DC TAG - Keeping It Funded

The on going struggle... from Washington Post -

Parents, students praise D.C. TAG in effort to shore up congressional support

By Emma Brown March 19, 2014

D.C. parents, students and college graduates gathered on Capitol Hill this week to share their praise for a federally funded program that helps city students pay for higher education.
“Coming from D.C., it’s just a real assurance, a faith and a belief in you going on to do bigger and better things,” said Channell Autrey, a 2005 graduate of the School Without Walls. Autrey used the money she received from the program to attend Pennsylvania State University and now works as a public defender in Baltimore.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) convened the roundtable discussion at the Rayburn House Office Building on Tuesday night to draw attention to and shore up congressional support for the D.C. Tuition Assistance Grant program, known as D.C. TAG.
“I thought it appropriate to have it right here where the appropriators are,” Norton said, adding that she wanted members of Congress to hear how TAG has affected real people’s lives. “I’m trying to say: Well, this is the program you always liked, I hope you continue to like it.”
Since TAG’s inception in 2000, more than $317 million has gone to help more than 20,000 students pay for college. Congress appropriated $30 million this year for the program, which provides up to $10,000 per year for students to attend out-of-state public schools and up to $2,500 for historically black universities and private schools in the Washington area.
But Norton has warned that those funds might be in danger because of the D.C. Council’s move to create a new, locally funded college-aid program known as D.C. Promise, meant to offer students additional funds to meet the rising cost of higher education.
Appropriators would see no need to continue funding TAG, Norton argued, if the city showed the ability to pay for its own scholarship program. “D.C. wants to fool with that,” she said. “It must be crazy.”
Greta Kreuz, a local television news broadcaster whose two children attended private schools in Washington, said at the roundtable that TAG has served as an incentive to stay in the city for many families who might otherwise have moved to the suburbs.
Samuel Cuffee, a Coolidge High graduate attending Bowie State University, said he grew up without a lot of role models who had continued their education after high school. “D.C. TAG was just the push that I needed to get into college,” he said.
President Obama included $40 million for TAG in his proposed budget this year, a move that Norton said should help the program as Congress enters budget negotiations.

 Emma Brown writes about D.C. education and about people with a stake in schools, including teachers, parents and kids.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/parents-students-praise-dc-tag-in-effort-to-shore-up-congressional-support/2014/03/19/e72ee39c-af84-11e3-a49e-76adc9210f19_story.html

Where There Is Smoke, Is There Fire?

Hmmmmmmmmm.......

E-mails show D.C. schools officials were alerted to cheating at Noyes in 2010

By Emma Brown, Published: January 30

Teachers’ union officials in 2010 directly e-mailed D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson telling her that the principal of a D.C. elementary school had reported seeing employees cheating on a city-issued test, according to e-mails obtained by the Associated Press through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The e-mails — which offered no specifics about the allegations and said the principal’s claims were uncorroborated — show that Henderson quickly referred the matter to the school system’s then-chief of accountability, Erin McGoldrick, sending an e-mail about the matter less than two hours after she received the report. Henderson asked McGoldrick to be in touch with union leaders about the allegations and wrote to the union official: “Thanks for alerting us.”
McGoldrick replied, writing that the school system had already been informed of allegations at the school, Northeast Washington’s Noyes Elementary, and was in the midst of finalizing an investigation.
It’s not clear from the e-mails — in early November 2010 — whether McGoldrick knew that the allegations the union officials forwarded were new and had occurred only the day before; the union officials’ e-mails don’t specify a date. At the time, the school system was in the midst of investigating older cheating allegations at Noyes.
Adell Cothorne, the principal of Noyes at the time, left the school in 2011 and went on to file a whistleblower lawsuit claiming that school system officials ignored her efforts to raise an alarm about cheating.
Cothorne said that in 2010, she immediately reported the alleged cheating incident by phone to two central office administrators, who never investigated it. Henderson disputed that account at the time, saying there was no record that Cothorne had reported any such incident to school system officials.
The e-mails show instead that union officials contacted Henderson, and that union officials also investigated. Clay White, who was then the union’s chief of staff, said the next day that union leaders directed two field representatives to fully investigate the matter, according to an e-mail White sent to Henderson, McGoldrick and others.
The whistleblower suit prompted an investigation by the U.S. Department of Education, which did not find evidence to support Cothorne’s claims. Cothorne withdrew the case last year.
Cothorne told the Associated Press that the union’s 2010 e-mail exchange with Henderson shows that officials didn’t take cheating seriously because they didn’t follow up with her to ask what she had seen. School system officials said they take every cheating allegation seriously, and pointed out that Noyes has been the subject of multiple investigations during the past several years.
“It is perhaps the most investigated school in the city,” Pete Weber, the school system’s chief of data and strategy, said in an interview Thursday. Weber said that the school system investigated Cothorne’s claims when they became public in 2013 and found no substance to them.
Noyes and its fast-improving test scores became a model for success during the tenure of former Chancellor Michelle Rhee. But the school came under scrutiny after a 2011 USA Today investigation found an unusually high number of wrong-to-right erasures at Noyes and more than 100 other schools in the city.
Educators’ jobs and merit bonuses depended on improving test scores, and between 2007 and 2009, some schools saw huge increases that later reversed after test security was tightened.
Several employees have been fired for cheating at Noyes, but investigators have said they did not find evidence of the widespread cheating suggested by USA Today’s report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/e-mails-show-dc-schools-officials-were-alerted-to-cheating/2014/01/30/26cbc592-89ec-11e3-916e-e01534b1e132_story.html

Impacted By IMPACT - 10% Of Evaluations Calculated Wrong, Teacher Fired In Error To Be Rehired

       This revelation brings up all sorts of questions - how long has DCPS known this? Has this happened before? How was this found out? Have those methods been used on previous year's results? Hmmmmm...  In this age of accountability, is anyone accountable? Responsible?
      Of particular note to me is that while 44 teachers are only about one percent of all teachers, they are also represent ten percent of the teachers actually being evaluated. So this is not a one percent error but a ten percent error. That is not acceptable.

