TO:Dr. Clifford Janey, Superintendent, DCPS FR: Erich Martel (ehmartel@starpower.net)Members, DC Board of Education Dept. of Social Studies, Woodrow Wilson H.S.Members, DC Education Compact Member, DC EC Standards Alignment Work GroupDCPS Teachers, Counselors and StaffParents and Concerned Community Members March 29, 2005

ACCOUNTABILITY, RESPONSIBILITY AND FAILED STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT: WHO IS RESPONSIBLE? WHO IS ACCOUNTABLE? HOW CAN IT BE FIXED?

(An Unsolicited Addendum to the Report of DCEC Work Group #3: “Seamless Accountability”)

I. THE REASON FOR THIS UNSOLICITED ADDENDUM TO THE WG #3 REPORTAccountability describes an organization’s mechanism (or mechanisms) for ensuring that all of its components are working effectively toward the attainment of its predetermined goals. More specifically, it is a mechanism for locating and correcting malfunctions that inevitably occur in a complex organization. When a school governance body and its top executives continually adopt or adhere to policies and practices that fail to boost student achievement, while ignoring valid, detailed and documented critiques of its policies and practices, they have abdicated their responsibilities, starting with the responsibility to hold subordinates accountable.

Fixing accountability requires a full understanding of the reasons it failed, which requires the inclusion of all pertinent information and insights. This Unsolicited Addendum represents the view of a working classroom teacher who, by chance as well as by design, has gained a great deal of well-documented insight into the malfunctioning of DCPS. Since the DCEC has made no effort to include teachers (there are over 275 DCEC members; only 7 teachers have been admitted), this report [in its final draft] by a teacher needs to be submitted to the Vetting Team for inclusion.

The reason for this request is quite simple. After reading this report, it will be clear that there are a number of areas that the WG 3 official report did not examine or sufficiently address, all of which the superintendent and his advisors need to know in order to have a complete picture. One should not assume that a concern is so obvious that it doesn’t require specific mention.

It is with that in mind that I am presenting this report to the co-leaders of Working Group 3 and to leaders/steering committee of DCEC.

II. THE MEANING OF ACCOUNTABILITYA. The Responsibility-Accountability Relationship

Responsibility is the obligation to do one’s job at no less than a minimum performance level.Accountability is the mechanism for ensuring that employees fulfill their assigned responsibilities. Accountability is, therefore, a supervisory relationship whereby subordinates are accountable to their bosses or legal superiors and, viewed from top down, supervisors hold their assigned subordinates accountable for the performance of their assigned responsibilities.

Teachers are responsible for effectively teaching mandated curricula. Students are responsible for behaving and spending their time in school centered on learning.Principals are responsible for maintaining a school climate conducive to learning by ensuring that teachers competently and effectively teach the mandated curricula, i.e. by holding them accountable for doing so.

Principals are also responsible for ensuring that students behave and are centered on learning, i.e. by holding them accountable for behavior that supports and does not disrupt the school’s learning mission. Each teacher is accountable to his/her principal for performing assigned responsibilities, while the principal is responsible for holding each teacher accountable for doing so. Teachers and principals are responsible for holding students accountable for their behavior and diligence at learning.These two-way responsibility-accountability relationships ultimately link all students, all teachers and all principals to the superintendent and the Board of Education.

Central office academic specialists and chief academic officer are responsible for providing teachers and students with fully aligned, subject-standards and curricula, textbooks, support technology and teacher certification standards that require new teachers, K-12 to meet minimum subject-area knowledge. Their responsibilities include knowing the research relevant to their responsibilities, which means knowing how to differentiate fads and anecdotal reports from well-documented studies and research. In the same manner as teachers and principals, they are linked to the superintendent and the Board of Education.

B. How accountability collapsesWhen a superior decides not to correct a subordinate’s lapse of responsibility or violation of rules and that becomes a repeated pattern, a double standard has been created. Both are now joined to a collusive double standard, since both have abdicated their individual responsibilities. This, in turn, sends a message that rules can be bent and that those in positions of authority will not notice. They are no longer serving goal of student achievement, but another master: sustaining the private, self-serving goals that arise from the new double standard.

The academic failure of our school system results from multiple failures of individual responsibility, which ultimately and most importantly include the superintendent and Board members. When they fail, the double standard they chose not to remove rapidly spreads. A good and very visible example of this is the spread of cell phones and walkman/headsets.

DCMR Title 5; Chapter 25 (Student Discipline); 2503 (Grounds for Disciplinary Action); 2503.1 (Level I Infractions); 2503.1 (k) reads:

“The possession of electronic communication devices, i.e. beeper/pager, telephones, etc., when such possession takes place during school hours on school premises, or, on transportation, on school premises or at school sponsored events regardless of the time of day. Permission to possess an electronic device may be given by the Principal when the student must carry such a device for personal or family medical or emergency reasons.”

There is now a double standard. Principals report receiving permission from “downtown” to allow students to bring these into the school, “as long as they stay in students’ lockers during school hours.” The photograph in the recent Washington Post article of the Ballou H.S. student who is raising his daughter as single parent showed him playing with a cell phone “during down time in class.”

This is just one example of a particularly visible double standard. Most double standards, like the submerged mass of icebergs, are hidden from public view and just as destructive. In almost every school building, there are teachers, principals and other staff members who are outraged by these

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double standards that erode morale, lead to absenteeism and the search for better working conditions. An accountability report that does not address these matters is not providing the new DCPS leadership with the fullness of knowledge and detail it needs to change the course of our school system.

C. All Policies and Practices are the Result of Conscious, Individual Decisions. Premise: The dismal academic performance of our students is the result of conscious decisions by real persons in positions of trust to not supervise subordinates for whom they are accountable. These decisions were not made by verbal abstractions, such as “downtown” or “DCPS,” but by real people who have names and occupy positions of public trust.

Any effort to fully restore DCPS to its educational mission that does not address this reality will be undermined. The absence of clear recognition of this obstacle in Working Group 3’s “Seamless Accountability” Report is what makes this Addendum Report necessary. This is not surprising, since DCPS and much of the world of education have become prisoners of fuzzy language, high-blown euphemisms and euphoric goals.

D. Student Achievement: the Multiple Strands that Converge in the ClassroomStudent Achievement is the result of two “inputs,” teaching and learning, that [ideally] aim for the mastery of subject-area curricula and standards as measured on objective assessments. Teaching and learning are both upheld by the strands of responsibility and accountability that link DCPS and local school officials to the classroom.

1. “Teaching” is the product of several input-outcome strands or interlocking links of responsibility and accountability (All of the following “strands” affect the quality of instruction of any individual teacher):

Outcome of Strands or Input of Strands or Sources Affecting Who is accountableComponents of Teaching Quality of the Teaching Components for each strand?Teacher Subject-Area Knowledge College preparation in subject/content area College

DCPS teacher certification standards Supt, BdDCPS staff development & mentoring Prin, Supt, Bd-WTU

Teacher Teaching Skill, Management,Skill at Motivating Students Mentoring, staff development, principal Prin, Supt, Bd

Subject area curricula Constructed from adopted standards Supt, BdTextbooks, ancillaries, supplies Textbook acquisition procedures Supt, BdMandated Instructional Methods Mentoring, staff development, principal Prin, Supt, BdStudent Behavior DCPS & local school standards Tchr, Prin, Supt, Bd

Family or home standards Legal GuardianPhys Comfort of Class/Bldg envi’rmt Building modernization, operation, maint. Supt, Bd

Notice that students affect teaching, but that student behavior is accountable to school and home. On the next chart, accountability for the “components of learning,” is shared by school and home.Although the college preparation of teachers is seemingly out of the hands of DCPS, it can use teacher certification standards to define the training and knowledge of newly hired teachers.

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2. “Learning” is also the product of several converging input-outcome strands (All of the following, in addition to the above, affect a student’s willingness to learn; special needs create an additional component. Note that student behavior is in both categories.):

Components of Learning Sources of Learning Components Who is Accountable?Student Behavior DCPS & local school standards Tchr, Princ, Supt, Bd

Family or home standards Legal Guardian(s)Student Engagement in Learning DCPS & local school standards Tchr, Princ, Supt, Bd

Family or home standards Legal Guardian(s)

3. Levels of Achievement are the quantifiable outcomes of teaching and learning as measured by valid, reliable & objective, subject-specific assessments:

Components of Assessment Important Assessment Criteria Who is Accountable?Choice of System-wide Assessment Objective, Valid, Reliable, Aligned Tchr, Prin, Supt, Bd- Security of System-wide Assessm’ts Admin’d fairly; tamper-free Tchr, Prin, Supt, BdTeacher-made tests Objective, Valid, Reliable, Aligned Tchr, Prin, Supt, Bd- Security of “ “ Safeguards against tampering Prin, Supt, BdResults of assessments: Safe fr misrepresentation/tampering Prin, Supt, Bd

Rpt cards; transcripts, graduation promotion or graduation. Prin, Supt, Bd

4. Significance: All Responsibility-Accountability Links Must be Fixed and Working for Optimal AchievementEach of the many responsibility-accountability strands that connect the Board and superintendent to the classroom is important for teaching and learning. A single torn strand overburdens the rest. When several are broken, achievement collapses - it collapses FOR THOSE WHO DEPEND ON IT, THOSE WHO DON’T GET IT AT HOME: THE DISADVANTAGED!

