A Study of Enrollment Projections for DC's Public Schools
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A Study of Enrollment Projections for D.C.’s Public Schools: Assuring Accuracy and Transparency Conducted by Cooperative Strategies, 21st Century School Fund, and Urban Institute for the Office of the District of Columbia Auditor September 28, 2018 D.C.’s Public Schools Enrollment Report Dashboard Kathleen Patterson, District of Columbia Auditor www.dcauditor.org September 28, 2018 The Hon. Phil Mendelson, Chairman The Hon. Mary Cheh, D.C. Councilmember The Hon. David Grosso, D.C. Councilmember Council of the District of Columbia 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20004 Dear Chairman Mendelson and Councilmembers Cheh and Grosso: I am pleased to share A Study of Enrollment Projections for D.C.’s Public Schools: Assuring Accuracy and Transparency. The study was requested and funded by the Council of the District of Columbia, at the initiation of D.C. Councilmember Mary Cheh. She asked ODCA to conduct “a study on student enrollment that assesses the District’s current methodology against best practices for student enrollment projections and estimates current and projected enrollment numbers for the District’s public schools based on the District’s demographic trends.” To conduct the study requested by the Council the D.C. Auditor contracted in December 2017 with a trio of consultants led by Cooperative Strategies (CS), a national firm based in Ohio and California with extensive national experience projecting public school enrollment. CS was supported by the Urban Institute and the 21st Century School Fund, local firms with both local and national research and policy experience. The comprehensive report was released at a briefing for members of the D.C. Council followed by a Wilson Building press conference. Projecting future enrollment is an essential responsibility of school districts that municipalities and districts rely on for planning, budgeting, and evaluation. The District uses next year projections for annual education appropriations for DCPS and charter schools, and long-term enrollment projections by city and for individual schools for educational facility capital planning. The Public Charter School Board references future enrollments when making authorizing decisions for enrollment ceilings and awarding new charters. The study team focused its work on developing a process to assure accuracy, transparency, and efficiency in the regular development and use of next year and multi-year enrollment projections. The team did a comprehensive review of public school enrollment in the District of Columbia, including enrollment projections over the last several years, both 5- and 10-year projections, a methodology for use by policymakers, and recommendations on a process for completing projections to assure accuracy, transparency and efficiency in their development. Key findings are: • D.C. public school enrollment is projected to grow between 12,000 and 15,000 students in the next 10 years. • Projection methods are least accurate for schools with high mobility rates. • Projection process can be made more accurate, transparent and efficient. Applying best practice projection calculations on the birth and enrollment data available, the study team found that public school enrollment is expected to continue to rise in the coming decade, particularly in the high school grades. Reviewing levels of student movement in schools, out of schools, and staying in a school from one year to the next, the study team found that schools with highly mobile student populations tended to have the most inaccurate next- year enrollment projections. Finally, from comparing next year projections at different units of analysis—district wide, sector, school, and school by grade—the study team worked to understand the current levels of accuracy of projections and propose the optimal method for accurate, transparent, and efficient development of projections. The report is presented as a 95-page text, plus several appendices. In addition, information used in the report has been uploaded to an interactive online dashboard, available at www.dcauditor.org. The dashboard includes school- level, baseline projections, and residence projection data, including at-risk percentage, historical enrollment, and mobility status. It is our hope that this wealth of information is of value to the public and other researchers going forward. The report’s recommendations are built into an Enrollment Projections Development Process, a 15-step outline for the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education, the Office of the State Superintendent of Education and Local Education Authorities, including opportunities for information exchange among local school stakeholders. The research team