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[108 Senate Hearings]
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S. Hrg. 108-774
PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOLS IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
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HEARING
before a
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SPECIAL HEARING
MAY 4, 2004--WASHINGTON, DC
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/
senate
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COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
TED STEVENS, Alaska, Chairman
THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia
ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii
PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico ERNEST F. HOLLINGS, South Carolina
CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont
MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky TOM HARKIN, Iowa
CONRAD BURNS, Montana BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland
RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama HARRY REID, Nevada
JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire HERB KOHL, Wisconsin
ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah PATTY MURRAY, Washington
BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL, Colorado BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota
LARRY CRAIG, Idaho DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois
MIKE DeWINE, Ohio TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana
James W. Morhard, Staff Director
Lisa Sutherland, Deputy Staff Director
Terence E. Sauvain, Minority Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on the District of Columbia
MIKE DeWINE, Ohio, Chairman
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana
KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois
TED STEVENS, Alaska (ex officio) ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia (ex
officio)
Professional Staff
Mary Dietrich
Kate Eltrich (Minority)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Opening Statement of Senator Mike DeWine......................... 1
Statement of Senator Mary L. Landrieu............................ 2
Prepared Statement........................................... 4
Statement of Senator Richard J. Durbin........................... 7
Statement of Thomas Loughlin, Chair, District of Columbia Public
Charter School Board........................................... 8
Prepared Statement........................................... 10
Historical Context............................................... 10
Obtaining Facilities in a Competitive Real Estate Market......... 11
NCLB Concerns.................................................... 13
Board's New Initiatives.......................................... 13
Statement of Josephine Baker, Executive Director, District of
Columbia Public Charter School Board........................... 14
Statement of Peggy Cooper Cafritz, President, District of
Columbia Board of Education.................................... 15
Prepared Statement........................................... 16
Statement of Ariana Quinones-Miranda, Executive Director,
District of Columbia Public Charter School Association......... 29
Prepared Statement........................................... 30
Statement of Joe Nathan, Director, Center for School Change,
Humphrey Institute, University of Minnesota.................... 33
Prepared Statement........................................... 35
Why Did Legislators Adopt Charter Legislation?................... 35
What Is the Charter Idea?........................................ 36
What Is Known About the Impact of Charter Schools on Students?... 36
What Is the Impact of the Charter Movement on the Larger District
Sys-
tem?........................................................... 38
How Can Congress Maximize the Positive Impact of This Movement?.. 39
Statement of David Domenici, Co-founder, Maya Angelou Public
Charter School, Washington, DC................................. 48
Prepared Statement........................................... 51
Statement of Eric S. Adler, Founder, SEED Foundation, Washington,
DC............................................................. 53
Prepared Statement........................................... 55
The SEED School of Washington, DC Offers a Comprehensive,
Visionary Solution to Previously Intractable Educational and
Social Problems................................................ 56
Issue No. 1.--Development of a Solid Operating Business.......... 56
Issue No. 2.--Facilities......................................... 57
Issue No. 3.--School Size and Culture............................ 57
Issue No. 4.--Meeting the Non-educational Needs of Students and
Families in Order to Make it Possible for Students to Focus on
School......................................................... 58
Issue No. 5.--Entrepreneurialism................................. 58
Issue No. 6.--Student Assessment and Promotion................... 58
Statement of Joshua Kern, Co-founder and President, Thurgood
Marshall Academy, Washington, DC............................... 59
Prepared Statement........................................... 61
PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOLS IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
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TUESDAY, MAY 4, 2004
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on the District of Columbia,
Committee on Appropriations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met at 10:05 a.m., in room SD-138, Dirksen
Senate Office Building, Hon. Mike DeWine (chairman) presiding.
Present: Senators DeWine, Landrieu, and Durbin.
opening statement of senator mike de wine
Senator DeWine. Good morning. The subcommittee will come to
order.
Today, we will hear some good news about the success of
public charter schools here in the District of Columbia. There
are 43 charter schools, serving about 12,000 students, in our
Nation's Capital. Starting in 1995, it has been one of the
fastest growing charter school movements in the country. In
fact, about 15 percent of all public school children in the
District now attend public charter schools.
To provide a bit of background, charter schools are non-
sectarian public schools that are free from many of the
regulations that apply to traditional public schools. The
charter establishing each school is a performance contract
detailing the school's mission, programs, goals, student
served, methods of assessment and ways to measure success.
The length of time for which charters are granted varies,
but most are for 3 to 5 years. At the end of the term, the
entity granting the charter may renew the school's contract.
Charter schools are accountable to their sponsor, usually a
State or a local school board, to produce positive academic
results and adhere to the charter contract. That is the basic
concept.
Forty-one States and the District of Columbia have passed
public charter school laws, often in response to the demands of
parents. Parents can send their children to public charter
schools that focus on fine or performing arts, foreign language
immersion, math, science and technology, or college-prep
liberal arts. There are also charter boarding schools, charter
schools for students who have dropped out of traditional
schools, and charter schools for children with disabilities.
This subcommittee has been very supportive of the
District's charter school movement. When Senator Landrieu
chaired this subcommittee 2 years ago, she worked very hard to
provide $17 million in Federal funds for a credit enhancement
fund to allow charter schools to borrow money to construct and
renovate facilities. This was in recognition that the number
one challenge for charter schools is finding and renovating
appropriate classroom space. This subcommittee continued to
support charter schools by providing $13 million in last year's
D.C. appropriations bill to expand the number of charter
schools here in the city.
Today, our first panel will discuss challenges facing
charter schools as they expand in the District of Columbia. The
witnesses on our second panel are all founders and directors of
innovative charter schools in the District. They will share
some exciting success stories about their schools, as well as
the individual issues and challenges facing their respective
schools.
Witnesses today will be limited to 5 minutes for their oral
remarks in order to leave time for questions and answers.
Copies of all written statements will be placed in the record
in their entirety.
Let me again recognize Senator Landrieu for her great work
on this committee, but especially thank her and applaud her for
all the hard work she has done for charter schools nationally,
and particularly here in the District of Columbia. She has been
a champion for charter schools since their inception and she
continues to lead the charge for increased funding and support
for these innovative schools.
Mary, thank you for your very hard work and let me now turn
to you for your comments.
statement of senator mary l. landrieu
Senator Landrieu. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate
those comments and, of course, acknowledge the work that we
have done together along with many other members of both the
House and the Senate to improve public school choices for
residents in the District, to help this school district to
serve as a model in many ways for the Nation, and our continued
work together to improve public education in our home States as
well as across the country.
Today, I am pleased, Mr. Chairman, that you have agreed to
hold this hearing today on charter schools, which are
independent public schools designed and operated by educators,
parents, community leaders, educational entrepreneurs and
others. They are sponsored by designated local or State
organizations who monitor their quality and effectiveness, but
allow them to operate with greater flexibility than is
available within the traditional system.
The basic premise upon which most, but not all charter
schools are founded is increased autonomy in return for
accountability. As many of you may know, this week is National
Charter School Week, so it is appropriate that this hearing be
held in our Nation's Capital. During this time, we take time to
reflect and celebrate one of the fastest-growing, innovative
forces in education policy today, the charter school.
In 1991, Minnesota passed the first charter school law,
with California following suit in 1992. In the 12 years since,
42 States and the District of Columbia have enacted laws for
the creation of charter schools. This morning as we gathered
for this hearing, over 600,000 students are on their way to
2,996 charter schools throughout the Nation.
I am proud to say that cities such as Washington, DC, and,
Mr. Chairman, your city of Dayton, Ohio, have enrolled upwards
of 17 percent of all their school-age children in charter
schools, showing their openness to innovation and improvement
in the public school system.
The demand for these schools remains high, with more than
70 percent of charter schools having waiting lists that, if
combined, could fill at least 900 more schools.
There is no question that the charter school movement has
served as a catalyst for change within our public school
system. The question is why? What are charter schools able to
offer to students and parents that traditional public schools
are not? Are charter schools everything they promised to be?
What impact will the growth of charter schools have on the
public education system as we know it today and what are the
lessons learned to date?
What are the real and perceived barriers preventing future
growth of the charter school movement, and can charter schools
be used not only to increase student performance, parental
satisfaction and public accountability, but can they also be
used as a catalyst for neighborhood revitalization, attracting
new residents to cities throughout our country? These are but a
few questions that I hope we will be able to begin to answer
today.
While the evidence is not yet conclusive as to whether the
charter school movement as a whole is increasing student
performance, early reports are very promising. Although charter
schools are typically but not always educating students with
the greatest need, objective surveys and reports show that the
academic progress among charter school students are outpacing
those of cohorts in traditional public schools.
Those successes include gains in reading and math
performance, test scores that are sometimes higher, and State
and neighborhood schools with parental involvement, higher
attendance and fewer disciplinary problems. Again, this is not
across the board, but there are promising results that show
some extremely promising outcomes in some of our charter
schools.
In addition, charter schools have demonstrated that it is
possible to combine fiscal responsibility and corporate
management techniques while providing a high-quality education.
Many charter schools are using strategies such as performance-
based pay, professional development and advancement
opportunities to attract and retain a high-quality teaching
force, which is a challenge across the board.
Our reason for holding this hearing this morning is to
highlight the successes of charter schools and to examine the
challenges they face, to be clear about some of the failures
and why, and to understand, if there are failures, what is
causing them and what are the consequences of failure.
There is no more appropriate place to hold this hearing
today than in our Nation's Capital. I am proud to report that
the District of Columbia, along with other innovative
techniques to improve schools and school choice for parents, is
a leader in the national school movement for charter schools.
I will submit the rest of this, Mr. Chairman, for the
record to save some time, but I would like to acknowledge the
work that this committee and Congress has done with local
leaders in setting up a credit enhancement program; a direct
loan fund establishing stable per-pupil facility allotments,
which is critical to the start-up of charter schools; and a new
initiative underway in the District called CityBuild Charters,
which will add to the strength of the charter school movement,
and perhaps will begin to identify neighborhoods that are prime
or near-term for neighborhood revitalization to provide a good
choice of education for potential residents in the District of
Columbia.
prepared statement
I am thankful for all those who came today to participate
in our hearing and am looking forward to hearing again what are
the lessons learned, how do we move forward, what can we do to
improve options and to improve the entire public school system
in the District of Columbia.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Senator Mary L. Landrieu
As many of you know, this week is National Charter School Week.
During this time, we, as a Nation, take the time to reflect on and
celebrate one of the fastest growing innovative forces in education
policy, the charter school. In 1991, Minnesota passed the first charter
school law, with California following suit in 1992. In the 12 years
since, 42 States and the District of Columbia have enacted laws
allowing for the creation of charter schools. This morning, over
600,000 students are on their way to 2,996 charter schools. Cities such
as Washington, DC and Dayton, Ohio are enrolling upwards of 17 percent
of all of their school age children in charter schools. And the demand
for these schools remains high, with more than 75 percent of charter
schools having waiting lists that if combined could fill at least 900
more schools.
There is no question that the charter school movement has served as
a catalyst for change from within our public school system, the
question is why? What are charter schools able to offer to students and
parents that the traditional public schools are not? Are charter
schools everything they promise to be? What impact will the growth of
charter schools have on the public education system as we know it
today? What are the lessons learned to date? What are the real and
perceived barriers preventing future growth? Can charter schools be
used not only increase student performance, parental satisfaction, and
public accountability, but can they also be used as a catalyst for
neighborhood revitalization? These are but a few of the questions that
I hope we will be able to begin to answer today.
Before we begin, we must first answer the most basic of questions,
what is a charter school? The simple answer is this. Charter schools
are independent public schools designed and operated by educators,
parents, community leaders, educational entrepreneurs, and others. They
are sponsored by designated local or State educational organizations,
who monitor their quality and effectiveness but allow them to operate
with greater flexibility than is available within the traditional
system. The basic premise upon which most charter schools are founded
is increased autonomy in return for accountability.
Studies show that the primary reason for the rapid growth in the
number of charter schools was the unmet desire of education reformers
to find a way to ``step out of the box'' that had become our public
school system. In fact, nearly two-thirds of newly created charter
schools reported that their reason for becoming a charter school was to
realize an alternative vision of schooling, and an additional one-
quarter of newly created schools were founded because of the need to
serve a special target population of students. Perhaps even more
intriguing, more than one-third of pre-existing public schools report
that they converted to charter status in order to gain autonomy from
district and State regulations. Increased autonomy and structural
flexibility results in charter schools being able to embrace innovation
and customize educational options to the needs of the students they
serve.
What makes this movement work, however, is that this freedom is not
without a price. In exchange for greater flexibility, charter schools
are held accountable for both academic results and fiscal practices by
several groups: the sponsor that grants them, the parents who choose
them, and the public that funds them. Under the terms of their charter,
charter schools are expected to meet annual performance goals usually
tied to the improvement of student achievement. Unlike a traditional
public school, if a charter school is not performing, they face
immediate and grave consequences, including closure. To date, more than
200 failed or failing public charter schools have been closed on
fiscal, educational and organizational grounds.
While the evidence is not yet conclusive as to whether the charter
school movement as a whole is increasing student performance, early
reports are very promising. Although charter schools are typically, but
not always, educating students with the greatest need objective surveys
and reports show that the academic progress among charter schools
students outpacing that of their cohorts in traditional public schools.
Those successes included gains in reading and math performances; test
scores higher than district, State and neighborhood schools; increased
parental involvement; and higher attendance and fewer disciplinary
problems.
But the benefits of charter schools go beyond just student
performance. An unexpected beneficiary of the charter school movement
has been low income and minority youth, many of whom would otherwise be
trapped in a failing school. Almost 40 percent of students attending
charter schools in the United States are eligible for free and reduced
price lunch. According to the National Center for Education Statistics,
27.3 percent of the students in charter schools were Black (compared to
16.9 percent in traditional Public schools); 20.8 percent were of
Hispanic origin (compared to 14.9 percent); and 2.3 percent were Native
Americans (compared to 1.2 percent).
Charter schools also provide greater diversity amongst their
teachers. This racial diversity has the advantage of the teacher being
able to understand better the background and the culture of minority
children and therefore helping them to achieve better academic results.
The NCES (1999-2000) reports that 15.5 percent of teachers in charter
schools are Black (compared to 8.9 percent in traditional public
schools); 8.1 percent are Hispanics (compared to 5.2 percent).
In addition, charter schools have demonstrated that it is possible
to combine fiscal responsibility and corporate management techniques
while providing a high quality education. Many charter schools use
strategies such as performance based pay, professional development and
advancement opportunities to attract and retain a high quality teaching
force. On average, the class and school sizes are smaller than the
traditional public schools. And yet, the average per-pupil cost in
charter schools is $4,507 versus the average traditional schools cost
of more than $7,000 per pupil (NCES). Are charter schools really doing
more with less?
Finally, perhaps one of the greatest assets of the charter school
movement is customization of educational opportunities to the needs of
our young people. Many charter schools provide students with an
opportunity to become bilingual, develop art and music skills, master
technology or focus on science and math. This type of customization is
not only important in a global economy that will reward such skills but
critical in serving the needs of a highly diverse student population.
What the charter school movement recognizes, and the traditional public
schools have also begun to acknowledge, is that every child is
different and so too, is their way of learning.
In addition, charter schools have demonstrated that it is possible
to combine fiscal responsibility and corporate management techniques
with providing a high quality education. Many charter schools use
strategies such as performance based pay, professional development and
advancement opportunities to attract and retain a high quality teaching
force. On average, the class and school sizes are smaller than the
traditional public schools. And yet, the average per-pupil cost in
charter schools is $4,507 versus the average traditional schools cost
of more than $7,000 per pupil (NCES). Are charter schools really doing
more with less?
Our reason for holding this hearing this morning is to highlight
the success of charter schools and to examine the challenges they face.
There is no more appropriate place to hold this hearing than here, in
our Nation's capital. I am proud to report that the District of
Columbia has become a leader in the national movement for innovation in
education by vigorously implementing charter school law. As a result,
they have the highest per capita enrollment in charter schools in the
United States. With over 14,000 students attending 39 schools, the
District of Columbia has demonstrated the power charter schools can
have in improving parental satisfaction and student achievement.
Since the beginning of the charter school movement in the District
of Columbia, the Federal Government has been a strong and aggressive
partner, working to establish the support network, through legislation
and funding, to promote charter schools. In fact, the legislation to
create charter schools, The School Reform Act of 1995, which
established the framework for the current chartering boards, was
initiated through Congressional action. In addition, this D.C.
subcommittee has created several resources to support charter schools,
particularly focusing on the challenge of acquiring adequate facilities
and comprehensive technical support for start ups. These include the
Credit Enhancement Program, Direct Loan Fund, and a relatively stable
per-pupil facilities allotment. And finally, the U.S. Department of
Education operates the Federal Credit Enhancement Program. Recently, ED
released $37 million in grants, of which the District was competitively
awarded $5 million. I intend to submit the full legislative history of
charter schools in the District of Columbia for the record.
The main focus of this hearing is not the past, but the future.
What are the real successes of the D.C. charter schools? What is the
process for identifying schools that are failing and closing them down?
What is the process of identifying and rewarding charter schools that
have been successful? What are the real and perceived barriers to
future growth of charter schools here in the district? Can charter
schools be used, as is contemplated by City Build Charters, be used to
further neighborhood revitalization? Again, I hope this hearing will
allow us to begin to answer some of these important questions.
Today we are thankful to have representatives from the two
authorities in the District which charter new charter schools--the D.C.
School Board represented by their President Peggy Cooper Cafritz; and
the Public Charter School Board represented by the Chairman Tom
Loughlin. In addition, the first panel has nationally recognized expert
Dr. Joe Nathan, here from Minneapolis and the Center for School Change
to discuss the best practices in national trends. Also, we are pleased
to welcome Ariana Quinones in one of her first acts as the Director of
the newly formed Public Charter School Association.
The second panel is made up of three of the best and brightest
founders of charter schools in the District.
Maya Angelou Public Charter School and the See Forever Foundation
founded 5 years ago by David Domenici and James Forman, Jr. See Forever
was designed as a holistic program for teens involved in the juvenile
justice system. Court-involved teens told Mr. Domenici and Mr. Forman
that they wanted to earn money, learn marketable skills, and gain
responsibility. When they returned to school, they also wanted to
attend small classes with teachers who cared about them, and they
wanted help making hard decisions.
Opened in 1997 as a comprehensive program for a small number of
teens, as the Maya Angelou Public Charter School 1998, in 2000, See
Forever moved into a newly-renovated campus in the historic Odd Fellows
Building at the corner of 9th and T Street NW, which houses all of our
programs.
See Forever students take part in our activities year round, for up
to 10 hours per day during the traditional school year, and for 6 to 8
hours per day during the summer. They attend class at The Maya Angelou
Public Charter School, work part-time at one of our two student-run
businesses--Untouchable Taste Catering and the Student Technology
Center, and participate in activities ranging from internships to
summer programs to team-building exercises.
The SEED Foundation was founded in 1997 by Eric Adler and Rajiv
Vinnakota to establish urban boarding schools that prepare children,
both academically and socially, for success in college and in the
professional world beyond. The SEED Foundation opened its first school,
The SEED Public Charter School of Washington, DC, in 1998, to provide
urban children with an intensive college preparatory boarding
education. The SEED School serves 305 students in grades 7 through 12
whose challenging circumstances might otherwise prevent them from
fulfilling their academic and social potential.
For some children, only a 24-hour-a-day school program can provide
the security and stability they need to succeed. With the belief that
an integrated program can accomplish more than services pieced together
from day and after-school programs, The SEED School set out to provide
its students with consistent, holistic services. The result is a
boarding school program that provides a comprehensive solution for the
challenges facing many inner-city youth. The School provides students
with comfortable accommodations, three nutritious meals a days,
opportunities for physical exercise, two school psychologists, college
and career counselors and an elaborate network of support consisting of
parents, teachers, boarding instructors, counselors and boarding
community coordinators.
Thurgood Marshall Academy Public Charter High School (TMA) serves
at-risk, low-income high school students in Southeast Washington, DC.
President & Chief Executive Officer Joshua M. Kern initiated the effort
that led to the creation of Thurgood Marshall Academy Public Charter
High School (TMA) while serving as a teacher at Frank W. Ballou High
School in Southeast Washington, DC, as a participant in the D.C. Street
Law clinical program at Georgetown University Law Center.
As the first law-related charter high school in the District of
Columbia, Thurgood Marshall Academy's mission is to prepare students to
succeed in college and to actively engage in our democratic society.
TMA helps students develop their own voices by teaching them the skills
lawyers have--the ability to solve complex problems, think critically,
and advocate persuasively for themselves and their communities. These
skills are important in and transferable to college and work settings.
