Trying Again to Transform Weakest Schools
Firm Leads Overhaul at 7 Senior Highs

By V. Dion Haynes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 24, 2006

More than 10 years ago, D.C. school officials introduced a term to refer to a new process for overhauling the most academically troubled schools: "reconstitution."

A few years later, under a new administration, the process -- which involved bringing in education experts and sometimes replacing the curricula and staff -- became known as "transformation."

This year, in yet another incarnation, the school system's attempt to fix low-achieving schools will be called "restructuring."

Whatever it is called, there is widespread demand for results, not just rhetoric. At least 80 of the system's 140 schools have failed to make "adequate yearly progress" under the No Child Left Behind law, subjecting them to heightened scrutiny. The law requires extra intervention for schools that fail to make academic targets for four or more years.

This year, seven senior highs -- Ballou and Anacostia in Southeast; Eastern and Woodson in Northeast; and Roosevelt, Coolidge and M.M. Washington in Northwest -- will receive the highest level of intervention.

An educational company will manage their academic overhaul. There will be extended classroom time in reading, writing and math; training for teachers and principals; and more individual attention for struggling students.

"The first thing students will notice is the 90-minute math and reading periods," said Marc S. Tucker, vice chairman of America's Choice, the Washington-based firm hired to oversee the reform effort as well as provide instructional materials and training to teachers at the restructured schools.

"We want to give [students] material that is challenging but not daunting," he added. Officials from America's Choice said they are charging the school system $1.5 million. Thirteen other schools that feed into the senior highs will receive less intensive intervention. They will get the math and reading programs from America's Choice but not the teacher-training programs.

The restructuring plan itself has seen some restructuring and has not always been implemented smoothly or on time.

For instance, teachers and students at Eastern were told as late as in May that they would be moving in the fall to accommodate the conversion of their building on Capitol Hill into a Latin academy modeled on the famed Boston Latin School, the alma mater of Superintendent Clifford B. Janey. But in June, those plans were put on hold with little explanation, said Mark Roy, a community member of Eastern's school restructuring team that advises the principal.

Parents and students, Roy said, were disappointed that the remodeling was delayed. He speculated that Janey was forced to hold off when his chief accountability officer, Meria J. Carstarphen, who oversaw the plan, left in June to become school superintendent in St. Paul, Minn.

"It's frustrating," Roy said. "Since the one person left, everything seems to be falling apart."

At Ballou, teachers were told this year that they would have to reapply for their jobs, with no guarantee of being rehired. But Ballou officials did not follow up on those plans, teachers said.

Earlier this year, Janey began negotiating with several groups -- including the Federal City Council, the Kimsey Foundation and New Leaders for New Schools, which trains new principals -- to develop plans for helping improve Ballou. But the talks were halted after school board member William Lockridge (District 4) complained loudly to Janey that the group was not involving parents and teachers.

The group "did not sit down with anyone on the local school restructuring team," Lockridge said. There was "push-back on the plan."

Gloria Benjamin, assistant superintendent for support services, said her staff is taking another year to properly prepare the plan for high schools. Besides proposing to convert Eastern into a Latin academy, school system officials are considering making Ballou a media and communication arts school, Spingarn a boarding school for students interested in construction, Anacostia a health and medical science school and Cardozo a school for the study of transportation and aeronautics.

Benjamin said the system needs another year not only to develop the programs but also to recruit the right students. "We have to market our career academies," Benjamin said. "We are also ratcheting up our partnerships with business."

Mary Levy, director of the Public Education Reform Project for the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, said restructuring plans in the past have not worked very well. Ballou, Cardozo and other schools on the restructuring list received extensive intervention -- new principals, new teachers and new instructional materials -- 10 years ago.

The failure of previous intervention programs, she said, shows that "this has to be done right. For the most part, these schools were not better but perhaps worse than before they were reconstituted."

Given that experience, Levy said, it is good that the school system is taking another year to plan the career-academy element of the restructuring. "I'd rather they slowed it down and take the time to implement it correctly," she said.