The importance of each component for success is supported by well-documented studies and, in a few cases, scientific research. What works for disadvantaged students (a term that describes the measurable gap in academic skills and knowledge between “disadvantaged” students and their “advantaged” peers, when they first enter school) is well-supported by reliable research. Each component is the target of fads that undermine achievement. Fads are educational programs or practices that promise what they can’t deliver. They usually employ the rosy, feel-good edu-jargon designed to evoke a sense of achievement. In place of studies or research, promoters cite anecdotes or refer ambiguously to “best practices” or “promising practices” or employ bait and switch tactics, e.g. changing to topic from achievement to equity.

III.THE FOUNDATIONS OF ACCOUNTABILITY Accountability Rests Upon Presumptions of Human Responsibility and Legal Mandates

A. Inherent in the concept of accountability is the presumption that supervision is necessary, because some subordinates will perform poorly or not at all, unless supervisedSchool employees’ obligations are defined in municipal regulations and statutes, all of which reflect a basic presumption that some employees will not fulfill their assigned responsibilities, unless they are held accountable. And, unlike a private company, a public school does not face the independent discipline and responsiveness of the market.

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B. In a public school system, the top-down corporate model of accountability lacks the independence and responsiveness of the marketAs this report shows, rigid reliance on the Top-Down supervision model creates evasion. There is no organizational counterweight to the personal networks of collusion that develop within schools and between principals and school officials. The superintendent should establish a means for employees and parents to report abuse of authority. The last section of this report contains a number of specific recommendations.

C. Shortcomings of the “stakeholder” metaphor”Stakeholder” is an ambiguous concept that should be avoided. It isn’t clear whether school employees (teachers, principals, etc.) are stakeholders or if it only refers to someone who isn’t an employee, who has an interest in the success of the DC schools, such as most of the members of the Compact.

The important point is this: Accountability is a legal obligation between superior and subordinate WITHIN the school system. In several places, the Seamless Accountability report inaccurately suggests that parents and the general public are accountable for school system performance:- “every member of the greater D.C. public … holds the D.C. Public Schools accountable …”- “the community and parents evaluate teachers, principals, and employees …”

These rhetorical flourishes, even if not intended to be literal, create public confusion by diverting attention from those who are responsible to those who aren’t. It undermines the important point made above: All decisions are made by individuals, not by abstractions. Exactly how would “every member of the greater D.C. public hold the D.C. Public Schools accountable”? … and, who is “the D.C. Public Schools.” When everyone is “held accountable,” no one is!

D. Accountability is Direct, “On-Site” and Person-To-PersonReal or functional accountability is direct, person-to-person supervision. It is often uncomfortable and messy. In reality, it is the avoidance of accountability in a culture of cronyism and double standards that is “seamless.” It is not a formula that can be rigidly applied from afar or from 35,000 feet. Objective, on-site job performance evaluations of principals need to be instituted.

Associate Superintendents should- Spend most of their time visiting schools; - Evaluate the performance of principals, academic program and student behavior;- Show up unannounced.

E. Accountability of a school’s instructional staff and principal cannot depend primarily on the results of standardized tests Standardized tests of students’ performance are intended to be indicators of student achievement, not evaluations of those who didn’t take them: principals and teachers. The use of these tests as the primary instrument of accountability, instead of direct, on-site observation is unreliable and irresponsible. That is what leads principals to try to game the tests by taking time away from subject area instruction for endless test-prep sessions and, thereby, reduce children’s growth in their funds of knowledge and the enjoyment that comes from growing subject-area mastery - which is what standardized tests are intended to measure.

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F. The broken links of top-down accountabilityIn actual practice, authority is delegated from central administration to local school administration with the understanding that there will be little or no oversight and that the building can be managed with few or no questions asked. In turn, lax or non-existent oversight enables lax local school policies and resultant proliferation of double standards, limited only by each principal’s personal sense of integrity. Since the central administration shares responsibility for the non-compliant practices its laxity nurtured, its response to complaints is to ignore or minimize them or even actively cover up the problems that gave rise to them.

G. A School System Lost at Sea: Top-down accountability requires bottom-up access Accountability requires the empowerment of teachers. Teachers’ concerns and reports of practices that affect a school’s educational mission should be evaluated on their own merit. Over the past decade that has not been the case. In almost every school building there are teachers who feel a great “sense of outrage about the poor state of student achievement,” (as noted in the Council of Great City Schools Report, “Restoring Excellence to the DCPS,” December 2003; p. 29), and the improper practices that take place in their schools, but are powerless to stop, since teachers are regarded as “having no standing” central office officials.

The following account from Dava Sobel’s “Longitude: The Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time” (1995) will remind many teachers of experiences they have had:

“Returning home victorious from Gibraltar after skirmishes with the French Mediterranean forces, [Admiral] Sir Clowdisley Shovell could not beat the heavy autumn overcast. Fearing the ships might founder on coastal rocks, the admiral summoned all his navigators to put their heads together.

“The consensus opinion placed the English fleet safely west of Ile d’Ouessant, an island outpost of the Brittany peninsula. But as the sailors continued north, they discovered to their horror that they had misgauged their longitude near the Scilly Isles. These tiny islands, about twenty miles from the southwest tip of England, point to Land’s End like a path of stepping stones. And on that foggy night of October 22, 1707, the Scillies became unmarked tombstones for two thousand of Sir Clowdisley’s troops.

“The flagship, the Association, struck first. She sank within minutes, drowning all hands./…/“Only two men washed ashore alive. One of them was Sir Clowdisley himself, who may have watched the fifty-seven years of his life flash before his eyes as the waves carried him home. Certainly he had time to reflect on the events of the previous twenty-four hours, when he made what must have been the worst mistake in judgment of his naval career. He had been approached by a sailor, a member of the Association’s crew, who claimed to have kept his own reckoning of the fleet’s location during the whole cloudy passage. Such subversive navigation by an inferior was forbidden in the Royal Navy, as the unnamed seaman well knew. However, the danger appeared so enormous, by his calculations, that he risked his neck to make his concerns known to the officers. Admiral Shovell had the man hanged for mutiny on the spot.” (Emphasis added)

This extreme case will be quite familiar to many DCPS teachers who have weighed the risks of retribution for daring to cross the administrator-teacher caste line to report improper behavior. Most don’t bother and are unaware of their obligations under the DC Whistleblower Act.

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IV. Abdication of Accountability by the DCPS Academic Leadership: Refusal to provide each classroom with clearly written, research-supported subject-area standards.

DCPS Academic Leaders and their Policies have been largely guided by fads.The following examples resulted from consciously made decisions by one or more DCPS officials over the past decade. They were not made by “the community” or by “a school” or by “the schools” or by “the stakeholders.” They were not untraceable or unknowable “acts of God.”

- Each decision impacted directly or indirectly upon the teaching and learning environment;- Although teachers and parents provided copies of critical reviews and documentation of the

standards’ deficiencies to superintendents, associate superintendents and Board members, they were ignored, downplayed or excused. There was simply no documentation that could outweigh personal ties and compel them to instruct their subordinates to replace these deficient standards.

A. Failure to provide quality standards, curricula, textbooks and competent academic leaders - despite well-documented concerns by teachers and parents and critical national reviews.

1. Failure to select a knowledgeable CAO & Subject Area Content SpecialistsIn November 2000, DCPS contracted with the executive search firm Isaacson Miller in Cambridge, MA to conduct a national search for Chief Academic Officer (CAO). The qualification criteria were also posted on the DCPS website. According to contract manager Pam Palumphy, “response to the position has been significant” from which “a select number of preliminary candidates [has been] identified” (email, 2/1/01; later phone conversation).

In March 2001, the superintendent ignored the results and named as CAO a DCPS insider, who did not meet the posted qualifying criteria (doctorate & 8 years system wide leadership. N.B.: As with so many “qualification criteria” for positions of academic importance, these criteria do not define an effective academic leader. They are mentioned because of the deceptive process).

