D.C. students are returning to schools this year that have overwhelmingly failed new rigorous testing and are considering implementing year-long classes.
The new standardized tests, seen as both more difficult and more accurate, and the year-round scheduling proposal are demonstrative of D.C. Superintendent Clifford Janey’s progressive approach to improving the District’s public schools, Assistant to the President for D.C. Initiatives Tom Bullock said.
photo by Michael J. Bruns
Out of 146 public schools in D.C., only 28 met the standards of the newly instated D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System, The Washington Post reported on Sept. 8, a decline from previous test results.
The D.C. Public Schools Superintendent’s office did not return repeated requests for comment.
Bullock attributed the drop in scores to the difficulty of the new tests.
“It’s a harder test,” Bullock said. “The idea is that when scores do go up, the quality of the scores in the District of Columbia’s public schools will be high above that of other states.”
Janey’s proposal to make classes year-round will add twenty days to the standard 180 day calendar and will be piloted in five generally low-performing schools, according The Washington Post.
Year-round schooling is “one of the best strategies to improve education,” Bullock said.
Research has shown “that there is a direct correlation between time on task and academic outcome.”
Seth Lavin (COL ‘07), the co-founder of Georgetown Outreach for Learning and Education, an undergraduate student group dedicated to helping education outreach groups at Georgetown, said that Janey’s proposal was an indication of his popularity within the District.
“The parents and the teachers in the school district seem to be behind him. That allows him to get aggressive and make some more rigorous changes to the way education happens in the District,” Lavin said.
