In a strongly worded commentary yesterday the pro-school choice Center for Education Reform rejected the plan approved by the D.C. Board of Education under the Every Student Succeeds Act to place charters and the traditional schools under the same accountability system to be administered by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education.  The organization writes:

“The District of Columbia State Education Agency submitted an ESSA plan that commits both traditional public and charter schools to a ‘common accountability system,’ with the blessing of the charter leadership in the city.  It’s extraordinary that there was so much support to capture charter schools under the SEA state plan umbrella, when no such requirement exists in federal law and the charters themselves are LEAs, accountable for federal law through their authorizer, not the district/state.  It’s as if they believed that pulling all charters under one accountability umbrella is consistent with their mandate to offer diverse options across all D.C. students attending public schools and charter schools. Does anyone know that ESSA plans become the foundation for federal intervention (no matter what administration comes and goes)? Guess not.”

I received an energetic response from the DC Public Charter School Board when I covered this news about a month ago, publicly posing the question of what the future was for the Performance Management Framework, the tool that has been utilized for the last four years to tier local charters.  Although I was told that an answer was in the works, nothing has yet to materialize.

Last month, in a five-to-two vote, the DC Public Charter School Board decided to begin revocation proceedings against the Latin American Youth Center Career Academy Public Charter School.  As part of this process the school is entitled to a public hearing if the institution is so inclined.  A source close to the charter expressed to me some trepidation about proceeding with this step.  I can remember only one case in which the board reversed its original position after a public hearing. However, forgoing this session would have been a tremendous mistake.

Last night, I watched representatives from the school, one after another in perfectly choreographed highly passionate testimony, make the case that the charter should be allowed to continue to operate.  If you have any interest at all in our local charter movement, or in the subject of school choice in general, investing a couple of hours in viewing what transpired in front of a packed house at the school’s facility is a marvel to observe.  The bottom line is this:  all of the difficulty that LAYCCA is facing is due to a major communication problem between the board and the charter.

The Youth Center is serving adult students with an average education on a sixth grade level.  This is the average.  Almost all of those enrolled have faced tremendous obstacles throughout their lives from drug addiction, homelessness, poverty, and incarceration.  Needless to say, these are not individuals from typical two-parent households.  Then what this school does, and I have no idea how they do this, is they take these disadvantaged people and put them back together.  The charter demonstrated that many attendees are able to gain years of learning under their watch.  As was stated yesterday evening, Frederick Douglass remarked that, “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”  But somehow, in consistent irrefutable evidence presented by the staff and the board of directors, fixing broken human beings is exactly what this charter is accomplishing.

I have to admit that much of the conversation was technical regarding the value of the results of various academic assessments.  But the highlight for me was when PCSB member Sara Mead asked a hypothetical question about how long it would take the school to bring a student reading at the sixth grade level up to the level of the eleventh grade for this subject matter.  A staff member asked Ms. Mead to tell her about the past trauma that this pupil had experienced in his or her life.  The PCSB board member had no answer.

I’m afraid that there is no proper response for what got us to this point.  One area that was found to be severely lacking by the authorizer in its five year review was the low number of students obtaining their GED.  However, as explained during the hearing, individuals must be reading at that eleventh grade level in order to simply take the examination.  When a grownup arrives at the school with the knowledge of a four year old this is an astonishingly high mountain to climb.

Obviously, the goals established for this school are unrealistic.  This would easily explain the reason that the targets for the number of students graduating from LAYCCA’s academic pathways are not being met.  However, as the charter’s board chair reluctantly revealed, when the institution tried to work with the board on revisions to these targets they were met with “tension” and “a gotcha mentality” by the PCSB staff.

The hero in this story, standing with those at LAYCCA who dedicate their lives on a daily basis to developing men and women who can become valuable members of our community that others have cast aside, is the CityBridge Foundation.  You see there are no current national benchmarks to judge success for schools caring for this population of students.  None.  CityBridge (now CityBridge Education) presented the Youth Center with a $500,000 grant to develop those assessments.  Let’s sincerely hope that it gets the opportunity to try.