Between 1992 and 1995, subject area department chairs were replaced by “content specialists” whose mastery of their subject areas was limited and who had a poor understanding of the nature of standards and their relationship to curricula. City-wide department meetings virtually ceased to exist. In the social studies department, strong ties with the LINKS program at GWU, the Afro-American Studies Department and African History Department at Howard University, Museum Studies Department at GWU and the GWU/Smithsonian Anthropology Department fell into disuse. The spirit of collegiality and discussion that brought together teachers from around the city and region to workshops on staff development days ceased to be nurtured. A promising sign of change is the joint DCPS-American University “Strengthening the Teaching of American History” (STAH), a 3-year DoEd grant, 2003-2005.

2. Failure to provide scientific reading instruction (phonics/decoding) in K-3a. Failure to require that new K-3 teachers be qualified to teach reading by the

phonics/decoding method;

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b. 1997 - 2001, refusal to take advantage of the presence in DCPS of internationally recognized reading researcher and teacher trainer, Dr. Louisa Moats. Her NIH-NICHD Early Intervention program, located in 7 DCPS elementary schools, was designed to train teachers and literacy coaches in phonics/decoding reading instruction and to diagnose early reading difficulties. Yet, superintendents, chief academic officers and content specialists on the 8th floor of 825 North Capitol Street ignored her. In a 2003 interview, “Children of the Code: Teaching Teachers to Teach Reading,” she recounted her experience:

“[in] the course of the four years that we stuck it out in D.C. we were able to bring these kids to the average range through intensive professional development for the teachers and equipping them with comprehensive reading programs. We put coaches in the classrooms and had within our project a very consistent, research based approach. In the better functioning schools the kids were above average.

“I came out of that experience knowing that the district was totally disinterested in anything we were doing; there was no follow through, there was no support from the district to carry on any of the work we did.” http://www.childrenofthecode.org/interviews/moats.htp

In February 2001, as I was preparing a statement to present at the mayor’s community education forum, Dr. Moats gave me a summary of some of the obstacles she faced in the DCPS academic leadership that limited the effectiveness of her program: i. 1998 - DCPS purchased “Open Court” sound-spelling cards for elementary classrooms, but

without the reading program or adequate professional development.ii. Spring 2000 - DCPS purchased the revised 2000 edition of the Houghton-Mifflin primary

reading series, which does “not meet the specifications of a complete, research-based program.” “Schools that use ‘Open Court’ have not been able to order replacement materials …” - despite their success with children.

iii. DCPS relies on psychologists, who are not trained to do reading assessments, to test children with reading problems. The result is “misinterpretation of tests and lack of sophistication about what they mean.” DCPS seems to have “no good program of criterion-referenced assessment in the classroom, just publisher ‘theme’ tests.”

3. Failure to Replace Deficient Subject-Area StandardsSince 1998-1999, DCPS has burdened teachers and students with confusing and deficient subject-area standards. History standards were the worst, twice receiving failing scores in Fordham Foundation reviews (www.edexcellence.net) as “useless.” The review by Paul Gagnon for the Albert Shanker Institute found much “wastage,” “missing … topics” in history and civics (www.shankerinstitute.org/Downloads/gagnon/contents.html).

Instead of engaging K-3 children’s interests with historical biography, geography and mythology as they mastered basic decoding or reading skills, they were saddled with the content-poor “expanding environments” curriculum. Historian of education Diane Ravitch described the origins of this problem in a Summer 1987 article in The American Scholar, “What Happened to History in the Grade Schools? Tot Sociology,” which was excerpted in “History Matters!” (December 1996):

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“[T]he expanding environments approach was established not as a result of the findings of cognitive or developmental psychology, but as a result of specific social and political values” (http://63.70.163.70/nche/archives/dec_news.html).

The single year of world history in 10th grade that begins with 1500 AD/CE prevents students from learning of the origins of the world’s major religions, civilizations as well as the origins of democracy and our concerns for human rights.In 2001, unfazed by these deficiencies, the superintendent declared them “world class.”

4. Failure to require evidence that new academic policies are supported by competent and objective studies of their effectiveness - and periodic, independent evaluations.Since DCPS academic leaders haven’t been guided by educational research, they have been easily beguiled by educational fads. Two examples from the DCPS website are: a. “multiple intelligences”:

i. “Teaching to multiple intelligences”: World Languages Pacing Chart - http://www.k12.dc.us/dcps/curriculum/instruction/pacing/World%20Languages/p-wl-7.pdf

ii. Staff Development, 2003-2004:http://www.k12.dc.us/dcps/obe/0304handbook/section9/Staff%20Development,%202002%20Handbook.pdf

iii. Staff Development, 2003-2004http://www.k12.dc.us/dcps/logan/pdfs/PROFESSIONAL%20DEVELOPMENT%20OPPORTUNITIES-3rd1.pdf

The briefest examination research in learning reveals that “multiple intelligences” is little more than a description of abilities or interests. University of Virginia cognitive scientist Daniel Willlingham explained the fallacies behind this claim in the summer 2004 “EducationNext” (http://www.educationnext.org/20043/18.html).

The informative website, “Illinois Loop,” lists over a dozen reviews that debunk this fad:“The core problem with this fad is the utter lack of any suggestion as to how such supposed ‘learning styles’ might be objectively and quantitatively identified or assessed, or how any of this would translate into effective teaching practices” (http://www.illinoisloop.org/mi.html).

b. “discovery learning” or “inquiry learning”DC science standards are centered on a theory of how children learn. That theory, "discovery learning," is a fad based on a misunderstanding of how scientists work and "discover" new information.  Most discoveries are made by scientists after having gained an extensive command of the knowledge of their particular fields. The following article compares direct instruction with discovery learning and found that “many more children learned from direct instruction than from discovery learning” (http://content.apa.org/journals/amp/59/1/14); (see also: Kathleen J. Roth, “Science Education: It’s Not Enough To ‘Do’ Or ‘Relate’” in American Educator 13.4, Winter 1989, 16-22, 47-49).

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5. Failure to require DCPS officials to provide independent documentation of the effectiveness of all major electronic investments, before, during and after, including instructional software, such as Voyager, Fast Forward, Lightspan, etc.The US Department of Education’s “What Works Clearinghouse: Study Review Standards” (http://www.whatworks.ed.gov/reviewprocess/study_standards_final.pdf ) allow school officials to screen out proposed programs, teaching strategies, and technologies.

6. Failure to require that staff development be directly linked to content that teachers need - as determined by diagnostic assessments.Shortly before the conclusion of her four year NICHD project in DCPS, Dr. Louisa Moats drafted a proposal for the DCPS application for the Reading First grant (“Every Child a Reader in DCPS: Proposal for an Initiative to Promote Effective Reading Instruction,” draft #2, 4/26/01 [hard copy only]). This proposal contains descriptions of what an effective staff development policy for reading - or any well-designed staff development program should include:

“Effective professional development requires extended time for initial training that includes discussions of research on how children learn to read as well as specific instructional strategies. In addition, it requires extensive in-class follow-up… Professional development needs to be seen as a never ending process that involves the entire school staff, not a one-time event.”“Courses focus on specific content and teach it thoroughly.”

B. Refusal to respond to reports of mismanagement, corruption and double standards that undermine effective teaching & learning; this includes the failure to:

(The above words are underlined. All of these matters were reported to superiors, often directly to Board members and superintendents/trustees. They were not oversights, but the result of conscious decision. In each case, one should ask oneself, “Was this done in the interest of improving student achievement?”)

1. Respond to reports of the failure to activate the Letter of Understanding and Transcript modules of the Student Information System (SIS) or academic database.a. 1994 to 2004: Failure to Activate the Letter of Understanding and Transcript Modules in the

POISE/Neptune Academic Database/SIS (see my Addendum submission to the report of DCEC Working Group 7, “College Ready”).The failure to activate the Letter of Understanding module resulted in:i. Guidance time with students consumed by this labor-intensive process; ii. Students and parents receiving it too late to correct scheduling errors; iii. The entry of erroneous information, either intentionally or unintentionally.

The failure to activate the Transcript module resulted in high school transcripts being prepared with cumulative record stick-on labels; errors or accurate entries were whited- out and typed over, a process that allowed for intentional alterations and bogus entries.

Counselors who asked for the module to be activated were given evasive answers?

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Others remembered that local school administrators discouraged complaints - knowing that an activated module would limit local school control over data entry.

The “Independent Accountants’ Report on Applying Agreed-Upon Procedures Regarding Student Records at Sixteen High Schools/Sites” (September 22, 2003) by Gardiner Kamya & Associates, PC (GKA) revealed thati. “Student records were incomplete at all 16 high school sites [and] were inconsistent,

inaccurate and unreliable” ( p. 4);ii. “Internal controls with respect to student’s records were ineffective, and there was no

assurance that student grades were accurately reflected in such records;iii. “Because of the disorganized state of the student records and the failure of most schools

to implement the grade verification process mandated by the DCPS, tampering with respect to student grades may have occurred and not be detected and may in fact be undetectable” (p. 4).

