B2


S


KLMNO EDUCATION JAY MATHEWS


Gray should keep Bedford team in place


Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee ran the D.C. schools, it should quickly become apparent that they should keep their hands off one of Rhee’s smartest moves — handing management of Coolidge and Dunbar high schools to a sharp team of educators from New York. Lost in all the primary election skirmishing over teacher dismissals and conflicting test score data was this encouraging statistic: Under the Friends of Bedford group, in just its first year here, the portion of students testing proficient or advanced in reading went from 38 to 53.6 percent at Coolidge and from 18.2 to 31.9 percent at Dunbar. No other high school in the city came close to making such gains in a subject in which improvement here has been rare. The three Bedford partners I


A


discussed this with at their office at Dunbar are a wily bunch. Their leader, George Leonard, has known his partners, Niaka (pronounced Na-KEE-ya) Gaston and Bevon Thompson, since they were his star biology students at Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn. They usually refrain from comment on the bizarre twists of D.C. politics. They compliment Rhee for what she has done for them and the school system but say they expect the Gray team will give them similar backing. “Our body of work should be good for something,” Leonard said. They acknowledge that the D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System tests that made their language arts program look so good were given to only 110 students at Coolidge and 141 students at Dunbar, because only 10th-graders take the DC-CAS in high school. Still, those students came from the same disadvantaged homes as sophomores at most of the other schools and did much better. The Bedford team junked a block schedule that confused students and teachers, installed classroom walls to end Dunbar’s hideous open-space design, provided intensive volunteer tutoring after school and worked hard to make sure students took advantage of it. The team hired and trained teachers carefully. It sought the safe and orderly school environment that brought success to the small public Bedford Academy, the school it created in Brooklyn that initially caught Rhee’s eye. Not everything worked. A small school-within-a-school at Dunbar for dropouts and frequent absentees failed to get the results Leonard wanted, so he brought those students back into the main student body. An unexpected change in the school system’s security company slowed efforts to end wandering in the halls during classes, a scourge of urban high school culture. The team is working on that and


says order has improved. Getting students back to class after lunch is still a struggle. “If you say you are going to clear those halls every day, that means every period,” Gaston said. Otherwise, they “go right back to the way they were.” Teacher problems such as broken locks on classroom doors are fixed immediately. When D.C. officials asked the group what it expected in terms of student suspensions during its first months, the Bedford partners saw shocked looks when they said suspensions would go up if order was to be restored. They made several changes in the way math was taught after the DC-CAS results showed proficiency at Dunbar dropping from 24.4 to 23.8 percent and increasing only from 43 to 48.2 percent at Coolidge. Leonard has installed himself as principal at Dunbar this year. It is not going to be easy to maintain the momentum, but he says he thinks his teachers and students trust him more. He hopes the same will be true of the new Gray administration.


For more Jay, go to washingtonpost.com/ class-struggle.


THE DAILY QUIZ


How many pairs of tickets will be given away to the screening of Freakonomics?


(Hint: check the Events & Contests section of the PostPoints website.)


EARN 5 POINTS: Find the answer, then go to washingtonpost.com/postpoints and click on “Quizzes” to enter the correct response.


s prospective mayor Vincent C. Gray’s education advisers begin to discuss changes in the way


MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2010


XIAOMEI CHEN/THE WASHINGTON POST Onelio Mencho-Aguilar, who left Guatemala for the United States at 13, studies for a driving test while riding to the Department of Motor Vehicles in Alexandria. Young Guatemalan immigrant overcomes big odds student from B1


creating personalized academic plans for each student. Experts say that even one personal


connection — to a teacher, a counselor, a janitor — can help a student stay in school. Such ties proved to be crucial for Mencho-Aguilar. The teenager’s father left his family in


a rural village outside the city of Quet- zaltenango when the boy was 4. His mother struggled to raise four young children by working in corn and potato fields and weaving huipiles, traditional Mayan dresses, to sell. At 12, he left school to help her. At 13, he made the month-long trek to the Unit- ed States. In Los Angeles, he was hired on a construction crew. He pulled his base- ball cap low each day to shade his face, but his youth eventually betrayed him. He lost his job. For three days, he slept in parks and wandered the huge city, not knowing where to go. A Mexican woman saw him crying at a bus shelter. She took him in, helped him get in touch with a relative in Maryland and arranged a ride for him with an acquaintance who was driving a tractor-trailer across the country. In Washington, he reconnected unex-


pectedly with his father. He moved in with him and looked for work in restau- rants, but no one would hire him. So instead, he became a freshman in 2006, first at Washington-Lee High School in Arlington County, where his fa- ther had rented an apartment, and later at T.C. Williams in Alexandria, where the two of them were living with his father’s girlfriend. At first, Mencho-Aguilar understood


little of the language spoken around him. Even Spanish translations were confus- ing because he grew up speaking a Ma- yan language called Mam. He stayed af- ter school for extra help and brought home children’s books to practice read- ing. In school, he was uninterested in mak- ing friends. The isolation proved helpful in some ways: He learned to shrug when classmates teased him for his earnest questions or the blue T-shirt he always


an alternative house for at-risk teens in Fairfax County. Every day, his mind hummed with fears that he could be de- ported.


But a juvenile court judge ruled in fall 2008 that he should enter foster care. And the next summer, the judge decided he should remain in foster care because he had no safe home in the United States or Guatemala. After a short stay with a family in Ash- burn, he moved in with an older woman in Alexandria and became part of her ex- tended family, complete with hugs and noisy Sunday dinners. “They called me ‘son,’ ” he said.


