D.C. charter school movement is suffering from the “sanction of the victim”

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The concept was coined by philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand in her book “Atlas Shrugged.” It stands for “the willingness of the good to suffer at the hands of the evil, to accept the role of sacrificial victim for the ‘sin’ of creating values. ” Yesterday, after yet another article appeared describing the wilting of positive opinion regarding these alternative learning institutions, I realized that the term accurately describes what is now taking place regarding the reality of charter schools in the nation’s capital.

For if you were to ask community members for their take on charters most certainly they would mention a few characteristics. First, they would say that they are of uneven academic quality; some are good and others are bad. Second, people would state that it is almost impossible to get your child into one of the most desirable schools. Lastly, you would almost certainly hear the view that these are public institutions that are privately run.

The first two of these statements are certainly valid. However, look at the environment charter schools have had to operate in since they were first created by Congress over twenty years ago. Charter schools still cannot find facilities to house them. I don’t know how many readers have had the experience of serving on a charter board, but the fight to identify a location can become all encompassing. It is a tremendous time and energy drain that sucks the oxygen out of important priorities such as academics. We have put up with this situation for so long that it has become normal. Yet, it prevents us from being as high quality as we can be. As Ms. Rand described it, for the privilege of creating innovative schools for those children who are the most difficult to teach, we are being punished with the withholding of available buildings. This has gone on far too long and must immediately stop.

Besides having to search for a place to live, charters receive significantly less funding than the traditional schools. There is a FOCUS engineered lawsuit going through the courts, but who is knocking on the Mayor’s door demanding that this be fixed? Are we afraid to upset her? Is this the track record we want when fifty years from now we look back on charters as another failed educational fad? I can think of no better time than today to march down to the Wilson Building and demand to meet with Ms. Bowser on this issue.

One major impact of the shortage of facilities and unequal revenue is a curtailment of growth of the sector as a whole. Thousand-student wait-lists are not uncommon. But when leaders are asked what they are doing to resolve this issue as well as the others, they look away. Not part of the job we are told. Someone else will have to pick up the mantle.

So we go to work each day with the understanding that we say charter schools are public schools but knowing just under the surface that in our hearts we may not even believe this statement. This is because we have accepted the bromide that they are privately run. So let me try and get this right. Charter schools are nonprofits governed by volunteer boards of trustees that are made up of neighbors living among us. The body is responsible to the DC Public Charter School Board, a government entity whose members are nominated by the Mayor and approved by the City Council.

Without a complete rejection of playing the victim role I’m afraid nothing will change regarding the state of charters in Washington, D.C. In fact, I’m extremely disappointed to say, it will only get worse.

Washington Post writers warned of high D.C. charter school administrator salaries in 2015

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Last Tuesday, former DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson reminded us through Facebook that almost exactly three years ago the Washington Post’s Emma Brown and Michael Allison Chandler called out certain local charter school leaders for salaries that exceeded hers while she was in office although they oversaw a much smaller population of students.

The article included this observation by Carrie Irwin, co-founder and chief executive officer of Charter Board Partners:

“Carrie Irvin . . . an organization that works to strengthen charter school boards, said that in her experience, many boards aren’t doing a good job evaluating and compensating leaders according to their ability to meet concrete goals, including student achievement goals.

‘We’re talking about allocating taxpayer money to hire and retain a leader who can ensure that kids are getting a great education, and that’s a really big decision,’ Irvin said. “That’s why it’s so important to have strong boards.’”

The piece talked about Friendship PCS’s board of directors setting its pay for then CEO Donald Hense through a compensation committee, a perfectly appropriate manner for setting his salary. When I was at Washington Latin PCS, the board looked at market rates when deciding the salary of its head of school.

Ms. Brown and Chandler go on to comment:

“Competition for strong leaders and the size of schools are two of many factors that drive decisions about executive compensation at charter schools, according to charter school board members. Boards also survey executive compensation at other charter school networks around the country or other local nonprofit groups for comparison.”

All of this seems like the right way to go. It is when schools operate outside of these parameters that they can get in trouble when salary decisions around senior leadership become public knowledge.

Individuals involved with charter schools in the nation’s capital love to talk about the wide areas of responsibility that they as part of their jobs that includes finances, personnel, curriculum, academic results, student and staff recruitment, and real estate. These people should be paid fairly for the work that they do which also includes extremely long hours behind their desks.

As D.C. Council education committee chairman David Grosso stated in the Post article, almost all charter schools reimburse their administrators appropriately for what they do. It is the outliers that I worry about concerning the future of our movement.