Appended to the report is an official letter to GKA from a DCPS official requesting that the “presentation of the concept of tampering be presented in a less judgmental manner.” Apparently, GKA did not agree. DCPS officials refused to post the report on the DCPS website. The full report is available at www.dcpswatch.com/dcps/030922b.htm

b. The failure to complete provide the Letter of Understanding to parents and students every school year at the start of grades 9, 10, 11 and 12, as stated in DCPS Directive 521 (11/12/92). This is an important link between school and parent.

2. 2001-2003: Supt. and Board of Education Advertise a Business Plan With Impossible to Achieve Goals, Contradicted in the Master Facilities Update.a. Impossible to achieve goals

The much-touted "Business Plan for Strategic Reform," on the Board's web page, rosily projects a 25% rise in the graduation rate and in the number of seniors taking the SAT. Since increases in the number of test takers usually come from groups of students whose scores are in the lower ranges, the effect is to lower system-wide averages. Undeterred by such inconvenient realities, the Business Plan projects a rise in the combined SAT score average from 822 (in 2003 it was 800) to an "expectation" of 1000 and an "aspiration" of 1100, a 200-300 point increase - all without any analysis of how to improve instruction, student performance expectations and accountability.

b. Contradicted on the DCPS websiteThe Fall 2003 Facilities Master Plan Update, also on the DCPS/Board website, contradicts this illusion. It projects a sobering five-year enrollment decline and equivalent charter school growth of 6000 students - not what one expects of such historic SAT increases. Board members approved both plans?

c. What does this have to do with accountability? The power of DCPS top leadership to motivate teachers to do their jobs help students achieve more rigorous standards of knowledge will require many teachers to make changes in their teaching methods. Teachers and principals need to see that Board and administration decisions are challenging, sensible and attainable.

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By publicly promoting “expectations” and “aspirations” so completely divorced from reality, it is telling the world that teachers will be held accountable for reaching goals no school system has ever reached. It also shows its disdain for the disciplined work that steady annual progress in the upper single digits requires. Since those goals are unattainable, it is also sending a message that window-dressing and falsified results are acceptable.

3. Falsified SAT9 scores2002: Moten ES SAT9 spikesAnother Accountability Failure: Alteration of SAT9 Test Results: Moten ES in 2002http://www.greatschools.net/modperl/browse_school/dc/2/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A2045-2004Feb24?language=printer

The 2002 Moten SAT9 scores rose dramatically and fell equally so in 2003. Moten teachers reported their suspicions to central office superiors, yet no one from the central office or Board was willing to call for an investigation and support the teachers who put their careers on the line. a. Supt. Vance cited Moten’s “achievement.”b. DCPS central leadership did nothing to protect the teachers who reported it. Some felt

sufficiently threatened that they left Moten. Instead, the Supt. and his staff protected those who violated the test’s integrity.

4. 2001 Wilson H.S. - Principal approves the alteration of a student’s grade without consulting the teacher.On the day of graduation, a student who had failed four advisories and the final exam of U.S. History, a required full year course, was permitted to graduate. Without consulting the teacher, the principal approved the assistant principal’s request to give the student a D by averaging a one-semester grade of C+ from a previous school with the F she had just earned. This was done in the Student Information System (SIS) by intercepting the teacher’s grade report (scan sheet) before it could be entered into the SIS. He then created a fictitious course in the student’s SIS file. DCPS does not have a procedure for a one-semester:

Course & Code Adv 1 Adv 2 Adv 3 Adv 4 FinExam FinGrade US History (1 sem; prev schl) - - C+ C+ - C+AP US Hist (H47; Wilson ) F F F F F FUS History (H46; fictitious) C C F D - D

The principal defended his decision, but was overruled by the associate superintendent, who ordered the diploma placed on hold pending successful completion of summer school. The H47 final grade of F was entered into the student’s SIS file and the fictitious course deleted. A week later, while the principal was away, the assistant principal, in return for “an assignment,” retrieved the diploma and gave it to the student. It was discovered and reported. The teacher refused the request of the principal to legitimize the violation by giving the student a “packet of work” to complete. A few weeks later, the assistant principal was promoted to principal of another DCPS school. The student’s final transcript showed no completion of U.S. History, but contained the cryptic statement, “Summer 2001 - completed requirements for graduation, not ranked”.

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5. 2002 Wilson H.S.: Altered student academic records and certification for graduation despite missing graduation requirementsa. What the Wilson H.S. academic records revealed.

In May 2002, citing my obligations under the DC Whistleblower Act, I forwarded to the principal, the superintendent and Board members summary reports of 77 students who had been certified for graduation in 2001 despite missing graduation requirements and 15 potential graduates from the class of 2002, just weeks away from graduation. I requested that the students’ records be corrected to reflect legitimately earned credits. When I received no response other than denial of further access to student grade records and threats of discipline, I provided the redacted details of my discovery to the Washington Post. (Justin Blum, “Grade Changes Found at Top D.C. School” Washington Post, June 9, 2002; http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A18814-2002Jun8?language=printer)

The students were ineligible for graduation for the following reasons:- core reason: less that 23.5 Carnegie units and/or fewer than the required number of

subject-area courses; - grades of F raised to a passing grade; Carnegie units inflated .5 to 1.0;- inflation of grades and credits on transfers from other school districts;- repeat credit for the same course (esp. special education students);- entering courses into student records that the student never took;- receiving credit for two courses in the same classroom and period.

Some specific examples are:- an assistant principal listed on one student’s transcript as the U.S. History teacher,

on another’s as the Honors Algebra II teacher, neither of which he taught;- D.C. History credit for a safety course (“state requirement”) taken in California; - a Ballou H.S.rpt card, showing Biology I altered to Zoology;- a note in a student’s file that reads: “In [subject] I got an F but didn’t deserve it. My

teacher is no longer here, would that create a problem?” The grade was then raisedfrom F to D, initialed by an assistant principal, who made no effort to contact the former teacher. I did; the teacher explained the F.

- on March 26, 2002, seven grades, including two from Deal JHS, of a student who had graduated from Wilson in 2001, were raised - none;

- a student’s Hi-Skip college class is listed as an AP class, violating both DCPS Hi-Skip policy and College Board trademark rights.

- 61 students were secretly enrolled in an after-school section of a graduation requirement was created to benefit students who preferred to receive course credit by just turning in occasional papers without having to attend class.

The director of an academy established for troubled students created phantom schedules and stacked classes: Instead of going to their assigned classes, he gave the student a handwritten schedule; he then informed the teachers on the students’ official schedule what grade student had “earned in each of their classes.”

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b. An academy director manufactures schedules and grades (SY 2001-2002)A most surprising discovery was the clusters of students from different grade levels assigned to different courses, but to the same teacher at the same time in the same classroom & period:

In per. 1 w/ one teacher In per. 5 w/ one teacher* In per. 6 w/ one teacherEnglish I 6 students Envir Science 16 students World Hist 7 studentsEnglish II 6 students Biology I 5 students US Hist 14 studentsEnglish III 10 students Zoology 2 students US Gov’t 3 studentsEnglish IV 6 students HumAnatPhys 5 students Soc St Res 1 student

Sc Resource 1 student* the assigned teacher left in October; so these courses were “taught” by substitutes and the director.

c. Results of the internal investigationsAt least two internal investigations were conducted by DCPS. The results were presented at a press conference on August 26, 2002. They concluded that 12 of the 15 students I had cited from the Class of 2002 graduates had actually met their requirements. No mention was made of the 77 Class of 2001 graduates I had reported. School officials also announced the decision to examine student academic records in all 16 high school sites, but that “students who were improperly awarded credits would be ‘held harmless’ if they were not responsible for the mistake.” (Justin, Blum, “Grading Disparities Verified: Probe at Wilson Widening to Include All City High Schools” Washington Post, August 27, 2002; http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64872-2002Aug26.html).

d. Board of Education takes no action; the City Council holds an oversight hearing Other than a couple of phone calls and a 15-minute meeting (that I had requested) with one Board member who asked, “What do you want us to do?” the Board of Education took no visible action. Instead, the City Council Education Committee held a public oversight hearing on November 26, 2002 (see Beth Cope, “Results of new audit due on high school records,” The Current, November 27, 2002). Superintendent Vance’s Chief of Staff Steven Seleznow announced that Gardiner Kamya had been contracted to conduct an audit in all high school sites.

e. The independent review by Gardiner Kamya & Associates (GKA)In October 2002, an external review of academic records at all 16 high school sites by accountants from Gardiner Kamya & Associates. Their contract (RTOP # GAGA-2003-Q; October 23, 2002) with DCPS called for “applying agreed-upon procedures,” which they make clear, they

“were not engaged to and did not perform an audit, the objective of which would be the expression of an opinion on the DCPS senior high school student records.” (p. 1)

They were also authorized to review the records of the 15 class of 2002 students I had cited, but not the much larger number of reported violations in the class of 2001. They found mismanagement of student academic records at all high school sites similar to those I had discovered at Wilson H.S. Of the 15 students I had reported, whose records I had cited for missing graduation requirements, GKA contradicted administration claims and found that 12 of the students had been improperly certified for graduation.