D.C. schools gave 44 teachers mistaken job evaluations

By Nick Anderson, Published: December 23

Faulty calculations of the “value” that D.C. teachers added to student achievement in the last school year resulted in erroneous performance evaluations for 44 teachers, including one who was fired because of a low rating, school officials disclosed Monday.
School officials described the errors as the most significant since the system launched a controversial initiative in 2009 to evaluate teachers in part on student test scores.
Half of the evaluations for the 44 teachers were too high and half too low, said Jason Kamras, chief of human capital for D.C. Public Schools.
Those affected are about 1 percent of about 4,000 teachers in the school system. But they comprise nearly 10 percent of the teachers whose work is judged in part on annual city test results for their classrooms.
Kamras said the school system will leave unchanged the ratings that were too high and will raise those that were too low. He said the school system is seeking to reinstate the fired teacher and will compensate the teacher — whose identity was not revealed — for lost salary.
“We will make the teacher completely whole,” he said.
In addition, Kamras said, three teachers whose ratings are being revised upward will shortly receive bonuses of $15,000 each.
The evaluation errors underscore the high stakes of a teacher evaluation system that relies in part on standardized test scores to quantify the value a given teacher adds to the classroom. The evaluation system, known as IMPACT, has drawn widespread attention since it began under former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle A. Rhee. It remains a centerpiece of efforts to raise the performance of long-struggling schools in the nation’s capital — and a flashpoint in the national school-reform debate.
Backers of IMPACT say it is essential to hold ineffective teachers accountable for poor results and reward those who are highly effective. Critics say efforts to distill teaching outcomes to a set of numbers are misguided and unfair.
Elizabeth A. Davis, president of the Washington Teachers’ Union, said the disclosure of mistaken teacher ratings for the 2012-13 school year was disturbing.
“IMPACT needs to be reevaluated,” Davis said. “The idea of attaching test scores to a teacher’s evaluation — that idea needs to be junked.”
Davis sent a letter to D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson demanding more information about the errors and the evaluation system.
Kamras said school officials moved to rectify the errors as soon they learned of them from Mathematica Policy Group, the research firm the city hired to crunch numbers used in the evaluations.
“We take these kind of things extremely seriously,” Kamras said. “Any mistake is unacceptable to us.”
The value-added calculations are complex. The first step is to estimate how a teacher’s students are likely to perform on the citywide D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System, based on past test results and other information. Then the predicted classroom average is compared to the actual classroom average. The difference is what school officials call the value that a teacher adds.
The value-added formula applies to English language arts teachers in grades four through 10 and to math teachers in grades four through eight — about 470 instructors in all. Kamras said the faulty calculations were the result of a coding error by Mathematica.
Under IMPACT, all teachers are evaluated based on classroom observations and other metrics. The value-added formula accounts for 35 percent of the evaluation for teachers in affected grades and subjects.
Teachers are given one of five ratings — ineffective, minimally effective, developing, effective or highly effective. Those rated ineffective are subject to dismissal. The same is true for those rated “minimally effective” two years in a row or “developing” three years in a row.
Kamras said that for the 2012-13 school year, 30 percent of DCPS teachers were rated highly effective, 45 percent effective, 19 percent developing, 5 percent minimally effective and 1 percent ineffective.
Of the 22 teachers whose ratings are being raised, Kamras said, three are moving to the highly effective rating; 12 to effective, six to developing and one to minimally effective. The latter is the teacher who was fired mistakenly.
In October, researchers from the University of Virginia and Stanford University who have examined IMPACT reported that its rewards and punishments were shaping the school system workforce, affecting retention and performance. The study found that two groups of teachers were inspired to improve significantly more than others: those who faced the possibility of being fired and those who were on the cusp of winning a substantial merit raise.

Emma Brown contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/dc-school-officials-44-teachers-were-given-mistaken-performance-evaluations/2013/12/23/c5cb9f26-6c0c-11e3-a523-fe73f0ff6b8d_story.html

Electric Cars and Vocational Education

Electric cars in DC schools? A great program to me - Milloy asks some good questions.

D.C. school was ahead of its time with electric car

By Courtland Milloy, Published: November 29, 2011

Whatever happened to the Volkswagen Rabbit that D.C. public school students converted to a battery powered racer back in the mid-1990s? The car had been the crown jewel of the Electric Vehicle Program at Phelps Vocational High in Northeast Washington. Students were always parading it around town and putting it on display at auto shows. They even got to race it at the Richmond International Speedway.
Then, while Phelps was closed for renovation between 2002 and 2008, the car disappeared from the school’s auto shop garage. When the new and improved Phelps Architecture, Construction and Engineering High School reopened, a scaled-down version of the auto mechanics course was moved to another school and the Electric Vehicle Program was discontinued.
So where is the car?
Advocates for restarting the program could sure use it as an example of how D.C. students once led the way in the use of clean energy. And with President Obama pressing on with plans to get 1 million electric vehicles on the nation’s roads by 2015, the city could recharge a program that had been ahead of its time — and it would still be right on time.
“The electric car industry worldwide is growing rapidly because of climate change and efforts to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels,” said LeRoy Hall, a retired Pepco employee who helped start the EVP at Phelps. “Yet our students are denied training in this expanding and potentially lucrative field.”
In recent months, Hall has testified before the D.C. Council, urging its members to restart the EVP. Other supporters have made similar appeals to school officials — as well as inquiries about the whereabouts of the student-built car.
Hall says he’s still waiting for a response.
When it comes to preparing students for work in the auto industry in the Washington area, Suitland High School in Prince George’s County, the Edison Academy at Thomas Edison High in Fairfax County and the Thomas Edison High School of Technology in Montgomery County offer excellent instruction. In the District, Ballou High got the remnants of the Phelps auto mechanics program while students at Spingarn focus on collision repair.
The EVP at Phelps was in a class by itself.
“Even students who weren’t in the program started coming around; they couldn’t believe what we were doing,” said Dave Goldstein, president emeritus of the Electric Vehicle Association of Greater Washington who also volunteered at Phelps. “They were saying, ‘What if you did this?’ and ‘What if you did that?’ They weren’t just standing around looking or giving answers by rote. They were making suggestions and coming up with new ideas. That’s how you know real learning is taking place. Kids who had been delinquent started coming back to school. They would come back to school at night to work on the car.”
Converting that Rabbit into an electric-powered racer had required the practical application of physics, electronics, electromagnetism, aerodynamics and hydraulics. Students researched different kinds of electric motors and the type and quantity of batteries needed to run them. They removed the old gasoline-powered engine, the gas tank and fuel lines, and replaced the automatic transmission with a five-speed stick shift.
They installed the electric motor and built their own electrical testing devices using resistance coils from old electric space heaters, put in some electrical adaptors and special gauges.
And it ran just fine. No batteries conking out, catching fire or exploding.
Perhaps even more importantly, the students worked as a team. They cooperated, made decisions as a group and delegated responsibilities. They weren’t just learning how to build a car; they were also picking up on the civic skills needed to build and sustain a democracy.
The team of that brought the EVP to Phelps included Hall, Goldstein, Edward Torrence, who was the Phelps auto shop teacher, and Dwayne French, one of Torrence’s students who went on to run the automotive technology program at Ballou. All say they would help start another EVP if asked.
As for the car, perhaps the city towed it from the auto shop and mistakenly took it to a government vehicle maintenance lot. It’s worth a look. The car was pearl white with the number 51 stenciled on the sides; students said they wanted the car to symbolize the District’s quest to become the 51st state.
Obviously the city didn’t think much of their effort.
“We’re still looking for it,” D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown, an avowed supporter of vocational education programs, told me recently.
Better yet, he could get the program restarted and just let the students build another one.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-school-was-ahead-of-its-time-with-electric-car/2011/11/29/gIQAqV418N_story.html

Did Rhee's So Called Reforms Harm DC Schools?

