So, Empower DC went to Mayor Gray’s One City Citizen Summit last Saturday. In the mayor’s invitation to the residents of the District of Columbia, he described the summit as “a frank and open conversation about what needs to be done to create Washington, DC as One City.” He also promised that we would have the opportunity to:
• Learn about current efforts to grow our economy, improve our schools, create more jobs, and other initiatives underway to move our city forward
• Discuss some of the biggest challenges that prevent Washington from becoming truly One City
• Share your views in small group discussions and listen to neighbors from every part of the District
• Vote on specific priorities for action in the coming year
• Brainstorm new ideas about how the D.C. Government can work more effectively with its citizens
• Identify ways you can be more involved in future efforts to create a more unified city that works for everyone
In keeping with those lofty goals, Empower DC put together two fact sheets, one with information about the school closings that are likely to occur and the other about the loss of affordable housing in the city. As it turns out, those hand outs were considered so subversive that many of Empower DC’s members were threatened with arrest should they distribute those materials in the summit. So much for a frank and open conversation Mayor Gray! Although, many felt the summit was genuinely participatory, others though Gray was using the summit as an opportunity to present his plans to the public in the hopes that they would simply rubber stamp his agenda. One such voice was Empower DC education organizer Daniel del Pielago who is quoted in the Washington Post. Only time will tell if any of the independent ideas generated in the small group discussions will actually bear fruit. We will explore some of those independent ideas in future posts related to this subject. For now watch the video. Decide for yourself if it represents the real-time grassroots democracy that Mayor Gray believes the summit achieved.
At the risk of offending the Gray Administration, who seems to think they have a monopoly on how to improve the city despite rhetoric that says the exact opposite, here’s a link to Empower DC’s “subversive” literature the Citizens Summit Hand Out, which was the cause of all the above controversy. In it we suggest that the 55 percent rise in the cost of housing since 2007 should prompt the Mayor to use funding from the newly found $240 million surplus to fully fund the housing production trust fund in order to protect and preserve low and moderate cost housing. Actually enforcing the Inclusionary Zoning Law which REQUIRES developers to include low and moderately priced housing in their high end developments wouldn’t hurt either. Or that because most DC families who have an income less than $2500 a month are paying over 60% of that income on housing, maybe Mayor Gray should use funding from the newly found $240 million surplus to fully fund (ERAP) Emergency Rental Assistance Program to help prevent the evictions of low-income residents. Should the Gray Administration be afraid of our suggestion that the IFF study is flawed and that a moratorium should be placed on all school closings? Download and judge for yourself.
The administration of Mayor Vincent Gray recently commissioned a study of DC schools by the Illinois Facility Fund (IFF) which was paid for by the Walton Foundation (Wal-Mart) and several other interests heavily invested in charter schools. The study divided DC schools into 4 tiers (Tier 1 being the highest “performing” and Tier 4 being the “lowest performing”). The methodology used to rank the schools into Tiers was by looking at Standardized Test Score Results (DCCAS).
Eliminating poor performing seats poses no threat to children. Only to seats.
Overall the study offers 5 recommendations:
Fill seats in Tier 1 Schools. Sustain the performing capacity of Tier 1 schools.
Invest in facilities and programs to accelerate performance in Tier 2 schools.
Monitor Tier 3 schools.
Close or Turnaround Tier 4 DCPS Schools. Close Tier 4 charter schools and replace them with high-performing publicly-funded charter schools.
If you believe that test scores are the only thing that determines whether or not a school is worthy then using them as the sole criteria in the IFF’s study won’t bother you. If, on the other hand, you view a school as an integral part of the community and for that reason should be supported, then you might have hoped the study might look into why so many DC schools are failing academically. Despite the firing of hundreds of teachers from DCPS, academic performance has failed to improve by more than a few points. It would have been nice if the issue was that simple. Closing more than 20 public schools during the Fenty Administration may have increased class sizes and saved the city money but the achievement gap between white students and black students is wider than it’s ever been. Following the recommendations of the IFF study may increase the number of publicly-funded charter schools but as there’s no real evidence that charter schools are actually doing better academically than DC’s public schools, it hardly seems like a recommendation designed to improve the schools.
