16

‘Our touchstone for evaluating any DCPS plan is the DC Goals 2000 Plan for Educational
Improvement, completed in summer 1996. This general plan represents a real District-wide
consensus on major strategies, objectives and priorities because it was based on multiple sources
of input from parents, community, school and elected officials through all the different planning
processes starting in 1989,

‘The October 20, 1997 Plan is largely consistent with the Goals 2000 Plan, but has two
major overall problems. First, it is too general to be very useful at this point. For example, we
know that most of the special education operation is severely dysfunctional, but all the Plan says is
“Review and implement appropriate service delivery and staffing models linked to a new Special
Education strategic plan.” The school system has “planned” to do this for many years
Moreover, the October 20 Plan has far too many items in it - the school system could not
possibly do all ofthat in one year, and, in fact has not done much of i

‘Therefore, I wish to call your attention to a supplement to that Plan that Ms. Ackerman
presented at her first press briefing. This document is much more focused, selective and specific.
‘We support the focus there, which is highly consistent with the priorities of the Goals 2000 Plan:

+ Clear performance standards, content standards and promotion requirements

+ Infrastructure ~- realignment of resources, system wide accountability and monitoring of
student progress.

+ Professional development

. Public engagement

‘The strengths that we see in the Plan, the supplement and their implementation are:

+ The concentration of activities focusing on reading and literacy

‘+ The establishment of higher standards of content and performance, testing students on a
nationally competitive basis and holding students to the standards

‘+The requirement and monitoring of individual school improvement

+ Specific system of principal evaluation concentrating on student achievement

+ Serious summer school requirements focusing on real skills development in math and
reading

+ Use of the Roots and Wings program and other assistance for poorly performing schools

+ Steady downward movement in the number of central office staff

+ Acknowledgment of the importance of parent and community involvement

These strengths are in place. The weaknesses

. Very little parent or community involvement has occurred in fact, with consequent
‘stakes in specific planning and implementation as inexperienced newcomers tried to do
the job all by themselves,

+ Teacher training, which needs to be both intensive and extensive, is thin, under funded and
not mandatory.

. The safety net for students not meeting the standards is also thin and under funded.


37

the Authority, after consulting with the trustees and with General
Becton, appointed Ms. Arlene Ackerman to serve as the chief—next.
chief executive officer and superintendent.

We moved hastily, members of the committee, because we felt
that the school system, the embattled system could not afford to
have any more time than absolutely necessary, to have a vacuum
created. Moreover, when Ms. Ackerman was recruited, as I stated
earlier, it was with the intention that she would ascend to the
superintendency, chief executive officer's position. The Authority
appointed her to this position because we are very, very confident
that under her leadership the management and the educational re-
form efforts will be continued without interruption.

Under her plans that she intends to implement, she will increase
the accountability for educational change throughout the system.
She has already begun this by holding principals more accountable,
that 50 percent of their rating comes through the achievement of
the students. Under General Becton and Ms. Ackerman, the prin-
cipals’ appointments have been reduced to 1 year, and they’ve re-
moved the previous politicization from the process.

The public schools are also moving to make teacher evaluations
performance-driven. Principals and teachers are receiving training
in the expectations supporting performance-based management.
Higher academic standards are being instituted.

When I testified here last, I stated that Ms. Ackerman has imple-
mented biannual testing using the Stanford Achievement Test Se-
ries Ninth Edition. And this will help us, No. 1, in October estab-
lish baseline data, and in the spring test and measure against that.

I have included in my testimony for the record the abysmal
record that we—the standards—sorry, achievement levels of our
children, but I dare say that I am cautiously optimistic that in the
spring those will have improved. Social promotion has been abol-
ished, and in order to—once it’s abolished, then we have to pre-
pare, what do we do with the children? We expect between 15,000
and 20,000 students to be in summer school.

Much has been said by parents and others about the lack of air
conditioning and, members of the committee, I’d like to simply say
here that I grew up in a little community outside of Hattiesburg,
MI, called Palmer’s Crossing, and we barely had a roof over our
heads in the school itself. Needless to say, in the heat of the sum-
mer in Mississippi, we had no air conditioning, and yet we learned.

Last week when President Clinton was in South Africa they
showed on television a school in one of the homeland territories
where there were 800 students, 10 teachers, and they had no build-
ing. They all sat with slates, if they could afford them, underneath
the trees and they learned.

I think that our position on this is that we’re—that the parents
are wagging the dog, that our children have not complained about
the environment, and the fact is that we can’t do very much about
it anyway. So why complain and make that an issue when, in fact,
the main thing is that we’re trying to bring these children’s literacy
level up?

As the schools continue to refine the educational plans, to iden-
tify the critical actions and timeframes for addressing these prob-
lems, we expect that it will be driven by the educational plan. Un-


33

Thank you for the opportunity to be here today to testify on behalf of the D.C.
Council and its Chairman, Linda A. Cropp. I have served for three years as a member of
the Council's Committee on Education, Libraries and Recreation, and I currently am
chairman of our Committee on Government Operations. I am, as well, a D.C. Public
School parent and my views are informed by my own experiences.

I would like to provide some context for my testimony on the D.C. Public Schools
academic plan. In 1996 when the control board issued its critical report on D.C. schools,
one number that jumped off the page was the slatistic that said we are failing nearly 80%
of our children, and failing them by the fourth grade. According to the National
Assessment of Educational Progress, fully 78% of fourth graders tested “below basic” in
reading. Here are the comparable figures for other cities: in Baltimore, 74% of fourth
graders tested below basic in reading; in Boston, 70%; in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia,
73%; in California cities. 79%; in Connecticut cities, also 78%; and New Orleans and
Baton Rouge, 79% -- all testing below basic in reading in the fourth grade.

The District of Columbia clearly is not alone among urban school systems in
failing children today. In the recent Quality Counts 98 Report, The Urban Challenge,
Professor Martin Haberman of the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee notes, "There
are no model urban school systems.” The report adds: "Every city has its lighthouse
schools, where poor and minority children achieve at high levels. But such excellence
rarely transcends individual schools....No city has been able to reproduce that success on
a large scale.”

Our school system is also not alone in having been “taken over" through
receivership or other action. It is one of ten, including Baltimore in 1997, Chicago,
Cleveland and Newark in 1995, and East St. Louis in 1994.

A request to you, Mr. Davis, and to your colleagues: as you go about the business
of the Constitutionally-required oversight of Washington DC, please also keep in mind
your role as national policymakers. One way to protect and assist children here is to
protect and assist children across the country, through family preservation programs and
safe streets programs as well as ongoing support for Head Start and Title I, all of which
benefit District children and other children living in urban centers.

While there may not be a model urban system, we do have excellent individual
schools and extensive research, and that information must inform the academic planning


42

the appointment of principals to one year, and removed the selection of principals from
the previously politicized process. Fifty percent of a principal's evaluation now will be
based on the students’ academic performance. The D.C. Public Schools are also moving
to make teacher evaluations performance driven. Principals and teachers are receiving

training in the expectations supporting performance based management.

Higher academic standards are being instituted. On her arrival, the Deputy
Superintendent/Chief Academic Officer implemented bi-annual testing using the Stanford
Achievement Test Series Ninth Edition. This will help the schools to measure
performance and develop solutions for improvement in the long term. Unfortunately, the
results in the short term have been very disappointing at all educational levels. Fourteen
out of 18 D.C. high schools had more than 90 percent of the students test below basic

levels of proficiency in math.

To improve educational readiness, the administration is ending the practice of passing
students on from grade to grade regardless of their performance -- so called “social
promotion.” The D.C. Public Schools are going to require students, that have not met the
requirements for promotion, to attend summer school if they want to move to the next

grade in the fall.

As the D.C. Public Schools continue to refine educational plans, to identify the
critical actions and time frames for addressing the schools’ most fundamental problems

and attaining the goals inherent in quality education, the Authority remains convinced


10

the table with members of the community to develop a three year academio plan by June that the
community can and will support and urge local offivials to support

‘As we approach the end of the one year plan, | acknowledge that an incredible effort has been
set in motion. But I am left with many questions as I ook af this one year plan? How am I 10 know
what of this plan was implemented and what was not. What was changed? An massive campaign was
organized to improve reading, but has the 60 mimute mathematics block been implemented and were
mathematics resouroe teachers assigned to every schoo! with students scoring below basic? What is
the status of the technology plan? Will the nine and a half million dollars be spent in developing the
Distriet of Columbia Academy and what is this academy? Do we have the 16 new parent resourve
centers? Has security improved at schools? Flow are we to know? Has certification of teachers been
aligned to New standards? Hus there been an increase in the number of teachers meeting the
Board for Professional ‘Teaching Standards certification standards? Have mentor teachers been
assigned to new teachers? Whal are the responsibilities of these mentor teachers? Will there be an
annual survey of students, school staff and parents? What is the polioy for reconstituting chronically
{failing schools? What schools are being redesigned? What models are being used? What is the
progress of decentralizing responsibility resources and authority to the school level” What pilot
schools have been chosen lo have greater discretion over use of funds and stall? When are we going to
have an accurate enrollment count?

These questions lead me to one of the top five recommendations coming out of the Parent Task
Force: Establish meaningful partnerships with parents, universities, professional associations and
other groups to evaluate, monitor, and refine the implementation progress and effextiveness. I would
like to add to this and make the results public. We will only be able to improve the schools when we
are able {o not only tout our successes, but also acknowledge and learn from our failures. We expect
from our children, and we should expect it from the schoo! system,

‘What we all want is a school system that not only addresses the problems that presently exist,
but also builds on and strengthens our sucvesses. We want an education system that
families of all income levels, ethnic and racial hackgrounds with children of differing al
aptitudes. We want a school system that will work for all of us. Good schools will attract and keep
families in the District and greatly contribute to the revitalization of our city.



10

JI

. Signs of Progress:
Preliminary Evidence of Urban School Comeback

Seattle

a Fourth grade mathematics scores on the Compre-
hensive Tests of Basie Skills show large gains since
1994-95, That year the average mathematics per-
centile was 45. In 1996-97 it was 56; Language
Atts percentile scores rose from 49 to 55; reading
from 30 to 34.

2 Five-vear trend data show a 26 scale score increase
on the verbal portion of the S17 and a 9-point
increase on the mathematics portion. 1996-97
averages are 519 for the verbal portion and 518
for the mathematics portion.

2 The number of security incidents has decreased
significantly from 3,348 in June 1995 to 2,260 in
June 1997,


52

large organization supports the most critical goal of academic
achievement. And I am sorry to say that that is not yet is case.

Our academic efforts are clearly focused. We have completed an
enormous swath of critical facilities repairs, but our management
systems are still woefully inadequate and not providing the infor-
mation necessary for accountability, control and oversight.

In March of last year, the trustees developed a set of baseline in-
dicators, measures by which the public could judge this administra-
tion’s performance, but it has proven practically impossible to gath-
er the actual baseline data for those indicators. Last November, we
marked our first anniversary in office by releasing only a partial
set, and we, the trustees, lost valuable time in the limbo of the pe-
riod in January when we were out of business.

Now, we are more determined than ever to develop a set of per-
formance measures modeled after those that are used in the Chi-
cago school system, which will tell trustees, the administration, the
members of the City Council, this committee, whether such
progress is being made. We are meeting the terms of the—are we
meeting the terms of the special education compliance agreement
just signed with the Department of Education? How many fire code
violations have in fact been abated? What number of teachers had
to appear in person at the finance office to get paid this month?
And so on.

This is the kind of data that is absolutely required by any organi-
zation trying to create quality improvements to support its central
mission. But DCPS still does not have the culture that understands
this, nor does it have the systems to produce this on a routine

asis.

Oversight of the D.C. public school system is now a joint venture
involving the Control Board with the trustees acting as their agent.
We are working collaboratively to see that essential support serv-
ices are improved. The Control Board is not only scrutinizing but
in some cases strengthening the measures that we are taking, as
they recently did in requiring tax documents as proof of residency
for the children.

But the very heart of accountability is reliable data. Effective
management and oversight require that we work from common as-
sumptions. As Ms. Ackerman takes command of the school system,
this is a matter on which she, the trustees and the Control Board
must and will be working together.

I thank you for the opportunity to testify, Mr. Chairman.

(The prepared statement of Mr. MacLaury follows:]


ARLENE ACKERMAN C.V./Page 7

AFFILIATIONS/COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

Phi Delta Kappa - Harvard University Chapter

Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development

American Association of School Administrators

National Association of Black Schoo! Educators

Private Industry Council - Advisory Board Member (Past)

Seattle University - Dean’s Advisory Board

Seattle Pacific University - Superintendent's Preparation Program - Professional
Education Advisory Board Member

Pacific Oaks College Northwest - Professional Educational Advisory Board
‘Member

Seattle Coalition of Educational Equity - Board Member

Mt. Zion Baptist Church Education Committee - Co-Chair


56

Mr. Davis. Bruce, thank you very much. Let me just note for the
record that we did invite Marion Barry and Ms. Wilma Harvey
from the Board of Education to testify today, and they were out of
town and declined. We will allow any statements they want to put
into the permanent record.

I'm going to start the questioning with Ms. Norton.

Ms. Norton. Thank you very much. And I want to thank all
three of these witnesses for the very helpful testimony.

I want to begin with Ms. Patterson, the Council member. There
were great points in your testimony that I think are particularly
important. Your citing of—from the “Grey Matters” series prompts
a question from me for the others.

The new science on brain development is nothing short of revolu-
tionary. Here in the Congress, the Women’s Caucus had a hearing
on it. We always knew, of course, that brains develop early and the
rest of it, but it is astonishing how much of it occurs in the early
years. And of course, you cite some of it. I mean, it suggests that
almost everything we do ought to be done and kind—that the rest
of it is icing on the cake.

For example, it ought to make people like me who have been a
strong supporter of bilingual education wonder about whether she
shouldn’t immerse these children from the moment they hit the
nursery school, so that they learn language when the brain appar-
ently receives it most easily. I just think we all have to be open
to what—to new understandings as they come forward, and not
treat this stuff illogically or with any kind of fixed philosophical
view of the world.

I would like to ask the three of you if you are in touch with this
new understanding of brain development and how, if you pass it,
certain kinds of things simply can happen, and, if so, whether that
is reflected in the way resources are apportioned in the D.C. public
school system? Beginning with Ms. Patterson, and then go to Dr.
Ladner and Mr. MacLaury.

Ms. PATTERSON, To the extent that the Council has been able to
make strong recommendations and even to do some line items in
the school’s budget over the last several years, there have been a
couple of times when we have tried to put emphasis on prekinder-
garten, on kindergarten, reflecting the strong interest in making
sure that our early childhood is very strong and universal. Beyond
that effort to fund programs at that end of the spectrum, I’m not
familiar with any work that we have done.

Ms. Norton. I reckon that D.C. has done much better than most
jurisdictions in adding its own money. And, indeed, I have a bill
I'm writing that will encourage the Federal Government to give
CEED money to encourage local school systems to put more of their
money in early childhood education using this new science.

As you indicate in your testimony, it’s hard once you get past the
age of 10, and while you know the zero to three is one thing, but
there obviously are in these early grades opportunities that just
don’t exist even in the later years of elementary schools. So I guess
Tm also asking about elementary schools, and resources and other
support in elementary school, and whether or not the D.C. public
school system is getting to reflect those needs at all.


60

Ms. Norton. The 10 percent figure I find amazing, perhaps espe-
cially because the students are as low as they are, because there
are many factors that come into play when students are as low as
the lowest, go well beyond the teacher. I only ask you to use your
own experience with individual tutoring. If a student does 10 per-
cent better on his SATs, that is a good SAT course.

Maybe Ms. Patterson has a point here, particularly if you are
saying the lowest achieving schools, you are also talking about the
schools where parents are single parents, where you may have par-
ents disproportionately on welfare, where there may be parents dis-
proportionately on drugs, where there is chaos. The last thing I
want to do is to encourage any lowering of that standard, but I ask
you to ask yourself, and we will have to ask Mrs. Ackerman to ask
yourself, whether the best prepared students raise their SAT scores
10 percent when they take the most expensive courses.

Also Ms. Delabian Rice says in her testimony, “The system has
frightened principals, teachers, parents and students alike by mak-
ing the nationally respected SAT nine test count in determining
whether students will be promoted, and by making improved stu-
dent performance the main criterion for high evaluations.”

They need to be frightened. But again, setting high standards is
what the school system has lacked. I am not prepared, frankly, to
say that the standards that have been set even for this 10 percent
standard is not the correct one. But I do think that what
Councilmember Patterson says, the only word I can call it, is wise.
Sometimes we need, overlaying our nuts and bolts sense of the
word, wisdom. The real question is, is whether all of the standards
are wise and whether we might want to at the same time that we
take a staff that obviously was not working energetically with
these parents, whether or not we want to examine what the re-
sponse is to make sure that there is not a misperception of what
you regard as important.

Again, I offer no criticism here. I don’t know what I’m talking
about when it comes to whether or not these standards are correct
or not. That’s why I say what Ms. Patterson says is wise. She also
isn’t saying “don’t do it,” just saying be careful when you're dealing
with a system that has been in the pits now.

Could I ask Mr. MacLaury a question, because I think Mr.
MacLaury, in two parts of your testimony, you indicate, for exam-
ple, in one part, the District is now in a joint venture involving the
Control Board with the trustees acting as their agent. In another
part you say, “As she takes command of the school system, this is
a matter on which Mrs. Ackerman, the trustees, and the Control
Board must work together.” Altogether absent from even your rhet-
oric is the elected School Board. So you haven't even factored them
into your brain as a part of the process.

I really have to ask you, since you have dumped this stuff back
on the School Board in 2 years, all your work could be undone and
you could have done us no favor with all the hard labor and time
you have put into it.

Mr. MacLaury. I take seriously the observation you just made,
Ms. Norton. The fact of the matter is that in terms of actual re-
sponsibility at the moment, I think I accurately portray it. In terms


ARLENE ACKERMAN C.V./Page 5

Director of the Basic Skills Academy

1980-82 St. Louis, Missouri

Provided instructional leadership in the creation of a non-traditional tutorial program
for academically “at risk” high school youth from a service area of ten school
districts countywide.

Facilitated the development of leaming style specific instructional curriculum and

supervised the development and implementation of a recruitment plan for over 100
literacy volunteers.

Teacher
1968-80

University City School District - Teacher and coordinator of the elementary gifted
program (1978-80)

University City Schoo! District - Early Education and classroom teacher (1974-78)
St. Louis Public Schools, Ritenour School District and Chicago Public Schools -
Elementary and middle school classroom teacher (1968-74)

RELATED WORK EXPERIENCE

Adjunct Faculty

1995-1997 Seattle Pacific University, Seattle, Washington

‘Taught a class for the Superintendent’s Preparation Program on Improving Student
Learning.

Adjunct Faculty

1995-1997 Antoich University, Seattle, Washington

‘Taught a class for the Teacher Education Program on K-12 Issues in Educating
African American Students.

Superintendent’s Intern

1992-93 Edmonds School District

aversi - The .
1992-93 Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Responsible for supervising a 150-hour practicum experience for aspiring school
principals. Facilitated the development of appropriate practicum experiences,
monitored progress and implementation of standards for state certification.


20

Congress looks at education. Changes in the city, to some Mem-
bers, just aren’t coming fast enough. Of course it took the city a
long time to slide down. You don’t fix it overnight, you don’t put
up information systems overnight. You don’t train and hire and re-
tain people overnight. We know it is a much longer job. We deal
with this every day when Members are impatient.

We saw last week that one of the news stations talked about fed-
eralizing the police department in the city. Members said yes, it’s
a great idea, because they are very impatient with the pace of
change. Nowhere is that more probably apparent than with edu-
cation, where there is no real quick fix. It is a longer well thought
out plan that’s going to take some time.

fe are up here addressing charter schools, vouchers, and all of
these other issues. I would like to get your reaction to some of
these congressional innovations that could be used on the city. Let
me start with Ms. Rice-Thurston on that.

Ms, RIcE-THURSTON. Id like to start a little farther back.

Mr. Davis. Fine.

Ms. RIcE-THURSTON. When I was looking for schools that had
been closed historically, one of the things that I discovered was
somewhere when we were under the Congress, about every 30
years, there would be a major report on the difficulties of D.C.
schools, when we were under the Congress. While I understand
your impatience, I would like to throw in that you were never able
to deal with us well. One of the difficulties I guess is that if you
are not directly accountable to people, you don’t do what needs to
be done for them. Whether it was the passout report in the 50’s,
reports on D.C. schools in the 30’s, we have always had these dif-
ficulties. And to expect people to remedy it within 3 years or 5
years now is not reasonable.

In addition, if you look nationally, we just got a statement from
the New York Times that New York City schools have not been in-
spected and will be subjected to the fire code, which means we're
going to see in another major city the kind of problem that we had
with our school buildings afflicting New York.

