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BLENDED LEARNINGIN DC PUBLIC SCHOOLSHOW ONE DISTRICT IS REINVENTINGITS CLASSROOMSDANIEL K. LAUTZENHEISERAND TARYN HOCHLEITNERJanuary 2014CASE STUDIES IN DIGITAL LEARNINGAMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE

ForewordIt is no secret that technology has transformed justabout every aspect of our lives, from how we watchmovies and listen to music to how we interact sociallyto how we buy cars and clothes. The same cannot besaid, however, for America’s K–12 school system. Whileadvances in modern technology offer an unprecedentedset of tools to reinvent the traditional classroom, inpractice each new generation of education technologyhas failed to do so.In our book Breakthrough Leadership in the DigitalAge (Corwin, 2013), Kaplan’s Bror Saxberg and I proposea smarter way to tap education technology’s capabilitiesto transform schooling. Too often leaders andeducators have used new technologies to tinker withoutdated practices rather than establish new and betterones. Instead, school leaders ought to become “learningengineers” by identifying the challenges they wantto solve, finding solutions in relevant science, and thenexploring how technologies can enhance those solutions.As Bror and I write, when used correctly, technologycan make learning more affordable, available,reliable, customizable, and data rich.To illustrate how our ideas might play out in thefield, AEI has commissioned case studies exploring howa school and a district think about technology’s role intransforming schools. In this case study, my AEI colleaguesDaniel Lautzenheiser and Taryn Hochleitnerlook closely at District of Columbia Public Schools(DCPS) forays into the digital learning world. In particular,DCPS has chosen to experiment with blendedlearning, which combines a mix of online learningand traditional teacher-led instruction. Lautzenheiserand Hochleitner are especially keen to zero in on thefolks in the DCPS central office, the teachers, and theprincipals—those on the ground who grapple with thehard work of transforming DC classrooms. In doingso, they profile both the promising opportunities ofblending learning and some of the challenges DCPSand similar urban districts face in getting it right.Lautzenheiser and Hochleitner explain, “In DCPS,rather than directing all schools to pursue the sameblended learning model, [the district has] embraced amore organic approach, encouraging such a transitionin schools they perceive to be most willing and able todo so. . . . They seem particularly interested in usingit as an improvement strategy in traditionally underperformingschools, where the administration is willingand the culture is ripe to try something new andbold.” The paper includes profiles of three ways ofusing blended learning in three different schools: stationrotation at Randle Highlands Elementary School,the novel Teach to One math program at Hart MiddleSchool, and the use of Discovery Education’s onlinetechbooks at Anacostia High School. Despite inevitablechallenges such as technical glitches, helping teachersnavigate new tools, and insufficient hardware, theauthors conclude that “the future is bright” when itcomes to blended models in the nation’s capital.We hope this case study is helpful in thinking aboutwhat it takes to implement a thoughtful blended learningstrategy in a major urban district. I hope you will alsotake a look at the other paper in this series on Philadelphia’sWorkshop School, written by Matthew Riggan,one of the school’s founders. For further information onDaniel and Taryn’s paper, they can be reached at daniel.lautzenheiser@aei.org or taryn.hochleitner@aei.org.For additional information on AEI’s education policyprogram, please visit www.aei.org/policy/education orcontact Lauren Empson at lauren.empson@aei.org.—FREDERICK M. HESSDirector of Education Policy StudiesAmerican Enterprise Instituteii

Blended Learning in DC Public Schools:How One District Is Reinventing Its ClassroomsBy Daniel K. Lautzenheiser and Taryn HochleitnerIt is a crisp, bright day in early November in SoutheastWashington, DC. The setting is Anacostia HighSchool, a 697-student Title I school in DC’s Ward 8that has long been one of the district’s most chronicallyunderperforming schools. After giving a brief introductionto Japan’s geography and major cities, the socialstudies teacher we are observing asks her ninth-gradestudents to each pull out a netbook from a cart alongone of the classroom walls and log into an online portal.The portal is robust. Students can access an array ofmultimedia tools such as videos and interactive maps farbeyond the scope of a printed textbook. They can requestto hear passages read aloud and click on bolded termsto view their definitions. Each student can log in with aunique password, allowing them to customize their portalby taking notes and highlighting, and they can takeassessments online for immediate feedback. Students canaccess their portal from anywhere, including at home,and teachers can track individual student progress.Yet, as we watch, the students log in not withunique student-specific IDs but with generic ones.It takes one student almost five minutes to correctlyenter the password required to log in to the computeritself. Despite the online assessment capabilities, theteacher asks students to answer questions on a paperworksheet, meaning she will have to review each oneby hand that night. And at one point a student hastrouble understanding a word. With the entire scopeof human knowledge just a 0.21-second Google searchDaniel Lautzenheiser is the program manager in educationpolicy studies and Taryn Hochleitner is a research associate ineducation policy studies, both at AEI.away, the student gets out of her chair, walks over to abookshelf, picks up a dictionary, and starts slowly flippingthrough the pages.That particular anachronism—a 21st-centurystudent turning to Merriam-Webster instead ofWikipedia—highlights both the massive potential andthe stark realities of digital learning in today’s classrooms.Digital learning uses new technologies such aslaptops, iPads, and online content to enhance studentlearning. Many believe such practices have the potentialto dramatically improve the learning and teachingexperience, and it seems every day heralds a new storyof school districts purchasing iPads in bulk or enthusiasticaccounts of the next revolutionary online tool.But incorporating new technologies into schoolingin a way that actually improves learning is not as simpleas dropping laptops into a classroom and hoping for thebest. It is hard work, requiring a district or school to provideample training for teachers, make smart decisionson which products to use, and be sure any new technologicaltools help (and do not hinder) academic goals,among a host of other considerations.Many highly publicized accounts of successful digitallearning efforts tend to spotlight the bold vision ofa pioneering school or district leader, leaving less roomfor a description of what central office and school staffmust do behind the scenes to make those visions a reality.Such stories also tend to focus either on charterschool networks (such as the San Jose–based RocketshipEducation) or on smaller traditional school districts(such as Mooresville Graded School Districtin North Carolina, whose one-to-one computer-to-​student initiative has attracted national attention and a1