D.C. charters are losing the public relations battle

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Of course, I’m not stating anything we don’t already know. The confluence of news reports about excessive administrative salaries, students scrambling to find new schools in the face of multiple charter revocations by the DC Public Charter School Board and other voluntary closures, and the charge of a lack of transparency have combined to place these institutions serving almost half of all public school students in a negative light. As I’ve written recently, the current atmosphere is feeding those who want to see charters eradicated from the face of the earth and who faithfully support our country’s declining labor unions.

However depressing the situation seems at the moment, there is a way out. After having lengthy conversations with three prominent members of our local charter school movement yesterday I believe the way forward is clear.

First, we need to support open meetings of our local charter school boards. This is a common sense approach which treats the families of our students with dignity and respect. The great majority of the business that takes place before these boards is mundane in nature, and having visitors offers the opportunity to showcase the great work being done at our schools.

Next, we need to oppose the call for individual schools to have to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests. Charters have exceedingly small administrative staffs and, as Rick Cruz, the chair of the PCSB, pointed out in my recent conversation with him, they need to focus on things like “academics, safety, finances, facilities, personnel, and meeting their specific goals.” In addition, FOIA actually applies to federal government entities, which charter schools are not.  D.C. has its own Freedom of Information Act law which does not cover charter school boards.  However, the PCSB is required to respond to those seeking information under FOIA and it has a treasure trove of information that it gathers from the schools it oversees.

Moreover, as I also wrote about the other day, decisions made at the school level need to looked at under a microscope as if they will be the next trending topic on Twitter. This is something that is an inherent part of the job of receiving and spending public funds.

Then we should celebrate all of the accomplishments of this exciting sector. We should proudly talk about how we are closing the academic achievement gap in public education for the first time in our nation’s history. We should remind citizens of the absolute train-wreck that DCPS was before charters starting offering an alternative way to deliver education. We must point to the improvements in the traditional schools that would never have occurred without our presence. We should provide a list of students that without our lifeline would have ended up in jail or dead. Finally, we should exclaim that we are doing all of this with our hands tied behind our backs due to the struggle to secure permanent facilities and the fact that we receive about $100 million less in funding each year than the regular schools.

Finally, we need to talk about the unique charter bargain around quality. We need to remind our community that DCPS has never, and will not ever, close a school due to academic results. We believe with every cell in our bodies in the equation of autonomy with accountability. After all isn’t autonomy with accountability what life is all about? Let’s use the experience of charter schools to teach this crucial lesson to our children.

The D.C. charter board should make its schools adhere to the open meeting law

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The Washington Post’s Perry Stein has an article published today questioning whether charter schools in the nation’s capital should increase their transparency by operating under open meeting laws and being subject to Freedom of Information Act requests.

The answer to the first part of this equation is simple. I agree that individual charter board meetings should be open to the public. When I was board chair at Washington Latin PCS and the William E. Doar, Jr. Public Charter School for the Performing Arts, parents would sometimes ask when they were allowed to attend our monthly meetings of the trustees. I would reply that these sessions were open to the public. Only rarely did someone other than a board member come, but my response diffused a situation that creates tension with parents when it appears that decisions are being made in secret. At Latin, we also published board meeting minutes on the school’s website.

The part about complying with FOIA requests is more difficult, simply because charters often do not have the administrative resources to be able to satisfy the inquiries. I would consider a proposal in which the DC Public Charter School Board assists schools in providing information, meeting certain criteria.

Scott Pearson stated in Ms. Stein’s article that the PCSB is always trying to increase the transparency of the sector, and I believe that is true. Currently, online visitors to the board’s dcpcsb.org can view school budgets, 990 forms, audits, and financial analysis of schools’ balance sheets.

Ms. Stein also included the opinion about this subject of Todd Ziebarth, the National Alliance for Public Charter School’s senior vice president for state advocacy. He “said the District is an anomaly and in most jurisdictions, the public can attend charter school board meetings — and request records from individual schools. “

Mr. Pearson remarked to the Post reporter that a revised version of the board’s proposed transparency policy will be presented at its February 25th meeting. This will be the same night that the consolidation of Cesar Chavez PCS’s campuses will be discussed. Should be an extremely interesting evening.

For D.C. charter schools to survive they must remember they are part of a national movement others want ended

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Washington City Paper writer Rachel Cohen has come out with her next in a series of articles meant to destroy our local charter school movement.  This one deals with the financial compensation that some school leaders are receiving. From her article:

“Summary statistics aside, the sector is replete with examples of steep salaries and quick raises. Allison Kokkoros, the head of Carlos Rosario International Public Charter School and the highest-paid charter official in D.C., received a 24 percent salary increase between 2015 and 2016, from $248,000 to $307,000. Then, in 2017, she received another 76 percent increase, bumping her compensation to $541,000. Patricia Brantley, head of Friendship Public Charter School, received a 33 percent raise between 2016 and 2017, increasing her pay from $231,000 to $308,000.

Outside of school heads, other high-ranking charter administrators also claimed significant salaries. In 2017, KIPP DC had four administrators making approximately $200,000 annually, and its president earned $257,000. The chair of Friendship, Donald Hense, earned over $355,000 annually between 2015 and 2017, and its CFO earned between $171,000 and $197,000 in each of those years. DC Prep’s Chief Academic Officer earned $203,000 in 2015, and $223,000 one year later. The board chair of AppleTree Early Learning earned over $231,000 annually each year since 2015, reaching $245,000 in 2017. 990 tax forms list another 110 charter administrators earning between $100,000 and $200,000 annually, although this list is likely not comprehensive, as schools are only required to disclose their top five highest-paid employees. 2018 figures are not yet available.

In one remarkable instance, Sonia Gutierrez, the founder and former CEO of Carlos Rosario, who now sits on the school’s board, earned $1,890,000 between 2015 and 2017. Board chair Patricia Sosa, when contacted about this large sum, says much of that had been awarded as deferred compensation from Gutierrez’s time working between July 2010 and December 2015. However, according to tax records, she was also paid an average of $326,000 annually during that period.”

I do not have sufficient information to say if these earnings are justified or not.  But I will make this important point.  Although charters were established in the nation’s capital over twenty years ago, there are still many people who wish they would go away.  The notion still exists that they are stealing money from DCPS and that charters are private schools run with public funds.  The issue is not unique to us locally.  For evidence of the hatred toward charters all you have to do is look at the inflammatory language that was targeted at them during the recent strike by teachers and their union in Los Angeles. Here is one key paragraph from the New York Times in a story written by Jennifer Medina and Dana Goldstein about the work stoppage:

“But the defeat in the court of public opinion is clear: After years of support from powerful local and national allies — including many Democrats — charter schools are now facing a backlash and severe skepticism.”

In order to reduce the likelihood of backlash and skepticism, all financial decisions at charter schools must be viewed through the lens that this information will end up on the front page of the Washington Post or the City Paper.  If the school’s action can withstand this level of scrutiny, then it is appropriate.  But if spending does not pass the smell test for being an ethical and market-based expenditure, then it needs to be abandoned.  No less than the future of our sector is dependent on making these calls correctly.

When I was a board chair I would open many of our meetings with a news article that described controversies involving charter schools.  I wanted the trustees to understand that they were part of something that others found distasteful.  Because of the political environment in which we operate, everyone involved with charters has to conduct business at an exemplary level of integrity.  It is a standard that as courageous professionals we should accept and embrace so that we can continue to provide the exceptionally high quality education our students deserve.

Most interesting parts of last night’s monthly D.C. charter board meeting were not on the agenda

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Let me start my summary of Monday evening’s meeting of the DC Public Charter School Board by pointing out the improvements that have been implemented for those who watch the proceedings on the web. The issue around the sound not being at a sufficient level has been solved, and now there are fancy graphics that announce the subject matter before the members. Both changes elevate the professionalism of the experience.

The PCSB gave the green light to 15-year charter renewals, all without conditions, to DC Bilingual PCS, E.L. Haynes PCS, and Two Rivers PCS. The schools received tons of accolades from the board, and I’m sure the members were tremendously relieved that attorney Stephen Marcus was not at the witness stand once again trying to fend off charter revocation for one of his clients. It was a welcome respite.

As in the past, many people have figured out that much of the real action occurs during the comment sections that are available at the beginning and end of these proceedings. Yesterday, it was a perfect opportunity for teachers from Cesar Chavez Prep PCS to flood the public testimony list. Just last week the school announced that it would shutter this campus, as well as the one on Capitol Hill, in order to consolidate its offerings as a consequence of declining enrollment. The board will consider the restructuring next month and vote on the plan in March.

One after another the instructors spoke, railing against the administration of Chavez, and specifically, the TenSquare Group, that just helped this charter management organization dramatically improve last year’s results on the Performance Management Framework. From TenSquare’s press release:

“All four Chavez Schools’ scores went up—6 points on average. Chavez Parkside High School (Ward 7) received the highest score in the network—59.8, up 7.6 points over last year—putting the school within striking distance of Tier 1 status.”