Mr. Davis. You may not have the same kind of judges up there,
though, that you had here.

Ms. RicE-THURSTON. But we will still have the same qualitative
deterioration of school buildings, which needs a national funding
base. We are aware that you want to see things happen quickly.
But there is no big city school system with a heavily poor and mi-
nority population that is moving rapidly to raise student achieve-
ment quickly. It is a long-term process. We feel very confident that
the work of the National Commission on Education and the Econ-
omy, which is helping us understand the kinds of things that we
need to do better to keep us from being as insular as Washington
has been, will be more effective.

Mr. Davis. You just used the word “poor and minority.” They are
not interchangeable. It really is the poor population. Your child is
a great example of how a kid can come through the system and get
national merit approval and then go on to an Ivy League school.
It is really the poverty, isn’t it, more than ethnicity?

Ms. RICE-THURSTON. Unfortunately, in our country they tend to
be intertwined. I’m saying in our city in which 65 percent of the


38

fortunately, in less than 9 months Ms. Ackerman has not had the
time to shift the entire paradigm toward the educational plan yet,
but all of the making—all of the processes are in motion now so
that that does become the case.

I want to say just a word in closing, Mr. Chairman and Con-

sswoman Norton, something about Ms. Ackerman the person.
fe have talked, extolled her virtues often as an educator and lead-
er, but I’ve gotten to know her very, very well as a person. And I
must say that the first thing—point I want to make is she cannot
succeed alone. We are a very, very touch—this is a very, very tough
town. We're very critical of all of our leaders, and I do not want
to be a part of a group that would be ultimately responsible for
bri: ing down a superintendent/chief executive officer.

I think that we are lucky, quite frankly, to get her to come here.
And I believe that we can be constructively—we can make con-
structive criticism, but unless this community bands together and
organizes to support the specialists—they are the ones who have
the capability, ey’re the ones who have studied education. I
don’t—I as a parent/citizen do not know public school education. I
think parents and citizens can be very helpful in trying to engage
themselves in whatever ways in the process they can be helpful,
but we must leave the leading of the educational content to the
educators.

I also want to say that Ms. Ackerman’s tenacity, her tempera-
ment, her intelligence and her long, long hard hours that she puts
in working until 1 a.m., on Sat y night or Sunday morning in
the shop to make sure that she’s got the right personnel in place,
and her long-suffering assistant—I shouldn’t call her, but hard-
working assistant, Ms. Louise Brooks. These are two of the hardest
working people I have ever gotten to know.

And I—we hear a lot of people say that they're in this for the
children. We hear parents say it. We hear educators. We hear vol-
unteers. We hear senior citizens say that all we care about is the
children, but I do believe that this is the case with her. I think she
wants to succeed as a professional person, but I also have not met
such a dedicated but empathic person, who has tremendous empa-
thy with the plight of children who do not get the education. She’s
tough. She’s no-nonsense. But she’s also warm, friendly, and engag-

ing.

And I would say she is what this community needs at this time,
in terms of being able to make the transition from the crisis man-
agement; that we are grateful to General Becton for having come
in_and turned around a system so that it would be able to receive
a Ms. Ackerman. And I, Mr. Chairman, want to say that all of us
need to put our personal concerns behind and unite around the
leadership of the schools so that we can indeed make them the
model for the Nation. I thank yeu very much.

{The prepared statement of Ms. Ladner follows:}


DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

Office of the Chief Executive Officer
AIS 12th Stret, N.W, Svite 1209
Washington, D.C, 20004-1994,
202-724-4222, fax: 202-721-1516

STATEMENT OF J.W. BECTON, JR.
‘CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

APRIL 3, 1998

Mr. Chairman, thank you for inviting me to testify today on student achievement in the
District of Columbia Public Schools. I am going to keep my remarks brief and let

Mrs. Arlene Ackerman, DCPS’ Deputy Superintendent and Chief Academic Officer,
provide you with a detailed description of our plans to improve academic achievement in
‘our schools.

Ido want to make a couple of comments before she begins. As you know, I announced
just over a week ago that I intend to return to retired life at the end of June. On last Friday,
as Dr. Ladner mentioned, the Financial Authority expressed its intention to make

Mrs. Ackerman the Superintendent and CEO when I leave the school system. They took
thie aedon wit my full support and te suppor of the Emergency Transional Eaton
Board of Trustees. During my tenure at believe that we have put a strong reform
team in place and that we have developed a clear academic mission and a plan to implement
the academic reforms that are needed. Frankly, I could not, in good conscience, leave this
system in June if that were not the case.

I want to emphasize, therefore, that this will be an orderly transition. As Mrs. Ackerman
has said before, we have set a course for reform and we intend to stay that course. We will
‘continue to implement the programs that we have put in place to improve student
achievement -- which Mrs. Ackerman will describe to you in a moment --on the same
timetables that we have shared with our parents and the public as a whole. We know that
‘our children have waited long enough for a system that serves them well, and we do not
intend to make them wait any longer because of this transition.

know that questions have been raised about whether a national search should have been
conducted for my replacement. I want you to understand that Mrs. Ackerman’s
appointment as Chief Academic Officer came after a lengthy national search and that she
Drought with her the necessary credentials not only to serve as the system’s chief academic
officer, but also as its superintendent. In fact, the position she turned down in order to
come to Washington was as Superintendent of the Cambridge Public Schools. She came to
us with extremely high recommendations from her colleagues in Seattle, where she

as Deputy Superintendent. A quick look at the section on Seattle from a recent report
published by the Council of Great City Schools on progress in urban schools districts --
which shows solid gains in fourth graders’ scores on standardized tests in math, language
arts, and reading and improvement on the SAT ~ is evidence that the praise she received
‘was well deserved (see attached excerpt).

Mr. Chairman, I will now turn it over to Mrs. Ackerman to describe our academic
achievement plan to you. After she concludes, we are both, of course, happy to respond to
any questions you may have.

~~ Children First


OVERSIGHT ON THE ACADEMIC PLAN FOR
THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PUBLIC
SCHOOLS

FRIDAY, APRIL 3, 1998

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT,
Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m., in room
2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Thomas M. Davis
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Davis and Norton.

Staff present: Ron Hamm, staff director; Howard Denis, counsel;
Bob Dix and Anne Mack, professional staff members; Ellen Brown,
clerk; Cedric Hendricks, minority counsel; and Denise Wilson, mi-
nority professional staff member.

Mr. Davis. Good morning. Welcome. Today, this subcommittee
continues its series of oversight hearings dealing with reform
issues in the District of Columbia public schools. On January 23,
we held a hearing involving the 1997 repair program and the mas-
ter facilities plan. On March 13, the subcommittee addressed the
key issue of an accurate student enrollment count. Today, we will
explore the relationship between these issues and the development
and implementation of an effective academic plan. Such a plan is
essential in order to produce improvement in student achievement.
and overall school reform.

I want to acknowledge and thank all of the stakeholders for their
efforts to date toward achieving necessary reform and s‘ .bilization
of the D.C. public schools. There is no element of D.C. revitaliza-
tion that is more important to the District and its future than re-
establishing the D.C. public schools as one of the finest public
school systems in the Nation.

The Control Board, the Emergency Board of Trustees, and the
Board of Education are currently addressing policy issues which
deal with enrollment eligibility for the public schools, such as veri-
fiable proof of residency. There does not appear to be an ongoing
proliferation of roof or other repair issues with facilities them-
selves. So although there has been a fair amount of hammering
and teeth gnashing over the means by which certain tasks are ac-
complished, it is clear that progress is yet being made. But make
no mistake, there is much that still has to be done, both short-term
and long-term.

@


72

a way that will mobilize resources to increase student achievement.
But we are moving forward. We have developed an academic plan
that has set four goals for the system: improving student achieve-
ment, ensuring quality staff, increasing accountability throughout
the system, and promoting school restructuring and parental
choice. We are moving ahead on all of these fronts.

First, we are implementing standards. We are saying clearly to
students, teachers and parents that this is what we expect our chil-
dren to know and be able to do. We have established content stand-
ards in reading and math. And we are teaching parents what those
standards mean for their children.

We have provided the committee with copies of two of our most
recent newsletters for parents on these topics. We are using the
Stanford nine achievement test, which is aligned with these stand-
ards to determine where students are in the fall and the progress
that they have made in the spring. Because we know that test
scores don’t give us a complete picture of student performance, we
are also using other tools to measure student progress in meeting
the standards.

Students who do not meet the standards will not be promoted to
the next grade at the end of this school year. Ending social pro-
motion is not an easy task and, frankly, it is a step that not every
school district has been willing to take. But we know that this is
what we must do to ensure that our students leave this school sys-
tem with the skills they need to succeed.

To support our students at risk of nonpromotion, however, we
are extending the opportunities for them to learn. This comes in
the form of additional time working on literacy skills during the
school day, tutoring support after school and on Saturdays in man;
schools, and our new summer S.T.A.R.S. program. I want to talk
a little bit about our summer S.T.A.R.S. program, because I think
it is a good example of how serious we are about student success.

Summer S.T.A.R.S. will give students an intensive, highly struc-
tured opportunity to gain critical skills with 2 hours of reading and
2 hours of math each morning, and enrichment opportunities in the
afternoons. Summer S.T.A.R.S. will be led by our best principals
and highly qualified teachers working with students in smaller
groups than they are usually working with during the school year.

Our second priority is accountability. We are holding people ac-
countable across the system for student performance. We have in-
stituted a new principal evaluation, which 50 percent of the prin-
cipal’s evaluation is based on student achievement. Every principal
in this school system is expected to show improvement in his or her
school this year. In addition to student performance, we will use
surveys of parents and teachers and students to help us measure
school performance.

Next Pad we will institute a new evaluation system for teachers
linked directly to performance. In addition, we have instituted per-
formance based criteria for the evaluation of central office
administation which is also linked to their success with schools. We
are instituting an annual school review process to look at how each
school in the system is doing, comparing them to other schools in
the system, and then comparing their performance to their own
last best record. Schools that show a pattern of low performance


7

Mr. Davis. Thank «you very much. Mrs. Ackerman, welcome.

Mrs. ACKERMAN. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, thank you for invit-
ing me to testify today. I appreciate the opportunity to talk with
you and Congresswoman Norton about our plans for improving stu-
dent achievement.

When I arrived at DCPS 6 months ago, I came with the under-
standing that the system was indeed in crisis. However, after a
careful review of the results of the spring 1997 Stanford nine
achievement test and other achievement data, I learned that the
academic situation was even more serious than I had expected.

For instance, in reading, we found that 41 percent of our third
graders were performing below basic, meaning that they have little
or no mastery of fundamental knowledge and skills for this grade
compared to just 25 percent of students nationally. Worse yet, by
10th grade, 53 percent of our students were reading below basic
compared to the national norm of 26 percent. Clearly this perform-
ance is not acceptable. Neither do I believe it is representative of
the work that our students are capable of doing. It is certainly not
what we would expect of the Nation’s capital city.

It is indeed a systemwide failure, both internally, I believe, in
the District and externally in the community, the failure to provide
our students with the necessary tools and opportunities for them
to succeed. As gloomy as this may sound, I believe that out of this
crisis comes a real opportunity to give the District students once
again the quality education that they deserve and like many of the
students who before them have certainly benefited from.

I know that working together, we can turn this system around.
Our children’s future depends upon the success of the adults in this
community providing them with a world class education that will
ensure that they have choices when they leave high school. I came
to DCPS with a clear vision that I hope the entire community will
embrace. That is, to create an exemplary school system that pre-
pares our young people for college, for good jobs, and for life in the
21st century. To make that vision a reality, we must focus all of
our energy and resources on making dramatic improvement, steady
progress in the achievement of all of our students today in prepara-
tion for their world tomorrow. Clearly we know that success won’t
happen overnight. We know that. The community knows that. But
we do need to make steady progress year by year, classroom by
classroom, school by school. I believe we have already started.

I would like to talk a moment about the challenges we faced and
some that we are still facing before I tell you what we’ve done and
where we're going. When I arrived, I found, I said, a system in cri-
sis. What does that mean specifically? It means that there was no
systemwide accountability. There were no performance standards,
and there was no uniform curriculum. Staff development, while
plentiful, was unfocused. The central office personnel, payroll and
financial systems were badly broken. The procurement system re-
mains one that is slow and difficult for our school principals to use.
We have trouble accessing basic data on the system’s budget, stu-
dents and staff, for use in monitoring our ongoing activities, or for
planning strategically for the future.

Finally, what I found upon arrival was a community not yet fo-
cused in a unified way on education as the city’s No. 1 priority in


74

Finally, we need parents, policymakers and the community as a
whole to stand with us and to give us their time, their energy and
commitment. It truly does take a village to raise a child. We must
all be invested in the success of this effort.

I want to close by saying that there are pockets of excellence
throughout this school system. There are schools that work, there
are programs that work. There are dedicated, talented educators
working on behalf of our children. But we need more focused re-
sources, both human and fiscal; if we get these resources, we prom-
ise to graduate students who have strong basic skills, we promise
to graduate students who are technologically competent, we prom-
ise to graduate students who are knowledgeable about their ca-
reers, we promise to graduate students whose special needs have
been served by our schools, we promise to graduate students who
are culturally aware and students who are physical fit. In short,
we will graduate students who are prepared today for their world
tomorrow.

Thank you again for the opportunity to testify. I would be happy
to respond to any questions you may have.

{The prepared statement of Mrs. Ackerman follows:]


31

District, like other cities, has an exceptionally high proportion of
children living in poverty.

Small classes are also important, particularly in the early years.
We have gone in the wrong direction here in the District. Two
years ago, to meet a midyear budget shortfall, the school system in-
creased class size, and the new leadership to date has not, to date,
revisited that unfortunate decision. The STAR project in Kentucky
and subsequent evidence elsewhere has demonstrated the advan-
tages of smaller elementary classes, especially when it comes to
teaching reading.

Our plan should also call for small schools to help create a sup-

rtive environment for children, one where children and their

families are known and feel connected. In the absence of an aca-

demic plan setting small schools as a goal, the school system last

year made facilities decisions that put more children into larger
‘S.

Nearly everyone agrees that no element in education is more im-
portant than the teacher. It’s surprising, then, how little support
individual teachers receive, from rookies struggling to maintain
order to veterans unable to reach a particular child. In the elemen-
tary school my children have attended, I’ve seen older teachers
mentoring younger teachers, on their own, out of their own desire
and commitment. Our teachers need not only traditional profes-
sional development but instructional support in the classroom.

At the Oyster Bilingual School here, and Ms. Ackerman can tes-
tify on this point, teachers started the teacher network where they
meet regularly to help each other develop strategies to deal wi
specific classroom problems. Our long-term academic plan should
emphasize such techniques to improve teaching because, ulti-
mately, it is only by improving teaching that we improve learning.

One concern I have had regarding the academic plan is that it
has not, to date, driven everything @ ise in D.C. schools. I hope and
I believe that that is changing. All other support services in our
school system should support children and education. Ms. Harvey
also made this point. n a kindergarten teacher has to take a
day away from his students to help the certification office recreate
personnel files they have lost, we have things backward. The per-
sonnel operation, like facilities and procurement and finances,
should support what is happening in the classroom. I continue to
believe that school support operations here can be reformed; Chi-
cago schools have set the example in this area. Measurable aca-
demic improvement, though, takes more time.

We must be careful to set realistic, attainable educational goals.
A one-size-fits-all approach most likely will not work. In other
words, the improvements we can reasonably expect to attain may
differ between English speakers and non-English speakers, be-
tween special ed and non-special ed. We need to be cognizant of
this.

This is another arena in which you, Mr. Davis and Congress-
woman Norton, can help D.C. schools. There is extraordinary pres-
sure on the school system today to set the bar very high, pressure
from those outside the system, like the Congress, who are under-
standably impatient and even angry with the outcomes of our
school system. But setting those expectations is a very tricky busi-


WW

‘Summer school and public tutoring are not sufficient, particularly when the introduction of
the standards and the test has preceded teacher training, curriculum. and
teacher evaluation.

+ D.C. teacher salaries are 8-15% less than the average salaries and 12-29% less than the
highest salaries offered teachers of the same experience and degree level in the
surrounding suburbs (see the back of this page)

+ Special education is dysfunctional in almost every regard, and English as a Second
Language services are sorely lacking,

+ Local school autonomy and well-functioning Local School Restructuring Teams with real
responsibility are part of the Plan only on paper, not in fact

+ The infrastructure systems -- personnel, budget, supply, information -- are still so
dysfunctional as to do more damage than good for local schools and their students

We feel confident that the Ackerman administration will address these weaknesses since,
in some instances, the process has begun. We are hearing reports that NCEE training for teachers
and principals will be mandatory. Ms. Ackerman is searching nationwide for a Special Education
director. ‘The system has frightened principals, teachers, parents and students alike by making the
nationally respected SAT 9 test count in determining whether students will be promoted, and by
‘making improved student performance the main criterion for high evaluations. The administration
is convinced that our students and teachers can meet the challenge and are not backing down.

‘The administration is giving our children a more extensive summer learning opportunity than we
have ever seen before. Parents United is helping the system get the word out about all
‘opportunities for upgraded learning and helping parents understand that we can have academically
competent kids.

‘We need the Congress to adopt the proposed per capita funding formula when you receive
it. The convention center has a committed revenue stream, and our schools deserve the same, An
adequate and predictable funding level should be the first claim on the District of Columbia's
spending, so that we can carry out an academic plan without diluting it, so we can recruit and
Keep good teachers, train all our teachers to be more effective, and provide the safety net to help
children meet demanding standards.

‘Thank you for this opportunity to testify


23

which makes it hard to measure objectively. I just wondered if at
least anecdotally you could give me a feel. I think you answered
it as fully as you can. Ms. Berlin.

Ms. BERLIN. One comment that I would like to make that I think
people overlook is that security guards in schools are really a very
important element in schools. It is very important that those
guards be stable in the schools so they get to know the children
and they know when issues arise. To have roving security guards,
in my opinion, is not the best use of security in schools. And I just
see that—my Gaughter’s in junior high school and they know the
security guard is there. And they are a part of the community and
that’s an important element to consider.

Mr. Davis. OK. Ms. Harvey, do you have any comment?

Ms. Harvey. Well

Mr. Davis. Have you seen this nationally?

Ms. Harvey. Yes. Nationally, I think that the records would
show that inside of schools, schools are getting safer. It is the cor-
ridor leading to schools that we have to deal with. And that is why
it is very important to make sure that we have good strong rela-
tionships with the city police department. We began new programs
like using parents to help make that corridor safer for kids. I can
tell you it really changes the things when kids know that parents
in the neighborhood are out there, and they can make sure that
they are going to be able to get that block and a half to get into
the building.

But this is—this is a problem that we just can’t minimize. We
have got to keep atop on our agenda, because before education, par-
ents want their kids to be safe. So it is just going to take all of us
constantly measuring this and see if we are doing—the initiatives
are working, and looking at our neighboring cities and trying to
emulate what’s working.

Mr. Davis. We have had our own problems in the suburbs as
well.

Ms. Harvey. Yes, absolutely.

Mr. Davis. Thank you all very much.

Ms. RICE-THURSTON. Mr. Davis, may I make a request of you. As
you look at our school system’s budget, I would hope that Pars will
force parents to help us get school—individual school budgets, so
that parents can do a better job of understanding what’s foil on
in their child’s individual school. We know that the overall school
system budget needs to be flushed out, et cetera, but what we also
need to see is what’s going on in individual schools. And I think
to some level outside recommendations that budgets be submitted
in that way might be helpful for us.

Mr. Davis. All right, I guess we can become involved in terms
of having them submitted, and that way—obviously you wouldn’t
want us to tinker with what schools got what money.

Ms. RICE-THURSTON. No, just to make sure that those schools are
developed.

Mr. Davis. OK, thank you very much. I am going to yield 10
minutes to Ms. Norton.

Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Yes, it is important to know the notion of going to school-based
budgeting would be important. And it is going to be important to


19

Mr. Davis. Thank you very much. In fact, thank all of you. Let
me start the questioning with Ms. Harvey. First of all, thank you
very much for coming. I understand you came in late last night.
You've been out late the past few days. We appreciate your willing-
ness to be here and lending a national perspective to this.

Where does the D.C. school system stand at this time nationally
compared with other urban school districts?

Ms. HarVEY. I think that any educator who came in a year ago
or 5 months ago would have been appalled. Every system within
the D.C. public schools was broken. Arlene Ackerman has said it
over and over again. I was here about a month before her and no-
ticed the same kinds of things. I just cannot commend her enough
for the way she has been able to roll up her sleeves and get started
and move forward. This is a very, very difficult job. It is one that
most superintendents don’t have to start at this level. They usually
start with some systems in place so they can build forward.

Mr. Davis. So you feel a lot better now about it than you did.
You feel some direction and vision that you maybe didn’t have a
few months ago?