Please note. I’m aware that the mainstream media has suggested that the publicly-funded charter schools are in fact doing better academically than the traditional public schools but test scores just don’t bear that out. If you doubt this, please research it for yourself. Great Schools is one source for test scores and academic rankings. You might start there. I site them also because they’re rankings take more into account than academics. According to their site, the top-ranked DC schools are all traditional public schools. Although their rankings are hardly conclusive, I’m reasonably certain that they’ve been replicated by other reputable sources. So, if in fact, the best schools in DC are traditional public schools, why would the Illinois Facilities Fund recommend that DC’s “Tier 4” schools be replaced by publicly-funded charter schools? Wouldn’t it make more sense to suggest that these low-ranking schools, which are mostly in Wards 7 & 8, be encouraged to emulate the successful public schools west of the Anacostia River? The cynic in me believes with all sincerity that the real reason behind the IFF’s recommendation that DC’s public schools be replaced by charters has something to do with the fact that the Illinois Facilities Fund is a non-profit lender that lends mainly to charter schools not only in Illinois but soon across the whole of the United States. Increasing the number of charter schools in DC may not improve the academic performance of DC’s student population. It’s not likely to reduce the achievement gap between our white and black students but it may very well help to increase the bottom line of the Illinois Facilities Fund (which given it’s emerging status as a national entity would prefer to be referred to as the IFF).
I’m also confused by the Gray Administration’s confidence in the study, not because of what appears to be a clear conflict of interest, but because the recommendations don’t seem to align with the purpose of the study itself. According to the Washington Post, Deputy Mayor for Education De’Shawn Wright’s reason for commissioning the study was, “to identify communities in greatest need of more education options.” The report recommends that the communities in greatest need of more education options either close their schools or replace them with charters. I don’t see how closing schools will provide the communities in Wards 7 & 8 with more educational opportunities. Isn’t that a direct contradiction of the purpose of the study? Presumably more charter schools will increase education options but if you’re simultaneously closing down potentially good public schools doesn’t that limit a families options to which ever charter school will accept their child? As charter schools are not public schools in the sense that any child in the surrounding community can attend, a neighborhood’s charter school option simply won’t be available to every neighborhood kid.
Examine the IFF study yourself and see if you don’t come to similar conclusions. Just so you know how many communities are likely to be impacted, here are the Tier 3 and 4 schools the report recommends to close or turn around broken down by Ward. In total, there are 38 DC public schools are at-risk of closure. Notice how many are in Wards 7 & 8.
Ward 1
Bruce Monroe @ Parkview Elementary School
Cardozo High School
Ward 4
Macfarland Middle
Raymond Educational Campus
Brightwood Educational Campus
Roosevelt High School
Ward 5
Noyes Educational Campus
Burroughs Educational Campus
Browne Educational Campus
Spingarn High School
Wheatley Ed. Campus
Ward 7
Plummer Elementary
Beers Elementary
Randle Highlands Elementary School
Aiton Elementary School
Drew Elementary School
Kelly Miller Middle School
Woodson High School
CW Harris Elementary School
Davis Elementary School
Nalle Elementary School
Ward 8
Orr Elementary School
Ballou High School
Hart Middle School
Hendley Elementary School
King Elementary School
Leckie Elementary School
Anacostia High School
Kramer Middle School
Garfield Elementary School
Stanton Elementary School
Johnson Middle School
Malcolm X Elementary School
Ferebee-Hope Elementary School
Terrell/McGogney Elementary School,
Patterson Elementary School
Simon Elementary
As a parent and a resident of Ward 7, I’m all too familiar with the struggle to insure that my daughter gets a good education. What I see when I look at the above list of schools is an administration that would prefer to disinvest in low-income communities (like mine!) rather than implement the practices that they know work in wealthy communities.
So again I ask that you join Empower DC at the Mayor’s One City Summit this Saturday, again here are the details.
Join the Empower DC contingent at the Mayor’s “One City Citizen’s Summit”
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Meet at 11 AM
At the Convention Center
801 Mt Vernon Pl, NW
We’ll meet at the Mt. Vernon Place entrance of the Mt. Vernon Square Metro, across from Carnegie Library. Our plan is to deliver information about the proposed school closings and DC’s loss of affordable housing to summit participants. Our message to Mayor Gray is simple. We hold you accountable to save our schools and communities. We reject the flawed findings of the IFF report and its recommendations to close or turn around DC’s public schools. We demand a moratorium on school closures until a valid community-led process is developed for evaluating our schools.