recommended that the District government—the Mayor and D.C. Council—adopt the projection methodology and 15-step process to assure accuracy and transparency going forward. As is usual with the reports that ODCA produces in-house, we have included in the final report comments from the Bowser Administration. We were pleased that the Deputy Mayor for Education found the majority of our report to be informative. On those issues that were deemed to need more clarification or revision, we have made adjustments to the report in response. ODCA greatly appreciates the ongoing collaboration with our colleagues at the office of the Deputy Mayor for Education, OSSE, and DCPS on this complex and important topic. It is our hope that the recommendations presented in this report, many of which are in practice to some extent, are intended to make the overall process more accurate, timely, efficient, and transparent. Sincerely yours, Kathleen Patterson District of Columbia Auditor Contents: Introduction & Purpose ………………………………………………………………………………… 1 Acronyms …………………………………………………………………………………………………… 2 Definitions …………………………………………………………………………………………………… 3 Overview of Process, Findings & Recommendations …………………………………………… 4 Process / Background ………………………………………………………………………………… 5 Overview of Findings …………………………………………………………………………………… 6 Overview of Recommendations …………………………………………………………………… 7 Historical Enrollment …………………………………………………………………………………… 10 Summary of Enrollment Projections ……………………………………………………………… 11 Interactive Dashboard ………………………………………………………………………………… 12 Section 1: Dynamic City and Schools ………………………………………………………………… 14 Washington D.C. - Demographic Overview …………………………………………………… 14 Demand and Supply Factors Affecting Enrollment Projections ……………………… 17 Neighborhood Factors ………………………………………………………………………………… 20 School Supply Side Factors ………………………………………………………………………… 23 Section 2: Best Practices for Enrollment Projections ………………………………………… 27 Best Practices for Enrollment Projections ……………………………………………………… 27 Section 3: Processes & Methods in Comparable Cities ………………………………………… 30 Inputs and methods …………………………………………………………………………………… 32 Process and Adjustments …………………………………………………………………………… 32 Uses of Enrollment Projections …………………………………………………………………… 32 School District Interview Summary ……………………………………………………………… 32 State Interview Summary …………………………………………………………………………… 35 Section 4: Projection Processes & Methods in D.C. …………………………………………… 37 Enrollment Projection Methodology ……………………………………………………………… 37 Next-year Projections ……………………………………………………………………… 37 Multi-year Projections ……………………………………………………………………… 37 Overall Population Forecasts …………………………………………………………… 37 Uses of Enrollment Projections …………………………………………………………………… 37 Setting the District’s Operating Budget for Public Education ……………… 38 Budgeting for weighted subgroups …………………………………………………… 39 Charter Facility Allowances ……………………………………………………………… 39 Educational Facility Master and Capital Planning ……………………………… 39 Estimating the Number of Lottery Seats …………………………………………… 40 DCPS Enrollment Projection Methodology …………………………………………………… 41 Data used in DCPS Preliminary Baseline Projections ………………………… 41 Cohort Method ………………………………………………………………………………… 41 Entry Grades Enrollment Projections ………………………………………………… 41 Early Childhood Enrollment Projections …………………………………………… 41 Subgroup Projections ……………………………………………………………………… 42 Adjustments to Cohort Estimates ………………………………………………………………… 43 DCPS Central Office Review ……………………………………………………………… 43 DCPS Principal Petitions ………………………………………………………………… 43 Mid-Year Enrollment Adjustment ……………………………………………………… 43 DCPS DME Review …………………………………………………………………………… 44 Projecting Public Charter School Enrollment ………………………………………………… 44 Data used in PCS Projections …………………………………………………………… 44 LEA Process …………………………………………………………………………………… 44 PCSB Collection via the HUB …………………………………………………………… 44 PCS DME Review …………………………………………………………………………… 45 Certification of Enrollment Projections ………………………………………………………… 45 Council Review …………………………………………………………………………………………… 45 Key Findings ……………………………………………………………………………………………… 46 Section 5: Testing and Developing Methods for D.C. …………………………………………… 48 Accuracy of Current Projections …………………………………………………………………… 48 One-Year Comparison of Audited to Projected Enrollment …………………… 48 MAPE Results Overview …………………………………………………………………… 49 Findings for Charter Schools …………………………………………………………… 55 Blind Study of Enrollment Projections …………………………………………………………… 57 Student Mobility in D.C. Public and Public Charter Schools …………………………… 60 Mobility Index for Individual Schools ………………………………………………… 61 What Matters Most: Factors Affecting Projection Accuracy …………………………… 63 Methods of this Analysis …………………………………………………………………… 64 Findings ………………………………………………………………………………………… 65 How these findings might be used …………………………………………………… 69 Section 6: Proposed