Ms. HARVEY. Absolutely. One key point is—in setting a vision—
is to get the whole district to be focused on achievement. You would
almost have to live under a rock in D.C. not to know that there
is a focus on academic achievement. It is said everywhere, you hear
the comments coming back from parents, from students, from staff.
Everybody knows, it is not inputs that’s important, it is outcomes.

So that’s the first step, along with all the other things that have
to be done to help this district grow.

Mr. Davis. Are there any role models that the city could look at
to use? We talked in our last hearing—about other cities around
the country, where the counting seemed to work. Boston, where
they had methodologies that were built in instead of reinventing
the wheel, have worked.

io we look at the totality of education, are there any role mod-
els?

Ms. Harvey. I think that that’s what you see in the essence of
this plan. What we know across the country and across the world
is that the first important thing is setting high standards for kids.
Everyone has to know what the mark is, what kids are supposed
to be able to do. That begins the next leg of the road in terms of
how you assess this, how do you know when they've actually
achieved the standards. And then the curriculum and instruction,
that’s important. So yes, the District is using, I’m sure, the best
practices from across the country. They stand out to me in the
plan.

The other part that is important in terms of looking at what’s
happening in other cities is that you can see there is a focus, a
strong focus on accountability. And so, yes, there are some similar-
ities to the work in Seattle, naturally, the work in Chicago, the
work in New York, all over the country.

Mr. Davis. Do you think the plan basically draws on all those
role models?

Ms. HaRVEY. Yes, it’s got all the strong points.

Mr. Davis. Let me ask all of you a question. I think we talked
before about the congressional impatience when we mentioned how


32

ness, Our standards for public schools and for our children have
been too low, no doubt. High standards are important to commu-
nicate to school children our belief in and our commitment to their
performance. But the danger of unrealistic expectations is also fail-
ure.

In my view, we will be successful if by the year 2000 we have
a strong academic plan with high standards, a curriculum aligned
to those standards, textbooks and materials that support the cur-
riculum and, most important, we have all of our teachers trained
and teaching effectively to those high standards.

David Hornbeck, former Maryland education secretary, now su-
perintendent in Philadelphia, was quoted in Education Week say-
ing, “No one these days expects that a single leader can ride in on
a white horse and poscue an an embattled urban district. The fun-
damental and wrenching required to bring the vast major-
ity of city students to Brame stendar will require long term, con-
certed efforts from many people: parents, teachers, principals, poli-
ticians, community groups, public agencies, businesses and reli-
gious leaders.” As a parent and a politician, I concur.

you for the opportunity to testify here today, and I would
be happy to answer any questions that you ht have.

{The prepared statement of Ms. Patterson follows:}


14

rollment resident students. It is imperative that all students who
are in our school system have parents who are contributing finan-
cially to our city. We would like for the school system to start using
the withholding from D.C. taxes as part of the way that residence
is established in our city.

Thank you for this opportunity to testify.

(The prepared statement of Ms. Rice-Thurston follows:]


73

will be eligible for reconstitution, meaning a new staff will be put
in place and a research-based reform model will be implemented
there.

We are going to publish school-by-school report cards so that par-
ents can easily evaluate the performance of their children’s schools
and make decisions about them accordingly.

Our third priority is professional development. I know that peo-
ple must not only be committed to success, they must have the
skills they need to succeed. We are providing focused professional
development for principals and teachers on standards, curriculum,
instructional strategies and classroom management. We are train-
ing 100 percent of our staff in our lowest performing schools and
we hope to reach 25 percent of our teachers systemwide this year.
We intend next year to institute mandatory professional develop-
ment requirements in the new teacher evaluation process.

Finally, we have made public engagement a priority. We know
that this effort has to be supported, both internally and externally.
Most of all, we need parents to be involved in the education of their
children, both at home and at school. We are making dramatic
changes in this District. I have made a concerted effort to reach out
to parents and engage them in real, meaningful discussions about
these changes. This is a beginning.

In fact, we have alread) Treld eight meetings to talk with parents
about test scores, about the new standards, about promotion guide-
lines and about our summer S.T.A.R.S. program. These meetings
for the most part have been well-attended and parents have ex-
pressed a real interest and appreciation for being active partici-
pants in this effort.

We are looking to the future, and we are making progress. But
I must tell you that we will need more resources to get the job
done. In the next school year, we will need almost 150 new reading
resource teachers, one for each school, to provide the extra help
that many of our students need to improve their reading skills. We
will need additional math teachers in all of our senior high schools
where, as you know, our student math scores are really unaccept-
ably low in almost every school. We will need additional staff in
our middle schools so that we can transform them into small learn-
ing communities that work for children at this critical transitional
stage in their education and development. And we need resources
to support afterschool programs for our middle school students.

We need support for continued large scale professional develop-
ment for teachers and administrators and funding for additional
staff to implement proven research-based reform programs in our
lowest performing schools. We also need technology to access data
on our students and staff in a timely fashion and to manage our
fiscal resources effectively. We need the resources to offer our
teachers competitive salaries, so that we can attract and retain the
best and the brightest for our students.

Finally, we need a level playing field. We must improve our per-
formance, but we must also be hold to the same standards as other
jurisdictions. In_special education, for example, this means that
we'll need help from you, to give us a time line for evaluating chil-
dren and placing them in programs that address their special
needs.


58

of instances is, I think, reflective of Ms. Ackerman’s emphasis on
early childhood learning.

Ms. Norton. It can help everything from your dropout rate to
the academic achievement itself. And I know it’s a difficult appor-
tionment to make, but we’ve got to take the science and incorporate
it into teaching.

Ms. Patterson, as part of her testimony that I regard is very
wise, because she has pressed and she knows the Congress has
pressed and the parents are pressing and everybody is pressing for
standards, but the standards are somewhere down where we can’t
find them. But then she says high standards are important to com-
municate to children our belief and commitment; the danger of un-
realistic expectations is also failure. And now when you have—I
would just like to speak to whether—ask you questions about
standards and meeting them. These children are doing very poorly,
and it’s very unnecessary.

I mean, for example, getting an early start, getting teachers who
are—who had higher salaries, big cities, the only way they’re going
to attract teachers who want to come into these conditions is have
the highest salaries. And we’re not doing it, and there are a whole
set of variables here.

But in light of those variables and how poorly these children are
doing, I have to ask—I would like to ask first Ms. Patterson to
comment on whether she has examples of what might be unrealis-
tic expectations. The whole notion of low-hanging fruit, which we’ve
had a lot of discussions with the Control Board about, comes to
mind. I mean, if this system sees that there is some low hanging
fruit, some things they can make happen right away, then of course
you raise your standards as you go along. But are we in danger,
as far as you’re concerned, by setting the standards too high and
too quick and therefore getting failure?

Ms. PATTERSON. I think there are a number of answers to that.
I think the point was made earlier, some of the operational issues
can be addressed on a pretty fast time track, and Dr. MacLaury
spoke to that in terms of not being there yet. I think part of what
Tm responding to is the nature of a particular hearing on the other
side of the Hill within the last several weeks, where it’s my under-
standing, although I was not there but from the reports I got, the
school system personnel were pressed by Senator Brownback for
exactly how much improvement in test scores will be met within
1 year, how much within 2 years. And that’s what I meant by unre-
alistic—by unuseful pressure and unrealistic expectations.

I believe one of the previous witnesses said, Ms. Harvey or
maybe it was Ms. Berlin, one of the previous witnesses testified
that the best schools in Chicago, the best success they’ve had there
in Chicago showed a 10 percent improvement over 3 years in test
scores. So I think if anyone in the Congress, for example, is talking
about turning the system around academically within 1 year or
two, I think that is not realistic. And it can be very damaging in
terms of trying to make the slow and steady, albeit slow, progress
in improving educational achievement.

Ms. Norton. Do you, Dr. Ladner, and you, Mr. MacLaury, be-
lieve that the standards for improvement are indeed realistic to
meet? Now, I refer you to a front page picture, I haven’t read the


6

National Center on Education and the Economy. The center has
been working with the District of Columbia public schools over the
last 3 to 4 months. I am here to testify that I believe that the Dis-
trict is really moving forward.

Those of us in education around the country look for some very,
very key aspects to an education plan and we see those in place
in the District of Columbia schools. First and foremost is preven-
tion. That means that we need to make sure that there is an edu-
cation program in place that will not allow kids as they begin in
our schools to fall through the cracks. It is a solid education pro-
gram that enables them to reach high standards.

The second piece that is extremely important in all education
plans is early intervention; at the moment that kids begin to have
some problems, that there are mechanisms in place that will allow
them to quickly and rapidly catch up.

The third component is to have a system that will allow our stu-
dents to accelerate, and those of our student population that have
fallen through the cracks over past times are able to accelerate as
quickly as possible. And then the fourth and the most important
part is an accountability system for all. We see these four compo-
nents all in place in the District of Columbia’s education plan.

I need to say, also, that I commend the District for the selection
of Mrs. Ackerman as the chief executive officer and the super-
intendent of schools. She is well respected all across the country.
Around the country and, in fact, I have spent the last 10 days in
various cities, and I can’t tell you how they have commended the
District for the selection. She is recognized as a strong and effective
leader who will be able to garner the support necessary to put in
place the strong and effective instructional program.

Now, the fourth piece that I talked about was an accountability
system. It doesn’t make sense for us to continue as an educational
agency without having accountability for our results. That means
both rewards and consequences for all. This summer the District
will face the first time when kids will not have social promotion.
This is going to be very difficult. It’s important for all of us who
are working with the District to make sure we get through these
first and initial steps in accountability for students. I can tell you,
we across the country have not allowed our children to work to-
ward their highest level of expectations, not our parents, not our
students, not our faculty nor our leaders. We have made it far, far
too easy for them. When we listen to students across the country,
they say to us, raise the standards, we can do the work. That is
exactly what we are going to see in the District of Columbia this

ear.

I believe that the essence of what needs to be in place is in the
District of Columbia’s education plan. It is going to definitely move
forward under the leadership of Ms. Ackerman. It is a brand new
beginning for the District.

you.

Mr. Davis. Thank Piet very much. Ms. Berlin.

Ms. BERLIN. Mr. Chairman and subcommittee members, thank
you for this opportunity to > present my testimony as a parent of
children in the D.C. public schools and chair of the Ad Hoc Parents
Coalition, an organization that has worked over the past 5 years


29

there is the OMB and the whole Federal Government, which is
greatly underutilized in the reform of the D.C. government.

So I am pleased to work with you and with the school officials
to see if we can fill this extraordinary hole left by a man whom I
know well and who’s a success in this very field, is unequaled in
this town. So it has been a great loss to us.

Ms. RICE-THURSTON. That is what we told him.

Ms. Norton. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Mr.
Chairman.

Mr. Davis. Thank you very much.

Ms. Harvey. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Davis. Yes, please.

Ms. Harvey. I would like to go back to parental involvement, if
I could, for a second. I think we would be remiss if we didn’t com-
mend the District of Columbia on what they are doing in this area.
Over the last couple of months, there have been at least five or six
major, major parent involvement meetings. I have been at meetings
that the District has conducted with over 600 parents attending to
get information about the new promotion policy, the Stanford 9, the
most urgent issues. I know, the District has pulled together all of
its senior staff and the National Center, working with them to put
together a better communications process.

In addition to that, this year, in fact in the next few months the
District is going to have customer satisfaction surveys that go out
to all parents, and along with some other stakeholders, so they can
get the issues about how they feel about their schools and fold that
into—into the plan. And there are a number of focus groups that
are about to take place. So I think the District is recognizing that
they need much, much more parental involvement and that it has
to be better organized.

Mr. Davis. Thank you very much. Good point. The record is open
for the next few days if you want to submit anything else. Thank
you very much.

We are going to switch panels now and call our second panel to
testify, which will consist of D.C. Council Member Kathy Patterson,
a member of the Education Committee designated by the Council
Chair to testify; Dr. Joyce Ladner, a member of the Control Board;
and Dr. Bruce MacLaury, the chairman of the District of Columbia
Public Schools Emergency Board of Trustees.

You know it is the policy of this committee to have all witnesses
be sworn before they may testify. Please rise with me and raise
your right hands. .

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. Davis. Please be seated, and by unanimous consent, any
written statements will be made a part of the permanent record.
Try to limit your oral statements to 5 minutes. As you start the
5th minute, the orange light will light up, so try to sum up your
remaining points. Then we will proceed to questions. I will begin
with Council Member Patterson, followed by Dr. Ladner and then
Dr. MacLaury.


65

Mr. Davis. Just a couple of other questions, Dr. Ladner.

Ms. LADNER. Mr. Chairman, could I add to that?

Mr. Davis. Sure.

Ms. LADNER. The Authority added another provision; that is, that
we would refer violators who falsify the residency requirements to
the Federal attorney’s office for prosecution. We are concerned that
the first test of the residency requirement at the behest of this
committee will come next summer. While we are trying to get as
many children who need summer school as possible in summer
school, we are also telling them that unless they come up with
these documents, that they will not be able to attend. So it is going
to cause a big wrinkle in the system, but we will try to do our best
to implement it.

Mr. Davis. Dr. Ladner, it has come to my attention that a signifi-
cant factor in the ability of the public schools to recruit, hire and
retain staff has been a personnel system which has an antiquated
information management system and has even resulted in losing
staff because they can’t get paid. Are you aware of these cir-
cumstances?

Ms. LADNER. Very much so. It is a very serious problem. There
are major deficiencies in the personnel system. One of the things
that’s occurring is that the CAP system, comprehensive automated
personnel system is being implemented throughout government.
One of the things that the Authority has pressed the schools to do
is to—the schools would maintain oversight for their own person-
nel. But we do want them to, the schools, to adopt the CAP system.
It is not in place. I think that personnel is probably the area that
still has the most very severe problems. I think that what’s going
to be required is nothing less than a high level SWAT team of peo-
ple who can go in, who have experience in building personnel sys-
tems. We hear about files that are lost. Many of them have prob-
ably been lost for years, reconstituting files of payroll processing.
We have strange customs here of rules where, for example, one
FTE can be used, one salary can be used at the local school level
to hire three part-time ple and they may even supplement it
with additional money. It is structurally about the most difficult
system I have ever seen.

So there is no quick answer, short of Mrs. Ackerman being able
to get some of the best talent in the country to bring them in there
for a few months, fix these systems. It will require an investment,
an initial investment, but it will be about the most important in-
vestment we could make.

Mr. Davis. Also, there appears to be a substantial number of pro-
fessional educators in the D.C. public school system that will soon
be eligible for retirement. Has this matter been examined and is
there a strategy for dealing with this matter to minimize any ad-
verse impact on the public schools should there be a large number
of teachers who decide to retire?

Ms. LADNER. According to the DCPS, 757 teachers and 86 prin-
cipals are eligible for retirement. We don’t have accurate data yet
on how many will in fact take retirement. Your question is abso-
lutely correct. The schools are advertising in Education Week and
other organs as well, they are having recruitment fairs, they are


67

STATEMENTS OF JULIUS W. BECTON, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFI-
CER AND SUPERINTENDENT, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PUB-
LIC SCHOOLS; AND ARLENE ACKERMAN, CHIEF ACADEMIC
OFFICER, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS

General BEcTON. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for those
remarks. The fact that I am retiring does not mean I am leaving
the country. I will be available to help in any way I can. But I
thank you for inviting us to testify to on student achievement
in the District of Columbia public schools. I am going to keep my
remarks brief and let Mrs. Kekerman, deputy superintendent and
chief academic officer, provide you with a detailed description of
our plan to improve academic achievement in our schools. I do
want to make a couple of comments before she begins, however.

As you know, as you just said, I did announce my intention to
retire. On last Friday, as Dr. Ladner stated, the Control Board ex-
pressed its intention to make Mrs. Ackerman the superintendent
and CEO when I leave the school system. They took this action
with my full support and support of. the Emergency Transitional
Education Board of Trustees.

During my tenure at the DCPS, I believe we have put a strong
reform team in place, and that we have developed a clear academic
mission and a plan to implement the academic reforms that are
needed. Frankly, I could not in good conscience leave this system
in June if that were not the case. I want to emphasize that, there-
fore, there will be an orderly transition.

Mrs. Ackerman has said before, we have set a course of re-
form and we intend to stay the course. We will continue to imple:
ment the program that we have put in place to improve student.
achievement, which Mrs. Ackerman will describe to you in a
minute, on the same timetable that we have shared with parents
and the public as a whole. We know that our children have waited
long enough for a system that serves them well. We do not intend
to make them wait any longer because of this transition.

I know that questions have been raised about whether a national
search should have been conducted for my replacement. Suffice it
to say, we don’t need one. We've got the right person. She was se-
lected after a national search. I feel very, very comfortable about
where she is and where she is going. I think you also heard that
she had an opportunity to go to the Cambridge public schools and
decided to take on the challenge of the District of Columbia in-
stead. In quiet moments, as I have had in the past, she might ask
herself why. You can take a look at the Council of Great City
Schools’ recent report on Seattle’s reform effort to see what she did
when she was up there. An excerpt from that report is attached to
my statement for the record.

Before I turn it over to Mrs. Ackerman to describe our academic
achievement plan, permit me to comment on two questions that
you raised at the most recent hearing of several weeks ago; first,
you suggested that we visit New York City and see how they do
their student count. We have been in communication with the folks
in New York. We talked to them as recently as this morning. They
will call back this afternoon with two or three dates within the
next few weeks for staff to visit and to pick their brains. They said
they will assist us in any way they can.


68

Your other question dealt with our per pupil expenditure rate.
You heard Mrs. Delabian Thurston say, accordi: to Parents
United, the numbers for D.C. public schools are the lowest in the
region with the exception of Prince George’s County. We have been
waiting for these numbers to be finalized before we responded to
your question. We will look at those numbers, and the methods
used to get to them and report back to you. Our basic approach has
been to take the number of students we have and divide them into
the total number of dollars we spend, to get a basic per-pupil ex-

nditure rate of 7,318. Parents United used a more complicated
formula, and we intended to report for you on both methods.

Finally, I am happy to report that we have an ment with
the Corps of Engineers to provide services to us. questions
shall come up about what we have done in the past in the facilities
area. Let me specifically mention some of the thi that they will
do to help us on our facilities effort, and then we can get on with
the business of student achievement. Our memorandum of agree-
ment with the Corps of Engineers will include facilities assessment,
construction quality assurance, contract management, contract ad-
ministration, facility management, engineering services, environ-
mental compliance services, and such other services as may be nec-
essary to support DCPS’ facilities assessment, renovation, restora-
tion, operations and maintenance efforts.

With that, Mr. Chairman, let me turn to Mrs. Ackerman to tell
you how we are going to increase student achievement.

[The prepared statement of General Becton follows:]


26

Ms. BERLIN. Staffing decisions, budgetary decisions, that is why
we put a—in the process, we put money in for an equivalent of one
FTE for schools, to decide how that would be used-———_

Ms. Norton. Well, I think——

Ms. BERLIN [continuing]. To give them more discretionary -—

Ms. Norton. I think you have the makings of a good suggestion
here, but I don’t see that it was in place in your criticism. I think
it would in fact behoove the trustees and the elected school board
to get a representative group that might in fact give them, in a
hearing, some systematic input into these discussions. I want to
state for the record my strong objection to the school system re-
sponding to ad hoc groups who decide—who purport to decide
where the community is on funding decisions or anything else.

I have—I have seen the—anyone who saw this school system
over the last 20 years saw it ripped apart, not suggesting this very
responsible group would do that. I am not going to apply any dif-
ferent standard here than I applied in the 1970’s and 1980’s when
they came forward and told us what the school system would do
and took over the school board meetings, and people often re-
sponded to them.

What the school system needs to do is to get in touch with their
elected school board so that they can be orderly, a way to hear from.
every ward and from every segment of the community, so that in
fact there can be greater confidence of the kind Ms. Berlin does not
now have. I think, because there is the absence of that, and in the
absence of that, she has done what a responsible parent would do,
which is say let us all go in and at least express our views.

We need to have a more systematic and organized way to do
that, so that—and the people who—who the people have elected are
sitting there dormant, might be given something to do if there were
hearings regarding the academic plan; if there were hearings re-
garding the budget, and then people from the ward seeing their
own school board member. You see your school board member from.
ward 6, your school board member from ward 4, you are more like-
ly to come in and give your views, and when you hear all of those
views, you can begin to make decisions as to whether or not the
school system’s priorities, in fact, are the priorities of the commu-
nity.

Now, see, I am concerned here. The group wanted to find a mech-
anism to give local schools more discretionary resources. This came
in the form of providing to the schools the equivalent of one FTE
to utilize how they so desire. Then it says money was taken out of
summer school and other areas to fund these priorities. Does that
mean that was your recommendation?
ariel BERLIN. Right. Not all money was taken out of summer

ool.