The school offers a rigorous college-preparatory curriculum integrated
with youth development programs tailored to the individual needs of
each student, with the aim of helping these students reach their full
potential academically and, eventually, as members of the workforce.
Senator DeWine. Senator Landrieu, thank you very much.
Senator Durbin.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR RICHARD J. DURBIN
Senator Durbin. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and
thank you, Senator Landrieu, for your interest in this subject.
I am going to monitor this hearing, though I won't be able to
stay for the entire hearing.
For reasons I cannot explain, the District of Columbia has
become my second constituency, by choice, I suppose, since I
came here 40 years ago as a student and have spent a major part
of my life in the District of Columbia. I have always tried to
defer to the judgment and authority of the people of the
District of Columbia to decide their fate. Some of my
colleagues don't feel that way; they think that they know best
for the District of Columbia.
This committee and the members have really tried to improve
the quality of life in the District of Columbia, and certainly
we start with education, as we find in virtually every city in
our great Nation. I think the charter school movement is a good
one. We have it in Illinois and many other States. It was
controversial to start with, but I think there are times when
we have to look for new ideas in education. But we have to hold
them to the same levels of accountability as public schools.
That is the only fair way to judge. In this situation, we have
to determine whether charter schools are, in fact, moving the
kids who attend in the right direction.
There is a self-selection process in charter schools, which
means that parents and students who are likely to go there
first, and those that care less are likely to stay behind,
perhaps in a public school that is not performing. So it may
not be easy to compare the two.
I am heartened by the fact that the teacher standards
required in the District of Columbia for charter schools are
the same as public schools. I think that makes sense. When we
had this same issue before us when it came to the voucher
system for other private schools, the Senate Appropriations
Committee expressly voted not to hold teachers in the voucher
private schools to the same standards of education and training
as we do in the public and charter schools in the District of
Columbia.
That may be a noble experiment, but it is not one that we
are ready to sign up for for the rest of America. In fact, we
are going in the opposite direction. We are saying we want
higher and higher standards for teachers in public schools
across America and have created an exception here.
I am anxious to hear the results, and I know we have some
great witnesses before us. I will be popping in and out of here
during the course of the hearing, and I thank you for calling
this, Mr. Chairman.
Senator DeWine. Very good. Thank you very much.
Let me introduce our first panel, and I would ask them to
come now as I am introducing them.
Mr. Thomas Loughlin is the Chairman of the District of
Columbia Public Charter School Board. Accompanying him is Ms.
Josephine Baker, Executive Director of the Board. Ms. Peggy
Cooper Cafritz is the Chairman of the District of Columbia
Public School Board. Ms. Ariana Quinones is the Executive
Director of the District of Columbia Public Charter School
Association. Dr. Joseph Nathan is the Director of the Center
for School Change at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute.
We thank you all very much for being with us, and we will
start from my left to right and we will start with Mr.
Loughlin.
STATEMENT OF THOMAS LOUGHLIN, CHAIR, DISTRICT OF
COLUMBIA PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL BOARD
Mr. Loughlin. Thank you. Good morning. I would like to
thank you, Chairman DeWine and Senators Landrieu and Durbin,
for holding these hearings and for all the really excellent
support that we have gotten in our charter school community
from this committee.
While I am here, I would also like to acknowledge and thank
our elected representative, Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, who
has taken on many occasions the opportunity to assist our
charter schools and the charter school community, in general.
The effort of what has taken place here on Capitol Hill has had
just a tremendous positive impact on the growth of charter
schools in the District and on the children in the District of
Columbia.
A little bit of historical context. Our board was formed in
1997 and our first charter schools opened in the fall of 1998,
with just slightly over 2,000 students. To fast-forward to
today, we are at 22 charter schools. Our board has approved 22
charters, on 25 campuses. We have 10,000 students in those
schools, and this fall that population will increase to 12,000.
Combined with the Board of Ed's charter schools, there are
approximately 13,000 students now, and there will be
approximately 17,000 charter school students in the fall. So
that will represent roughly 23 percent of the public school
population in the District.
The schools that we have chartered--and it has been noted
here from the dais--have had tremendous community impacts in
the neighborhoods of the District of Columbia. We can see the
transformative effects that the schools have from the
standpoint of cleaning up, fixing up and being catalysts within
neighborhoods and communities.
At the same time, the schools are offering some excellent
educational options to the children and to the families of the
District of Columbia, some of which were noted by Chairman
DeWine--the Nation's only urban boarding school, vocational
programs, programs for drop-outs, programs geared toward
English language learners.
The performance of the charter schools is encouraging, as
Senator Landrieu pointed out. I would say at the elementary
schools and at the middle schools, we have seen some strong
signs of academic progress. The high school levels have been
more challenging; it has been a more difficult path. The
students in many cases are coming in years behind grade level.
On the other hand, we have had tremendous success with
retaining those children in the high schools and seeing them
all the way through to graduation, and then having really
terrific college acceptance rates for these children. So that
has been a great success story at the high school level.
Our board is very focused on maintaining rigorous standards
for new charter school applications. We believe in chartering
high-quality programs. A couple of years ago, we had a handful
of applications and we didn't charter any schools because we
didn't think that they were up to the appropriate standards.
In the most recent cycle, we received 11 applications and
we chartered 6 of those. We have received, I believe, 90
applications to date; we have chartered 29. So we are very
focused on chartering schools that we believe will be
successful, and then on the monitoring processes and working
with those schools to see that they will be successful.
While we are very pleased with the growth of the charter
school programs and the quality of those programs, we believe
there are still some significant issues that will need to be
addressed to see greater growth in charter schools in the city.
I would like to speak to the facilities issue and have Ms.
Baker here speak to the No Child Left Behind standards.
On the facilities front, the charter schools have really
been struggling for a long time, and you have heard us all on
this committee talk about this for quite a while. The committee
has been very supportive. We have certainly received some
funding there. I always want more, so I will characterize it as
frittering around the edges.
There are a lot of new schools opening up that need
facilities. It is a very, very tight commercial real estate
market here, the most competitive in the country, as I
understand it. Our facilities allowance has grown nicely over
the course of time. Our view is that the funding formula for
facilities is flawed, and we think it is going to create some
problems going forward. So I think this is a good time to step
back and look at how the facilities are funded for the charter
schools.
Right now, it is tied to the DCPS capital budget on a per-
pupil basis. I have probably oversimplified it there a little
bit, but generally speaking that is how it works. So as DCPS
needs more money to renovate schools, transformation schools,
et cetera, they float more bonds and then the per-pupil number
goes up and the charter schools receive a rolling average of
that for facilities. But over the course of time, those funding
needs may subside.
The funding formula isn't really tied to the school's
economic realities and the commercial real estate market. We
have one school that is paying more than double its facilities
allowance for its space. So we think that, definitely,
facilities funding needs some study and a more sustainable
manner of funding. It would be appropriate.
As I noted, the commercial real estate market being very
competitive, the amount of facilities that are available has
become an issue. It is very difficult for schools to secure
facilities. We have a school that has been notified by its
landlord that it will have to vacate its facilities at the end
of June. They are searching now for another facility to open up
for next fall, but there are not that many suitable facilities
available for these schools.
We have been anxious to see some more of the city's
inventory, some more of DCPS' inventory freed up. We have had
some progress in working with DCPS in that regard. And, of
course, we would like to see that accelerate. We would
certainly like to see some more facilities made available.
The paradigm right now for charter schools is scrimp and
save for a few years, build up equity of $1 or $2 million out
of their operating budget, and then be in a position to float
bonds. That is a very difficult way to secure sustainable
facilities.
The only other point before I ask Ms. Baker to pick up on
No Child Left Behind is the charter school law in terms of
other factors that can impact the growth and success of charter
schools going forward.
PREPARED STATEMENT
Senator DeWine. Mr. Loughlin, you are about 2 minutes over.
Mr. Loughlin. I am sorry. I apologize. Well, I will cut out
of that and----
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Thomas Loughlin
Good morning. I am Thomas Loughlin, Chair of the District of
Columbia Public Charter School Board. I am joined by Ms. Josephine
Baker, the Executive Director. On behalf of the Board and the schools
operating under our oversight, we are pleased to provide this committee
an update on charter schools' current status and the challenges they
currently face. Let me first begin by offering our Board's sincere
appreciation for the advocacy of our elected Congressional
representative, Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, who has on many
occasions illuminated charter schools' needs for support, particularly
around adequate facilities. We are also indebted to the members of this
subcommittee who have secured much needed additional funding for
facilities, credit enhancement and other financing opportunities from
the Federal Budget. Your efforts have made a tremendous difference to
public charter schools, a few of which might not be open today if not
for the lifeline provided to manage the escalating costs in the
commercial real estate market.
historical context
Since the Congress passed the law to create the D.C. Public Charter
School Board in 1997, the D.C. charter school movement has experienced
exciting growth. The first schools authorized by the PCSB opened in
1998 with 2,027 students enrolled. Parents, students, educators and
community leaders envisioned the possibilities of this innovative
alternative to traditional public education and have become involved in
growing numbers each year since. Currently, our Board oversees 22
charter schools, operating on 25 campuses in nearly every ward. The
current audited enrollment is 10,019. The projected enrollment of
schools under our authority for fall 2004 is over 12,000 students.
Public charter schools operating under our Board's authority account
for over 70 percent of total city-wide charter school enrollment.
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With 18 percent of public school students attending charter
schools, one of the highest per capita rates in the Nation, Washington,
DC has become a leading provider of public school choice.
Students who were previously limited by their neighborhoods and
economic circumstances now have a multitude of educational options.
With the great diversity of choices among charter schools, parents and
educators have come to embrace the concept that one kind of educational
approach does not fit all students. Parents can now choose between
programs that emphasize Math, Science, and Technology, the Arts and
Humanities, Language Immersion, College Prep, Character Development,
Public Policy and Civic Engagement, while others focus on the critical
fundamentals of literacy and math. Schools use diverse instructional
approaches including Expeditionary Learning, Family/Community Centered,
and vocational instruction among many others. There are schools that
cater to special needs students, dropouts, and English language
learners. Many have extended hours, Saturday classes and mandatory
summer preparation. One high school is the first and only urban
boarding charter school, located on a state of the art college-like
campus in far Southeast.
In addition to the fundamentals, students are learning analytical,
communication and technology skills in elementary through high school--
many skills which were not taught to previous generations of public
school students, but are critical for success in this rapidly evolving
global economy. We know of numerous examples of students who were
several grades behind and have since reached grade level with pride and
a love of learning. Many who never thought it possible are now enrolled
in college, having been prepared by one of the public charter high
schools. One of our high schools has maintained a 100 percent rate of
college acceptance among their graduating classes. All but one of the
other high schools have maintained exceptionally high percentages of
graduation and college acceptance rates. As you may know, this is
exceptional among public high schools in this city and nationwide.
We are extremely proud of what these dedicated teachers,
administrators, parents, and community members have accomplished in a
relatively short period of time. With continued growth in existing
schools, and new schools opening, it is our expectation that in the
very near future long waiting lists for the most popular charter
schools will be lessened, and every student in the city will have
access to quality, exciting public school experiences. Our Board is
intensely focused on maintaining rigorous standards for new charter
school applications, and holding existing schools accountable for
measurable student achievement. With adequate support, we can clearly
envision the important role that charter schools will play in making
Washington, DC a national example of excellence and innovation in
public education.
While we are extremely pleased with charter schools' achievements,
there are still very serious issues that must be addressed as we plan
for continued progress. The two major challenges that threaten to stall
charter schools' progress are the ongoing facilities needs, and the
numerous challenges associated with NCLB implementation and compliance.
obtaining facilities in a competitive real estate market
Members of this committee are well aware of the fact that public
charter schools must compete for facilities in a real estate market
that is rapidly appreciating. The District of Columbia has one of the
tightest commercial real estate markets in the country, with the lowest
commercial vacancy rate of any major city in 2003 (Colliers
International). Often, schools that wish to create optimal learning
spaces for their students are faced with the dilemma of having to fund
renovations in a new site while they carry the rental costs in their
current site. Construction costs are at their peak, as demand for real
estate within the District has soared.
The graph below illustrates the difference between the D.C. Rental
Rate trends and the facilities allowance, on a per pupil basis. (This
uses Class C office space as a proxy for the type of space that charter
schools typically seek to rent; applicable data on commercial real
estate purchases are harder to locate.)
<GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT>
Numerous charter schools are operating under leases that were
negotiated based on the expectation that the facilities funding will
increase at the very least in accordance with the established yearly
adjustments to the formula. One charter school pays a monthly lease of
$90,000, which is nearly twice its facilities allotment. This
particular school was forced out of its previous facility by commercial
development interests, and had the choice of accepting the exorbitant
lease or closing its school. Another school has just been notified by
its landlord that it will have to vacate its facilities at the end of
June. That school will likely be in a similar predicament in the coming
months. While charter schools struggle with this ongoing challenge,
buildings in DCPS' and the city's inventory remain unused or
underutilized. The City Council has committed to assisting charter
schools in accessing space in these facilities to lessen their pressure
to compete in a tight real estate market.
The Congress, and this committee in particular, have responded to
our concerns by appropriating additional funds associated with the
recently passed voucher program. As a result of this legislation,
several million dollars were made available for credit enhancements for
charter schools. This funding will provide a valuable source of
financing assistance to those schools that are in the position to
finance a building purchase or renovate existing space. However, the
majority of these funds are not direct grant support, but revolving
loans. Also, because they are appropriated to specific programs like
City Build, the D.C. Credit Enhancement Fund and Sallie Mae's Building
Hope Initiative, they will not benefit all charter schools. Only a
handful of schools will be selected for the City Build and Building
Hope assistance, and only those schools positioned to finance a
purchase or major renovation will apply for the Credit Enhancement
dollars.
It is particularly critical that appropriations--from the District
and Congressional sources--balance credit enhancement-type funding with
direct grant support. Schools can benefit by dollars leveraged through
credit enhancement and bond issuances--but only if they have adequate
and predictable income to service their debt. The direct support of the
D.C. charter schools facilities allowance is absolutely critical to the
viability of charter schools in our urban setting. We were startled
this spring to see the Mayor's proposed fiscal year 2005 budget freeze
the charter schools' facilities allowance. After discussion with his
staff, we now understand that that funding will be restored to its
legislatively prescribed level. Our Board's only concern is that these
Federal funds should not be misunderstood as a substitute for the local
dollars that fund expected, annual adjustment to the facilities
allowance.
We applaud and appreciate the committee's thoughtful appropriation
of these funds, but we encourage the committee to consider local
input--especially from the charter authorizing bodies responsible for
overseeing these schools--when you make future investments in D.C.
charter schools. We would be glad to provide information and insight
into the needs of these schools.
nclb concerns
Charter schools have expressed their concern about the Teacher
Quality provision of the NCLB legislation. Before NCLB, standards for
teacher quality were established by the Charter Law (School Reform Act
of 1995). The law required all teachers to have at least a bachelor's
degree, but specifically did not require certification. Without this
requirement, many charter schools were able to hire professionals with
rich backgrounds, extensive professional experiences and creative
approaches to teaching. Many of these individuals chose to leave
lucrative careers for an opportunity to impact young lives. Now, with
NCLB requirements for Highly Qualified Teachers looming, charter school
teachers are being told they must immediately take the required
coursework and the Praxis exam, or lose their positions. Under NCLB,
States may create an alternative route to reaching Highly Qualified
Teacher status through a High Objective Uniform Standard of Evaluation,
or ``HOUSE.'' The District of Columbia has not yet developed criteria
for an alternative HOUSE standard, which would allow very experienced
teachers to qualify under NCLB without undergoing the traditional
certification processes. So, charter schools are essentially being
forced to have their teachers complete nearly all the requirements of
traditional certification--contradicting the intent of the charter law.
The principles underlying the NCLB law are admirable, and this Board
supports the effort to ensure that all teachers are highly qualified to
serve our students. However, the timeline to comply is creating
numerous challenges to schools that are small and cannot as easily
compete for the small pool of teachers who meet these specific
requirements. In addition to the financial burdens associated with
securing adequate facilities, individual charter schools must also
compete with DCPS on salary and benefits to recruit teachers.
Compliance with NCLB is having a significant financial impact on
charter schools.
board's new initiatives
The Board has begun new initiatives to meet the demands of the
growing charter school population. Several new charter schools will
open this fall, and many charter schools have been approved to expand
their current enrollment ceilings. The number of schools authorized by
this Board will increase by 23 percent, and the student enrollment is
expected to increase by 20 percent this fall. In anticipation of this
growth, the Board will hire additional staff, increase office space and
expand its technical assistance to schools in the areas of special
education services, school governance, and No Child Left Behind
compliance and accountability. We have invested in greater capacity to
provide comprehensive data analysis, performance reporting and public
accountability of the schools we have authorized. Our Board is actively
engaged in strategic planning for the opportunities and challenges that
will inevitably come as a greater proportion of public school students
are enrolled in public charter schools.
conclusion
The D.C. Public Charter School Board is heartened by the intense
focus on improved public education currently being demonstrated by our
local elected leaders. Members of our staff have met with key staff
members in the offices of the Mayor and the City Council on specific
charter school concerns and possible solutions. We are increasingly
confident that new legislation and budget decisions will include this
Board's input. Though much remains to be done, we are also encouraged
by the increased collaboration between DCPS and charter schools, the
Board of Education Charter Office and the Public Charter School Board,
and between the chartering authorities and the State Education Office.
As local and national leaders work together to solve the persistent
challenges of adapting public education to the changing needs of this
society, this Board remains a committed partner in that process. We ask
that this committee support the City Council's efforts to invest
appropriately in per pupil and facilities funding for D.C. public
school students. In addition to approving the basic funding for D.C.
Public and Public Charter Schools, the PCSB realizes that this
committee also appropriates funds for programs that its members believe
will benefit the children of the District. Monies are earmarked to
cultural and community organizations so that they may offer programming
to D.C. public school students. These funds provide valuable services
to students, but they are often directed toward students of the DCPS
system rather than all public school children in the District. Our
Board urges this committee to make any such appropriations language
inclusive of charter school students.
As always, we are grateful for this committee's ongoing support of
this Board's work, and the efforts of our charter schools. Thank you
for this opportunity to provide this input and we invite any questions
you may have at this time.
Ms. Baker. I can wait if that is your preference.
Senator DeWine. Well, Ms. Baker, do you have some things to
add to this?
Ms. Baker. I was going to talk a little bit about No Child
Left Behind.
Senator DeWine. Okay. Why don't you do that now, then?
STATEMENT OF JOSEPHINE BAKER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL
BOARD
Ms. Baker. Thank you for the opportunity to talk with you
this morning. A couple of issues with No Child Left Behind, and
one of them, I think, as we look at the baseline that students
are supposed to meet in any given year is if you have new
charters starting, there is no allowance there for them to
establish some other baseline.
In other words, if, 2 years from now in the District
program, the baseline is, say, 60 percent proficient and they
start--and often charters do get those parents who have
concerns about the lack of progress of children and they start
with children who are way below. There is no way that they are
going to have time to build those children up to that level.
I don't know how that can be executed, but it is something
that I have talked about with those in the area of assessment
and those in the area of actually working with the progressive
steps that the District has put into place. We certainly have
no objection to the movement of children up the ladder. I mean,
that is what we are all about, but it does seem that we ought
to be able to look at what does a new school have to do to
establish itself. It should not in year 1 be considered, quote,
``a low-performing school'' simply because it just got started.
The other thing, I think, deals with teacher quality. We
believe that, yes, there have to be qualified teachers, but
what does that mean? I think I heard the statement that we have
the same standards. No, teachers in charter schools do not have
to be certified. They must have degrees. Now, the standard says
they must take the praxis in order to meet the other qualifier.
I think that one of the things that we would like to look
at is you have people who come into the teaching profession
with tremendous skills in their area of expertise, be it math,
be it science, be it government, or whatever, and many of these
people are successful teachers.
We came up with some creative things in our office that
might certainly work well. We sort of tried to think outside
the box, and to have the praxis is one thing, which is an exam
that, yes, does give you some indicators. But there are many
other indicators of individuals' ability to meet the needs of
students.
Certainly, you can look at the progress of the students
over a period of 2 or 3 years, and if every class of students
that a teacher has made progress, and significant progress, it
seems to me that this is one of the kinds of things that one
could implement.
Again, we believe that the proof is in the pudding, and our
pudding is accountability. And we have to see the success in
students moving along a pendulum, recognizing that most of our
schools start at a level of proficiency that is quite low
simply because we often get the students who are least prepared
to move up the pendulum.
So that is one of the things that we are very concerned
about: How do we maintain these teachers, because the
accountability is in the proficiency that students reach over
the long term. It is not 1 year, it is not 2 years, but over a
period of several years one would know whether or not a teacher
is indeed showing proficiency in terms of their level of
delivering educational services. So I think those are some
kinds of things that we can certainly tweak there that would
make a difference.
