By Grassroots DC, on September 19th, 2013 Cross-posted from the Community Foundation for the National Capital Region
written by Benton Murphy
The District of Columbia is frequently cited as America’s “Smartest City,” based on our exceptionally high percentage of residents with a college degree. As of 2010, 46.8% of District residents held a bachelor’s degree—beating our closest competitor, Silicon Valley, by a healthy margin.
Yet, our knowledge-driven economy and high rates of post-secondary completion mask the realities of many residents. Read between the lines and you’ll see that the nation’s most educated city is also home to more than 64,000 adults who lack a high school diploma or its equivalent—that’s more than 10% of our residents. In a city where it is estimated that more than 70% of new jobs will require postsecondary training beyond high school, the number of career opportunities available to these individuals is rapidly declining.
The Community Foundation has a long history of investing the skills and credentials of the Metropolitan Washington region’s residents. Since 2007, our grants have helped 675 people increase their literacy levels and more than 700 earn a credential that will help to boost their employability in our competitive job market. Most recently, we’ve been working with a community of DC-based literacy providers like Academy of Hope, Southeast Ministry, and Literacy Volunteers and Advocates to bolster support for the critical programs that serve the District’s adult learners.
To raise broader awareness among both elected officials and community members, these partners have organized an Adult Education and Family Literacy Week – officially endorsed by a resolution of the DC Council – this September 23rd-29th. We’re pleased to announce two opportunities for Community Foundation donors to get involved:
- The organizers will kick-off Literacy Week on Monday, September 23rd, with a special event, “An Investment in Adult Education is an Investment in Children’s Success,” from 8:30 to 11:00 am at the PNC Bank Building at 800 17th Street NW. Join us for an exciting panel of speakers featuring adult learners, policymakers, and nationally-recognized experts. Continental breakfast will be served. Please RSVP by September 20th if you wish to attend.
- Later that week, the entire community is invited to join the organizers for a Literacy Advocacy Day at the Wilson Building (1350 Pennsylvania Avenue NW) from 9:30-11:00 am. Participants will visit the offices of our elected officials to discuss the needs of adult learners. Seasoned advocates as well concerned citizens who have never stepped foot in the Wilson Building are all welcome to join us. If you’re interested in participating, please contact Samantha Davis at sadavis@some.org to RSVP.
We hope that many of you will be able to join us. Unable to attend? Please contact Benton Murphy at bmurphy@cfncr.org for more information about some of the excellent local nonprofits that need your support to serve adult learners.
By Sarah Livingston, on September 11th, 2013  This past June 20, two and a half years after taking office, Mayor Gray gave an address on “Next Steps” in his plan for public education at the Savoy Elementary School in Anacostia.
Simply put, his plan is to continue the “education reform” of charter schools that began 15 years ago, which mayoral control in 2007 was intended to speed up, into the future. Through three “overarching strategies” he expects to create, “as One City, a comprehensive system of schools that provides high quality options to all children.” He pointed to the “partnership” between Savoy ES and Thurgood Marshall Academy Charter School as a “snapshot of that future.”
Each of the strategies has a number of measures. But, the Mayor said, to reach the goal, “it is imperative that charters and DCPS collaborate” and that people give up favoring one education “reform philosophy” over another, such as advocating for DCPS or for charter schools. They must give up their “fear and distrust” and the “language of competition” and embrace instead “a new spirit of collaboration and problem-solving that ensures parents and students are first.”
Below are the three strategies and their measures, some of which are already in place:
1) Scale up
• by replicating successful programs so they serve more students such as linking a middle school with McKinley Tech High School and merging School Without Walls with Francis-Stevens preK-8
• by giving the chancellor authority to grant charters
• lease more DCPS school buildings to charters
• have DCPS and charter schools look together at city-wide data in making plans to fill gaps, expand, close or move schools.
2) Strengthen
• by raising the quality of pre-K programs with two new tools for quality and assessment
• continue Race to the Top grants for training DCPS and charter school teachers in the Common Core Standards
• build Career and Technical Academies in DCPS and charter schools in line with jobs in demand and the Five Year Economic Development Plan
• develope a Graduation Pathways Project to get off-track students back on track
• continue the OSSE pilot program offering DCPS and charter schools access to a consortium of special education service providers
• expand Flamboyen Family Engagement Partnership to 26 more DCPS and charter schools
• revamp the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula and
• find ways to link LEA payments to enrollment throughout the year while also insisting on more equity between DCPS and charters in providing special education services and truancy prevention.
3) Simplify
• with a single lottery for DCPS and charters using a common application and a common enrollment deadline
• release new standardized state-wide report cards from OSSE for all schools
• create a Re-Engagement Center as a single source of information for dis-engaged youth to re-engage (deadline for blueprint, October 1, 2013)
• use the Malcolm X Elementary School and Achievement Prep Charter School located in the same building as a model of two schools fully integrating the strength of a neighborhood school and the innovation of a charter school
• create by legislation that has been submitted to the Council, the “option for charter schools to elect to provide a neighborhood preference” and for schools chartered by the chancellor to become schools-of-right in high need areas
• allow for cross-LEA (Local Education Agency) feeder patterns in the coming school boundary revisions “where a DCPS school might feed into a charter school, or vice versa.”