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The draft report was delivered to DCPS in March 2003. Displeased with the findings, DCPS officials went so far as to claim that confidential records at Wilson H.S. were not available to the reviewers when they came to Wilson H.S. GKA rejected the challenge and delivered the final, unchanged report in September 2003. DCPS held back the release until December 9, 2003, when it was piggy-backed on a press conference that announced initially planned cutbacks for January 2004. The DCPS official who released the report repeated the confidential records claim. DCPS has still not posted it to its website. The complete report is available at www.dcpswatch.com/dcps/030922b.htm .

There is one important finding whose significance is easy to overlook. They found that the records were “confidentially maintained” in every school, i.e. that those without legal access did not have access to them. This corroborates what I found at Wilson H.S. and what teachers in other schools have related: Alteration of the contents of students’ academic records was done by those with legal access to them. The wall of confidentiality (the Buckley Amendment or FERPA) has unintentionally become a shield for those with legitimate access to them.

f. As of June 2004, teachers in several schools reported that these violations continue.In the administrative culture of DCPS, where supervision of principals is negligible, exposure of violations eventually fades, so practices can continue. There needs to be an actual audit of student academic records.

g. In September 2002, Supt. Vance convened the “Student Records Management Review Task Force” to develop recommendation for the improvement of records security.A “Student Records Management Review Task Force” was formed by the Superintendent that came up with specific recommendations for improved management and records integrity. I am one of the members of the Task Force.

A draft dated August 2003 was delivered to the superintendent. In December 2003 and January 2004, Interim Superintendent Massie called the Task Force together to make final adjustments. This report makes a number of important recommendations:

i. Establish in each school a local school Academic Records Review Committee that is elected by annually by teachers in the building. They would have read-only access to the academic (not health or discipline) records of all students at periodic intervals. Their purpose is to act as an oversight body.

ii. Activation of Student Information System (SIS) modules that facilitate reporting to parents, such as the Letter of Understanding (see Addendum Report to WG 7) and Transcript module.

iii. Establish a single, consistent course list with only one course title - alphanumeric code link. Permit no local school overrides of the course list.

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iv. Upon the completion of iii, establish a single list of courses that can be used to satisfy each graduation requirement. At this time, there is still abuse of world language, vocational education, etc.

Non-academic courses, such as “Office Assistant,” should be stripped of credit and students allowed to use those hours toward their 100 hours of community service.

h. Significance of these discoveries: What they represent.i. Lack of “institutional integrity”

The institutional response to my discoveries was to minimize them and protect those who were responsible. At every step, DCPS action was halting and diversionary until prodded by the media. To this day, corrective action has not been taken.A new SIS, e.g. DC Stars, may make it more difficult to do such things, but will not prevent them. That requires a commitment to full oversight.

ii. Social Graduation: Covering up the failure of the schools to educate our studentsWhen I first started examining the records of my students, I was monitoring how grades were being improperly changed. Quite by accident I discovered that large numbers of students were being certified for graduation despite missing or improperly awarded graduation requirements. I suddenly realized the significance of this; my thinking went as follows:1. For the class of 2001 (389 graduates, including summer school graduates), I reviewed

the SIS and paper files of approximately 175-200 students and found77 who were missing one or more requirements, roughly 40% of the graduates!

2. By grade 12, many students have already dropped out (roughly 40% system-wide, much lower at Wilson) - add them to my discoveries.

3. My findings did not question reports showing that teachers in some classes gave all students A’s - my only question to the 60 teachers I interviewed was, “Is this the grade you awarded?”

4. If this is occurring at Wilson, it must be just as bad if not worse at other schools!5. When one realizes that this discovery is on top of the numbers of drop-outs and other

unearned, but legitimately awarded grades, the enormity of the school system’s failure comes into focus. This should not surprise us: it corroborates the dismal performance on standardized tests.

iii. The “iceberg” issue: The enormity of hidden tampering.8/9ths of an iceberg is hidden from view. The number of students whose achievement of mandated graduation requirements has been misrepresented is easily 8 times greater than the number of students whose grades are clumsily altered. When a student who has failed a class is on the graduation program, the teacher is likely to notice and ask if the student passed the class a second time. In a large school, however, a student who is certified for graduation without ever having taken the course will not arouse the suspicions of any teachers, because the student is assumed to have taken the course with another teacher. In addition, transfer students’ previous course completions and grades are assumed to have been properly and fairly transferred.

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“Clumsily altered” - I use this term quite intentionally. Some of the falsifications were done quite openly and quite sloppily, e.g. different typefaces on transcript masters, creation of bogus course sections listed as “Section 00,” reflecting a confidence that, if challenged, their actions would be defended. In one case, after a student and an assistant principal had failed to convince the teacher to change a failing grade, the student went to the teacher’s room and tauntingly waved her grade print-out at the teacher, saying, “See, Mr. - - changed my grade.”

Unlike altered grades, this was a hidden problem with few indicators of its existence, since access to records was limited to a handful of staff.

i. Significance of these findings for superintendent’s proposal to increase math and science graduation requirements On February 16, 2005, I testified before the Board of Education on this question to urge the superintendent and the Board to postpone the increase in math and science graduation requirements from 3.0 to 4.0 Carnegie units. I made the following points:

“The poor performance of our high school students and the practice of letting students graduate despite missing requirements have not yet been corrected. Until these practices are ended, increasing the graduation requirements will also increase the practice of altering grades and misrepresenting their status for graduation.”

“The biggest problem our students face by the time they reach high school is the low achievement levels they bring with them and the difficulty that high school teachers face of compensating for these deficiencies. Many math teachers find that they need to spend lots of time reviewing subject matter that students should have mastered before taking the Algebra I or Geometry course.”

“While it is important for the Superintendent and the Board to begin moving toward the goal of more students graduating with greater math and science competency, that goal cannot be achieved by mandating what cannot yet be achieved in all classrooms, but which will be appears good on paper, but cannot be achieved in the classroom.”

“WOODROW WILSON HS: Summary of Missing Math and Science Requirements in the Academic Records of Class of 2001 Students (n=78) and Class of 2002 Students (n=15).”

NUMBER OF CARNEGIE NUMBER OF STUDENTS NUMBER OF STUDENTSUNITS LESS THAN 3.0 MATH SCIENCE MATH SCIENCE(DCPS GRAD REQU’T) 2001 2001 2002 2002 2.5 CU or 0.5 CU SHORT 2 4 1 32.0 CU or 1.0 CU SHORT 20 8 4 51.5 CU or 1.5 CU SHORT 0 1 0 21.0 CU or 2.0 CUSHORT 5 6 1 00.5 CU or 2.5 CUSHORT 0 0 1 0 TOTAL NR OF STUDENTS 27 19 7 90.5 or MORE Carnegie Units inMath or Science Requirements

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These discoveries should act as a cautionary warning to any effort to increase graduation requirements. The extensive falsification of student records tells us that an increase in requirements will lead to an increase in tampering.

V. STUDENTS: RESPONSIBILITY and ACCOUNTABILITYA. Failure to Hold Students Accountable for Behavior and for Learning

Actor Bill Cosby caused a stir last year when he described the anti-social behavior of many students as they leave school at 3:15. His critical remarks were aimed at students’ parents. He failed to note that our schools are equally responsible for tolerating and, therefore, encouraging irresponsibility and uncivil behavior.

Teachers and parents across the city can attest to the anti-learning atmosphere that dominates many of our schools. In our junior and senior high schools, one sees students walking the halls talking on cell phones, wearing headsets, walking right past teachers and principals. In some classrooms, students will be lounging back or head on desk, headsets on.

The failure of the DCEC reports to acknowledge how poor student behavior and poor work ethic are obstacles to learning that the schools must confront is a debilitating omission.

B. How Toleration of Poor Behavior Perpetuates DisadvantagePoor kids, minority students, students who lack many of the advantages that their age-grade peers enjoy, can learn and can achieve. When these or any students are in school, the school is legally responsible for their behavior. That behavior must be consciously managed and directed toward academic achievement, a mission that requires the focused self-discipline of reading, concentration, study and reflection - and the humility of knowing that one is in school to learn from adults who know more about their subjects.

A poorly run school is one where the administration openly tolerates behavior and deportment that is immature, crude and inimical to academic achievement. When school administrations allow immature students the freedom to choose between behavior focused on the school’s academic goals and behavior modeled on the natural, to-be-expected, anti-authority tendencies promoted by current adolescent youth culture, it has abdicated its responsibility to those very students who are most in need of guidance and direction.