Thank you.
Senator DeWine. Good. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF PEGGY COOPER CAFRITZ, PRESIDENT, DISTRICT
OF COLUMBIA BOARD OF EDUCATION
Ms. Cooper Cafritz. Good afternoon, Senator DeWine.
Senator DeWine. Good afternoon. Thank you.
Ms. Cooper Cafritz. Senator Landrieu, nice to see you, and
thank you for all that you do for children in the District of
Columbia. I am going to skip over a lot in order to hit what I
hope are some salient points.
First, I want to talk about facilities. Nine of our 15
schools are in public school facilities, and we have just
reached an agreement to create a partnership with Maya Angelou
Public Charter School which will put them in a shared public
school facility. We have reached an agreement with Two Rivers
Charter School, which is a newly opening charter school, to
place them in a facility as of September and to work with them
through the coming year to see if we can do a joint deal which
would have them getting the funding to renovate another
building which we would share, and then the public school
system would rebate their rent in exchange for them having paid
for the renovation of the school.
The reason for that is that charter schools can get bonding
and DCPS public schools cannot, and our capital budget, as you
know, has decreased precipitously over the last years and is
scheduled to decrease more. So we are looking at some very
creative public-private partnerships, some of which would
include co-location with charter schools.
We have also, through our Facilities Department, created a
charter school facilities task force which consists of
representation of charter schools, not only those under the
jurisdiction of our chartering authority, but the other
chartering authority as well, and of the school system.
But I really urge Congress to look at school facilities in
the District of Columbia as an issue that is at a crisis level,
and it affects all of our students, all of them. I would even
go beyond including charters and public schools. It is a huge
problem and the funding is decreasing for it. So we are going
to need your help in being more expansive in public-private
partnerships so that it can be done on funds that are just not
generated by the public coffers. That is one of the most
important things that you could do for all of us.
Another thing I want to address is governance. We need from
you some more clear instruction about governance. Since I have
been in office, we have closed five charter schools for fiscal
malfeasance, and we have requested the CFO's office for nine
audits since my term in office and we have received about two.
One of them was extremely flawed, recommending that a
relationship be continued where a husband is being paid $1
million for a school facility that his wife runs. There are
lots of issues like that. There are some fabulous schools, but
they are being tainted by the not-so-fabulous.
On the academic side, I want to make a couple of points. We
have a hundred grade schools, a hundred elementary schools, and
of those three of the top five charters are governed by us;
that is, by the Board. So three of the top five charters are
governed by us, but they lag behind public schools. Some of
them are improving, but a lot of them are not.
Generally, the best managed charter schools are the best
charter schools. There is definitely a correlation. I realize
that charter schools need to be independent, but we need to be
able to stop the bleeding earlier than we currently can. We
just discovered a charter school that actually had several
felons on its staff, but there is nothing we could have done
before the period of examination in order to find that out. So
we have got to get tougher on the schools that are not making
it.
Another thing that is really important is in applying for
charter schools, you have a lot of people who have seen charter
schools as a jobs program for adults and have thought, oh, this
would be a great idea, let's open up a charter school.
I think that we need to be more aggressive about
approaching institutions such as universities or the National
Science Foundation or Fannie Mae and saying, you have all of
these professionals at your fingertips, some who are steeped
academically and who are great sharers; work with us to create
charter schools that start from a very, very sound basis so
that we can get the hustler out of the charter school movement.
That is something that has been an affliction in our ranks that
I think we are grappling with.
PREPARED STATEMENT
I think we have to be very careful. We need to feel that it
is okay, charters are strong enough. So if we are trying to
make the movement better and it takes criticizing some of them,
it doesn't mean that we are damning the charter school
movement. I think that Congress has to be open to working with
us on dealing with some of these problems very directly.
I will end there so you can ask questions, if you like,
when the time comes.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Peggy Cooper Cafritz
Good morning, Chairman DeWine, Ranking Member Landrieu and members
of the subcommittee. I am Peggy Cooper Cafritz, president of the
District of Columbia Board of Education (Board). Thank you for this
opportunity to testify on behalf of the Board in its capacity as a
chartering authority, regarding challenges or barriers to strong
charter schools and how policy makers can contribute to educational
reform. We appreciate your willingness to assist us in ensuring that
charter schools remain a strong and viable choice of publicly funded
educational options.
Since the passage of the District of Columbia School Reform Act,
the number of charter schools and students has grown precipitously. The
Board now has 15 charter schools, 3 new schools to be open in the fall,
and 3,646 students. Just with our current schools, we expect to grow by
an additional 2,900 students in the next 5 years. It is evident that
charter schools are an increasingly popular alternative to traditional
public schools. With this increased demand we must ask the question
whether this alternative is achieving its intended purpose to increase
academic performance both in charter schools and traditional public
schools and what are the challenges to achieving that goal.
We believe that student academic achievement in charter school is
improving in our charter schools. At the elementary school level, the
average percentage of students who test proficient (grade level) in
reading and math is 47.8 percent. In our charter schools at the junior/
middle school level, the average percentage of students who test
proficient (grade level) in reading is 34.8 percent and in math is
33.86 percent. In our charter schools at the senior high school level,
the average percentage of students who test proficient (grade level) in
reading is 13.71 percent and in math is 17.68 percent. Given the dismal
performance of students at the middle and high school levels, we must
work together to find greater options for students at those levels. We
must also fix the problems at the elementary school level. Although the
above test scores are mean averages and the test scores of students who
attend specialty programs for at-risk students, test score are not
where we want them to be. There has been increases over time in most
charter schools, but there are some charter school where progress has
not been made as fast as we would have liked.
As you know, the charter schools have great autonomy in their
operations and instructional approaches. Under the current regulatory
structure, the only choice that is available to us is to revoke a
charter when a charter school is not performing. By then it is too
late. We have had to close the doors of five charter schools, which had
financial and operating problems. The charter authorities need greater
regulatory oversight authority to intervene, apply sanctions, and take
corrective actions when there are clear indicators that a school is
headed into trouble. Part of the problem has been the difficulty in
defining minimum academic standards. The charter authority with the
help of professional assessment organizations must tackle this problem.
The No Child Left Behind Act does define failing schools. We must act
before they are defined as failing.
We have addressed this problem by examining applicants more
stringently and becoming more discerning in our decisions. It is clear
that most of the organizations and individuals that do pursue opening
charter schools require technical assistance and more rigorous
administrative and academic training. Once an applicant proceeds
through the application process, the applicant can obtain funds to
better refine the application and assist the applicant during this
period. Congress should consider supporting financially efforts to
provide technical assistance to applicants before they even submit a
petition to become a charter school, as is done in other States. We
have found that many applicants lack the technical background to
prepare a petition that contains sufficiently sound administrative and
academic plans. Potential applicants would benefit from such efforts.
It is also clear that we must do a better job in aggressively
pursuing those programs affiliated with universities and other
educational research entities that are exploring innovative
instructional strategies that will improve academic performance. We
have fully used charters schools as a laboratory to try different
approaches to teaching students how to read or perform math. In the
District of Columbia, we are fortunate to be the home of many world
class universities. We need to provide incentives to them to operate
charter schools and use the resources of their institutions to help
students learn.
There are approximately 12,000 students enrolled in public charter
schools in the District, representing roughly 16 percent of public
school students in the District. To accommodate the growth and
expansion of charter schools, there must be sufficient facilities. Even
before a charter can be approved, it must have identified a facility.
As the United States General Accounting Office (GAO) reported in its
September 2003 report, ``Charter School--New charter schools across the
country and in the District of Columbia face similar start-up
challenges,'' securing a facility is one of the three greatest
challenges facing new charter schools nationwide. The GAO further
reported that in the District of Columbia finding space is particularly
hard because of the cost of real estate and the poor condition of
available buildings. Therefore, in order to address this problem,
considerable support from all stakeholders in the city, including the
local and Federal governments must be marshaled.
In the District of Columbia, we have attempted to address this
problem in a number of ways. First, there is a facilities allowance in
the amount of $2,380 for non-residential students and $6,426 for
residential students. These funds are through locally generated
revenues. However, the costs associated with renting, purchasing and
renovating facilities are prohibitive since enrollment determines
funding levels and therefore, in many instances, the facility allowance
has proved to be inadequate. This is compounded by the fact there is a
strong preference to have small classroom sizes in the charter schools,
as is the preference in traditional public schools. We would welcome
the Federal Government's examination of what it costs to fund
facilities and supplementing the District's support of this expense.
Secondly, charter schools receive a preference for vacant
buildings. Nine of the Board's 15 charter schools are housed in former
DCPS facilities. We are in the process of assessing our facilities
needs and will decide our current and future space requirements. As
part of this effort, facilities staff of DCPS, the Public Charter
Board, and charter schools have been working on a task force to
generate recommendations on how to accommodate charter schools. One of
the options under consideration is the co-location of charter schools
in public schools with low enrollments. The benefits of co-location are
considerable and far out weigh the costs to charter schools seeking to
purchase or construct new schools. However, this approach also can be
costly. Because the school system has been inadequately funded for its
facility costs, most of the District's public school buildings have
been poorly maintained. Therefore, sharing facilities with traditional
public schools will require infusions of capital to renovate those
facilities. The Board recently authorized DCPS to share space with the
Maya Angelou PCS, which is chartered by the Public Charter Board. Other
similar arrangements are under consideration. We believe that in order
to implement a co-location policy, financial support will need to be
obtained. The facility allowance should be adjusted to provide
sufficient funding for small charters and traditional schools who agree
to share facilities.
In conclusion, improving academic performance of all students is
the reason that charter school exists. We must work together to ensure
that we are finding innovative programs to meet the needs of our
diverse student populations. As we continue to improve the level of
performance of charter schools, they will continue to grow in
popularity and will generate more demand for space to house them. We
are working with all our partners to meet that need. You can also help
us by adequately ensuring that facility costs in DCPS are funded and
help provide State support for the facility costs of charter schools.
Thank you for your support of publicly funded education in the District
of Columbia.
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STATEMENT OF ARIANA QUINONES-MIRANDA, EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PUBLIC
CHARTER SCHOOL ASSOCIATION
Senator DeWine. Ms. Quinones.
Ms. Quinones-Miranda. Good morning. Thank you for the
opportunity to speak and thank you and the committee for the
work that you have done to support charter schools in the
District.
My name is Ariana Quinones-Miranda and I am the new
Executive Director of the D.C. Public Charter School
Association. I just came on board last Monday, so I don't have
an office yet, but I hope to make myself and our organization a
resource to you as you move forward.
I want to make three points today, and I will try to keep
it brief. The first is to talk about the State education agency
function, also facilities and charter school funding.
In terms of the State education agency, as we know, the
District's educational system has become more complex over the
past few years. It is now not just one local education agency,
but we have several because of the charter schools that exist,
and now we have the voucher experiment as well. I think the
oversight system needs to evolve as the educational providers
have evolved.
There is an issue or a potential conflict of interest in
having one entity providing that oversight for the multiple
providers when it is not set up to do it that way. The
structure isn't set up appropriately, so I think we would
support discussions around elevating the level of oversight for
the CSA and separating that fully from DCPS. We have a partial
separation with the State education office, and Council Member
Chavous has a proposal, and the Mayor, to separate that more
fully. I think that is probably a wise idea as we move forward
with the expansion of the charter schools and the voucher
program as well.
Part of that is the disconnect that we have between DCPS
and between the Board of Ed and these other entities, and that
can lead to some complications in terms of implementation of
some of the actual creative ideas that Ms. Cafritz has put
forward. And it has implications for facilities, for the school
funding piece.
I wanted to highlight one example. In terms of No Child
Left Behind, a lot of the targets that the State have to set
are set by DCPS. The way that it is structured now, there is
not a formal mechanism for that information and a lot of those
regulations are set to kind of trickle down to the various
charter schools. So if we had the one agency, we might be able
to build in a more appropriate structure.
So there is an example of AMAO's, which most people have
not heard of. This is the annual measurable achievement
objectives. It is the equivalent, basically, of AYP, but for
English language learners. Currently, the Office of Bilingual
Education within DCPS is the entity that is charged with
informing the schools about that.
I will say that Lisa Tobago, the director of the office,
has done an excellent job of making the effort to do outreach
to the charter schools. I don't know that that is happening
within other divisions when information like that needs to get
out. So I would hold her up as a model to say that it is
possible for DCPS to do it if we are building in those
structures. But if she hadn't made that outreach effort, there
really are no consequences. So the charter schools are kind of
left at the mercy of some of the middle management individuals
in terms of whether they are making that extra effort or not.
The next issue is in terms of facilities, I don't need to
add that much. I think it is clear that the financing piece is
being addressed. We can always, as has been said, use more
funding. And, of course, a lot of that is in the form of
revolving loans, which doesn't always help out all of the
schools.
A related component is the technical assistance. We also
have, thanks to City-Build and some of these other
organizations, providers now that can assist the schools in
preparing for the loan underwriting process and to acquire
facilities loans. But then we have the third issue, which is
really the access of facilities.
We know that there are a number of facilities that could be
made available and it is not happening as smoothly as it could.
So again in this area, we would support the proposal to create
some form of entity or trust that might be able to have the
oversight over the facilities for the District in one entity,
and that might be able to also reduce some of the duplication
of effort that is happening between different entities managing
those efforts.
Related to that is also the possibility of establishing a
guarantee fund for charter schools, and that is related to the
issue of school funding. The District of Columbia has one of
the strongest laws, so we are fortunate in that regard. But yet
every year when it is budget time, charter schools become
targets and the funding formulas that we have are threatened,
as just happened recently where there have been attempts to
decrease the facilities allotment and to decrease and modify
the pre-kindergarten funding formula.
So with that level of uncertainty, it makes lenders wary of
investing in charter schools in the District. So that guarantee
fund might be a way to mitigate the sort of possible ups and
downs of the funding formulas here in the District.
PREPARED STATEMENT
I think, overall, we just need to make sure that as we are
evolving all of the entities that are part of this educational
landscape are coordinating their efforts in a better way. And I
hope that with the existence of the association that we will be
able to play a strong role in making sure that we are all
communicating and collaborating well.
Senator DeWine. Very good. Thank you.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Ariana Quinones-Miranda
Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. My name is
Ariana Quinones-Miranda and I am the Executive Director of the new
District of Columbia Public Charter School Association (DCPCSA). I
began full-time on Monday, April 26, and I look forward to making
myself available to work with you closely on education issues in the
District.
Charter schools are public schools and an integral part of
education and child development in the District. The Mayor, the City
Council, the State Education Agency, the DCPS Board of Education and
Superintendent, and the District of Columbia Public Charter School
Board must balance the needs and resources of the various forms of
educating and supporting children in this city in a way that does not
pit one against another. We have families where one child attends a
charter school, another sibling attends a traditional public school,
and conceivably a third may receive a scholarship to attend a private
school. For most parents and families, the selection of a school for
their child is not a political decision, yet we as leaders often make
it so. As a parent, I consider the political climate because of the
implications it has on whether the charter school I want my daughter to
attend will be able to secure a site, stay in the same location for a
reasonable period of time, and have enough funding left after lease or
mortgage payments to obtain appropriate staff and instructional
materials. If the charter school leaders must spend time ``advocating''
for things that often come automatically to traditional public schools,
it will inevitably affect the quality of the educational program.
State Education Agency (SEA) Functions.--As the District's
educational system becomes more complex, the current governance and
oversight systems need to evolve. Although some might disagree, when
DCPS was the only Local Education Agency, having it combined with the
State Education Agency was not especially problematic. Now that we have
traditional public schools, public charter schools, and soon, private
and parochial schools all providing educational services to District
families, a fully-functioning and independent SEA is extremely
important. There is an inherent conflict of interest in having DCPS
handle what are normally SEA functions (including Federal grants). All
State level functions should be handled by one agency and should not be
bifurcated as they are now. The creation of the State Education Office
was a step in the right direction, but does not go far enough. All of
the issues I address in one way or another highlight the need for
coordination across the three sectors and an independent SEA could
greatly assist in the coordination and ``depoliticization'' of
education in the District.
This disconnect impacts various areas, from facilities, to Federal
funding, to compliance and monitoring, professional development, and
many others. To illustrate, one specific example is the communication
across each of the sectors as it relates to compliance with No Child
Left Behind (NCLB). AMAOs, or Annual Measurement Achievement
Objectives, are targets set by each State for English language
proficiency attainment as required by Title III. Title III of NCLB
requires that limited English proficient students be assessed for
English proficiency in kindergarten through grade 12. In effect, AMAOs
are the equivalent to Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) targets but are
specific only to students who are limited English proficient. The
reason I bring this up is that with all the attention paid to NCLB and
AYP, most people, including educators, have never heard of AMAOs. And
since the State sets the AMAO targets, in this case DCPS, the SEA has a
role in ensuring that the charter schools are apprised of the targets
and their responsibilities in ensuring that students meet them.
This could easily be an area where that information is not shared
with the charter schools simply because there is not a formal mechanism
built in for it to happen. However, unlike in some DCPS departments,
the Director of the DCPS Office of Bilingual Education has personally
made the effort to include the charter schools in her outreach efforts.
Still, with the current structure, there would be no consequences if
she did not make the effort; and in many cases, DCPS staff do not.
The latest version of Mayor Anthony Williams' plan to take control
of the DCPS schools addresses this matter, at least at the governance
level. The plan would reconstitute the Board of Education as a ``true
State board of education'' with the power to set such State educational
policies as minimum academic standards, attendance rules, and teacher
certification and licensure requirements. The State Education Office,
now under the control of the mayor, would become the ``secretariat'' of
the State board and in that capacity would be charged with implementing
the policies promulgated by the board. If the plan were adopted by the
Council, authority over the 18 Board of Education charter schools would
be given to the D.C. Public Charter School Board, which would become
the sole chartering authority in the District.
While this proposal seems appropriate, we are concerned that having
only one chartering authority may be a step backward for the District's
charter school movement by creating a charter school monopoly. Leaving
aside the question of whether the BOE should or should not be in the
charter school business (many think not), having multiple chartering
authorities is the hallmark of a healthy charter school movement.
Around the country, those States that have more than one chartering
authority have more charter schools and more vibrant charter school
movements.
Facilities Access.--As you well know, the issue of charter school
facilities is probably the most daunting challenge for local schools,
although it need not be. With the multiple organizations and programs
(Building Hope, CityBuild, Charter Schools Development Corporation, NCB
Development Corporation, LISC, Raza Development Fund, etc.) that exist
locally and nationally to support facilities financing, and the number
of potential buildings in the District, increasing access to
appropriate facilities for all students is be a goal we can accomplish.
While some positive steps have been taken, there is more that can be
done. In order for schools to obtain facilities, there are three
prerequisites: training and technical assistance to prepare school
leaders to navigate the facilities acquisition process, financing
opportunities, and available buildings. The organizations mentioned
above are taking care of the first two prerequisites. What schools
struggle with is the third. To be clear, there is not a shortage of
facilities, but an imbalance in terms of the accessibility of
facilities. The table below provides an overview of the numbers.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Indicator Estimated Numbers
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Number of DCPS buildings in inventory..... About 190.
Number of DCPS schools in operation....... About 146.
Number of DCPS underutilized schools...... About 20-30.
Number of buildings in Mayor's inventory.. About 20 available.
Number of charter schools................. 2003-2004: 37 charters on 41
campuses and 18 percent
enrollment.
2004-2005: 45 charters on 50
campuses and 22 percent
enrollment.
Number of charters in permanent facilities 2/3 of charter schools are
not in permanent
facilities.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another important factor here is the connection between charter
school facility development and community economic development. Schools
are often community anchors and can be drivers for community economic
development by helping to attract private money that would allow the
city to renovate dilapidated buildings that blight neighborhoods. The
SEED school is a perfect example. SEED renovated a burned-out shell
that had been set on fire more than 20 times in the middle of one of
the District's most violent neighborhoods. Today, it is a functional
residential campus. The city seems to be holding out for luxury housing
for some of these buildings but, in order to attract families back to
the neighborhood, updated schools buildings are also needed. Making the
DCPS and District buildings available for charter schools is a
strategic investment. Charter schools can help turn around
communities--not just by renovating neighborhood eyesores, but by
spurring economic development and bringing families back.
The timing is right for working out a solution. DCPS has more
buildings in its inventory than it did in 1996 when there were no
charter schools and it has a significant number of underutilized
buildings. Since then, DCPS has lost 18 percent of its enrollment to
charter schools and this trend is likely to continue. Additionally, the
city has vacant buildings and the administration seems willing to talk
about the charter facilities issue. In fact, Councilmember Chavous is
proposing that the Mayor have control over facilities through the
creation of a facilities trust or entity that would oversee facilities
in the District. We think that the idea of giving control of the
facilities to a neutral party is the right solution. While it would
require capital up front, I believe it may save money by eliminating
the duplication of efforts among the various entities currently playing
this role. And by structuring and staffing it appropriately, it can
eliminate issues of perceived competition between traditional public
and public charter schools.
