Washington, DC school officials are reacting to a recent report by the Council of the Great City Schools showing that the current teaching program in place in the district is "incoherent and has no accountability":
The report was complied by a group of urban school reform experts assembled by the nonprofit, D.C.-based Council of the Great City Schools. It concludes that no other urban school system in the country is getting improvement in reading and math instruction using D.C.'s system of letting schools choose their own programs.
Standardized test scores released on Wednesday show the city's student performance is at or near the bottom of every measurable category except one - white fourth-graders. The report recommends systemwide programs for math and reading rather than allowing schools to select their own.
Acting Superintendent Elfreda Massie tells The Washington post she'll act on the recommendations.
Emphasis mine. Whatever they're doing now in DC schools, it isn't working. Changes need to be made; not hiring any more administrators like this one would be a good start:
The newly hired head of D.C.'s public high schools has resigned after school officials learned new details about his background. Acting Superintendent Elfreda Massie tells The Washington Post that she hired Howard Coleman without knowing that he had been fired as superintendent of a district in North Carolina.
School officials there found that that Coleman had mismanaged the school budget; improperly charged the school system. The items included personal cell phone calls, meals and in-room movies at hotels and a payment for his rock band.
Coleman was one of Massie's first significant hires after she assumed the superintendent's job a month ago. Massie blamed a flawed hiring process, and says she will fix it.
And making sure the the schools in DC can actually keep track of student performance won't hurt, either:
Sixteen D.C. high schools are being cited for faulty record-keeping. A random check of student files found that many are in disarray - and that some students received higher or lower grades than teachers originally recorded.
According to The Washington Post, the report says some grades may have been tampered, but that records are too poorly organized to tell. The study also found that some records contain conflicting information about how many credits students earned toward graduation.
The review was requested by former Superintendent Paul Vance following complaints from Wilson Senior High teachers who said grades for some students were boosted last year without their knowledge.
School officials say steps are being taken to improve record-keeping and that parents shouldn't be worried.
If my kid was in the DC school system, I'd be very worried.
Posted by kswygert at December 18, 2003 11:19 AM