If you can’t make it to the Mayor Gray’s One City Citizen’s Summit on Saturday, February 11, 2012, Empower DC will also be pushing for the Gray Administration to hold another One City Citizen’s Summit that’s dedicated solely to education, where students, parents and educators–the real experts–can lead the discussion on how to better our schools. It’s time for the Gray Administration to try something new. Work with the community to find the solution. We look forward to the Mayor’s response and we’ll be sure to post it here.
School closing + the loss of affordable housing = DISPLACEMENT
That’s the equation that is behind the loss of many of DC’s low- and moderate-income residents to the suburbs. Empower DC exposed this equation for displacement in an Info and Action Summit, Saturday February 4, 2012. Over a hundred DC residents, all concerned about school closings and DC’s affordable housing crisis participated in the event. The result was a plan to have an organized presence at Mayor Vince Gray’s Citizen’s Summit on Saturday February 11, 2012, where we will bring the concerns of DC residents who are most vulnerable to the threat of displacement to the mayor’s attention. For more information contact Daniel del Pielago at 202-234-9119 ext 104 or email Daniel@EmpowerDC.org.
Prior to the action planning component of the day, Empower DC conducted a popular education exercise which revealed many of the factors that lead to displacement. Some of them, like the a new Metro station or a Riverwalk, certainly sound like good things but far too often we don’t think about how these developments will impact residents who can’t afford the rising property values that accompany these changes. Everyone wants access to public transportation, clean parks and recreation facilities, not to mention libraries and good schools in their communities. Why is it that in Washington DC, these things seem reserved only for those who can afford the highest rents and mortgages? The question we should be pondering is how can we have development without displacement? I hope you’ll consider that question as you ponder the following factors most of which relate to the Riverside Community, which is facing a school closure and heightened interest from developers. Even though these factors relate to Riverside, notice how similar they are to development happening in other neighborhoods that are facing school closures.
School Closings
CHARLESYOUNGELEMENTARY SCHOOL (820 26th Street, NE)
Young is located right next to the Langston Dwellings (public housing) and Spingarn High School, Charles Young Elementary sits atop a hill overlooking Langston Golf Course and the PEPCO plant. Young was closed in 2008 and the city is now planning to surplus this property.
SPINGARN HIGH SCHOOL (2500 Benning Rd. NE)
Spingarn High has been identified as a Tier 4 school in the recent study commissioned by the District (IFF study) and is recommended for closure or turnaround. Spingarn is right next to Charles Young elementary which the City plans to surplus and the Langston Dwellings (public housing).
Spingarn enrolls about 550 students
77% of students qualify for free & reduced lunch
68% of Spingarn students are in-boundary which means it is a neighborhood school
RIVERTERRACEELEMENTARY SCHOOL
In 2010 DCPS proposed the closing of River Terrace Elementary, the community organized and was able to get a year’s extension on the decision to close the school. This past December of 2011 Kaya Henderson/Mayor Gray announced they would close the school at the end of the 2011/2012 school year. The school and the River Terrace community sit directly next to the Anacostia River on a big plot of land, close to the Benning Road entrance of the Anacostia River Walk Trail.
Affordable Housing
Since 2000, the District government has allowed more than 7,500 housing units that costs $500 per month and under, to be lost without an equal replacement.
Prior to 2000, the District of Columbia had approximately 11,000 units of public housing, but between 2001 & 2007 – DC lost 1,300 units of public housing without one-to-one replacement.
Currently, the U.S. Congress want to raise the minimum rent on the lowest income residents who live in public housing and Section 8 housing regardless of their income. In the District of Columbia approximately 4,000 households will be impacted and could be forced into homelessness. Families living in Carver Terrace, Langston Dwellings, the Pinnacle could all be affected.
Youth In DC
Since 2007, 4,000 children have been affected by home foreclosures in the District
In 2010, 16,000 children had a least one parent who was unemployed (15%).