BLENDED LEARNING IN DC PUBLIC SHOOLSDANIEL K. LAUTZENHEISER AND TARYN HOCHLEITNERkeynote address from President Obama). These effortsshould be applauded, but such examples tend to bemore the exception than the rule when it comes to therealities facing most schools.In this paper, then, we ask: what does it take to pursuea meaningful digital learning strategy in the large,urban districts that educate a significant percentage ofour nation’s kids? 1 Thanks in large part to the tenureof former schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, DC hasbeen in the national spotlight for its pursuits in teacheraccountability and charter schooling, and it is seen bymany observers as one of the country’s leading districtsin school reform.How does digital learning fit into this school reformagenda? What progress has the district made, whatobstacles do its leaders face, and what lessons have theylearned? Answers to these questions will illustrate someof the steps other similar urban districts must take asthey grapple with the possibilities and challenges of digitalclassrooms.Welcome to DCWashington, DC, enrolled more than 80,000 studentsin 232 schools in the 2012–13 school year. 2 More than40 percent of those students were in charter schools,leaving just over 45,000 students in 111 schools in theDistrict of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS)—a largedistrict, to be sure, but smaller than the likes of NewYork City (995,000 students) or Los Angeles (667,000students). 3 Demographically, the student body is 72percent black, 14 percent Hispanic, and 10 percentwhite. Ten percent of students are English-languagelearners. In 2012, the district’s high school graduationrate was 56 percent. 4To understand DCPS efforts in digital learning isto see first and foremost how they fit into the largerreform ecosystem Chancellor Kaya Henderson is fostering.In 2012, Henderson and Mayor Vincent Grayannounced a five-year strategic plan to improve DCschools. Called “A Capital Commitment,” the planset five goals: increase academic achievement, invest inchronically struggling schools, increase the high schoolgraduation rate, improve student satisfaction, andincrease enrollment.The goals are ambitious. The first, for example,aims for at least 70 percent of students to be proficientin reading and math by 2017 (only about 50 percentof students are at that level currently). 5 In addition tothe Capital Commitment plan, for the 2013–14 academicyear DCPS has specific goals to increase familyengagement, attract highly qualified teachers andprincipals, and improve literacy instruction. Collectively,these goals drive most of the district’s currentinitiatives, including revamping libraries in 45 elementaryschools to foster small-group literacy instruction,extending the school day in nine schools, and placingassistant principals for literacy and reading specialistsin 11 schools. 6Using digital learning to transform theeducational experience is hard work.Another initiative the district is pursuing to advanceits academic goals is blended learning, a form of digitallearning that combines traditional teacher-led instructionwith online instruction on the part of the student.Brian Pick, head of the DCPS Office of Teaching andLearning—which covers all matters of professionaldevelopment, formative assessments, enrichments,intervention, and curriculum design—explains, “Kayahas been a strong supporter of blended learning as asolution to accelerate student achievement. . . . Webelieve that ed tech and the blended learning solutionsthat are out there will help us reach our goals in theshort timeline we have.” 7 This commitment is echoedby John Rice, who oversees DCPS forays into theblended-learning world: “Chancellor Henderson hasidentified five capital commitments that we’re tryingto reach by 2017. And we want our blended learningefforts to align with those as much as possible.”Blended Learning in the Nation’s CapitalBefore 2011, blended learning’s presence in Districtof Columbia classrooms was haphazard, appearingonly in places where enterprising teachers or administratorshad decided to experiment on their own; a2

BLENDED LEARNING IN DC PUBLIC SHOOLSDANIEL K. LAUTZENHEISER AND TARYN HOCHLEITNERPut simply, blended learning is a mix of face-to-faceand online instruction. As DCPS explains, blended-learningmodels have “changed the role of technologyin the classroom from that of a supportive tool intoan integrated component of instruction.” 1 If “digitallearning” is the umbrella term for any learning experiencethat takes place at least partially online, blendedlearning implies some degree of redesigning the traditionallecture-based model of classroom instruction.This means a teacher is no longer solely responsiblefor delivering content to an entire classroom at once,but can use a mix of online tutoring, digital content,teacher-led lessons, and other methods to ensure thatstudents receive targeted instruction.Why pursue blended learning? These models signala departure from the “one-size-fits-all” lecture-basedclassroom. Blended learning offers a more personalizedexperience, usually by incorporating multipleways of learning. In addition to providing aricher learning environment, Digital Learning Now(a nonprofit group supportive of such efforts) writesWhat Is Blended Learning?that blended-learning models are more “productive”because they ensure that “the right resources and interventionsreach the right students at the right time.” 2Finally, the fact that students spend part of their timeworking online also creates the possibility for morereal-time data on student performance that teacherscan use to inform instruction.Notes1. District of Columbia Public Schools, “Blended LearningExecutive Summary” (Version 1), Submitted by BlendedLearning Team, Educational Technology and Library MediaServices, Office of Teaching and Learning, Budget Responses,March 2013, www.dccouncil.us/files/user_uploads/budget_responses/Q8_Attachment_DCPS_Blended_Learning_Executive_Summary_March_2013.pdf.2. Digital Learning Now, “Blended Learning ImplementationGuide,” Version 2.0, September 2013, www.digitallearningnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/BLIG-2.0-Final-Paper.pdf.centralized blended-learning strategy was nonexistent.One of those teachers was John Rice, who, inspired byMichelle Rhee’s reforms, left his high school teachingjob in Florida to move to Washington, DC. Duringhis three years of teaching at Anacostia High School,he started experimenting on his own with a number ofonline instructional tools to help his students. DCPSbegan to notice, to use Rice’s phrase, the “pockets ofinnovation” like his own springing up scattershot inclassrooms across the district.David Rose, director of education technology andlibrary services at DCPS, explains, “We had lots of differentschools trying some blended-learning modelsin DCPS a couple of years ago. And we saw that weneeded to really come up with an overall plan for thedistrict of how we wanted blended learning to look inour different schools and to support those schools thathad already stepped out into this area.” The financialenabler of this nascent plan was a STEM (science, technology,engineering, and math) education grant fromGoogle in the amount of $750,000, which allowedRose to hire the two-person department that wouldfocus exclusively on blended learning. 8Rose recruited the young and energetic Rice to managethese efforts—a largely open-ended position thatinvolves, as Rice describes it, “implementation on theground, meeting with teachers, fixing hardware, providing[professional development], and figuring outwhat we’re going to do in the next five years.” Rice’sprimary role is to be in the schools as much as possible,constantly communicating with teachers and principalswho are on the ground implementing blendedlearning. To that end, he travels every Wednesday tothe schools and classrooms under his purview in anattempt to develop rapport with teachers and principalsand address the concerns that arise.An Organic Approach. Although schools have alwaysused some sort of technology in the classroom, whetheroverhead projectors or laptops or smart boards, recent3

