An Evaluation of the Public Schools of the District of Columbia Reform in a Changing Landscape (2015) / Chapter Skim
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5 Learning Conditions
5 Learning Conditions
Pages 119-160
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From page 119... ...
noted. D.C.'s education agencies collect a great deal of information about students and schools, but there is no coordinated system of ongoing monitoring and evaluation of learn 1 For discussion of the ways academic and nonacademic factors influence learning, see, among others, Moss et al.
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, and the District of Columbia Public Charter School Board (PCSB) ; • publicly available materials we obtained from agency websites; • interviews and informal conversations and e-mail exchanges with city officials and others with knowledge of the city's schools and learning conditions, which we used to understand the functions and operations of the education agencies; • relevant scholarly research; and • reports from other sources that provide either context for under standing the current D.C.
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Thus, by necessity, this chapter focuses primarily on DCPS, but, whenever possible, we discuss evidence for the charter schools. We begin with an overview of the goals and structures designed to improve learning conditions in the city's public schools.
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The goals apply across the public schools but because of the charter schools' freedom to make most decisions, these goals have had more practical relevance for DCPS. Education plans put forward by Mayors Fenty and Gray as each took office also describe initiatives that were planned (Fenty, 2007a; Vince Gray for Mayor, 2010)
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Increase enrollment Effective Schools Defined elements of effective schools and set expectations Framework, 2009 (District for schools and district pertaining to each: of Columbia Public Schools, 2009a) • T eaching and learning • L eadership • J ob-embedded professional development • R esources • S afe and effective learning environment • F amily and community engagement continued
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Overview of Teaching and Describes plans for meeting goals set forth in A Capital Learning at DC Public Commitment (District of Columbia Public Schools, 2012)
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However, we saw limited evidence of effective coordination across agencies and across LEAs with respect to these students' needs, and their achievement levels remain the lowest of any group. The city is very far from meeting its targets for the achievement of special education students, in terms of compliance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
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History of Challenges and Efforts to Improve At the time PERAA was enacted, the city had among the highest rates of per-pupil expenditure for special education services in the nation and was serving many of them in nonpublic schools that were not, in many cases, the least-restrictive environments that are required under IDEA (National Research Council, 2011)
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The official noted also an increase in individualized professional development and supports in schools. We requested data and documentation about the qualifications of and professional development available to special education teachers.
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were classified as special education students (14 percent of DCPS students and 12 percent of charter students; see Appen dix C) .11 We also found that for that year, DCPS enrolled a greater proportion of students with disabilities than did the charter schools at three of the four classification levels: see Table 5-2.
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From page 129... ...
However, DCPS does complete evaluations for students who have been found eligible for special education services, or are suspected of having a disability, that are enrolled in dependent charter schools. In cases where DCPS is the LEA for a charter school, DCPS does not have any authority or mechanism to ensure that charter school students are receiving services in accordance with their IEPs [individualized education programs]
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A recent report (American Institutes for Research, 2013) commissioned by OSSE examined the quality of special education programs in DCPS and the charter schools and made recommendations for improvement.
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While we recognize the city's significant improvements in compliance, problems remain. Two issues that merit particular attention are the capacity of the charter schools to provide appropriate education and support to students with all disability levels and the distribution of the students with most severe disability levels across the city's public schools.
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mathematics data for Englishlanguage learners from the 2012 DC CAS that includes a bit more detail.13 Their analysis showed that students who have relatively higher scores on an nglish-language proficiency test performed somewhat better on the E DC CAS that year, and that the students who performed most poorly in mathematics were also those who have remained in English-language learning status the longest, 3 years or more. The analysis OSSE provided also showed that DCPS educates many more English-language learners, and more of those with the lowest levels of English proficiency, than do charter schools.
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At the same time, charter schools have no consistent source of technical assistance or other resources, such as professional development, to help ensure that they are providing what English-language learners need. As a city official noted, "there is no way for people to know if they are doing it right." Another official commented that "nobody is looking across ELLs.
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: see Table 5-4. These data show 18,950 exclusions from the classroom that year: 11,226 in DCPS schools and 7,724 in charter schools.
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DCPS provided the committee with information from a review of suspension data for 2012-2013: slightly more than 25 percent of the suspensions in DCPS elementary schools were for special education students;19 the highest suspension rates are in middle schools, followed by education campuses;20 the 8th and 9th grades had the highest rates of long-term suspensions.21 An OSSE report on out-of-school suspensions and expulsions in DCPS and charter schools included incidence data and recommendations for reducing the number of these incidents (Office of the State Superintendent of Education, 2013)
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The report noted that DCPS offers significantly more professional development than do the charter schools on mental and emotional health, alcohol and other drug use, and tobacco-use prevention (Office of the State Superintendent of Education, 2013, p.
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. Expulsions were much more common in charter schools than in DCPS schools: "[O]
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. At the same time, the available data clearly indicate that many of the city's public schools, particularly charter schools, have relied heavily on suspensions and expulsions, and it is noteworthy that discipline problems are greatest in the schools with the highest numbers of low-income students.