Charter School Funding.--While the District has one of the
strongest charter schools laws, especially in terms of per pupil
funding and the facilities allotment; each year as the District
attempts to approve its budget, charter schools are a target and the
funding provisions are threatened. Whether it's tinkering with the
funding formulas or proposed reductions in allocations, this level of
unpredictability makes it extremely difficult to plan school services
from year to year. Particularly challenging are recent proposed
decreases to the facilities allowance. Any change to the allocations
and formulas will make it extremely difficult for schools to negotiate
and secure financing for facilities as lenders are not comfortable
working in an environment with this kind of unpredictability.
Stabilizing this funding stream is important to lenders. If we are
unable to guarantee that the funding levels will not decline, the
establishment of a District of Columbia School Facility Guarantee
Program would help to partially offset the risks. This program would
guarantee some portion (if not all) of the mortgage and would serve as
a credit enhancement for charter schools seeking financing. The
guarantee level might be equivalent to the average/projected negative
variances in the funding stream. The administration may find this
attractive, because ONLY in the event of a default on a guaranteed loan
would cash need to go out the door. Such a credit enhancement would
strengthen the charter schools loan application and reduce the risk to
the lender--yielding lower interest costs to the school, resulting in
increased available finding for programs. Lower interest rates also
increase the school's purchasing power to acquire an underutilized DCPS
building.
Lastly, there is a need to align the processes and formulas that
are used in the budget process so that the administration can more
effectively allocate the limited resources available. One example of
this misalignment is that DCPS funding is calculated on prior year
student enrollment while charter school funding is calculated on
current year student enrollment. While there were reasons for having
two different calculation procedures, it may be time to revisit that
determination. That one variable allows for some students to be counted
twice and could be a potential area for savings that would mitigate the
need for proposals such as the recent ones to reduce the facilities
allotment and the Pre-K multiplier. Based on the Mayor's estimate of
the number of students in DCPS and charter schools, the average payment
to DCPS for students who are actually enrolled in charter schools has
been somewhere in the range of $9 million per year in the last 3 years,
and in the next academic year, it could be as high as $20 million as
3,200 students enroll in new charter schools.
Thank you for your time and attention to these issues.
STATEMENT OF JOE NATHAN, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR SCHOOL
CHANGE, HUMPHREY INSTITUTE, UNIVERSITY OF
MINNESOTA
Senator DeWine. Dr. Nathan.
Mr. Nathan. Mr. Chairman, I ask that you have one of these
books and I don't know if you have that.
Good morning, and thank you. Recognizing that a picture is
sometimes worth 10,000 words, I am going to show a few pictures
this morning, both verbal and hopefully in color. It is an
honor to be here and I want to thank you both for your work on
this important issue.
I have been involved as a public educator for the last 33
years. My wife has been a public school teacher for the last
25. We have three children, all of whom have attended urban
public schools in Minnesota. Both our older son and daughter
are now working for the St. Paul public schools. I believe
deeply in public education, and I believe deeply that one of
the most exciting things that has happened in the last 35 years
in public education is the charter school movement.
In the next 4 minutes, I want to deal with four issues.
First, why was the charter movement started? Why did a group of
us sit down in 1988, draw some ideas on a napkin, and then why
did legislators throughout the country decide this was a good
idea?
We did a survey which is summarized in the testimony. We
surveyed 50 State legislators and legislative aides from around
the United States in 1996 and they said the two most important
reasons for the charter movement were, first, so that we would
expand opportunities for young people who are not doing
especially well in the current system. No doubt, there are some
people doing very, very well in district public schools, but
there are unfortunately too many who are not. Legislators said
overwhelmingly meeting those needs was number one.
No. 2, they said they are very concerned about the number
of frustrated educators, and so legislators said over and over
they wanted to provide new professional opportunities. So that
was 1991 when the first law was passed, and I had the honor to
help write that law and testify in 22 States about the charter
idea.
What has happened since then? Briefly, as you noted, Mr.
Chairman, more than 40 States have now adopted charter
legislation. I was just in Washington State 2 weeks ago where
the most recent law was adopted.
Who is going to charter schools? As the testimony provided
to you shows, according to Federal figures, it is exactly what
we hoped. This is increasingly an option for low-income
youngsters and students of color, precisely the youngsters who
are overall--and this varies, but overall they are not doing as
well as other students in the district public schools.
It is clear and obvious throughout the country, in
Minnesota, in Ohio, in Louisiana, and so on, that it is the
youngsters who are not doing so well who are going en masse to
the charters, and this is a very important issue. Low-income
youngsters and students of color are overrepresented in charter
schools.
How is this happening? I turn now very briefly to the
document that, by the way, was provided with some Federal
funds. Almost 45,000 people have downloaded this document since
it was produced several years ago and it is a celebration of
outstanding district schools and outstanding charter schools. I
am going to point to only three.
On page 37, there is a picture of the first charter in the
United States, started by a young woman in St. Paul, Minnesota,
who decided she wanted to do a better job with youngsters who
were not succeeding. She did not have any facilities funds; she
didn't have any start-up funds. This was 1991; no Federal funds
at that point.
So she went to the Democratic mayor of St. Paul and he
arranged for her to have a city recreation center which was
being underutilized. This is one of the principal things that
has happened. You and your colleagues on a bipartisan basis
have encouraged and stimulated the creativity that is so much a
part of this country at its best, and this is a classic
example. The first charter in the United States was in a city
recreation center.
If you skip ahead just for a moment to page 47, in Arizona
another pair of young women decided that they would work with
the Boys and Girls Club in Mesa, Arizona. This is the charter
school that consistently shows among the highest improvements
of student achievement of low-income youngsters and students of
color. This is a charter that shares space in a Boys and Girls
Club.
If you move to the next page--and we are going quickly here
because I want to honor the Chair's request to be concise--on
page 49 you see the first charter in the United States to be
run as a workers cooperative. This literally has inverted the
traditional structure of public education. It is the teachers
who set the salary. It is the teachers who set the working
conditions. It is the teachers who are responsible. This has
been recognized by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as an
extraordinary place, and now it is being replicated throughout
the United States.
Briefly, what have been the results? First, as the Chair
pointed out, there are a variety of pieces of research. I don't
have to tell anybody in this room that research varies, but
there are many pieces of research to which I allude in my
testimony showing that charter schools, even though they
receive less money per pupil and they have all kind of
facilities issues that the districts don't have to deal with,
the charter schools are improving student achievement more
rapidly than comparable schools. That is very, very important.
It is not unanimous, it is not always that way, but in many
cases it is.
Secondly--and I can give you more examples in questions--
there are all kinds of examples of charter schools stimulating
improvement in the larger system, and that is really critical.
I will, in the interest of time, not tell you any stories about
that, but I would be delighted to if you want to hear more--
very clear examples alluded to in the testimony of stimulating.
The work that you are doing in Congress is helping to make that
happen. It isn't just about creating thousands of charters. It
is helping to stimulate, to use the best ideas about district
and charter schools to cross-fertilize.
Finally, I think that there are some lessons and the most
important lesson I want to share with you today is not about
money. What you have done as leaders to say to people
throughout the United States in your States that it is a
valuable, important part of public education is the single most
important thing you can say.
PREPARED STATEMENT
While all of us will say more money will help,
unquestionably, the most important thing that United States
Senators have done on a bipartisan is say to the people of the
United States this is, as Victor Hugo put it, stronger than all
the armies of the world, an idea whose time has come.
Thank you.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Joe Nathan
The Charter School Movement started with a napkin, a pencil and 5
people around a table. Today the movement involves hundreds of
thousands of students, 41 States, the District of Columbia, and one of
the most remarkable education reform stories of the last 50 years.
This testimony attempts to help answer five questions:
--Why did legislators adopt charter legislation?
--What are the central ideas of the charter movement?
--What impact have charters had on students?
--What impact has the charter movement had on the larger district
system?
--What might Congress do to help maximize the benefits of the charter
idea?
why did legislators adopt charter legislation?
In 1996, the Center for School Change surveyed 50 legislators and
legislative staff in seven of the first States to adopt charter
legislation: Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Louisiana,
Massachusetts and Minnesota (Nathan and Powers, 1996). Top reasons for
adopting charter legislation:
--Better serving previously unsuccessful students;
--Create new opportunities for educators and educational
entrepreneurs;
--Expand the kinds of schools available; and
--Pressure existing system to improve.
The charter movement is sometimes equated, or regarded as similar
to vouchers. For example, in January, 1992, the National Education
Association declared itself ``unalterably opposed to any legislative
initiative that would provide Federal funds to nonpublic schools,
whether it be through tuition tax credits, vouchers, private school
choice programs, the establishment of new charter schools, or private
school demonstration projects.'' (National Education Association).
Interestingly, in 1996, the NEA started a program to help members start
charter schools--and some teacher unions continue efforts to help
create charters around the United States.
Returning to our 1996 survey of State policy-makers, we asked two
questions about the link between the charter and voucher movement. We
found that in NONE of the seven States did policy-leaders say the most
important reason to adopt the charter idea was as a prelude to
vouchers. In fact, in every State legislators were much more likely to
see the charter movement as an alternative to the voucher idea. In each
of the seven States, adopting charter legislation as a prelude to
voucher legislation was in fact, the lowest rated major reason of seven
options offered.
what is the charter idea?
The charter idea is based on three of the most powerful ideas in
the United States:
--People ought to have a chance to carry out their best ideas;
--This is a country of responsibilities, as well as rights; and
--We believe in freedom and choice within some limits.
The charter idea responds to each of these ideas. The charter idea
has seven elements:
--Charter schools are PUBLIC. They are open to all, with no
admissions tests. They are non-sectarian.
--People should have a chance to create new, or convert existing
schools into charter public schools.
--States will authorize more than one organization to sponsor or
authorize charter schools. These may be school districts,
universities, city councils, non-profit agencies, mayors or
other responsible groups.
--There is an up-front waiver from most State laws about how schools
operate, and from local labor-management contracts. While being
expected to take State tests, and to follow Federal laws and
local requirements regarding buildings, charters will be given
extensive freedom about how to operate.
--The conditions in which these schools operate will be spelled out
in a contract signed by the school and the sponsoring
organization.
--In exchange for extensive freedom, charters will be expected to
improve student achievement over a period of 3-5 years, in
order to have their contract renewed.
--Charter teachers will have key opportunities, including the right
to join unions, to be a part of a State-wide retirement program
offered for other public school teachers, and to take a leave
from their local district, without penalty, to try being a
charter teacher.
what is known about the impact of charter schools on students?
It's vital to recognize that there is no single charter school
curriculum or philosophy. Asking people to describe charter schools in
Louisiana, the District of Columbia, or anywhere else is a bit like
asking people to describe restaurants in these communities. They vary
widely. Some are highly effective schools. Others are not. Having
recognized this, there is very encouraging research about the charter
movement.
First--what families are sending their children to charter schools?
Initially, opponents like the Minnesota Education Association predicted
that charters would be ``elite academies'' (Furrer, 1991). The reality
is clear: charter public schools enroll a higher percentage of low-
income students and a higher percentage of students of color than do
district public schools.
Demographics of U.S. District and Charter Schools
RACE/ETHNICITY OF STUDENTS: TRADITIONAL PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND CHARTER
PUBLIC SCHOOLS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Elementary Secondary & Combined
-------------------------------------------
District Charter District Charter
------------------------------------------------------------------------
White....................... 61.4 44.7 66.6 48.9
Black....................... 18.1 31.0 15.0 21.8
Hispanic.................... 15.7 19.5 13.3 22.7
Asian/Pacific Islander...... 3.6 3.3 3.9 3.1
American Indian/Alaska 1.2 1.5 1.2 3.5
Native.....................
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PERCENT OF STUDENTS ELIGIBLE FOR FREE OR REDUCED-PRICE LUNCH:
TRADITIONAL PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND CHARTER PUBLIC SCHOOLS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Elementary Secondary & Combined
-------------------------------------------
District Charter District Charter
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Less than 15-49 percent..... 61.5 58.5 71.6 56.4
50-100 percent.............. 38.6 41.5 28.4 43.6
------------------------------------------------------------------------
(U.S. Department of Education, NCES. Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS),
1999-2000.
Various studies show the value of charter laws and charter schools.
Let's begin with the evidence about charters improving student
achievement.
--A study of charter schools serving a general education population
(as opposed to charters established to serve students with whom
traditional schools have failed), found that ``charter schools
serving the general student population outperformed nearby
regular public schools on math tests by 0.08 standard
deviations, equivalent to a benefit of 3 percentile points for
a student starting at the 50th percentile and outperformed
regular public schools or reading tests by 0.04 standard
deviations, or about 2 points for a student starting at the
50th percentile.'' (Greene, Jay et. al)
--A study of California charter schools that converted from district
to charter status finds ``many conversion charters are
producing average test scores with populations of children
historically associated with low test scores.'' (Loveless, p.
33)
--A 2001 study by the Colorado Department of Education found that the
average score of charter school students exceeds the State
average by a significant margin, and also exceeded the scores
in ``matched'' public schools. Colorado charters' population is
nearly as diverse as the State's district school enrollment.
(Colorado State Department of Education)
--A study of charter students in Arizona found that charter students
are making greater gains in reading, and about the same gains
in math, as students in district schools. (Solomon, et. al)
--An analysis by the Center for School Change showed that charter
schools in Minneapolis enroll a higher percentage of low
income, limited English speaking and minority students than the
district. However, a higher percentage of students made a
year's worth of progress in reading, math or both at six of
nine charter schools sponsored by the Minneapolis Public
Schools, than the district average. The same analysis found the
same situation for five of the seven charters sponsored by the
district over the last 2 years. (CSC, 2004)
--A report released in January, 2004, by California's non-partisan
Legislative Analyst's Office praised that State's charter
movement, and urged that it be expanded. Among the conclusions
were that ``charter schools are a viable reform strategy--
expanding families' choices, encouraging parental involvement,
increasing teacher satisfaction, enhancing principals' control
over school-site decision-making and broadening the curriculum
without sacrificing time spent on core subjects. (Legislative
Analysts Office)
--University of Wisconsin researchers surveyed hundreds of charter
school graduates in five States and the District of Columbia.
Ninety-three percent said that given the choice, they would
again select their charter high school. More than 80 percent
rate charter school education as better than the education in
the typical high school. (Center on Education and Work)
Another value of the charter movement is that it has developed some
new, potentially valuable ideas other schools can use. Here are a few
examples, of many that could be offered:
--Minnesota New Country School developed the idea of teacher owned
schools run as a cooperatives. This is a new option in the
profession, giving educators the chance to act more like some
doctors and attorneys, who select their office administrators,
and run institutions as they think they ought to be run. MNCS
also operates a secondary school that uses project-based
learning approach, in which few classes are offered. Instead,
students, with their families and an advisor, develop an
individual plan that helps them meet their own needs and
interests, as it satisfies performance-based graduation
requirements. Students are expected to make public
presentations three times a year. Because the school enrolls
about 120 students, grades 7-12, there are virtually no classes
and no bells, and students may move freely around the school,
operating much like adults. This means they work on projects
for a time, and then, on their own schedule get up and go to
the restroom, or spend a few minutes as they wish, before
returning to work. In recognition of the value of this
approach, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given the
school millions of dollars to replicate itself. (See
Dirkswager.)
--A number of charters are using the idea of sharing space with
social service agencies as a way to provide better service to
students. Examples include the MESA Arts Academy, a highly
rated Arizona charter, that shares space with a Boys and Girls
Club; City Academy, the Nation's first charter, that shares
space with a city recreation center; Codman Academy in Boston,
that shares space with a local social service/medical center;
and LEAP Academy in Camden, New Jersey, that does the same
thing.
--KIPP Academy has developed a set of practices that has produced, in
several settings, academic achievement significantly higher
than other nearby inner city schools serving similar groups of
students. (Wingert and Kantrowitz, 2003)
--Minnesota's New Vision Charter School has developed methods of
dealing with disabled students that are being replicated
successfully elsewhere. Impressed with NV's results, the
Minnesota legislature has allocated more than $900,000 to help
other schools learn from New Visions. Results have been very
encouraging. (Minnesota Learning Resource Center)
--Cesar Chavez Academy in Pueblo, Colorado ranked last year as among
the 10 highest achieving schools in the State, despite the fact
that more than 70 percent of its students are from low-income
families and more than half do not speak English in the home.
Cesar Chavez has developed a mixture of emphasis on the arts
and on academics that the National Council of La Raza is
sharing with other charter schools throughout the country.
what is the impact of the charter movement on the larger district
system?
In some places, the charter approach has helped stimulate broader
improvement. Research by Eric Rofes found that in States with strong
laws, that included multiple-sponsorship, the existence of a charter
public school sector encouraged improvement in existing schools:
``District personnel on at least five occasions in this study
acknowledged, sometimes begrudgingly, that charters had served to jump-
start their efforts at reforms. While they initially opposed charters
and the chartering had been accomplished outside their authority, they
felt that district schools ultimately had benefited from the dynamics
introduced by the charter school.'' (Rofes, p. 19) Rofes noted,
``States which had policies that provided for the chartering of new
schools only through the local district showed significantly less
evidence of reform efforts from the development of charter schools than
did States which allowed for multiple sponsors.'' (Rofes, p. 19)
Major research by Caroline Hoxby, an economics professor at
Harvard, agrees that competition from charter schools has helped
improve district schools. (Hoxby) She concludes ``Public schools do
respond constructively to competition, by raising their achievement and
productivity.'' In studying Arizona and Michigan, Hoxby writes,
``Public Schools that were subjected to charter competition raised
their productivity and achievement, exceeding not only their previous
performance but also improving relative to other schools not subjected
to charter competition. The improvements in productivity and
achievement occur once charter competition reaches a critical level
that happens to coincide with the enrollment at which charter schools'
taking students would be easily discernible and probably start creating
consequences for staff.'' (Hoxby, pp. 41-42)
Another example, from Dr. Kent Matheson, the former Washington
State superintendent of the year, and president of the Washington State
Superintendent's association, helps illustrate how competition can help
improve schools. In 1998, this author was invited to debate Dr.
Matheson in front of several hundred Idaho public school
administrators.
Matheson stunned the audience by noting that he originally had
opposed the charter idea when he moved to Flagstaff, Arizona to serve
as superintendent. He initially regarded charters as: ``Cutworms that
would hurt the whole field of education. When planting a field, if you
see cutworms, you use pesticide. That's what I wanted to do--stop the
charter movement--but gradually I became a convert to the charter idea.
Our state's charter law was a very strong motivating force making us
want to compete.'' (Matheson, p. 1)
Matheson continued, describing a former State teacher of the year
in his district who had been proposing a high school in cooperation
with a local museum that would require all students to make
presentations judged by local community and business people before
graduating. The district principals resisted these ideas, and Matheson
did not over-rule them. When the charter law passed, this outstanding
teacher made one last attempt to convince the district her ideas made
sense. When she was again rejected, she set up the proposed program as
charter school. Her students were required to make presentations
judged, in part, by community residents, before graduating. Matheson
noted that when he and high school principals went to meetings with
business groups, they began to be asked why the district was not doing
what this charter school was doing. After some discussion, the high
schools implemented this practice. Matheson listed several other
reforms that were motivated, in part, by competition from local charter
schools. (Matheson p. 2)
Another example of response to competition comes from Boston.
There, in the early 1990's, the local teachers union proposed creation
of new small school options within the district, which would have been
similar to those that have been created as part of the New Visions
program in New York City. However, the local school board (called the
School Committee) rejected this idea. Then the Massachusetts
legislature passed a charter law, allowing educators and community
groups to apply directly to the State for permission to create a
charter school. Eighteen of the first 64 charter proposals came from
Boston. Faced with the potential loss of thousands of students, some of
the district's most innovative teachers, and millions of dollars, the
School Committee reversed itself, and created the Boston Pilot School
program. (See Nathan, 1999 for additional details) With support from
the National Science Foundation, William Ouchi, a professor at the UCLA
Graduate School of Management, studied 223 schools in six school
districts during 2001-2002. Ouchi discovered that the schools that
consistently performed best also had the most decentralized management
systems and as he put it offered families ``real choices among a
variety of unique schools.'' (p. 181) As Ouchi pointed out, ``there are
two important aspects to school choice: one is the simple freedom to
choose--to vote with your feet, so to speak--and the other is having a
choice from among a wide variety of different schools.'' (Ouchi's
emphasis, p. 183)
Ouchi strongly supports choice within schools operated by a
district, as well as the chartered school approach. As he concluded,
``the charter school movement is likely to grow because its underlying
logic is unassailable.'' (p. 193)
Since 1992, the charter movement has grown from 1 to 41 States and
the District of Columbia, from 1 school to almost 3,000. Clearly, this
is a movement that can be well described by a quote from Victor Hugo:
``Stronger than all the armies of the world is an idea whose time has
come.''
how can congress maximize the positive impact of this movement?