It was actually a clever strategy by the Prep teachers. Chavez was not on the agenda so they used the board’s consideration of a new school transparency policy to argue that individual charters should be subject to Freedom of Information Act Requests and have to operate under D.C.’s Open Meeting Act, two stipulations not included in the document. They then went on to complain that the proposed changes at their school were done behind closed doors and without their involvement. I have to say that in the end the entire charade made little sense. These are the same people who voted to have a union intercede in their relationship between themselves and management. That decision really makes it exceedingly difficult to buy into the notion that they should now have a seat at the table. In addition, the employees would have had much more credibility if they had come to the gathering in shirts labeled with the Cesar Chavez logo. Instead, all wore red tops that proclaimed that they were members of DC ACTS, a collective bargaining unit associated with the American Federation of Teachers. It belied who they were really there to support.

Also not on the list for discussion, and passed without discussion, was approval of LEARN DC PCS’s request to extend the deadline to March 1, 2019 for its response to conditions imposed on the school by the board at the December monthly meeting. The original deadline was January 25th. The meeting material states that the delay is needed “because LEARN DC is still having internal discussions about the conditions.” Could it be that LEARN is actually reconsidering whether to come here in the aftermath of having to comply with the long list of rules? I have no evidence that this is the case, but a move of this kind would certainly make a significant statement.

1,700 charter school students may need to find new classrooms next term

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The Washington Post’s Perry Stein claimed yesterday that approximately 1,700 students attending charters will have to find new schools to attend for the 2019-to-2020 term. The number is the product of the decision announced a couple of days ago by the Cesar Chavez PCS for Public Policy to shutter two of its campuses and actions by the DC Public Charter School Board to close City Arts and Prep PCS, Democracy Prep PCS, and National Collegiate Preparatory PCHS. This news comes in the wake of charter school enrollment in the 2018-to-2019 school year dropping a percentage point compared to those attending DCPS. The decrease is a first in the over twenty year history of charters in the nation’s capital.

As a reminder, here is the reaction of Scott Pearson, the executive director of the DC PCSB, to the demographic shift:

“For the 10th yr enrollment has increased in public schools but the 1st time the percentage of DC charter school students has gone down. This slight decline reflects our commitment to opening good schools and closing low-performing ones. It’s about quality and choice, not numbers.”

I agree with the charter board’s emphasis on quality.  Moreover, while the decisions by the board may not be purely about numbers, this assessment may at the same time not be completely accurate. Recently, Lenora Robinson-Mills, the PCSB’s chief operating officer, wrote a heart-felt article about her own feelings about charter revocation in which she compared the action to the death of a family member. She opined:

“We’re working internally now to figure out how to provide better support sooner to families affected by the closing of their school, but it’s difficult to navigate the school’s right to due process. Maybe the answer is a lottery preference or lottery bypass for students attending closing schools? Perhaps it’s more and better communication with families before the final decision gets made so that they can take action sooner? Maybe it’s having someone at DC PCSB who can be the life-saving surgeon in my presenter’s death analogy. But that’s outside the role of the authorizer… “

My question today is if the PCSB could provide services that could help turnaround a school, would that really be considered outside the role of the authorizer? After all, the mission of the board “is to provide quality public school options for DC students, families, and communities. ” Is the board actually fulfilling its stated mission if it is authorizing new schools, allowing good schools to grow and replicate, and closing those that are under performing? What about helping those that are in need of assistance before getting to the point of terminating their operations?

With 1,7000 scholars now looking for new places to learn, perhaps we need a different answer to my last question.

Cesar Chavez PCS is closing Chavez Prep

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Yesterday afternoon Cesar Chavez Public Charter School for Public Policy announced several changes to its network in the wake of lower than expected student enrollment. A letter from the school’s board of directors explains:

“The Board of Trustees, which includes a Chavez graduate, two current parents, our founder, and education, civic and business leaders, has spent more than a year analyzing city enrollment trends and school options, the operations and performance of the network, and the financial viability of operating three disconnected school buildings at a lower-than-planned student enrollment. In 2010, Chavez Schools secured $27.2 million in bonds, financing the purchase and renovation of our three school buildings. This bond structure was based on enrollment growing to 1,500 students, targeting a 2020 refinance. Today, with enrollment at only 956, the network must be reconfigured for the organization to meet its financial obligations and ensure continued viability.”