Report claims Rhee's reforms harmed D.C. schools

April 23, 2013 | 9:00 pm 

Many of the reforms instituted under former DC Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and continued under Chancellor Kaya Henderson have done more harm than good for the school system, according to a new report.
Under Rhee's leadership, achievement gaps grew, test scores showed little improvement, school closings accomplished little and new teacher evaluations led to high staff turnover, according to the report by Broader, Bolder Approach to Education, a campaign started five years ago by the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think tank.
DCPS declined to comment. A representative of StudentsFirst, Rhee's new advocacy group, did not return requests for comment.
Though the report looks at public schools in Chicago, New York and the District, the data from the District are "unabashedly the worst," said campaign National Coordinator Elaine Weiss, who wrote the report.
While Chicago and New York had worsening standardized test scores or widening race and income gaps under their respective leaders at the time, only the District saw both stagnant or declining test scores and widening gaps.
Reading scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a test known as the "nation's report card," rose for white, Hispanic and black fourth graders in the four years before Rhee came to Washington, but have since stagnated or declined, the report says. In the eighth grade, reading scores dropped across all three groups both before and during Rhee's tenure, and the achievement gap between white and Hispanic students widened.
Though math scores increased among fourth and eighth graders between 2007 and 2011, achievement gaps between low-income and middle- and high-income students and between white and black students widened.
Closing schools didn't help. When Rhee closed 23 underenrolled schools in 2008, students moved from low-performing schools to lower-performing schools, the report argues.
"When they closed the schools in 2008, they did give the receiving schools extra resources, and the idea was that they would make it more attractive to those kids that were coming from the closed schools," said Mary Levy, a school budget expert whose data Weiss used. "It didn't work out that way."
Instead, the school closings cost more money than anticipated -- $39.5 million, rather than $9.7 million -- and prompted more students to leave DCPS for charters, the report says.
The school closings combined with Rhee's flagship reform, teacher evaluations that rely on students' performance on standardized tests, created large staff turnover, the report argues.
The portion of teachers leaving DCPS after two years increased from 27.8 percent to 33.2 percent, and the share leaving after three years increased from 37.5 percent to 42.7 percent. More than half of the teachers hired under Rhee left within two years, and 80 percent left before the end of their sixth year. As a result, Weiss argued, DCPS is left with fewer experienced teachers to work with the low-income students who need the most help.
Rather than continue Rhee's reforms, the District should address health and other problems that lead to truancy, and it should make sure the teachers in Anacostia are as good as those in Chevy Chase, Weiss said. "Then it has to fundamentally rethink what are the gaps and how do we fill those in."
rbaye@washingtonexaminer.com


http://washingtonexaminer.com/report-claims-rhees-reforms-harmed-d.c.-schools/article/2527997

HPV Immunization - Bachmann Got It Right - Who Else Does Merck Have In It's Pocket?

Lot of press about HPV today due to Michelle Bachmann's questioning of Rick Perry. The Washington Post did an article about Perry's connections to Merck, the manufacturer of the HPV immunization drug Gardasil. This is the link to the article - http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/perry-has-deep-financial-ties-to-maker-of-hpv-vaccine/2011/09/13/gIQAVKKqPK_story.html?hpid=z1&sub=AR
Following are comments I left on the article -


While I adamantly disagree with Michelle Bachmann on most things when she refers to crony capitalism, she is on to something.
I live in DC which requires this immunization unless parents opt out. On the strong advice of my daughter's pediatrician (female), we have opted out. Dangerous might ruffle some sensibilities but anyway you stack it up, there have been very serious side effects from this drug and the overall benefit / protection is at best questionable.
This immunization is first about profits for Merck. Somewhere down the line it might be about women's health but if you think that is the driving factor, I have a bridge to sell you. As I follow it in DC, by being required by government, Merck is absolved of liability. Pretty good deal for Merck, bad deal for for girls.
This immunization was approved by the FDA barely 5 years ago in 2006. Within a couple of years, Merck had succeeded in getting it required for school entry in countless jurisdictions. There was no great public out cry for this - it took Merck a lot of lobbying and yes MONEY to get it required. If Merck thought this drug was so needed, why would they need it required by government and thus relieve them of liability? If it is so good, why wouldn't people seek it out? Because it isn't so good.
By having the vaccine required by law it guarantees Merck a paying market and no liability - wow! I'd spend a lot of money too if I could have a business model like that!
Further, here in DC, the language is less than clear. After filling out the opt out, we still received a notice from the school nurse yesterday (how ironic) about our daughter not having it. Nowhere in the language of the letter does it say parents can opt out just because they want to - it refers to opting out for religious and/or medical reasons. Not exactly full disclosure.
In DC, David Catania is the man who pushed this requirement through the City Council. I would love the Post to do an article about his ties to Merck. This is crony capitalism at it's best.

Tighten Test Security, Scores Fall

Perhaps there is a pattern here...........

Scores fall for some D.C. schools amid test security questions

By Nick Anderson, Published: August 2

Reading and math scores on citywide tests fell this year in several D.C. schools that came under scrutiny for potential security breaches in the previous year’s exams, according to data made public Tuesday.

In a few cases, the plunge recorded through the D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System was especially stark.

At Noyes Education Campus in Northeast Washington, the pass rate in reading dropped more than 25 percentage points, to 32 percent, and the pass rate in math dropped more than 20 points, to 28 percent.

Noyes was one of three schools for which some 2010 scores were invalidated in May after an investigation found evidence or strong suspicion of cheating.

The two others were Leckie Elementary in Southwest and C.W. Harris Elementary in Southeast. At Leckie, pass rates slid slightly this year in both subjects. At C.W. Harris, there was a two-point uptick in the reading pass rate, to 21 percent, and an eight-point drop in math, to 8 percent.

Test scores can rise and fall from year to year for various reasons, including teacher and student turnover. What is unclear is whether heightened test security this year played a role in changing results at those three schools or others where student answer sheets from years past have shown unusually high rates of erasures. Experts track erasure rates to flag classrooms and schools where cheating may have occurred, with adults switching or helping to switch answers from wrong to right.

Questions about test security have arisen this year in Atlanta, Washington, Baltimore and elsewhere. D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson, who has repeatedly expressed confidence in the city’s testing program, was not available Tuesday to comment.

Tamara Reavis, director of assessment and accountability for the office of the state superintendent of education, said D.C. officials are still analyzing the results. But she added that test security was strengthened this year. “We do feel the security for 2011 was superior,” she said, “and we stand by the validity of these results.”

Last month, D.C. officials released citywide summaries of test results that showed mostly flat achievement trends compared with 2010 in much of the school system, while scores for independent public charter schools showed modest gains. Tuesday’s release from the state superintendent’s office provided a detailed look at scores for each school.

Results are used to rate schools and are a factor in teacher evaluations.

A Washington Post review of data on 11 schools in which some classrooms were flagged for high erasure rates on 2010 tests found that scores declined this year in several. There were double-digit drops in pass rates for reading and math at J.O. Wilson Elementary and LaSalle-Backus Education Campus, both in Northeast Washington, and at Whittier Education Campus in Northwest.

But the trend was not uniform. Among the 11 schools, pass rates in math rose nine points at Plummer Elementary in Southeast, to 36 percent, and five points at Truesdell Education Campus in Northwest, to 42 percent.

Staff writer Bill Turque contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/scores-fall-for-some-dc-schools-amid-test-security-questions/2011/08/02/gIQA8KSArI_print.html

Rheerasure - Still Believe It Is All About The Kids?

Over 100 schools are reported to have erasure irregularities - this is the tip of the ice berg.

D.C. official resigns as school faces questions of test security

By Bill Turque, Published: June 20

Wayne Ryan, a former Noyes Education Campus principal who won acclaim for dramatic test score gains, has resigned from a senior position in the D.C. school system as the school he once led faces questions about possible cheating.

Ryan announced he was stepping down as instructional superintendent in an e-mail to colleagues Friday evening. He did not specify a reason for leaving.

“I am looking forward to the opportunity to pursue new options and old interests,” he said. He also thanked Acting Chancellor Kaya Henderson for “many years of support, encouragement and friendship.”