BLENDED LEARNING IN DC PUBLIC SHOOLSDANIEL K. LAUTZENHEISER AND TARYN HOCHLEITNERadvances have opened the door to use technology formore meaningful change. The entire digital educationlandscape is still new and undeveloped, with schoolsand districts across the country trying to figure outwhich tools and models work best for their students.Schools that consider themselves “blended” fall acrossall parts of the spectrum when it comes to the amountof online versus teacher-led instruction they offer.Rather than directing all schools to pursue thesame blended-learning model, Rice and his team haveembraced a more organic approach, encouraging sucha transition in schools they perceive to be most willingand able to do so. While district leaders tout thepresence of blended learning in all district schools, theyseem particularly interested in using it as an improvementstrategy in traditionally underperforming schools,where the administration is willing and the culture isripe to try something new and bold.As such, the blended-learning team assumes alargely supportive role, giving schools, principals, andteachers a good deal of latitude to pursue initiatives oftheir choosing. This approach facilitates the growth ofdifferent models, allowing DCPS to learn from earlypilot programs and to gradually coalesce these disparateefforts into a more coherent strategy. DCPS staff, principals,and teachers use such words as “experiment,”“pilot,” and “vetting” to describe these efforts, suggestingthis is an exploratory phase. This approach separatesDCPS from other school districts that have optedto implement more prescribed digital learning modelsuniversally, such as one-to-one laptop or iPad initiativesin Mooresville, the Los Angeles Unified School District,and a number of other districts across the country.As Rice puts it, his mission is instead to “support theschools, not dictate to them what you think is best.”In practice, this organic approach yields a diverselandscape. In a press release before the beginning ofthe 2013–14 school year, DCPS leadership advertisedthe districtwide presence of blended learning: “Blendedlearning, which combines the best of face-to-faceteaching with the best digital resources, is an instructionalmodel now available in all DCPS schools.” 9But a more thorough description of DCPS blendedlearningactivity quickly becomes a laundry list of variousinitiatives. Every elementary, middle, and highschool in the district has a computer lab, and someportion of instruction occurs in the lab each week.All DCPS elementary schools use a digital math contentprovider every week, and this year the district ispiloting a blended-literacy program in one-third of itsschools. A number of schools have implemented a station-rotationmodel, where students spend their classesmoving between teacher-led instruction, small-grouppractice, and independent work online using classroomcomputers. 10 Three schools—Kramer Middle School,Ketcham Elementary School, and Randle HighlandsElementary School—are using this station-rotationinstruction for all core content areas.While district leaders tout the presenceof blended learning in all district schools,they seem particularly interested inusing it as an improvement strategy intraditionally underperforming schools.Clearly, the experiences of those students spendingjust an hour a week in a computer lab differ markedlyfrom that of those who receive their entire core instructionvia the station-rotation model. Part of the challengefacing DCPS is to find the right balance betweenproviding oversight and letting schools experiment ontheir own, between approving vendors to ensure qualityand letting schools use the tools that are best for them,and between uniting the district’s efforts and keepingroom for innovation.Vetting Vendors. One of the most important tasks fora district or school in the digital age is selecting partnersand content providers. The education technology landscapeis still a bit like the Wild West. The area is floodedwith a sea of vendors trying to sell their software, apps,tablets, games, portals, and e-content, yet many venturesare too new to have long-term measures of success.Some are reputable and some are charlatans, andit can be difficult for a district to make sense of it all.When it comes to selecting the right vendors, BrianPick emphasizes patience, especially for big districtswith no shortage of willing partners: “There are groupsthat we’ve been dating for many years now [and] it is4

BLENDED LEARNING IN DC PUBLIC SHOOLSDANIEL K. LAUTZENHEISER AND TARYN HOCHLEITNERSpatial Temporal Math, or ST Math, is a game-basedvisual math instructional software program developedby the MIND Research Institute in Irvine, California.The 17-year-old program emphasizes visual, asopposed to language-based, instruction. While it hasmet success nationally, student improvement has beenespecially noteworthy in Washington, DC.According to Matthew Peterson, cofounder of theMIND Research Institute, DC students who usedST Math achieved a 17-percentage-point gain on theDC Comprehensive Assessment System (DC CAS),the district’s standardized academic proficiency testtaken by all students each April, versus a 4.5-percentage-pointgain for students who did not use the program—a“remarkable outcome” in Peterson’s words.The results were impressive enough in the 31 schoolsthat used ST Math last year to prompt Rice to expandit to 33 schools for the 2013–14 year. (First in Math isalso seeing good results, with students who are deemedhigh users of the program improving their proficiencyscores on the DC CAS.)ST Math provides extensive support to teachers andschools after a contract has been established, includingtraining on how to use the software as well as technicalsupport. Jessica McKenzie, the ST Math representativefor the DC region, estimates that she visits DCST MATHschools three to four days per week. McKenzie helpsthe district plan professional development workshopsfor teachers, delivers the actual training, and assistswith the implementation of the program throughoutthe entire year. ST Math provides an introductoryworkshop for teachers, which runs three to fourhours, followed by a two-hour workshop four to sixweeks later, which focuses on how to use data andhow to incorporate ST Math into instruction. Oncea year, McKenzie meets with administrators at eachschool implementing ST Math, and returning teachers(those who already used ST Math for a full year)receive a 90-minute professional development sessionduring year two.MIND Research Institute tailors its approach foreach district; McKenzie explained that DCPS optedto start implementing with third through fifth gradersand gradually work down to the kindergarten levelover a period of three years. The institute has alignedthe software’s content to the scope and sequenceDCPS prefers and provides weekly data updates onstudent performance to Rice and Pick. Workingwith MIND, Rice and Pick set benchmarks for howmany hours each school needs to use ST Math, whileallowing each school to set its own schedules to meetthose targets.important to be patient. Especially in a district likeDCPS, a lot of people want to get in the door. It takesreally good discipline to be able to say no, but continueto build the relationship in such a way that when youare ready you are firing on all cylinders.”Selecting which companies to work with and whichproducts to procure for the district’s schools is one ofJohn Rice’s primary job functions. In doing so he isadamant about aligning blended-learning tools withlarger DCPS priorities. For the 2012–13 school year,the district was focused on Common Core math. Atthe time, schools across the district used various vendorsfor their online math instruction. After trackingtheir performance over the course of the year, Rice andhis team found that two vendors stood out: ST Mathand First in Math. Other vendors were phased out,and now, in the 2013–14 school year, every elementaryschool is able to use one of these two programs.ST Math (see sidebar) is currently in 33 elementaryschools across the district. Although the $34,000 perschoolcost is largely funded via financial support fromST Math itself in conjunction with private donors,Rice acknowledges the cost is “a little prohibitive” whenit comes to expanding to more schools. First in Math isused in the other 27 elementary schools, and a handfulof schools purchased additional products not curatedby the central office to meet their needs.Chancellor Henderson’s literacy priorities havespurred a similar approach for English Language Arts(ELA) during the current 2013–14 school year. Last5