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Public Schools School Level DCPS Charter Schools Total Elementary Data from OSSE (2012-2013) 1,937 2,331 Data from PCSB (2013-2014)
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We believe the city would benefit from improved data collection and monitoring in several areas: • accurate and consistent data, collected according to national norms, on attendance and truancy; • factors that contribute to high rates of truancy in schools; • outcomes for students who with chronic attendance problems and the links between early attendance problems and subsequent drop ping out of school; • resources available for targeting truancy and attendance problems; • the provision of professional development to assist educators in addressing attendance problems; and • family and community engagement efforts to address attendance problems. 26 See also http://www.urban.org/research/publication/absenteeism-dc-public-schools-earlyeducation-program/view/full_report [May 2015]
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That report discussed the city's history of persistent achievement gaps and problems with D.C.'s capacity to serve and support special education students. It also cited challenges the city was facing in serving its most vulnerable young people, particularly those in Wards 1, 7, and 8, who had the highest level of factors that put them at risk for school failure.29 We focused on three aspects of academic opportunity: developments in early childhood education, K-12 academic offerings, and college and career readiness.
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Charter schools may identify their own assessment tools, with OSSE's approval. We were not able to obtain information on plans for addressing readiness problems identified using this tool.
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. A DCPS official we interviewed said that PERAA had an important benefit for early childhood education because the flexibility the law allowed to DCPS officials made it possible to implement a schoolwide approach to Head Start, which in turn allowed DCPS to provide comprehensive Head Start services to all 3- and 4-year-olds in pre-K programs in Title I schools, regardless of income.
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In response to our requests, DCPS officials provided us with a variety of data on AP course enrollment, exam-taking, and scores. Summative data for 2009-2010 through 2012-2013 show that AP participation increased during those years and that the percentage of exams taken that received a score of 3 or higher36 increased slightly: see Table 5-6.
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Table 5-7 shows how AP course-taking varies by ward: the number of unique courses offered for the wards, the number of students who registered for and actually took at least one of the courses, and how many special education students took at least one of the courses.37 Table 5-8 shows the same information by individual DCPS school. More detailed analysis of the academic programs and other characteristics of the 14 high schools would be needed to fully explain the data, but a few points are striking.
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. aSpecial education students enrolled.
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aSpecial education students enrolled. SOURCE: Adapted from data provided to the committee by DCPS.
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The availability of rigorous coursework in DCPS secondary schools seems to be uneven across wards and schools. We believe the city would benefit from systematic monitoring of the rigor of academic offerings that are covered, for K-12 DCPS and charter schools, • strategies and resources for encouraging students at each level to pursue challenging academic opportunities; • resources for supporting students who attempt challenging options, such as AP courses; • implementation of rigorous curricula, such as AP courses; and • indicators of student access to college and careers.
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We could not obtain any information on how students are guided to enroll in these schools, or detailed information about the academic and other programs that are available or the qualifications and training for the teachers who work with troubled students. We also could not obtain information on any charter schools that may specialize in serving young people who have had difficulty in traditional school settings.
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It challenges stu dents to become educated, productive, and responsible contributors to society. • indicators used to flag struggling students; • resources available to support struggling students; • outcomes for students, including referrals to special education, English-language learning, or school or community support ser vices; and • public engagement efforts related to supports for struggling students.
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Adoption of the Common Core State Standards The city adopted new state learning standards in 2005 and also moved from using the SAT-9 assessment to the DC CAS in that year (Education Consortium for Research and Evaluation, 2013b)
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Moore HS 5 364 9-12 37 78 Washington Metropolitan HS 1 280 9-12 38 59 (formerly YEA) Youth Services Center 5 89 6-12 -- -- Ballou STAY 8 578 Adult -- 58 Roosevelt STAY @ MacFarland 4 850 Adult -- 75 aSpecial education students enrolled.
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The Office of Specialized Instruction is currently working with a contractor to develop tools for measuring special education students' progress with respect to the CCSS.
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in its first year, including difficulty coordinating across the charter schools and staff turnover at OSSE that delayed rollout of resources to support CCSS implementation. By the second year, however, some of these issues had been corrected, and the department noted that professional development and other supports provided by OSSE were in place.
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In response to our requests for information, DCPS officials provided 50 The report does not indicate the source of these data. 51 The Holzman report indicates that "graduation rates are calculated as the percentage of the students enrolled in 9th grade receiving a diploma four years later, estimated from state data and National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)
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51st among the states on basic indicators of opportunity to learn.53 Also, a 2015 state-by-state ranking conducted by Education Week -- which gives grades for the chance for success, school finance, and K-12 achievement -- gave D.C. an overall grade of C– in comparison with a national average grade of C (Education Week Research Center, 2015)
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faces added complications, because it functions as both a school district and a state and because its charter sector is large. Nevertheless, the issues we have discussed here are linked to one another, and they are especially important because the city's public school students move across schools and wards and back and forth between DCPS and charter schools.
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No one body has both the responsibility and the authority for monitoring the provision of edu cation and supports for students, particularly those at risk for school failure, across DCPS and the charter schools. Oversight of the ways all public schools are addressing the needs of these students is variable and in some cases minimal.
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It should be presented in a way that allows comparisons over time and analysis of patterns for aggregated and disaggregated student groups, including students in DCPS and charter schools and students and schools across wards. A good deal of this information is already collected -- likely much more than we were able to identify -- but we did not see evidence that these asic b aspects of the opportunity to learn are systematically monitored for all students and schools.
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