Gray schedules hearings on DCPS RIF
Council Chair Vincent Gray has scheduled three hearings on DCPS issues:
- October 16, 10:00 AM, R. 500 Wilson Building — Roundtable for public witnesses regarding DCPS RIF
- October 29, 10:00 AM, Rm. 500 Wilson Building – Public oversight hearing to hear from the Mayor and the Chancellor.
Levy questions DCPS budget cut story
October 2, 2009. Mary Levy, noted schools budgeting expert, issued the following set of questions regarding the DCPS contention that budget cuts caused it to fire teachers and other staff :
DCPS TEACHER LAY-OFFS in 2009: QUESTIONS
The Mayor and Chancellor have announced that the District of Columbia Public Schools face a “budget shortfall” of $35 to $40 million. The press release cites (1) reductions in the DCPS budget by the DC Council, (2) equalization – adjusting school budgets to match fall enrollment, and (3) “right-sizing”. Local school budgets are to be cut by $25 to $30 million, primarily through a Reduction-In-Force (lay-off) of school staff.
What budget cuts? DCPS this year has more money for fewer projected students than in last year’s budget.
- Although local funding was cut by the Mayor and Council, the “state stabilization funds” in the Economic Stimulus federal funding have largely made up the difference. These funds are intended to help school districts avoid cuts and keep teachers.
- The total DCPS budget, including federal and other grants, is $780 million, $15 million more than last year — an increase in per pupil funding of 9%.
DCPS Budgets: FY 2009 and FY 2010
|
FY 2009 Approved |
FY 2010 Approved |
|
| Assumed enrollment* |
47,744 |
44,681 |
| Total funding-all funding sources* |
$ 764.6 M |
$ 779.6 M |
| Dollars per pupil—all funding sources |
$ 16,014 |
$ 17,448 |
| Increase |
|
9% |
*Sources: DC Government, FY 2010 Proposed Budget and Financial Plan (Congressional submission), Vol. 3 pp. D-2, D-14; FY 2009 Budget and Financial Plan (Congressional submission), Agency Budget Chapters Part 2, p. D-14.
How can equalization require budget cuts? DCPS says that it now has about the number of students on which its budget was based. Equalization only moves staff from schools below projections to schools above projections.
What does “right-sizing” mean? Too many teachers? At the beginning of last school year DCPS had lost over 4,300 students. At a ratio of 20 students per classroom teacher, that could mean 200-250 “excess” teachers. The system terminated 248 teachers in June 2009, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office (US GAO). Additional teachers resigned or retired. Are there persons on the payroll not funded in the budget? Are there contract or other costs not in the budget?
Why lay off staff weeks after school has started? The enrollment drop was last year. Reconstitution of school staff took place in June 2008 and June 2009. If there were excess teachers, the problem was known then and a RIF, if needed could have been done in June, without disrupting instruction.
Where are the data and other information justifying cutting school staff in October?
–Mary Levy, October 2, 2009
Gray says Council not cause of DCPS RIF
September 17, 2009. Today, council chair Vincent Gray charged schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and Mayor Adrian Fenty of using budget negotiations to shield their extensive reduction in force (RIF) of DCPS teachers and staff. Gray, reminding voters that the Council has “found a way to fully fund the public education budget at last year’s levels while effectively closing a budget gap of nearly $140 million,” challenged Rhee’s and Fenty’s statements that Council cuts are forcing them to fire teachers and staff. “The Mayor and Chancellor’s attempts to characterize the Council’s action as a reduction are disingenuous and simply not accurate,” stated Gray in a press release. “Clearly, the Chancellor wanted to fire these “excessed” teachers and is seeking to scapegoat the Council for her policy decision.”
Building College-readiness in DC schools
The District of Columbia government has made a commitment to radically increase the number of district graduates attending and completing college. The “Double the Numbers” initiative spans two mayors and is actively supported by district and federal agencies and nonprofits and private businesses.
Ensuring that our high schools are aligning courses, teaching styles and standards to what post-secondary institutions expect of incoming freshmen is critical. The Alliance for Excellent Education in its report High School Teaching for the Twenty-First Century: Preparing Students for College provided this definition developed by David Conley at the University of Oregon of college-readiness:
• First, habits of mind are what professors consistently identify as the skills needed for learning college-level content, including critical thinking skills such as analysis, interpretation, problem solving, and reasoning (National Research Council 2000; Lundell, et al. 2004).
• Second, key content knowledge is the essential knowledge of each discipline that prepares students for advanced study, the “big ideas” of each content area. Numerous organizations and initiatives have carefully outlined those big ideas in core subjects (see below), and organizations like ACT and the Education Trust have identified thinking skills and teaching practices that lead students to develop college preparatory knowledge and skills (ACT 2006d, Education Trust 2005).
• The third facet, academic behaviors, includes general skills, such as reading comprehension, time management, and note-taking, which students need to engage in college-level work. Metacognition, or self-awareness of how one is thinking and learning, is also a critical academic behavior for high school students to master, because they will no longer be able to count on teachers or on parents to keep track of their progress once they get to college.