At this point, members of Congress often hear pleas for more money
to be allocated in certain ways. That's not where I'll start, because
while money can be important, my sense is that it is NOT the most
important thing you can do.
--Help people in your State, and in the United States, understand the
value of the charter movement. In speeches, in publications, on
your websites, and in other ways, point out the many successes
of the charter movement. Visit charters in your State. Hold
hearing with charter and district officials, where they have a
chance to learn from each other. Ask your State departments,
universities, chambers of commerce and other groups to invite
people from outstanding charter schools to speak at their
meetings and conferences. Ask Universities in your State how
often they invite successful charter school teacher and
directors to teach courses for current or prospective teachers
and administrators.
--Continue to help charter schools deal with the facility issue. A
variety of studies have identified the building issue as one of
the greatest challenges for the charter movement. You wisely
have allocated funds to help with building purchase and loan
guarantees. You may want to provide incentives for social
service agencies, businesses and other groups to share space
with charter and other schools.
--Continue to provide startup funds for charter schools. This has had
an enormous positive impact. District schools typically receive
millions of dollars to help them start new schools. Charters
independent of school districts do not have anything like this,
in a single State.
--Recognize and promote the idea that it is helpful for overall
school improvement, to have a charter sector competing, as well
as collaborating with the district system. Americans believe,
for very good reasons, in opportunity, choice and freedom. We
are wary of monopolies. Having a strong charter sector
increases the likelihood that funds you allocate for school
improvement in district schools will be better spent.
The charter idea, like so many of the best ideas in American,
brings together a variety of people. People like civil rights legend
Rosa Parks, the late, liberal U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone, President
Bill Clinton and the former and current Presidents, named George Bush.
As The New York Times noted, Parks has tried to start a charter school
in Detroit. (Abdullah) In speaking to a joint session of the Minnesota
legislature, Wellstone referred to the charter idea, as ``that
marvelous Minnesota innovation that is spreading throughout the
country.'' (Wellstone). And each of the last three U.S. Presidents,
Republican and Democrat, has endorsed the charter idea, and encouraged
Congress to provide start-up and other funds to help promote this idea.
Thank you for listening. Thank you for your openness and your
leadership. Thank you for the opportunity to talk with you today. And
thank you for recognizing, encouraging and assisting the charter school
movement.
references cited
Abdullah, Halimah. Rights Hero Seeks to Open School in Detroit, The
New York Times, June 30, 1997, p. A12.
Boyd, William Lowe, Hare, Debra, and Nathan, Joe. What Really
Happened? Minnesota's Experience with Statewide Public School Choice
Programs. Minneapolis: Center for School Change, Humphrey Institute of
Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, May 2002.
Center on Education and Work, University of Wisconsin. 2002 Charter
High School Graduate Survey. Madison, Center on Education and Work,
University of Wisconsin, 2002.
Cheung, Stella, Murphy, Mary Ellen, and Nathan, Joe. Making A
Difference? Charter Schools, Evaluation and Student Performance.
Minneapolis: Center for School Change, Humphrey Institute of Public
Affairs, University of Minnesota, March 1998.
Colorado Department of Education. State of Charter Schools in
Colorado. Colorado Department of Education 1999-2000, Denver: March,
2001.
Dirkswager, Edward J. (editor). Teachers as Owners. Lanham,
Maryland: Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2002.
Education Commission of the States, and Center for School Change.
Charter Schools: What Are They Up To? Denver and Minneapolis: Education
Commission of the States, and Center for School Change, August 1995.
Furrer, Cheryl. Letter to Senator Ember Reichgott. St. Paul,
Minnesota: Education Association, 1991.
Greene, Jay, Forster, Greg, and Winters, Marcus A. Apples to
Apples: An Evaluation of Charter Schools Serving General Populations.
New York City: Manhattan Institute, 2003.
Hernandez, Lawrence, conversation with author and site visit, 2004.
Hoxby, Caroline. School Choice and School Competition: Evidence
from the United States. Swedish Economic Policy Review, 10 (2003, pp.
9-65).
Legislative Analyst's Office. Assessing California's Charter
Schools. Sacramento: 2004.
Loveless, Tom. How Well Are American Students Learning? Washington,
DC: Brookings Institution, October 2003.
Matheson, Ken D. Speech at the Idaho School Administrators
Conference, February 2, 1998 (summary available from Center for School
Change).
Nathan, Joe and Power, Jennifer. Policy-makers' views of the
Charter School Movement. Minneapolis: Center for School Change,
Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, April
1996.
Minnesota Learning Resource Center. 2000-2001 Summary Report.
Minneapolis: 2001.
National Education Association. Letter to U.S. Senators from Debra
DeLee, Director of Government Relations. Washington, DC. January 16,
1992.
Nathan, Joe. Charter Schools: Creating Hope and Opportunity in
American Education. San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 1999.
Ouchi, William. Making Schools Work. New York: Simon & Schuster,
2003.
An Attractive Alternative (editorial). Pueblo Chieftain, December
29, 2003.
Rofes, Eric, N.D. How are School Districts Responding to Charter
Laws and Charter Schools? Berkeley: Graduate School of Education Policy
Analysis for California Education.
Solomon, Lewis, Garcia, David, Park, Kern. Does Charter School
Attendance Improve Test Scores? The Arizona Results: Goldwater
Institute, March 2001.
Wellstone, Paul. Speech to Joint Session of Minnesota Legislature.
February 17, 1997.
Wingert, Pat and Kantrowitz, Barbara. At the Top of the Class.
Newsweek, March 24, 2003.
Senator DeWine. Thank you very much.
Senator Landrieu.
Senator Landrieu. I do have a couple of questions. I, first
of all, appreciate the testimony of all of you, and
particularly for the president of our school board to be so
open to these new ideas and to be supportive of this effort, as
well as many other efforts underway for the improvement of
District schools. I appreciate all of the work that you all are
doing.
I have a question about the screening issue, I think,
President Cooper Cafritz, you brought up, because as we move
forward the quality of our charter schools, I think, is very
important, the ability to issue charters to groups that are
most likely to succeed, although there are no guarantees,
systems in place to recognize if that charter is moving in the
right direction or the wrong direction pretty quickly, and to
step in and have the wherewithal or the authority to close a
school that is not meeting the expectations as initially
established.
Now, under the independent board, I think, Mr. Loughlin and
Ms. Baker, you testified that one year you all received a
number of applications and didn't charter any. I guess that
decision was based on the fact that the quality of the charters
presented to you didn't measure up to a criteria that you all
had established.
So my question is to you, Madam President. Do you all feel
at the school board that you have got a tight enough screen to
screen out those that are unlikely to succeed, or can that
screen be tighter? Do you need us to help you tighten that or
can you on your own, with the authority that you all have,
tighten that screen, as well as trying to step in a little
early if you sense that something is not working? Do you need
us or can you do that with your current authority?
Ms. Cooper Cafritz. Well, okay. First of all, in terms of
chartering schools, I think that the Board has the authority
not to charter schools, and it is not chartering schools that
it doesn't feel should be chartered. But there are schools that
have been chartered in the past, not just under us. I mean, as
I said, three of the top five performing schools fall under our
jurisdiction.
But charter schools, in general--the first charter school
amongst elementary schools is 19th when it comes to the
percentage of kids who are proficient. And that is on grade
level and that is only 70 percent. At high schools and junior
high schools, they are performing worse than DCPS--the other
charter school board as well as our charter schools.
I brought this chart here for you to see. Some of them are
improving, and you have to take into consideration the work
that Maya Angelou does. A lot of its kids are court-
adjudicated. They have been in unstable situations, so you
can't place the same kind of considerations, et cetera, and you
have to be able to look at them individually.
What we need to be able to do is we don't have the money to
get audits. We clearly cannot depend on the city to provide
that, and those are very important things. We have to be able
to require that all of the teachers' FBI checks be filed in
some central place. That is absolutely critical. There are
mechanical things like that that can be done that we don't feel
we have the authority to do and we need some assistance on.
Senator Landrieu. We may be able to help you with that
because, of course, we want to be supportive, but I just want
to focus, though, on the screening issue. I believe the school
board--and if you don't, tell me, but I believe the school
board now has the authority that you all need to put as tight a
screen as you want on new charters so that if people come to
you----
Ms. Cooper Cafritz. Oh, yes, and we are doing that. That is
not the problem, that is absolutely not the problem.
Senator Landrieu. You all are doing that now and doing it
well.
Ms. Cooper Cafritz. Oh, absolutely.
Senator Landrieu. But what you are saying is, in the past,
perhaps some charters were issued with not as tight a screen as
could be placed, and so we have a situation potentially to deal
with some of the charters that may not be living up to their
expectations?
Ms. Cooper Cafritz. Right, and these are not just charter
schools under DCPS. You know, it is a serious problem.
Senator Landrieu. Let me just ask, Ms. Baker, could you add
something to that? Part of the process of this hearing is to
get some facts, and this is very helpful because I think that
screen is important in making sure that you all have the
ability to put as tight a screen as possible, as well as
stepping in when you think that a charter that you have given
is not living up to the expectations that you all have set.
But, Ms. Baker, could you respond?
Ms. Baker. Yes. I think, first, talking about the
background checks which we know are in need of improvement, we
did have a meeting with the unit in DCPS to talk about getting
the FBI checks which are more expensive. The local check just
says, you know, has the person committed a crime of some kind
in the District of Columbia. It doesn't give you anything
broader than that.
We are trying to move toward requiring a more intensive
check of our existing schools, starting with the schools that
come on because we know that that is a very important issue.
Around the business of financial audits, while we do not
audit our schools because that is something that they must do,
we do have a consultant that actually checks every school's
audit, and where they do not meet the standard, they are sent
back. They are not approved until we get a high standard audit
from every school. We get monthly financial reports which are
also looked at by an accountant to be sure that our schools are
moving in the right direction financially.
So I agree that there are some areas in which we as a board
or the board and staff could use a little more flexibility,
having a little more authority to do what needs to be done. But
we also walk that very thin beam of holding schools
accountable, but also the whole charter concept of those
schools having their autonomy.
So there is always a balance that we try to make to be sure
that they do indeed have that autonomy, but that we hold them
accountable. And we do that through a process of looking at
their records on a monthly basis, as I said, with the
background checks, which we think is something that is very
important, making sure that we move to another level. We have a
couple of schools that do the FBI checks on their own.
Senator Landrieu. Let me just ask a couple of things I need
for the record. Do I understand that all charter schools are
required to have a clean audit, or is there no requirement?
Ms. Baker. They are supposed to have an audit. The law
requires an audit. We insist that it be a clean audit, and
actually the CFO a couple of years ago gave us a whole set of
standards and criteria which we have passed on. And I believe
at that time Linda McKay was the executive director.
Senator Landrieu. So you are saying yes. But, Peggy, you
say no. Okay, so one says yes and one says no, but the fact is
that if the District wanted to have a certified and clean
audit, you have the authority to do that. You don't need
Congress to do that, I don't think.
Ms. Cooper Cafritz. I think that we do need some assistance
because I know that our charter school board does not have the
funding. You have to have independent auditors and you need to
have them on a rotating, cyclical basis, as you would in any
agency that is expending public funds. It is not happening with
schools on either side.
But, again, the best schools have independent audits
because that is the way you operate, but it is not happening
regularly. The schools send in audits, but you wouldn't sign
off on them.
Senator Landrieu. The Chairman has been very gracious, but
I have got to ask two questions, one that I had intended to ask
and one that just came up. I want to clarify this for the
record. I don't know if I heard this correctly.
Did someone testify that teachers in the District of
Columbia only require a criminal background check in the event
that they might have committed a crime in the District, but had
they committed a crime outside of the District, we don't check
that? Did I hear that correctly?
Ms. Cooper Cafritz. Teachers in District of Columbia public
schools are required now to have an FBI check, as well as the
local police check, and we assume that the FBI check delves
into the rest of their background. But there are some teachers
still in the system who had a local police check before the
rules changed 2 years ago, but who are still in the system and
who just had a local police check.
In the case of the alleged child molester in one of our
schools last week, he had been locally checked, but he hadn't
had an FBI check, evidently, and had been in the school system
prior to that. In the charter schools, it is handled by the
charter schools. We want everyone to have an FBI check even if
the applicant has to pay for it, even if that is the only way
to afford it. But I think to protect our kids, charters and
public schools, it is something we absolutely should require.
Senator Landrieu. Well, let me just suggest from this
moment forward I would go on record as saying no group should
receive a charter to start a school unless everybody associated
with that charter has had a full FBI background check, and then
we can worry about how to clean up the current situation, and
you all have that in your authority right now to do that.
Mr. Chairman, one more thing on facilities and then I will
reserve my questions for my second round.
Since we have heard this constantly at every meeting,
public and private, about facilities for the charter schools--
and we recognize it is a real challenge, but today we are
giving approximately $2,000 per child, per charter, for
facilities only, not operating. Let's assume 200 children per
charter. I realize some charters have less, I realize some
charters have more, but an average of 200 children. That works
out to be, if my math is correct, $400,000 a year for
facilities.
Four hundred thousand dollars a year can bond a serious
amount of money in terms of debt service. So a chartering
entity presents an idea, assuming everyone has been background-
checked, great plan, great energy, and you want to give the
charter. You give the charter. They have 200 kids. You get
$400,000 a year.
What is stopping them, because we would like to fix it,
from going to a bank, laying down the charter, laying down the
200 children and borrowing the money necessary either to buy a
new facility, build a simple but functioning facility, or
renovate an existing public building, assuming it has been
given at a minimal, dollar-a-year kind of lease, use that money
to renovate and find a home for themselves that works for
themselves and the kids? What is stopping us from accomplishing
that, because that is what we are trying to help you to get to?
Mr. Loughlin. One of the key issues the schools face is
building up some equity so that they can go out and leverage
that amount of money. And the question is is there enough
equity funding, credit enhancement funding, revolving loan
funds, et cetera.
Senator Landrieu. But you don't need to build equity. If
you have a charter with 200 children and you have got $400,000
a year guaranteed to come in, what is preventing a bank or an
entity from loaning you money to buy or lease or renovate a
building?
And if we haven't, Mr. Chairman, we certainly can provide
some sort of increased guarantee, but we have a revolving loan
fund that is direct and indirect, and have increased it every
year. So I am confused and I would like to not be confused at
the end of this hearing.
Mr. Loughlin. Well, as I understand it, the banks are
reasonably conservative. So if you take a charter school that
wants to engage in a $5 million project, the bank will say we
will lend 80 percent of that, $4 million. The school is faced
with raising the $1 million either through their own funds,
through fundraising, or through some of the facilities that
have been made available through this committee and through the
city.
Senator Landrieu. Well, I would like to receive some
testimony from some of the bankers, not at this meeting, Mr.
Chairman, but perhaps in writing. I realize that when you go to
borrow money for a home, you usually put up 75 or 80 percent
and you have to put up a down payment. But there is no reason
that the banking community in the District of Columbia,
particularly with the help of Congress and the school board and
other authorities, can't establish a new and different way to
lend money for the establishment of schools, which are not
houses, you know, and they are not commercial businesses--they
are an entity to themselves--100 percent financing based on a
guaranteed stream of revenue.
I know that is one problem I would like to correct for
facilities, and the other--and I am not going to ask this
question, but I will come back to what has been established
within the District to free up public buildings, not just
schools that are underutilized and empty, of which there are
any number of the neighborhood that I live in, but other public
buildings that the public has already paid for. Taxpayers have
already paid for these buildings; no sense in not putting these
buildings to good use, whether they were recreational centers
or schools or libraries that are no longer functioning or any
number of public buildings that could be used, with the proper
renovation, of course, and proper environmental studies for a
safe and adequate place for children.
But I will come back to that. The chairman has been very
gracious.
Senator DeWine. Dr. Nathan, in your book you talk about
this concept of shared facilities, which is a intriguing
concept. Do you want to elaborate a little bit about this and
tell us how this has worked in the District?
Mr. Nathan. Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman. Actually, we have done
this in cooperation with Knowledge Works Foundation in Ohio, in
Cincinnati, which has been a very strong supporter of this
effort. And you just heard some examples of what it is so
important, first, because educators often say with considerable
justification that working effectively with youngsters and
families is a real challenge, and I agree.
So one of the things that is happening, for example, in
Cincinnati, is that there is a school that has partnered with
the social service agency called Families Forward and they have
provided free space in the school. And this is a school that
has produced dramatic achievement gains, in part because they
have additional assistance from the social service agency at no
additional cost to the taxpayers.
But we describe in here a number of examples. I mentioned
the Mesa, Arizona, example. Senator Landrieu just referred to
other public buildings. In many parts of the United States,
there are buildings that are underutilized and this seems to me
to be one of the central ideas----
Senator DeWine. We have them all over the country.
Mr. Nathan. Yes, sir.
Senator DeWine. I mean, they are just all over the country,
underutilized buildings and facilities.
Mr. Nathan. Yes, sir, and just a brief comment. In
transitioning from this question to Senator Landrieu's question
about facilities, you are right to be frustrated. At the same
time, we are working with a number of people who are starting
new charter schools and you don't know when you come into the
D.C. Charter Board or the Minnesota Charter Board or whatever
how many kids you are going to have. You hope to have 200. So
the central issue about facilities, in my opinion, is in the
first year or two when you just don't know.
So that is why, Mr. Chairman and Senator, your points about
shared facilities, No. 1, and, No. 2, identifying public
buildings that are underutilized, I think are absolutely right
on, because we can have buildings that could be incubators. And
for the first year or two, maybe two or three different schools
and social service agencies could be sharing the space. So I
think that these two issues come together precisely as you have
suggested.
Ms. Cooper Cafritz. Can I add something?
Senator DeWine. Sure.
Ms. Cooper Cafritz. People know that charters are there.
They are sitting ducks, so you have the city's charter school
investment fund. Take a school like Options, 178 kids. They own
a facility for almost $500,000 a year, so Options comes to us
and says, we have to expand in order to be able to afford the
rent.
All of these real estate agents know charters have to have
space and they have to have it by tomorrow, so let's gouge them
and charge them $500,000 or $600,000 a year. And then there is
no way that they can leverage that amount of money they have
coming in every year so that they can do a longer term.
What we really need to push is charter school ownership of
their facilities and stop the city, which is also holding old
schools that could be given to charters which haven't been
given to charters. So it is not just the school system; it is
the city.
Senator DeWine. Senator Landrieu.
Senator Landrieu. To follow up on the facilities, do we
have a comprehensive list of school buildings that are either
controlled by the school board, or when you say there are
buildings that the city controls, is it two different groups of
buildings, some that are controlled by the city and evidently
the school board gave them to the city?
Ms. Cooper Cafritz. Under prior superintendents, a number
of buildings were given back to the city because the schools
said we no longer have use for them, and when schools are
excess, they go back to the city.
Senator Landrieu. How many are on that list? Does anybody
know?
Ms. Cooper Cafritz. There must still be about seven surplus
buildings on that list.
Ms. Baker. I don't think it is seven.
Ms. Cooper Cafritz. But there is another building that we
are keeping and sending to the charter school task force so
that we can make sure that it goes to a charter school, because
otherwise it wouldn't.
Senator Landrieu. Does anybody have an idea--maybe, Ms.
Baker, you could testify on this because it seems like we
could--one of the great accomplishments of this hearing, Mr.
Chairman, would be if we could explore with you all, the
experts, a streamlined system for facilities. That might help
not just the charter schools, but it might also help the
traditional public schools, as well as the city as it struggles
for redevelopment in some of these areas.
As you know, public buildings, no matter what they are used
for, whether it is a school or a new shopping center or some
sort of new community center, can be catalysts for
revitalization of an area. So it is in everyone's interest--the
city, the schools, the community generally--for these buildings
that are underutilized and vacant and sometimes quite a
nuisance to the people who happen to live around them or the
businesses that are trying to function around these buildings--
is there a way that you all have thought of that you could
testify to this morning, and if not could you submit some of
those ideas to us, because maybe we could help to create with
the city a more streamlined process?
Ms. Baker.
Ms. Baker. I think that one of the concerns for the
buildings--first of all, I don't think there are seven. I have
been attending the meeting of the task force which was
basically dealing with co-location. However, in the process,
for instance, we now know that Bruce has been moved into the
surplus of the mayor's list.
