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Decision Letter on Request to Amend Dictrict of Columbia Accountability Plan

July 21, 2009

The Honorable Kerri L. Briggs
State Superintendent for Education
Office of the State Superintendent of Education
Government of the District of Columbia, One Judiciary Square
441 4th Street, NW, Suite 350 North
Washington, DC 20001

Dear Superintendent Briggs:

I am writing in response to the District of Columbia’s recent request to amend its state accountability plan under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA). This request followed three original amendment requests, which I approved in a letter dated June 22, 2009. Following discussions between the Department and your staff, you made a change to the District of Columbia’s accountability plan, which is now included in the amended plan that the District of Columbia submitted to the Department on June 24, 2009. I am pleased to approve the District of Columbia’s amended plan, which we will post on the Department’s website. A summary of the District of Columbia’s recently requested amendment is enclosed with this letter. As you know, any further requests to amend the District of Columbia’s accountability plan must be submitted to the Department for review and approval as required by section 1111(f)(2) of Title I of the ESEA.

Please also be aware that approval of the District of Columbia’s accountability plan for Title I, including the amendment approved herein, does not indicate that the plan complies with Federal civil rights requirements, including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and requirements under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

I am confident that the District of Columbia will continue to advance its efforts to hold schools and school districts accountable for the achievement of all students. If you need any additional assistance to implement the standards, assessment, and accountability provisions of the ESEA, please do not hesitate to contact Victoria.Hammer@ed.gov or Sue.Rigney@ed.gov of my staff.

Sincerely,

Joseph C. Conaty

Enclosure

cc: Mayor Adrian Fenty
Alexander Harris

Amendments to the District of Columbia’s Accountability Plan

The following is a summary of the District of Columbia’s amendment request. Please refer to the Department’s website http://www.ed.gov/admins/lead/account/stateplans03/index.htmlfor the District of Columbia’s complete accountability plan.

Acceptable amendments

The following amendments are aligned with the statute and regulations.

Including all schools in the state accountability system (Element 1.1)

Revision: Beginning in the 2010–11 school year, the District of Columbia will allow a district to petition to assign a consolidated school the sending school’s status regarding its identification for improvement rather than the receiving school’s status “where a clear educational purpose exists” should the sending school be further advanced in the improvement timeline than the receiving school.

Decision Letters on State Accountability Plans

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Decision Letter on Request to Amend Dictrict of Columbia Accountability Plan

June 22, 2009

The Honorable Kerri L. Briggs
State Superintendent for Education
Office of the State Superintendent of Education
Government of the District of Columbia, One Judiciary Square
441 4th Street, NW, Suite 350 North
Washington, DC 20001

Dear Superintendent Briggs:

Congratulations on your new role. We wish you the best in working on the behalf of students, teachers, and families in the District of Columbia. As you may know, the Secretary is traveling the country and listening to representatives from states and school districts, as well as other stakeholders, talk about the ways in which the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) can be improved. These conversations will inform the next reauthorization of the statute. In the meantime, we will push towards our reform goals under the authority of, and in accordance with, the existing statute and regulations.

I am writing in response to the District of Columbia’s request to amend its state accountability plan under Title I of the ESEA. Following discussions between the Department and your staff, you made changes to the District of Columbia’s accountability plan, which are now included in the amended plan that the District of Columbia submitted to the Department on May 18, 2009. I am pleased to approve the District of Columbia’s amended plan, which we will post on the Department’s website. A summary of the District of Columbia’s requested amendments is enclosed with this letter. As you know, any further requests to amend the District of Columbia’s accountability plan must be submitted to the Department for review and approval as required by section 1111(f)(2) of Title I of the ESEA.

Please also be aware that approval of the District of Columbia’s accountability plan for Title I, including the amendments approved herein, does not indicate that the plan complies with Federal civil rights requirements, including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and requirements under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

I am confident that the District of Columbia will continue to advance its efforts to hold schools and school districts accountable for the achievement of all students. If you need any additional assistance to implement the standards, assessment, and accountability provisions of the ESEA, please do not hesitate to contact Victoria.Hammer@ed.gov or Sue.Rigney@ed.gov of my staff.

Sincerely,

Joseph C. Conaty

Enclosure

cc: Mayor Adrian Fenty
Alexander Harris

Amendments to the District of Columbia’s Accountability Plan

The following is a summary of the District of Columbia’s amendment requests. Please refer to the Department’s website http://www.ed.gov/admins/lead/account/stateplans03/index.html for the District of Columbia’s complete accountability plan.

Acceptable amendments

The following amendments are aligned with the statute and regulations.

Including all schools in the state accountability system (Element 1.1)

Revision: The District of Columbia will define a “consolidated school” as one that receives students from a sending school that has merged or closed. If a consolidation results in a change of at least 40 percent of the receiving school’s population, an LEA may petition to have the school’s safe harbor targets that will be used in determining adequate yearly progress (AYP) for the next school year recalculated based on the school’s new population. In such cases, in the first year of consolidation, the school would receive the AYP determination of the receiving school. However, for the purposes of determining AYP via safe harbor for the year following the consolidation, the District of Columbia would recalculate the safe harbor targets based on the consolidated population (i.e. based on the previous year’s assessment results for all students from the sending and receiving schools that constitute the population of the consolidated school).

Revision: The District of Columbia will allow an LEA to petition for a consolidated school to be designated as a “new” school if at least 50 percent of the student population or grade spans change. If the District of Columbia approves an LEA’s petition for a consolidated school to be designated as a “new” school, the school’s accountability status will restart. If the District of Columbia does not approve the petition, the school’s AYP accountability status will be as originally determined (i.e., the status of the receiving school).

Revision: The District of Columbia clarified that eligible public school students placed in non-public schools for special education and related services will be assessed on the statewide assessment at a test site approved by the originating LEA’s assessment coordinator and under the same test security procedures. These students’ scores will be included in the AYP determinations of the LEA that placed them.

Full academic year definition (Element 2.2)

Revision: The District of Columbia amended its definition of full academic year to indicate that a student will be counted as being enrolled for a full academic year if that student is enrolled for 85 percent of the time between the fall enrollment date in October through the first day of testing in April. Further, the District of Columbia clarified that students who change schools within an LEA are included in the LEA and state proficiency calculations only, and students who change LEAs are included in state proficiency calculations only.

Graduation rate (Element 7.1)

Revision: The District of Columbia affirmed that it will use a four-year adjusted-cohort graduation rate (34 C.F.R. § 200.19(b)(1)(i)(A)) for reporting purposes in 2010–11 and in making AYP determinations in 2011–12. In the interim, the District of Columbia will continue to define its graduation rate as the total number of graduates in a given year with a regular diploma divided by the sum of graduates for that year and dropouts for that year and the three preceding years.

Please note that the District of Columbia must submit its graduation rate goal and targets for the 2009-10 school year and beyond in fall 2009 for technical assistance and peer review, as required in 34 C.F.R. § 200.19(b)(6)(i)(A).

Decision Letters on State Accountability Plans

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Decision Letter on Request to Amend Dictrict of Columbia Accountability Plan

July 28, 2008

The Honorable Deborah Gist
State Superintendent for Education
Office of the State Superintendent of Education
Government of the District of Columbia, One Judiciary Square
441 4th Street, NW, Suite 350 North
Washington, DC 20001

Dear Superintendent Gist:

I am writing in response to the District of Columbia’s request to amend its State accountability plan under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), as amended by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). Following discussions between the Department and your staff, you made certain changes to the District of Columbia’s accountability plan, which are now included in the amended state accountability plan that the District of Columbia submitted to the Department on July 24, 2008. I am pleased to fully approve the District of Columbia’s amended plan, which we will post on the Department’s website. A summary of the amendments submitted for the 2007-08 school year is enclosed with this letter. As you know, any further requests to amend the District of Columbia’s accountability plan must be submitted to the Department for review and approval as required by section 1111(f)(2) of Title I of the ESEA.

Please also be aware that approval of the District of Columbia’s accountability plan for Title I, including the amendments approved herein, does not indicate that the plan complies with Federal civil rights requirements, including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and requirements under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

I am confident that the District of Columbia will continue to advance its efforts to hold schools and school districts accountable for the achievement of all students. If you need any additional assistance to implement the standards, assessment, and accountability provisions of NCLB, please do not hesitate to contact Jessica Morffi (Jessica.Morffi@ed.gov) or Sue Rigney (Sue.Rigney@ed.gov) of my staff.

Sincerely,

Kerri L. Briggs, Ph.D.

Enclosure

cc: Mayor Adrian Fenty
Bill Caritj


Amendments to the District of Columbia’s Accountability Plan

The following is a summary of the District of Columbia’s amendment requests. Please refer to the Department’s website (www.ed.govhttps://www2.ed.gov/admins/lead/account/stateplans03/index.html) for the District of Columbia’s complete accountability plan.

Acceptable amendments

The following amendments are aligned with the statute and regulations:

Science assessments (Element 1.3)

Revision: The District of Columbia clarifies that it will administer science assessments in grades 5 and 8 and Biology.

Inclusion of limited English proficient (LEP) students (Element 5.4)

Revision: The District of Columbia clarifies that an LEP student is a linguistically and culturally diverse student with an English language proficiency level that does not allow the student to participate in the general program of the school without alternative language services. Exiting from the LEP subgroup occurs when a student attains fluency in English language proficiency as measured by achieving a proficiency level of 5.0 or above on the ACCESS for English language learners test.

Other academic indicator (Element 7.1 and 7.2)

Revision: The District of Columbia revises its targets for the other academic indicators for determining annual yearly progress (AYP) as follows:

  • For graduation rates the target is 69.9 percent. A school or district below the state average must show annual improvement of at least 1 percentage point from the previous year.
  • For attendance the target is 90 percent daily attendance. A school or district with less than 90 percent daily attendance must show annual improvement of at least 1 percentage point from the previous year.

Unacceptable amendment

The following amendment is not aligned with the statute and regulations and is therefore not approved.

Minimum group size (Element 5.5)

The Department does not approve the District of Columbia’s request to use a uniform minimum group size of 40 students for all student groups rather than the currently approved uniform minimum group size of 25 students when calculating AYP. The District of Columbia failed to provide evidence demonstrating that the approved minimum group size of 25 students does not yield valid and reliable results.

Decision Letters on State Accountability Plans

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Decision Letter on Request to Amend Dictrict of Columbia Accountability Plan

January 18, 2006

Dr. Meria Carstarphen
Chief Accountability Officer
District of Columbia Public Schools
825 North Capitol Street, N.E.
Washington, DC 20002-4232

Dear Dr. Carstarphen:

I am writing in response to the District of Columbia’s (DCPS) request to amend its State accountability plan. Thank you for the opportunity to review the proposed amendments to your plan. The information in this letter presents feedback from Department staff and reflects the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) and final U.S. Department of Education (ED) regulations.

Acceptable amendment

We have reviewed your request to amend DCPS’s accountability plan that was approved with conditions on June 3, 2003, and found the following amendment acceptable:

Delay in making adequate yearly progress (AYP) determinations: As a result of the implementation of a new assessment system in the spring of 2006 and the revision of standards in the summer of 2006, DCPS will need time to conduct the required standard setting procedures. It is anticipated that the new performance levels will be presented to the State Board of Education in early fall with AYP determinations to be made no later than October 31, 2006.

Schools that are currently identified as in need of improvement, corrective action, or restructuring will continue in the same category until the data become available, but no later than October 31, 2006. In these cases, the regulations concerning parents’ rights to transfer their child to a school not in need of improvement and to receive supplemental educational services will continue to apply. If a school did not achieve AYP for the first time in 2004-2005, the status of the school will be determined when the data become available, but no later than October 31, 2006. For example, if such a school does not achieve AYP for school year 2005-2006 (when the results become available), the school will be immediately classified as in need of improvement and required to implement the provisions of Section 1116 of ESEA, including parental notification. If a school is currently classified as in need of improvement, corrective action, or restructuring but achieved AYP in 2004-2005 and again achieves AYP in 2005-2006 (when the data become available), they will be immediately reclassified as not being “in need of improvement” as prescribed by NCLB. Again, parents will be notified of the change in status. In short, in all cases, all public schools in the District of Columbia will continue to be identified for improvement and required to implement interventions consistent with Section 1116 of ESEA. However, for 2006-2007 AYP determinations will be delayed until the results become available, but no later than October 31, 2006.

The requested change should be incorporated in the amended State accountability plan that DC is required to submit to the Department no later than March 1, 2006. Please make this acceptable change to your accountability workbook and note on the cover page the date submitted and the elements amended. Upon our satisfactory review of the workbook, the amended plan will be approved and posted to the Department’s website.

I am confident that the District of Columbia will continue to advance its efforts to hold schools and school districts accountable for the achievement of all students. I wish you well in your school improvement efforts. If you need any additional assistance in your efforts to implement the standards, assessments and accountability provisions of NCLB, please do not hesitate to contact Catherine Freeman (catherine.freeman@ed.gov) or Sue Rigney
(sue.rigney@ed.gov) of my staff. We hope this information will be useful to DCPS as it refines its accountability system to ensure that no child is left behind.

Sincerely,

Henry L. Johnson

cc: Mayor Anthony Williams

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