It’s indisputable that most students perform better academically when they have parents or adults to help with homework and to be advocates with teachers and principals.
But in many communities, parents who juggle multiple jobs, don’t speak much English, or have low levels of education often don’t have the time or resources to make meaningful connections to their child’s schooling experience.
That’s why some leading-edge districts have made it their job to reach out to families and create more welcoming and accessible ways for parents to be part of their children’s schooling.
In Washoe County, Nev., for example, the school district’s family-engagement work includes organizing home visits by teachers—and training those teachers to make the most of those face-to-face encounters in students’ homes.
In Federal Way, Wash., the leader of family-engagement efforts taps a diverse array of parents to serve on committees or task forces that inform major decision making in the district, including high-level hires.
Still, the specialized field of parent and family engagement has mostly been driven by ambitious leaders at the district level. And even in districts with robust programming, resources to support the work are often tight.
But new and potentially bigger forces are building around the need for schools and educators to forge deeper connections with parents and community members.
Philanthropists—in particular the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Carnegie Foundation of New York—are championing the flow of more money into family-engagement initiatives, including research to identify what efforts are effective.
And the federal budget has set aside $10 million to help fund efforts by several state education agencies and outside partners to develop strong parent and community programming.
The Every Student Succeeds Act also directs states and districts to develop plans to work with families and surrounding communities—a requirement that has spawned a multistate endeavor to create guidelines and exemplars for schools and districts to follow.
Advocates for building strong ties between schools and families say it’s a major opportunity for a proven, yet underutilized strategy to make schools better.
“There is a lot of excitement, and more of an evolution in where both policymakers and funders feel like they want to increasingly put their money,” said Vito Borrello, the executive director for the National Association for Family, School, and Community Engagement…
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Eutaw Primary was selected from a pool of 400 schools to serve as an Alabama Bicentennial School. The very competitive process included schools throughout Alabama submitting applications and proposed projects. Alabama Bicentennial projects must foster community and civic engagement. Eutaw Primary will receive $2,000 in the fall to assist with implementation of the project. A press conference will be held in early August to recognize the Alabama Bicentennial School designees throughout the state. Congratulations Eutaw Primary School!
Add one more to the long list of recent DC public education scandals* in the era of education ‘reform’: DC’s NAEP** test scores are increasing at a lower rate now (after the elected school board was abolished in 2007) than they were in the decade before that.
This is true in every single subgroup I looked at: Blacks, Hispanics, Whites, 4th graders, 8th graders, in reading, and in math.
Forget what you’ve heard about DC being the fastest-growing school district. Our NAEP scores were going up faster before our first Chancellor, Michelle Rhee, was appointed than they have been doing since that date.
Last week, the 2017 NAEP results were announced at the National Press Club building here on 14th Street NW, and I went in person to see and compare the results of 10 years of education ‘reform’ after 2007 with the previous decade. When I and others used the NAEP database and separated out average scale scores for black, Hispanic, and white students in DC, at the 4th and 8th grade levels, in both reading and math, even I was shocked:
In every single one of these twelve sub-groups, the rate of change in scores was WORSE (i.e., lower) after 2007 (when the chancellors took over) than it was before that date (when we still had an elected school board).
I published the raw data, taken from the NAEP database, as well as graphs and short analyses, on my blog, (gfbrandenburg.wordpress.com) which you can inspect if you like. I will give you two examples:
In the year 2000, the first year for which I had comparable data, that group got an average scale score of 188 (on a scale of 0 – 500). In the year 2007, the last year under the elected school board, their average scale score was 209, which is an increase of 21 points in 7 years, for an average increase of 3.0 points per year, pre-‘reform’.
After a decade of ‘reform’ DC’s black fourth grade students ended up earning an average scale score of 224, which is an increase of 15 points over 10 years. That works out to an average growth of 1.5 points per year, under direct mayoral control.
