jonetta rose barras: Covering bureaucratic flanks and shortchanging public school students
The DC Council roundtable held last week to examine the findings and recommendations of the recently released audit on education data — “Measuring What Matters: More and Better Data Needed to Improve DC Public Schools” — was a case of dueling narratives, as characterized by Ward 3 Council member Mary Cheh.
On one hand, DC Auditor Kathy Patterson and her agency’s director of education research, Erin Roth, amplified the facts from their two-year probe of data collection by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education and the adverse impact the absence of critical information has had on providing a quality education to District students.
On the other hand, DC Deputy Mayor for Education Paul Kihn, interim State Superintendent of Education Shana Young and DC Public Charter School Board executive director Michelle Walker-Davis disputed the auditor’s findings and conclusions. They asserted that their current system of data collection, analysis and usage is serving the interests of the more than 95,000 children, including at-risk students, enrolled in the city’s public schools.
Don’t believe that hype. In my view, their comments constituted half-truths and deflections designed to provide cover to their bureaucratic flanks.
Walker-Davis argued that the conversation about data collection “isn’t the most pressing issue before us.” Young told legislators that they should “remember there was no [OSSE] before 2007.”
Young is right. But isn’t 14 years enough time to build a true and fully functioning statewide education longitudinal data system, as was mandated in the District’s initial education reform law and funded to the tune of $35 million from the DC and federal governments?
“Is there nothing that you can take [from the audit report] and say we can do better with?” Cheh asked education leaders during Friday’s public discussion. Unsatisfied with
Young’s answer, Cheh cautioned that OSSE and the Bowser administration may tout that DC is the country’s “fastest improving” urban system, but “you’re not running with the fastest horses.”
Earlier this week, Cheh told me overall she was disappointed by the executive’s response. “They were all extremely defensive. There was this ‘leave us alone’ approach. Everything for them is a PR job.”
Council Chairman Phil Mendelson agreed Young was defensive. “We need to have a data system that is robust and efficient, and we don’t have that.
“If we want to take improving public education to the next level, we’re going to need better data,” added Mendelson, whose Committee of the Whole has oversight of public education.
Understanding the need, Cheh has introduced the School Data Governance Amendment Act of 2021. As proposed, it would mandate OSSE construct the expansive and “robust” collection system and education data warehouse that the auditor, advocates and several council members had expected and are now demanding. Specifically, the bill would “clarify what data OSSE is to collect on students, staff and schools.” Among the required information the legislation lists: demographics; enrollment; attendance; disciplinary action by type; course codes, descriptions and enrollment, including dual enrollments; students who were chronically absent, truant and suspended in eighth grade; ninth graders who were also ninth graders the previous year; special programs; and post-secondary links tracking to college and employment.
The bill also would require yearly reports to the council and the State Board of Education and would set a deadline of June 1, 2022, for OSSE to develop a data governance manual on data collection and administration of the District’s longitudinal data warehouse system (“EDW system”) and promulgate guidance to Local Education Agencies on the method, timing and substance of data submissions. Under another provision, the DC auditor would have until Oct. 1, 2024, to initiate an audit of OSSE’s data governance policies and practice as well as the EDW system.
While Mendelson expressed concern about OSSE’s data failures, he was hesitant to commit to swift action on Cheh’s proposal. “I’m a little wary of being too prescriptive in the law,” he told me this week, confessing, however, that he had not yet read the bill.
He said he “probably” will hold a hearing on the bill after the council completes its budget deliberations. That essentially means in the fall. It could mean next year. He resisted being pinned down to an exact timeframe.
What does the word “critical” mean to politicians and government functionaries? Apparently, not much.
Cheh’s legislation is vital. The chairman shouldn’t lollygag.
Equally important, DC needs better education leaders. That fact has been underscored during the past two years — even before the coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing debate over when and how to reopen schools captured the attention of tens of thousands of parents and advocates.
Kihn, in office since 2018, has repeatedly failed to produce a master school facilities plan that would sufficiently and systematically address overcrowding of schools in Ward 3 and underutilization in wards 7 and 8. He also has failed to implement any strategy to stem the proliferation of new charter schools; they have saturated some communities, jeopardizing the future of existing traditional facilities. In a public oversight hearing earlier this month when questioned about those failures, he replied that the Bowser administration had followed the letter of the law in providing the facilities plan.
Last week, Kihn’s negligence was on display yet again. He punted his response to the audit to Young, who reports to him. Together, they told the story of an executive satisfied with doing the bare minimum while thousands of District children leave public schools each year ill-prepared for college or professional careers. According to the auditor, of the 128 students who recently graduated city schools and enrolled in the University of the District of Columbia, a full 126 needed remedial assistance.
If government officials are unwilling to act with urgency, investing maximum time and energy in the fight to educate the District’s children, they should be shown the door. Kihn and Young ought to be the first in line.
Patterson and her team found that OSSE, among other things, failed to track course-taking, credit completion and other indicators that would allow for the development of an early warning system to support struggling students and keep them on track to graduate; failed to ensure data integrity, thus raising questions about the validity of information published in school report cards; and failed to ensure other essential data collection was complete.
An exchange between at-large Council member Robert White and Young during the roundtable offered additional proof of the agency’s laissez faire toward important data. What is the average family income level of students who are considered at-risk? asked White as he sought to drill down on one significant dataset. How does that compare with Black students who are performing well? And how do those income levels compare with DC’s white students?
“At-risk is reported as one category. We don’t collect income data,” said Young.
At-risk students are those who qualify for either the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; are homeless or in foster care; or are one year older than the expected age for their high school grade level. “We don’t disaggregate anything for at-risk,” added Young.
“That kind of data could show commonality so we could target specific needs of specific subgroups,” said White.
He’s right, of course. But who in Mayor Muriel Bowser’s administration cares about the needs of school children, really?
jonetta rose barras is an author and freelance journalist, covering national and local issues including politics, childhood trauma, public education, economic development and urban public policies. She can be reached at thebarrasreport@gmail.com.
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