BLENDED LEARNING IN DC PUBLIC SHOOLSDANIEL K. LAUTZENHEISER AND TARYN HOCHLEITNERyear, Rice and his team vetted ELA content from 48different vendors, taking into account approval fromthe DCPS pedagogical unit to settle on the final two forpiloting across DCPS: Lexia Reading, a reading technologycompany that helps struggling K–5 readers, in17 schools, and myON Reader, an e-library that recommendsbooks on the basis of students’ reading levelsand interests, in 27 schools.Funders. Building blended classrooms is not free.Money for these new projects comes to DCPS from avariety of sources, including local dollars, federal grants,and willing partners. The district budget includes a substantialinvestment in the technology and infrastructurenecessary for blended learning. Individual schoolsreceive discretionary funding allocations (termed “localfunds”) to purchase new technology such as computersor whiteboards at their discretion. In fiscal year 2014,about $4.4 million in local funds has been budgetedto support the integration of technology in classrooms,which includes the cost of programs, equipment, andprofessional development for teachers. 11As with many districts pursuing new initiatives,DC has benefited from a number of national and localphilanthropic partners eager to support the district’sefforts. One of these is the DC Public Education Fund,founded in 2008 to identify donors and attract philanthropyto help fulfill DCPS Capital Commitment priorities.It has been remarkably successful over the pastfive years in doing so.The DC Public Education Fund facilitated the$750,000 grant from Google that allowed DCPS tocreate the central office blended-learning team andhelp get the Teach to One (TTO) blended-learningmath initiative at Hart Middle School off the ground.In 2012, it was the DC Public Education Fund, again,that shepherded $500,000 from the Michael and SusanDell Foundation and an anonymous donor, a donationthat was split between Ketcham Elementary Schooland Randle Highlands Elementary School to allow thetwo schools to transition their core classes to a blendedstation-rotation model. (We describe TTO and RandleHighlands in more detail later in this paper.)Another organization central to early DCPS blended-learningefforts is the CityBridge Foundation, aDC-based family foundation started by David andKatherine Bradley that concentrates on educationreform. Abbey Goldstein, education director of City-Bridge’s Education Innovation Fellowship, describesCityBridge as “more of a venture philanthropy shopthan anything else. We work really hard to research bestpractices in education around the country. And thenwe do whatever it takes to bring those ideas to DC.”The foundation’s three current priorities are schoolturnarounds, replicating high-performing models, andeducation innovation. It is in this third area that City-Bridge launched the first Education Innovation Fellowsclass in 2013. In partnership with the NewSchoolsVenture Fund and with a $1 million, three-year grantfrom Microsoft, the fellowship recruits DCPS and DCpublic charter school teachers eager to lead blendedlearningefforts and supports them with a year-longcohort experience in an attempt to catalyze more suchactivity across the city.In the fall of 2013, CityBridge also worked with theNext Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC) initiativeto establish the Breakthrough Schools: DC challenge,a $2 million grant competition for teachers andschool leaders to create new, whole-school innovationmodels. The NGLC initiative has already granted $21million for blended-learning schools across the nation,and CityBridge hopes the effort will continue to makethe district a hub of school innovation. 12Under the Hood: Blended Learningin Southeast DCDiscussions of district strategy, the selection of vendors,and funding are just the beginning. What really mattersis how these pieces come together in practice. To geta better sense of the district’s blended-learning efforts,we tagged along with John Rice on one of his weeklyschool visits, this time across the Anacostia River intoSoutheast DC. DC is split into four geographic quadrantsand eight political wards. The Anacostia River is ageographic barrier separating almost all of Wards 7 and8 from the rest of the city.The river serves as a physical reminder and a symbolof the stark divide within the nation’s capital. CapitolHill, the National Mall, embassy-lined MassachusettsAvenue, and ritzy Georgetown are but a few miles from6

BLENDED LEARNING IN DC PUBLIC SHOOLSDANIEL K. LAUTZENHEISER AND TARYN HOCHLEITNERCityBridge Education Innovation FellowsThe objective of the Education Innovation Fellowship,Abbey Goldstein says, is to grow a pipelineof blended-learning teacher leaders in DC, generate“proof points” to show blended learning can work,and establish DC as a hub for education innovation.The fellowship launched in January 2013 with aninaugural cohort of 12 fellows (selected from 63 totalapplicants) split evenly among elementary, middle,and high school and between traditional DCPS publicschools and public charter schools.The fellowship year is divided into three stages. Inthe spring, CityBridge brings blended-learning expertsto DC for workshops and takes the fellows on site visitsacross the country to see the best blended-learningpractices in action. In the summer, fellows identifya problem in their classroom they want to solve viaa blended solution and design and implement theirown pilot project for it. Finally, in the fall, the fellowsimprove on and expand their pilot projects.By providing teachers who have an inclination toexperiment with blended-learning models with thetraining and resources to get started, the CityBridgefellowship can slowly start to create a coalition of thewilling and demonstrate that high-quality blendedlearning is possible in DC. Although it is still tooearly to evaluate the impact of the year-old program, itseems to be resonating with teachers and their principals.As Tanesha Dixon, a fellow who teaches seventhand eighth grade at Wheatley Education Campus,comments, “This new way of teaching has reenergizedmy passion for teaching.” 1Note1. Tanesha Dixon, “Let the Cat (and All of Your Students’Papers) Out of the Bag,” Blend My Learning blog,December 6, 2013, www.blendmylearning.com/2013/12/06/let-the-cat-and-all-of-your-students-papers-out-of-the-bag/.Anacostia, but a world apart demographically. Ward3 in Northwest DC boasts an average family incomeover $240,000, more than twice the district average of$118,394. Meanwhile, Ward 8, which contains twoof the three schools we visited, has the district’s lowestaverage family income ($43,255). Ward 8 also has a22 percent unemployment rate—more than double thedistrict average—and almost 20 percent of the populationdoes not have a high school diploma. 13We found this community reflected in the schoolswe visited. Anacostia High School’s student body is 100percent black, and 99 percent receive free and reducedpricelunch. The school is consistently one of the lowestperformers on the DC CAS, though results haveticked slightly upward since a 2009–10 restructuringby DCPS. In 2012, only 19 percent of students wereconsidered proficient or advanced in math and 20 percentin reading, and the school’s graduation rate was40 percent. 14 Hart Middle School fares only slightlybetter, with 26 percent of students rated proficient oradvanced in math and 30 percent in reading. 15 RandleHighlands Elementary School, located just across theborder in Ward 7, was slightly better still: 28 percentof students were proficient or advanced in math and42 percent in reading. 16 Both Hart and Randle Highlandswere classified as “developing” schools by the stategovernment for the purposes of the federal No ChildLeft Behind Act, making them middle-tier performers.Anacostia, in contrast, was deemed a “priority” schoolin need of intense support to address very low performance,one of 32 across the district.While these three schools have varying degrees of studentperformance, they have each demonstrated a willingnessto use blended-learning pilots to try to addresssignificant student academic challenges. The effort lookswholly different in each school, from the station-rotationapproach, to the adoption of the TTO model formath instruction, to fledgling experiments with onlinetechbooks. Regardless of where the school resides on theblended-learning spectrum, each is a useful example ofDCPS efforts and illustrates the potential opportunitiesand challenges of technology in the classroom.7