The Office of the State Superintendent of Education has released the public school Equity Reports for the 2015-to-2016 term and the DC Public Charter School Board is hailing many of the findings.  For example, the organization points out that charters in the nation’s capital educate a larger percentage of economically disadvantaged and black students compared to the city overall at 83.6 percent and 76.3 percent, respectively.  In addition, the percentage of students being taught with a disability is above the average for all schools.  Charters enroll 5.5 percent of students with disabilities compared to the citywide average of 5.1 percent.  In addition, I find it especially fascinating that for each of the four subgroups of severity of disability, charters closely match the enrollment rates of all city wide schools.

Also impressive is the steady decrease in student suspension rates for D.C. charters.  The overall percentile is now at 9.1 percent and the proportion for each subgroup of students has consistently dropped over the past three years.  However, each of these rates is slightly above those for the city as a whole. Also following a positive downward trajectory is the number of lost hours in the classroom due to suspension, going from a percentage of 0.39 days during the 2012-to-2013 school year to 0.23 days in the 2015-to-2016 term.  The expulsion rate at 0.21 percent of students is also at the smallest level in three years, compared to the rate of 0.1 percent for all public schools.

In addition, student movement during the year is going in the right direction.  Charters, during the 2015-to-2016 school year, demonstrated their lowest proportion since the 2012-to-2013 term at -4.1 percent, compared to the citywide average of student loss and gain during the 2015-to-2016 term at a net zero percent.

Finally, student test scores on the standardized PARCC assessment are improving for all groups except white students.  For example, the percentage of students scoring the career and college readiness score of four or better went up 3.7 points for black students, 6.4 percent for Hispanic pupils, 3.7 percent for English language learners, and 5.0 percent for those living in poverty, compared to the previous year.  However, in spite of the improvement, these results are abysmally low with black kids earning a four or better 24.3 percent of the time, Hispanic students at 28.3 percent for the same statistic, and low-income students at 23.0 percent.  White students are at 75.1 percent for rating a four or better, down 5.2 percent from the previous year.

Much progress has been made, but there is a really long way to go.

At last night’s monthly meeting of the DC Public Charter School Board Tom Nida received an Exceptional Service Award as I wrote about yesterday.  The ceremony was moving in that both Josephine Baker and Dr. Ramona Edelin, the executive director of the D.C. Association of Chartered Public Schools, spoke on his behalf as well as other members of the board.  One major contribution that Mr. Nida made during his time as chair which was highlighted that I failed to mention was that it was under his tenure that 18 charters on 22 campuses that had been authorized by the D.C. Board of Education came under the control of the PCSB.

The evening’s session included a pubic hearing on a request by Rocketship PCS to open a second campus during the 2017 to 2018 school year in Ward 7.  The charter opened its first school this term in Ward 8 that will eventually serve students in grades Pre-Kindergarten three to fifth grade.  When Rocketship was first approved to open in the nation’s capital it was given permission to open eight campuses under specific conditions.  This planned expansion will also serve students in grades Pre-Kindergarten three to fifth grade.  Look for the proposed action to be approved at next month’s meeting.

The much more controversial agenda item was the charter amendment application by Basis PCS to open two new campuses enrolling an additional 936 students in grades Kindergarten through fourth grade to augment the 700 pupils in grades five through twelve currently being taught on 8th Street, N.W.  The most significant portion of the questioning of Basis representatives came from PCSB board member Steve Bumbaugh.  He revealed that for the last three weeks he had been studying the student enrollment data at the charter and he frankly found the numbers to be “concerning.”  For example, he discovered that across the charter sector in D.C. 79 percent of students are economically disadvantaged but at Basis this number is 17 percent.  Again, he observed, overall for charters 15 percent of pupils are classified as Special Education and at Basis this number is less than five percent.  Moreover, at Basis less than 10 percent of kids are found to be At Risk while for charters that statistic is 51 percent.  Finally, Mr. Bumbaugh explained that charters are characterized by  student populations that include 7 percent English Language Learners while at Basis this percentile is zero.