Ryan did not respond to an e-mail or phone message to his office Monday.

D.C. school officials, citing personnel rules, said they would not discuss the reasons for Ryan’s departure. He has been accused of no wrongdoing. In 2010, after nine years at Noyes, he was promoted by then-Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee. As instructional superintendent, he supervised a group of principals.

Ryan, 55, who practiced law in Texas before becoming a principal, won a 2005 Distinguished Educational Leadership Award, sponsored by The Washington Post. But his career took off under Rhee, who hailed him as a rock star when reading and math scores on standardized tests grew dramatically from 2006 to 2009. Reading proficiency rates spiked from 24 percent to 85 percent, while math proficiency surged from 10 percent to 63 percent. He became a poster image for D.C. school reform in the Rhee era. “Are you the next Wayne Ryan?” said a principal recruitment ad.

But Noyes was also one of more than 100 D.C. public schools with classrooms flagged by authorities during that period for elevated rates of answer sheet erasures in which incorrect responses were changed to correct ones. A USA Today analysis of erasure data published in March found one seventh-grade classroom at Noyes with an average of nearly 13 wrong-to-right erasures per student. The District-wide average for seventh-graders that year was less than one.

Other schools with high-erasure classrooms included J.O. Wilson Elementary, Aiton Elementary and Coolidge High School.

Henderson has asked the D.C. inspector general to investigate USA Today’s research. Sources familiar with the probe, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said investigators have interviewed Noyes staff members.

Sources said last month that a fourth-grade teacher at Noyes was dismissed for test security violations on the 2010 D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System. Authorities also invalidated test scores in three classrooms — at Noyes, and at C.W. Harris and Leckie elementary schools — for irregularities in 2010.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/dc-official-resigns-as-school-faces-questions-of-test-security/2011/06/20/AGX6A0dH_print.html

Oh What A Web We Weave When We Practice To Deceive

After D.C. cheating probe, 3 classrooms’ test scores tossed

By Bill Turque, Published: May 18

The District has voided the 2010 standardized test scores of three classrooms after an investigation found evidence or a strong suspicion of cheating, officials announced Wednesday.

The disclosure comes amid ongoing reviews of security questions related to the D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System, the high-stakes test used to measure student achievement, teacher effectiveness and annual progress as required by the federal No Child Left Behind act. It also comes as multiple school system and teachers’ union sources have said that at least two instructors were fired for inappropriate actions while administering tests.

Acting Chancellor Kaya Henderson declined to discuss the circumstances of the dismissals, citing privacy rules. Improper actions could involve giving students advance looks at test questions, prompting students during tests or tampering with answer sheets after the tests are completed.

D.C. test scores have been closely watched in recent years as school reform efforts have taken root. Rising scores on the city tests and on separate federal tests have been cited as signs of progress.

D.C. State Superintendent of Education Hosanna Mahaley said Wednesday that the troubles identified in 2010 test results were isolated. “Most of our teachers and students are playing by the rules,” she said.

Whether Wednesday’s action will dispel questions about the reliability of the city’s test scores remains unclear. A USA Today investigation published in March found that classrooms in more than 100 D.C. public schools showed higher-than-average rates of erasures from wrong to right answers on the annual tests between 2006 and 2010. They included schools that showed some of the most dramatic growth in scores. Henderson has asked the office of D.C. Inspector General Charles Willoughby to investigate the newspaper’s findings.

Testing experts regard elevated erasure rates as an indicator that students might have been improperly steered toward changing answers or that answer sheets were tampered with after the test was given. Classrooms in some schools, such as Noyes Education Campus, Bowen Elementary and Aiton Elementary, showed extraordinary levels of erasures: from 10 to 12 times the District average.

Mahaley, speaking Wednesday at the weekly news briefing of Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D), did not elaborate on what could have gone wrong in the three classrooms. Mahaley’s agency oversees the administration of the test — known as DC-CAS — in all public schools, traditional and charter.

In a letter to Henderson, Mahaley’s office noted that the three classrooms with voided scores were at Noyes, C.W. Harris Elementary and Leckie Elementary schools.

The invalidation of those scores came in response to answer sheet irregularities in classrooms at 18 schools — 10 in the school system and eight public charters — that were flagged after an analysis by CTB/McGraw Hill, the publisher of the test.

Mahaley’s office conveyed those preliminary findings to the D.C. school system, which hired Caveon, a Utah-based test security firm, to review security procedures and interview staff in the classrooms that had been flagged. Safiya Simmons, a spokeswoman for Henderson, said Caveon “concluded that two classrooms had possible testing irregularities and one classroom had a confirmed case of testing impropriety.”

Henderson’s office related the findings to Mahaley, who informed Henderson Wednesday morning of her decision to invalidate reading and math scores in the three classrooms.

Mahaley, who called Caveon’s assessment “three proven incidents of cheating,” said that in a school system with 3,800 classrooms and 45,000 students, the finding was testament to the effectiveness of the system’s security protocols.

Former schools chancellor Michelle A. Rhee, who resigned the post last fall, said in an e-mailed statement: “I believe this process validates the integrity of the vast majority of the tests taken in classrooms across DCPS.”

The D.C. public school investigation, led by Caveon, has coincided with at least two dismissals related to testing, according to school system and teachers’ union sources.

The sources said a fourth-grade teacher at Noyes was dismissed within the past two weeks for test security violations on the 2010 DC-CAS. It could not be learned exactly what the teacher was accused of or how the case fits into the broader questions being probed by Caveon, D.C. schools or the inspector general’s office.

Simmons confirmed that a fourth-grade teacher at the school recently left the city school system, but she would not comment further, citing confidentiality rules.

Another teacher, a special-ed instructor, was also dismissed within the past week, according to Washington Teachers’ Union President Nathan Saunders. Other school system sources said the second firing involved tests from another school year.

In an e-mail Wednesday, Henderson did not rule out further disciplinary actions.

“I have been consistently clear that DCPS is moving aggressively to take appropriate action, up to and including termination, in cases where any cheating has been confirmed and a teacher acted inappropriately,” Henderson wrote.

District officials also made public a list of test security incidents on the 2011 DC-CAS, which was administered last month. The state superintendent’s office said its security monitors found 31 irregularities in regular and charter schools, of which 14 will be subject to further action by District authorities. The list does not identify the schools.

A summary released by Mahaley’s office contained only brief descriptions of the incidents to be investigated. Among them: “inappropriate level of support given to students”; “three teachers in three classrooms provided aid to students”; and “proctor gestured and spoke to student during testing.”

Staff writer Michael Alison Chandler contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/district-voids-test-scores-for-cheating/2011/05/17/AFJlln6G_story.html

Teen Crime Changes In DC

D.C. teen crimes shift away from stealing cars but toward more violent offenses

By Allison Klein, Published: May 29

For teenagers who commit crimes in the District, stealing cars is out. Snatching smartphones directly from victims’ hands or breaking into their homes is in.

On average, juveniles were arrested for violent robberies or carjackings at least once a day last year, an almost 50 percent increase from 2007. During the same time, juvenile arrests for riding in stolen cars, a nonviolent crime, dropped by more than 60 percent.

The shift is one troubling indicator that the city’s youngest offenders are growing more aggressive and confrontational: Last year, teens made up 23 percent of all violent crime arrests, more than double the percentage in 2003.

