the school’s then executive director and co-founder Josh Kern in 2011.

It appears that the pattern of preparing students for success in college has continued with the transition to Common Core Standards and the PARCC examination. Last week, the Office of the State Superintendent for Education released high school test scores which mostly measured 10th grade performance. For Geometry, Thurgood Marshall students came in at 13.1 percent proficient compared to 7.0 percent on average for D.C.’s charter sector and 10.0 percent for DCPS as a whole. For economically disadvantaged students the number for Thurgood was 11.4 percent in the same subject, with charters and DCPS at 4.2 percent.

In English Language Arts Thurgood Marshall students stand out even more. For all of their kids the proficiency number is 56.6 percent, while for charters it is 23.0 percent and for the traditional schools 25.0 percent. In the category of economically disadvantaged students TMA came in at 58.6 percent proficient with charters at 19.1 percent and DCPS recording 16.5 percent.

How did they do it? The school is direct in its answer:

“When the District announced the transition to PARCC in 2011, TMA took a number of steps to prepare, including aligning curriculum, instruction, and assessments with the new, more rigorous Common Core standards. ‘Our leadership, faculty, and staff have worked to revise our curriculum to meet the demands of the common core state standards,’ said Kena Allison, the school’s Interim Head of School who has also served as a TMA science teacher and instructional coach for several years. ‘We continue to work diligently to make sure our students are ready for the rigors of a college education.'”

Now let’s see other schools follow this impressive lead. Elementary and middle school PARCC results should be available in a few weeks.

Friendship Public Charter School 2015 Teacher of the Year Gala

October 19, 2015October 19, 2015mlerner10 Charter Schools Leave a comment

Michele and I had the pleasure of attending last Saturday night’s Friendship Public Charter School 2015 Teacher of the Year Annual Awards Gala. As is the custom, the event was held at the elegant JW Marriott Hotel where a formal dinner is proceeded by an hour of drinks and appetizers. It was as a waiter was bringing around the first tray of hors d’oeuvres that I ran into my hero Donald Hense, the CEO and chairman of Friendship PCS. I wanted to know what excited him about this year’s celebration. “We have added two new schools,” the Friendship CEO answered without hesitation. “We now include the Online Academy and Armstrong Elementary. This growth has resulted in Friendship expanding by over 100 teachers. Currently we enroll over 4,200 children in the District of Columbia, and the Friendship Educational Foundation includes two schools in Baltimore and one in Louisiana.” Of course, the Online Academy and Armstrong are the schools Friendship graciously took over after the closure of the Dorothy I. Height Community Academy PCS.

There were many members of the charter movement in attendance. Immediately after talking to Mr. Hense, I approached Kara Kerwin, the president of the Center for Education Reform whom I have interviewed. I wanted to know from Ms. Kerwin about the charter school situation in Seattle now that the Washington State Supreme Court ruled that its funding mechanism was unconstitutional. “We are anticipating,” she commented, “that there will be both legal and legislative challenges to the ruling. There are over 1,200 students currently attending charters there that are in need of school choice so that they can obtain access to good schools.”

It was then time to move to the ballroom for the award ceremony. The space was packed. I think this must have been the largest number of people I have seen at a Teacher of the Year Gala, and the one with the most well dressed participants. Almost all of the men were in black tie and the women’s outfits were perfectly aligned with the high quality of Friendship’s academic offerings. Just like in the past, a well-produced brochure was positioned at each place setting, and Roland Martin, host of News One Now and commentator on the TV One cable network, was the Master of Ceremonies. But the crispness and well thought out pacing brought this event to new heights.

Nominated for the award were Yvonne Tackie, Blow Pierce Campus; Ashlie Monet Frances Dubose, Academy at Calverton; Joscelyn Reed, Chamberlain Campus; Alesha White, Preparatory Academy at Cherry Hill; Celecial Robinson, Collegiate Academy; Claire Holdipp, Southeast Academy; Ashley Smith, Technology Preparatory Academy; and Teoshi Edwards, Woodridge International Campus.

Mr. Hense kicked off the program with the inspiration and directness that defines this man. “This is Friendship’s biggest night of the year besides promotion and graduation. Our job is to have kids graduate and then be successful in college. Tonight we celebrate the finest that is Friendship which is the belief that anything is possible for our scholars. To encourage our children to work hard, we have no choice but to give our children the best that we have to offer each and everyday.”

The Friendship CEO then addressed the new charters that have joined his team this term. “We have named the new elementary school Armstrong because it is on the site of Armstrong High School, the first African American technical training school in the United States. In addition, we now have an on-line institute. A recent newspaper article talked about the increase in home-schooled children in our city, but what the piece failed to mention is that that a great many of those kids are enrolled in our institute.”

Mr. Hense then reviewed the prizes that go along with being nominated as a Teacher of the Year. He informed the guests that each individual receives $5,000, with the finalist being awarded $10,000. Moreover, as has been the custom and in an extremely classy move, Friendship covers state and federal taxes associated with the gifts so that the instructors receive all of the prize money.