So, in other words, Hispanic fourth graders in DC made twice the rate of progress on the math NAEP under the elected school board than they did under Chancellors Rhee, Henderson, and Wilson.
In 1998, the first year for which I had data, Hispanic 8th graders in DC got an average scale score of 246 (again on a scale of 0-500). In 2007, which is the last year under the elected board of education, they earned an average scale score of 249, which is an increase of only 3 points.
However, in 2017, their counterparts received an average scale score of 242. Yes, the score went DOWN by 7 points.
So, under the elected board of education, the scores for 8th grade Latinx students went up a little bit. But under direct mayoral control and education ‘reform’, their scores actually dropped.
That’s only two examples. There are actually twelve such subgroups (3 ethnicities, times 2 grade levels, times 2 subjects), and in every single case progress was worse after 2007 than it was beforehand.
*For many years, DC officials and the editorial board of the Washington Post have been bragging that the educational ‘reforms’ enacted under Chancellor Michelle Rhee and her successors have made DCPS the fastest-improving school district in the entire nation. (See https://wapo.st/2qPRSGw or https://wapo.st/2qJn7Dh for just two examples.)
It didn’t matter how many lies Chancellor Rhee told about her own mythical successes in a privately run school in Baltimore (see https://wapo.st/2K28Vgy ). She also got away with falsehoods about the necessity of firing hundreds of teachers mid-year for allegedly being sexual predators or abusers of children (see https://wapo.st/2qNGxqB ); there were always acolytes like Richard Whitmire willing to cheer her on publicly (see https://wapo.st/2HC0zOj ), even though the charges were false.
A lot of stories about widespread fraud in the District of Columbia public school system have hit the front pages recently. Examples:
Teachers and administrators were pressured to give passing grades and diplomas to students who missed so much school (and did so little work) that they were ineligible to pass – roughly one-third of last year’s graduating class. (see https://bit.ly/2ngmemi ) You may recall that the rising official (but fake) high school graduation rate in Washington was a used as a sign that the reforms under direct mayoral control of education had led to dramatic improvements in education here.
Schools pretended that their out-of-school suspension rates had been dropping, when in actual fact, they simply were suspending students without recording those actions in the system. (see https://wapo.st/2HhbARS )
Less than half of the 2018 senior class is on track to graduate because of truancy, failed classes, and the like. ( see https://bit.ly/2K5DFx9 )
High-ranking city officials, up to and including the Chancellor himself, cheated the system by having their own children bypass long waiting lists and get admitted to favored schools. (see https://wapo.st/2Hk3HLi )
A major scandal in 2011 about adults erasing and changing student answer sheets on the DC-CAS test at many schools in DC in order to earn bonuses and promotions was unfortunately swept under the rug. (see https://bit.ly/2HR4c0q )
About those “public” charter schools that were going to do such a miraculous job in educating low-income black or brown children that DCPS teachers supposedly refused to teach? Well, at least forty-six of those charter schools (yes, 46!) have been closed down so far, either for theft, poor performance on tests, low enrollment, or other problems. (see https://bit.ly/2JcxIx9 ).
NAEP, or the National Assessment of Educational Progress, is given about every two years to a carefully chosen representative sample of students all over the USA. It has a searchable database that anybody with a little bit of persistence can learn to use: https://bit.ly/2F5LHlS .
I did not do any comparable measurements for Asian-Americans or Native Americans or other such ethnic/racial groups because their populations in DC are so small that in most years, NAEP doesn’t report any data at all for them.
In the past, I did not find big differences between the scores of boys and girls, so I didn’t bother looking this time.
Other categories I could have looked at, but didn’t, include: special education students; students whose first language isn’t English; economically disadvantaged students; the various percentiles; and those just in DCPS versus all students in DC versus charter school students. Feel free to do so, and report what you find!
My reason for not including figures separated out for only DCPS, and only DC Charter Schools, is that NAEP didn’t provide that data before about 2011. I also figured that the charter schools and the regular public schools, together, are in fact the de-facto public education system that has grown under both the formerly elected school board and the current mayoral system, so it was best to combine the two together.