• Finally, contextual skills are practical skills for getting into and succeeding in college (“college knowledge”). These include understanding the admissions process, placement testing, financial aid, and the academic norms and expectations of college life, such as how to communicate with professors and peers in an academic setting (see Lundell, et al. 2004). Contextual skills are not generally the responsibility of classroom teachers, but they are key to a successful college transition, and disadvantaged students are less likely to possess them (Venezia, et al. 2003; Conley 2005). That is why organizations like the College Board have created courses like CollegeEd, an academic and career advisory course for grades seven through twelve that informs students about careers and college majors and what knowledge and skills students need to prepare for them (College Board 2007b).
Required Reading: Rethinking High School
Rethinking High School: Preparing Students for Success in College, Career, and Life
This is the fourth report in a series focusing on secondary reform and redesign. Previous Rethinking High School reports include:
Stanford report challenges charter school quality control
Analyzing longitudinal data from 16 states, the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University concluded that the “problem of quality is the most pressing issue that charter schools and their supporters face.” The study, Multiple Choice: Charter School Performance in 16 States, measures growth in the performance of charter school students to that of their traditional public school peers. The sophisticated research design rendered complex findings:
The analysis of total charter school effects, pooled student‐level data from all of the participating states and examined the aggregate effect of charter schools on student learning. The national pooled analysis of charter school impacts showed the following results:
- Charter school students on average see a decrease in their academic growth in reading of .01 standard deviations compared to their traditional school peers. In math, their learning lags by .03 standard deviations on average. While the magnitude of these effects is small, they are both statistically significant.
- The effects for charter school students are consistent across the spectrum of starting positions. In reading, charter school learning gains are smaller for all students but those whose starting scores are in the lowest or highest deciles. For math, the effect is consistent across the entire range.
- Charter students in elementary and middle school grades have significantly higher rates of learning than their peers in traditional public schools, but students in charter high schools and charter multi‐level schools have significantly worse results.
- Charter schools have different impacts on students based on their family backgrounds.
For Blacks and Hispanics, their learning gains are significantly worse than that of their traditional school twins. However, charter schools are found to have better academic growth results for students in poverty. English Language Learners realize significantly better learning gains in charter schools. Students in Special Education programs have about the same outcomes.
- Students do better in charter schools over time. First year charter students on average experience a decline in learning, which may reflect a combination of mobility effects and the experience of a charter school in its early years. Second and third years in charter schools see a significant reversal to positive gains.
The future design of Eastern HS
The program planning team at Eastern HS have been discussing:
- A full high school curriculum that prepares students for college and career selection. Eastern HS will not be an application high school and will be a school-of-right for neighborhoods of Ward 6.
- A Freshman Campus with staff who will support 9th graders as they adjust to high school and learn how to operate within a small learning community. The Freshman Campus will expand or contract based on the number of in-boundary 9th graders enrolled; therefore, there may be one or several small freshmen learning communities on the campus.
- Small Learning Communities designed around content or themes in the 10th, 11th, 12th grades.
The small learning community designs most discussed by the community and DCPS planners are:
o 10-1th Grade Communities: “schools-within-schools” organized around career and academic themes. They integrate academic and vocational instruction, provide work-based learning opportunities for students and prepare students for postsecondary education and employment, with the personalized learning environment of a small community.
o School Academies: A Health Sciences Academy is being planned.
o Schools-within-school: Two or three other themed “Schools” will be organized within the larger high school around a theme, such as the Law and Justice theme or a “Green Campus,” in which students work closely with a core group of teachers and other adults.
More about small learning communities.
Good Reading:
Rethinking High School: Preparing Students for Success in College, Career, and Life
This is the fourth report in a series focusing on secondary reform and redesign. Previous Rethinking High School reports include:
What they think about DC vouchers
The Washington Post ran an op ed on May 10, 2009 with reports a variety of opinions about Obama’s Compromise on D.C.’s School Vouchers Program. Of course, I identified with Senator Durbin’s response because it acknowledged that numerous voucher students are enrolled in inadequate private schools.
Studies by the Education Department and others have, at best, mixed findings — modest gains by some students in a few subjects, but serious problems with the administration of the program, schools with significant health and safety issues, and teachers lacking college degrees or basic teaching credentials. Most problematic, the Education Department’s recent report could not show that voucher students are performing better than their public school counterparts.
OPEFM Says Modular Classrooms Speed School Construction
The District’s Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization (OPEFM) reports that it has successfully used modular classrooms while modernizing school facilities. Moving students to on-campus modular classrooms rather than maintaining them in their school while it was under construction, sheltered students, administrators and teachers from noise and dust caused as work crews modernized their facility. OPEFM states that having students and teachers outside the school under construction also saved money because crews worked more efficiently when they didn’t have to worry about disruption of classes and the safety of students inside the building. Click here to view modular classrooms similar to those used by OPEFM.
Recent Posts
- October enrollment audit numbers in
- Gray schedules hearings on DCPS RIF
- Levy questions DCPS budget cut story
- Gray says Council not cause of DCPS RIF
- Building College-readiness in DC schools
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