With a Chancellor like this, DCPS doesn’t need enemies
Isn’t it great to have a superintendent who denigrates DC public schools every chance she gets? Here is an example that she just published:
“….under a new principal at one school, student reading proficiency went from 24 percent to 85 percent in just four years, and from 10 percent to 64 percent in math. In another, only 9 percent of the students were on grade level, when just down the street in a successful charter school, over 90 percent of students were. Same kids, same neighborhoods and exposure to violence, same poverty, hunger, and parent education levels. At the successful schools, the primary difference was the team of adults who decided it was possible for lives and outcomes to move in other directions.”
As usual, Rhee operates on innuendo, never actually giving facts that people can check easily.
After doing a bit of research, I figured out that in the first sentence, she was probably referring to Noyes ES in Northeast Washington, where the percentage of students performing at the “Proficient” or “Advanced” level went as follows. Notice that in 2006, in reading, about 24% of the students scored “proficient”, and in 2009, about 85% scored “proficient”.
If you are wondering what happened to make the scores go down so much in 2006, the answer is simple: DCPS contracted with a different testing company that year to make the NCLB AYP tests for the city. Instead of the SAT-9, students took the DC-CAS. Since the change, our “curriculum” has been more and more just “test prep for the DC-CAS”, so it’s not entirely surprising that teachers have been getting better at coaching students to improve their scores.Here’s the same data in the form of a graph:
Unlike what Rhee wrote, Noyes has had the same principal, Wayne Ryan, since 2002, well before Rhee came onto the scene, so she can’t take credit for hiring him. And with at least 8 years on the job, Ryan is now one of the most veteran principals in DCPS. I