BLENDED LEARNING IN DC PUBLIC SHOOLSDANIEL K. LAUTZENHEISER AND TARYN HOCHLEITNERRandle Highlands Elementary School: StationRotation. In the 2012–13 school year, Randle HighlandsElementary School did not have a single computerin any of its classrooms. One year later, becauseof the school’s commitment to partner with the centraloffice to adopt blended learning, each classroomhas eight computers, and each school day has 90 minutesof blended math instruction and 120 minutes ofblended ELA instruction. (The additional time forELA is once again driven by DCPS literacy goals forthe current school year; the extra 30 minutes is usedfor writing.) Students rotate through three stationsduring the 90-minute blended-learning blocks: up toeight students sit at computers, working on online targetedpractice; a small group works on an independentactivity; and the remainder huddle together for a teacher-ledlesson. This model divides a large classroom intosmaller chunks while giving students targeted practiceon certain activities.The impetus behind this shift is Randle Highlands’dynamic principal, Tracy Foster. An environmental scientistby training, Foster spent her early career workingfor the Environmental Protection Agency in San Franciscobefore deciding to change tracks and take a teachingjob. In 2007, as a part of the New Leaders principalfellowship program, she transitioned to administration,with spells at the DCPS Hugh Brown campus and aturnaround with Friendship Public Charter School. In2011 she took the helm at Randle Highlands.Foster is adamant that changing a school’s culturemust take priority over any technological changes. Tothat end, the school worked to reduce truancy and suspensionsand make academic gains, especially in ELA.The resulting improvements placed Randle Highlandsinto that middle-tier for both math and ELA—nota chronically underperforming school that was eligiblefor additional resources from DCPS, but not atop performer either. “[We] have had a very difficulttime pushing the school over the 50 percent mark intohigher levels of proficiency,” Foster said. The DCPSinterventions were too low-level, geared toward schoolswith higher percentages of failing students. RandleHighlands needed something more.Foster’s answer was blended learning. She was lookingfor a tool to provide more tailored instruction, andher teachers were pushing for a small-group modelthat would give them more focused time with theirstudents. DCPS leadership also sees this as a majoradvantage of blended learning. Brian Pick explains,“There really is a powerful human capital aspect tothe blended learning model [with] the teachers in theroom able to work with a small group of students givingreal-time active feedback.” He continues,The other thing that excites me [about blended learning]is the teacher’s ability to increase the number of‘at bats.’ In a traditional delivery model you teachyour lesson on fractions one time and then you wait ayear to teach that lesson again. And here was a modelwhere a teacher was getting two or three at bats a day.In this model you are getting so good at teaching thatlesson because you do it so often.Foster is adamant that changing aschool’s culture must take priorityover any technological changes.Foster first used $45,000 of her local school fundsto make an initial computer purchase. Then came theDell Foundation grant, $250,000 to use explicitly forblended learning. “We had already developed a twoyeartechnology plan [to] try to overhaul the infrastructurehere in the school,” Foster recalled. “But in[November 2012] we received this grant, and we felt itwas ideal, because we were already focusing on smallgroupinstruction.” The school already had the commitment,including teacher buy-in, and had alreadyallocated local school funds for a computer purchase.The Dell grant was transformative, though, both inproviding financial power and in giving Foster thestructure to implement her vision properly.The contours of the grant were broad and gaveRandle Highlands a fair amount of flexibility in howit designed its classrooms. The school partnered withEducation Elements, a for-profit education consultingcompany founded in 2010 that helps schools implementblended-learning models. For the first year ofthe program, Foster leaned heavily on the recommendationsof Education Elements for content providers,8

BLENDED LEARNING IN DC PUBLIC SHOOLSDANIEL K. LAUTZENHEISER AND TARYN HOCHLEITNERultimately settling on four: ST Math, Lexia, MyON,and iReady, which offers Common Core–aligned diagnosticand instruction for both reading and math.The contract with Education Elements also camewith intensive coaching for the school’s leadership andteachers, as well as technical support.Any transition like this is bound to face certain hurdlesthat are difficult, if not impossible, to prevent. Thefirst computers Foster ordered, almost 60 machinestotal, were purchased in February 2013 but did notarrive until May because of a delay in the district’s procurementoffice. The next batch of 100 Dell computersRandle Highlands bought came with more than 30defective devices.Once the computers arrived and were operational,the school ran into problems with the DCPS mainframe.Then, Education Elements had given eachstudent a unique login name and password that wasintended to work with each of the four content providers,but the Education Elements and Randle Highlandsnetworks failed to interface correctly. To top itall off, one teacher resigned right after the school yearbegan, meaning the school had to recruit and hire areplacement.Foster also highlighted some unique challenges ofimplementing a blended-learning model in the elementaryschool context, especially for kindergarteners,who do not yet have the attention span to sit through30 minutes of computer-based instruction each day.The system had to be tweaked, with Foster shorteningthe time to 25 minutes. Foster was not alone in findingshe had to make adjustments for her youngest students.Scott Cartland, principal at Wheatley EducationCampus, a joint elementary and middle school facility,noted that when it comes to assessing kindergartenersonline “you’re measuring as much their ability to navigatea mouse and screen” as you are their cognitive abilities.Foster’s and Cartland’s counterpart at KetchamElementary School, Maisha Riddlesprigger, agreed.“Another challenge for some of the younger kids isactually the use of the mouse to manipulate some ofthe programs. . . . I think it’s just their dexterity at thatearly age.”With the rotation model up and running, and withteacher support and external funding in place, Fosterseems optimistic that this new instructional design willpush Randle Highlands into higher proficiency rates.Her approach has been thoughtful, and the logisticalhiccups she is facing seem to be fairly inevitable practicalhurdles of leading a blended-learning transition.Hart Middle School: Teach to One Math. Our daycontinues at Hart Middle School—a different school,a different blended-learning model. At Hart, almost allstudents receive the entirety of their math instructionthrough a blended model via a partnership with theNew York City–based nonprofit New Classrooms. ForHart, which enrolls 517 students in grades six througheight, this means that for three 80-minute blocks eachday, an entire grade level is in the school’s newly renovatedbasement learning math via New Classroom’sTTO model.New Classrooms is the brainchild of Joel Rose, a formerfifth-grade teacher who was working for the NewYork City Department of Education as chief executivefor human capital in 2009 when he founded a programcalled School of One. School of One is a math instructionalprogram housed in New York City’s Departmentof Education and currently operating in four middleschools. Its chief aim is to use technology to createhighly personalized instruction for students.Using both state assessments and daily mini-assessmentsto gauge student learning, and taking intoaccount student preferences, School of One createsa personalized daily schedule for each student. Eachschedule, or “playlist,” assigns a student to one of severalmodes of instruction, called modalities, that worksbest for the student on the basis of the content for thatday. For example, one student might spend part of theday with teacher-led instruction, followed by independentstudy. Another might marry the teacher-ledinstruction with peer-to-peer work. A third might doa mix of small-group work and virtual practice usingan online program. Teachers are able to track studentperformance in real time, and every student is assessedwith a mini five-question quiz at the end of each day,the results of which will build the student’s playlist forthe next day.School of One was greeted with a great deal of fanfare;Time magazine heralded it as one of the best innovationsof 2009. 17 In 2011, Rose left School of Oneto the auspices of the New York City Department of9