When that occurs, as it does in many of our schools, only those students who have self-discipline and maturity to overcome the powerful pull of peer pressure are able to take advantage of the school’s quality academic offerings. That is how our schools perpetuate socio-economic status.

All current reforms will achieve very little, if students from K to 12 are not held accountable for their behavior in school.

C. The KIPP Academy Model: Success Begins with Clear and Consistently Enforced Rules of Student Behavior The following two articles by WPost reporter Jay Mathews describe a key ingredient in the success of the KIPP Academy, which works with the children DCPS is responsible for serving.

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The KIPP student behavior policy describes how student behavior is part of the school’s, i.e. teachers’ and principal’s, responsibilities. Because there is a clear understanding of the meaning of responsibility and accountability, there is no ambiguous talk about stakeholders and the community. It understands that:1. responsibility for one’s behavior is individual and personal;2. schools can instill this responsibility in students.

"KIPP DC: Lessons on Paying Attention, Proper Behavior" by Jay Mathewshttp://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A48960-2003Aug12?language=printer 

 See also:  "School of Hard Choices [KIPP]: It's Motivation" by Jay Mathewshttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27438-2004Aug23.html

 It would be a mistake to dismiss KIPP’s success as attainable only by a non-public school. The question DCPS leadership should ask is, “How much of this model can we replicate?”

D. Why are so many DCPS schools poorly administered?The answer is the same as the answer to any question about personal responsibility: why doesn’t someone do his or her job? The answer starts with an understanding of the relationship between Responsibility and Accountability, which were discussed earlier.

In DCPS management practice, each school is like an autonomous state in a confederation. Each school functions with minimal oversight. Principals are more like mini-superintendents or feudal lords, free to interpret their roles as they wish. In short, a school is poorly run, when a principal chooses to enforce rules only randomly, because she or he knows that she or he is, for all intents and purposes, accountable to no one.

A major difference between Montgomery County Schools and DCPS is the nature of supervisory relationships. Regional superintendents actually show up and monitor local school management. Within each school, there is a culture of performance. At each level, employees know their jobs and are expected to do them.

Within DCPS, employees at all levels are allowed to redefine their job descriptions - usually downward - at the same time as their sense of privilege and job ownership increases. This is, in large part, the result of advancement and promotion on the basis of ties to personal networks, not documented performance. The personal and collusive nature of these relationships undermines the authority of a supervisor, e.g. associate superintendent, to hold a subordinate, e.g. school principal, accountable.

E. Skewed Staffing and Misuse of Staff - DCPS NEEDS TO POST SCHOOL STAFFING DATA1. Proliferation of high school academies

The proliferation of high school academies and magnet programs has resulted in bloated local school administrations. Some high schools have as many as 10 positions set aside for administrators and directorships (all in higher paying slots). Since directors are exempted from

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supervisory and discipline duties, teachers do not report commensurate improvements in the atmosphere of their schools. Nor have they led to improved SAT9 test results.

Under the Weighted Student Formula for SY 2005-2006, local school expenses are:a. Teachers - $67,038b. Academy/Sp Ed Coordinators (i.e. Directors) - $79,837

Difference - - - - - - - - $12,799

2. Comparison to Montgomery County, MDIn the adjoining Montgomery County School system, directors of athletics, magnet programs, IB academies, etc. are all paid at the same rate as teachers. There aren’t as many higher-salaried positions. For Montgomery County school information, see: http://www.mcps.k12.md.us/departments/regulatoryaccountability/glance/currentyear/secondary.shtm#hs

In Montgomery County, much of the work that DCPS coordinators and directors do, is done by secretaries and other clerical support staff.

F. Student Responsibility and AccountabilityThe DC Municipal Regulations directly and clearly address student behavior in Title 5, Chapter 25, “Student Discipline.” They describe behaviors a student may not exhibit. In Chapter 22, promotion and graduation requirements are described, but only as a legal obligation of the principal to certify only those students who have met the requirements.

Thus, common sense and the DCMR share an understanding of school and learning that we all know, but which is honored mostly in the breech: Teaching and learning require order and proper student behavior. In other words, although the DCMR does not prescribe a student’s “responsibility to learn,” implicit in the behavior prohibitions of chapter 25 is a fundamental presumption that an orderly and disturbance-free environment is an indispensable prerequisite for learning.

1. What are the rules?The Superintendent and the Board need to review DCMR Title 5; chapter 25 and decidea. Who is in charge - adults or immature adolescents and children?b. Are these prohibitions meant to be prohibited or are they just for show?c. If the rules are not meant to be enforced, they should be rescinded.d. If the Board and the superintendent want principals to encourage students to bring cell

phones to school and wear head sets, so they can be in a world of self-gratification instead of being in school, then those prohibitions should be removed from the DCMR.

2. Students redefine the rules: Cell phones and walkmen/headsetsThey are status symbols and adolescent challenges to authority. Cells and headsets announce to all around: “I’m not really here; I have something more important to do.”Headsets are anti-academic in the most profound way. Teachers report that students will arrive for class with their electronic gear, but no textbook, notebook or writing implement.

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Classroom learning requires the discipline to focus on and actively engage the written word and follow a story or narrative line. A learning-focused mind-set begins on the way to school as well as on the way to class. How can a student be mentally prepared for a class when he or she is listening to music and lyrics specifically aimed at captivating and transporting both mind and body and moving them into another reality?

Headsets & walkmen encourage passive listening to a message; they act counter to the active engagement that learning requires.

3. Improved student achievement requires schools that are focused on learning, not on students’ individuality: there is a difference!a. There is much talk of equity in the DCEC documents.

Equity begins with students knowing that they are responsible for taking advantage of the learning opportunities presented to them.

b. A school abuses equity when it defends anti-academic or anti-learning behavior, which is typically - and almost by definition - behavior that those most in need of basic structure gravitate toward - because it’s “fun” and “easier” and “exciting.”

4. Dress code: Learning attire vs. socializing attireOur schools NEED a dress code as part of an overall discipline plan. By itself, a dress code will, at most, reduce locker break-ins and clothing theft. When part of the overall definition of a school’s atmosphere, it contributes to improved learning by lessening distractions.

5. What college professors tell us about student attitudesThe following survey was conducted among professors in the Nevada state college and community college systems, who teach remedial students. Thirty-eight percent of recent high school graduates who enter Nevada colleges and community colleges require remedial help (1998 data). The survey asked several questions. The one most relevant here is:“What student characteristics are essential for college success?”The major finding was:

“A solid foundation in basic skills is important, but so are good study habits and a willingness to make a concerted effort.”(“Wasting Time and Money: Why so many Nevada students are not ready for college.”By Richard Phelps, William L. Brown, John E. Stone for the Education Consumers Consultants Network [ http://www.npri.org/mgraphs/wasting.pdf ], 2003.

DCPS policy makers should examine this entire study. Their finding corroborates the problems we see in our secondary schools: students do not take responsibility for learning and mastering subject area knowledge.

G. Good Intentions that Undermine Student Responsibility for LearningAs with standards of behavior, students’ attitudes toward learning are strongly influenced by the way knowledge is presented and the level of concentration students can be expected to do. Calculators, computers and the internet literally put a world of knowledge at one’s fingertips, but knowledge at

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one’s fingertips is not mastery. When a student attempts to hand in a print-out from a website, but doesn’t bother to read or master the information it contains, beyond the manipulation of keyboard buttons, the student has not learned much..

1. The Message of Calculators and Computers: “You’re not responsible for learning.”a. Computers and the internet need to be seen as tools, not ends in themselves.

In too many computer labs, students are simply playing. As with most learning activities, students need to be directly supervised when using computers as part of class activities.

b. Calculators are the enemy of mathematics and arithmetic fluency.In countries that perform at the top of international mathematics tests (TIMSS), e.g. Singapore, Korea, students do not use calculators until the middle grades. The same is true of successful schools in the U.S., such as Bennett-Kew ES in the Inglewood Unified School District of Los Angeles (see David Klein’s “High Achievement in Mathematics: Lessons from Three Los Angeles Elementary Schools,” August 2000; https://www.brookings.edu/gs/brown/bc_report/2000/2000report.htm ). INSTEAD, they learn the basic algorithms with the fluency of automaticity, which then enables them to tackle higher levels of math from a firm footing.

c. Calculators convey a debilitating message to students: “You are not responsible for the extra work it takes to learn to a level of fluency.” It is the height of absurdity to see students using calculators to take the SAT9 test.

d. Automaticity is explained in an essay by E.D. Hirsch, “You Can Always Look It Up … Or Can You?” (American Educator, Spring 2000; http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/spring2000/LookItUpSpring2000.pdf)

2. The Meaning of “interesting” and “fun”?

While teachers should always strive to make lessons engaging, DCPS should not hold up the image of the super-engaged and charismatic teacher as the model of successful teaching, because that is an unattainable goal. Most important of all, students need to know that they are responsible for learning even when the subject matter is “boring” or “not interesting.”

