Report: Despite D.C. school reforms, disparities persist in system
The District’s public schools have made promising improvements after seven years of intensive reforms, but many disparities persist in academic resources and performance between poor and affluent students, according to the National Research Council.
In a much-anticipated report released Wednesday, the council offers an independent evaluation of the effects of sweeping school reform measures put in motion in 2007, when then-Mayor Adrian M. Fenty took control of the city’s schools and appointed Michelle A. Rhee as schools chancellor.
The council said that the District’s poor and minority students are still far less likely to have a quality teacher in their classrooms, perform at grade level and graduate from high school in four years. Although performance on standardized tests has improved for all groups, the city’s academic achievement gap has not diminished.
Rhee’s efforts to change the schools attracted national attention as she clashed with union leaders and vowed to upend the status quo. Many urban school systems have regarded some of the changes, including new teacher evaluations and academic standards, as models. But what researchers told the D.C. Council’s Education Committee on Wednesday is that there are no quick solutions and that many years of hard work remain ahead.
“Patience is of great importance in all these endeavors,” said Diana C. Pullin, professor of educational leadership and higher education at Boston College, who helped write the report.
The report recommends that the city make addressing disparities its primary objective. It emphasizes a need for more centralized data collection across all D.C. public schools, including charters, which now enroll 44 percent of the city’s public school students. The data would be maintained by a single agency that has ultimate responsibility for monitoring and overseeing the quality of Report: Despite D.C. school reforms, disparities persist in system - The Washington Post: