Photo courtesy of DCPS.
By DCist contributor Sam Tabachnik
Touting enrollment increases, improved teacher retention rates, and higher student satisfaction, D.C. chancellor Kaya Henderson addressed the progress of public education in the District at the third annual State of the Schools address Wednesday night at Dunbar High School.
In a conversation with longtime News4 anchor Jim Vance, Henderson said for “40 years, DCPS was in turmoil,” but that there is now a lot to be excited about concerning public schools.
Henderson cited more rigorous academic standards, including higher Advanced Placement participation and more elective course options. She also pointed to a new hands-on “Cornerstones” initiative that includes a universal second-grade bike-riding program and battery-building project for all the city’s chemistry students.
“People want instant success,” Henderson said, “but slow and steady progress wins the race.”
Henderson and Vance conversed before several hundred parents, teachers, and city officials from the gleaming auditorium of Dunbar High School, the nation’s first public school for African American students. Once the country’s preeminent black public high school, Dunbar fell into decades of decay before a $122 million renovation in 2013 helped reinvigorate the school’s historic past.
But despite recent successes, Henderson acknowledged several areas that the school system must address.
The achievement gap between white and black/Latino students “remains a concern,” the chancellor said, and the decline of African American teachers in DCPS is “important to keep an eye on.” And while the high school graduation rate jumped from 53 percent in 2011 to 64 percent in 2015—a major achievement—it is still well below the national average of 81 percent.
Henderson also took several shots at the city’s charter school movement, likening DCPS to a department store that “serves the needs of all students” while charter schools are more like boutiques, able to cater to the “niche interests” of its student body.
“An all-boutique model is not the answer,” she said, adding that the massive growth of charter schools has made it difficult for parents to make sense of the options. “The city is at a point where we need to make sense of how these two systems fit together.”
Parent Pricillia Bodger, mother of two kids in the D.C. public school system, was surprised the topic of safety wasn’t addressed during the conversation, something she is concerned about ahead of her daughter starting high school next year.
Several members of the audience said they liked the format of the event as a conversation, rather than the chancellor simply giving a more traditional speech.
Community member Olivia Chase said she is very impressed by the job Henderson is doing, saying her answers covered the whole gambit of school issues “without all the fluff.”
“She’s innovative, informed and inclusive,” Chase said. “Really phenomenal.”