This is what the Mayor is referring to when he says we must “stay the course.” It is clearly a plan to knit, link, merge, mush and subsume the city’s traditional public school district, into the charter school ethos of using public money to pay for the private dreams of people who want to run their own school. Or for the private dreams of those who wish to profit by the “steady revenue stream” of public tax dollars going into charter schools and back out to real estate companies, hedge funds or charter management organizations, among others.
But, is this what we the people want? Is this what we expect from our elected leaders who are responsible for using the power we have given them to spend our public dollars in the public, not private, interest?
By Brenda Hayes, on August 29th, 2013 I spent a little time with a few of our Potomac Gardens neighbors talking about the 50th anniversary of The March On Washington;
it was a time to reflect on experiences of the past, take stock of the present, and consider the possibilities of the future. Thank you Annie Ferguson, Carlton Moxley, Enoch Pratt, Potomac Gardens Greeter Claudia, David, Gary Anderson, Ms. Teasley and Wilson Senior High School student Levi.
 Pianist Carleton Moxley talks about growing up in Washington, DC when it was still segregated
[audio:http://www. grassrootsdc.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/CarltonMoxleymow.mp3]
 Enoch Pratt talks about the importance of education.
[audio: http://www.grassrootsdc.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/enochmow.mp3]
 Wilson High School Student Levi wants to attend North Carolina University.
[audio:http://www.grassrootsdc.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/levi.mp3]
Ms. Teasley, talks about the history of the March on Washington, the important changes that have taken place but admits that racism is still our biggest problem.
[audio:http://www.grassrootsdc.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/MsTeasley.mp3]
Annie Ferguson is in her 70s. She has relatives who were able to march in 1963 but she didn’t attend. If it weren’t for her recent stroke, she would have gone to the anniversary march herself.
[audio:http://www.grassrootsdc.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Annie-FergusonMOW.mp3]
 Claudia says talks about recent set backs in civil rights.
[audio:http://www.grassrootsdc.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/claudia.mp3]
 David talks about the importance of honoring the sacrifices of the past.
[audio:http://www.grassrootsdc.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/david.mp3]
Gary Anderson, a computer technician, believes we should not have to recognize color. We are all part of one race, the human race.
[audio:http://www.grassrootsdc.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/garyanderson.mp3]
By Guest Contributor, on August 22nd, 2013
March with Save Our Schools Contingent as we join in the
50th Anniversary
March for Civil Rights in DC
August 24th
Public Education is a Civil Right!
Save Our Schools calls all supporters of Public Education join with the 50th Anniversary March for Civil Rights: A Continuation of the Battle for Jobs, Justice and Freedom! http://nationalactionnetwork.net/mow/Look for the Save Our Schools banner, pick up your signs and march together to the Rally Site at 8:30
Make your voice heard for jobs, justice, & freedom!
Public Education is a civil right!
No school closings!
End high stakes testing!
Kids over profits-End Privatization!!!
Also, join the Journey for Justice Education as a Human Rights Marches, Boycotts, and Rallies in your home city on August 28th and August 29th.
Look for further details on all of these events at the SOS website and in future email updates.
Join the movement to Save Our Schools!
Together we can change the conversation.
We can preserve and transform public education
for all the children!
 Our mission is to build a national grassroots, people-powered movement, which preserves and transforms public education,
as the cornerstone of a democratic society.
By Guest Contributor, on August 12th, 2013 By Erich Martel
Retired DCPS Social Studies Teacher
At the July 31st meeting of the DC State Board of Education, Ward 8 Member, Mr. Trayon White, said that he had attended the 2013 graduation of Thurgood Marshall Charter HS and wondered why there were so few graduates when four years earlier, as a 9th grade, the class was much larger. No one replied. It’s time that our public officials conducted an independent investigation of this scandal.
Quick Facts about Thurgood Marshall Public Charter School
Between 2007 and 2013, only 45% of starting 9th graders graduated four years later.
Between 2007 and 2011, only 32% of the tested 10th graders are African-American males.
Over the past seven years, 2007-2013, Thurgood Marshall graduated 394 of the original 872 9th grade students enrolled. That’s a completion rate of 45.2%.
What happened to the other 478 starting 9th graders counted by OSSE?
336 or 38.5% were transferred before the 10th grade DC CAS testing roster was set.
142 or 16.3% were transferred after the 10th grade test, but before graduation.
Thurgood Marshall has trouble keeping African-American male students. According to gender data reported on OSSE’s DC CAS website, of the 462 10th graders tested in the 5 years from 2007 to 2011:
– 314 or 67.97% were female.
– 148 or 32.03% were male. In no year, did the % of male students exceed 33%.
Of the 88 Thurgood Marshall students tested in 2011, 62 (70.5%) were female, only 26 (29.5%) were male.
At each of Councilmember Catania’s recent ward education “conversations” and at most of the Council’s Education Committee hearings, Councilmember Catania and/or Councilmember Grosso contrasted Thurgood Marshall as an example of charter school success against DCPS failure. According to the numbers, Thurgood Marshall does not live up to that distinction.
Mayor Gray chose Thurgood Marshall Charter HS as the symbolic site to announce his proposed legislation to give the chancellor chartering authority.
The public has a right to know – and the Mayor, Council and State Board of Education Members should demand to know:
- The reasons why these students were transferred;
- Their receiving schools;
- Their practice scores (DC BAS) were before transfer;
- Their official DC CAS scores after transfer;
- Whether they graduated with their class or cohort;
- Whether any of them dropped out;
And many other questions that public officials holding positions of public trust should feel obligated to answer and not cover up as they make public education policy.
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