TRACY A. WOODWARD/THE WASHINGTON POST


Mencho-Aguilar talks with fellow students Patrick Ring, in back, and Sindy Leguia after their English class at Northern Virginia Community College.


wore. He wasn’t distracted by alcohol or drugs. “I just wanted to study,” he said. As his English improved, he found a


job at a sandwich shop in Tysons Corner. He made the hour-long commute on the bus after school, often not returning home until 1 a.m., then spending another hour or more finishing homework. He was tired but satisfied. “I felt independ- ent,” he said. His father suggested that he leave school once he had a steady paycheck, but he resisted. He was earning praise from teachers and getting better grades than classmates who spoke better Eng- lish. The summer before his junior year,


Mencho-Aguilar went to a hospital emer- gency room with intense stomach pains. His father, who had lost his construction job, spent the next few weeks taking care of him while he recovered from appendi- citis. Then his father said goodbye and returned to Guatemala. Still weak, Mencho-Aguilar could not work, and with only the $300 his father


The Answer Sheet VALERIE STRAUSS Blogging at washingtonpost.com/answersheet D.C. Schools Chancellor


Michelle A. Rhee used the occasion of the D.C. premiere of the “Waiting for Superman” documentary, which portrays her as the educational Joan of Arc, to blast D.C. voters for rejecting her style of school reform. In front of a star-studded audience — Washington stars, that is: legislators, government policy makers, journalists, political movers and shakers — Rhee trashed the majority view


POINTS EVENTS Get Half-Price Admission to


the Capital Home Show! PostPoints members get half-price tickets to The Capital Home Show, coming to Dulles Expo Center this weekend, September 24-26. Speak with over 500 experts and shop, compare, and save on all of your home improvement projects! Here’s how to get your discount: Log in to washingtonpost.com/postpoints, click on Events & Contests, and note the special promotion code. Then use the code when purchasing your tickets at CapitalHomeShow.com.


of the electorate, which tossed out her patron, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty. Disagreeing with the vote is one thing; accusing voters of doing something stupid is something else. “Let me not mince words,


and say that yesterday’s election results were devastating — devastating. Not for me, because I’ll be fine. And not even for Fenty, because he’ll be fine, too. It was devastating for the children of Washington, D.C.”


She clarified her remarks in


a letter to The Washington Post, saying: “If the results were to be read as a repudiation of reform, that indeed would be devastating for D.C. children, for the city and for children throughout the country who are so dependent on successful school reform efforts.”


But her words made it clear


that she intends to leave her job. The only question is when. The problem is that she


POINTS & REWARDS Ethan Allen


Long Windows


had left him, he could not pay for medi- cation, food or rent in the apartment he shared with six people. He went to school each day with a growing sense of panic. A teacher no- ticed his missing homework assign- ments and withdrawn expression and asked what was wrong. She sent him to talk to Guadalupe Silva-Krause, a Span- ish-speaking parent liaison. Eventually, Mencho-Aguilar opened up to Silva-Krause, and then to the school social worker and school nurse, describing a history of troubles in his home town, his journey from Guatemala, his father’s abrupt departure. Those con- versations were a turning point. He was referred to a counselor and was prescribed antidepressants when he was feeling close to despair. He met with social workers from Alexandria and Fair- fax County, who set about finding a more secure place for him to live. A distant relative agreed to let him sleep for two weeks on the couch in a cramped apartment. Then he moved into


With a stable home for the first time, he poured energy into school and went into his senior year determined to catch up on credits and graduate. New ambi- tions grew in the place of doubt and fear, and he started to think about a career in medicine, engineering or counseling. He took a hefty course load: biology, chem- istry, advanced algebra, government, U.S. history and English. He also took English classes at night. He applied to two colleges that fall. He also applied to become a permanent le- gal resident, and this month he received his green card. He excelled with the support of teach- ers and staff. His social worker, Terry Wright, offered him steady advice from her years in foster care. School nurse Nancy Runton, or “Miss Nancy,” made sure he had groceries and gifts to open on his birthday. Occasionally, a teacher or administrator would slip him a $20 bill before the weekend. Since graduation, he has returned of- ten to visit. He talks of how much he wants to repay those who helped him. Wright tells him that the best way to say thanks is to give back to his community, so he does. He teaches Sunday school and tutors younger students, and in Au- gust he translated for Spanish-speaking parents at a back-to-school night in Alex- andria. When he meets students in stressful situations, he brings them to Wright. “I have everything that I wasn’t expect- ing to have,” he said.


chandlerm@washpost.com


spoke to an audience that watched a one-sided film that adores public charter schools and demonizes traditional public schools, which still and always will educate most of the country’s kids. The audience was packed with people who affect millions of kids, teachers and parents by passing laws, advising the president, shaping public opinion. And those people gave her an ovation. Ignored was the fact that there is little scientific basis for her reforms and some evidence to suggest that some of her key initiatives, such as tying teacher pay to standardized test scores, is counterproductive. Ignored was the fact that the


film’s assault on teachers unions is unfair; even Education Secretary Arne Duncan, a true believer in Rhee, has said that it is silly to blame teachers unions, pointing out that the problems exist in states that don’t have them.


Critics of Rhee’s style of


reform are often accused of preferring the status quo, but in most cases that’s just nonsense. What they want are reforms that acknowledge the many causes of school and student failure, including poverty. Let’s hope the people in the audience don’t let a


tendentious movie guide their policy making. straussv@washpost.com


A complete list of PostPoints Spots can be found at washingtonpost.com/postpoints.


See ethanallen.com for furniture that works for the way you live today.


Buy your replacement windows locally and enjoy the savings. See longwindows.com.


washingtonpost.com/postpoints


Not a PostPoints member yet? Log onto washingtonpost.com/postpoints for more information about this exciting free program.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64