Chavez is therefore consolidating its Capitol Hill High School, housed in a location that it rents with a lease that concludes next year, with its Parkside High School campus, in a building that it owns. The Capitol Hill site currently enrolls 235 pupils on a site that holds more than 400 students. The relatively low number of students makes it difficult to offer a high school program. Chavez indicates that the majority of children that attend Capitol Hill live in Wards 7 and 8, so the new location will actually be closer to home. When I was on the board of the William E. Doar, Jr. Public Charter School for the Performing Arts, and the school was desperately looking for a place to open, we tried to obtain this facility but lost out to Chavez.

In December, 2017, The DC Public Charter School Board forced Chavez to begin the closing of its Parkside Middle School due to low academic performance. It therefore stopped accepting sixth grade students the following term and now instructs only seventh and eight graders. These scholars will graduate in 2020 and will then be able to join the CMO’s Parkside High School. Eventually, Chavez plans to rebuild its middle school at the Parkside campus.

One of Chavez’s goals regarding these changes is to create a truly first rate high school. Again, according to the board’s announcement:

“Investing in the Parkside campus will include: more Advanced Placement (AP) courses and advanced electives, more dual enrollment early college opportunities, more SAT preparation and support, a greater focus on college matching and alumni support, more public policy internships and policy curriculum offerings, more supports for students with special needs and for those learning English, and an even stronger athletic program than we already have. It also means building improvements, technology upgrades and greater support for teachers, staff and community.”

Consistent with focusing on developing a stellar high school program, Chavez also announced that it is shuttering its Chavez Prep Middle School location at the end of the current school year. Similar to the Capitol Hill campus, student enrollment is way under capacity with 238 kids in a building that seats 420. The number of pupils is down 34 percent since 2015 in a structure that a decade ago saw a $10.8 million dollar investment in improvements that is still being financed. But much more important than Chavez getting out of the middle school business is the fact that closing this school will terminate teachers’ union involvement in charters in the District.

As the only unionized charter, there were a lot of shenanigans taking place at Chavez Prep, including teachers protesting on the street and complaints to the National Labor Relations Board. After the staff voted to join the American Federation of Teachers in 2017, and following a series of exceptionally challenging negotiations, a collective bargaining agreement with management has never been finalized. I have consistently expressed the view that teacher union membership is inconsistent with the operational freedoms associated with running a charter school, and therefore have called for Chavez to close this property.

Christian Herr, the Chavez Prep teacher behind the unionization effort, stated that employees were crying after learning on Wednesday that the school was going out of business. I’m sure this is true. He is probably upset that he is losing further opportunities to interfere with the administration of the school. He remarked that the union will investigate this action.

All I can say is that I am tremendously proud of the moves by the Chavez board of directors for their efforts in protecting and strengthening the future of their school.  I also applaud the leadership of Josh Kern as head of the Tensquare Group that is currently leading an academic turnaround at this charter. Just as in Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, when the book’s hero architect Howard Roark destroyed his housing complex for low-income residents when it wasn’t being built to his high-level specifications, in closing Chavez Prep Mr. Kern has taken a gigantic step in protecting the integrity of our local movement of innovative schools. Therefore, I now consider Mr. Kern the Howard Roark of the D.C. charter movement.

In addition, the news for me could not come at a better time. Next Wednesday I mark ten years of covering our city’s charter schools through my blog.

D.C. charter board closes National Collegiate Preparatory PCHS

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As predicted, yesterday afternoon the DC Public Charter School Board voted to revoke the charter of National Collegiate Preparatory PCHS. The members were distressed by the school’s poor academic results, low high school graduation rates, and the inability to retain students from one term to the next. The PCSB also felt that the turnaround plan came too late for them to assess whether it had a realistic chance of succeeding.

The only real debate occurred over the timing of the end of operations. Some argued that the school should be allowed to continue for three more years without accepting new pupils so that those currently enrolled could graduate and others could find a new facility. In the end it was decided that the doors would be shuttered at the conclusion of the 2020 term, unless the charter fails to agree to conditions established by the board in the coming days. Closure would also occur sooner if the school discontinued offering a full range of academic courses, neglected to protect the health and safety of its students, and proved to be not financially viable.

I’m sure that the parents and students of this Ward 8 community are exceptionally upset with the decision of the charter board. However, I would argue that this anger is misdirected. Instead, they should be disappointed with the management of the school and its board of directors, which failed them.