Ms. Norron. But it makes my point. It really makes my point.

Ms. BERLIN. One of the issues that we discussed in that budget
session was that if in the next year the improvements in the cur-
riculum occurred, there would be less of a need for summer school.
Now, this was not a perfect process. And this was not—it was a
process for Anthony ‘illiams, I believe, to get a sense of what com-
munity members thought was important.


18

We also need the technological infrastructure to access data on our students and staff ina
timely fashion and to manage our fiscal resources effectively and we need the resources to
offer our teachers competitive salaries, so that we can attract and retain the best and
brightest for our students. Finally, we need a level playing field -- we must improve our
performance, but we must also be held to the same standards as other jurisdictions. In
special education, that means help from you, in Congress, to give us a reasonable timeline
for evaluating children and placing them in programs that address their special needs.
Finally, we need parents, policymakers and the community as a whole to stand with us and
give us their time, energy and commitment. It truly does take a village to raise a child and
we all must be invested in the success of this effort.

With these resources, we promise to graduate:

* students who have strong basic skills,

* students who are technologically competent,

‘* students who are knowledgeable about careers,

* students whose special needs have been served by our schools,
+ students who are culturally aware, and

+ students who are physically fit.

In short, we will graduate students who are prepared today for their world tomorrow.

Thank you, again, for the opportunity to testify. I would be happy to respond to your
questions now.


3

tleman, I know he expected criticism and he has received some. I
hope that he leaves with the understanding that he has much to
show for his efforts, especially when measured by what came be-
fore, and that they are indeed appreciated. To his credit, General
Becton announced his intention to leave at a time calculated to do
the least injury and to allow an appropriate transition. One of his
achievements is his participation in the selection of Dr. Arlene Ack-
erman as the superintendent designate for the school system.

Like Charles Ramsey, who is likely to be confirmed as the new
police chief, Dr. Ackerman deserves the support of every Washing-
tonian. Dr. Ackerman and Mr. Ramsey have not had a chance to
lead here. The troubled agencies they inherit require that both ad-
ministrators get the opportunity to show what they can do. Al-
though hired as chief academic officer, the search for Dr. Ackerman
was openly and explicitly conducted as a search for the next super-
intendent. I thank and commend the Authority for moving to ap-

int her without delay instead of allowing the school system to
languish or, worse, destabilize, especially given crucial new initia-
tives about to take off. Any delay in the appointment would have
been unfair to the school system and to Dr. Ackerman and would
have raised serious concerns here in the Congress. She has suc-
ceeded in complex school systems before. Everyone needs to stand
back and let her take this one on.

Dr. Ackerman’s quick action ending social promotion and the de-
tails of her new S.T.A.R.S. program show an administrator
unafraid to take bold action. It was like a cool breeze on a hot day
to learn of Dr. Ackerman’s plan to have children read the equiva-
lent of 25 books. We will look for and expect more of the same.

As part of my campaign to go to the House floor frequently to
report progress in the District, I have already used debate time to
sing the praises of the S.T.A.R.S. program and the new standards.
I am pleased that S.T.A.R.S. is being designed not only for children
who have failed, but also to keep others from failing and to help
still others to improve.

I have also spoken on the House floor of my strong cpposition to
yet another vouchers fight when Dr. Ackerman’s S.T.A.R.S. pro-
gram badly needs the $7 million proposed to go for vouchers and,
even then, would be $3.5 million short. Dr. Ackerman came to the
District too late for the S.T.A.R.S. program to be included in this
year’s budget. Thus, the District will be forced to borrow from Peter
to pay Paul to put S.T.A.R.S. into effect unless Congress puts its
money where its proverbial mouth has been on helping D.C. school
children. Whatever good might have been done for 2,000 children
would be multiplied many times over for the 20,000 children ex-
pected to enroll in the S.T.A.R.S. program this year.

Although encouraged by the beginning of progress, I am clear
that there is no part of the present school system that does not
need to be overturned. The best approach to our schools is to ques-
tion every single system in place and then to map a detailed time-
framed plan for their replacement. The school system must be at
pains to perhaps avoid the most significant error the Authority has
made in management reform, not working from a rigorous and de-
tailed plan with accountability ts to be achieved or revised as
circumstances indicate. By setting both specific education goals and


2

As we recall, the Control Board declared a state of emergency in
the D.C. public school system on November 15, 1996, established
a nine-member Emergency Transitional Education Board of Trust-
ees, a position of chief executive officer-superintendent, and Gen-
eral Julius W. Becton, Jr., was appointed to the post. Among the
many challenges that faced the school system leadership was the
need to address the fundamental issues of student achievement
and development and implementation of a comprehensive academic
plan. Accordingly, in August 1997, Mrs. Arlene Ackerman was ap-
pointed as chief academic officer. Mrs. Ackerman came to the posi-
tion with enormous credentials and tremendous accolades and she
hit the ground running.

On October 20, 1997, Mrs. Ackerman released the final version
of the District of Columbia Public Schools’ Academic Plan for 1997
and 1998. Mrs. Ackerman acknowledged that academic planning is
work in progress and committed to providing regular status up-
dates to the public school community and to make revisions to the
plan as determined to be necessary and appropriate.

Today, we are going to examine issues that are inextricably con-
nected to the ability to be successful in this bold effort. These
issues include the administrative support infrastructure; the state-
of-the-art technology plan; ensuring the security, health and safety
of all buildings, students and staff; and helping students with spe-
cial needs. Also, there has to be coordination of facilities, enroll-
ment, staffing, instructional materials, and other resources nec-
essary to achieve the goals and objectives of academic and social
achievement for all public school students in the District of Colum-

ia.

While many, but not all, agree that positive changes are being
made in reforming the city’s public school system, much remains
to be done. An effective academic plan is driven by a set of goals
and objectives developed through a consensus building exercise. It
must seek out and respect community input and invite community
participation. The academic plan must recognize the value of col-
laboration between professional staff, parents and students. This is
critical to the overall activities which are necessary to reestablish
the D.C. public school system as the premier public school system
in the Nation.

I would now yield to Delegate Norton, the ranking member of
this subcommittee, for any opening statement she may wish to
make.

Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this timely hearing.
This oversight hearing is for the purpose of helping the subcommit-
tee to evaluate progress, of indicating congressional concerns, and
of detailing goals that Cor SS and every D.C. resident have a

ight to expect from those who have accepted responsibility for the
school children of the District. As all know well, the District of Co-
lumbia public schools have received greater attention from both the
House and the Senate than any other function of the city govern-
ment, and justifiably so. When children are involved, the city’s re-
sponsibility is at its greatest.

Despite setbacks, the school system has made documented
progress during General Julius Becton’s tenure. General Becton

is given diligent and dedicated service. As an officer and a gen-


15

PAM Parents United for the D.C. Public Schools

1300 19th St., N.W, Suite 330 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 833-876

STATEMENT OF DELABIAN L. RICE-THURSTON
PARENTS UNITED FOR THE D.C. PUBLIC SCHOOLS
BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT
OF THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

April 3, 1998

Good morning, { am Delabian Rice-Thurston, Executive Director of Parents United for

the D.C. Public Schools since 1983. I am the mother of one son currently enrolled in the D.C.
Public Schools and another recent graduate who with his D.C. Public School education is now
attending Columbia University on a National Merit Scholarship. Our public schools are capable
of excellence.

‘The most important question behind this hearing is not the Academic Plan itself but what

all of us can do to achieve its objective -- high student achievement. Whatever the Plan is ifit is
to work we must:

Have capable teachers and other staff to carry it out, which means competitive salaries,
intensive training, and rigorous evaluation, then employing good management to nurture
‘2006 performers and dismiss bad

Stop making grand plans, asthe school system and numerous other parties have been
doing non-stop since 1989, and do a good job of carrying one out instead. Planning has
become an excuse for evading action. Its time to fx on a promising approach with steps
that are consistent with each other, then implement them well

Have continuity, stability and unity in DCPS leadership and control; there is too much
turnover, too many changes of direction, and far too many different officials indifferent
offices making decisions or interfering with them, though most of them know little or
nothing about our schools and how they operate

Put enough money behind the plan to let it work and hold the leadership accountable
instead of giving it the excuse of insufficient resources. This year D.C. Public Schools
spends less per pupil than all but one of the surrounding suburbs spent last year, according
to the method of calculation used by the Metropolitan Area Boards of Education:

Alexandria FY 1997 $8,999 Montgomery FY 1997 $7,650
Arlington FY 1997 $9,305 Prince George’s FY 1998 $6,171
Fairfax County FY 1997 $7,120 DC FY 1998 $6,599


5

what excellence means. He has brought all of the skills that one
associates, all of the traits that one associates with the word “excel-
lence.” Not only is he smart and as we are trying to tell the young-
sters in D.C. what smart means, is doing the hard work that in
fact makes you smart, he is an indefatigable worker. He doesn’t
know how to say no. You give him an impossible task, and the
usual notions that people say, “Well, I don’t know how you’re going
to do that” simply doesn’t come out of his mouth. He does the im-
possible. He knows how to negotiate his way out of difficult deci-
sions instead of throwing up his hands or engaging in confronta-
tional or contentious activity with others. It is a very unusual set
of skills to find in a staff person.

He is taking all of this with him to the Education and Workforce
Committee. He leaves an extraordinarily irreplaceable deficit. But
that’s all right. You can run, but you cannot hide from me, Cedric
Hendricks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Davis. Thank you. Let me just say that he is leaving this
committee but he is going over to the Committee on Education and
the Workforce. That is relevant to today. I guess one thing Ms.
Norton didn’t note, at least he is staying on the Democratic side.
He’s not coming over to our side.

Ms. Norton. He hasn’t lost his mind, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Davis. I tell you that Cedric has been a geod partner in
working with us. Cedric, we are going to miss you. You have added
not only a strong professionalism and a high standard, but you
know how to work things out behind the scenes when we disagree.
You have been very, very helpful. Sometimes when Ms. Norton and
I get a little stormy, she has Cedric, I have Ron Hamm and Howie
Denis, and they end up on the sidelines and working it out. That
is how important he has been. I know he is going to be successful
at whatever he does. I will miss you as well. We appreciate all the
efforts that you have done in wating some of the major landmark
decisions over the last 4 years that have come out of this commit-
tee.

Ms. Norton. Mr. Chairman, may I note also that Mr. David
Cann, another councilmember, has come into this hearing and wel-
come him as well.

Mr. Davis. Mr. Cann, thank you. I welcome both you and Ms.
Patterson. I am going to ask unanimous consent that any written
statements made by our panel be part of the permanent record and
ask if you can try to limit your oral statements to 5 minutes. We
have your testimony and read it and are ready to go to questions,
so if you want your oral testimony to be shorter, that is fine, be-
cause your whole statement will be part of the record and that will

ive us a little more time for questions. I am going to begin with
is. Harvey, followed by Ms. Berlin and Ms. Rice-Thurston.

STATEMENTS OF PATRICIA HARVEY, SENIOR FELLOW AND DI-
RECTOR URBAN EDUCATION, NATIONAL CENTER ON EDU-
CATION AND THE ECONOMY; MARLENE BERLIN, CHAIR, AD-
HOC PARENTS COALITION; AND DELABIAN RICE-THURSTON,
PARENTS UNITED FOR THE D.C. PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Ms. Harvey. Good morning , Mr. Chairman and members of the
subcommittee. Again, I am Pat Harvey. I’m a senior fellow at the


80

would certainly be helpful to us as we try to reform our manage-
ment side of the house.

General BECTON. May I comment on that, too?

Mr. Davis. Sure.

General BECTON. In addition to the loaned executives, we also
have IPAs from the government in some of our schools who are cer-
tified as teachers. Finally, Mrs. Ackerman in her summer
S.T.A.R.S. program has asked some businesses to provide support
for the afternoon extra curricular or noncurricular programs for
students.

Mr. Davis. There is a lot of talent in this city in science and
math that you could get in the classroom, too, if you could get
around certification. a think other jurisdictions have worked
through that. Charter schools are one way that allows that to work.
There are probably other strategies, too. What do you view as the
role of the charter schools in the overall strategy for student
achievement and improvement in the District?

Mrs. ACKERMAN. I think the role of the charter schools is to pro-
vide for our parents choice. I do believe very much in parental
choice and that our public schools ought to be able to offer parents
a variety of instructional educational programs for their children.
I see that as a support of what we're doing in the Public schools,
as we're trying to provide quality programs to all of our students.

Mr. Davis. I am glad to hear you say that. If you don’t have
choice within the public school system, they’re going to seek it out-
side. I really believe that the public school system has to change
with the times to be competitive to meet the parents’ needs.

You have a daunting task ahead of you. I am really encouraged
by what I have heard today. Your testimony is inclusive. We are
going to continue an ongoing dialog.

Ms. Norton made the remark before she had to leave unexpect-
edly, about how inclusive this was. Yet this is just the beginni
of an ongoing dialog we need to engage in here today. We wan
to give you an opportunity to come up and present your vision as

as have other groups. I think we have achieved that.

General Becton, I think you have made some initial steps that
allow this next phase to come into being and be made possible.
Once again, everybody who touches the city and tries to make im-
provements gets eaten up by different groups who go unsatisfied by
complaining. That is just part of it. I have had our house picketed
out in the suburbs. You have to get used to that and recognize that
the vision that you have is a good vision. It is one that if we will
follow through, and know that we need to go from A to B, we still
may not get there as directly as we would like to because we have
to allow participation and input. But the vision is a sound one, one
that has been implemented across this country, where it has been
implemented and funded fully. If we will continue on that path we
have started, I think we can look back in 3 to 4 years and see some
very measurable changes and success.

When we talk about moving a tax base back into the city and a
middle class back into the city, you can’t do it without an edu-
cational system that people can have confidence in. Once again, I
think we have started that. You are going to continue it. General
Becton, I think you leave the system in some good hands as we


21

children are eligible for free or reduced price lunch, in which our
level of low income children is so high, that we can’t eveh service
most of the schools. As the Federal Government, for example, es-
tablished chapter 1, every school system gets some chapter 1 fund-
ing. In the District of Columbia if your school is not at 74 percent
chapter 1 eligible students, you don’t get the money. In Fairfax
County, I think it’s somewhere under 10 percent. In Montgomery
County, it is somewhere around 20 percent. The level of additional
support our children need in order to have access to services is well
beyond the level of funding our school system receives. And so we
are doing the best we can with the resources given to us. We will
be doing far better with the work of the National Commission on
Education and the Economy, but a serious look by the Congress at
the kinds of supplements and supports that are needed for'the Dis-
trict of Columbia I think would be very helpful to us.

Mr. Davis. I don’t disagree. You talked about how the school sys-
tem has always had its shortcomings but never the shortcomings
that it has had in very recent history. In the old days, at least you
would have Members of Co: ss send their kids to the public
school system. I don’t think there is one Member now who does
that. There are a variety of reasons for that. One reason is that
more Members live away from the District. But District schools
have hit rock bottom. We think District schools are on the way up,
as has been indicated. We want to accelerate this improvement and
understand what we need to do about it.

I think you and Ms. Berlin hit it on the nose. We have to have
the parents buy into the program and be stakeholders in this and
have input or it is going to continue to go down. General Becton
admitted to that, when he made his statement, that this is some-
thing we need to work on.

Let me go to Ms. Berlin and then I can go with you, Ms. Harvey.

Ms. BERLIN. I agree with Delabian that raising test scores and
achievement levels for children, it takes time. But where you can
find areas of improvement that can happen in a much more briefer
period of time is the area of operations. Chicago is an example of
that. We really need—in order for our schools to work, we really
need to get the operations side together.

For example, personnel, as the Washington Post aptly reported,
that system is a mess. I think that’s where you can find and have
a great impact more quickly. The local schools feel that tremen-
dously, because they cannot get teachers in the local schools quick-
ly, and teachers leave because they’re not getting paid on time, and
what they should be Paid. So there are areas in the school system
that I think can be addressed, and I’d say within a year you should
be able to see a difference and great improvement.

But again test scores, they are a really knotty issue. I know in
Chicago in the research that was done there, schools they counted
that made great improvements over a period of 3 years were those
that test scores were raised above 10 percent.

Mr. Davis. Ms. Harvey, any additional comments from you?

Ms. Harvey. Yes, I’m glad that Marlene mentioned Chi 1
was the chief accountability officer in Chicago. I want to go back
to your statement about being impatient. I don’t think we need to
lose that. I think all of us need to be impatient with results for our


OVERSIGHT ON THE ACADEMIC PLAN FOR THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
AND OVERSIGHT
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION

APRIL 3, 1998

Serial No. 105-147

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight

a

U.S, GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
50-134 CC WASHINGTON : 1998

For sale by the U.S. Government Printing Office
‘Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office, Washington, DC 20402
ISBN 0-16-057357-2



44

ARLE! KE!

Curriculum Vitae

EDUCATION
Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Ed.D., Administration, Planning and Social Policy,
Urban Superintendent’s Program (Expected 1999)

Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Master of Arts in Education, 1993

Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri
Master of Arts in Educational Administration and Policy, 1981

Harris Stowe Teachers College, St. Louis, Missouri
Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education, 1968

EXPERIENCE

1997 - Present Di

i er
ict of Columbia Public Schools, Washington, D.C.

Serve as Deputy Superintendent/Chief Academic Officer responsible for academic
achievement and all Districtwide educational support services.

Serve. as Chief Executive Officer of the Distict inthe absence of the
Superintendent. Provides overall leadership and management of administrative
and educational support services. Oversee budget of three hundred. forty-six
million dollars.

Deputy Superintendent
1996 - 1997 Seattle School District, Seattle, Washington

Served as Chief Educational Officer responsible for academic achievement and all
Districtwide educational support services.

Served as Chief Executive Officer of the District in the absence of the
Superintendent. Provided overall leadership and management of educational
support services. Oversaw budget of eighty million dollars.

Aggressively pursued solutions to goals number one and two of the District
Strategic Plan -- Goal #I/Increasing Academic Achievement and Goal
#2/Eliminating Disproportionality.


8

which was mandated by the Control Board by June, one that the
community can and will support, and urge local officials to support.

Now, to get back to the academic plan. We are approaching the
end of the 1-year plan. I acknowledge that an incredible effort has
been set in motion. But I am left with many questions as I look
at this 1-year plan. How am I to know what of this plan was imple-
mented and what was not, what was changed, what moneys were
repro; ed? For example, how will summer school be mon-
itored? How will we know if those students who were supposed to
attend actually attend? Will having buildings air-conditioned for
some children predict better outcomes for those than those in
unair-conditioned buildings?

As a parent and a taxpayer, I want to know what was successful
and what did not work. Primary to answering these questions are
knowing how many children are being served and the number of
personnel serving them. These are still unanswered to my satisfac-
tion.

These questions lead me to one of the top five recommendations
coming out of the parent task force, establish meaningful partner-
ships with parents, universities, professional associations and other
groups to evaluate, monitor and refine the implementation,
progress and effectiveness of the plan. I would also like to add to
this and make these results public. We will only be able to improve
the schools when we are able not only to tout our successes but
also acknowledge and learn from our failures. We expect this from
our children and we should expect it from the school system.

What we all want is a school system that not only addresses the
problems that presently exist but also builds on and strengthens
our successes. We want an education system that is attractive to
families of all income levels, ethnic and racial backgrounds with
children of differing abilities and aptitudes. We want a school sys-
tem that will work for all of us. Good schools will attract and keep
families in the District and greatly contribute to the revitalization
of our city.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Berlin follows:]


7

to give parents greater voice in influencing policy decisions that im-
pact their children’s education.

In responding to your request to comment on the academic plan
released in October, I would first really like to address what you
mention in the last paragraph of your statement, which is to talk
about the process of developing such a plan.

Education reform efforts in major urban areas are not accom-
plished without many bumps along the way. It is a difficult and an
arduous task. To be successful, all the major players must take
part in developing a plan so that the whole community can claim
ownership. This has not yet occurred. The effort has suffered as a
result.

As General Becton admitted when he announced his resignation,
he said he should have involved the parents and the public more.
We must all be part of developing this plan. This is a messy and
time consuming process, but it is necessary. If this does not hap-
pen, the People of this city, from teachers, principals, parents, stu-
dents and tax-paying citizens, will not feel a sense of ownership for
this effort.

This is crucial to improving the schools. As a staff person at the
Department of Education asked me, why doesn’t the council pro-
vide more support and budget requests for education? I responded,
when the public is not engaged, there is no sense of ownership and
little demand for local officials to support the reform plan. Just like
Congress, the public wants to know that the present level of fund-
ing is spent effectively before more money is allocated.