However, the big problem for a number of these buildings is
the amount of work that it will take to make the buildings
habitable, millions of dollars in some instances. I understand
that Bruce needs a new roof; it needs window repair. So it is
not something that anyone can go into without millions of
dollars being spent just to get it ready.
So some of the buildings, while they are there now and are
empty and are considered surplus, are going to take a
considerable amount of money in order to make them habitable,
which again is another problem that, yes, you have to go
through the credit enhancement. And you can get some funding,
but there is a considerable amount of money that will be needed
for that. So that is another issue that is of great concern
when you start talking about surplus buildings. They are not
all just ready to step into.
Senator Landrieu. And a mere $4.5 million or even 6 or 7
million dollars won't do. Sometimes, it is a $20 million price
tag, or sometimes more than that?
Ms. Baker. I know that at the Thurgood Marshall Building
out in Southeast, I understand, the actual costs are
tremendous. They are going for it simply because that is an
area that has great need and they have their eyes set there and
they are going to do it. But in many instances, if you are
talking about a school that is just starting, you are talking
about that $400,000, but that $400,000 is not immediately
available because a school has to pay a lease. It has got to
pay rent when it starts up.
When it is approved and it is getting ready to open, a bank
is not as interested in--they want to see, yes, you are a new
school, you are going to open, but let's see whether you know
how to do this. So it is going to take a couple of years before
a bank will say, yes, we----
Senator Landrieu. We need to create venture capital
funding. You create venture capital funding. I mean, investors
look at a product that is not even on the market and say, we
just look at the plan, we look at the inventor and we believe
it is going to take off. And they lend the money and they put
it down sometimes before the first product has been created.
Ms. Baker. Well, they have been hesitant to do that with
charters.
Senator Landrieu. And then there is a mezzanine level of
financing and then there is sort of an expansion level of
financing, and it is the way the business community operates.
We have got to figure out a way to develop that same sort of
system within public schools. I am certain that it is existing
somewhere because the movement has grown.
Let me just stop--I don't want to take all the time,
obviously--and go back. The chairman has some additional
questions.
Senator DeWine. Well, I am finished, actually, and I want
to thank our panel. We do need to get to the other panel, but I
want to thank you all very, very much. This has been very, very
helpful and we have learned a lot this morning.
Ms. Baker. We thank you.
STATEMENT OF DAVID DOMENICI, CO-FOUNDER, MAYA ANGELOU
PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL, WASHINGTON, DC
Senator DeWine. Thank you.
Let me ask our second panel to come up. I will introduce
you as you are coming up.
Mr. Eric Adler is the co-founder and managing director of
the SEED School. Mr. Josh Kern is the president and CEO of the
Thurgood Marshall Academy. Mr. David Domenici is the co-founder
and executive director of the See Forever Foundation. Thank you
all for joining us.
Senator Landrieu. Mr. Chairman, as these gentlemen are
taking their places, I just want to say a general thank you for
the extraordinary work that each of you has done against great
odds, and I think for all the right reasons, to create options
and to strengthen our entire school system.
I want to just restate for the record that while the focus
here is on charter schools, I hope everyone in this room is
here because we want to create a stronger public system of
education in the Nation and recognize that charter schools are
one of the tools, not the only tool, maybe not even the best
tool, although this Senator thinks it is pretty good. It may be
the best tool, but I am not 100 percent convinced, but a
clearly a good tool to strengthen education options for
children. So I just wanted to say that as you all begin.
Senator DeWine. Very good.
Well, we welcome our second panel. We thank you very much.
We have your written statements which will be made a part of
the record, and if you could keep your oral statements to 5
minutes, then that will give us an opportunity to ask you some
questions.
Mr. Domenici, why don't we start with you.
Mr. Domenici. Thank you for the opportunity to testify this
morning. It is great to be with Eric and Josh. I think they are
both going to talk a bit about the schools they work at and
about what makes a successful school. I am going to talk a
little bit less about these topics and instead focus on two
items as briefly as I can: first, how and why we got started,
and how I believe our purpose for starting remains relevant
today, particularly as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of
Brown v. Board of Education. Second, I want to just briefly
touch upon the partnership that we recently announced us with
DCPS that is going to enable us to collaboratively open a
second campus.
When James and I founded the school, we believed, and still
do, that it is the public's moral responsibility to provide
high-quality education to all students. It is a basic right. In
1995, our background at the Public Defender's Service teaching,
volunteering and working in city government led us to reach a
brutal but honest, truthful fact that the promise of Brown and
the promise of the civil rights movement was not happening here
in the District of Columbia, at least not for our kids. Our
kids were those who had been arrested, who had dropped out of
school, who were on probation.
So we started a pizza delivery restaurant that served as a
job training program, and for 2 years worked as attorneys and
pizza makers with a team of court-involved kids. We were
desperate in a good sense, the best sense, for change, for hope
and for the future.
Almost immediately, we knew that we needed to work with
students full-time during the day and really work on academics,
because although making pizzas all night long was a lot better
than being on the street, it wasn't going to be enough to help
our kids develop the skills they needed to become the
successful adults we knew they could be.
So in 1997, we quit or jobs to start a school. That first
year, we were not a charter; we were a free, alternative, non-
degree-granting program, like the freedom schools. We didn't
have any public support, nor any stamp of approval. We did have
a belief and a passion, and it was the public charter school
law and the belief of Nelson Smith, Joe Baker and others
involved in the public charter school start-up years that
enabled us to transform a pizza restaurant and some ideas about
how young people should be treated into a comprehensive school
and youth development program.
Today, we serve 100 students. We are very small. We are in
school from 9:00 until 7:15 daily. All students participate in
mandatory after-school classes, dinner, and an hour of one-on-
one tutoring nightly. Over 250 people volunteer at our school
each week. We have comprehensive mental health services on-site
with a psychologist and social worker. We have 15 students who
live in our residential homes, thanks to the SEED School. We
run two small student-based businesses so that all students
have a chance to learn job skills and earn and save money as a
part of their school day. We run a mandatory 6-week summer
program for all kids.
We do this because our kids need it and they deserve it,
but we have to raise funding beyond our basic charter school
support in order for us to provide these sorts of programs to
our students--lots of it. It has been a huge investment, as
have the efforts at SEED and Thurgood Marshall and many of the
other public charter schools here.
But it has been worth it. Almost 50 percent of our students
now have special needs. Nearly that many report only marginally
attending school before coming to us, and over 30 percent have
had some prior involvement in the court system. At our school,
they go from attending school 50 percent of the time to 90
percent of the time. They improve their GPAs from a low D to
about a B. They increase their SAT scores by over 15 percent,
on average, and over 70 percent of them are now going on to
college. But it is not that simple. Our kids' Stanford 9 scores
are not improving, and we are struggling with that and we are
trying to figure out how to address that.
Our school, the SEED School and Thurgood Marshall aren't
all the answer, even if we grow and expand. Today, our students
and nearly all students attending public schools in the
District of Columbia attend segregated, poor schools. In DCPS
today, there are 2,455 students attending the 12th grade. Of
those, 121 are white. Of those white students, 116 attend three
schools--Wilson, School Without Walls and Duke Ellington. In
fact, 88 of them attend Wilson. This means that 5 white
students attend all the rest of the public high schools in the
District of Columbia.
The numbers in the public charter schools would be just the
same. There are no white students at Oak Hill, and there never
have been in the 6 years since I have been working in the city.
Participation in public education along class lines would
mirror these statistics almost identically.
You asked us to come here and talk about best practices,
but let's be honest. We are talking about best practices within
a system that has been abandoned by whites and abandoned by
upper-and middle-class blacks. Some good charters with
incredibly dedicated staff like ours will not fix this system,
not alone at least. We may be able to offer an ever-expanding
network of good schools and we may be able to bring in
resources that the traditional schools cannot.
We can bring innovation, the sort you are hearing about
today, and we can push and nudge the larger system toward new
ideas through basic, good old competition. But the public
system here in the District of Columbia is a segregated system
for poor, mostly isolated young people of color. That is true
of charters and that is true of traditional public schools.
That is tragic and it is tolerable, and no one seems to want to
talk about that or what this public disengagement has cost our
kids and our city. Our school is about reengagement and
reinvestment, and that is costly personally and fiscally. It is
about not letting our schools become separate and unequal.
The capital infrastructure of the schools in the District
is crumbling, and we can talk about this in more details with
questions. But you have to look at this honestly. What will it
cost to create high-quality physical structures for the kids in
the city? The private markets cannot do this alone in charters,
DCPS spaces and everywhere else.
The three of us at this table have raised millions of
private sector dollars to support our school facilities needs,
but that can't be the long-term systemwide solution.
Municipalities build schools, but believe me, old school
buildings in need of massive repair with some excess classrooms
are not the full answer to our overall facilities problems--
part, but not all of it. It will require significant investment
of public and private resources, but more so the
acknowledgement by all of us that our kids, our District kids,
deserve it, regardless of their race or background.
The reality that we couldn't do this alone and that we
needed to create some real momentum around change and
innovation and improvement is what led us to want to partner
with DCPS to open our second campus. The focus of the campus
will be to primarily work with students who have attended some
of the larger public high schools east of the Anacostia, who
have had attendance problems, have stopped going to school, who
have lots of trouble staying in and succeeding at school.
If all goes well, in a couple of years this campus will be
serving 150 teens who need the sort of programming and support
we all believe in and provide. The success of the partnership
will enable us to jointly open additional campuses, where we
can again create learning environments where students who have
not been successful in traditional public schools can grow and
reach their potential.
In the bigger picture, if we are successful, members of our
staff will be working collaboratively with staff from
traditional public schools and other charters, will learn from
each other, will hold each other to high standards, will study
together, and will grow together in service of our students.
Together, we will create schools and create a movement here,
the movement we have never seen in the District since the 1960s
where folks like Eric and Josh and Donald Hense and Irasema
Salcido and Kent Amos and Ariana from public charter schools
and others can work with staff and the leadership of DCPS, the
city and you all on Capitol Hill.
We will create a system where parents will not have to
tolerate the sort of inadequate education that children have
been getting, because they will understand how to advocate for
change and they will understand and have the strength to demand
better of all of us. And we will collectively respond with
options and real opportunities, which cost real big dollars.
Our partnership with DCPS may look like just another
facilities deal to many, but after 18 months of negotiation and
months of delays, I can tell you that is not what it is to us.
We could have bought and renovated a building in the time it
has taken us to get this deal done. It is a part of our
commitment to bring people together for our children and our
future. It is part of our commitment to fulfill the mandate of
Brown v. Board of Education.
PREPARED STATEMENT
I understand you may have more specific questions about the
partnership. I am available to answer them or answer any other
questions you might have about our history, our school, our
funding needs or our results.
Thank you.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of David Domenici
Thank you for the opportunity to testify here this morning. My name
is David Domenici, and I am the Co-founder, along with James Forman,
Jr., of the Maya Angelou Public Charter School.
It is great to be here with Eric Adler and Josh Kern, as well. I
believe that they will each talk a bit about the schools they work at
and more generally about what makes a successful school. I will talk a
bit less about these topics, and instead focus on two items:
--First, how and why we got started, and how I believe our purpose
for starting remains relevant today, particularly as we
celebrate the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education.
--And second, the groundbreaking partnership that we recently
announced with DCPS, which will enable us to collaboratively
open a second campus this fall.
James and I founded this school because we believed--and still do--
that it is the public's moral responsibility to provide a high quality
education to all students. It is a basic right. In 1995, our combined
background at the Public Defender's Service, teaching, working and
volunteering with students in the District of Columbia, Philadelphia
and New York, and working in city government, led us to reach the
honest, hurtful truth: the promise of Brown, and the promise of the
Civil Rights movement was not happening here in the District of
Columbia--not for our kids, at least.
Our kids were kids who had been arrested, who had dropped out of
school, who were on probation. Kids in streets and in the wrong system,
not the systems many of us believe can lead students to opportunity and
success.
So we started a pizza delivery restaurant and for 2 years we worked
both as attorneys and pizza makers with a team of court-involved kids.
We were desperate--in a good sense. For change, for hope, for the
future. Almost immediately we knew we needed to work with students
full-time, during the day, and to really work on academics, and that
although making pizzas all night long was better than being on the
street, it was not going to be enough to help our kids develop the
skills they need to be successful adults.
In 1997 we quit our jobs to start a school. That first year we were
not a charter; we were a free, alternative, non-degree granting
program. We did not have any public support; nor any stamp of approval.
But we had a belief and a passion. And it is the public charter law,
and the belief of Nelson Smith, Jo Baker, and Eunice Henderson, and
David Mack and others involved early on with the Charter Board, that
enabled us to transform a pizza restaurant and some ideas on how young
people should be treated into a comprehensive school and youth
development program.
Today, our school serves 100 students. We are in school from 9 a.m.
until 7:15 p.m. daily. All students participate in mandatory after-
school electives, dinner, and an hour of one-on-one tutoring nightly.
Over 250 people volunteer at our school each week. We have
comprehensive mental health services on site with a psychologist and 3
social workers, we have 15 students who live in our residential homes,
we run two small student-based businesses so that all students have a
chance to learn job skills and earn and save money as a part of their
school; and we run a mandatory 6-week summer program for all students.
We do this because our students need it, and deserve it, and we have to
raise funding beyond our basic charter support in order for us to
provide these programs to our students--lots of it. It has been a huge
investment, as have been the efforts at SEED and Thurgood Marshall and
many public charters here.
And it has been worth it. Our student population is now nearly 50
percent students with special needs, nearly that many report only
marginally attending school the year before coming to our school, and
about 40 percent have had some prior involvement in the court
(delinquency or abuse/neglect). At Maya Angelou they go from attending
school 50 percent of the time to over 90 percent of the time; they
improve their GPAs from a low D average to a B average; they increase
their SAT scores by over 15 percent on average; and over 70 percent of
them are now going on to college. They like school, appreciate the hard
work of their teachers, and are committed to their future. The have
hope and dreams.
But our school, and the SEED school and Thurgood Marshall aren't
the full answer--even if and when we grow and expand. Today our
students, and nearly all students attending public schools in the
District, attend segregated, poor schools. In DCPS today there are
2,455 students attending the 12th grade. Of those, 121 are white, about
1,900 are black and the rest are primarily Latino and Asian/Pacific
Islander. Of the white students 116 attend three schools--Wilson,
Without Walls, and Duke Ellington, with 88 of them at Wilson alone. The
numbers in the public charters would be just the same. Participation in
public education along class lines would mirror these statistics, as
well.
So we are talking about best practices within a system that has
been abandoned by whites and abandoned by middle and upper class
blacks. And some good charters with incredibly dedicated staff like we
have will not fix this system--not alone. We may be able to offer an
ever expanding network of good schools, and we may be able to bring in
resources that the traditional public schools cannot for a host of
reasons. We can bring innovation--the sort you are hearing about today.
We can push and nudge the larger system toward new ideas and through
good old basic competition.
But the public system here in the District of Columbia is a
segregated system for poor, mostly isolated, young people of color.
This is true of charters and traditional public schools. And that is
tragic and intolerable. And no one seems to want to talk about that. Or
what this public disengagement has cost our children. Our school is
about reengagement and reinvestment, and that's costly, in a lot of
ways. The capital infrastructure of schools in the District is
crumbling and no one wants to look honestly at what it will cost us to
create high quality physical structures for kids in the city--in
charters, in DCPS spaces, anywhere. The three schools at this table
today have raised multiple millions of private sector dollars to
support our school facilities needs, but that can't be the long-term
system-wide solution. But believe me, old school buildings in need of
massive repair with excess classrooms aren't the full answer to our
overall facilities problems, either. Part yes, but not all of it. It
will require significant investment of public and private resources.
The reality that we couldn't do this alone and that we have to
create some real momentum around change and innovation and improvement
is what led us to want to partner with DCPS to open our second campus.
The focus of the second campus will be to work primarily with students
who have attended some of the larger public high schools east of the
Anacostia River who have had attendance problems, have stopped going to
school, or who are having lots of trouble staying in and succeeding at
school. If all goes well, in a couple years, this campus will be
serving 150 additional teens who need the sort of programming and
supports that we believe in and provide. And if all goes well, the
success of the partnership will enable us to jointly open other
campuses where we can again create a learning environment where
students who have not succeeded in traditional public schools can grow
and reach their potential.
In the bigger picture, though, if all goes well, members of our
staff will be working collaboratively with staff from traditional
public schools and other charters; we will learn from each other, we
will hold each other to high standards; we will study together; and we
will grow together in service of our students together. And we will
together create schools and create a movement where folks like Eric and
Josh and Donald Hense and Irasema Salcido and Kent Amos and Ariana
Quinones--the new executive director our association--from public
charter schools can work with staff and leadership from DCPS, and the
city, and the Hill. We will create a system where parents will not have
to tolerate the sort of totally inadequate educations their children
have been getting, because they will understand how to advocate for
change, they will have the strength to demand better of all of us, we
will collectively respond with options and real opportunities--which
cost real dollars.
Our partnership with DCPS may look like just a facilities deal to
many. But after 18 months of negotiations and months of delays, I can
tell you that's not what it is to us--we could have bought and
renovated a building given the amount of time it's taken. It is part of
our commitment to bring people together for our children and their
futures. It is a part of our commitment to fulfill the mandate of
Brown.
I understand members may have specific questions about our
partnership. I am available for them, or questions about our history,
our school, our funding needs, and our results. Thank you.
Senator DeWine. Thank you very much. Mr. Adler.
STATEMENT OF ERIC S. ADLER, FOUNDER, SEED FOUNDATION,
WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Adler. Thank you. It is my pleasure to be here today. I
want to thank the subcommittee and particularly the both of you
for your support of charters in the District.
I also want to say that I am in great company on this
panel, and I appreciate you guys both for your accomplishments
and your camaraderie.
The SEED Foundation was established in 1997 by Rajiv
Vinnakota and myself to build urban boarding schools that
prepare children for college. We opened our first school, the
SEED Public Charter School of Washington, DC, in 1998. As I
speak to you, 305 students are living and learning on our
campus in Southeast Washington.
I am here today in my capacity as the founder of the
school. But more than an educator, I am really a social
entrepreneur. All three of us here, that is really what we are.
In getting the school open, we had to do things like develop
community support, advocate for amendments to law, raise lots
and lots of private money, build four buildings, float bonds,
hire staff. These are all entrepreneurial activities more than
educational ones. To understand successful charter schools, we
need to begin to see them less in the context of just education
and more in the context of entrepreneurial businesses.
The SEED School of Washington offers a comprehensive
solution to previously intractable problems. For some children,
only a 24-hour-a-day program can provide the security and
stability they need. Our program meets all of our students'
basic needs--food, clothing, shelter, supportive community,
skills.
Who are our students? They are, as Dave points out, 100
percent of-color, 90 percent below the poverty line. Eighty-
eight percent have a single parent or no parent; 93 percent
have no parent who went to college. They enter SEED's 7th grade
about three grade levels behind in their major skills, on
average.
They are selected by lottery, not creaming. We believe that
any child can go to top colleges, and so far in this year's
senior class, our first graduating class ever, our students
have earned acceptances to American University, Boston
University, Cornell, Duke, George Washington, Georgetown, James
Madison, NYU, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton,
Spelman College, Stanford and many others. In short, we were
right. Inner-city students selected at random and starting an
average of 3 years behind can be prepared for America's top
colleges.
We also have other indicators of student success, including
what we think is an astounding 97 percent high school
graduation rate for students who attend the SEED School, versus
63 percent for the general population.
I don't know that these early successes make me an expert
on how to make charter schools work and I don't pretend to have
broad expertise, but I do believe I know some of the factors
that have been critical to SEED's success. In the interest of
time, I am going to focus on just six issues.
No. 1, development of a solid operating business. At SEED,
we have the SEED Foundation, a separately incorporated
501(c)(3) to manage fundraising, financing, campus development,
PR and other business operations for the school. This allows
the professional educators to focus on what they do best and
make sure that the best functions are covered by professionals
in those areas. A school is a large and complex business. A
strong business foundation is required to sustain a great
educational program.
Issue No. 2: facilities. Much has been said about
facilities. I don't want to spend a lot of time on it in the
opening statement, but I do want to make reference to a couple
of things that Congress can do. One is support charter hubs or
incubators where fledgling charter schools can open and share
space as tenants.
The second is to create and fund a quasi-public agency to
manage facilities for all public schools in the District. This
could improve vastly the condition of DCPS facilities, could
allow DCPS to trade unused space for operating funds, and could
virtually eliminate the lack of facilities available to charter
schools that threatens the movement. I will be happy to talk
more about that idea under questioning.
Issue No. 3: school size and culture. Making schools small
is critical to SEED's success. The current SEED School in
Washington is just 300 students spread over grades 7 through
12. When we build future schools, we will always build them
small enough that every teacher can know every student's name.
