The Deputy Mayor for Education released the report from the Illinois Facilities Fund last week. It has profound implications for the neighborhood high schools. The letter from S.H.A.P.P.E. to the Mayor is printed below this introduction. The letter to the Public Education Finance Reform Commission is under S.H.A.P.P.E. letters and testimonies The budget testimonies given to the Chancellor of DCPS in November by SHAPPE members are attached below. Welcome to the Senior High Alliance of Parents, Principals and Educators (S.H.A.P.P.E.) Website. With the sidebar menu you can access information about both the high schools and the S.H.A.P.P.E. organization. There is a brief description of S.H.A.P.P.E. below. Contact information is in the upper left hand corner. Below and on the S.H.A.P.P.E. testimony and letters page is the most recent testimony given to the DC City Council on the confirmation hearing for acting Chancellor Kaya Henderson. S.H.A.P.P.E. put out an exit interview survey for teachers leaving their school and or DCPS.
S.H.A.P.P.E. is an organization of the District of Columbia Public high
school parent leaders, concerned educators and principals in Washington D.C.
We have been meeting monthly for 13 years, since February of 1998. We originally came
together to share our frustration and grief at the level of violence in our
city. We currently work together to strategically influence policies,
practices and budget decisions that impact our city’s teenagers. S.H.A.P.P.E. is a group working cooperatively on: · 1. Promoting an equitable standard of resource and service distribution among our schools. · 2. Expanded educational opportunities including advanced academic classes and job training. · 3. A comprehensive approach to safety and health in our schools. · 4. Modernized facilities aligned with sound educational practice · 5. The funding necessary to achieve these goals S.H.A.P.P.E. facilitates partnerships between: · Parents, principals and educators in the 18 senior high schools · Local senior high schools and the central District of Columbia Public Schools administration · Metropolitan Police Department, Human Services, Recreation and the local senior high schools · The Mayor’s office, the City Council and the local senior high schools (S.H.A.P.P.E. members) · Local senior high schools and other advocacy groups working for our young people. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ January 29, 2012 Dear Mayor Gray, Your administration has now released the Illinois Facilities Fund Report commissioned by our Deputy Mayor for Education with funds from the Walton Foundation granted though the DC Public Education Fund. We applaud your goal to support our city’s families with strong neighborhood schools. This also will help us to continue aligning with the goals for smart growth by decreasing the need to commute and encouraging our children to walk more. The IFF report also confirmed that in fact we do not need fewer schools (or more schools), we need improved schools. It also showed us that overall the majority of our students are choosing to attend schools relatively close to home; the capital investment the city is making in neighborhood high schools is a sound investment. We were pleased to hear you affirm your commitment to both sectors of the public education system in the Washington Post. “I believe very strongly in both sectors, and I’m looking for the best education solutions.” (1-26-12 Bill Turque article on IFF release) The charters have been articulate and well represented in their communication with you about the charter sector, its role and its value. In the context of this report release we are re-iterating the importance of your commitment to the DCPS sector and its fundamental role and value to our city. The DCPS sector provides the neighborhood anchors; they keep the promise to our children and families that there is a school they have a right to attend. It thus requires the flexibility to shrink and grow with changing demographics and with our city’s mandate to support a charter sector that will open and close schools. Families attending Wilson in upper northwest and families across the city at Ballou in far southeast have testified to the high value they place on the potential to be engaged and welcomed in their own neighborhood as a right. Last week the residents in ward 4 passionately let the council know how deeply they value Roosevelt and Coolidge as they approach their turn for a capital investment. Our neighborhood schools are one of our most valuable assets. They should not be abandoned because we still have a lot to learn about how best to support and improve them. When it comes to the results of the IFF study, the low test scores and the location of the students and the schools noted in the report did not surprise anyone. We do not accept the IFF definition of quality which reduces the difficult work of education to the term “poor performing seats” that align to low test scores. This formulation underestimates the needs of our children and our neighborhoods and denies them their strengths. Even as a quantitative report of supply and demand, this document is quite limited. By design, it omits context and needed qualitative research. It chose not to include specific data on schools serving large numbers of special education or ELL students, not to mention any correlation of “performing seats” and rates of poverty. We understand the challenge and the opportunity before us as we work to create a quality educational system for all of our children in more complex and comprehensive terms. The first step in rising to this challenge and opportunity is to categorically reject the recommendations of the IFF Report. The strategy to close and then re-open as charter or subject to another round of turnarounds 37 DCPS neighborhood schools including 6 of the 10 neighborhood high schools is irresponsible, relying on a single narrow measure to determine drastic potentially irreversible changes. Further, we have tried these strategies for the last 10 years with poor results. These recommendations set us back in terms of attaining a quality educational system and moving to the One City vision that you champion. The choice to release this report with these recommendations as the out of boundary and enrollment process prepares to kick off has all ready hurt and destabilized the very neighborhoods we should be working to strengthen. Even if unintentionally, it sent the message to the communities where trust is very thin, that decisions have all ready been made. This severely threatens the potential of a process that will truly engage our citizens in a conversation about the quality education we all want. In order to restore this trust, the public engagement around quality education cannot start with how to reduce the number of DCPS schools or with arbitrary rankings which further deeply divide our city. The Public Education Reform Finance Commission conducted a very difficult and public conversation on one of the core issues, the education budget. In the short time it had, it could not come to consensus on everything but it offers solid hope that we can engage in further structured discussions bringing us closer to a system characterized more by cooperation than competition. The Quality Schools Report done by the 21st Century School Fund, Urban Institute and Brookings is a comprehensive and thorough look at these same issues. It could be updated and used as a basis in the community engagement process to begin this spring. In order to go forward together we recommend that you:
Items that will support an efficient and cooperative educational climate: Ø Immediate support and incentives to share space and personnel within DCPS and perhaps with the charter schools. These incentives should be applied retroactively to schools already co-locating. Ø Draft agreements, leases and policy should be drawn up so that communities wanting to look at sharing excess space with other schools or organizations have a place to start Ø There should be a review of the lessons we have learned from past closings and turnarounds. The last round of closings that shuttered 23 DCPS schools did not result in increased enrollment or higher quality for DCPS schools. The turnarounds overall have not been successful. We believe working together we can come up with a better roadmap to quality schools for all of our students. The tier 1 schools in this study are investing more resources in serving challenging students and have stability. Ø The report does suggest that the DCPS reforms are not working, the narrow focus in school plans and in teacher evaluations on the test scores and a checklist approach is not even raising the test scores for many schools. The investment in financial incentives tied to these measures is expensive and unproven. It is time for you to require an evaluation and make the adjustments. We request a meeting with you as soon as possible and before your One City Conference to discuss our concerns and these recommendations.
Sincerely, Cathy Reilly Executive Director S.H.A.P.P.E Cc – De’Shawn Wright, Deputy Mayor for Education Hosanna Mahaley, State Superintendent of Education Kaya Henderson, Chancellor of DCPS Kwame Brown, Chair of the DC City Council Michael Brown, At Large Council Member Vincent Orange, At Large Council Member Phil Mendelson, At Large Council Member David Catania, At Large Council Member Jim Graham, Ward 1 Council Member Jack Evans, Ward 2 Council Member Mary Cheh, Ward 3 Council Member Muriel Bowser, Ward 4 Council Member Tommy Wells, Ward 6 Council Member Yvette Alexander, Ward 7 Council Member Marion Barry, Ward 8 Council Member ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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