Important Work Remains for DC’s Cross-Sector Collaboration Task Force

Roughly 55% of DC public school students attend a DCPS school and 45% attend a public charter school. With such an even split between the two sectors, as well as ongoing issues related to mid-year mobility, school facilities, and the distribution of at-risk students, the city needs greater coordination between each side. The Mayor’s Cross-Sector Collaboration Task Force aims to find such common ground between DC’s traditional and charter schools.

What is the Cross-Sector Collaboration Task Force?

The Cross-Sector Collaboration Task Force is a two-year initiative charged with drafting policy recommendations to improve student outcomes through collaboration and transparency. The group began meeting monthly in February of 2016 under the leadership of DC’s Deputy Mayor for Education Jennie Niles and former Mayor Anthony Williams. The task force is made up of a diverse group of stakeholders including parents, agency representatives and advocates from the public and charter sectors. The group also includes the chancellor of DCPS, the executive director and chair of the Public Charter School Board as well as the State Superintendent of Education.

The task force spent most of its first year together crafting recommendations to promote enrollment stability within and between the two sectors. 8% of DC students leave their school mid-year, most (75%) through entering or exiting the state. A disproportionate amount of churn occurs in DCPS schools located in Wards 7 and 8, which negatively affects student achievement and culture in these schools. The task force put forward two preliminary recommendations to help address the issue: the My School DC lottery team within OSSE should manage a shared mid-year entry and transfer process and schools should voluntarily set aside seats separate from their main waitlists for students who meet certain hardship criteria.

Source: OSSE, “Mid-Year Student Movement in DC”, July 2015.

 

The task force next split into two working groups related to the opening, closing and siting of school facilities and improving outcomes for at-risk students. The facilities working group aims to increase transparency between the sectors and with the community related to the school planning process. The group has made progress towards proposing a “strategic citywide analysis” of current and projected demand for school space. The at-risk working group focuses on students considered “at-risk of academic failure” because they are homeless, in the foster care system, qualify for TANF or SNAP, or are over-age high school students. 49% of all DC public school students are considered “at-risk”, of which only 13% met or exceeded learning standards on the 2016 PARCC exam. This group is making progress towards a recommendation that the city study and replicate the successes of schools that “beat the odds,” related to at-risk achievement.

Real Philosophical Disagreements Remain Between the Two Sectors

Task force members from the charter and traditional public sectors remain deadlocked around a few philosophical issues. Charter representatives would like the city to close underperforming schools and lease more vacant DCPS facilities to high performing charter operators. Proponents of the DCPS system would like to see more resources and support go to struggling schools before closing their doors. Seemingly simple issues like counting the number of vacant seats in DC’s public charter schools have resulted in wildly different analyses of the same data. Work on identifying schools that “beat the odds” is caught up in debates over how to define such success. Does it count if a school achieves high PARCC scores through the attrition of its most challenging students?

Members of the task force must move beyond simple platitudes for more data and further study and begin to identify ways in which they can find compromise on the big issues facing our students. The city is on pace to have more than 800,000 residents within the next 15 years. Without adequate coordination and planning shared between the two public sectors, we could face massive overcrowding throughout the city like is already happening in some highly sought-after schools in Ward 3. The city currently spends over $80 million a year on initiatives to support at-risk students, but their scores remains stubbornly low. Task force members can and must identify cross-sector solutions to address these issues.

Time is Running Out

The task force only has a handful of meetings left before its final recommendations are due to the mayor in January of 2018. All members must work diligently to preserve the spirit of cooperation built up over months of meetings, conference calls, and community engagement. Members must be willing to address the tough issues of consequence. We can’t afford to waste the time and energy already committed by this important task force.

The next Cross-Sector Collaboration Task Force meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, July 25th at the Luke C. Moore High School cafeteria in Brookland (1001 Monroe St, NE) from 6:00 to 8:00pm. Further information can also be found at https://dme.dc.gov/collaboration.

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