We also spend time and energy in the SEED School on
culture-building. We look to hire school leaders and teachers
who understand how to build culture. We keep the student body
small and we allow time and resources to put culture-building
exercises into the school calendar. In the end, students will
learn more from each other than from adults. We had better pay
attention to what they are teaching each other.
Issue No. 4: meeting the non-educational needs of students
and families. We all know that many students are dealing with
difficult issues in their lives, and so schools need to provide
lots of wrap-around services, including psychological
counseling, meals, recreational activities, supervised study
halls, medical treatment. These all need to be available on
campus. At SEED, we have taken this concept of wrap-around
services to the extreme. Our students live with us on campus
and, quite frankly, this is the single greatest reason for our
success.
Issue No. 5: entrepreneurialism. At SEED, we have worked
hard to be entrepreneurial about gathering resources and
allocating them wisely. I have already spoken to this issue
earlier in my statement, so I won't dwell on it here.
Issue No. 6: student assessment and promotion. At SEED, we
have done away with social promotion. In order to be promoted
into the next grade, students must pass through the gate into
that grade by demonstrating proficiency on a range of academic
skills tests. This is effective because it matches assessment
to curriculum.
PREPARED STATEMENT
In conclusion, I want to urge the subcommittee to continue
to support charter schools in the District. There is real
reason to believe that by increasing the number of public
charter schools in the District of Columbia, we can
dramatically improve public education. In my written statement
for the record, I have listed seven reasons to believe that
this really will make a difference.
I thank the subcommittee for having me here today and I
will, of course, be pleased to answer any questions.
Senator DeWine. Mr. Adler, thank you very much.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Eric S. Adler
It is my pleasure to be here today to discuss best practices in
public charter schools. I hope that my statement and answers to
questions will be useful to the subcommittee.
I also want to say that I am in great company on this panel. It is
an honor to be considered to be in the same group with these great,
innovative school leaders and I appreciate their accomplishments and
camaraderie.
My organization, The SEED Foundation, was founded in 1997 by Rajiv
Vinnakota and myself to establish urban boarding schools that prepare
children, both academically and socially, for success in college and in
the professional world beyond. The SEED Foundation opened its first
school, The SEED Public Charter School of Washington, DC, in 1998, to
provide urban children with an intensive college preparatory boarding
education. The SEED School serves 305 students in grades 7 through 12
whose challenging circumstances might otherwise prevent them from
fulfilling their academic and social potential. As I speak to you, our
students are living and learning on our campus in SE Washington, east
of the Anacostia River.
I am here today in my capacity as the founder of a school, but more
than an educator I am really a Social Entrepreneur. When I look back
over what has gone into developing the SEED School, it has had less to
do with creating an educational program than with building a rather
complex business. We have had to: Develop Community support, Get
charter, Advocate for amendments to law to provide funding for boarding
students, Raise private money, Control a site, Build the campus
(175,000 sq feet of finished space), Finance the construction by
floating bonds, Develop the program, Hire key staff, Recruit students,
Recruit and manage the board, Oversee & support the institution, Manage
PR.
These are entrepreneurial activities, more than educational ones.
Really, everyone on this panel is a social entrepreneur. We are all
here today because we have been skillful and lucky enough to build
businesses which are successfully delivering services to students and
families. If we want to understand successful charter schools, we need
to begin to see them less in the context of just education and more in
the context of entrepreneurial businesses.
the seed school of washington, dc offers a comprehensive, visionary
solution to previously intractable educational and social problems
For some children, only a 24-hour-a-day school program can provide
the security and stability they need to succeed. With the belief that
an integrated program can accomplish more than services pieced together
from day and after-school programs, The SEED School set out to provide
its students with consistent, holistic services. The result is a
boarding school program that provides a comprehensive solution for the
challenges facing many inner-city youth. The School provides students
with comfortable accommodations, three nutritious meals a day,
opportunities for physical exercise, two school psychologists, college
and career counselors and an elaborate network of support consisting of
parents, teachers, boarding instructors, counselors and boarding
community coordinators.
Seventh-grade students commit to a 6-year college preparatory
program. Students live in dormitories, benefiting from an integrated
curriculum of academic, extracurricular and life skills. They take on
mentoring roles, community service and personal responsibilities.
Located in the community, the School increases parental involvement and
reinforces the potential of the communities served. SEED fills a
critical need in Washington, DC by providing economically disadvantaged
urban children with the necessary educational and social resources to
prepare for college and the world beyond.
The program is structured 24 hours a day. More importantly, it
meets all of our students' basic needs: food, clothing, shelter,
supportive community, skills. It also meets all of their secondary
needs: great special ed, psych services, parent resources. We have a
great campus, more than 320 new, high speed, flat screen, networked and
internet-enabled computers, an average class size of just 14 students,
and a remarkably innovative 9th grade gate system which ensures that
every student in our high school is actually prepared to undertake our
rigorous college prep curriculum. And lastly, we offer our students
lots of enrichment--student athletics, summer travel, and the chance to
meet interesting speakers.
Who are our students?
--100 percent of color, 90 percent below poverty line (measured by
free breakfast & lunch), 88 percent have a single parent or no
parent, 93 percent have no parent who went to college, they
enter SEED's 7th grade about 3 grade levels behind.
--Selected by lottery--not creaming. We believe that any child can go
to top colleges. So far, in this year's senior class, our first
graduating class ever, we have acceptances to the following
colleges: American University, Art Institute of Philadelphia,
Boston University, Charleston Southern, Clark Atlanta, Cornell
University, Duke University, Elizabeth City, Elizabethtown
College, George Washington University, Georgetown University,
Hiram College, James Madison University, Johnson & Wales,
Landmark College, Mary Baldwin, University of Maryland,
Maryland College of the Arts, Marymount, University of New
Orleans, New York University, Ohio Wesleyan, North Carolina
A&T, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, Spelman
College, Stanford University, Trinity College, Virginia State
University, Virginia Union, Xavier Ohio, Xavier Lousiana.
In short, we were right. Inner city students, selected at random
and starting an average of 3 grade levels behind can be prepared for
America's top colleges by an intense college prep boarding school. We
also have other indicators of student success, including improved
standardized test scores, dramatic decreases in risky and anti-social
behavior, an astounding 97 percent high school graduation rate for
students who attend the SEED School, as compared to 63 percent for the
general D.C. population.
I don't know that these early successes make me an expert at how to
make charter schools work, and I would not pretend to have sweeping
expertise. But I do believe that I know some of the elements which have
been important for our success at SEED, and I am pleased to have been
asked to share them with you today. There are probably hundreds of
issues which help determine the success or failure of a public charter
school, but in the interest of time, I have chosen to focus on six
issues which I think have been most critical to our success at SEED.
Here are the most important issues as I see them:
issue no. 1.--development of a solid operating business
At SEED, we decided which are the core functions of an education
institution, and tried to remove the burden of all the other functions.
That is why the SEED Foundation, the parent organization which founded
the SEED School, manages the fundraising, financing, campus
development, PR, and certain business functions for the school, freeing
up the professional educators to do what they do best. Furthermore, it
allows us to have people with real expertise in the areas of business,
finance, and real estate development take on these critically important
functions and build a really robust business. A school, after all, is
not merely a place which teaches children and, oh yes, handles a little
bit of money, human resources, real estate, and the like. Rather, it is
just the inverse. A school is a large and complex business whose
product is the delivery of educational services. Only once a strong
business operations foundation has been built can a great educational
program be sustained.
issue no. 2.--facilities
Everyone knows that facilities are a huge issue for public charter
schools. Most charter schools cannot afford adequate facilities, and
even if they could they tend to lack the expertise to acquire, develop,
and manage and maintain a good campus. At SEED we have been very lucky
that we have been able to acquire this expertise, and have had generous
donors who have supported our campus development efforts. But most
charters cannot do this, and it threatens the entire movement. There
are several things which Congress can do to improve the situation:
--Establish a revolving loan fund. This has been done, and it will
assist many charter schools in financing improvements to their
campuses.
--Build charter hubs. These are buildings which include space divided
up by wing or by floor so that several fledgling charter
schools can rent space within them at the same time. Ideally,
hubs should have some common space, such as a cafeteria or
athletic facilities, which these new schools could share.
Charter hubs would ensure that new public charter schools with
good educational programs but little cash and business acumen--
which describes most charter schools--would not be prevented
from opening by their inability to find, control, renovate, and
manage suitable space.
--Create and fund a quasi-public agency to manage the planning,
financing, construction, and maintenance of facilities for all
public schools--both DCPS and public charters--in the District.
The creation of such an agency would be a most innovative and
important step forward in the revitalization of public
education in the District of Columbia. In addition to improving
the condition of DCPS facilities, the creation of such an
agency would have two other significant benefits: (1) It would
allow DCPS to trade unused space for operating funds; (2) It
would virtually eliminate the lack of facilities for charter
schools, which currently threatens to close or limit the
enrollments of most charters and makes impossible the dramatic
growth of the number of students in charter schools. This is
obviously a complex undertaking beyond my ability to describe
in a 5-minute statement, and I will be happy to discuss it in
greater detail during questioning.
issue no. 3.--school size and culture
We believe that making schools small is critical to SEED's success.
The current SEED School in Washington is just 300 students spread over
grades 7 through 12. While future SEED schools may be slightly larger,
we will always build them small enough that every teacher can know
every student's name. Large schools almost never work, because they
cannot produce the proper culture. Everybody in the school community
must feel a personal connection to every other person in the school in
order to really be able to use school culture to produce positive
outcomes for students.
We also spend time and energy in the SEED School on culture-
building. We are not producing education widgets, we are raising
children. If we do not proactively build the community culture, then we
will have Lord of the Flies. If you have not already done so, I urge
you to read A Hope in the Unseen, a book by Pulitzer Prize-winning
author Ron Suskind. In the book, he describes what it is like to try to
be an academic student at Ballou High School in SE Washington, and the
story is brutal. I am not blaming the teachers or administrators at
Ballou for this. They didn't choose to pack thousands of students into
the school. It was handed to them that way. Under those conditions, I
cannot imagine how they can possibly produce a positive peer culture.
At SEED, we look to hire school leaders and teachers who understand how
to build positive school culture, we keep the student body small enough
to make it possible, and we allow them the time and resources to build
culture-building exercises into the school calendar. In the end,
students will learn more from each other than from adults. We better
pay attention to what they are teaching each other.
issue no. 4.--meeting the non-educational needs of students and
families in order to make it possible for students to focus on school
Too many students are dealing with difficult issues and lacking the
most basic opportunities. Students who arrive at school hungry, or who
have witnessed violence, or who do not have the opportunity to study or
run around safely or play chess, need more than just an education. So
all D.C. public schools--DCPS and public charters--need to provide lots
of wrap-around services on campus. Psychological counseling, meals,
opportunities to engage in recreational activities and sports
(especially for untalented athletes), supervised study halls, and
medical treatment all should be available at school. We have worked
hard at SEED to form relationships with agencies which can help provide
these services on our campus, and have raised money above and beyond
our charter dollars to provide many of them directly.
At SEED, we have taken this concept of wrap-around services to the
extreme. We know that students who arrive at school hungry or dirty or
in unwashed clothes are unlikely to learn, and will almost surely
distract students around them. Children who are abused at home, or
whose siblings or mothers are abused, or who worry that they may be
beaten up on the way home from school, or who have no quiet place to
study, or whose moms have drug problems are not going to do well in
school so long as they are going home to chaos every night. So our
students live with us on campus. And quite frankly, this is the single
greatest reason for our success. The marginal $14,000/student/year cost
is tiny compared to the societal cost savings from the bad outcomes
which may be prevented. For example, of the 40 students who started at
SEED our first year, 39 are still in school. Statistically, we should
have expected 20 of them to drop out. The societal net present cost of
a dropout--in terms of lost taxes, increased services required, etc.--
is about $500,000. So the day our first students graduate next month,
we will have saved the taxpayers millions of dollars, even after taking
into account the increased cost of our program. And that is before we
even start counting the societal benefits of sending nearly all of our
students on to college, or of avoiding many of the other statistically
prevalent bad outcomes, such as teen pregnancy or drug use.
Parental involvement generally correlates with good student
outcomes. At SEED we have a parent liaison person who knows every
parent by name, keeps track of families as they move and have their
phones disconnected, knows what is happening with family members, and
maintains active relationships with families. We also offer parents
resources on campus through our parent resource center, which provides
workshops in literacy, job, and parenting skills, gives parents access
to computers and the internet, and works with families to manage and
avoid major problems, such as eviction or drug addiction. Thus, the
school becomes a resource for the whole family, not just a place to go
when your child is in trouble or some teacher is disrespecting your
child. We also ``require'' parents to volunteer on campus each month so
that their children see them involved, the parents know and trust the
folks at school, and they become a partner.
issue no. 5.--entrepreneurialism
At SEED, we have worked hard to be entrepreneurial about gathering
resources and allocating them wisely. I have already spoken to this
issue earlier in my statement, so I won't dwell on it here, except to
reiterate that the public charter schools which are most effective at
achieving great student outcomes are those which are most enterprising
and entrepreneurial about gathering, allocating, and managing their
resources.
issue no. 6.--student assessment and promotion
At SEED, we have done away with social promotion. It wasn't easy,
because our families want to see their children move through the grades
from year to year. But if a SEED education is to be effective, students
must be held accountable for learning skills.
We have not found the Stanford-9 to be a terribly useful tool. So,
while we use it, we also have a much more important assessment tool
which we call ``gates.'' In order to be promoted into the next grade,
students must pass through the ``gate'' into that grade, by
demonstrating proficiency at a range of academic skills. Rather than
having one high-stakes exam at the end of the year, teachers administer
gate tests every few weeks. At the end of the year, students have
compiled a portfolio of exams demonstrating proficiency in all their
subjects. This is effective because it matches assessment to
curriculum. Our gate system is also a particularly effective way of
dealing with students who have been poorly served in the lower grades
and are arriving at SEED behind, but who need to be caught up in order
to enter our college prep high school program.
conclusion
I want to urge the subcommittee to continue to support charter
schools in the District of Columbia. There is real reason to believe
that by increasing the number of public charter schools in the District
of Columbia we can dramatically improve public education. In the past
few years, 15 percent of students have moved out of DCPS and into
charters. There are several reasons to believe that this holds
important advantages for public education in the District of Columbia:
--While some charters are weak, some are not. Some of those students
have been transferred to genuinely good charter schools.
--Charter schools tend to be small. So even if the school isn't very
good, at least students know that their teachers know them and
are watching. Furthermore, these smaller schools tend to focus
more on culture and wrap-around services, making it more likely
that students will find themselves in an environment where they
can focus on learning rather than other life problems.
--Charter schools are not subject to the hiring restrictions which
affect DCPS. This allows greater flexibility for public charter
schools to hire in the same manner as independent or private
schools.
--Charter schools are in a much stronger position to raise private
money than are the traditional public schools. These privately
raised funds are very important.
--Because they are small but have a board about the same size as the
elected Board of Education, charters generally receive much
greater oversight than DCPS schools possibly could. What's
more, many charter schools are created by highly mission-driven
founders who feel like they ``own'' the place. The upshot of
all this is that, even if a charter school is bad today, the
odds are fairly good that this small, closely overseen,
mission-driven institution will be able to fix itself over a
period of 5 to 10 years. In essence, what you get with charters
is a larger group of people paying attention to a smaller
institution.
--By moving students out of DCPS and into charters, you decrease the
number of students making up the big ship which has to be
turned around. Somewhere, we reach a tipping point where the
system becomes easier to manipulate and improve. We all want to
see DCPS succeed, and by making them a more compact operation
we increase the likelihood of that.
--Because DCPS schools generally receive students by geographic
proximity whereas public charter schools must go out and
actively get families to choose them, charter school families
by definition must be at least passably happy with the choice
they are making in order to stay. This means that charter
schools are developing the skill of parent satisfaction, where
traditional public schools are less inclined to be able to do
so. This must make it easier to involve parents in the school,
which we know is good for student outcomes.
I want to thank the subcommittee for having me here today, and I
will be pleased to answer any questions you may have.
STATEMENT OF JOSHUA KERN, CO-FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT,
THURGOOD MARSHALL ACADEMY, WASHINGTON, DC
Senator DeWine. Mr. Kern.
Mr. Kern. Thank you, Chairman DeWine. Thank you, Senator
Landrieu. Thank you for your leadership on this issue, and
thank you, Senator Landrieu, for your support of our school.
I have some thoughts about some of the issues that came up
in your previous panel's questioning about background checks
and about facility financing. But if you don't mind, I would
like to reserve those for the questions and answers so I can
have an opportunity to read my statement.
Senator DeWine. Sure.
Mr. Kern. Thank you.
It is an honor to speak to distinguished leaders on this
topic so close to my heart. It is also an honor to be here on
this panel with Eric Adler and David Domenici, who are heads of
two outstanding charter schools in the District of Columbia,
the SEED School and Maya Angelou, respectively.
Although each charter school is unique, there are common
threads among the highest-performing charter schools, and
indeed excellent schools in general, that we now recognize as
best practices. These best practices include hiring a talented
principal who effectively supports teachers, employing teachers
who are masters at their craft, implementing an innovative
standards-based curriculum that meets students where they are,
encouraging strong parental involvement in all aspects of the
school, and building a network of relationships within the
community by reaching out to families, businesses, institutions
of higher education, non-profit organizations and other
schools. These are but a few of the ingredients essential to
creating an effective school.
However, there is one best practice that successful charter
schools employ that traditional public schools rarely use, an
approach that lies at the heart of charter schools' success and
I think an approach that you heard David and Eric speak quite
profoundly about, and that is creating a model that effectively
educates students from high-poverty backgrounds.
Students from high-poverty backgrounds arrive at our
schools with both inspiring potential and an imposing range of
deficits and disadvantages. These often include unmet emotional
needs, a dearth of positive role models, a lack of basic
resources outside of school, a stressful home environment that
is not conducive to studying, and parents who lack time and
resources to support their children's education. In addition,
unlike their peers from higher-income backgrounds, our students
have not been afforded the wide range of experiences that would
help them shape their hopes, dreams and aspirations.
As is the case with my colleagues' schools, what makes
Thurmond Marshall Academy successful is that we implement a
model that addresses all our students' needs. We provide a wide
range of programs that go far above and beyond those usually
available at urban public schools. In effect, we function both
as a school and a non-profit youth development organization.
We carefully integrate a rigorous college preparatory
academic curriculum with specialized services, including but
not limited to an extended school day that runs from 8:00 a.m.
to 6:00 p.m. daily, after-school academic tutoring,
personalized mentoring--every student at our school has an
individual mentor--Saturday programming, high-caliber college
guidance activities, a full-time on-site clinical counselor,
and a mandatory 5-week summer program that prepares incoming
9th graders for high school academic and behavioral
expectations. Only through this full-service approach can we
achieve our ambitious mission to prepare students to succeed in
college and to actively engage in our democratic society.
Clearly, though, addressing the wide range of needs that
students from high-poverty backgrounds face through this multi-
faceted approach requires extraordinary financial and human
resources. Although there are ways that public monies can be
used more effectively, we shouldn't overlook the fact that
funding for public education on the whole is not sufficient to
meet all the needs of impoverished students.
As a result, each of our schools raise a significant amount
of additional resources each year to maintain the full
complement of programming that truly impacts our students.
Thurgood Marshall Academy raises approximately $4,000 per
student each year to supplement guaranteed funding.
Finally, successful public charter schools have attracted
and motivated individuals, foundations and companies with vast
resources to reenter the world of public education, from which
they have long been absent. I think it is actually one of the
most exciting things that the charter school movement has done
in the District of Columbia.
We have observed firsthand that when an effective model is
created, the community at large is willing to invest the
necessary time and money to make schools work. Yet, raising
these resources is not easy. In fact, leaders spend much of our
time working to attract the financial and human resources
necessary to sustaining our institutions.
PREPARED STATEMENT
This is an exciting time for Thurgood Marshall Academy.
Next year, we will graduate our first class and we expect all
these students to matriculate to and succeed in college.
Additionally, Thurgood Marshall Academy will move into its new
home, the now-derelict Nichols Avenue School building across
from the Anacostia Metro station. This $10 million renovation
of a cornerstone property at the gateway to historic Anacostia
speaks to the capacity and impact of high-performing charter
schools on their students and their community.
This concludes my remarks. Thank you for your past support
of our efforts and for the opportunity to speak with you today.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Joshua Kern
Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. My name is
Joshua Kern, and I am the Co-founder and President of Thurgood Marshall
Academy Public Charter High School, a law-related charter school in
Southeast Washington, DC. It is an honor to speak to distinguished
leaders on a topic so close to my heart. I'm honored, as well, to be
here with Eric Adler and David Domenici, heads of two other outstanding
charter schools, The SEED School and Maya Angelou, respectively.
