Erich Martel

Washington, D.C. 20015

Ward 3

December 5, 2016

 

Mr. Karl Racine, Esq. via email karl.racine@dc.gov

Attorney-General of the District of Columbia

Washington, DC

 

cc: Ms. Muriel Bowser, Mayor; Ms. Jennifer Niles, Deputy Mayor for Education (DME); Ms. Hanseul Kang, State Supt. of Education; Mr. David Grosso, Chair, Education Comm., Council; Mr. Phil Mendelson, Chair, Council; Members, DCPS Rising Leadership Comm.; President, State Board of Education

 

RE: INVESTIGATION REQUEST: Into the process of selecting a Chancellor nominee

 

 

Dear Attorney-General Racine,

I am requesting that you investigate the failure of the Mayor of the District of Columbia to follow the prescribed procedure of the 2007 Public Education Reform Amendment Act (PERAA) for selecting a nominee for Chancellor of the DC Public Schools (DCPS); and the failure of the Mayor to ensure that only complete and accurate DCPS performance indicators are posted on the DCPS, OSSE websites, especially the results of the federal NAEP-TUDA (National Assessment of Educational Progress-Trial Urban District Assessment) are announced and promptly posted on appropriate websites. Specifically, the Mayor:

 

A. Failed to comply with the unambiguous meaning and intent of PERAA, Title I, Section 105, Subsection (b) by not following the prescribed sequence or procedure that the "Mayor shall" follow "prior to the selection of a nominee for Chancellor"; and by excluding prescribed categories of "review panel" members, but adding non-prescribed categories, including two foundation board members and a foundation president, whose non-profit foundations have used donor grants to fund adoption of personnel management theories whose continuing costs, after adoption, were shifted to the appropriated, tax-payer funded DCPS budget;

 

B. Allowed the ex-Chancellor and DME to misuse their authority over the DC Government's official reports, public announcements and website postings, insofar as they describe the measurable or quantitative performance of students by:

 

- posting test averages, identified as NAEP-TUDA, on the DCPS website (and cross-linked from DME's DCPS Rising website), but that had been altered, i.e. are not the same as NCES reports;

- misrepresenting the 2015 NAEP-TUDA test results and score changes since 2007 by claiming that "DCPS continues to be the fastest improving urban school district in the country," but failing to report that

- the 2015 averages posted on the DCPS website (even when corrected) are aggregate score averages that include a greater percentage of higher scoring white students (gr4: +16%; gr8: +9%) and the largest drop of all TUDA school districts decline in the number of black students (gr4: -20%; gr8: -16%), whose average scores on the four NAEP-TUDA tests were much lower than those of white students and other not-disadvantaged students;

- 20% of ELL 4th graders and 44% of ELL 8th graders were excluded from 2015 NAEP testing.

- suppressing black, Hispanic and disadvantaged students' group averages and gains, including their pre-2007 results whose 1998 to 2007 gains were twice as fast for black and disadvantaged students; and four times greater for Hispanic students than they have been from 2007 to 2015;

- allowing the State Superintendent of Education to delay posting a user-friendly link to the 2015 NAEP-TUDA District Snapshot Reports on the OSSE website for 11� months until Oct 7, 2016), after the former Chancellor had departed and the DCPS Rising website had been closed to further public input.

 

Details, tables and graphs with supporting narratives and links to official data sources follow.

 

A. Failure to comply with the 2007 PERAA, Title I, Section 105, Subsection (b).

1. This subsection of the PERAA reads:

 

(b) (1) Prior to the selection of a nominee for Chancellor, the Mayor shall:

(A) Establish a review panel of teachers, including representatives of the Washington Teachers Union, parents, and students ("panel") to aid the Mayor in his or her selection of Chancellor;

(B) Provide the resumes and other pertinent information pertaining to the individuals under consideration, if any, to the panel; and

(C) Convene a meeting of the panel to hear the opinions and recommendations of the panel.

(2) The Mayor shall consider the opinions and recommendations of the panel in making his or her nomination and shall give great weight to any recommendation of the Washington Teachers Union.

 

2. Background to PERAA, Section 105 (b)

When the Council transferred governance of DCPS to the Mayor and Chancellor designee with an enlarged grant of authority over DCPS and greatly reduced stakeholder's points of access, it listed the stakeholder categories and gave them a preliminary check over the Mayor's potential nominee by creating a statutory obligation that the mayor is required to follow to ensure the right person is selected. As the only check available to stakeholders, its importance is magnified. It also magnifies the compliance or non-compliance of the Mayor, an early indicator of the Mayor's future willingness to hold the Chancellor accountable for knowing and addressing students' learning needs from the most deficient to the most advanced and whether losing students and buildings to charter schools will continue to be treated as a measure of success.