BLENDED LEARNING IN DC PUBLIC SHOOLSDANIEL K. LAUTZENHEISER AND TARYN HOCHLEITNEREducation and founded New Classrooms, whose goal isto expand the School of One model, now called Teachto One, to other schools and other cities. New Classroomsis currently operating the TTO math programin 15 schools in five cities.In 2013, researchers at Columbia University TeachersCollege conducted a study of students in sevenTTO programs and found that these students experiencedmore growth than their peers nationally onthe Measures of Academic Progress assessment. Thestudy was conducted after only one year of implementation,though, and found that gains varied by demographics—blackstudents did worse than their peers. 18What’s more, two of the initial three New York Cityschools dropped the program after the first year, citingpoor student outcomes. Still, the results seem to suggestthat, in the right context and with sufficient time, theprogram can make a difference. And DCPS ChancellorHenderson appears willing to give TTO that time,saying on the record that the new program needs threeyears of implementation before it can be judged a successor failure. 19DCPS elected to house TTO at Hart over severalother interested schools because of a strong commitmentfrom the principal, Bill Kearney, and histeachers. 20 Tracy MacKenzie, who works for NewClassrooms out of their New York City office, agreedwith this decision. “Leadership is really, really key,” shesays. “We need to know both at the district level andthen at the individual school level [that] we have strongleaders that really support this type of innovation andare willing to take some big, bold risks in bringing in anew program that really changes the way that instructionis delivered.” Hart, having worked aggressively tobuild new math labs and use technology to improvestruggling student performance even before TTO wasin the picture, fit the bill.The basement of Hart, which was remodeled duringthe summer of 2012 to fit the distinctive TTO design,is a cavernous room with large screens that list each student’sschedule for that day. The room also containsclusters of different arrangements of computers andtables throughout. On arrival we are greeted with mildchaos; the entire seventh-grade class, nearly 200 students,was noisily transitioning to the first modality (oftwo) for this block.The modalities, each of which lasts 32 minutes,include virtual instruction (for example, a high-qualityvideo offered by an online provider such as LearnZillion),virtual reinforcement (using online practice toolssuch as BuzzMath or Destination Math), teacher-ledinstruction, peer-to-peer assignments, and “tasks”(cumulative projects that students work on for six daysin a row that seek to answer real-world questions). Everymath period concludes with a 10-minute, five-questionassessment for each student. TTO considers a score offour or five to be passing, and a student’s result on theassessment is used by TTO’s algorithm to churn out theplaylist for the next day’s class. The 80-minute operationis responsible for, with a handful of exceptions forstudents with more significant learning disabilities, theentirety of math instruction for Hart Middle Schoolstudents.This is year two of the TTO pilot at Hart. Afterthe first year, the school observed minor gains in mathscores on the DC CAS assessment for seventh andeighth graders, although Hart’s sixth graders experienceda significant (to the tune of 22 percentage points)drop, according to a DCPS analysis. Andrew Pratt, asenior program manager for New Classrooms in Washington,DC, attributes this to the fact that many of thesixth graders entered middle school significantly behindgrade level. The TTO program, Pratt contends, helpedthe students catch up on pre-grade-level skills, but formany students, the gaps were so large that one year wasnot enough time to both catch up and master all of thenecessary on-grade-level skills.But even given mild test score increases for moststudents under TTO, a couple practical issues remainconcerning the administration of this radical approachto math class. For one, the program is expensive. Itcost roughly $1 million to implement TTO at Hart,including $600,000 in infrastructure costs from DCPSto revamp the basement and the contract with NewClassrooms that covers both New Classrooms’ costs(for use of their tools, technical support, consulting,and training) and licensing fees with the digital vendorsfor TTO’s online content. 21 Most of the remainder wascovered by an outside grant. Such an investment mightbe feasible for a single school with the support of financialpartners; it seems an insurmountable burden if DCwanted to expand the program to many more schools.10