Although each charter school is unique, there are common threads
among the highest performing charter schools (and, indeed, excellent
schools in general) that we now recognize as ``best practices.'' These
best practices include: hiring a talented principal who effectively
supports teachers; employing teachers who are masters at their craft;
implementing an innovative, standards-based curriculum that meets
students where they are; encouraging strong parental involvement in all
aspects of the school; and building a network of relationships within
the community by reaching out to families, businesses, institutions of
higher education, nonprofit organizations, and other schools. These are
but a few of the ingredients essential to creating an effective school.
However, there is one best practice that successful charter schools
employ that traditional public schools rarely use--an approach that
lies at the heart of charter schools' success--namely, creating a model
that effectively educates students from high-poverty backgrounds.
Students from high poverty backgrounds arrive at our schools with
both inspiring potential, and an imposing range of deficits and
disadvantages. These often include: unmet emotional needs, a dearth of
positive role models, a lack of basic resources outside of school, a
stressful home environment that is not conducive to studying, and
parents who lack time and resources to support their children's
education. In addition, unlike their peers from higher-income
backgrounds, our students have not been afforded the wide range of
experiences that would help them shape their hopes, dreams, and
aspirations.
As is the case at my colleagues' schools, what makes Thurgood
Marshall Academy successful is that we implement a model that addresses
all our students' needs. We provide a wide range of programs that go
far ``above and beyond'' those usually available at urban public
schools. In effect, we function both as a school and a non-profit youth
development organization. We carefully integrate a rigorous, college-
preparatory academic curriculum with specialized services including,
but not limited to: an extended school day that runs from 8 a.m. to 6
p.m.; after-school academic tutoring; personalized mentoring; Saturday
programming; high-caliber college guidance activities; a full-time, on-
site clinical counselor; and a mandatory 5-week summer program that
prepares incoming 9th-graders for high school academic and behavioral
expectations. Only through this full-service approach can we achieve
our ambitious mission to prepare students to succeed in college and to
actively engage in our democratic society.
Clearly, though, addressing the wide range of needs that students
from high-poverty backgrounds face, through this multi-faceted
approach, requires extraordinary financial and human resources.
Although there are ways that public monies can be used more
effectively, we shouldn't overlook the fact that funding for public
education on the whole is not sufficient to meet all the needs of
impoverished students. As a result, each of our schools raises a
significant amount of additional resources each year to maintain the
full complement of programming that truly impacts our students--
Thurgood Marshall Academy raises approximately $4,000 per student each
year to supplement guaranteed funding.
Finally, successful public charter schools have attracted and
motivated individuals, foundations, and companies with vast resources
to re-enter the world of public education, from which they have long
been absent. We have observed first-hand that, when an effective model
is created, the community at large is willing to invest the necessary
time and money to make schools work. Yet, raising these resources is
not easy--in fact, we leaders spend much of our time working to attract
the financial and human resources necessary to sustaining our
institutions.
This is an exciting time for Thurgood Marshall Academy. Next year,
we will graduate our first class, and we expect that all of these
students will matriculate to and succeed in college. Additionally,
Thurgood Marshall Academy will move into its new home, the now derelict
Nichols Avenue School building, across from the Anacostia Metro
Station. This $10 million renovation of a cornerstone property at the
gateway to historic Anacostia speaks to the capacity and impact of high
performing charter schools on their students and their community.
This concludes my remarks. Thank you for your past support of our
efforts and for the opportunity to speak with you today.
Senator DeWine. Mr. Kern, thank you very much. Senator
Landrieu.
Senator Landrieu. Thank you all. As I said as you all sat
down, I again just congratulate you for your really
extraordinary, extraordinary efforts. I thank you for your
leadership sincerely and, Mr. Domenici, particularly for your
remarks seeming a little bit tense, and appropriately so, but
to let you know and to give you encouragement that the work
that you have done is, in fact, accomplishing what I think you
want to accomplish, which is to challenge the current system,
to ask the right questions, and by setting the great model that
you have set has brought us in large measure to this point
today not just in the District, but all around the country,
showing a better way and providing hope that a public system,
but a different kind of public system that encourages
entrepreneurship, that pushes the envelope, that challenges the
very debilitating notion that a large group of children just
can't learn and can't succeed, is thinking out of the box and
shattering these notions. So I really do want to thank all of
you for what you are doing.
I do sense some frustration, which I sense also here in
myself sometimes. It is just not moving quickly enough for all
of us, and so part of this meeting today is to grasp what is
working so that we can attempt as leaders, with the leaders in
the District, to scale it up. It is all about scaling it up. It
may be working for a few hundred children or a few thousand
children. We need to quickly get it working for millions of
children in the country.
None of what we are doing is easy. If it was, it would have
been done 150 years ago or 200 years ago or 50 years ago. But
you all are showing us the way and I want you to be encouraged,
which is why, if anyone asks, which I often get--why do you
fund the SEED School, why do you directly fund Thurgood
Marshall, why are you giving special attention to Mr.
Domenici's school--I would like to answer that publicly.
I give support to Thurgood Marshall and SEED, and so does
the chairman, and attention and support to Mr. Domenici's
school because what you are doing is pretty terrific and it is
working and it is showing us the way. And if we can do it for
this number of kids, it is my hope that as you continue to
provide competition to the public school system and the private
school system, I might add, good competition and good role
models, we will all get better in the process.
My question that I want each of you to answer, if you
would, to the best of your knowledge--and I understand that the
SEED School is a little different because you are full
residential, so your costs are obviously going to be much
different than schools that have even extended hours, as you
do, Mr. Domenici, and also Mr. Kern.
I am sure your foundation board has to try to get close
because you go ask for money in the private sector. How much is
it costing you to educate, not feed and not house, but to
basically educate with wrap-around services the children and
the population that you are serving? And if you could try to
hit an average within $1,000 or $1,500, I would appreciate it.
Mr. Domenici.
Mr. Domenici. Twenty-plus thousand dollars a year.
Senator Landrieu. Twenty-plus a year.
Mr. Kern.
Mr. Kern. Fourteen thousand a year, although we could
certainly spend $20,000 a year.
Senator Landrieu. Mr. Adler.
Mr. Adler. Well, as you point out, this is a very difficult
question for us because we do house them and so I am not sure
which of the wrap-around services I would include in our
residential program and which I wouldn't.
Senator Landrieu. Then don't give a number today, but could
you look at that for us and submit it for the record because I
think it is very helpful in this debate? And if you want to
give an average, qualifying, and then submit something----
Mr. Adler. I certainly think that if you took the costs of
providing our residential faculty, our residential program--I
assume dinner you would leave in there; you included dinner in
that--I would be probably right in this range, in the $18,000,
$19,000-a-student range, and then on top of that we have got
housing costs.
Senator Landrieu. I think that is important to note. Now,
you know, people could debate these numbers, but I will tell
you from my political experience with the majority of
independent, non-parochial public schools, the average of
tuitions is about $15,000 to $20,000. There might be some that
are more expensive than that, but I think $15,000 to $22,000.
In parochial schools, where the tuition may only be $3,500
or $5,000 or $6,000, that tuition is subsidized pretty heavily
by the church, which, of course, is their mission in the
Catholic Church. Both of us being Catholic and having both
attended Catholic school, and our children having attended
Catholic schools, know about Catholic schools and the subsidy
that occurs.
But for people to argue that you can accomplish what you
all are accomplishing for $5,000 a year or $6,000 a year or
$7,000 a year, which is the reality in most school districts
around the country, is a hopeless case before you even start.
So I know money is not everything, but it is something, and
something pretty important when it comes to educating children
and providing the kind of quality education that our
Constitution implies that they have a right to receive and we
have an obligation to provide.
It is not going to be accomplished by $5,000 and $6,000 and
$7,000 and by scholarships at $7,500. Although it is better
than $3,000, it is not where it is, and one of the big issues
is this fairness in financing and to really become honest with
the financing of our system, as well as the management,
governance and thinking outside of the box about being
creative.
My next question to you, Mr. Domenici, is you said, quote,
``We could have found, built and structured a building faster
than the 18 months it took us to get a new facility.'' And I
know that everybody has been as cooperative as possible with
you; I hope they have because you most certainly deserve our
full cooperation.
Would you mind for the record saying a few things about why
it took you 18 months, even after you have proven a successful
strategy? And what would you say to us to help reduce that time
next time someone tries from 18 months to perhaps down to 3
months? What could you recommend?
Mr. Domenici. Well, I think the good news is someone had to
go first.
Senator Landrieu. Thank you for going first and for being
the pioneer.
Mr. Domenici. So I don't think it will be 18 months next
time around.
Very briefly, this is a real complicated process.
Particularly, I think, in disenfranchised communities, public
schools are really, really something particularly dear, and
whether they are vacant or not, they are particularly dear,
particularly in communities where that is the one thing left
standing in their neighborhood. So a lot of the conversations
here about just finding space and putting kids there is not
nearly as easy as it seems, because that space is a precious
commodity and that place and the ownership of it is unique.
Briefly, this can be done more quickly. You have got to get
the right community members at the table from the get-go. You
have to have community members as a part of the process and who
want to be a part of the process for change. You have to have
everybody involved in that discussion. You have to make sure
that the right people on the DCPS side of the table are with
you.
It has been a very, very difficult political train in the
city the last year. So when you are trying to work a very, very
thoughtful, open process like this, the truth is you have got
so many people you have got to negotiate with at different
places that the one thing you end up not doing is being able to
have an open, forthright negotiation with all the parties
involved, because that is the one thing you can't do. And then
by not doing that, you end up with a lot of information on the
back end and just a lot of difficulty navigating the politics.
I wish I could be more clear, but I will do my best after
this to see if I can write some very, very brief bullet points
for folks. But I think it can be done now. It takes a lot of
clarity of purpose, I think, on the part of both DCPS from the
board side and from the superintendent's office to make this
happen, and it takes a lot of clarity from local community
groups and whoever is working on the school side to commit to
working collaboratively to get these things done. It will
happen a lot more quickly next time, I am quite sure.
Senator Landrieu. Does anybody else want to add? Mr. Kern,
I think you all just purchased or entered into an agreement for
the Nichols School?
Mr. Kern. We are about to purchase it hopefully in July.
But if I could just add one thing--I think that Dave and I
share this experience in common--it seems as though you have to
receive the blessings of a lot of different people and
organizations in order to move forward on this.
I think one thing that you might be able to help with is
streamlining the process so that you don't need to go to so
many different people and so many different organizations in
order to get the concept and then the disposition agreement
approved. Thurgood Marshall Academy, as you know, has been
working for over 3 years to acquire the Nichols building and we
are just finally now at the doorstep of doing so.
Senator Landrieu. One thing in conclusion to this--and I
have so many questions, but I know the chairman has some
additional ones as well. We are vigorously pursuing this
incubator concept and we want to work with the mayor's office,
which has given tremendous leadership, the council and the
school board, who are all very interested.
While there are some advantages of an incubator, obviously,
and something that I think with a fairly reasonable amount of
money we could accomplish, part of the goal of a school is to
service the neighborhood and the community that it is in. So
the one disadvantage of an incubator is it is at one location
in a region or a place, giving the schools the ability to start
up. But the nature of it is that they wouldn't grow in that
spot. They would then be placed around in different parts of
the city.
So while an incubator is clearly something that obviously
we need, I just want to not leave this hearing thinking it is
the solution to our facilities and space problems because it
may work in some cases, but it may not when you want to start
and establish in a neighborhood and not move the children
around from one part of the city to another, or the teachers or
educators or support group for that matter.
Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Senator DeWine. Senator Landrieu, thank you very much.
Mr. Domenici, Mr. Adler and Mr. Kern, let me thank you for
your testimony. When we look at the problems in this country, I
don't know that there is anything more challenging or more
important than what is going on in our cities as far as
education.
We are focusing today on the District of Columbia. We could
be focusing on Cleveland or Dayton or Columbus or any other
city. We just happen to be in the District of Columbia and this
happens to be a subcommittee that has jurisdiction over the
District of Columbia. And we could debate whether it is worse
here or more challenging here, but the point is urban education
is a huge challenge to this country and what is going on with
our young people.
What the three of you are doing is just very exciting, and
I think you can tell that Senator Landrieu and I are both very
excited about it. This subcommittee has tried to be supportive
of what the three of you are doing. We intend to continue to be
supportive of what you are doing, and not just in words but
with money. So we are going to continue to do that in a small
way, but you are the ones who are out there doing it and we
appreciate it very much.
Mr. Domenici, I was intrigued by your testimony. You have
taken it from a bigger picture, I guess, and I am interested in
your comments in relation to Brown v. Board of Education. You
have, I guess, kind of challenged all of us to look at this
from the big picture and given some statistics which we should
be familiar with, but you have drawn us back to these figures.
I am interested in your statement about your partnership
with the public schools. You say that this is not just a
building deal, really; it is more than that. I wonder if you
can elaborate on that.
Mr. Domenici. Yes, sir. If it was just a building deal, we
would be paying more rent. It is not a building deal because
the goal here was to work collaboratively with the four large
high schools east of the river, traditional public high schools
east of the river, and to work proactively with their guidance
staff, their school leadership and other community agencies on
the ground to start identifying young people who are dropping
out of school, who are close to dropping out of school, who are
getting kicked out everyday, the sort of young people that we
are reading about at Ballou recently, and identify them before
something totally tragic happens and just try to encourage them
and the people who are working with them to think about going
to another school, and to make that school be a place where
they might want to go, not a place like the Choice Academy or
other alternative schools, where ultimately you will be forced
to go if enough things go badly.
So people are asking us, what is this partnership? Isn't it
just a building that you are getting for a little below market?
No. What it is is it is a commitment for our staff to work with
the staffs of four schools so that we, this small school, can
be a part of a network of high schools east of the river that
can really try to address the needs of students.
Hopefully, we will be ultimately working with the SEED
School and Thurgood Marshall School and Anacostia and Ballou,
and there won't be any radical difference in that. We will all
be working together saying what do the teenagers need east of
the river and how can we help them to get into whichever one of
these schools makes the most sense and not have which school
they go to be about whether they are or are not dragging $7,500
away from some other system with them, as compared to what is
the right school for a young person, what is the right school
for a 16-year-old who is reading at the fourth-grade level who
dropped out of school last year.
If Maya Angelou Evans campus makes sense, let's see if we
can't get that young person to apply and get through the
lottery. If it is too late for them to be at the SEED School,
then let's be finding some middle school students or sixth- or
seventh-graders that need to get into the SEED School and have
them go there.
So it is just a first attempt to try to break down some of
these barriers that have been separating us and make everyone
go focus on the young people and focus on the 16- and 17-year-
olds who are floating around east of the river, not in school,
not engaged, get them back in school and then get them back
reengaged.
Senator Landrieu. Can I add something to that?
Senator DeWine. Yes.
Senator Landrieu. Mr. Domenici, on that point, there are a
lot of 16- and 17-year-olds floating around in Louisiana and we
have been capturing them in the right sense, in the best sense,
or I should say giving them an alternative to floating around
through an extraordinary program that this Congress funds, not
an educational program in the traditional, but it is called
Youth Challenge, with the National Guard.
In all of our States--and I am particularly proud of this
because Louisiana has won the award for the outstanding program
in the Nation--we have three programs that have redirected
1,000 16- and 17-year-olds floating around and gotten them into
either college or full-time employment with extraordinary
success. So the model that you are developing is working in
many other places, and I want to commend you for it and
encourage you.
Perhaps, Mr. Chairman, you and I could introduce this young
team to some of the National Guard leadership and they could
maybe share some of their experiences. Again, children aren't
forced. It is a model. They can leave any time they want. But
you know what? They are not leaving, and these are kids who are
smart enough to at least recognize a last chance when they see
it and are grabbing that chance and doing what they need to do,
even without parental support or even with parents who have
tried everything and kind of given up.
Sometimes, that happens, you know. In poor families, and
also in wealthy families, parents throw up their hands. They
have tried everything, but sometimes the kids are just going
astray. But these children seem to find in this program
something that they say, this is my last opportunity, and they
are having tremendous success.
So, hopefully, we can share that model, Mr. Chairman.
Senator DeWine. Mr. Adler, who is doing something like what
you are doing with the SEED School in other jurisdictions? What
is comparable to what you are doing?
Mr. Adler. We are the only public college prep urban
boarding school anywhere in the country. There have been two
other efforts at it. One was in New Jersey, one was in
Massachusetts. They both closed. The economics of what we do
are brutal; they are just brutal. There isn't another word for
it. They couldn't make it economically.
There have been three efforts, one of which has survived,
and our goal is to now take this idea and do it again. We would
like to do it again here. We would like to do it again across
the country because there isn't anybody else doing it.
Senator DeWine. Do it again, meaning what?
Mr. Adler. Build more schools like this one.
Senator DeWine. Replicate it.
Mr. Adler. Replicate, so that we would produce this
opportunity for more kids in the District and for kids in
cities across the country.
Senator DeWine. The reality is, as Senator Landrieu was
saying, there is a funding limitation. I mean, any residential
operation is going to cost so much money. That is just the way
it is.
Mr. Adler. First of all, that is absolutely right. And
second of all, whether we pay for it in the form of residential
education or for other kinds of really----
Senator Landrieu. Or residence in prison. I mean, you can
either pay for it up front, residential in school, or you can
pay $50,000 a year for residence in prison. So I mean for the
government, I know it is very expensive, but it is maybe a lot
less expensive than 25 years in prison.
Mr. Adler. First of all, I would agree with that. Secondly,
I have to say that even in a net present value sense, we are
going to have a 97 percent high school graduation rate for the
kids who have attended the SEED School. We know that the net
present cost to society of a drop-out from high school is about
$500,000.
By that calculation, the day 2 months from now when our
kids graduate from the SEED School, we have returned money to
the taxpayer. Yes, the taxpayer had to invest the money over
the 6 years that the student was there.
Senator DeWine. It is up-front money that is the problem.
Mr. Adler. Right.
Senator DeWine. I mean, that is the challenge, getting the
money up front and convincing people that it should be done.
Mr. Adler. That is exactly right.
Mr. Domenici. Could I just address one thing on that which
I should have included, so I apologize? It related to your
question about costs, and it relates again, I think, to
structural things that we can all be working on that probably
are not quite on Eric's list.
One of the things that we are all absorbing here, in
addition to education costs, is in a certain sense we are
absorbing willingly the cost of traditional social service
delivery systems. We have been trying for a very long time to
have someone tell us how much is the District spending on the
average 15-year-old who has a certainly demographic, not even
that they are incarcerated, just when you add in all the other
inputs.
In a certain sense, we are building those into our schools.
Candidly, we are kind of just building them in to the extent we
can afford them. If you can fully afford them, you do them all.
If you can only afford one of them, you hire one social worker.
But another piece of this both in this city and other
cities is when you think about something that used to be called
a school, how do you bring the right resources to bear on that
space, and how do you bring the Department of Mental Health
there; how do you bring the Department of Employment Services,
if that is appropriate; how do you bring Youth Services; how do
you bring the Department of Recreation there. Charters may be
well-suited to do that.
How do you bring family counseling there? Again, Kent Amos
and the community academies are really doing a lot of work on
this front. In one sense, yes, it makes our costs look
ridiculous, but the truth is if you ask me one more time to
peel this away and say how much are you paying for your
teachers and your building from 9:00 to 3:00, well, my answer
would not be radically different than a whole bunch of other
schools, except we might have slightly different classes.
So another piece of this puzzle is how do you get the
agencies and the mayors' offices of cities and urban areas to
say what do we need to bring to bear so that we can start
another SEED school someplace and it won't have to go raise
privately, and what do we need to bring to bear the moment Maya
Angelou would try to do this again, which is not have to go for
four mental health staff from the private sector or otherwise,
as compared to saying from the beginning the Department of
Mental Health is here making sure that we have full-time social
workers on staff.
Senator Landrieu. Well, I would say the question for the
community is, having been shown success which you all are
showing against the odds, extraordinary success, how do we as a
community reward your success. How do we encourage you, as
opposed to making your job harder?
You have shown against the odds that it can be done, so the
challenge to the mayor, to the school board, to the Congress
and to the community generally is how do we reward your success
so that we can scale it up and make it more commonplace than an
exception to the rule. I think that is hopefully what this
hearing is, in part, about.
CONCLUSION OF HEARING
Senator DeWine. Well, we thank you very much. It has been
very interesting and very enlightening, and we want to continue
to work with you in the future. Thank you very much.
Senator Landrieu. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 11:55 a.m., Tuesday, May 4, the hearing was
concluded, and the subcommittee was recessed, to reconvene
subject to the call of the Chair.]
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