Poverty
23.23% of Carver Terrace residents’ incomes are below the poverty level. In Washington D.C. 20.22% of residents are below the poverty level. In the United States only 12.38% of residents’ are below the poverty level.
Carver Terrace residents have an even lower income than the other residents in their neighborhood of Washington D.C. of $27,019, 36% lower than the United States median income.
Metro
A 2030 Metro map forecasts a metro station in the River Terrace community. According to Metro:
Metro boosts property values—adding 6.8% more value to residential, 9.4% to multi-family, and 8.9% to commercial office properties within a half-mile of a rail station. 1 Property becomes significantly more valuable as a property gets closer to Metrorail stations.
Anacostia River Walk
“The Anacostia river Walk trail Project is a 20 mile multiuse trail that stretches from PG County, MD to the national mall. The river walk project is being lead by DDOT and the DC Metro rail system will interface with the river walk to create a full range of transportation alternative in the region.”
Streetcars
“The streetcar system would increase existing residential property value by $1.0 billion to $1.6 billion. Most property values would increase 5% to 12%, with values likely to rise even higher in areas that have many prime redevelopment sites. The strongest growth in demand for both existing and new development would occur adjacent to downtown:
U Street/Logan Circle/Florida Avenue/NoMa/Howard University/western Rhode Island Avenue
H Street/Benning Road
Buzzard Point
Capitol Riverfront
Other significant increases in demand would occur in Downtown Anacostia, Washington Hospital Center, Takoma Park, and Georgetown
PEPCO
On May 31, 2012, the PEPCO power plant, located on 77-acres along Ward 7’s Benning Road in NE DC, plans to decommission. There have been several bids made on the land to redevelop it as a mixed use space with high priced condos.
If you plan to join us at the Mayor’s Citizen Summit here are the specifics:
Join the Empower DC contingent at the Mayor’s “One City Citizen’s Summit”
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Meet at 11 AM
At the Convention Center
801 Mt Vernon Pl, NW
We’ll meet at the Mt. Vernon Place entrance of the Mt. Vernon Square Metro, across from Carnegie Library. Our plan is to deliver information about the proposed school closings and DC’s loss of affordable housing to summit participants. More about the specific information we’ll be delivering in tomorrow’s post.
The headlines from today’s top education stories reads: “Many public schools in D.C.’s poorest area should be transformed or shut, study says; more charters recommended” written by Bill Turque, Washington Post writer while Mike Debonis’ blog: DeMorning Links reads: “School Closings Contemplated” and Channel Fox Five TV news reported the DC School System study recommends making major improvements or close three dozen under performing public schools or expand high performing charter schools.
The Demolition of Bruce Monroe Elementary School
The Washington Teacher blog first reported on October 31, 2011 about future plans to close additional DC public schools. An excerpt from the 21st Century School Fund September – October newsletter stated: “The Deputy Mayor for Education, with a 100,000 dollar grant from the Walton Family Foundation, engaged IFF (Illinois Facility Fund) to study the capacity and performance of DCPS and public charter schools. IFF has authored reports in Denver, Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Louis, using a defined method to determine what they term “performing” or “non- performing” seats. This analysis is being done with an eye to “right sizing” district schools which beyond consolidation could include reconstitution and replacement with school management organizations.”
Not unlike other major cities including NY, Chicago, Ohio- DC has been at the forefront of shutting down traditional public schools. In 2008, twenty-three public schools were closed under former DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee and then mayor Adrian Fenty which led to a community outcry to save our public schools. Local education stakeholders voices weren’t heeded by Rhee or Fenty and only one neighborhood elementary school- John Burroughs was saved from the chopping block.
Natalie Hopkinson who authored the article Why School Choice Fails, which appeared in the December 4, 2011 N.Y. Times, discussed how this country’s reform policies in Washington, DC- put in place by a Republican led congress in 1995 led to the birth of many of our charter schools. Hopkinson wrote:” if a school was deemed failing, students could transfer schools, opt to attend a charter school or receive a voucher to attend a private school. The idea was to introduce competition; good schools would survive; bad ones would disappear. It effectively created a second education system, which now enrolls nearly half the city’s public school students. The charters consistently perform worse than the traditional schools, yet they are rarely closed.”