It is not too late to engage the public in this process. I would like
to suggest something similar to the budget simulation process held
by the chief financial officer, Anthony Williams, this past Tuesday
night. Tuesday night, members of the community were invited to
develop a citizens education budget for next year. There were about
20 of us, and we worked with the enhancements that the school
system wanted for next year’s budget. In essence, we are working
with a 2-year academic plan, the second year academic plan. What
was very clear from the discussion and the process was a definite
discrepancy between where the community wanted to go with
school reform and where the school administration was going.

The group that was present on Tuesday night focused on funding
to improve teacher quality through the development and implemen-
tation of an evaluation and termination process for teachers, fund-
ing of summer institutes for teachers. Other priorities were funding
for pre-kindergarten for all 4-year-old children, and vocational edu-
cation for high school students.

The group also wanted to find a mechanism to give local schools
more discretionary resources. This came in the form of providing to
the schools the equivalent of one FTE to utilize how they so desire.
Money was taken out of summer school and other areas to fund
these priorities. We need a process of engagement such as this to
reconcile these differences of vision. The greatest gift of leadership
that General Becton can give this community is to engage us in
this type of exercise. We need the leadership and process to do this.

I invite General Becton and Mrs. Ackerman to come to the table
with members of the community to develop a 3-year academic plan


57

Ms. PaTTERSON. We have not, the Council has not received pro-
posals from the school system to take prekindergarten to scale in
my time on the Council. That’s something we need to work on col-
laboratively to make that a funding priority, in my view.

Ms. Norton. Could I ask our other two witnesses, I’m not inter-
ested in simply prekindergarten, although I believe that in the—
because I know what you've done there, and if I had my way that’s
where resources would go. I believe if you, in fact, move resources
all there, you would then create Great deficits. See, I’m really talk-
ing now about the elementary school, the lower elementary school
grades. If that is the last clear chance for many disadvantaged chil-

m in particular, and for other children, from what we know from
the science makes learning at least more difficult, is there any way
that that can be reflected in the way in which you go about appor-
tioning support and resources for the schools, for the schools in the
lower grades?

Ms. LADNER. I think it can be. But I think that we've been under
such tremendous constraints up to now that, certainly at the level
of the Authority and setting a budget, we've not dealt with it thus
far. I’m fully aware of the research that’s going on in the brain.

And I think that one of the—in 1995, the first year of the
Authority's existence, for example, a proposal to balance the budget.
would have meant cutting pre-K. And we made sure that we did
not agree with that proposal, recognizing that—but I do believe
that Ms. Ackerman can speak more clearly to that. And we would
strongly, strongly support strengthening this early cognitive devel-
opment of children.

Ms. Norton. The President has indicated that every child should
learn to read by the fourth grade. I think what he’s telling—what
he’s telling us comes from his—from the latest research. You're
going to teach—you can still teach a child to read in the second and
third grade; try it in the fifth and sixth grade or later, you get a
marked difference.

So in terms of reading, even, it seems to me in the lower elemen-
tary school grades one can make a tremendous difference if one un-
derstands that or finds a way to incorporate it into the early grades
of school, probably, on the many children who will not get to kin-
dergarten or pre-K.

Mr. MacLaury.

Mr. MacLaury. Yes, Ms. Norton. A couple things come to mind.
First, when Ms. Ackerman came, she moved back from third grade
gate to second grade; that is to say, she pushed the emphasis on
early learning back by a—a full year to the second grade. And now
the emphasis, for example, in the “Everybody Reads” program is
tutoring and extra support help in literacy for second graders.

Recognizing that, as you do, that every year that passes, it be-
comes harder and harder to catch people who are at risk of failure,
that’s one example, I think. The second is that, as you know, in the
summer school—that is, the Summer Stars program that is being
planned—the ratio for elementary school kids who are going to be
taught is going to be 15 to 1. That is a dramatic change.

I wish, I only wish that we could have something like that year
round. But at least a Summer Stars with 15 to 1 in the early
grades, with a teacher’s aide as well as a teacher in the number


40

The Authority’s Mandate for Change

In response to this crisis, the Authority, on November 15, 1996, took immediate action
to fundamentally improve the schools, Through a Resolution and Order, the Authority
replaced the Superintendent and reduced the powers of the elected Board of Education.
In their place, the Authority appointed retired Army Lieutenant General Julius W.
Becton, Jr. as Chief Executive Officer and Superintendent, and established an Emergency
Transitional Education Board of Trustees (“Trustees”), under the leadership of Chairman
Bruce K. MacLaury. The Trustees are volunteers. As part of the overhaul, the Authority
ordered the Chief Executive Officer (“CEO”) Superintendent to address the structure,
education, and management of the public schools. The Authority established an
aggressive agenda of reform. Together with the CEO/Superintendent and the Trustees,

we have worked to ensure that the education of our children will improve.

Progress Continues to be Made
Mr. Chairman, the D. C. Public Schools (“DCPS”) has made significant strides in
addressing the deficiencies that were cited in the Authority’s “Children in Crisis” report.
Our efforts have focused on the safety, structure, and management problems of the
schools. We think that the DCPS has made progress in tackling these long standing
problems. Their efforts have laid the foundation for additional reform.
To achieve our educational goals, DCPS recruited Ms. Arlene Ackerman as the Deputy
Superintenden/Chief Academic Officer. It was essential to the success of the reform
efforts that DCPS hire a top flight Academic Officer with the leadership skills, hands on

experience, and the expertise to lead and manage DCPS. It was important that the


81

move forward. I just want to assure you that you will get full co-
operation from this committee and others. Sometimes that gives us
the right to sit down and work out issues and disagreements we
may have. We appreciate your willingness to undergo this and,
General Becton, for the service you have given to this city. I do
think it has been underappreciated. We recognize the difference
that it has made and the base that you have laid that will allow
Mrs. Ackerman and her troops to succeed in the future.

Thank you both very much for being here. I want to thank all
our panels for their input. General Becton, I think you reflected on
some things you would do differently. At the end of each day I look
at things I would do differently. There isn’t a day that goes by that
I didn’t do something that I might have improved on it. I appre-
ciate that kind of candor. But in working with some of the parent
groups out here, and in working with your staff, we all want the
same result. We have disay ments along the way but if we can
continue that dialog, I think we can make the educational system
here one we can be proud of, one which Members of Congress can
send their kids to t .

Ms. Norton talked about her being a graduate of the District of
Columbia public school system, so am I. I think we can make that
a great system again. Thank fou very much. I want to thank all
the panelists for being here today.

_ The Zecord will be open for 10 days. This meeting is now ad-

journed.

; Thank all of you very much. The meeting is adjourned.
(Whereupon, at 12:20 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

12)


28 ,
tem, I am asking you to take note, and when you hear criticism,
and there have been some criticisms of the school system, these
parents’ criticisms, I say you deserve the criticisms you get because
you haven’t set up a better system for receiving criticism.

I want to ask Ms. Rice-Thurston a question about the condition
of the repairs in the schools. I mean, many of us were heartbroken
frankly to see the collapse of the system that was put in place. Ms.
Berlin is talking about her system wasn’t perfect. This system
wasn’t perfect either, but I tell you what we are left with; we are
left with the officers who were carrying out the work and without
the monitor who was doing the work. And I like your evaluation
of where that leaves us and what you think should be done so we
don’t fall back into the situation from whence we have just begun
to come.

Ms. RICE-THURSTON. We spoke with Don Brown, who resigned as
monitor last night, as a matter of fact. He gave us real confidence
that the school system has a strategy for making building repairs
in a timely manner. But he also told us that they need a monitor
who is paid, who is full-time, to do this work. And we have sent
a letter to the Control Board asking for their efforts to speedily re-
place Mr. Brown. The Control Board is the person—is the entity re-
sponsible for hiring this monitor or making this monitor—giving it

e credence, I guess, that the lawsuit required in the settlement.

And we simply have to pursue this with them. I was very sur-

rised at how confident he was about his relationship with General

‘illiams, that he had attended all the meetings that he felt he
needed to attend, and that they were working. I am not a builder
at all, so I can’t gainsay anything that he expressed. So I was very
pleased to know that that was his relationship. And we will be try-
ing to make sure that we get a replacement for him in the near

future.

Ms. Norton. It’s interesting, I have spoken to Mr. Brown, and
he didn’t mention to me a paid monitor. And, of course, if that
needs to be, it needs to be, and we will have to do what we have
to do. And I will say in a city full of the best qualified people in
the country, people who have deep government services, I would be
ashamed if there were not resources in the city that would not re-
quire us to pay.

I am—if the school system desires, I am prepared to ask the GSA
to give us help in monitoring, because—and T believe that we could
get some help, because the GSA, and I am on their oversight com-
mittee, has been quick to respond to our requests for help. And
they, of course, have the kinds of experience that is absolutely on
point here.

The only thing is that the city is full of private parties like Don
Brown, and everywhere I go in the city, people say, “I wish some-
body would ask me to do something in the city.” It is really our
fault for not finding ways to use some of the top talent in the coun-
try, because they live here.

So I just hope that we don’t get to the point where we have to
pay a monitor. I agree with Ms. Rice-Thurston, we have got—if we

ave got to do that, we have got to do it, because we have got to
keep this system in place. But I can tell you there are Don Browns
in this city who would donate their time. And there is the GSA and


45

ARLENE ACKERMAN C.V/Page 2

Deputy Superintendent
1996 - 1997 Seattle School District, Seattle, Washington (Continued)

Established, maintained, and monitored the overall effectiveness of all schools
within the District. Schools not meeting established standards were placed on plans
for improvement through the Effective Schools Process.

Assisted Superintendent with evaluative process for principals and other
administrators who directly report to the Superintendent.

Supervised and provided administrative direction, leadership, coordination and
management over curriculum, instruction and academic achievement functions:
Curriculum Services, Early Childhood Programs, Special Education, Bilingual
Education, Compensatory Education, Pupil Support Services, Magnet Programs,
Professional Technical Programs/School-To-Work, Professional Development,
Gifted Education, Athletics, Comprehensive Health Services, Visual and
Performing Arts, and Curriculum/School-Based Reform Initiatives.

Served on the Executive Administrative Review Team, a structure designed to
facilitate consistent, equitable, and informed financial decision-making in alignment
with District goals.

Served on the Executive Labor Policy Committee, a structure designed to provide
general parameters and guidelines to the District's negotiating team.

Functioned as a unifying leader for students, teachers, staff and administrators
while establishing and maintaining a very strong bond with parents, the
community, business and civic leaders and unions.

Advised the Board on compliance with relevant state and federal laws and
regulations that relate to the District. Formulate policies and reform efforts to
recommend to the Board. Oversaw the development of said policies and reform
efforts.

Provided professional development opportunities for principals and central
administrators.

ir yn_and Acad

Seattle School District, Seattle, Washington

Provided administrative direction, leadership, coordination and management of the
following services and programs: Curriculum Services, Early Childhood
Programs, Special Education, Bilingual Education, Compensatory Education, Pupil
Support Services, Magnet Programs, Professional Technical Programs and Gifted
Education.


27

But these are also issues I feel need to be reconciled through
some kind of problem process, whether it’s through the elected
board or through a citizens’ process, to sit down with members of
the school system to really look at the priorities of the plan. I mean
we do have a pre-K program that is known nationally in this Na-
tion, and to build on it, and to give our children the benefit of all
children being in prekindergarten, it is really important, given
where we are in our academic achievement.

Ms. Norton. Ms. Berlin, I commend you for, in fact, coming for-
ward with those ideas. And I think it might even make a lot of
sense to have parents especially to encourage—in order to encour-
age parents for greater involvement, it might make a lot of sense
to have parents in an organized way involved in just these kinds
of matters. I am making another point, and that is, it really goes
to how the elected school board and the trustees organize how they
receive recommendations.

I mean, they are going to be beholden to whoever comes forward,
unless there is a more systematic process. Now, you have here a
very responsible group, the Ad Hoc Parents Coalition, which sits
down and studies what it wants to do. I disagree with what she
had to say about summer school. She is right that if, in fact, there
is—the teachers have a better curriculum, you won’t need the sum-
mer school. But the fact is that summer school, you need the sum-
mer school this summer.

Ms. BERLIN. I am not talking about this summer, I am talking
about the following.

Ms. Norton. The point is, the point—I don’t even know whether
some money should be taken out of summer school. Please under-
stand my underlying point. I have absolutely no idea. I defer en-
tirely to those of you who do. But I am saying that the notion of
taking—that they are having to put together a summer school this
year without one bit of help from the Congress, and at a time when
nothing was in the budget to do that. It seems to me that is one
of the things you would want to give them their head on, because
they know in order to be successful in the summer school they have
got to have the lowest per pupil ratio, and they have got to look
at the whole system.

They also know if they fail in the summer school, that—which
is a short-term way to measure their success or failure—they are
going to hear from everybody in the city. So, I mean, that is why

want to stress that you may be right and they may be right. But
we are not going to have a way to know that the best judgment
has been made and the best discretion has been exercised until we
make greater use of the people who we have elected, and who are
elected for the first time and never got an opportunity to do any-
thing. In a real sense, these parents have come forward because
there has been no other way——

Ms. BERLIN. Very correct.

Ms. NorTON [continuing]. For parents to have input into the sys-
tem. And so absent a systematic input from your elected school
board and such representative groups as they call forward, you are
going to have activist parents doing what I commend them for
doing, and not simply giving up and saying there is no—you know,
there is no way to be involved by coming forward. The school sys-


64

tive? Can that happen in the unified budget that you will bring to
the Congress?

Ms. PATTERSON. I don’t think that will happen this year. That’s
been on the drawing board for about as long as I’ve been on the
council, trying to have school-by-school budgets, but I don’t think
it’s going to be in the 1999 budget.

Me Davis. Is it counterproductive to do that or is it a decent pol-
icy option, do you think?

Ms. PATTERSON. I think it’s an excellent policy option. I think
people need to know where the resources are and what the re-
sources are in each individual school. There has been some model-
ing done by the last couple of CFOs at the D.C. public schools. It
is certainly a question that we keep asking, where are your school-
by-school budgets, but it has not been perfected.

Mr. Davis. That would not be technically impossible to provide,
would it?

Ms. PaTTERSON. No.

Mr. Davis. If Congress directed it be provided, it could be done
very quickly, couldn’t it?

Ms. PATTERSON. Again it’s in motion. There is a lot of work being
done on it. But I’m not sure it will be reflected in what comes here
in_1999.

Mr. Davis. Bruce, any comment on that?

Mr. MacLaury. It would be very helpful if the Congress directed
and paid for the implementation of the financial systems that are
necessary for school-by-school budgeting.

Mr. Davis. So it’s not that easy to come up with without re-
programming different resources?

r. MACLaAURY. Progress has been made in redefining budget
categories. We have better handles on responsibility centers than
we did a year ago. But we do not have school-by-school budgets yet
and that is certainly my ambition. It should be anybody’s ambition.

Mr. Davis. But it would take a fair amount of resources?

Mr. MacLaurvy. It is taking resources, yes, sir.

Mr. Davis. I will try to move fairly quickly. Dr. MacLaury, could
you update this subcommittee on the revisions to the residency ver-
ification rules we talked about in the last hearing?

Mr. MacLaury. Yes. Dr. Ladner could also speak to that very
same issue. Because the Board of Trustees did take public action
on a proposed rulemaking on the residency requirements, and we
tightened them, but then the Control Board in their review of our
recommendation tightened them further.

My understanding is that now tax information, either withhold-
ing tax or other tax or proof of receipt of welfare payments, that
is one of the pieces of evidence required out of the three that must
be produced for a student to prove residency. So I think we've got
on the books now the right foolproof evidences of residency.

The big challenge, Mr. Chairman, is going to be the implementa-
tion, as always. Because now at summer school, under the urging
of this committee, summer school is going to be the first test of
whether or not we've got this residency requirement workable or
not. So Mrs. Ackerman, I must say, has once again her work cut
out for her in trying to get summer school started with tougher
than ever residency requirements being proven.


4

specific management goals, school officials will know not only what
they must do to achieve success, they also will have a greater sense
of accomplishment when they have met goals they themselves have
set. When the system develops its goals in conjunction with every
segment of the community, it will not be subjected to the loudest
voices but will be accountable to the community as a whole. Fur-
ther, Dr. Ackerman cannot fully succeed unless she finds ways to
do what the Trustees have not done, achieve a close working rela-
tionship with the elected board, which will get full responsibility
for the school system in just 2 years. Dr. Ackerman 1 apparently al-
ready has begun to establish a productive relationship with the
elected board.

I graduated from Bruce Elementary School of Banneker, when it
was a junior high school, and of Dunbar High School. These schools
were segregated by the Congress of the United States. Even in a
separate and unequal system, the schools I attended managed to
send many of us to the best colleges and universities in the coun-
try. I do not seek for my hometown a system that is as good as the
segregated schools I attended. That would be just one more exam-
ple of setting our sights way too low. I believe that the city is fi-
nally ready for the best and is fully able to attain it.

May I once again thank the chairman. I welcome today’s wit-
nesses and look forward to their testimony. May I also note the
presence of Council Member Kathy Patterson in particular and
welcome her to this hearing.

Mr. Davis. Let me, if I can, call up our first panel to testify. Ms.
Patricia Harvey, senior fellow and director of urban education for
the National Center on Education and the Economy; Ms. Marlene
Berlin, the Chair of the Ad Hoc Parents Coalition; and Ms.
Delabian Rice-Thurston of Parents United for the D.C. public
schools. If you would come forward. It is the policy of this commit-
tee that all witnesses be sworn before they testify, so if you would
raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Ms. Norton. Mr. Chairman, may I ask for a point of personal
privilege?

Mr. Davis. Yes.

Ms. Norton. Mr. Chairman, this is the last day and the last
hearing for Cedric Hendricks, who as you know has ably staffed
this subcommittee, among others. Mr. Chairman, Cedric was my
first legislative director. Mr. Chairman, when he abandoned me to
go to the committee, that was one thing. That was bad enough. But

am here to report, sir, that Cedric is abandoning the committee
altogether to go to a committee of a different jurisdiction. I will not
call that what in some quarters it might be called, but we are los-
ing Cedric altogether. I have warned him that there is experience
and understanding and subtlety of intellect that cannot be re-
placed, and so I don’t care what committee he goes to, I am going
to have to negotiate with that chairman for him to be on call in
case of need.

Mr. Chairman, the most important thing perhaps to say about
Cedric is the standard of excellence he has set for people, other
staff on the committee and for staff in my open office. I would like
to expose Cedric to the entire District government so they know


18

PAP Parents United for the 0.0. Public Schools

1300 19th St., N.W. Suite 330 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 833-4766

D.C. TEACHERS SALARIES
COMPARED WITH SALARIES IN SURROUNDING SUBURBS

Annual Teacher Salaries

1997 - 1998
‘School System Minimum Difference Maximum* Difference
District of Columbia $27,234 $56,296
Alexandria City $30,554 $64,960
‘Arlington County $29,343 $72,423
Fairfax County $29,567 $65,502
‘Montgomery County $30,285 $63,553
Prince George's County $27,474 $58,243
Average (excluding DC) $29,445 $2,211 $64,936 $8,640
Percent more than DC 81% 15.3%
Highest $30,554 $3,320 $72,423 $16,127
Percent more than DC 12.2% 28.6%
If increased from 1997-98 level:
5% increase for D.C. $28,596 $59,111
10% increase for D.C. $29,957 $61,026
12% increase for D.C. $30,502 $63,052
15% increase for D.C. $31,319 $64,740

Source: Intemet and telephone survey of districts.

budget9s\tchrsal 03/27/98


But the heart of accountability is reliable data. Effective management and
oversight require that we work from common assumptions. As she takes
command of the school system, this is a matter on which Mrs. Ackerman, the
Trustees, and the Control Board must work together.

| look forward to your questions.


79

Mr. Davis. Thank you both very much, once again in apprecia-
tion for the job you have done.

I will address one item, and that is new resources. Though it is
a difficulty up here, it is getting a little better. For the new re-
sources we put in, will we be getting any value added for that? The
history of the city prior to the Control Board was that new dollars
would go in for new resources but there was very little to show for
it. I think, however, you have a good plan here together that will
boost our confidence ievel and help you get the resources that you
need.

Mrs. Ackerman, you are presently operating with a 1997-1998
academic plan that establishes clear goals and objectives and you
have described that plan as an ongoing work in progress. What is
the plan for year 2 and beyond?

Mrs. ACKERMAN. It was indeed the first year that was reflected
in the academic plan provided to the committee. We do evaluate
the progress we’ve made on the current goals and have to come up,
I believe, with strategic actions and strategies to be taken in year
2. I believe that could be another opportunity to engage the com-
munity in strategic planning. I do believe that the plan should be
long-range. We started with a 1-year plan. I believe it should even-
tually cover 3 to 5 years. In year one, I think we have some fine
goals. I believe that with community input we can expand those
goals with a few additional that have a more targeted focus. Ulti-
mately, I hope we can put in place a strategic plan that will allow
us to focus and align all of our resources for the next 3 years.