 

3. To what extent did the Mayor comply with Section 105(b)?

Section 105(b) begins with an unequivocal list of three actions the Mayor "shall," i.e. is legally obligated to, do before selecting a nominee. Their order is both logical and intentional: A must come before B, B before C; only then can the Mayor begin to make a decision. That decision is guided by paragraph "(2)", which establishes relative weights of stakeholders' recommendations: "The Mayor shall consider the opinions and recommendations of the panel" but then "shall give great weight to any recommendation of the Washington Teachers Union."

 

The following table analyzes both the sequence and the substance of the Mayor's obligations:

 

 

Three community meetings and several focus groups were held by the DME. They do not meet the statutory meeting requirement.

 

The DME sent a cryptic email invitation to the panel/committee on November 21st to attend an emergency meeting on November 22nd:

"I am writing to request your presence for a meeting to discuss the next steps in the process to select the new DCPS Chancellor. At the meeting we will discuss personnel matters relevant to the process."

 

She did not say that she and the Mayor had or were meeting with Mr. Antwan Wilson along with a Washington Post reporter and photographer.

 

4. The Mayor's foundation appointees to the "review panel"

 

Section 105 (b)(A) of the 2007 PERAA does not include non-profit foundations or donors in its categories of members on the "review panel," yet three were on the DCPS Rising Leadership Committee:

 

Ms. Gina Adams (Co-Chair, DCPS-RLC), Member, Board of Directors, DC Public Education Fund (DCPEF)

Ms. Michela English (Member, DCPS-RLC), President and CEO, Fight For Children; Member, Board of Directors, DCPEF

Mr. Thomas Penny (Member, DCPS-RLC), Member (current or recent), Board of Directors, DCPEF

 

The DC Public Education Fund and Fight For Children are responsible for funding three teacher accountability policies that have disrupted many DCPS schools, contributed to charter flight and school closings, teacher churn and low morale: the IMPACT teacher evaluation (by Fight for Children), teacher bonuses tied to high IMPACT scores and teacher excessing with no rights to existing vacancies without principal approval (by four foundations via the DCPEF).

 

Chancellor Rhee predicted that these policies would lead to increased student test score goals and an achievement gap narrowing. They didn't. IMPACT generated a bureaucracy that pulled funds from beneficial programs. When the $64.5M grant for bonuses and excessing ended in September 2012, the costs were shifted to the local, taxpayer-funded budget with destabilizing consequences.

 

A short time later, October 9, 2012, Peter Weber, Chancellor Henderson's Chief of Strategy, in a draft of a presentation he wrote for Henderson to deliver to the DCPEF, explained how DCPS was going to ease the budget strain. He emailed it to DCPEF executive director Catherine Townshend to look over. In it, he explained that she was closing 15 DCPS schools was to fund the donors' "investments" (IMPACT teacher evaluation, "excessing" of teachers, teacher bonuses):

 

"[DCPS has] absorbed the cost of the WTU contract into our local budget. Closing schools and improving our strategic use of resources ... will help us continue to fund these investments." (attached: 10/9/2012 email 1352-54: DCPS Chief of Strategy Peter Weber to Catherine Townsend, executive director, DC Public Education Fund, "Talking Points for Donor Briefing," released to Empower DC, sponsor of the unsuccessful litigation to halt the closure of 15 DCPS schools)

 

 

B. The Mayor failed to ensure that NAEP-TUDA test results were accurate and complete by allowing test results that were altered, misrepresented or suppressed to be posted on DC Government websites, including:

 

1. DCPS website: Graphs showing NAEP-TUDA scale score averages that inflated and misrepresented 2007 to 2015 gains to portray DCPS as "the fastest improving urban school district in the country" ( http://dcps.dc.gov/node/1013812 ). Three of the 2007 averages were altered; they differ from the average scores on the NAEP-TUDA website.