The results of IFF’s study recommend that DC make major improvements or close thirty six under performing schools in some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods or expand high performing charter schools. It’s a finding that heralds the continued growth of the charter schools sector at the expense of the D.C. Public Schools, if not its outright domination. While some people are questioning the motives of the Illinois Facilities Fund, the study is “likely to rekindle impassioned debate about possible school closures and the future of public education in the District,” Bill Turque notes. Officials tell Turque, education writer for the Post that any decisions about a “major restructuring” are at least a year and many community meetings away.
What comes as no surprise to anyone is that schools in ward 8 were identified as having the greatest need, according to the IFF study. The study recommended turning around or closing the following public schools: Simon, Patterson, Terrell-McGogney and Ferebee-Hope and closing two bottom-rung charter schools, Center City Congress Heights (pre-K to 8) and Imagine Southeast (pre-K to 5). H.D. Woodson Senior High School which is located in Ward 7 was also recommended for turn around or closure, a school which recently has undergone capital investment which cost millions of dollars in investment.
One of the things that I find disturbing about IFF’s report is the recommendation for DC to consider expanding charter schools in the 10 targeted neighborhood clusters and call for the DC Public Charter School Board to authorize about 6,500 new charter seats (current enrollment is about 32,000) while utilizing former public school buildings as incentives to get the public charter board to actively recruit the highest performing charter school operators to replicate their school models.
The writing should be on the wall for all of us to see. If it’s not, I don’t know what to tell you. From where I sit, this situation looks bleak for working, middle class families and many of our teachers in some of our poorest communities. The loss of our public schools is a disinvestment in our school communities and may lead to higher classrooms sizes, further declining enrollment in DC public schools and extinction of traditional public schools and fewer teaching jobs. Now is not the time for parents, students, teachers, school staff and community members to sit back. We have to ask the hard questions, organize and demand to have a voice as education stakeholders or we may likely have a re-run of the 2008 school closures.
On November 8, 2011 – I issued a call to action to DC teachers and school personnel: “In the midst of upcoming contract negotiations, there are big plans ahead to close our traditional public schools. Never in our history has been there been a greater need for teachers and school personnel to have an effective organizing union. Our very future as educators and the future of our students will be determined by how vigorously we, alongside parents and community members are willing to fight to save our public schools.” Won’t you heed the call to get involved before your local school is reconstituted and turned over to a charter school, your job is lost and your community no longer includes you?
Join Empower DC’s Information and Action Planning Summit
Exposing DC’s Equation for Displacement
Saturday, Feb. 4 @ 11 am -1:30pm @ 1419 V St NW
Imagine every news story that you read, hear or watch is a painting hanging on an art gallery wall. Just as the artist determines not only the main subject matter of the painting but everything else that gets included on the canvas, it is the producer of the news story who decides what issue to cover, what “facts” should be included, whose opinion will be voiced and whose opinion will be ignored. In other words, it is the reporter or journalist who decides what’s inside the frame and what gets left out. Deciding what issues to cover and what angle or perspective to use is called framing. How a reporter frames a story is guided by many factors including, but not limited to, the reporter’s experience of the world and the assumptions they’ve made about the issue in question.
Ward 7 Councilmember Yvette Alexander & DCPS School’s Chancellor Kaya Henderson listening intently (or not) to the River Terrace Community as they plead for their school.