Mr. Davis. What do you view as the role of the business commu-
nity, the nonprofit community, the clergy and other community or-
ganizations in the effort to improve student achievement in the
city?

Mrs. ACKERMAN. I believe that it does take a village to raise a
child and that it is the responsibility of everybody in this D.C. vil-
lage to make that happen. There is also a role for our clergy. We
recently reached out, working with the Mayor’s office, to our clergy.
We have come up with a seven-point plan where we will engage
our faith communities with specific strategies to support the
schools. In other school systems, including the one that I just left,
we had an “Alliance for Education” that was made up of major
businesses. Their major focus was to support the schools.

There are a lot of different ways that I see that we can engage
our community—our business community and our larger commu-
nity—by presenting them with a plan and with specific areas of
focus. We have tried to do that and I have been excited about the
response we’ve gotten in the last few months. Here in the District
I have asked businesses for help; I have asked them for loan execu-
tives, and the World Bank has stepped up offering to donate to the
school district 67 weeks of staff time to help us with some of our
management.

Mr. Davis. That is not in the classroom, because you have certifi-
cation issues.

Mrs. ACKERMAN. No, we are talking about management reform.
They have offered 67 weeks of staff time to help us with manage-
ment reform. I think more of that from our business community


62

So the sooner you incorporate these folks into the hearing, let
them take some of the heat, the better off the entire city is going
to be, because there is going to be heat. Nobody involved in schools
today does anything but take punishment. For those that don’t
want to be punished, there is something other than public life.

Could I ask about the funding of the summer S.T.A.R.S. pro-
gram? Is any funding yet in place for the program?

Ms. LADNER. I can speak to that, Congresswoman. The Authorit:
has been in discussions with the chief financial officer, Mr. Wil-
liams, about identifying funds for the program. We have also, work-
ing with the chief financial officer for the schools, trying to see if
there are additional funds, ways in which funds can be repro-
grammed there as well. We are committed—it is a fait accompli
that we will indeed have the funding in place, but it is a matter
of finishing it off.

Ms. NorTON. $10 million is a big hunk of change to have to come
up with. I commend you for your determination to come up with
it. I think if this works, this will be probably the first big city
school system to abolish social promotion and put in its place some-
thing that works. You can abolish it all you want to but if you want
14-year-olds sitting in the sixth grade, that is an invitation for
them to leave school.

All the Congress shouting and screaming about social promotion
and then coming with vouchers doesn’t take into account that the
only way to do social promotion is to somehow make something
happen, so that these kids get promoted. I don’t know any schoo.
system that has abolished social promotion. Has any school system
that you know of done it?

Ms. LADNER. Chicago did, when Steve Harlan and I along with
staff went out to Chicago a couple of years ago. They abolished it.
They did so within months, as I recall, before school ended. One of
the things I remember them telling us was that they noticed an in-
crease in the number of children who passed, because of the fear
of having to go to summer school, I believe Jerry Chico stated to
us. So we expect that while we are preparing for up to 20,000 chil-
dren, the numbers may be in fact fewer. I think Mrs. Ackerman
will speak to that. But she is not sure that there will be that many
children.

Ms. Norton. That’s what I mean when I say success begets an-
other problem.

One final question. What in very specific terms has happened to
resolve the litigation between the Control Board and the elected
School Board?

Ms. LaDNer. I can speak to that in general terms, as general as
you will allow me, Madam Chairman, because our counsel and I
discussed that before the hearing, just in terms of the quiet discus-
sions that have taken place. Edward Singletary, who is my backup
for the oversight for the schools, and I, along with counsel on both
sides, have met with several members of the elected board. We are
awaiting further word on when our next meeting will be. We are
indeed all committed to trying to develop what eventually will, I
would hope, become the first stage of a transition plan. We fully
are committed to trying to resolve not just the lawsuit but find
more effective ways of getting the elected board back in the game.


35

operation, like facilities and procurement and finances -- should support what is
happening in the classroom. I continue to believe that schoo! support operations here can
be reformed; Chicago schools have set an example here. Measurable academic
improvement, however, takes more time.

We must be careful to set realistic, attainable educational goals. A one-size-fits-all
approach most likely will not work. In other words, the improvements we can reasonably
expect to attain may differ between English speakers and non-English speakers, between
special ed and non-special ed students, and between younger children and students who
have been in the system for many years.

National Public Radio has run a fascinating series called Grey Matters on how the
brain works and how children lean. This medical research suggests that the window of
opportunity for learning a skill like reading starts to close at the age of 10. It is more
difficult to teach a child of 13 to read than a child of 10. It may be, then, that as we set
expectations we can set a higher "bar" for our younger children,

This is another arena in which you, Mr. Davis and Congresswoman Norton, can
help D.C. schools. There is extraordinary pressure on DCPS to set the bar very high today
-- pressure from those outside the system, like the U.S. Congress, who are understandably
impatient and even angry with the outcomes of this school system, Setting expectations

is a tricky business, Our standards for public schools and our children have been too low
High standards are important to communicate to children our belief in and our
commitment to their performance. But the danger of unrealistic expectations is, also,
failure.

David Hornbeck, former Maryland education secretary and now superintendent in
Philadelphia, was quoted in Education Week saying, "No one these days expects that a
single leader can ride in on a white horse and rescue an embattled urban district. The
fundamental and wrenching changes required to bring the vast majority of city students to
high standards will require long term, concerted efforts from many people: parents.
teachers, principals, politicians, community groups, public agencies, businesses, and
religious leaders.” As a parent and a politician, I concur.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. 1 would be happy to answer any
questions you may have.


1

STATEMENT OF ARLENE ACKERMAN
DEPUTY SUPERINTENDENT AND CHIEF ACADEMIC OFFICER
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS
THE
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

APRIL 3, 1998

Mr. Chairman, thank you for inviting me to testify today. I am Arlene Ackerman, Deputy
Superintendent and Chief Academic Officer for the District of Columbia Public Schools. I
appreciate the opporunity Wo talk with you about our plans for improving student
achievement at DCPS,

Background

When | arrived at DCPS six months ago, | came with the understanding that the system
was in crisis. However, afer careful review of the results of the Spring 1997 Stanford 9
Achievement Test and other achievement data, I leamed that the academic situation was
even more serious than I expected.

For instance, in reading, we found that 41 percent of our third graders were performing
“below basic” (meaning they have little or no mastery of fundamental knowledge and skills
for this grade level), compared to just 25 percent of students nationally. Worse yet, by
10th grade, 53 percent of our students were reading “below basic,” compared to just 26
percent nationally. In math, the statistics were even worse, Fully 89 percent of our tenth
graders scored “below basic” in math, compared to a national average of 61 percent.

Clearly, this performance is not acceptable. Neither is it representative of the work our
students are capable of doing. It is certainly not what we expect of the nation’s capital
city. Itis a system-wide failure -- both internally, in the district, and externally, in the

community -- to provide students with the necessary tools and opportunities to succeed.

‘As gloomy as this sounds, I believe that out of this crisis comes an opportunity to give the
District's students, once again, the quality education they deserve. I know that, working
together, we can tum this system around. Our children’s future depends on the success of
adults in providing them with a world class education that will ensure that they have
choices when they leave high school.

A Vision for Student Success

I came to DCPS with a clear vision that I hope this community will embrace: to create an
exemplary school system that prepares our students for college, for good jobs and for life
in the 21st century. To make that vision a reality, we must focus all of our energy, and
resources, on making dramatic improvement in the achievement of all students today in
preparation for their world tomorrow.

Clearly, success won't happen overnight. We know that. The community knows that, But
we need to make steady progress, year by year, classroom by classroom, school by
school. And we have already started. But I’d like to talk a moment about the challenges we
faced -- and some that we are still facing today — before I tell you what we’ve done and
where we're going.



36

Mr. Davis. Kathy, thank you.

Ms. Ladner.

Ms. LADNER. Mr. Chairman, Congresswoman Norton, I want to
thank this committee for the opportunity to speak to you today. I
am the member of the District of Columbia Financial Responsibil-
ity Management Assistance Authority with the lead responsibility
for public education in the district. I should also state that I am
a former D.C. school parent. My son is now in college.

To achieve our educational goals, the D.C. public schools re-
cruited Ms. Arlene Ackerman as the deputy superintendent/chief
academic officer. When she was recruited, it was essential to the
success of the reform efforts that we recruit—that we hire a top
flight academic officer who also had leadership skills, hands-on ex-
perience and the expertise to lead and to manage the D.C. public
schools. It was important that all the candidates have the nec-
essary skills to serve as CEO, superintendent. That was something
that we looked for very precisely.

After conducting an exhaustive nationwide search, the trustees
and General Becton, in consultation with the authority, selected
Ms. Ackerman. I should also say that Ms. Ackerman was being
wooed heavily by the Cambridge, MA, public school system, and it
was only because we offered a much more attractive set of condi-
tions to her, were we able to woo her away from a job where she
had in fact been offered the superintendency.

Ms. Ackerman has a wealth of experience and commitment to
educational reform. All of the systems—and she is making sure,
since she has taken over, that all of the systems within the school
are to be driven by the educational priorities. I must say in the
very beginning that was not the case, because when General
Becton and his team first came in some 16, 17 months ago, they
essentially had to come in to put out fires, in terms of safety and
in terms of 14,000 or so, I believe, fire code violations, complaints
about everything from food to leaky roofs.

But having recruited Ms. Ackerman, and many have complained
that it took so long, I must simply state for the record here that
when national searches are conducted, I have conducted a lot of
them myself as a former chief academic officer for our university,
that the search firms take a long time, the entire process takes a
long time.

And I dare say that we would not have gotten the top flight—
top high caliber person as we’ve gotten if we had been able to woo
someone away from another school district in the middle of the
school year. Good people don’t come easily that way. But she is an
outstanding educator and administrator. She’s served as a teacher,
a principal, central administrator.

id before coming here, she was deputy superintendent for the
Seattle, WA, school district where she had the responsibility for the
day-to-day operation of the entire system. In Seattle, she was re-
sponsible also for the academic achievement as well as Districtwide
educational support services, for the record. I have attached a copy
of Ms. Ackerman’s résumé to this testimony, so that you are able

ruse it.

n. March 27, 1998, General Becton announced his decision to re-
sign his post as CEO/superintendent. On the next day, March 28th,


51

Mr. Davis. Thank you very much.

Dr. MacLaury.

Mr. MacLaury. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Ms.
Norton. I appreciate this opportunity to discuss the academic pro-
gram of the D.C. schools and the role of the Emergency Board of

stees in supporting the ambitious goals.

The first stage of our academic planning began shortly after the
trustees took office. About 16 months ago we released, a year ago,
a draft framework entitled “Children First,” which built upon the
work of the D.C. Goals 2000 task force. It called for three basic
thrusts: student achievement, quality of school staff, and school au-
tonomy. A long-term plan based on this frame of mind was released
last May, followed by a 1-year implementation plan. Both of these
were subject to many public school—public hearings, and the 1-
year plan benefited from broad public input.

While this was going forward, so was the national search for
someone who could lead the academic office. And when Ms. Acker-
man arrived, a far more vigorous stage of academic reform began.
Ms. Ackerman has brought urgency, expertise, common sense and
extraordinary dedication to her work, as you have heard. Upon ar-
riving, she put her own imprint on the academic plan, and it was
her revised version that we adopted at a public meeting on October
28 as the blueprint for the current school year.

In the past few months, Ms. Ackerman has articulated a set of
steps that take us beyond the planning stage and into real stand-
ards-based improvement. You will hear directly from her on the
next panel, but here I will mention just two of the initiatives that
have won the trustees’ full backing. The first is curbing social pro-
motion, which we heard about; and the second is basing 50 percent
of a principals’ evaluation on their success in spurring student
achievement. Please understand that these decisions are not puni-
tive actions.

We must try to help the community understand that it is far
more punitive to promote children before they have achieved mas-
tery, and invite their increasing loss of self-esteem as they slowly
get further and further behind. Nor need this be punitive for prin-
cipals. We are not demanding that all students raised under their
care achieve a certain level of excellence. We are simply demanding
evidence that they are instilling new enthusiasm and effort in stu-
dents and teachers to achieve improvement.

Nevertheless, we face the same criticism prevalent in many
urban reform efforts, namely, that we are going too fast, that we
are trying to accomplish it in three short years what some feel
should take a decade. Others worry there’s not sufficient alignment
between the Stanford nine tests and the classroom curriculum, or
they contend students should not be held back until other the other
pieces of an academic reform are in place. But the trustees have
supported Ms. Ackerman’s recommendation because we know how
important it is to get a start, here and now, to restore the value
of a DCPS diploma.

We cannot afford to waste another generation. The supreme in-
justice to the children of D.C. is to send them into the world unpre-
pared. Mr. Chairman, as trustees for the reform taking place in the
school system, it is our job to make sure that every aspect of this


24

translate it, too. The schools aren’t going to have the same budgets
and they are vastly different circumstances in these schools. And
this translation is going to be just as important as putting it out
there, because it can result in a great deal of polarization.

People go down these numbers, and find that school X has this
and school Y has this number and school Z has that. So I don’t
think that is the answer to the—I don’t think that is the answer
to all of our—in this city one problem begets another. And I guess
my main problem is that we don’t always anticipate that that is
the nature of life, that you’ve got to prepare for the next problem
because it’s going to come out of the next solution.

I want to acknowledge that a member of the school board, Mr.
Benjamin Bottom, school board member from ward 6, has come,
and welcome him to this hearing. I want to thank you, Ms. Harvey,
for the work with our school system. And I want to thank the two
parents here for the extremely hard work they do with our public
schools. Not only with the schools involving their own children, it
is the kind of parent involvement that is exemplary in the city.

T want to you both for that hard analytical work you do
and all of the attention you played in the school system. Ms. Rice-
Thurston, you, of course, have become a preeminent expert in the
D.C. public schools, because of the work of—unceasing work of Par-
ents United. And we are very grateful for that as well.

I think I see some difference in the way—and a small difference,
but a difference in, at least in the testimony, in the approaches.
Ms. Rice-Thurston captures much of what many of us have re-
garded as a major failure of the school system, its plans, its proc-
esses. Ms. Berlin talks about process.

Well, as I said in my own opening statement, I don’t think you
can do anything without a plan, because you don’t know if you
have done anything without a plan. But D.C. has had plans, plans
that have accountability targets and plans that you use to, in fact,
do reform. It is plans you go back and say, yeah, we did that; we
will change this because we found we shouldn’t do it this way.

Your point, Ms. Rice-Thurston, I remember coming forward force-
fully when the Congress, what is it, a couple years ago, was in-
volved in the legislation. We didn’t know what the Congress was
going to do. We finally got a good bill out of here, because it was
charter schools and the rest, rather than what we thought might
come out.

But we have over—we had to overcome all kinds of citizens and
elected officials. And everybody was of the view that this was the
most process-oriented plan, oriented jurisdiction they had ever
seen. And nothing ever came out in the end, and people essentially
would sit down and do their plans and they go home. It is as if the
act of formulating a plan is the functional equivalent of accomplish-

ing it.

So that when I stress the need for plan, I am not talking about
the kind of plans that were so under discussion 2 years ago, the
plans don’t come off the paper, the plans that ought to be written
in somebody’s wonderful book, but the kinds of plans frankly that
we are beginning to see actualized now.

I need to know—Ms. Berlin, you speak about process, and I want
to know what you mean by process. Because you say—you talk


Some have criticized these steps as going too far, too fast — saying that we are
trying to accomplish in three short years what some cities are taking a decade or
more to do, Others worry that there is not sufficient alignment between the
Stanford-9 tests and the classroom curriculum. or contend that students cannot
be heid back until all the other pieces are in piace, But we have supported Mrs.
Ackerman's recommendations because we know how important it is to start. here
and now, to restore the value of a DCPS diploma.

My colleague Emily Washington, herseif a veteran D.C. teacher, put it succinctly
at a recent public meeting of the Trustees. when she said that social promotion
had given the children of this city a ‘raw deal” — and that promotion gates would
compel the alignment of other reforms to follow.

As Trustees for this system, we must make sure that everything in the
organization supports the goal of academic achievement. Mr. Chairman, that is
not yet the case. Our academic efforts are clearly focused; we have completed
an enormous swath of critical facilities repairs: but our management systems are
still not providing the information necessary for accountability, control, or
oversight

In March of last year, the Trustees developed a set of “baseline indicators’ ~
measures by which the public coutd judge our performance. But it proved
practically impossible to gather the actual baseline data for those indicators. In
November, we marked our first anniversary by releasing the partial set.

We are determined to develop a set of performance measures, modeled after
those used by the Chicago schoo! system, which will tell Trustees,
Administration. members of the City Council, and this Subcommittee, whether
progress Is being made. Are we meeting the terms of the special education
compliance agreement just signed with the U.S. Department of Education? How
many fire code violations were found in this month's inspections, and how many
were abated? What number of teachers had to appear in person at the finance
office to get paid this month?

This is the kind of data absolutely required by any organization trying to create
quality improvements to support its central mission. But DCPS still lacks the
systems able to collect and report it on a routine basis.

Oversight of the District's public school system is now a joint venture involving
the Control Board with the Trustees acting as their agent. We are working
collaboratively to see that essential support systems are improved. The Control
Board is scrutinizing, and in some cases, strengthening the measures we are
taking,


63

I think that there is one thing—if there is one thing I would
redo, it would be to try to rethink through a way in which we could
have avoided the inevitable problem, but there was no easy solu-
tion at the time. I think that we’re not the same place we were
when we began the process. I would hope we will effective in
finding a way to get them involved stage by stage so that 2 years
from now when they take over, and that there will also be a lot
of other opportunities, for example, training in areas, fiscal and
other areas so when they come back and do the oversight that they
will have all of the wherewithal to do it. They've talked to us about
staffing and so on. Those are the kinds of considerations that we
very sincerely are discussing.

Ms. NorTON. Just let me, speaking now as a lawyer, offer one
suggestion. I think what you are doing makes a lot of sense. You
are trying to get the folks together, see what they want, then give
that information to your lawyers. May I suggest that that is not
the usual way in which lawsuits are settled? The lawyers need to
be given all the information. They are trained to understand what
your priorities are and to engage in negotiations across the table.
Then to come back and say this is what I got, and to go back, if
necessary, and say they told me they’re not taking that or they're
pot taking half of that and they told us to go back to the drawing

But if you wait to go the other way, you will be doing what just
isn’t done. You will be trying to get people who are in fact not in
the business of working out disagreements involved in a lawsuit,
and then somehow the lawyers go in, having frankly had part of
their role taken from them. You can always send them back. They
know exactly that they are your agents. If they know what your
priorities are, if they know what you can’t live with, then they will
be skiiled at knowing what they can trade away or not, and they
will know what kinds of permutations that they are empowered to
make at the table and how much they can’t give away, and they
can even tear up the whole thing afterwards and come back.

The reason I press this, I press this because this is going to
stand in the way of the School Board and the Board of Trustees
really having an open field, as long as that lawsuit is out there.
Both ‘ies know it. Mr. MacLaury every time he comes resents
it. I don’t think he should resent it. When the people have their
power completely taken away unilaterally, what are you supposed
to do, say, “Thank you, I guess that’s what I deserve”? That is con-
trary to human nature. They know that they were not doing their
job well. They have been beat about the head and shoulders by ev-
erybody from the newspapers to the people themselves. So that if
in fact we’re going to get them together in time, let the lawyers go
at it, admonish the lawyers, send them to the woodshed when they
don’t do right and make them start all over again, but please has-
ten this process up so that we can get this lawsuit out of the way.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Davis. Thank you. I ; ist have a couple of questions for you
before we get the next el. First of all, the first panel raised the
issue, Ms. Patterson, about budgeting for individual schools. What
are the chances of that? How do you see that from your perspec-




43

that demonstrable improvements can be realized. The educational plan will also guide
the development of administrative priorities to support the educational programs.
Previously, changes were frequently made in a vacuum without an assessment of their
impact on the attainment of educational goals. Under Ms. Arlene Ackerman's leadership,
this practice is changing

Conclusion

The Authority is pleased that Ms. Arlene Ackerman has agreed to serve as the next
Chief Executive Officer/Superintendent. We will continue to work closely with her as
she improves the educational achievement of our students.

Mr. Chairman, progress is being made in improving the public schools of the District.
General Becton has made many achievements. We are confident that his recommended
successor will build on his successes. We recognize that more work must be done. We
are working to make sure that improvements continue to be made. The Authority
remains committed to reforming the schools and ensuring that the District’s children

obtain a public education that provides them with a bright and productive future.