“Interesting” and “fun” should not be defended as standards for evaluating teachers, because they are the standards of video games, socializing, etc., not learning.

H. The Responsibility of Parents1. What is the purpose of greater parental rights?

DCPS parents have historically played an important role in pressuring many of our schools to perform at the level that one expects a school to perform. Yet, many DCEC reports focus on the school system’s obligation to the parents rather than the parents’ obligations to support the schools’ teaching mission by ensuring that their children behave and do their assignments.

2. How a School Can Empower Parents to Support the School’s Educational Mission:Parental Responsibility - the DC KIPP Academy In his Washington Post review (March 29, 2005) of Richard Rothstein’s chapter on the KIPP Academy in the forthcoming book, "The Charter School Dust-Up: Examining the Evidence on

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Enrollment and Achievement" (co-authored with Martin Carnoy, Rebecca Jacobsen and Lawrence Mishel), Jay Mathews describes how “KIPP … makes parents better by giving them something to do [without] putting so heavy a burden on them that they might collapse under the strain.”

In response to criticism that the performance of KIPP students is the result of “recruit[ing] students with the most motivated parents,” Mathews writes,

“This seems wrong to me. Those students had those same great parents when they were getting much lower scores back at their regular schools. Their progress would almost certainly deteriorate if all the KIPP schools closed tomorrow and they had to return to low standards and disorganized teaching at their neighborhood schools, no matter how conscientious their parents were.

”KIPP, I think, makes parents better by giving them something to do, and yet does not put so heavy a burden on them that they might collapse under the strain. In the KIPP system, students who do not complete their homework in time for class the next day are in as big trouble as I would be if I did not send my stories to my editors before The Post was distributed the next morning. The parents don't have to correct or explain the homework. If students have questions, they are told to call their teachers, whose cell phone numbers they have. All the parents have to do is make sure their child had completed the homework, and sign the paper to demonstrate that they have looked at it. If they don't do that, their child is disciplined -- usually made to sit in a corner of the classroom -- and the parents are asked to come to school to discuss it. Their only other important duty is to get their child to school each day, which in most big cities can be done by making sure they catch the right bus”(emphasis added).

Mathews concludes with the obvious lesson for DCPS that the school can play an active role in motivating parents to support a rigorous and demanding educational program for their children.

“The point is, if we can't get the less motivated parents to come to KIPP, isn't it time to consider bringing KIPP, or programs like KIPP, to them? If their neighborhood school challenges their children in the same way, and requires all parents at least sign the homework, they are going to have much more difficulty keeping their kids from getting the good education they deserve.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A9576-2005Mar29?language=printer

In other words, a child’s socio-economic background is not his destiny - nor are the parents of these children powerless to support the school’s educational mission.

3. How parents undermine the school’s mission: cell phonesWhen students don’t do assigned homework, when they show up for class with their cell phones and headsets, but no paper or pen, their and their parents’ responsibilities must be addressed. How many parents give their children cell phones, but don’t check on their use - how often messages are sent and received during class time?According to a March 30, 2005 NY Post article, “OMG, A TEXT MESS,” “kids spend more time in high school sending text messages than reading textbooks, a New Jersey father discovered to his horror — after his 16-year-old daughter rang up a whopping $1,058 cellphone bill.” www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/43509.htm

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VI. FIXING ACCOUNTABILITY MEANS ENFORCING RESPONSIBILITY - AT ALL LEVELS

A. What does an accountable school system look like?1. It promotes a school culture defined by its mission: the transmission of knowledge.

This is the only school culture that works for our students. As W.E.B. DuBois explained it:"[T]he school has again but one way, and that is, first and last, to teach them to read, write and count. And if the school fails to do that, and tries beyond that to do something for which a school is not adapted, it not only fails in its own function, but it fails in all other attempted functions. Because no school as such can organize industry, or settle the matter of wages and income, can found homes or furnish parents, can establish justice or make a civilized world."

- DuBois, W.E.B. "Curriculum Revision" (addess to the Georgia State [i.e. Colored] Teacher's Convention, April 12, 1935) in DuBois Papers, Park Johnson Archives, Fisk University; quoted in King, Kenneth James, Pan-Africanism and Education in the Southern States and East Africa. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 257.

2. An accountable school system is not a perfect school system, but one that quickly acknowledges problems and moves to correct themAn accountable school system is still a school system that has problems - problems that occur and recur at all levels. It sets realistic goals for improving achievement that challenge teachers, students and administrators, but do not overwhelm them. It institutes, promotes and nurtures mechanisms that emphasize the correction rather than the concealment of obstacles to improvement.

An accountable system avoids the pretense that some employees, be they teachers, principals, academic specialists or top executives, by virtue of their positions do not need to be held accountable. There are no privileged positions.

3. In an accountable school system - at all levels - policy decisions are based on documented evidence of success, not anecdotes, “emerging understandings,” “promising practices,” etc. Since the world of education is particularly vulnerable to fads that play on the hopes and fears and emotions parents and teachers, all reports, proposals and policy reviews must be fully documented. Fully documented means that those submitting proposals or reports should expect to explain what each source cited says. If my 11th grade history students can do this, it isn’t too much to expect of college trained professionals.

4. Teacher and Parent Access to Superintendent, Assistant Superintendents, Board membersTeachers and parents must have regular avenues of direct access to the superintendent. Very few will rely on the hierarchy, because they do not trust it to transmit concerns without retribution.

5. In an accountable school system, in loco parentis means adults are in charge.Learning through the written word requires focused concentration. This, in turn, requires a quiet environment free from disruptive stimuli. Reading, studying, concentration on abstract concepts (math, history, literature, science, etc.) are NOT “natural” human activities that our brains are genetically wired to do “naturally.” These skills are all products of social nurturing, training and

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discipline. Like any skill, they require constant support and reinforcement. Why? Because they are not natural! They are also, quite often, not “fun.”

Our schools do not have the power to directly change how parents raise and monitor their children, but when they are in school, in loco parentis, the school administration is responsible for enforcing rules of behavior that are conducive to learning. These rules of behavior are so important to the atmosphere and culture of a school that they constitute an entire chapter of DCMR Title 5: chapter 25 “Student Discipline.” These rules are written as prohibitions and they are specific.

B. Specific Recommendations To Establish Accountability: TRANSPARENCY1. Transparency of Student Academic Records Within the Limits of Confidentiality

Students’ grades, transcripts and other academic records that contain the record of students’ achievements are the basis for promotion, graduation, college acceptance, etc. In the world of education, they are the “coin of the realm” and its paper currency. When they are debased or counterfeited, everyone who relies on their value is hurt. Since grades and numbers of students graduating from a school reflect on a school, its principal and staff, the handling of records by the principal (as custodian of records) and by staff members he/she assigns behind a wall of restricted access creates the temptation to alter and misrepresent them.

Recommendation - Give Teachers Oversight Authority Over Student Academic Records - Establish Teacher Oversight Committees in All Schools that Award Graduation Credits (This is a recommendation of the “Student Records Management Review Task Force,” which was established by Supt. Vance following the revelations at Woodrow Wilson H.S. The Committee prepared a “Final Report,” dated August 2003. At the request of Interim Supt. Massie, the Task Force met four more times in December 2003 and January 2004). The summary of the recommendation reads:

The legal foundation for giving a committee of teachers oversight access to the academic records of students not on their current or previous caseloads is found in the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA; USC 1-99.30, 31, 32) & DC Municipal Regulations, Title 5; chapter 26, 2603.2, both of which include teachers as "school officials" who have a "legitimate educational interest" in the collective integrity of student academic records.  “In each school building, teachers and counselors will elect two to four teachers and one counselor to a Local School Student Academic Records Audit Committee, which will be empowered to conduct periodic reviews of student academic records* in order to ensure that all course, grade and credit information and the use of that information in certifying students for graduation are in compliance with applicable statutes, municipal regulations, Board-Union Agreement, DCPS directives and published local school policies.”

(* - not including health or discipline records)

2. Mandatory annual audit and posting of all school bank accounts (Student Activity Fund) and principals’ discretionary funds, including those made available by the school PTSA and other donor groups.This should be mandatory every year.Rumors of privileged use and misuse of school funds breeds suspicion and poisons morale.

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3. Mandatory posting in every school (already required, but not complied with) of the DC Whistleblower Reinforcement Act of 1998 (DC Code 1 - 615.51 et ff.), which describes employees’ rights and obligations to report violations of statutes and regulations. (NB: The law requires “…the inclusion of annual notices of employee protections and obligations … with employee tax reporting documents.”)

