We're still processing all the great information from yesterday's D.C. Council Roundtable on Middle Schools. HyeSook testified and we circulated drafts of our upcoming issue brief on middle school. Bill Turque at the Post quoted from our report in this blog post yesterday: "Can D.C. keep middle schoolers from 'teetering on the ninth-grade cliff?" Thanks for the coverage, Bill!

D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown has staked out middle school reform as his turf. Today he convened a "roundtable" style public hearing to learn more about what's going wrong in the middle grades -- 6, 7 and 8 -- and what can be done to turn them around.

Last month, OSSE released the 2010-11 D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System (DC CAS) aggregate results. Scores were reported for elementary and secondary schools (as a whole) in both reading and math.

DC Action took a look at the results and our analysis is presented in this new data snapshot: D.C. Student Test Scores Show Uneven Progress. Our major takeaways are:

Yesterday, a couple of us attended an event at the Reagan Building titled “Business in Education: Avoiding a Skills Gap.” The packed auditorium was filled with leaders in business and education who had gathered to discuss the steps we need to take to ensure our children are prepared to enter a globally competitive workforce.

On Friday, DCPS announced performance ratings for employees under the IMPACT evaluation system, now two years old.

Most of the headlines have surrounded the firings of 413 employees (288 for poor performance), but little has been said about the distribution of those scores.

On Friday, in a room full of members of the education community, press and students of the Hospitality High School, the results of the District of Columbia Comprehensive Assessment System (DC CAS) were announced. The anticipation was thick, with reporters jostling to get their questions answered. DCPS teachers will be evaluated in part based on how their students scored.

Tomorrow at a morning news conference Mayor Gray will announce the DC CAS (Comprehensive Assessment System) test results for DC Public Schools and public charter schools. Every year students in grades 3-8 and 10 take the standardized CAS tests to measure their learning against D.C.'s learning standards.

Last week my coworker Aparna and I had the privilege of attending Fight for Children’s Champion of Quality awards luncheon. Fight for Children awards grants to a high school, a middle school and an elementary school each year in DC that displays high levels of quality and programs that improve student achievement. Rather than spur competition, the organization's overall goal is to help recognize and spread best practices in education so that they can benefit all children.

The good news is that Congress is finally focusing on reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Schools Act (ESEA) to boost student achievement and ensure that more go on to college. The bad news is that the administration's blueprint for rewriting the law formerly known as No Child Left Behind in fact leaves many children behind by leaving out Pre-K.