I would like to thank Mary Levy for compiling lots of data about education in DC, and Matthew Frumin for pointing out these trends. I would also like to thank many DC students, parents, and teachers (current or otherwise) who have told me their stories.
HISD trustees will continue their slate of public meetings at schools labelled “improvement required” campuses by the Texas Education Agency, with the next one taking place at Worthing High School to discuss its fate and that of feeder school, Woodson Middle School.
The meeting is Wednesday, March 21 at 6 p.m. at Worthing, 9215 Scott St.
“Worthing is part of 10 schools slated for closure, so we want to update parents and the community on what the two bills mean – House Bill 1842 and Senate Bill 1882,” said HISD Trustee Wanda Adams.
According to HISD, Worthing and Woodson have fallen behind academically over the last four years and per state law (HB 1842) must meet all state standards this year or face closure or have an appointed management entity run the schools.
Senate Bill 1882 offers what some see as a ray of hope in the form of options allowing these schools to form outside partnerships, avoiding closure and total takeover.
Adams said such a partnership “would give Worthing two more years [to meet state standards] and up to $1000 per student.”
“Students have been working hard to show some growth. Still, closure is a real possibility. Unfortunately, this is what Worthing is facing because of the long history of not meeting standards. We want people to know the truth,” Adams added.
Adams said current plans for Worthing – making it an International Baccalaureate campus or a career and technology school – will also be discussed at the meeting. She added that discussions have begun with potential partnership institutions, including Texas Southern University.
Whatever plan will be enacted must be voted on and passed by the board by April 30, though the board’s only meeting before that date is April 10, increasing the sense of urgency for the March 21 meeting even more.
Shown above at the Eutaw City Park L to R: Mt. Hebron Coalition Members Severe Strode, and Johnni Morning, Eutaw Mayor Raymond Steele, Extension Secretary Mary Beck, Extension Coordinator Lovie Parks and Expanded Food and Nutrition Educational Program Director Mary Henley.
GREEN COUNTY DEMOCRAT — The Eutaw City Park on Lock 7 Road now has state-of-the-art playground equipment, secured with an AlProHealth grant through Auburn University Extension Program coordinated by Greene County Extension Coordinator Mrs. Lovie Parks. The grant also provides fencing around the park grounds. “The total investment in the park by Auburn Extension exceeds $40,000,” stated Ms. Parks.
According to Eutaw Mayor Raymond Steele, this project has been in the works for some time.
“We are also committed to adding a concession stand and a large pavilion with restrooms to make the park comparable to other state-of-the art parks in the state,” he said.
The playground unit will be available to children, ages 12 and under, from 7:00 a.m. until sundown. He noted that the park is also available to the community for special events such as reunions, birthday parties and more, by contacting the city for reservations.
Other benefits to Greene County by the Auburn Extension Program include providing the benches on the old courthouse square in Eutaw.
The Mt. Hebron Coalition has also benefited from an ALProHealth grant. The SCORE Center, originally organized by Betsy and Reola Bizzell, received funds for exercise equipment and other related live well programs. The SCORE Center is open to the community, serving seniors as well as youth. Johnni Morning, a Mt. Hebron Coalition Member, stated that along with the exercise equipment, internet service is also available at the Score Center. She noted that the public is invited to join the exercise program on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, at the SCORE Center (old Mt. Hebron Pre-School) from 4:30 – 6:30 p.m. ages 18 and older. Marvin Childs serves a president of the Mt. Hebron Coalition.
Mrs. Parks emphasized that a big component of the Auburn Extension program is building unity, bringing families and the community together. “The goal of ALProHealth includes increasing physical activity, improving nutrition, reducing obesity, and preventing and controlling diabetes, heart disease, and stroke by promoting community wellness,” she stated.
The Extension Program also sponsors after school programs, community gardens and various live well programs, partnering with churches and community groups.