In other words, the fear that I expressed years ago that Basis would create a school in the nation’s capital that ignored the original charter bargain to take care of those students often left behind by the traditional schools has become a reality.  As you may recall I was asked by Basis creators Michael and Olga Block to become a founding board member of the franchise here.  But after speaking with them, and learning more about the school, I gathered that it was not an institution intent on fulfilling the charter promise.  After some contentious PCSB meetings, and assurances from Basis that this was not the case, the original charter application was approved.

Basis has delineated that its strategic mission is to expand by opening private schools where there is no charter law like it did in McLean, Virginia,  and to use public money to build its enrollment where charters exist. However, this is not what our movement is all about.  The Basis representatives made clear that there would be no change in direction in the population of children being served since they imagine that the new campuses would be located in Ward 1 or 2, not in Anacostia as one of the board members suggested.  This replication request should be denied.

It has been a little over a year since I interviewed Dr. Darren Woodruff, the chair of the DC Public Charter School Board, so I was extremely gratified that I recently had a second chance to talk with him.  I recalled that the last time we met one of his goals as chair was to increase the amount of information available to parents about schools prior to enrolling their children.  I asked if progress had been made in this area.  “The PCSB,” Dr. Woodruff replied, “has created a parent advisory group that has been revamped and strengthened under Tomeika Bowden, the director of communications.  She has worked to increase the geographic diversity of its membership.  The group is the primary vehicle for two-way conversations between the board and parents.  Of course, as part of the process to open a new charter, school applicants are encouraged to reach out to the community and groups like the Advisory Neighborhood Commissions to receive input and hear concerns.”

When I asked the PCSB chair how things are going for D.C.’s charter sector he expressed a couple of concerns.  “It is highly disappointing that we did not get a funding increase for the facility allotment,” Dr. Woodruff responded.  “Charters had asked the Council for Fiscal year 2017 to bring the facility allotment to $3,250 per child with built-in increases for inflation from $3,124 a pupil where it has been for years.  In addition, there is still a mysterious process around the release of surplus DCPS buildings to charters.  The PCSB has a tremendous relationship with David Grosso, the chairman of the D.C. Council’s Education Committee; Jennie Niles, the Deputy Mayor for Education; and Mayor Bowser.  What we really need is a reliable funding stream and a predictable procedure for the acquisition of vacant facilities.  I would place both of these issues at the top of our priority list.”

I then wanted to learn from Dr. Woodruff about progress regarding the D.C. Cross-Sector Collaboration Task Force.  “We have had about several meetings and we are a year into the schedule,” he revealed.  “We have really been focused on getting to know one another.  There are many people there from DCPS that we really didn’t know before the group was formed.  We have begun looking hard at student mobility.  We’re aware that some students leave a charter school in midyear.  Mobility is a challenge because currently charters do not receive supplemental funding if a student enters the school after the annual count in October.  No decisions have been made, but charter school representatives on the task force have emphasized the importance of funding support for students who move across schools. No decision has yet been made.”

Dr. Woodruff continued, “I think that as a city we should make it as easy as possible for kids to be admitted either to charters or DCPS. Right now we don’t have a comprehensive handle on the reason students are leaving.”

I then asked Dr. Woodruff what he would like to see come out of the Task Force’s work.  He answered without hesitation.  “We need to seriously address academic outcomes and the achievement gap.  We have to return to the original promise of charters that we can provide all children, no matter their background, a first rate public education.  We must identify innovations in schools and replicate them among both charter and DCPS classrooms.  There are high performing charters in all of the Wards in which they operate and there must be serious conversations about how they got to where they are so that others can learn what they know.  We need a much more aggressive push toward academic excellence for all students.  A lot of this must be based upon trust between charters and DCPS.  We have made slow steady progress over the last 20 years but we desperately need transformational progress.”