 

The DME repeated the "fastest growing" claim in community meetings, posted it on the DCPS Rising website with a link to the above DCPS website: https://dcpsrising.dc.gov/page/learn

 

Although the State Superintendent immediately posted notice of the NAEP and NAEP-TUDA results on the OSSE website on October 28, 2015, shortly after NCES released them, but to get to the DCPS TUDA reports, one had to follow a trail that led through three websites or tabs, each with multiple choices that effectively concealed the District Snapshot Reports from the public:

DCPS's results on the NAEP Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA)

 

Then, on October 7, 2016, almost 12 months later, seven days after Henderson had left, when the DCPS Rising Engagement site was closed to additional recommendations, a more direct link to the 2015 TUDA "District Snapshot Reports" for DCPS was posted: https://osse.dc.gov/service/national-assessment-educational-progress-naep

 

2. The DME and the ex-Chancellor misrepresented DCPS aggregate scale score averages and "gains" from the four NAEP-TUDA tests given in 2007 and 2015 as the definitive NAEP-TUDA performance report and did not report that aggregate averages do not represent the racial/ethnic or poverty criteria required for a school district to participate in the NAEP-TUDA.

 

3. The Mayor allowed the following federal NAEP and/or NAEP-TUDA reports:

- complete and accurate DCPS students' scale score averages by race/ethnicity and by Free & Reduced Lunch Eligibility (a poverty indicator) as reported on the TUDA "Snapshot Reports" for 2007 and for 2015, AND that show the percentage of the tests taken by each student group within the above categories;

- DCPS students' scale score "gains" by race/ethnicity and by Free & Reduced Lunch Eligibility between 2007 and 2015 by failing to calculate and report the changes in their scale score averages on each of the four NAEP-TUDA tests and publicly report them;

- the changes in the percentage of students tested on each NAEP-TUDA tests between 2007 and 2015;

- complete and accurate DCPS students' scale score averages on NAEP and NAEP-TUDA tests between 1990 and 2007 by the above student groups by year and by test.

 

 

MISREPRESENTATIONS WITH SUPPORTING TABLES AND SOURCELINKS

 

I.      Why the "fastest improving" claim is false

 

A. Three of the four 2007 aggregate averages are fabricated: they differ from those in NAEP reports;

Ex-Chancellor Henderson posted three altered 2007 NAEP-TUDA aggregate scale score averages on the DCPS website as "proof" that DCPS is the "fastest improving urban school district." The TUDA website (select DCPS) shows the correct aggregate averages for the four 2007 and 2015 tests.

 

Table 1 shows the three altered and five accurate scale score averages, the resulting changes or "gains" by test, then as a total of the four tests (Altered shown in red Italics)

 

 

 

Table 2 shows the three correct and five accurate scale score averages, the resulting changes or "gains" by test, then as a total of the four tests (Correct shown in blue)

 

 

 

 

The following wording & graphs, copied from the DCPS website (https://dcps.dc.gov/page/dcps-glance-performance), were uncorrected as of 1/7/2017

"DCPS at a Glance: Performance

"National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA)

"The NAEP TUDA allows comparisons of student performance across urban school districts in large cities (i.e. cities with populations of 250,000 or more). DCPS continues to be the fastest improving urban school district in the country according to data from the 2015 Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA).

"The graphs below show the average scores of DCPS students on each NAEP TUDA from 2007 – 2015."

 

198 (NAEP reports 197, thus: +16 really is +17); 237 (NAEP reports 241, thus +8 really is +4)

 

 

 

244 (NAEP reports 248, thus: +14 really is +10)

 

B. DCPS Aggregate Averages on the NAEP-TUDA Do Not Represent the Student Categories Whose Progress the TUDA was designed to report: Minority & Disadvantaged Students

Aggregate averages and gains conceal the lower averages and gains of Black, F/R Lunch Eligible and Hispanic students. Henderson did not post their group averages or average gains. It is these students whose hoped-for improvement is the reason why NAEP-TUDA reporting was established and why DCPS is part of it. To participate in the TUDA, a school district must have "the characteristics of large urban areas": "50% or more [are] minority students [and/or] ... eligible for ... free or reduced price lunch ... or other poverty indicator."

 

The increased aggregate averages from 2007 to 2015 were driven mostly by students not eligible for F/R Lunch assistance and by the large increase in high scoring White students.

 

Deception and Disinformation: Confusing "urban school district" with the student categories (>50% minority &/or disadvantaged) that meet TUDA participation criteria

The general public knows that urban school districts have high percentages of minority and/or economically disadvantaged students, many of whom have low test scores. Most will, therefore, assume that "fastest improving urban school district" was referring to them. Not only are they the focus of TUDA, they were the rationale for mayoral control and the greater authority delegated to the chancellors. Not so. The 2007 to 2015 gains she posted, i.e. when using correct averages (17+4+18+10 = 49), are aggregate gains.