“A number of years ago, car theft was off the scale. It was cool to get a car and joy ride,” said Daniel Okonkwo, executive director of DC Lawyers for Youth. “Now it’s an iPhone4, an iPod. Things you can’t afford when you don’t have money.”

Kip Patrick must have looked like he was a sure bet for having a smartphone in his pocket. He was wearing slacks and a button-down shirt as he walked alone near Ninth and U streets NW in the early morning of April 30 after finishing dinner and drinks.

As he walked by a group of youths, one of them suddenly shoved him, and he found himself rolling on the ground, scuffling with the guy.

“I got scraped up pretty good,” said Patrick, 38, who lives several blocks away.

When his BlackBerry Bold fell out of his pocket, someone in the group picked it up, and another youth pulled Patrick’s attacker off him. Then the whole group ran.

“I guess that’s D.C.,” said Patrick, who added that there had not been an arrest in the case. “But we can’t live in fear. If we do, D.C. isn’t a place anybody’s going to want to live.”

This year, juveniles account for 7 percent of overall arrests in the city — but about 45 percent of all arrests for robbery and carjacking, and 35 percent of burglary arrests, said D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier.

“They are overrepresented in those categories,” said Lanier, who started noticing the trend last year. “Everyone wants an iPhone.”

Teens have represented 6 to 8 percent of total arrests in the District for the past five years. What’s changing is their crime of choice.

Last year, 381 juveniles were arrested in robberies or carjackings, compared with 257 arrested in 2007. Police arrested 186 young people accused of riding in stolen cars last year, compared with 506 in 2007.

One of the main reasons for the shift is that anti-theft devices made it increasingly difficult to steal a car about the same time smartphones started becoming more prevalent.

“Stealing cars got too hot,” said a 21-year-old man who as a youth spent time in the former Oak Hill detention center. “You can grab a phone and go.” He spoke on the condition of anonymity, fearing reprisals at his job.

Snatching smartphones has a somewhat similar appeal to stealing a car: The thief can enjoy it for a while, make calls or access Facebook. Then he can sell it on the street for instant cash. On Craigslist, iPhones sell for about $250.

Teens are breaking into houses more than ever, according to police, contributing to a 14 percent jump in home break-ins across the city.

“Burglary is considered a property crime, but that’s a dangerous assumption,” Lanier said. “It’s a very serious crime. I don’t think the kids realize just how dangerous it is.”

Burglaries can quickly become violent encounters if a homeowner is unexpectedly in the house or a neighbor comes by to check on a strange noise.

Juveniles committing crimes have drawn particular attention in recent weeks: On Saturday, a 15-year-old was suspected of shooting a D.C. police officer several times in Northeast Washington. Last month, a 16-year-old was stabbed, allegedly by another teen, at the National Zoo. Several days before, two teens were shot midafternoon at a busy intersection on U Street, allegedly by other teens.

And five D.C. teens have escaped from secure detention facilities in recent months. One of them beat a guard and was on the run for two weeks.

One tangible way to cut down on juvenile crime, Lanier said, is to reduce truancy. If youths are in school, they’re not committing crimes, she said. She estimated that 80 percent of the city’s home break-ins by teens happen during school hours.

“Truancy is a gateway crime,” Lanier said. “It leads to gang activity, and it leads to crime. It is a huge, huge contributor to juvenile crime.”

During the first semester of the 2010-11 school year, about 3,700 students were considered truant. About 13 percent of the students in grades six through 12 were “chronically truant” that semester, meaning they had 15 or more unexcused absences. When police find youths who are not in class during the day, they take them to school.

Police officers based in schools, called school resource officers, are doing home visits for students who are “on the border of getting in trouble,” Lanier said.

This year, police have made nearly 300 home visits for truancy, she said.

The city has formed a truancy task force with eight agencies, including the police department, the courts, schools and youth services. The point is early intervention, said Paul Quander, deputy mayor for public safety and chief of staff for Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D).

“We don’t want to wait until that child is brought before a judge before we intervene,” Quander said. “Chances are, that child has a sibling or cousin in the same household who also needs help. We are trying to fish further downstream when they’re little minnows, before they become big fish in the criminal justice society.”

Lanier said that when police brass have their morning crime briefings, she can count on most of her commanders standing up and saying iPhones, iPods and iPads had been snatched from outdoor tabletops in the previous 24 hours.

But she said she doesn’t blame victims for using electronics in public.

“I do it personally,” Lanier said. “But I’m usually in uniform, so that probably discourages them.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-teen-crimes-shift-away-from-stealing-cars-but-toward-more-violent-offenses/2011/05/24/AGkEWfEH_print.html

Ain't Over 'Til It's Over

By Lisa Gartner

Created May 24 2011 - 6:28pm

WTU president unsurprised as his predecessor teams up with Rhee

Upon hearing the news that former D.C. teachers' union head George Parker was teaming up with rival-of-record Michelle Rhee, Randi Weingarten texted, "REALLY?"

Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, mediated tense contract negotiations between Parker and then D.C. Schools Chancellor Rhee, who has essentially labeled teachers' unions Public Enemy No. 1.

Weingarten was taken aback, to say the least.

But Nathan Saunders, who defeated Parker in his re-election bid for the Washington Teachers' Union presidency, felt quite the opposite. "This isn’t surprising news to me and a lot of people who really understood what was going on," he told The Washington Examiner.

In 2008, Saunders sued Rhee and Parker, saying in the suit that he was "systematically punished and retaliated against" for speaking out on teachers' issues.

"I was the first to come out and say that Mr. Parker and Ms. Rhee were colluding and pushing for the teachers’ contract, and that’s fairly reflected in the court records," Saunders said.

Parker is "definitely being used as a political tool," Saunders charged, but that's not his concern.

"We have received a lot of inquiries from teachers who felt they were never represented properly by Mr. Parker because of the rumors of him [colluding] with Ms. Rhee," he said. They're questioning "whether Mr. Parker sold them out."

"This is the very beginning of something that we’re going to have to pay attention to."

http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/capital-land/2011/05/nathan-saunders-george-parker-teaming-rhee-wtu

http://www.rheefirst.com/

Better Test Scores Do Not Neccesarily Mean Smarter Kids

No evidence mayoral control led to D.C. schools' better test scores, report says

By Bill Turque
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 4, 2011; 10:55 PM

Rising standardized test scores, often cited by D.C. officials as evidence of an improving school system, are of limited value in determining whether students are actually learning more, according to the first major independent study of D.C. school reform.

That conclusion, part of a report issued Friday by the National Research Council, is likely to drive new debate about the testing-centered culture of D.C. schools and other systems across the country. While the testing data contain encouraging signs, the widely quoted averages of citywide performance say little about the quality of teaching and learning.

"Looking at test scores should be only a first step - not an endpoint - in considering questions about student achievement, or even more broadly, about student learning," the study said.

The council is the research arm of the National Academies, and its report is the first in a series of evaluations required by the 2007 law that placed the city's long-troubled public schools under mayoral control. Researchers said that while the city has made "a good faith effort" to implement the Public Education Reform Amendment Act, it is premature to draw sweeping conclusions about its effect on student achievement.

The District became a national staging area for urban school reform under then-Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D), who appointed Michelle A. Rhee as the city schools' first chancellor hours after taking control of the system. She resigned in October, after more than three years on the job, and was succeeded on an interim basis by her deputy, Kaya Henderson.

Fenty and Henderson could not be reached for comment. Rhee declined to comment.

Reading and math scores on the District's two main tests, the annual D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System (D.C. CAS) and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), have shown what the report describes as "modest improvement" under Rhee and her predecessor, former superintendent Clifford Janey, although elementary-grade scores fell in 2010.

But researchers said the city must develop a more sophisticated capacity to track individual students who shift from traditional public schools to public charter schools, or in some cases drop out of the system entirely. The city also needs a firmer grasp on rapidly changing neighborhood demographics and their impact on academics. "In the meantime, naive aggregate comparison of test scores among race-ethnic groups in the District should be interpreted critically and cautiously," the study said.

The study received an enthusiastic greeting from critics, who say heavy emphasis on testing has narrowed curricula and warped classroom creativity.

"This report is a shot over the bow of politicians seeking to reform education in this incredibly narrow way," said Mary Lord, a member of the D.C. State Board of Education and mother of a junior at Wilson High School.

Former deputy mayor for education Victor Reinoso, who served under Fenty, agreed that better data are needed and that the city is committed to expanding the base of available information. But he added that test scores remain important "consumer or market indicators" for parents who have to make immediate decisions about where to enroll their children.

"I appreciate that the folks involved in this research are academics and they are going to want to see more and more proof," he said. "I just think that what we have to do is balance the need for the quest for perfection in data analysis with the practical reality that the schools are responsible for educating thousands of kids every day. So we can't sit back and wait for an answer."

In 2009, after months of political squabbling and stalemate, Fenty and then-D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D), who is now the mayor, settled on the National Research Council as the independent evaluator for the school system under mayoral control.

The committee assembled by the research council includes a number of prominent scholars and practitioners, including University of California at Berkeley law school dean Christopher Edley Jr., University of Wisconsin sociologist Robert M. Hauser, former Long Beach and San Diego school superintendent Carl A. Cohn and Jon Fullerton, head of Harvard University's Center for Education Policy and Research.

The focus of this initial study is a series of suggestions on how the city might develop a system evaluating its schools. It said such an effort should be continuous, involve local stakeholders and dig more deeply into data surrounding the question of whether children in all parts of the city are realizing benefits from the schools' overhaul. The inquiry should also be independent of school and city leaders.

One method the study suggested was a partnership with a university or other outside institution. As an example, it cited the Baltimore Education Research Consortium, a partnership between the Baltimore school system and researchers at Johns Hopkins University and Morgan State University.

As it stands, the District's gathering and handling of data about schools remain fragmented and incomplete. The study found that the District (along with other big-city school systems) collected significant amounts of information never made public, including promotion rates, student and parent perspectives on instruction, and measures of professional culture.

The data points more likely to land in public view, researchers said, "served to highlight the positive achievements of the district."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/04/AR2011030402414.html

If Democrats are friends like this.........

Gov. Scott Walker can thank Michelle Rhee for making teachers unions the enemy

Richard D. Kahlenberg
Sunday, February 27, 2011; B03

Education writer explains how the former D.C. schools chief helped stoke anti-union fires

A half-century ago, Wisconsin became the first state in the nation to pass legislation allowing collective bargaining for public employees, including educators. At the time, teachers across the country, who make up a significant share of public employees, were often underpaid and mistreated by autocratic administrators. In the fight for greater dignity, union leaders such as Albert Shanker in New York City linked teacher unionization to the fledgling civil rights movement.

Today, Wisconsin is again at the forefront of a union battle - this time in Republican Gov. Scott Walker's effort to cut his state's budget deficit in part by curtailing collective bargaining for teachers and other public employees. How did it become okay, once more, to vilify public-sector workers, especially the ones who are educating and caring for our children?

On the most obvious level, teachers unions are taking a pounding because Republicans have gained power in recent state elections, and the GOP has a strong partisan interest in undermining public-employee unions, which provide troops and treasure to the Democratic Party. In Wisconsin, Walker's campaign to restrict the collective bargaining rights of teachers and other groups to the issue of wages is transparently partisan. Exempt from his plan are two unions that supported him politically: those representing police and firefighters.

But Walker's argument - that greedy teachers are putting their own interests over the interests of the public - resonates in part because in recent years, many Democrats have made that argument as well.

Exhibit A is former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee. Under Democratic mayor Adrian Fenty, she repeatedly clashed with the Washington Teachers' Union, which she said put the interests of adults over those of children. "Cooperation, collaboration, and consensus-building are way overrated," Rhee said at the Aspen Institute's education summit in 2008. She told journalist John Merrow it is imperative that teachers-union bargaining rights exclude issues such as devising a fair teacher-evaluation system.

Since resigning as chancellor last year, Rhee has launched a new organization, StudentsFirst, with the express goal of raising $1 billion to counter teachers unions. Her approach remains confrontational. In a profound sense, Democrats like Michelle Rhee have paved the way for Scott Walker.

But Rhee couldn't have done it alone. Then-candidate Barack Obama endorsed Rhee in a 2008 debate as a "wonderful new superintendent" and later applauded the firing of every single unionized teacher at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island. (The teachers were later rehired.) Rhee's agenda also received a big boost from liberal movie director Davis Guggenheim, whose film, "Waiting for 'Superman,' " implies that teachers unions are to blame for the failures of urban education and that non-unionized charter schools are the solution. The movie includes no acknowledgment that the things teachers want for themselves - more resources devoted to education, smaller class sizes, policies that allow them to keep order in the classroom - are also good for kids.

Today, Obama has appropriately labeled Walker's proposal an "assault on unions." And to its credit, the U.S. Education Department recently held a conference in Denver highlighting progressive agreements between unions and management in cities such as Baltimore and New Haven, Conn. But overall, one official told me, teachers unions feel unfairly criticized by the president.

Of course, some teachers unions brought this on themselves. Too often, union leaders protect incompetent teachers and make it difficult to pay outstanding educators more. But the bipartisan attack on unions as a central impediment to improved education is off the mark. America's largely non-unionized education sectors - charter schools and schools in the South - are hardly shining examples of success.

The debate in Wisconsin could give teachers unions a fresh chance. A USA Today-Gallup poll finds that, by 61 to 33 percent, Americans oppose ending collective bargaining for public employees. Teachers should use this moment to articulate a powerful reform agenda. American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten has made a good start by suggesting that all educational issues should be on the table (with the exception of private-school vouchers). The AFT has also endorsed a promising way to get rid of bad teachers: peer-review programs in which excellent teachers work with struggling ones to improve performance, but in many instances end up recommending termination of employment. Some school districts use similar systems. Under these programs, teacher firings have increased, but in a way that many teachers accept as fair. On Thursday, Weingarten further proposed accelerating the timetable for teacher terminations.

Wisconsin and many other states are facing dire budget crises, and unions need to be smart about advocating strategies that keep fiscal concerns in mind. That means moving beyond traditional efforts to pour more money into high-poverty schools. Magnet schools, which give low-income students a chance to be educated in a middle-class environment, are an especially promising investment. But this kind of engagement in education policy involves moving in a direction opposite of the one advocated by Rhee, Walker and others.

As the teachers union founder Al Shanker noted years ago, restricting bargaining to the issue of wages is a clever trap in which critics can suggest that teachers care only about money. Bargaining should be broadened, not constrained, to give teachers a voice on a range of important educational questions, from merit pay to curriculum. This could help improve the battered image of teachers unions. But, more important, it could help students.