Before and after dinner the attendees viewed videos highlighting the work of the finalists. I don’t know if its because its been awhile since I’ve been in a classroom, or due to the superlative work by EFX Media that produced the films, but I didn’t have a dry eye throughout these presentations. I found during the other galas I’ve attended I’ve been able to accurately predict the winner; on this night I had not a clue. I thought each one was a superstar.

In the end, the 2015 Teacher of the Year is Joscelyn Reed, a third grade instructor at Friendship’s Chamberlain Campus. Perhaps reading about the ceremony has not been as an emotional experience as it was for us as being in the room. Maybe that will change when you review Ms. Reed’s statement about how she views her profession.

“Educators have the power to create kind, comfortable, conducive learning environments in our classrooms. For some children, this may be the only time they experience this stability. This sense of security must be established before a book is read, or a lesson is taught. This single step is the foundation upon which I build an environment where students feel comfortable challenging themselves. They know that while I maintain high expectations, I am also there for them as a committed stakeholder in their personal success.”

It was a fantastic evening.

House Speaker Boehner invites OSP students to Pope’s address to Congress

September 25, 2015September 25, 2015mlerner10 Charter Schools Leave a comment

On the occasion of the historic address by Pope Francis to a joint meeting of Congress, U.S. House of Representative’s Speaker John Boehner had as guests 10 students participating in Washington, D.C.’s Opportunity Scholarship Program. Mr. Boehner is one of the authors of the legislation creating the first in the nation federal private school voucher plan and he has been a passionate advocate for re-authorization of the legislation that provides scholarships to kids in the nation’s capital living in poverty.

Among those in the audience were Milady Carcamo, who is in the 4th grade of Sacred Heart School; Edgardo Gonzalez, a 5th grader at Sacred Heart; Jasmine Mayfield, who is in the 8th grade at St. Anthony School; Ne’Miya McNight who attends Francis Xavier School and is in the 7th grade; Samuel Merga, an 11th grader at Archbishop Carroll High School; Genesis Romero, currently in the 12th grade at Don Bosco Cristo Rey High School; Jaden Roundtree, attending St. Francis Xavier School who is also in the 7th grade; Nadia Souleymanou, in the 8th grade at St. Anthony School; Theotric White, who is in the 8th grade at Thomas More Catholic Academy; and Travis White, a 7th grader at St. Thomas More Catholic Academy.

Some of the comments from these students about their visit are simply amazing because of how perceptive they are for men and women of such a young age. Milady Carcamo wrote, “Pope Francis inspires me because he is good and brave and he cares for others.” Jasmine Mayfield stated, “I am excited for Pope Francis’ visit because there is a lot of negativity in the world, and I think his visit will bring more positivity.” Nadia Souleymanou captured a theme in her remarks that I heard often about this Pope. She reflected, “Pope Francis teaches us that no matter what your position in life always be humble and forgiving.”

With students such as these there is great hope for the future of our country.

Low performing DCPS schools should be turned into charters under Charter Board

September 21, 2015September 22, 2015mlerner10 Charter Schools Leave a comment

The Washington Post’s Michael Allison Chandler wrote recently about a study released by the Progressive Policy Institute that concluded that low performing DCPS schools should be turned into charters. The reason for this recommendation is that the report found that reading and math proficiency rates are higher for charter schools in Ward 8, and other areas where there are larger concentrations of people living in poverty, compared to the academic performance of traditional schools. The idea is that converting these facilities to charters would grant them the flexibility, such as creating a longer school day, that would boost standardized test scores.

The Post reporter then goes on to relate past efforts by DCPS Chancellor Henderson to obtain the power to create charter schools. But here Ms. Chandler misses the point. The solution to fixing what is wrong with these schools is not to devise some new governance structure to run them. Why in the world would we do that when we have sitting in our backyard the best performing charter sector in America?

As I’ve advised for years, educational institutions demonstrating math and reading proficiency rates in the 20’s and 30’s should be immediately turned over to the DC Public Charter School Board. The PCSB would then identify leading charter operators to run these facilities.

However, this move creates a new problem in that in all likelihood there would not be a sufficient number of top performing charters to take all of these students. But there are a couple of ways to get around this difficulty.

First, charter management organizations would be given the facility where these kids currently are taught. Of course, securing permanent facilities is the biggest challenge charters face, and the guarantee of a building would probably be enough of an incentive to have experienced charter operators from around the country come to the nation’s capital.

In addition, we need some mechanism for encouraging Tier 1 charters in town to replicate. One idea to bring about this step that I’ve mentioned before is to give these schools that open a new campus a one year pass on the Performance Management Framework grading, something new charters already receive. A more aggressive means for driving expansion could be that for schools to achieve and maintain their Tier 1 status they need to be growing their student enrollment.

We are approaching 20 years of school reform in this city and there are still far too many kids not being educated. Its time to try a different approach.

Parents Have School Choice Kids Win

education reform in the nation's capital

Charter Schools