 

Tables 3-6 show that the gaps between All students and Black students more than doubled in grade 4 and tripled in grade 8 between 2007 (5 + 3 + 5 + 3 = 16) and 2015 (12 + 9 + 12 + 10 = 43). Tables 3-6 show the averages for DCPS students on the four 2007 and 2015 NAEP-TUDA tests. "All" means the aggregate averages for all tested students. Table 7 combines Tables 3-6. Rank is the degree of improvement in the scale score average on the four NAEP tests relative to the other 10 urban districts (see attached excel sheet).

 

Table 3: DCPS Grade 4 Reading Table 4: DCPS Grade 4 Math (*tied w/ another district)

 

 

 

Table 5: DCPS Grade 8 Reading Table 6: DCPS Grade 8 Math (*tied w/ another district)

 

 

 

Table 7: DCPS, 2007 to 2015: combined totals from Tables 3–6, by student group:

 

(Combined gains for White students use 2005 data for grade 8 math & reading; in 2007 none were reported)

 

Source Links to DCPS TUDA Snapshot Reports: The sources of 2007 and 2015 scale score averages of Black, Hispanic and White students and F/R Lunch Elig/Not Elig; and each group's percentage of tests taken:

 

Table 8: Links to the 2007 & 2015 Urban District Snapshot Reports

 

 

 

C. Comparative average gains of Black, Hispanic and Disadvantaged students in the 11 urban districts, reported by NAEP-TUDA since 2007 do not show DCPS as "fastest improving" (see attached).

 

 

D. Demographic change (high-scoring, largely white students replacing mostly lower scoring Black students), not "improvement," was the reason for much of the rise in aggregate average scores or "gains" between 2007 and 2015;

 

Table 9: Grade 4 Math: % of Tests per Group Table 10: Grade 8 Math: % of Tests per Group

 

(Sources: NAEP-TUDA Snapshot Reports: Table 8, above)

 

 

Tables 9 & 10 show the dramatic demographic change that has transformed and still is transforming the city. Black 4th graders' enrollment fell 20 percentage points; Black 8th graders decreased by 16 percentage points. White 4th graders rose by 10 points, Hispanic by 7. DC White students' average is the highest of all urban districts, since almost all White students come from professional families as is true of increasing numbers of Black and Hispanic residents.

 

This means that much of the +49 points combined, aggregate score increase came from the admission of higher performing white and other students and the withdrawal of disproportionately lower-performing Black students (see Tables 11 & 12).

 

Black Removal is not "improvement."

Tables 11 & 12 apply the NAEP-TUDA percentages to the DC OSSE enrollment audits from October 2007 and 2015. These numbers are approximate, but close enough to show the decline in Black student enrollment since 2007.

2007 to 2015: >1600 fewer Black students in just two grades, 4 & 8!

Tables 11 & 12: October enrollment reports: https://osse.dc.gov/enrollment

 

Table 11: DCPS Grade 4 Enrollment Percentages & Changes, 2007 to 2015, by Race/Ethnicity

 

 

Table 12: DCPS Grade 8 Enrollment Percentages & Changes, 2007 to 2015, by Race/Ethnicity

 

 

 

II. Under Rhee and Henderson student improvement slowed dramatically. Rhee and Henderson suppressed data showing that Black and Disadvantaged students' averages rose twice as fast from 1998 to 2007 as from 2007 to 2015; White & Hispanic averages rose four times faster.

 

Table 13: NAEP-TUDA Scale Score Averages & Comparative Gains: Gr 4 Reading: 1998–2007 vs 2007–2015

 

 

 

Table 14: NAEP-TUDA Scale Score Averages & Comparative Gains: Grade 8 Reading: 1998–2007 vs 2007–2015

 

(* No average for White students was reported for 2007; 301 is the average from 2005)

 

 

Table 15: NAEP-TUDA Scale Score Averages & Comparative Gains: Grade 4 Math: 2000–2007 vs 2007–2015

 

 

 

Table 16: NAEP-TUDA Scale Score Averages & Comparative Gains: Grade 8 Math: 2000–2007 vs 2007–2015

 

(* No White average reported for 2007; 317 is the average from 2005)

 

 

Table 17: Combined Student Gains from Tables 13–16 Four NAEP Tests: 1998(R) & 2000(M) > 2007 vs. 2007 > 2015

 

(* Combined gains for White students use 2005 scores for gr8 math & reading; in 2007 no averages were reported)

(Only reading tests were given in 1998 [1998R]; only math tests were given in 2000 [2000M])

(See notes on using 1998 Reading and 2000 Math results)

 

 

Black, Hispanic and Disadvantaged students' improvement rates were two to three times faster in the nine years that ended in 2007 than in the eight years from 2007 to 2015

 

 

 

 

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Appendix.