Richard D. Kahlenberg is a senior fellow at the Century Foundation and the author of "Tough Liberal: Albert Shanker and the Battles Over Schools, Unions, Race, and Democracy."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/25/AR2011022506611.html

No Surprises Here As Rhee Back Pedals

Rhee is amazing... lots of hot air and collateral damage. And no shame.

Rhee now concedes students’ test answers may have been erased

By Bill Turque, Published: March 31

Former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle A. Rhee backed away Wednesday from her vehement criticism of a USA Today story on concerns about standardized tests during her tenure, acknowledging that some cheating may have occurred.In an interview with Washington Post education columnist Jay Mathews, Rhee said that some of her initial comments were “stupid.”

“You have got to have really strong test-security protocols at the district level and at the state level,” said Rhee, who contacted Mathews. “The vast majority of people will not cheat, but there will be exceptions here and there.”

Rhee, who was chancellor from 2007 to 2010, said the school system should ensure that after students complete D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System tests, answer sheets are not left in school offices where they may be vulnerable to tampering.

The issue emerged Monday when USA Today reported unusually high rates of erasures on answer sheets in more than 100 D.C. public schools from 2008 to 2010. At some schools, wrong answers were replaced by correct ones at rates too high to be random, according to statisticians consulted by the paper.

Rhee said in a statement Monday evening that USA Today was in league with “enemies of school reform” who believe that D.C. scores could not improve without teachers or students cheating. She said USA Today’s report was “an insult to the dedicated teachers and school children who worked hard to improve their academic achievement levels.”

Rhee has become a major national figure in education reform since her resignation last October. Her stature rests largely on her work in the District, where city and federal test scores rose during her tenure.

Earlier this year, Rhee faced criticism for claiming in 2007 on her resume that as a teacher in the early 1990s her students at Harlem Park Elementary School in Baltimore made significant gains on standardized tests. The record neither supports nor debunks such a claim.

Acting Chancellor Kaya Henderson, Rhee’s former deputy, announced Tuesday that she had referred questions about testing security in D.C. public schools to D.C. Inspector General Charles Willoughby. But she also expressed complete confidence in the findings of Caveon, a contractor the District hired to investigate erasures on the 2009 and 2010 citywide tests.

“DCPS has established procedures to ensure testing integrity and to flag any concerns,” Henderson said Tuesday.

Rhee described Caveon as “the best alternative we had at that time.”

Henderson did not return an e-mail message seeking comment Wednesday afternoon.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/rhee-acknowledges-possible-cheating-on-school-tests/2011/03/30/AFBKaI5B_story.html

Good Article On Test Scores Report

The author of GF Brandenburg's blog says it better than I can - their intro:

Nothing But Spin from Rhee and Fenty on Spring 2010 DC-CAS Results

If you read the press release from the Fenty-Rhee Spin HQ, you would think that the (supposedly) wonderful test score rises under Rhee are continuing like gangbusters.

As usual, that’s not really correct.

http://gfbrandenburg.wordpress.com/2010/07/14/nothing-but-spin-from-rhee-and-fenty-on-spring-2010-dc-cas-results/

Students to be newest judges of DCPS teachers

By: Leah Fabel
Examiner Staff Writer
June 18, 2010

After years of having their performance graded by teachers, D.C. public school students will have the chance to return the favor beginning next school year.

Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee said Thursday morning that a movement to gather student input into how well teachers succeeded in the classroom grew from the concerns of her "high school cabinet" -- a group of students she meets with on a regular basis. She shared the news at a breakfast for businesswomen at Georgetown's Sequoia restaurant.

Students worried that teachers would "put on a good dog and pony show" when official evaluators entered the classroom, Rhee said, despite less stellar day-to-day instruction.

Rhee's student Cabinet spent part of the 2009-10 school year devising questions -- ensuring they're concise enough and fair, she said. The surveys will be piloted next year, but will not -- for now -- be a part of the schools' new teacher evaluations. Those evaluations, called IMPACT, will likely guide decisions about the district's pay-for-performance system outlined in the new teacher contract.

Washington Teachers' Union President George Parker did not return a call requesting comment.

Rhee spokeswoman Jennifer Calloway said the surveys will be important "because we value student perspectives on the quality of instruction in their classroom, and there is an emerging body of research that suggests it may correlate with actual outcomes."

Survey details, however, have yet to be finalized, Calloway said.

Boston Public Schools voted to begin using student surveys next school year to be shared with teachers and principals. A Rhode Island group called Young Voices is advocating for a similar program there.

"I think it's a terrific idea, as long as we think about this particular metric as one of many," said Barnett Berry, president of the Center for Teaching Quality. "No one measure is able to judge a teacher's efficacy -- certainly not a single test score. Using multiple measures is absolutely paramount."

Emily Cohen, a policy director for the National Council on Teacher Quality, met with students in Boston as they fought for the use of student evaluations.

"They wanted to have a way to let their teachers know what was working," Cohen said. "They have the most to gain from a good teacher -- and the most to lose from a bad one."

lfabel@washingtonexaminer.com

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Students-to-be-newest-judges-of-DCPS-teachers-96611439.html

Random Reasons For Not Supporting FentyRhee; The Dog Ate My Homework

Now that an election is on the horizon for DC mayor, some friends of mine have asked me about my reasons for "lack of confidence" in Mr. Adrian Fenty as the mayor of Washington, DC. So some random examples are in order - not an attempt at cataloging, just some random examples, as they present themselves, of moments that make me think I want better from political "leadership".

Fenty appeared before the DC Council this week to talk about his 2011 budget for the city. The budget includes a pay raise for teachers but fails to provide the funding needed to pay for it. From the following article from The Examiner, when questioned about the disparity, Fenty said that Rhee would answer the question later and asked council members to email him questions. Fenty's passing the buck to Rhee is just one example of why I often use FentyRhee and RheeFenty to describe them.

I scratch my head - he doesn't seem very prepared to me. For many I know, that wouldn't cut it at their job - make a presentation and leave out critical info? It wouldn't cut it for my son's 8th grade class. Throw in a little arrogance..... not a path to career success for most although it amazes me how well it works for some.

From The Washington Examiner,

Council grills Fenty over proposed budget

By: Alana Goodman
Examiner Staff Writer
April 13, 2010

.......................Council members also sparred with the mayor over how he would fund his proposed $101 million in pay raises for teachers. About $65 million of this tab would be picked up by private grants, while taxpayer dollars would fund the rest.

"We're talking about a huge sum of money here that I cannot identify in the budget. ... Where is it?" Chairman Vince Gray asked the mayor.

Fenty responded that Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee would answer the question during her testimony on Tuesday, but Gray shot back that "this is way above her pay grade."

"I don't think every mayor should know every dollar in the budget ... but we're talking about an issue involving education, which is your top priority," said Gray, who is challenging Fenty in the 2010 mayoral election.

Councilman Marion Barry also slammed the mayor for not indicating where the money would come from. "Let me ask you a question: Is this the chancellor's budget or your budget?" Barry said. "I think the mayor of the District of Columbia ... ought to be able to tell this council where the $100 million is coming from."