41

candidates have the necessary skills to serve as CEO/ Superintendent. After conducting
an exhaustive nation-wide search, the Trustees and General Becton, in consultation with
the Authority, selected Ms. Ackerman. Ms. Ackerman has a wealth of experience and
commitment to educational reform. She is an outstanding educator and administrator.
She has served as a teacher, a principal, and central administrator. Before coming to
DCPS, she served as the Deputy Superintendent for the Seattle, Washington School
District. In Seattle she was responsible for academic achievement and district-wide
educational support services. A copy of Ms. Ackerman’s resume is attached to this

testimony.

On March 27, 1998, General Becton announced his decision to resign his post as
CEO/ Superintendent. On March 28, 1998, the Authority, after consulting with the
Trustees and General Becton, appointed Ms. Arlene Ackerman to serve as the next Chief
Executive Officer/Superintendent. The Authority appointed Ms. Arlene Ackerman to this
Position because we are confident that, under her leadership, the management and

educational reform efforts will be continued without interruption.

Academic Improvement and Accountability

As Deputy Superintendent? Chief Academic Officer Ms. Ackerman has
implemented plans that will increase accountability for educational change throughout the
school system. The D.C. Public Schools are holding principals more accountable, and

where appropriate, principals are being replaced. The D.C. Public Schools have limited


66

going out to the universities, to conferences, and they have a very
aggressive effort being made to recruit.

I think one of the most critical factors for us is that the entry
level pay for the young, most qualified teachers in terms of the
modern training, et cetera, the disincentive is that we pay less
than the surrounding jurisdictions. We have to find a way to in-
crease the entry level pay in order to stop being the training
ground for your schools in your area and in other jurisdictions.

Mr. Davis. Also, getting a job as a school teacher in Fairfax
County, it is probably easier getting appointed to the Supreme
Court. You have 30, 40 people lined up sometimes for one job. But
for math and science and some of these other areas where the al-
ternative jobs in the private sector pay tremendously better, it is
hurting us in the suburbs. It has to be just killing the city. Those
are some of the key areas where the city needs to move ahead so
that the division between the rich and poor in this country doesn’t
grow larger as we enter the Technology Age. It is a great challenge.
I think you’re aware, we will be happy to work with you to try to
get your strategies to address it.

Ms. LADNER. Sir, we have identified these as critical areas. As
you are aware, there are just such constraints on the budget now
that we have not been able to deal with this. But whenever the
Congress can give us the additional support for personnel, I think
the key areas, as you have identified, were math and science and
the entry level for new hires are the most critical.

Mr, Davis. Let me just thank you all very much. We could go on
all day. We have another panel though. We appreciate very much
your testimony. Again if you want to supplement anything as you
come back, we will give you leave to put it in the record. I thank
you very much for the job all of you are doing.

I now call our third and final panel to testify, which will consist
of General Julius Becton, the CEO of the D.C. public school system,
and Mrs. Arlene Ackerman, the chief academic officer. As both of
you know, it is the policy of the subcommittee that all witnesses
be sworn in before they can testify. If you would stand and raise
your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. Davis. Before we begin with General Becton, to be followed
by Mrs. Ackerman, I want to make this point. General Becton, all
of us who care about public education in the Nation’s Capital owe
you a debt of gratitude. You have approached your responsibilities
with the professionalism, the dedication, the selflessness, the integ-
rity which this country has come to expect from your brilliant ca-
reer in public service. In my view, your efforts, while producing
substantial results and giving us a road map for the future, have
been underappreciated by some. I just want you to know that I do
appreciate your accomplishments, and so does the committee. You
are fully entitled to retire, for the reasons you have stated, with all
the dignity and the honor which you have earned from your com-
munity.

Thank you for a job well done. I salute you. You may proceed
with your testimony.


ll

Attachment

Five Top Recommendation of the Parent Task Force to Evaluate the One Year

Academic Plan, August 1998:
‘These are our answers to the question, “What spect

improvements are most needed now?”

Develop grade-specilic curriculum handbooks for parents and students. Handbooks
must outline curricular content, objectives, and skill mastery goals for each subject
and grade. In addition, establish specific examples of what constitutes “good work” in
writing and math;

Provide to every schoo! librarians, classroom aides, guidance counselors, reading and
math specialists. and special education coordinators. In addition, revise and reduce
student’ teacher ratios, particularly in targeted assisted schools,

Conduct annual standardized testing for every grade of the newt three years, Test
taking skills shoud be integrated into the school curriculum, Avoid “teaching to the
test.” Employ low-vost, performance based assessment tools in order to ensure
financial feasibility (e.g, Oyster developed a math assessment tool; Bancroft is using a
<titcrion referenced, easy-to administer instruments). Incorporate the use of portfolios
in student assessment;

Mandate teachers require and review meaningful homework in every subject, and
provide timely feedback to students. Develop a regular format (ie. “Friday folder”
and daily assignment books for elementary and middle schools, and detailed syllabi for
high schools) to ensure compliance. Communicate with parents about classroom
expectations, activities, tests, projects field trips, and representative examples of
student work. Develop homework guidelines by grade and subject matter. Include in
curriculum handbook.

Establish meaningful partnerships with parents, universities, professional assoviations,
and other groups 10 evaluate, monitor, and refine implementation progress and
effectiveness of the plan.


53

Testimony of
Bruce K, MacLaury
Chairman
Emergency Transitional Education Board of Trustees
District of Columbia Public Schools
Before the
Subcommittee on the District of Columbia
Committee on Government Reform
U.S. House of Representatives
April 3, 1998

Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee.

| appreciate having this opportunity to discuss the academic program of the D.C.
Public Schools, and the role of the Emergency Board of Trustees in supporting
its ambitious goals.

The first stage of our academic planning began shortly after the Trustees took
office. We released, in March of last year, a draft framework entitled Children
First, which built on the work of the D.C. Goals 2000 panel. It cailed for three
basic thrusts: student achievement, quality school staff, and school autonomy. A
long-term plan based on this framework was released in May, followed by a one-
year implementation plan. Both were the subject of public hearings, and the one-
year plan benefited from broad public input.

But while this was going forward, so was a national search for someone who
could lead our academic office. And when Arlene Ackerman arrived, a far more
vigorous stage of academic reform began. Mrs. Ackerman has brought urgency,
experience, and common sense to her work. Upon arriving, she put her own
imprint on the academic plan, and it was her revised version that we adopted in
a public meeting on October 29 as a blueprint for the coming school year.

In the past few months, she has articulated a set of steps that take us beyond a
planning process and into real, standards-based improvement. You will hear
directly from her in the next panei, but here | will mention just two of the
initiatives that have won the Trustees’ full backing: curbing social promotion by
implementing new promotion and graduation requirements, so that no student
moves to the next grade, or graduates. without mastering essential skills and
knowedge; and basing 50 percent of principals’ evaluations on their success in
spurring student achievement.


59

article yet. It’s in my “to read during recess” pile. But it was a
front page picture in the Washington Post Magazine of a principal
in a troubled school—and I forget its name—and there is a picture
of him on the front with the youngsters beside him. It says he
brought the entire school under control. It was completely in crisis.
They named a number of things. But they say this principal may
not meet the standards.

Let me ask you to use him as an example, and to use whatever
other indicators you would like to cite, to indicate whether or not
we are setting realistic measures over the next couple of years.

Mr. MacLaury. I think that Ms. Patterson made the useful dis-
tinction between having a high standard and the speed with which
one attains it. Progress is the name of the game. If—encouraging
people that some progress toward those high standards is being
made is the essence. I understand that many principals will feel
threatened in our school system if they feel that they must achieve
a certain level. That’s the—that’s what I want to emphasize, a cer-
tain level of achievement by them. But that’s not the case.

Ms. Ackerman was very careful to say that the only place where
we are measuring specifically this year—a tough year—the
progress is in the targeted assistance schools, where those schools
that are by definition the lowest performing, they must make a 10
percentage point increase in the test scores during the current
year, or at least at that point be subject to reconstitution or rede-
sign. So there’s—the point is that having high standards is not a
problem for anybody. If there are unrealistic speeds set to achieve
those, that should be a real concern for everybody.

Ms. Norton. Dr. Ladner.

Ms. LaDNER. Yes. Just to echo—I agree with what both people
have said. I also want to say that progress, as a career-long educa-
tor, progress is incremental and it doesn’t—it cannot be achieved
overnight. I think that regarding that same article—that is in my
“to read” pile as well, as well as Congresswoman Norton—I
scanned the first part of it, and it appears that this principal had
been extremely effective in bringing a tough situation under con-
trol. And yet was being measured by the journalists, at least,
as someone who had failed because he hadn’t brought the test
scores up.

But I think that what we fail to take into account too often is
how far down we are and how far we have to come from the bottom
in order to reach a level where we can be and to achieve. So I
would simply say that with regard to our schools, I think that in-
cremental progress is what we should expect. And I think that we
should be very patient in expect—setting time lines and goals, tar-
gets, and working hard, inch-by-inch, to achieve them. But the—
there is no such thing in education as an overnight miracle and
cure with regard to raising test scores. It just doesn’t happen.

But also there are other ways of measuring the achievement of
children, as well. The test scores is one, but we know that colleges
don’t—do not rely entirely on the—the SAT scores but on grade
point average, on the courses that the student has mastered and
other criteria. So I’m sure in the entire scheme of things that all
of those will be looked at by the educators.


13

engagement process is not where we would always like it to be, but
it is under way.

The strengths that we see in the plan in the supplement and
their implementation are a concentration of activities that are fo-
cusing on reading and literacy, an establishment of higher stand-
ards of content and performance in testing students on nationally
competitive basis, and holding students to those standards. We
have a real crisis right now as people are contemplating the Stan-
ford nine test. We know that we are being held accountable.

A requirement and monitoring of individual school improvement.
Stanford nine is an integral part of that. A specific system of prin-
cipal evaluation that concentrates on student achievement. Fifty
percent of principal appraisal and teacher appraisal will be based
on student achievement. Serious summer school requirements that
focus on real skills development in math and reading. Yes. The use
of Roots and Wings as well as Success For All to work on our poor-
ly performing schools. A steadily downward movement in the num-
ber: of central school staff. Yes. An acknowledgment of the impor-
tance of parent and community involvement. Yes.

The weaknesses. Very little parent and community involvement
in fact. We want to see, for example, our local school restructuring
teams working better. Teacher training, which is intensive and ex-
tensive but thin. We want to see improvement in teacher training.

The safety nets for students that are not meeting the standards
is underfunded. We are looking forward to summer school but we
know it needs adequate funding, and we know that our school sys-
tem’s day-to-day operations must do better at training our students
academically. Bub lic tutoring is not sufficient to upgrade our stu-
dents’ achievement.

D.C. teachers salaries are 8 to 15 percent below the average sala-
ries in our suburbs. Attracting hig] quality teachers under those
circumstances is very difficult. Special education is dysfunctional,
but we're looking nationally for a head of that division. Language
services are lacking. Local school autonomy and local school re-
structuring teams we must upgrade. We must look at our infra-
structure systems, personnel, budget, supply, which are dysfunc-
tional and sometimes l.

We know that Mrs. Ackerman will address these weaknesses. We
know that we will see progress because we are not going to go back
on the use of the Stanford nine as a test. Contrary to some of the
statements made, we have abolished social promotion. We abol-
ished social promotion in 1985. But the results were so difficult for
us to accept with student failure that we went back on our word.
Under this administration, I believe we will hold firmly to high
standards and we will see our students meeting them.

We need the Congress to adopt the proposed per capita funding
formula. We need the Congress to state that school system funding
will be the first priority of our city as they look at their budget,
so that we do not have to confront cuts to the school system’s budg-
et once we do have our per capita funding.

We would also like to see, for example, a D.C. withholding state-
ment as the primary proof of residence. We know that one of the
weaknesses of the funding formula is that no matter how many
students we have being educated you are going to count as our en-


CONTENTS

Hearing held on April 3, 1998 .....
Statement of:

Becton, Julius W., chief executive officer and superintendent, District
of Columbia public schools; and Arlene Ackerman, chief academic offi-
cer, District of Columbia public schools ..

Harvey, Patricia, senior fellow and director urban education, National
Center on Education and the Economy; Marlene Berlin, chair,

Hoc Parents Coalition; and Delabian ice-Thurston, Parents Gnited
for the D.C. Public Schools

Patterson, Kathleen, council member, Di Joyce Ladner,
member, District ‘of Columbia Financial Responsibi and Manage-
ment Assistance Authority, and Bruce MacLaury, chairman, District
of Columbia Public Schools Emergency Board of Trustees ..

Letters, statements, etc., submitted fo e record by:

Ackerman, ‘Arlene, "chief academic officer, District of Columbia public
schools, prepared statement of ...

Becton, Julius W., chief executive officer and superintendent, District
of Columbia public schools, cols prepared statement o!

Berlin, Marlene, chair, loc Parents Coalition, prepared statement

Lede roves, member, District of Columbia Financial Responsibility
ent Assistance Authority, grepared statement
ictoury rcs, chairman, District olumbia Public Schools Emer-
gency of f Trustees, prepared statement of ...
Patterson, Kathleen, council member, District of Columbia,
statement of ....
Rice-Thurston, ‘Dela
prepared sta statement of

(a)

67

B
69

39
53

15


34

for the D.C. Public Schools. Our academic plan should include universal pre-
kindergarten. Today we serve only half of the city's 4-year-olds. We should expand Head
Start and pre-school for 3-year olds. Both Georgia and Ohio have adopted goals of
universal preschool. Such policies help all children but they are especially critical for
children living in poverty and the District, like other cities, has an exceptionally high
proportion of children living in poverty.

‘Small classes are important, particularly in the early years. We have gone in the
wrong direction here in the District. Two years ago, to meet a mid-year budget shortfall,
the school system increased class size, and the new leadership has not, to date, revisited
that ill-chosen decision. The STAR project in Kentucky and subsequent evidence
elsewhere demonstrate the advantages of smaller elementary classes, especially in
teaching reading.

Our plan should also call for small schools to help create a more supportive
environment for children, one where children and their families are known and feel
connected. In the absence of an academic plan setting small schools as a goal, the school
system last year made facilities decisions that put more children into much larger
schools.

Nearly everyone agrees that no element in education is more important than the
teacher. It's surprising, then, how very little suport individual teachers receive, from
rookies struggling to maintain order in their classes to veterans unable to reach a
particular child. In the elementary school my children have attended I have seen older
teachers mentoring younger teachers -- on their own, out of their own desire and
commitment. Our teachers need not only traditional professional development but
instructional support in the classroom. Some districts. like District 2 in New York City
and San Antonio, have had success with resident” or "master" teachers who work with
classroom teachers on effective practices.

At the Oyster Bilingual School here -- and Ms. Ackerman can testify on this point
-- teachers started a teacher network where they meet regularly to help each other develop
strategies to deal with specific classroom problems. Our long-term academic plan should
emphasize such techniques to improve teaching because, ultimately, it is only by
improving teaching that we will improve leaming.

One concern I have regarding the academic plan is that it has not, to date, driven
everything else in D.C, schools. I hope. and believe. that that is changing. All other
support services in our school system should support children and education. When a
kindergarten teacher has to take a day away from his students to help the certification
office recreate personnel files they have lost, we have things backward. The personnel


16

I said I found a system in crisis. What does that mean, specifically? [t means there was no
system-wide accountability, there were no performance standards, and there was no
uniform curriculum. Staff development was not focused. In the central office, personnel
and payroll systems were badly broken. The procurement system was extremely
‘complicated, Mow. and iffeul for school privlpals to use Basic data —- on the system's
budget, students and staff -- could not be accessed for use in monitoring ongoin;

or planning strategically for the future. Finally, the community was not unified in its focus
‘on education as this city’s number one priority in a way that mobilized resources to increase
student achievement.

We are moving forward. We developed an academic plan in October that sets four goals
for the system: improving student achievement, ensuring quality school staff, increasing
accountability throughout the system and promoting school restructuring and parental
choice. We are moving ahead on all of these fronts,

Performance Standards

First, we are implementing standards. We are saying clearly to students, teachers, and
parents: this is what we expect children to know and be able to do. We have established
content standards in reading and mathematics and we are teaching parents what those
standards mean for their children. We are using the Stanford 9 achievement test, which is
aligned with these standards, to determine where students are in the fall and the progress
they have made by the spring. Because we know test scores don’t give us a complete
picture of student performance, we are also using other tools to measure student progress
in meeting the standards.

Students who do not meet the standards will not be promoted to the next grade at the end of
this school year. Ending social promotion is not an easy task -- and, frankly, it is a step that
not every school district has been willing to take -- but we know that this is what we must
do to ensure that our students leave this school system with the skills they need to succeed.
To support students at risk of non-promotion, we are providing extended opportunities to
lear -- in the form of additional time spent working on literacy skills during the school
day, tutoring support after school and in Saturday academies, and our new Summer
STARS (Students and Teachers Achieving Results and Success) program.

I want to talk a moment about the Summer STARS program, because I think it is a good
example of how serious we are about student success. Summer STARS will give students
an intensive, highly-structured opportunity to gain critical skills, with two hours of reading
and two hours of math each morning and enrichment opportunities in the afternoon.
‘Summer STARS will be led by our best principals and staffed by highly qualified teachers
working with students in smaller groups than we have during the school year. We expect
up to 20,000 students to participate in Summer STARS this year.

Accountability

Our second priority is accountability. We are holding people accountable, across the
system, for student performance. We have instituted a new principal evaluation system in
iifty percent of a principal's evaluation is based on student achievement. Every

in the system will be expected to improve student performance this year. In
pe ion to student performance, we will use surveys of parents and teachers to help us
measure school performance and customer satisfaction. Next year, we will institute a new
evaluation system for teachers linked directly to student achievement.



22

kids. But I also think that we need to organize and support schools
a little bit differently. This is a massive job. We are all very impor-
tant in that process.

But one of the things that is most important is for us to organize,
to allow the leadership of this district to do the work. Poverty is
not a reason for lack of achievement. If that were true, not only
would Delabian’s children not be where they were, but I wouldn’t
be sitting here. I rather suspect that many people around this table
would not be where we are. We can go in every one of the dysfunc-
tional schools in this district, and in districts all over the country,
and you can find kids who achieve every time—every year, teachers
who are working with the same poor kids, the same kids of color,
the same kids who speak—their first language is other than
English—and year after year after year they’re able to get them up
to standards. So it’s what we do that is important with kids. Not
that money is not important, but we certainly have to do more with
the money that we have.

Operations. If I could make a suggestion to the D.C. schools, and
I know this is top on their agenda, is that every operation within
the District to be aligned toward and with achievement. What does
the classroom teacher and the student need? That includes the op-
erations. I heard, I’m sorry, I don’t remember which one, say that
in summer school, what do we need to have? We need to have the
buildings open, make sure the climate—I think it was Marlene—
that the climate is right for learning. Everything relates to aca-
demic achievement.

Mr. Davis. Let me ask just a final question across the board.
What is everyone’s view of the current status of safety and security
conditions in the school versus your expectations and where we
were 2 years ago?

Ms. RIcE-THURSTON. Parents are very concerned about security.
Parents, particularly at the high school level, are meeting. One of
their major concerns is how to improve security in schools.

Mr. Davis. Is it better than 2 years ago?

Ms. RICE;THURSTON. That is not possible to say. Because we
have never felt that what was reported was an accurate reflection
of what was happening. Every time a child is killed, you become
more aware of the nature of the problem. But you don’t know what
was happening, whether there were weapons problems, fights, et
cetera, and what the extent of that was. I can say that we are
more aware of our need to deal with school security than we were
in the past simply because we have had fatalities. But I can’t tell
you that it is worse. We’re not experts in this area. We are con-
stantly looking to the school system to have relationships with the
police department so that children are better monitored in the pe-
riod coming to school and going home from school. Many kids say
that that walk is something that they really dread, because, wheth-
er it’s gangs or neighborhood animosities or whatever. That’s not
something I can speak to directly. It’s something that is going to
take a whole system, city effort, with conflict resolution, with police
protection, with everything.

Mr. Davis. Thank you.

I think what you are saying is in the past they didn’t even keep
the records, and, in fact, they suppressed reporting of these issues,


COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT
DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
J. DENNIS HASTERT, Illinois TOM LANTOS, California
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland ROBERT E. WISE, Jr., West Virginia
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
CHRISTOPHER COX, California EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York GARY A. CONDIT, California
STEPHEN HORN, California CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida THOMAS M. BARRETT, Wisconsin
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,
DAVID M. McINTOSH, Indiana DC
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania
JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
MARSHALL “MARK” SANFORD, South DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
Carolina JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire JIM TURNER, Texas
PETE SESSIONS, Texas THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
MICHAEL PAPPAS, New Jersey HAROLD E. FORD, Jr., Tennessee
VINCE SNOWBARGER, Kansas —
BOB BARR, Georgia BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
DAN MILLER, Florida (Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director
Danie R. Mout, Deputy Staff Director
WILLIAM MOSCHELLA, Deputy Counsel and Parliamentarian
Jupit# McCoy, Chief Clerk
Punt ScHuLIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida Columbia
STEPHEN HORN, California THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
Ex OFFICIO
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

Ron HAMM, Staff Director
Bos Dix, Professional Staff Member
ANNE Mack, Professional Staff Member
ELLEN Brown, Clerk
DENISE WILSON, Minority Professional Staff Member

aD


46

ARLENE ACKERMAN C.V./Page 3
nt__ Superintendent, ul i di
Achievement
1994 - 1996 Seattle School District, Seattle, Washington (Continued)

Established division goals and objectives, division organizational structure and
provided direction for the development, operation, supervision and evaluation of
programs within the division.