Let’s take a specific example, local mainstream news reporting on proposed school closings in DCPS. In this article by Washington Post education reporter Bill Turque School Closings Unlikely to be Widespread, the assumption that school closings will have a positive impact on DCPS is not obvious, but it’s there. Turque trusts just two sources–School’s Chancellor Kaya Henderson and Deputy Mayor for Education De’Shawn Wright. As city officials who have a budget to balance, they may prioritize the alleged cost-effectiveness of closing schools over providing a world-class education to the city’s children but that possibility is never explored. The parents who may be forced to uproot their children from one school and bus them to a location outside of their neighborhoods are not included. And why should they be? After all, closings are unlikely to be widespread. The title of the article itself suggests that only a relatively few families will be inconvenienced and that their loss is acceptable in the face of the positive gains that may or may not be achieved throughout the system as a whole. Also left out of the frame are the teachers and the students themselves, who may not agree with Kaya Henderson’s definition of an under-enrolled school, especially if that definition means an increase in the size of their classes. Members of the community at large aren’t likely to be considered at all by mainstream news sources covering education issues but that doesn’t meant they are not impacted when a community’s school is torn down in lieu of luxury condos. To his credit, Turque does mention one school community–River Terrace, whose elementary school is scheduled for closure next year, but he says nothing about how the school’s closing might impact the River Terrace community. Of course, including all of those voices might take too much time. No doubt he has a deadline to adhere to. He may also have constraints on the number of words he’s allowed in his column. On the other hand, if he really wanted to include the voices of the River Terrace school community in his article, he could have simply provided a link to his previous article River Terrace Pleads for its School. In this article, River Terrace parents, students and community members are quoted but not until the end of the article. Also, Turque points out the official estimate of $800,000 in savings should the school be closed, adding in his own words, “no small matter given the city’s fiscal straits.” If Turque were committed to giving equal weight to both sides of this issue, he might have countered with Kaya Henderson’s statement “If every community had this level of engagement, DCPS would be the best school district in the country,” which surely suggests that $800,000 is no savings at all if the result is a lower level of community engagement. So, let’s review. Turque’s trusted sources are known to believe in the efficacy of school closings, otherwise they wouldn’t have closed schools in the past and they wouldn’t be advocating for more closings now. Any sources that just might believe that closing schools will not improve DCPS are not in the frame. Fortunately, we have a frame of our own to fill. On January 12, 2011, over 200 members of the River Terrace Community attended a public hearing regarding the proposed closing of their elementary school. Over 40 parents, teachers, students and members of the community testified. The video below is just a small portion of that hearing in which Henderson pledged to work with the community. Watch it and you’ll understand why she would make such a pledge. Why she went back on her word, refusing to help community members with their efforts to increase enrollment and deciding to close the school on December 16, 2011, is a question for another day. Unfortunately, our frame does not have the same reach as the Washington Post or other news media outlets, but if it’s reaching you than something can be done. Right now, when students, parents and community members continue to be negatively affected by punitive school reform efforts, we must find a way to get our knowledge and opinions into the media frame. It may not be possible to change the life experience of mainstream reporters like Bill Turque or the rest of the staff of the Washington Post, the Washington Times, DCist, The City Paper and every network television station producing local news, but we can and should relentlessly question their assumptions. Beyond that, we can find ways to make them hear our stories, to better understand our lives and to respect our knowledge and opinions. To that end, Empower DC is sponsoring the following:
How To Use The Media Before It Uses You
Join us for Empower DC’s next Empowerment Circle on how to effectively use and create media, an interactive training facilitated by Liane Scott, the coordinator of the Grassroots Media Project.
Wednesday, January 25 2012 6:30 – 8:30 PM Watha T Daniel/Shaw Neighborhood Library 1630 7th Street NW
Accessible by the Shaw/Howard Metro Station (Green and Yellow line) Use the 7th and R Street exit and its just a couple of steps away
Limited childcare is available for this meeting so please RSVP if you will need childcare. To RSVP or if you have any questions or concerns please contact Daniel del Pielago at 202-234-9119 ext. 104 or via email at Daniel@empowerdc.org
You can also contact me at 202-234-9119 ext. 106 or via email at Liane@grassrootsmediaproject.org. Although I’ve focused on education in the above example, the techniques we cover are good for any issue or concern. Developing a clear, concise message is the key to effectively advocating for your issue in the media. So please join us next Wednesday. If you can’t make it to the workshop, please forward this information to your progressive friends and acquaintances. If you’re angry about the treatment of the River Terrace community, then contact any or all of the following public officials:
Mayor Vincent Gray – call (202) 727-6300 or email Mayor@dc.gov
Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson – call (202) 442-5885 or email Kaya.Henderson@dc.gov
City Council Chairman Kwame Brown – call (202) 724-8174 or email kbrown@dccouncil.us
Ward 7 Councilmember Yvette Alexander – call (202) 724-8068 or email yalexander@dccouncil.us
Deputy Mayor for Education DeShawn Wright – call (202) 727-3636 or email dme@dc.gov
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