DC Auditor Report on Duke Ellington
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Anonymous
Michelle Rhee poisoned the well on relocation by offering DE the wholly inappropriate Logan building at first. Nice location, 0% compatible for an arts HS. Co-location might sound good to a non-partial taxpayer type, but it would never sell to school as active as DE. "Let's leave our home of 30 years and share a space with a school we have nothing in common with! Sign me up!" |
Anonymous
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In the meantime....
2017 D.C. budget continues charter facility funding inequity Watchdog.org By Emily Leayman May 31, 2016 D.C. charter schools have not seen an increase in their $3,124 per-student facilities funding since 2008, and will have to wait yet another year for any increase. That continues a trend of annual D.C. Public School facilities funding far outpacing charter facilities funding. With charter schools educating 45 percent of the D.C. student population, school choice advocates expressed disappointment over the D.C. Council decision made earlier this month. In a May 17 vote on the fiscal year 2017 budget, the Council flat-funded the charter facilities formula, and the D.C. Public Schools’ six-year, $1.3 billion capital plan took priority. In fiscal year 2017, charter schools will receive $130 million for facilities based on enrollment projections, and DCPS schools will receive $391 million, according to the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute. That means traditional public schools, with 55 percent of the students, will get 75 percent of the money. The D.C. Council will hold a final vote on the 2017 budget Tuesday. David Grosso (I-At Large), chairman of the Council’s Education Committee, told Watchdog.org that pitting charter and DCPS facilities funding against each other is “not a fair comparison.” DCPS facilities took priority, he said, because the D.C. government made limited investments in school renovations until creation of the Public Education Master Facilities Plan in 1995. The first D.C. charter schools opened in 1996. “We have a lot of fixing to do for our failures in the past,” Grosso said. “Ultimately, I think we are doing right by the charter school facilities.” Each charter school receives per-student funding, which depends on enrollment and comes from operating dollars. According to the D.C. Public Charter School Board, additional funding would help charter schools make lease and mortgage payments without dipping into general operating funds. “We understand the challenges the Mayor and the City Council are facing this year with the City’s budget, but the decision to not increase the facilities funding creates great difficulties for DC public charter schools,” the DCPCSB said in a statement. “As charter facilities’ costs continue to rise, the funds will need to come from other sources of the public charter school’s budget.” Grosso said he wants to see a stronger commitment from Mayor Muriel Bowser to free up funding for charter facilities. Last year, the council earmarked $4 million for renovations at two charter schools, but Bowser blocked the funding to fill a $250 million gap elsewhere in the budget. A coalition of school choice advocates asked the council for a 2.2 percent increase to the funding formula and voiced their disappointment with the flat funding. The increase would have brought per-student facility funding to $3,250, which is still below the 2016 inflation-adjusted $3,439 rate. Irene Holtzman, executive director of Friends of Choice in Urban Schools (FOCUS), said in a statement that charters are receiving more based on enrollment, but that increase is not designed to fund capital projects or lease payments. While DCPS buildings are government-owned, charter schools must use the private market if they cannot obtain an old DCPS facility. Ramona Edelin, executive director of the D.C. Association of Chartered Public Schools, told Watchdog.org that charter school access to old DCPS buildings is more important than matching DCPS funding. “There are surplus buildings that are closed, that are built for children, and they are not being turned over for charter school use,” said Edelin. “FOCUS is disappointed in Council’s failure to find a small facilities funding increase for public charter schools, when the value of their funding today, adjusted for inflation, is actually worth over $300 less than it was in 2008,” Holtzman said. “With construction and borrowing costs on the rise, school leaders are in a very difficult position balancing programmatic and facilities needs.” Advocacy groups urged the council to adopt a funding index as a long-term solution. “Using an index would enable public charter schools to budget wisely and plan for the future, ultimately ensuring that the District both attracts and keeps new residents in the city while meeting the needs of current families,” Catharine Bellinger, D.C. Director of Democrats for Education Reform, told Watchdog.org. |
Anonymous
wait - you mean like at most other schools the teachers and students would have to take public transit or figure out some other plan? Wow. We wouldn't want Ellington to be like other schools. |
Anonymous
+1000000 |
Anonymous
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Turn it into a regular high school like Wilson with an ARTS focus as the side show.
Arts at DE are no better than Wilson anyway. What we really need in DC is some relief to the overcrowding at Deal and Wilson. If we have to swallow the huge cost over run then let's make the HS work for many rather than the few 500 of which only half are DC residents. |
Anonymous
As a matter of fact, they aren't. Where else have we wasted so much money on so few DC students? |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
+1. Just noticed at the school's DC profile than only 1% of students are ELL, and only 4% special ed, suggesting systematic discrimination against those groups. If some folks want to have their own little private school, why don't they pay for it? |
Anonymous
Add to the 'little private school' bucket: SWW .7 Special Ed 0 ELL Banneker 2.4% Spec Ed .7 ELL McKinley 2% Spec Ed .9% ELL |
Anonymous
As someone with one child who will be at Duke Ellington and one at Wilson, I can tell you that this is patently false. Wilson has lots of talented singers, musicians, and actors, and those productions are good, but the children largely learned their skills and continue to hone them outside of Wilson, whereas the kids at Duke Ellington have 3+ hours PER DAY to work on their skills and their productions. Also, Wilson has no literary media program to speak of (their newspaper is good primarily because kids bring the skills to the paper, not because Wilson has time to hone those skills), no dance program to speak of, and their visual arts program is completely unfunded (had to have the PTA and parents donate money for any supplies at all this year). There are many other factual errors in the many posts above, but I'll just correct this one and also the idea that the renovated building will have lots of empty space during the day. The academic day at DE in the new building will likely run from 8-2, with the arts block running from 2-5. Thus the academic won't be unused for much longer than the academic space at any other DCPS is unused (2pm vs. 3:15pm). The arts part of the building, however, will largely be unused until 2pm, and I think moving the Fillmore arts programs into that space from 8:45-2 is a fantastic idea. I can guarantee, however, that this idea will be vehemently opposed by elementary school parents who will say that their children shouldn't be exposed to high school students. These issues aside, I agree that this project is insanely expensive, the supposed costs for parking spaces clearly point to some sort of manipulation/fraud, and it seems clear that no one within city government is willing to step up and take responsibility / lay blame for the outrageous costs and the insane delays (I wonder if my child will ever even be in the new building. |
Anonymous
That's amazing. In comparison, Wilson has 12% special ed, 6% ELL. |
Anonymous
The building is only used half the day anyway, you could add another 500 kids in a general high school with thoughtful scheduling. |
Anonymous
Several folks here have claimed that many DE students are not DC residents. Is there data to verify that's the case? |
Anonymous
Se 12:42 - Ellington's day is much longer than Wilson's. The academic classrooms will be occupied from morning until 2 PM. The arts classrooms will be busy from 2-5. So yes, capacity from 8:30-1:45 in part of the building, but really only 90 minutes for the other part. |
Anonymous
Wrong. The finished building will be used from 8-5 every day. The school day is several hours longer than at the rest of DCPS. |