‘Advised the Superintendent and Board of policies, regulations and laws which
affected District operations. Supervised staff, recommended hiring, assigned work
and established clear performance expectations for staff. Maintained state-of-the-art
expertise in K-12 urban education.

Assistant Superintendent, Special Services
1991-92 University City School District, St. Louis, Missouri

Served as a member of the Superintendent’s Cabinet offering expertise on
instructional, student personnel and related issues. Developed agenda items for
Board packets and made presentations at Board of Education meetings and
professional development sessions. Developed and monitored all district policies
related to special services.

Responsible for the administration and supervision of Districtwide student services
including special education and the Gifted and Talented Education Program.
Supervised district counselors and school nurses. Served as the district’s hearing
officer for all long-term suspensions and expulsions.

Supervised the administration of all district assessment activities providing schools
with staff development and interpretation of test results.

Principal
1990-91 Brittany Woods Middle Schools and Ronald E. McNair
Sixth Grade Center, University City, Missouri

‘Assumed the principalship of two separate schools serving a student population of
more than 1,200 sixth, seventh and eighth graders and a staff of 135. Initiated
major middle school restructuring initiatives including the implementation of a
student advisory Program, exploratory and enrichment classes, as well as, crisis
intervention teams. Developed and implemented, in conjunction with local business
partnerships, a banking system, employment program and community service
projects for students.


30

STATEMENTS OF KATHLEEN PATTERSON, COUNCIL MEMBER,
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA; JOYCE LADNER, MEMBER, DIS-
TRICT OF COLUMBIA FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND
MANAGEMENT ASSISTANCE AUTHORITY; AND BRUCE
MacLAURY, CHAIRMAN, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PUBLIC
SCHOOLS EMERGENCY BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Ms. PATTERSON. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for
the opportunity to be here today to testify on behalf of the Council
and its chairman, Linda Cropp. I have served for 3 years as a
member of the Council Committee on Education, Libraries and
Recreation, and I currently chair our Committee on Government
Operations. I am, as well, a D.C. public school parent, and my
views are informed by my own experiences.

I would like to provide some context for my testimony on the
D.C. public schools’ academic plan. In 1996, when the Control
Board issued its critical report on D.C. schools, one number that
jumped off the page was the statistic that said we are failing near-
y 80 percent of our children and failing them by the fourth grade.
According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress,
fully 78 percent of fourth graders tested below basic in reading.

There are comparable figures, however, for other cities. In Balti-
more, 74 percent of fourth graders tested below basic in reading;
in Boston 70 percent; in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, 73 percent;
in California cities, 79 percent; in Connecticut cities, 78 percent. In
New Orleans and Baton Rouge, 79 percent of the children tested
below basic in reading in the fourth grade. The District of Colum-
bia clearly is not alone among urban school systems in failing chil-
dren today.

In the recent report “Quality Counts 98, The Urban Challenge,”
Professor Martin Haberman of the University of Wisconsin at Mil-
waukee notes, “There are no model urban school systems.” The re-
port itself adds, “Every city has its lighthouse schools, where poor
and minority children achieve at high levels. But such excellence
rarely transcends individual schools. No city has been able to re-
produce that success on a large scale.”

A request I would make to you, Mr. Davis, and to your col-
leagues, as you go about the business of the constitutionally re-
quired oversight of Washington, DC, please also keep in mind your
role as national policymakers. One way to protect and assist chil-
dren here is to protect and assist children across the country,
through family preservation programs and safe streets programs as
well as ongoing support for Head Start and Title I, all of which
benefit District children and other children living in urban centers.

While there may not be a model urban system, we do have excel-
lent individual schools and extensive research, and that informa-
tion must inform the academic planning here in Washington, DC.
Our academic plan should include universal prekindergarten. This
point was already made by the previous panel. Today we serve only

of this the city’s 4-year-olds. We should expand Head Start
and preschool for 3-year-olds.

Both Georgia and Ohio have adopted goals of universal preschool
in their State education goals. Such policies help all children, but
they are especially critical for children living in poverty and the


39

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:

Tam Dr. Joyce Ladner, Member of the District of Columbia Financial Responsibility
and Management Assistance Authority (“Authority”). I am the Board Member with lead
responsibility for public education in the District of Columbia. | appreciate the
opportunity to testify on the progress made by the Authority and the D.C. Public Schools
to improve the quality of education in the District of Columbia.

Introduction

The Authority was created by the U.S. Congress in 1995 to return the District of
Columbia to financial solvency and to improve the management and delivery of public
services. As the Authority has reported to Congress previously, there has been
considerable progress made in revitalizing the District Government and improving the

quality of life for residents and visitors.

Mr. Chairman, the Authority has devoted much time and attention to improving the
condition of public education in the Nation’s capital. When confronted with the failure of
the District’s educational system, the Authority took action. In our November, 1996
report, “Children In Crisis: A Report on the Failure of the D.C. Public Schools,” the
Authority concluded that the deplorable record of the District’s public schools, in every
important educational and management area, had left the system in crisis. In virtually
every area, and for every grade level, the system failed to provide the District’s children

with a quality education and a safe environment in which to learn.


25

about it in your testimony, about a discussion on budget. And you
said it was clear from the discussion that you all had, apparently
with the chief financial officer, that the process—the discussion—
from the discussion and the process there was a definite discrep-
ancy between where the community wanted to go with school re-
form and where the school administration was going.

First of all, I want to know what community you are speaking
of exactly. I want to know—let me finish my question. I want to
know what, quote, community you are speaking of. And then I
want to know what—where this school—where you perceive that
the school administration wants to go that is different from where
the, quote, community wants to go.

Ms. BERLIN. The community that was—it was members that
were represented in Tony Williams’ office.

Ms. NORTON. Would you tell me who they are, so 1 know when
you say these people are going at odds with the community, I
would like you to define whom you mean by the community.

Ms. BERLIN. Well, there were a number of representatives and
there are about 20 of us, and I don’t know all their names. I am
sure that Tony-—

Ms. Norton. I am not asking for the names. Are they—are they
from various organizations? Are they members of the elected school
board? Are they ——

Ms. BERLIN. OK, they are citizens.

Ms. Norton. I am sure they are that.

Ms. BERLIN. There was people who were interested—from special
education. There was a fellow from Anacostia. There are people
that I didn’t even—you know, that I didn’t know. All I can say is
that——

Ms. Norton. I just want to caution you, Ms. Berlin, because we
have been subject up here to my mouth and everybody else who
have come to tell us they were for the community and what the
community wanted from education, and we discount that, at least
in the Congress.

And when you made a strong statement, as you have in your tes-
timony, that, one, you tell us that there is a definite discrepancy
between where the community wanted to go, and then you tell us
there was this one from Anacostia and whatever, so I can’t—and
then you tell us where the administration is going. I didn’t even
know from here where the administration was going. You told me
where you wanted to go, but this paragraph doesn’t tell me where
the administration is going so that I can evaluate where this is—
where they are going and see where the discrepancy really is.

Ms. BERLIN. OK. Well, where they are going is reflected in their
plan, and in their plan there is reall nothing that reflects a focus
on prekindergarten or vocational education, and those were two
areas that we focused on.

The other area in the plan that is mentioned, though it’s unclear
where it’s going, is on decentralization of the school system. And
from the discussion in the group in Anthony Williams’ office, it was
clear that people were very concerned about schools getting more
local contral o their resources. And we——

Ms. NorToN. What does it mean, mere schools to get more local
control of their resources?


Testimony by Marlene Berlin, Chair
Ad Hoc Parents Coalition
before the
Subcommittee on the District of Columbia
Committee on Government Reform and Oversight
on the Academic Plan
April 3, 1998

Mr. Chairman and subcommittee members, thank you for this opportunity to present my
testimony as a parent of children in the DC Public Schools and Chair of the Ad Hoe Parents Coalition,
‘an organization that has worked over the last five years to give parents a greater voice in influencing
polivy devisions that impact their children’s education. In the late spring I was asked by the former
Chief Academic Officer, Dr. Musgrove, to organize and coordinate a parent task force to evaluate the
education plan. This group submitted its recommendations which are attached just as Dr. Musgrove

igned. We brought these recommendations to Mrs. Ackerman, and have met with her three times
to share our eoncems ubout the quality of education for our children. Our concerns focus around three
major issues: Improving the performance of teachers and principals, strengthening the role of parents
in improving their schools, and improving the capability and effectiveness of support by central
administration to local schools.

In responding to your request to comment on the Academic Plan released in October, 1 would
first like to talk about the process of developing such a plan. Educational reform efforts in major
urban areas are not accomplished without many bumps along the way. It is a difficult and arduous
task, To be successful, all the major players must take part in developing the plan so that the whole
community can claim ownership. This has not yet occurred, and the effort has suffered as a result,
As General Becton admitted when he announced his resignation, he should have involved parents and
the public more. We must all be part of developing this plan. This is a messy and time consurning
process, but itis necessary. If this does not happen, the people of this city, from the teachers,
principals, parents, students. and tax paying citizens will not feel a sense of ownership for this effort,
This is crucial to improving our schools. AS a staff person at DOE asked me, “Why doesn’t the
‘Couneil provide more support in budget requests for education.” I responded, “When the public is not
engaged, there is no sense of ownership and little demand for local officials to support it.”

It is not too late to engage the public in this process. I would like to suggest something
similar to the budget simulation provess held by the Chief Financial Officer, Anthony Williams.
Tuesday night members of the community were invited to develop a citizen’s education budget for
next year. There were about twenty of us, and we worked with the enhancements that the school
system wanted for next year’s budget. In essence we were working with year two of an academic plan,
‘What was very clear from the discussion and the process was a definite discrepancy between where the
community wanted to go with school reforin and where the schoo! administration was going. The
group that was present last night, focused on improving teacher quality through the development and
implementation of an evaluation and termination process for teachers, and more money for stalf
development in summer institutes for teachers. Another priority was funding prekindergarten for all
four year old children, The group wanted to find a mechanism to give local schools more
discretionary resources. This came in the form of providing to the schools the equivalent of one FTE
to utilize how they so desire, Money was taken out summer school and other areas to fund these
priorities.

‘We nced a provess of engagement. such as this, to reconcile these differences. The greatest gift
of leadership that General Becton can give this community is to engage us in this type of exercise. We
ced the Icadership and process to do this. I invite General Becton and Arlene Ackerman to come to


61

of coming responsibility, you are absolutely right. The School Board
will be taking over by June 30, 2000.

As you know from our testimony the last time when Dr. Harvey,
Wilma Harvey was present, you asked both of us to put together
a transition plan. We have not got that plan, but we are working
toward it. We have talked about it.

Ms. Norton. Do you have any notion now about when we might
see that plan? I don’t want to put—I want you to concentrate on
what you are concentrating on now, and I know the pressure you
are under.

Ms. LADNER. I want to speak to that, because as I recall I took
the lead in saying that the Authority would put together the tran-
sition plan and that we would consult with the Board of Education
and the trustees on the plan. We thought that would be preferable
to the trustees designing a plan for an elected School Board inas-
much as they are advisory. We will get their input. But we have
begun staff discussions on the development of the plan. We promise
you that within a couple of months, we'll have it.

Ms. Norton. I think it says something about the need for in-
volvement of the elected School Board, the people who have been
most critical of the elected School Board and their desire to see
them back into it, just to have some people that they can hold ac-
countable and get what they need to get and help if they need to
help them. I must say, Mr. MacLaury, the best way to take some

of the heat off you is to involve people who deserve the heat, people
who people have elected and can pull back and bring pressure on
to do what they want to have done.

Mr. MacLaury. I certainly agree with that. One further com-
ment, we have made the distinction here between plans and ac-
tions. Though the plan.may not be made, the fact is actions are
taking place as we speak, that, as you, I believe you know, the
trustees and the Board of Education jointly sponsored one of the
many meetings that was held in the community, at Fletcher John-
son in this case, for the whole question of summer S.T.A.R.S. pro-
gram, promotion gates and the rest.

I am in conversation with Dr. Harvey right now about another
jointly sponsored hearing, about the new discipline proposal, the
rules for discipline in the school, which we are tightening, propos-
ing to tighten. It is very important in those instances that we get
community input. We want to both, jointly, to sponsor some of
those hearings.

Ms. NorTON. My first cut sense of your hearings on issues like
that, I have no notion of what the proportion of School Board mem-
bers or whatever, but I don’t see how anything is to be gained by
having a hearing on discipline in the school system without having
the elected School Board there. I just don’t see how anybody is
ahead of the game there. What can they do? Hearing is to listen.
You can say to people the way the chairman says to me when he
wants me to shut up, he can say, “Eleanor, you have X minutes.”
You can say that those of you who are sitting down there as the
elected School Board, you are timed as to how much you can fili-
buster, because we are here to hear from the People. ut not hav-
ing them there gives a terrible image and one you don’t de-
serve.


17

We are instituting an annual school review process, to look at how each school in the
system is doing, compared to other schools and compared to its own performance in past
years. Schools that show a pattern of low performance will be reconstituted -- meaning a
‘new staff will be put in place and a research-based reform model will be implemented there.
We are going to publish school-by-school report cards, so that parents can casily evaluate
the performance of their children’s schools and make decisions about them accordingly.
Finally, I am holding my ceutral office staff accountable for improving student
achievement, by evaluating them on the basis of how they support schools. Again, we
will use surveys to determine whether customer service in the central office is improving.

Professional Development

My third priority is professional development. I know that people must not only be
committed to success; they must also have the skills they need to succeed. We are
providing focused professional development for principals and teachers on standards,
curriculum, instructional strategies, and class management. We are training 100% of staff
in our lowest performing schools and we hope to reach 25% of teachers system-wide this
year. | intend to institute mandatory professional development requirements next year.

Public Engagement

Finally, we have made public engagement a priority. We know that this effort has to be
supported both internally and externally. Most of ail, we need parents to be involved in the
education of their children both at home and at school. We are making dramatic changes in
this school district and I have made a concerted effort to reach out to parents and engage
them in real, meaningful discussions about these changes. We already have held eight
meetings with parents to talk about the test scores, the new standards, the promotion
guidelines and summer school. These meetings, for the most part, have been well
attended and parents have expressed a real interest in being active participants in this effort.

Looking to the Future

We are making progress, but I must tell you that we will need more resources to get the job
done. In the next school year, we will need:

* almost 150 new reading resource teachers -- one for each school -- to provide the extra
help that many of our students need with reading,

+ one additional math teacher in all of our senior high schools, where, as you know, our
students’ math scores are really unacceptably low in almost every

* additional staff in our middle schools, so that we can transform them into the small
Jearning communities that work for children at this critical transition stage in their
education, and resources to support after-school programs for those same students,

‘* support for continued large-scale professional development for teachers and
administrators, and

‘+ funding for additional staff to implement proven, research-based reform programs in
our lowest performing schools.


47

ARLENE ACKERMAN C.V./Page 4
Principal —
1987-91 Ronald E. McNair Sixth Grade Center, University City,
Missouri

Provided administrative and instructional leadership for the creation of the district’s
first Sixth Grade Center and major restructuring initiatives at the middle school
vel.

Developed an instructional program that included team teaching, interdisciplinary
instructional units, block scheduling, an advisory program and full inclusion of
students with special needs.

Coordinated the development of a study skills program and student organizer.
Established partnerships with local businesses including a role models and literacy
program with Southwestern Bell Telephone Company. Provided staff with
extensive staff development in the areas of learning styles, 4MAT lesson design
and Jeff Howard's Efficacy Training. Student achievement increased over a tres-
year period.

1985-87 University City, Missouri

‘Supervised and monitored all federal and state programs. Served as the major grant
writer for the district. Supervised the Gifted and Talented Program. Provided the
superintendent with information and interpretations of state and federal legislation.

Responsible for the coordination and development of the district’s strategic five-
year plan. Assisted in the of professional inservice for staff and
‘coordinated the districtwide textbook adoption process.

Director, Upward Bound Program
1982-84 St. Louis, University
St. Louis, Missouri

Responsible for the administration of a pre-collegiate program for first generation
college-bound students. Directed the overall administration of instruction and
budget, as well as the supervision of staff.

Coordinated the development of an Advisory Board of 25 corporate, civic and
educational leaders who secured additional funding, college scholarships and
instructional equipment for the program.


49

ARLENE ACKERMAN C.V./Page 6

Adjunct Faculty
1987 - Summer, 1993 Webster University - Graduate School of Education,
St. Louis, Missouri

Taught graduate level course in motivation and gifted education.

Adj cult

1989-92 National Louis University - Teacher Education Program,
St. Louis, Missouri

Core instructor for the Masters of Arts in Education Program. Taught methods,
research and curriculum courses.

Regional Facilitator
1988-92 National Coalition of Marginal Leamers and Responsive

Schools, Danforth Foundation, St. Louis, Missouri

Coordinated the collaboration efforts of ten schools (located in St. Louis city and
county) involved in major program redesign with an emphasis on high-risk
students.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES

Leadership St. Louis - Civic Progress and Danforth Foundation - Sponsors
Women in Leadership - CORO Foundation - Sponsors

Jeff Howard Efficacy Institute

Seminar on School Desegregation, Yale University

LD.E.A. School Improvement Training

World of Difference - Facilitator Training, Prejudice Reduction Program

Total Quality Management Training

Teacher Expectations and Student Achievement (TESA) Training

Cognitive Coaching

HONORS AND AWARDS

Who's Who in American Colleges and Universities
Uniquely University City Award for Outstanding Service
Apple for the Teacher Award - Iota Lambda Sorority
Dekinguished ‘Alumni Award - Harris Stowe Teachers College
McDonnell Douglas Fellow - Urban Superintendent's Program


12

Mr. Davis. Thank you very much. Ms. Rice-Thurston.

Ms. RicE-THURSTON. Good morning, I am Delabian Rice-Thur-
ston. I direct Parents United for the D.C. Public Schools. Mr. Davis
and Ms. Norton, other members of the committee, I appreciate this
chance to talk about our public schools.

I am the mom of a D.C. public school graduate who is a sopho-
more at Columbia University and a National Merit Scholar. I am
the mom of a 10th grader at Wilson High School, so I know our
public schools are capable of excellence. The most important ques-
tion for this hearing is not the academic plan itself, but what we’re
going to do to achieve its objective, which is high student achieve-
ment.

Whatever the plan is, we must do four things. We must have ca-
pable teachers and other staff to carry out the plan. That means
competitive salaries, intensive teacher training, rigorous evaluation
and good management.

We must stop making plans. Our school system has made a num-
ber since 1989. We need to implement them, not use plans as a
way of evading action. We need continuity, stability and unity in
D.C. public school leadership and control. There has been too much
turnover. We are about to go through another one. We need stabil-
ity, so that this plan can be implemented. We need people making
decisions who understand our schools and how they operate, and
who are working in concert instead of against each other. We need
enough money behind the plan to make it work and to hold leader-
ship accountable for implementation instead of giving them the ex-
cuse that they didn’t have enough money.

If you notice, we have given you the per pupil spending as agreed
to by the jurisdictions in our inner suburbs. The District of Colum-
bia is higher than no jurisdiction save Prince George’s County. Ar-
lington is spending $9,300 per pupil compared to our city’s $6,500,
or basically $6,600. This is no way for a school system with excep-
tionally low income students to be competitive. Our touchstone for
evaluating any D.C. public school plan is Goals 2000. The whole
District of Columbia community, parents, the business community,
in 1996 developed this plan. It represents real Districtwide consen-
sus. So as we look at what our school system is trying to do, any
plan, the one adopted on October 20, we look to see if it is consist-
ent with Goals 2000. It is. But it has two major overall problems.

First, it’s too general to be very useful at this point. For example,
the special education operation is severely dysfunctional. The plan
says simply, review and implement appropriate service delivery
and staffing models. We have been planning to do that for years.
We need to do it. The plan has far too many items in it, so the
school system couldn’t do it in 1 year if it had to, and it has done
some but not much of it.

So we prefer to look at the supplement of that plan that Ms. Ack-
erman prepared at her first press briefing. We again find four ele-
ments. Clear performance standards with content standards and
promotion requirements are in the offing. They are actually being
implemented. An infrastructure with realignment of resources,
with systemwide accountability and monitoring of student progress
is in operation. Professional development is under way. A public