Since Dr. Woodruff expressed that we have not yet made an acceptable level of academic progress, I inquired as to whether the PCSB should raise the bar for a school to be rated at Tier 1 or Tier 2 on the School Quality Reports  that are based upon the Performance Management Framework tool.  “No,” Dr. Woodruff stated, “I don’t believe we should raise the bar.  There has to be an increased level of drilling down by school leaders to determine what works and what doesn’t.  Then the right resources and interventions need to be made to support the appropriate instructional programs so that children are learning at high levels. This is especially important if year after year students are not progressing. “

Next, I reviewed with the PCSB chair my observation that the number of new applications for charters has dwindled to one or two a cycle.  I asked him if his organization was concerned with this trend.  “Yes, we have noticed,” Dr. Woodruff commented.  “At the same time we have added campuses of strong charters such as DC Prep, Two Rivers, and KIPP DC.  Other schools are currently investigating replication.  While this is occurring, Scott Pearson, the PCSB executive director, has been encouraging other operators from across the country to open schools in our city.”

When this interview took place DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson had just left her position.  I wanted to know from him what her legacy would be.  Dr. Woodruff answered, “Kaya was an extremely strong leader.  She was the right person at the right time.  You have to remember that when she came in office there was a lack of confidence in the traditional school system.  Few parents wanted to send their kids there.  Under her direction, enrollment has climbed, standardized test scores went up, and most recently, the four-year high school graduation rate jumped by five percentage points.  I applaud her accomplishments.”

“However,” the PCSB chair added, “we need to step it up several notches.  We have to make sure all kids are benefiting from this renaissance.  Progress has been great for affluent and middle class kids and for some low income students, but not all.  The new Chancellor should strive to ensure that all pupils can obtain a quality education, and the person selected for this role will have to work across sectors to make this a reality.”

I concluded my time with Dr. Woodruff by asking him for the major accomplishment of the PCSB over the last 20 years and what he would like to see for public education in the District in coming years.  He responded without hesitation.  “I think that our biggest accomplishment,” he opined, “besides having 44 percent of all children in public schools now attending a charter, is that we now have applied the Performance Management Framework across the entire length of our portfolio.  We have the early childhood, elementary, middle school PMF’s, as well as one for schools teaching adults.  In addition we have added an Alternative Accountability Framework.  When you ask about the future I guess the one thing I am really interested in seeing is one rubric that looks at the quality of all schools, both charter and traditional.  I don’t believe it is right that parents have to understand different measures for schools governed under different structures.”

At tonight’s monthly meeting of the DC Public Charter School Board past chairman Brian Jones will receive the organization’s Outstanding Service Award.  The recognition is extremely well deserved.

Mr. Jones was PCSB chair from 2010 to 2013.  During his tenure the charter school authorizer doubled down on its emerging emphasis on the quality of schools following the nascent movement’s logical focus on growth.  He followed the strong leadership of Tom Nida, and while Mr. Jones did not have the same commanding presence as his predecessor from the podium, he led solidly and consistently through his calm and respectful manner no matter who it was with whom he was interacting.

I had the tremendous pleasure of interviewing Mr. Jones three times.  On each occasion he treated me with the same dignity that he did everyone else.  He never made me feel one of my questions was not worth asking, and he taught me way too much to mention here about the eruption of public school reform then taking place in the nation’s capital.

It was a time of great transition for the PCSB.  Its first board chair and long-term executive director Josephine Baker retired and Mr. Jones was responsible for bringing the highly esteemed and successful Scott Pearson to that role.  The board also hired its first general counsel.  The Performance Management Framework was only just being fully implemented.  In addition, Mr. Jones expertly navigated Mayor Gray’s Neighborhood Preference Task Force to conclusions that maintained the autonomy of charter schools.

But it is the interpersonal skills of Mr. Jones that I remember most.  No matter whether he agreed with you or not, Mr. Jones would listen and be sincerely grateful for the information.  It is a trait that many of us only wish we could emulate.