FOCUS D.C. Public Charter School Bulletin

April 14, 2005

Brookings Report Urges Inclusive Planning to Correct School Facilities Imbalance, Speed Charter School Access to School Buildings

In a comprehensive report commissioned by the Office of the Mayor and City Administrator, the Brookings Institution and the 21st Century School Fund urge the administration, the Council, and DCPS to work together with the public charter schools “to plan and budget for facilities, use limited funds as effectively as possible, and increase the funds available for public education infrastructure in the District.” The report, dated April 4, 2005, faults DCPS for failing to amend its Long-Range Facilities Master Plan to reflect the “dramatic” shift in enrollment from DCPS to the charter schools The report also criticizes the mayor and Council for their “laissez-faire approach to DCPS capital planning and budgeting.”

Not surprisingly, the report, “DC Public School and Public Charter School Capital Budgeting,” confirms what FOCUS and the charter schools have been saying since 1996: DCPS has far more space than it needs and can afford to maintain, while the charter schools “are having great difficulty finding adequate facilities.” Of the 16 million square feet DCPS now controls, the report estimates that the system needs only 10.3 million for its programs. The report notes that even if DCPS succeeded in bringing back to District schools the 2,000+ students for whom the District pays private tuition, this figure would rise to only 10.8 million.

By failing to move quickly to find charter school and other users for this space (DCPS transferred only one school to the charter schools between 1997 and 2004), “DCPS has effectively created a shortage in school space for public charter schools across the city. This has meant that the demand is high for the limited supply of private market space that is available for use by charter schools,” costing the District more money and making it impossible for most charter schools to afford adequate school space. The result is that “most [DCPS and charter school] students attend school in buildings with serious design and condition deficiencies.”

Although DCPS has been working for the last several years to improve the condition of its own schools, the report notes that little progress has been made. DCPS is far behind schedule on the school renovations called for by its year 2000 Long-Range Facilities Master Plan and far over budget on the schools it has completed (DCPS has spent an average of $352/square foot on the buildings completed so far). Most of its inventory is in an advanced state of decay. And the DCPS Facilities Office lacks the expertise to carry out the Plan.

During more or less this same period 15 public charter schools acquired and renovated spaces for their schools at an average cost of $101/square foot. Those moving into former DCPS school buildings spent even less — approximately $81/square foot on average. But most charter schools lack permanent homes and many are leasing expensive commercial space because they have not been able to acquire space in school buildings.

To correct these problems, the report urges the District to prepare an educational facility master plan that supports the needs of both DCPS and the charter schools. The report’s authors envision a collaborative planning effort among District government, DCPS, and the charter schools, including charter school participation in District and neighborhood planning. For effective planning to take place, however, there first must be “a rethinking of prior policies at DCPS and the District..., a more disciplined policy and oversight posture by DC government towards DCPS..., and greater transparency at the individual charter schools, reporting on them and treating them for budget and capital planning purposes as more of a group than a collection of separate entities.”

As to the transparency issue, the report’s authors express their concern that the mayor and Council do not have access to good information about the current state of charter school facilities, projected charter school facilities needs, or the “lease and debt obligations public charters are committing to with the District’s appropriations.” All of this information is necessary “to ensure that PCS facilities fit into a coherent city-wide plan.”

Fitting the independent charter schools into a planned, efficient system to renovate and distribute public school space appears to have given the report’s authors a significant amount of difficulty. For example, the authors, while recognizing that charter schools exist to give parents and students a choice of schools, nevertheless lament that “there is no consideration given by the two charter boards on [sic] whether a public school is needed in a particular area when new charters are granted.” And while noting that a key feature of charter schools is their independence from the school system, the authors assert that “the location and size of the [public charter schools] and their building design, condition, cost and financing all have significance to the DCPS school system, other public charter schools, and the city.” They add that while “the shrinking DCPS and the growing PCS, taken together, are providing public education...in the District....[t]he District currently does not view them as a common system, lay out all the facilities needs, sum all the available resources, and establish a set of coherent financial incentives, budget rules, and trade-offs” (emphasis in original).

In spite of the “common system” rhetoric, the report makes no explicit recommendation to reduce the freedom of action of the public charter schools. It does, however, urge the administration to incorporate all public education facilities into the city-wide comprehensive plan and to address in that plan “issues of school size, location, relationship to neighborhoods and the broader community, transportation, proximity to business centers and cultural assets for place-based learning opportunities for children, and other cross sector issues.” The potential impact of such considerations on the charter schools’ freedom to choose their facilities and on charter school facilities funding could be significant.

The full report can be read at the 21st Century School Fund’s web site, www.21csf.org.

Friends of Choice in Urban Schools
1530 16th Street, NW #104
Washington, DC 20036
(202) 387-0405 phone
(202) 667-3798 fax
www.focusdc.org