Fenty invited the council members to e-mail him or call him with their questions. "There are questions that I guess I'm not going to have the answer to sitting on the dais," he said.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/D_C_-Council-grills-Fenty-over-proposed-budget-90691894.html#ixzz0l4uk1Y7a

RheeFenty Rock Throwing

D.C.'s Rhee told that replacing Hardy principal may backfire

By Bill Turque
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 4, 2010; B01

There are signs that the lingering dispute over Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee's decision to replace Hardy Middle School Principal Patrick Pope may be driving away the very families she sought to attract with the change: those in the "feeder" elementary schools in Northwest Washington.

Parent leaders told Rhee at a meeting Tuesday that the Georgetown school, which requires that students apply for admission, has received no completed forms from any of the approximately 150 fifth-grade families at Hyde-Addison, Key, Stoddert or Eaton elementary schools.

Last year, about 35 percent of fifth-graders from the feeder schools entered sixth grade at Hardy. Many of the rest secured spots at Deal Middle School, Washington Latin Public Charter School or parochial or other private schools.

Applications from students at other city elementary schools are also down sharply, from 162 at this time last year to 30 as of Monday morning, parents reported, although many more students are seeking admission through a school system lottery.

"Clearly the removal of Mr. Pope has hurt the program," said Keenan Keller, chairman of the panel of parents, teachers and administrators known as the LSRT (Local School Restructuring Team) for Hardy.

An enrollment decline would have funding consequences for the school, which has about 160 sixth-graders. Pope, who will leave his post in June, confirmed the numbers and said he was "very concerned." But with a March 31 application deadline, Rhee said it is still too early to draw conclusions.

"We would have to wait until the application deadline to have data that is really meaningful," she said in an interview after the meeting.

Rhee announced late last year that Pope, founder of the arts and music program that draws a majority-African American student body from across the city to the newly renovated school, would be replaced in June by Hyde-Addison Principal Dana Nerenberg.

Rhee said she wanted to strengthen Hardy's identity as a neighborhood school despite the application process, which she describes as confusing for local families. Rhee has assigned Pope to begin planning a middle school arts magnet. Nerenberg will run both Hardy and Hyde-Addison, underscoring the continuity between Hardy and its surrounding feeder schools.

Some African American parents at Hardy said Rhee is trying to alter the demographics of the school, an assertion she denies.

Parents at some of the feeder schools said that instead of making Hardy more inviting, the turmoil has given them pause. Sherry Woods, who has a fourth-grader at Eaton and two children at Hardy, said there is concern about having a principal running two schools.

"I don't want a principal who's got her feet in two doors," Woods said. "One of those learning environments is going to be grossly impacted. Bottom line, it will be the middle school."

Allan Assarson, who has a third-grader at Key and a sixth-grader at Hardy, said Key parents are worried about Hardy faculty following Pope out the door. "There are a lot of concerns about the transition Rhee is imposing," he said.

Rhee is also locked in a dispute with the LSRT over the District's annual out-of-boundary lottery for parents seeking to place students in schools outside their neighborhoods.

Until this year, Pope ran Hardy with an unusual degree of autonomy, based on a 2003 decision by the old Board of Education designating the school as a "special program." He instituted an application process that includes a student letter, teacher recommendation, the most recent report card and a school visit. Pope and Keller have said that it was set up as a way to assess students' needs and reach out to parents, not as a device to exclude anyone.

Families within Hardy's attendance boundaries are guaranteed spots. And rarely has an out-of-boundary family that completed the application process been denied admission, Pope has said.

But Rhee wants Hardy to draw out-of-boundary students from the lottery and then require them to complete the application process as a condition of admission. Citywide, interest in Hardy remains robust.

In the lottery that closed Sunday, 151 students put in bids for sixth-grade seats at the school, up from 88 last year.

"I actually believe that what we want to create here is a process where any family, regardless of where they live, as long as they fulfill the requirements of the application, have an equal opportunity," Rhee said.

Keller, an attorney for the House Judiciary Committee, said District law allows specially designated schools such as Hardy to admit by application and to use the lottery at the back end of the process if necessary to fill spaces.

Rhee and the LSRT ended the meeting at an impasse.

"Once again, you are creating instability at Hardy," said Keller, who contended that Rhee was "not in compliance" with D.C. law.

"I disagree," Rhee said.

Inquiries to D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles and school system General Counsel Jim Sandman were referred to Rhee spokeswoman Jennifer Calloway, who said in a statement late Wednesday: "The Chancellor has the authority to set the selection criteria for Hardy, and she has determined that selection of out-of-boundary students shall be based on the good-faith completion of all elements of the application process and participation in the out-of-boundary lottery."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/03/AR2010030302585_pf.html

DC Transportation Director - No Snow PLan

I take the following as a subtle admission that there was no plan........... ahhhh small government!! (or maybe it is small thinking government)....


District needs a major snow plan, transportation chief says

By Nikita Stewart
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 27, 2010; B01

The District has a plan for a snowfall of 18 inches or more: Major roads should be cleared to bare pavement within 36 hours and residential streets within 60 hours.

The problem is there's no plan for much, much more, such as the amount dumped on the region during the back-to-back storms earlier this month, said Gabe Klein, director of the District Department of Transportation.

"What we need is a different plan," he said. "A contingency plan. A major storm plan."

Klein acknowledged the weak spot at a D.C. Council committee hearing Friday on the city's recent snow removal efforts. Residents who testified complained of inconsistent street plowing, untouched alleys and sidewalks, and random trash collection.

The snowstorms proved a test for all the region's leaders. But Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) appeared to face much of the criticism, having set high expectations with his longtime focus on constituent services and the city's praised handling of a 20-inch snowstorm in December.

The Fenty administration initially stumbled during this month's first storm with an announcement that schools would remain open, a decision that was quickly reversed. It continues to be criticized for the menacing, Blob-like mounds of snow that remain on street corners, in alleys and between parked cars. A few residents brought photographs as proof.

Their complaints were backed by council members who questioned Klein and William O. Howland Jr., director of the Department of Public Works, about why some streets were plowed and others weren't.

"This is about these pockets that weren't dealt with," council member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3) said. "In some cases, it was bizarre."

Klein said the record snow was too much for the city's equipment. The city has a supply of plows that were too large to squeeze through streets crammed by snow and ill-parked vehicles, he said. "There were, unfortunately, instances of plows hitting cars," Klein said.

City officials, led by Klein and Howland, realized that the District needed smaller heavy equipment. The city owns fewer than 10 small heavy-duty plows, Klein said, and contracted 56 more to help with snow removal.

In the future, the city might want to prohibit cars from parking on both sides of a residential street, Klein said, adding that it would have to weigh limiting parking against snow removal. When the city currently declares a snow emergency, vehicles are prohibited from parking on main roads, forcing them onto residential streets.

As for the alleys, Klein warned that plowing those back streets alone would have tripled the cost of removal.

Kathy Henderson, a former Ward 5 advisory neighborhood commissioner, praised the city's overall performance but said there should have been a plan for staffing during the storm. Henderson said she hated to wake up a driver asleep in his plow to tell him to get to a certain missed block "after your catnap."

She said residents who have been certified or trained to operate such equipment, including her, should be identified for emergencies. "I'd be willing to plow some streets," she said.

Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), chairman of the Committee on Public Works and Transportation, said sidewalks that were to be maintained by property owners must be addressed. He pointed to Freedom Plaza, the open-air park across from the John A. Wilson Building and overseen by the National Park Service. The sidewalks and park were not cleared until well after the last storm. "Totally ignored," he said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/26/AR2010022605835_pf.html