The only hope now is that another charter agrees to come in and takeover this campus. The logical choice is Thurgood Marshall Academy PCS. However, in this case the timing is not good as this school in in the midst of a search for a new executive director. Richard Pohlman announced last November that this school year would be his last in his position.

D.C.’s National Collegiate Preparatory PCHS should be closed

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Last Wednesday evening the DC Public Charter School Board held a public hearing regarding its decision at the December monthly meeting to begin charter revocation proceedings against National Collegiate Preparatory PCHS. If you are interested in the mechanics of the operation of our local movement then this session is a primer in charter oversight. Come with me for a first-hand excursion through the three hours and fifty minute gathering.

Attorney Stephen Marcus was back representing a school facing closure, and he and his associate Sherry Ingram seemed completely undeterred by their recent loss regarding the saving of City Arts and Prep PCS. Mr. Marcus made a stunningly brilliant first move in facilitating the discussion by flipping the order of presentations. On this night the parents, students, and staff of the school would speak before management. It was smart because most people, like me, would normally watch the arguments by the charter board and the administration and then call it a day. But in having stakeholders go first, it elevated the respect shown to members of this Ward 8 residents while simultaneously setting the stage for sympathy for the plight of the organization.

The long lineup of people testifying did not disappoint. Parent Camilia Wheeler, who last year addressed the board as a mom with a student at WMST PCS, asked where these students are supposed to go if this school no longer exists. She indicated that between the years 2012 and 2017 twenty-six charters have been closed by the PCSB. Ms. Wheeler wanted to understand why the board was taking the easy way out by shutting these facilities. Instead of taking this route, she implored, the body should be helping these institutions.

Common themes that emerged from the highly passionate remarks involved the fact that this is the only school offering an International Baccalaureate program east of the river. Many pointed to the value of a school that allows its eleventh graders to travel to Panama each term, as one student indicated with all expenses paid. Others highlighted the importance of its STEM curriculum that emphasizes computer science, the training students receive in Sankofa, its teaching of soft skills initiative, and the instructors who are willing to assist their scholars at anytime.

However, what made this hearing especially poignant, and at the same time contentious, was the feeling that the PCSB was coming to take action against a population that was completely alienated from its way of life. School supporters said in no uncertain terms that shutting the doors to this school would open the doors to jail or death. The most striking example of the disconnect between the board and the community was when Scott Pearson asked a current student why only one out of three pupils returned to the charter this school year. The seventeen year old responded that he did not know the answer. A teacher soon called out this line of inquiry as an illustration of the lack of dignity that is routinely shown to those living in Anacostia. He explained that the high school student should have been prepared in advance for the interrogation. The accusation resulted in an apology by the PCSB executive director.

Everything was going the school’s way until it was time for the leadership team’s presentation. Here the picture of the path forward became murky. National Collegiate founder and chief executive officer Jennifer Ross put together a turnaround plan for the school that had been delivered to the board earlier in the afternoon. It includes enlisting Heather Wathington, formally the CEO of Maya Angelou PCS and its See Forever Foundation, as its board chair and leader of this effort. A major component includes the hiring of Blueprint, a consulting firm that has worked to improve academic performance with charters in Boston, Denver, and other locations. Founder and CEO Matthew Spengler was in attendance and reported some spectacular results by his company since its start in 2010, especially in the area of math proficiency.

The questions by Mr. Pearson regarding the new structure were instructive. You had to know how to read between the lines of the information he sought to see the points he was trying to make. Through his probing he cast doubt that Ms. Wathington has the time to play the role envisioned for her since she is currently the president of a Philadelphia private school for children of low-income single parents or guardians. He brought to light the fact that Blueprint had just visited Collegiate Prep the week before for three days, and that no actual contract, scope of work, or monetary structure had been finalized for continued assistance. Mr. Spengler also gave the impression that their business model involves communications with the charter remotely with major deliverables dependent on follow-up by the current head of school. It was clear that Mr. Pearson was wondering why TenSquare had not been brought in since it already has extensive experience in the D.C. market, especially since its modus operandi is that it brings in its own manager to increase the probability that desired results are achieved.

The essence of the proposed solution to what ails this charter, and the arguments that ensued over whether it met its established charter goals, is that it is all too little too late. National Collegiate has been graded six times on the Performance Management Framework during its decade of operation and the results in 2018 were its lowest yet at 26.7 percent. It has been a Tier 3 school for the last three years. When the school first reached this level in 2016 is when a serious turnaround should have begun. Let’s sincerely hope for these parents and children that another charter will take it over after its charter is revoked in a special meeting this afternoon.