4. Posting to the DCPS website of all contracts, their details and the adjustments, extensions, distribution of contract benefits AND supporting, ANNOTATED documentation of its efficacy or success.

5. Posting to the DCPS website of the “Independent Accountants’ Report on Applying Agreed-Upon Procedures Regarding Student Records at Sixteen High Schools/Sites” by Gardiner Kamya & Associates, PC (March 30, 2003; September 22, 2003).This report is presently available at www.dcpswatch.com/dcps/030922b.htm.

6. Compile and post on the DCPS website and in a binder or binders available in each school, all applicable a. statutes, both federal and DC;b. Title 5 DCMR: all chapters;c. all superintendent’s and other directives currently in force;d. charts showing the DCPS hierarchy and all names, emails and phone numbers of all

officers and staff in these positions.

VII. Avoiding The False Friends of AccountabilityA. Ambiguous Language

1. “Expectations of …”Terms, such as “Low Expectations” sound like accountability language, but aren’t. It is a subjective term that cannot be quantified. It is also moralistic and judgmental. It does not tell us if the student’s teacher worked with the student or whether the student’s behavior was an issue. In fact, it is shotgun language that blames all who have had contact with the student regardless of their role.

2. “Stakeholder” - as explained above, this is a metaphor, not a legal description of actual responsibility. As such, it creates confusion over responsibility.

B. Formulaic Accountability and Reform Models: Caveat EmptorNothing will substitute for good standards and curricula, aligned textbooks, teachers who know their subject matter and enjoy the challenge of teaching.

DCPS will not be reformed by imposing a “cookie-cutter” model on the schools. Many of these “reform models” are elaborate consultancy contracts. They also have results that are mixed at best. If any models are being proposed, the superintendent and the Board should require evidence of their performance and post it and relevant links on the DCPS website.

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With the new standards of learning that DCPS is putting in place, training should focus on learning how to implement them.

C. Consensus: Serving the School’s Mission or Group Comfort?At every level of DCPS, from local schools to the Board of Education - and within the DCEC - there is a belief that consensus is the ideal decision-making process. It rarely is. More often than not, consensus serves to avoid difficult questions or to quash dissent. In an extensively dysfunctional school system, consensus at any price provides a democratic veneer for such avoidance. Now go back go p. 6 and reread the account of the lost fleet and the decision that was made by consensus - the author’s term! What course of action was excluded by consensus?

D. “All Children Will Learn” “All Children Can Learn”These sweeping promises should be avoided. When the achievement of impossible goals is promised, teachers are demoralized. An impossible to achieve goal is the same as no goal at all. It is our goal to teach so that all children will achieve. We can guarantee steady improvement, if all teaching and learning factors are in place.

VIII. ADDENDUM A: Statutory Protection of the Integrity of School RecordsRECOMMENDATION: The DCEC recommends that the superintendent and the Board of Education request that the Council of the District of Columbia enact legislation similar to the following three Maine statutes to protect student records against their alteration or misrepresentation. The DC Code does not have prohibitions against document tampering.A. Grades Final

Statutory prohibitions with criminal penalties against altering teachers' grades can reinforce union contract provisions. A Maine statute is an example: http://janus.state.me.us/legis/statutes/20-A/title20-Asec4708.html

Title 20-A:   EDUCATION   Part 3: ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION    Chapter 207-A:   INSTRUCTION       Subchapter 1: GENERAL REQUIREMENTS        §4708. Grades final

    When grades are given for any course of instruction offered by a school, the grade awarded to a student is the grade determined by the teacher of the course and the determination of a student's grade by that teacher, in the absence of clerical or mechanical mistake, fraud, bad faith or incompetence, is final.  [1991, c. 248 (new).]

B. Tampering (altering) a public record

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http://janus.state.me.us/legis/statutes/17-a/title17-Asec456.html

Title 17-A:   MAINE CRIMINAL CODE   Part 2: SUBSTANTIVE OFFENSES    Chapter 19:   FALSIFICATION IN OFFICIAL MATTERS       §456. Tampering with public records or information

     1. A person is guilty of tampering with public records or information if he:

    A. Knowingly makes a false entry in, or false alteration of any record, document or thing belonging to, or received or kept by the government, or required by law to be kept by others for the information of the government; or  [1975, c. 499, § 1 (new).]

    B. Presents or uses any record, document or thing knowing it to be false, and with intent that it be taken as a genuine part of information or records referred to in subsection 1, paragraph A; or  [1975, c. 499, § 1 (new).]

    C. Intentionally destroys, conceals, removes or otherwise impairs the verity or availability of any such record, document or thing, knowing that he lacks authority to do so.  [1975, c. 499, § 1 (new).] [1975, c. 499, § 1 (new).]

     2. Tampering with public records or information is a Class D crime. [1975, c. 499, § 1 (new).]

C. Enters False Information or Misrepresents the Factual Contents of an Official Documenthttp://janus.state.me.us/legis/statutes/17-a/title17-asec453.html

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Title 17-A:   MAINE CRIMINAL CODE   Part 2: SUBSTANTIVE OFFENSES    Chapter 19:   FALSIFICATION IN OFFICIAL MATTERS       §453. Unsworn falsification

     1. A person is guilty of unsworn falsification if:

    A. He makes a written false statement which he does not believe to be true, on or pursuant to, a form conspicuously bearing notification authorized by statute or regulation to the effect that false statements made therein are punishable;  [1981, c. 317, § 16 (amd).]

   

B. With the intent to deceive a public servant in the performance of his official duties, he  

 (1) makes any written false statement which he does not believe to be true, provided, however, that this subsection does not apply in the case of a written false statement made to a law enforcement officer by a person then in official custody and suspected of having committed a crime, except as provided in paragraph C; or

  (2) knowingly creates, or attempts to create, a false impression in a written application for any pecuniary or other benefit by omitting information necessary to prevent statements therein from being misleading; or

  (3) submits or invites reliance on any sample, specimen, map, boundary mark or other object which he knows to be false; or

[1981, c. 317, § § 17, 18 (amd).]

     2. Unsworn falsification is a Class D crime. [1975, c. 499, § 1 (new).]

IX.ADDENDUM B. WILSON H.S. STUDENTS WHO GRADUATED IN JUNE 2001 AND THOSE SCHEDULED TO GRADUATE IN JUNE 2002 WITHOUT HAVING MET ALL REQUIREMENTS MANDATED BY THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BOARD OF EDUCATION.- Erich Martel, June 9, 2002

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VIOLATIONS TALLY Caveat: When I began checking the grades of a few of my students last September, I was not planning to do a statistical survey, because I had no idea how extensive the violations of Board of Education graduation requirements and the WTU contract would be. Since I followed teacher tips and patterns suggesting violations, one cannot take the figures below as fully representative of the entire class of 2001. On the other hand, many were discovered randomly, implying that there are more cases of violations than those already confirmed. On May 10th, the principal terminated my read-only access to the database and hard-copy transcripts.

STATISTICAL BREAKDOWN OF THE CLASS OF 2001 GRADUATES# of RECORDS # of CONFIRMED GRAD VIOL’NS as

GRAD YR # of GRADS REVIEWED VIOLATIONS % of RECS REV’D2001 387 175-200 77(+1*) 38.5% - 44%2002 400** 75-100*** 15**** 15% - 20%

* One grade change did not affect graduation status.** As of May 21ST, there was still no official graduation list. *** Class of 2002 numbers are too small to yield statistics; some students may have been enrolled in night

school to make up missing grad requirements. In some cases, College Bureau files were missing.**** The actual numbers are much greater; teachers reported seeing other students who had failed graduate.

VIOLATION GRAD YEAR # of STUDENTS # of GRADES1. Unauthorized Grade Changes 2001 7 12

(Confirmed by Teachers)***** 2002 5 6

2. Courses Never Taken at WHS that 2001 8 11Appear on WHS Transcript/Files 2002 4 11

3. Courses Not on Previous School’s 2001 7 24Transcript, But Attributed To it on 2002 2 4WHS Transcript/Files

4. Repeat Credit for Same Course 2001 31 492002 3 4

5. Credit Inflation for a WHS Course 2001 13 15(mostly from 0.5 to 1.0 Carn. units) 2002 4 4

6. Credit Inflation for Courses from 2001 6 26Previous School 2002 2 13

7. Prohibited “Independent Studies” 2001 6 6Classes 2002 16 17

8. Insufficient Credit/Carnegie unit 2001 77total (23.5 needed for graduation) 2002 25 (including 12 seniors in an “indep.

studies” World Geography class)***** Grade changes unconfirmed 2001 5 students 12 grade changes

by teachers (most are no longer 2002 4 students 4 grade changes at Wilson H.S.)

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