BLENDED LEARNING IN DC PUBLIC SHOOLSDANIEL K. LAUTZENHEISER AND TARYN HOCHLEITNERThe shift to TTO has also dramatically changed theresponsibilities of Hart’s math teachers. Teachers whorun a teacher-led modality are granted only 32 minutesof instruction time, far less than they were used toin traditional classrooms. Given the fluid nature of theprogram, the modality that students use can vary day today, with teachers having less of a chance to develop thesame kind of relationship with individual students thatcomes from a year-long class assignment.Teachers also see big differences in their lesson planningpractices as they work with the daily TTO playlists.For example, they can no longer plan ahead for theentire week on a Sunday night. Originally, the TTOalgorithm generated a student’s playlist for the ensuingday by 4:00 p.m. (or even later, as John Rice recalls),limiting the time teachers had to plan a lesson. Whenasked about this problem, MacKenzie said New Classroomsis in the process of developing the capacity forschedules to be generated throughout the school day asdifferent cohorts of students complete their daily exitslips—an encouraging evolution that will likely be welcomedby teachers.Challenges with the teacher’s role presentan important dilemma for any schoolthat seeks to shift to a blended modelwith existing personnel.Still, such challenges make it clear why teachers whoare used to a traditional classroom may have a difficulttime transitioning to TTO. Changes to the teacher’srole present an important dilemma, not just for Hart,but for any school that seeks to shift to a blended modelwith existing personnel. Indeed, after the first year ofTTO, Hart Middle School experienced significantturnover among a number of its math teachers. Of theseven teachers in the math lab in the 2012–13 schoolyear, only one remains, and three left the school completely.“What all seven teachers from last year had incommon,” Rice explains, “was difficulty adjusting tothe radically different teaching model required by TTO. . . and all found other positions either within Hart orwith other organizations.”The high costs, coupled with some of the challengesteachers face in this different style of “classroom,” suggestthat the TTO program might not be the rightmodel for every DCPS school. And that is okay. TTOis a bold experiment for the district—one they knowinglytook on, and one that has much promise in astruggling school. Part of the advantage of the DCPSstrategy is that it allows the district to experiment withmultiple blended models and see which ones work andin which contexts they work. The district seems willingto wait and see how that plays out at Hart.Anacostia High School: Discovery Education Techbooks.When we arrived at Anacostia High School,only 5 of the 30 or so desks were occupied. Threemore students trickled in during our visit, but the paltrynumber is reflective of a school grappling with highrates of truancy. After a few minutes of overview, theteacher instructed the students to take out class laptopsand log into their “techbooks.” The techbooks are runvia a DCPS partnership with Discovery Education, arapidly growing arm of the media and communicationsgiant based in nearby Silver Spring, Maryland. As wenoted earlier, the techbooks are an entirely online portalwith a host of multimedia and other features.In theory, this model is filled with possibilities. Notonly does an online platform allow for a wide variety ofcontent, but the assessments can be taken quickly andresults viewed immediately. If the students log in usingunique IDs, the teacher would be able to track eachstudent’s progress. The techbooks also allow studentsto work at their own pace, with the teacher free to walkaround the room and give more tailored instruction.But such capabilities are beneficial only when usedto their full advantage—a responsibility that fell, inthis case, on the classroom teacher. Students loggedin not with unique IDs but with generic ones, negatingthe ability of the techbook to track their individualperformance. At the same time, the teacher asked studentsto answer questions on a worksheet rather thantaking advantage of the capability to do so online. Inthis classroom, in other words, the blend of teacher-ledand online instruction did not lead to a new learningexperience. Digital content had simply replaced thenondigital, rather than being a catalyst for restructuringthe teacher’s lesson, freeing up her time to focus11

BLENDED LEARNING IN DC PUBLIC SHOOLSDANIEL K. LAUTZENHEISER AND TARYN HOCHLEITNERon struggling students, and quickly recording studentmastery. Another difficulty is that many of the studentswe observed lacked basic computer literacy. Severalstudents had trouble with the simple tasks of loggingin to the computer, opening the Google Chrome webbrowser, and finding the Discovery Education portal.One did not know how to adjust the brightness on hisscreen, so he had trouble reading the website.After acknowledging these challenges, Rice remindedus that this particular pilot was just getting started. DiscoveryEducation provides seven days of professionaldevelopment for teachers using their techbooks, andthis particular teacher at Anacostia High School hadyet to attend her first session. We also asked Rice toballpark how many Anacostia students would have thecapability to log into Discovery Education at home todo additional work. He estimated 30 percent. That figurebecame evident when we noticed a student’s firstinstinct when trying to define an unknown word was toconsult the dictionary in lieu of a quick Google search.Given the opportunities for teacher training and as studentsstart to gain familiarity with computer tasks, thelesson would likely have looked significantly different ifwe visited, say, even just a month or two later—not tomention the next school year.What’s Next?The students in the Randle Highlands classroom were,in as orderly a fashion as can be expected for a groupof second graders, progressing through the day’s ELAstation rotations. Eight huddled around the teacheras she instructed them on the nuances of verb conjugation.Another cluster sat at tables practicing independently.Over on the computers, eight more studentswere using an ELA program that read a word aloudand prompted them to type it in correctly. As we stoodacross the room, we saw seven students sitting quietlywith headphones doing their work, while out of theeighth computer blared the program’s instructions. Thestudent there did not have headphones and, given thatthe program is impossible to use without audio, hadto use his computer speakers. This was rather distractingfor another student at a nearby desk who had beenassigned individual reading.Once more we see the promise—tailoredinstruction—and one of the challenges—having theproper equipment—of blended learning. Indeed, thishurdle remains one of the most pervasive for DCPS.Scott Cartland, principal at Wheatley Education Campus,lamented that “relying on so much technology doesbring a different set of worries. Do you have enoughaccess points? Is everything being routed in an efficientway? Do you have the hardware? Do you have the rightsoftware? Do you have the right logins? What happenswhen things crash? It just provides a whole other levelof logistics and costs and things to figure out.”No matter how good the tools are,if students cannot use them, eventhe most promising blended-learningefforts will be derailed.Teachers who are pursuing classroom-level changesalso experience difficulties acquiring the technology theyneed. One teacher we spoke with who is actively tryingto shift her classroom to a blended model said procurementwas by far the biggest obstacle she faced. To implementa station-rotation program in her classroom of 24students, she needed eight computers. After hagglingwith the district, she finally received the eight computersshe needed. Three worked. She improvised, buying fouriPads with $2,500 in discretionary funds and combinedthat with her boyfriend’s old laptop to get the eightmachines she needed. This piecemeal approach is socumbersome that only the most persistent teachers willsee it through. The central office has likewise taken note:Pick explains, “The hardware and the actual mechanicscan get in the way too easily, and teachers should nothave to deal with headphones and power strips and allthat stuff we can easily forget about.”Digital-learning conversations often have the feelof something new and different and edgy. And yet thelogistical elements required for a smooth transition—handling computer shipments, correcting technicalglitches, managing schedule changes, conductingteacher training, and keeping enough headphones instock, for example—are not particularly, well, sexy.12

