FOCUS D.C. Public Charter School Bulletin

November 6, 2006

Board of Education Candidates Differ on Charters

Candidates seeking the BOE presidency or ward seats in tomorrow’s election have widely differing views on public charter schools, according to their statements at community forums and answers to questions posed by local newspapers and education advocacy groups. What follows are the charter school positions of the leading candidates.

[Note: The Board of Education, in addition to running the school system and serving as the state board of education, also serves as one of the District’s two chartering authorities. The Board currently is not accepting applications to open new charter schools but has no authority over the D.C. Public Charter School Board, which is accepting them. Many of the comments set out below relate to a call by some who oppose charter schools for a moratorium on all chartering in the District, not just by the BOE. Such a step could be taken only by the U.S. Congress, which passed D.C.’s charter school law.]

Board President

In the race for president, Robert Bobb is the only candidate among the four top contenders who is strongly in favor of parental choice and unequivocally against a citywide moratorium on chartering, which has been called for by anti-charter forces. Bobb also wants the BOE to get out of the chartering business and for DCPS to respond to charter competition by learning from the charters and becoming more “agile” in its responses to student academic deficiencies. If elected, Bobb says he will work collaboratively with charter school leaders, who he believes “can play an important complementary role in the transformation of DCPS into a system that provides a high quality education to all of the children it serves.”

Carolyn Graham, current VP of the Board, says she opposes a moratorium but voted for the Board’s current chartering pause. She also frequently has stated that charters are not accountable, which may be a reference to the Board’s charter oversight failings.

Among the lesser presidential contenders, Timothy Jenkins would favor a moratorium “designed to improve the system” but not one intended to “kill” it. He sees public charter schools as “niche solutions to unsolved needs” and as “test beds for what works and is needed in the general public schools.” Laurent Ross, a parent of a child at Banneker High School, favors a moratorium and thinks the BOE should oversee all of D.C.’s 55 charters. He also would “work to repeal the federal public charter school law.”

District 3 — Wards 5 and 6

Six candidates are seeking to replace Tommy Wells, who has given up his BOE seat to run for the Ward 6 council seat.

Perhaps the best known of the three is Marc Borbely, who led the recent campaign for school modernization funds for DCPS. Borbely (pronounces “bore-bay) is closely allied with the virulent anti-charter school group Save our Schools and supports their call for a moratorium on chartering: “I was the first school board candidate to publicly support a moratorium on new charters by the school board....I strongly believe that the public, not nonprofit boards, must be deciding what goes on in our publicly funded schools.”

Lisa Raymond, who has mounted a strong campaign for the District 3 seat, helped grow the Cesar Chavez PCS as chief financial officer, a post she only recently gave up. A strong supporter of “quality public options for District families,” Raymond wants to put an end to the “divisive” argument about charter public versus traditional public schools and to concentrate instead on improving all schools.

Another candidate, Stephen Baldi, advocates an “open dialogue” between pubic charter and traditional public school leaders to share successful strategies. Baldi describes himself as “an education researcher with 10 years experience implementing education reform initiatives.”

Wells’s seat also is being sought by three lesser candidates, including Robert Brannum, a Ward 5 advisory neighborhood commissioner and an outspoken opponent of charter public schools, which he says “are not a panacea for public education.”

District 4 — Wards 7 and 8

In District 4, long-time BOE member William Lockridge, like Marc Borbely in District 3, boasts in his campaign literature that he was “the first to lead the push for a moratorium on new charter schools.” Lockridge wants charters to be “limited to providing programs that are traditionally not available in the regular public schools.”

A strong challenge to Lockridge is is being mounted by Jacque Patterson, whose daughter attends a charter school in Ward 8. Not surprisingly, Patterson takes the opposite view on charters as Lockridge, asserting that “charters hold traditional schools accountable” and calling for all parents to have a choice of quality public schools, whether traditional or public charter.

Candidate Jackie Pinckey-Hackett, a parent of two children attending DCPS schools, also is a strong supporter of parental choice: “Charter schools expand educational opportunities for our students and don’t detract from traditional public schools. I believe in education by any means necessary; hence I support charter schools.”

Special thanks to the D.C. Public Charter School Association, which elicited much of the above candidate commentary.


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