 

I. How to read the attached spread sheet:

The attached excel spreadsheet lists average scale scores for the 11 school districts that were part of NAEP-TUDA testing from 2007 to 2015 (there are now 21)

Sheet 2 shows Reading grades 4 & 8

Sheet 3 shows Math, grades 4 & 8

On both sheets, the first few columns are for DCPS, the other ten are in alpha order to the right: Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Houston, LA, NYC, San Diego

 

Sheet #2: Reading:

Rows 8–15: Grade 4 Reading: Comparative Scale Scores, 2007, 2015, Gains, Rank

Under each district, scale score averages for "All," Black, Hisp, White;

2007 scale score averages;

2015 scale score averages;

2007 to 2015 change, i.e. Gains, in scale score averages over 8 years;

2007 to 2015 Rank of Gains out of 11 for each student group (rank shown only for DCPS)

 

Rows 17–24: Grade 4 Reading: 2007 to 2015: Change in % of students tested, by student group: Black, Hispanic, White

2007 %,

2015 %,

8-year change in %s of Students Tested, by Student Group,

Rank of change (DCPS only)

 

Rows 26–33: Grade 8 Reading: Comp. Scale Scores (same as Rows 8–15)

 

Rows 35–42: Grade 8 Reading: 2007 to 2015: Change in % of students tested (same as Rows 17–24)

 

Sheet #3: NAEP Math: same sequence, rows and pattern of information as Sheet #2

 

 

II. Sources of 2007 and 2015 scale score averages of other urban districts

i.      See links to Urban District Snapshot Reports: https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/districts/ (select each district)

It opens to a list of all the aggregate reading and math scores from 2002 to 2015.

To the right are hyperlinks to that district's four NAEP-TUDA test results for 2015.

 

ii. For 2007 , go to the NAEP data explorer:

https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/naepdata/dataset.aspx

Tab 1: Select Criteria

Pick Math or Reading, Grade 4 or 8

Tab 2: Select Variables

Under group, click "District"

To the right, click 2007

Tab 3: Edit Reports

Click "Race/ethnicity ....school reported"

Tab 4: Build Reports

Click the green rectangle

 

III. Sources for 1998 & 2000, DC state scores

1. DC state, 1998 Reading:

https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pdf/main1998/1999500.pdf

Grade 4

- Scale Scores by Eligible/Not Eligible F/R Lunch: p. 139

- Scale Scores by race/ethnicity: p. 136

- Percentages of students by race/ethnicity: p. 272

Grade 8

- Scale Scores by Eligible/Not Eligible F/R Lunch: p. 140

- Scale Scores by race/ethnicity: p. 137

- Percentages of students by race/ethnicity: p. 273

 

b. DC state, 2000 Math:

https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pdf/main2000/2001517.pdf

Grade 4

- Scale Scores by Eligible/Not Eligible F/R Lunch: p. 283

- Scale Scores by race/ethnicity: p. 261

- Percentages of students by race/ethnicity: p. 279

Grade 8

- Scale Scores by Eligible/Not Eligible F/R Lunch: p. 284

- Scale Scores by race/ethnicity: p. 263

- Percentages of students by race/ethnicity: p. 281

 

c. Notes on the use of 1998 Reading and 2000 Math averages:

i. NAEP state testing started in 1990, NAEP-TUDA testing in 2002. DCPS TUDA and DC state reports were the same from 2002 to 2007: both included charter schools in the sample of tested students, but since 2009, charter schools have been excluded from TUDA reports (See note at the bottom of each TUDA Snapshot Report starting in 2009, Tables 9 & 10, above).

Since DCPS is the only school district in the "state" of DC and since the scale scores of the state reports from 1990 through 2007 are aligned, the average 1998 reading and 2000 average math scores form valid baselines to calculate score gains up to 2007, the year that DCPS governance transitioned to mayoral control. The resulting 9 & 7 year time periods (1998 to 2007; 2000 to 2007) and the 8-year period from 2007 to 2015 span equivalent numbers of years to allow a rough comparison of average student gains before 2007 versus since 2007.

ii. There are two sets of scores for 1998 and 2000: tests taken with and without accommodations. This report uses scores from tests taken with accommodations, because that is how all subsequent tests were administered.

 

 

Sincerely,

 

Erich Martel

Retired DCPS high school teacher (1969–2011: Cardozo HS, Wilson HS, Phelps ACE HS)

ehmartel@starpower.net

 

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