BLENDED LEARNING IN DC PUBLIC SHOOLSDANIEL K. LAUTZENHEISER AND TARYN HOCHLEITNERJohn Rice’s team, in addition to helping principals andteachers navigate these challenges every day, is pushingto head them off with a long-term vision for blendedlearning in DC, centered on two main goals.First, one of the main concerns about launchingblended-learning programs for the first time, aswe observed at Anacostia High School, is ensuringthat students have the capability to do what is askedof them. No matter how good the tools are, ifstudents cannot use them, even the most promisingblended-learning efforts will be derailed. To mitigatethis problem, DCPS hopes to build “feederpatterns”—implementing blended-learning modelsat each school in an elementary–middle–high schoolchain so students can start learning digital skills ata young age and be prepared for more robustblended-learning elements in later years.Second, Rice hopes to move more schools towarda station-rotation configuration like that at RandleHighlands and Ketcham Elementary Schools. This isnot to limit other blended-learning approaches, such asTeach to One or the Discovery Education techbooks.But DCPS has learned from early efforts that the rotationalmodel is well suited to blend teacher-driven andcomputer-based instruction in a fairly nonintrusiveway for students.As Rice explains, “The small-group teacher-led station,where a teacher is working with a homogenousgroup on very specific skills that has been informedby data from the digital content and other measures,is the most impactful part of a student’s school day,and expanding these stations to additional elementaryschools . . . is important to making sure students getstrong, data-driven, targeted instruction from a teacher.”As blended learning spreads across the district andthe central office grows to keep pace, DCPS centraloffice staff have managed to maintain a careful balancebetween encouraging schools to experiment with differentblended models while simultaneously consolidatingwhat they learn into a coherent district strategy. Todate, the district has largely only partnered with schoolswho are willing participants in the blended-learningprocess; the district sees its primary role as supportingthese schools rather than pushing a uniform model.Will this change over time? If, for example, a newmiddle school adopts the Teach to One program andfinds that the sixth graders who enter it lack the requisitecomputer skills to function in that environment,will the district lean on the local elementary school toramp up its blended efforts? It is an open question thecentral office will have to wrestle with as blended learningcontinues to grow in the district.So, what does the future hold for blended learningin DC? If the past is prologue, expect to see the gradualexpansion of high-quality blended learning acrossthe nation’s capital. DC is a charter-rich city, and thecharter school space is a particularly ripe environmentfor new models. 22 Ingenuity Prep, a blended-learningcharter school that uses a station-rotation model alongwith an extended-day and extended-year schedule,opened in 2013. The school now serves only preschooland kindergarten, but it plans to add a grade each yearthrough grade 12. Rocketship Education is also slatedto open a school in the district in the fall of 2015. Moreschools like this, in addition to the efforts of the blended-learningteam at DCPS, might fuel an increasingappetite for innovative learning environments elsewherein the district.The future looks bright. A successful blended environmentinvolves an appetite for trying new things,strong district and school leadership, teacher buy-in,effective training, and vibrant community partners.It is a recipe that, despite the hard work, the districtis willing to take on because the results appear to beworthwhile. As Ketcham Elementary School’s MaishaRiddlesprigger puts it, despite “some growing pains,”her teachers are supporting the school’s forays intothe blended world because it is “enhancing their classroomsin a way that they probably didn’t imagine.”Notes1. According to the Council of the Great City Schools,about 15 percent of students are educated in one of the 100largest school districts; see www.cgcs.org/Page/75.2. District of Columbia Office of the State Superintendentof Education, “Student Enrollment and Nonresident TuitionAssessed,” October 5, 2012, http://osse.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/osse/publication/attachments/Final%20Report%20Enrollment%20Audit%20Report%203%2011%13

BLENDED LEARNING IN DC PUBLIC SHOOLSDANIEL K. LAUTZENHEISER AND TARYN HOCHLEITNER2013%20%282%29.pdf.3. National Center for Education Statistics, “Table 104:Enrollment, Poverty, and Federal Funds for the 100 LargestSchool Districts, by Enrollment Size in 2010: Fall 2010,2009–10, and Federal Fiscal Year 2012,” http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d12/tables/dt12_104.asp.4. District of Columbia Public Schools, “Facts and Statistics:General Data about DCPS: Schools, Demographics,and Performance,” http://dcps.dc.gov/DCPS/About+DCPS/Who+We+Are/Facts+and+Statistics (accessed October 24,2013).5. District of Columbia Public Schools, “A Capital Commitment:Year One in Review,” www.dc.gov/DCPS/Files/downloads/DCPS%20CapitalCom2013-legalBro-Oct11.pdf.6. District of Columbia Public Schools, “DCPS Openswith Students Ready to Learn and Build on Previous YearSuccess,” press release, August 26, 2013, http://dcps.dc.gov/DCPS/About+DCPS/Press+Releases+and+Announcements/Press+Releases/DCPS+Opens+With+Students+Ready+to+Learn+and+Build+on+Previous+Year+Success.7. Unless otherwise noted, all quotations come from interviewsconducted by the authors between September 2013 andJanuary 2014.8. DC Public Education Fund, “About Us,” http://dceducationfund.org/aboutus.html.9. “DCPS Opens with Students Ready to Learn and Buildon Previous Year Success.”10. Ian Quillen, “The Rise of Blended Learning: How aNew Trend in Education Rethinks the Role of Computers inthe Classroom and Lets Each Student Learn at a DifferentPace,” Smithsonian, July 8, 2013, www.smithsonianmag.com/ideas-innovations/The-Rise-of-Blended-Learning-214602391.html.11. District of Columbia Public Schools, Office of the Chancellor,“Responses to FY 14 Budget Oversight Questions,”www.dccouncil.us/files/user_uploads/budget_responses/Responses_to_FY14_Budget_Questions_041213_FINAL.pdf.12. CityBridge Foundation, “Next Generation LearningChallenges Comes to D.C.,” press release, September 9, 2013,http://nextgenlearning.org/sites/default/files/supportingdocs/Breakthrough%20Schools%20DC%20final%20press%20release%209.9.2013%20(DCPS%20quote%20included)(4).pdf.13. Neighborhood Info DC, “Neighborhood Profiles,” http://www.neighborhoodinfodc.org/wards/wards.html.14. District of Columbia Public Schools, “2012–13 SchoolScorecard: Anacostia High School,” http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/pdf/anacostia2012.pdf.15. District of Columbia Public Schools, School Profiles,“Hart Middle School,” http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/Hart+Middle+School.16. District of Columbia Public Schools, School Profiles,“Randle Highlands Elementary School,” http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/Randle+Highlands+Elementary+School.17. “The 50 Best Inventions of 2009: The School of One,”Time, http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1934027_1934003_1933977,00.html.18. Douglas Ready et al., Student Mathematics Performance inYear One Implementation of Teach to One: Math (New York:Center for Technology and School Change, November 2013),http://ctsc.tc.columbia.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/TtOReport_Nov2013_CTSCTC.pdf.19. District of Columbia Public Schools, “Chancellor Hendersonand Teach to One Unveil Customized Math Instructionat Hart Middle School,” press release, October 17, 2012,http://dc.gov/DCPS/About+DCPS/Press+Releases+and+Announcements/Press+Releases/Chancellor+Henderson+and+Teach+to+One+Unveil+Customized+Math+Instruction+at+Hart+Middle+School.20. Ibid.21. Emma Brown, “D.C. Students Test ‘Teach to One’Learning System,” Washington Post, October 14, 2012, www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/dc-students-test-teach-to-one-learning-system/2012/10/14/9f945470-149b-11e2-be82-c3411b7680a9_story.html.22. We opted not to emphasize charter schools in thispaper, focusing instead on traditional district schools in aneffort to make the lessons learned relevant to as many otherdistricts as possible.14