FOCUS D.C. Public Charter School Bulletin
May 14, 2007
--Council Passes Bill To Let Non-Profit Keep Control of Decaying School Buildings Meant for Charters; Purports to Limit Mayor's Power to Dispose of Surplus Schools
--Bills Would Create Ombudsman, Mandate State Education Data System, Make Other Changes of Interest to Charters
Council Passes Bill To Let Non-Profit Keep Control of Decaying School Buildings Meant for Charters; Purports to Limit Mayor's Power to Dispose of Surplus Schools
In a 10-0 vote, the D.C. Council recently passed an "emergency"¯ amendment to the School Reform Act intended to block the mayor from offering the Slater/Langston surplus school building complex to the public charter schools. The legislation also affirms what the Council believes to be its exclusive authority to declare city property surplus and to decide to whom city surplus property should be disposed.
The Fenty administration, unlike its predecessor, appears to be strongly committed to permitting charter school students to occupy surplus school buildings. The Slater and Langston schools, which share a lot in Northwest Washington, were one of several surplus properties mayor Fenty intended to put out for charter school bid in the near future. But the mayor did not anticipate the opposition of new Council Chair Vincent Gray, who has close personal ties to the head of a nonprofit group that occupies one of the two badly decayed school buildings on a month-to-month basis (the other has been vacant for years). Gray introduced the legislation which, though not mentioning the group by name, is written so that it, not the charter schools, must be given the "right of first offer"¯ on Slater/Langston.
FOCUS believes that this legislation is null and void and is exploring various possible responses to its passage. The School Reform Act, passed by Congress in 1996, was amended in 2000 to prohibit the implementation of D.C. laws or regulations that are inconsistent with the terms of the Act. In 2004, Congress amended the Act again, this time to give charter schools a right of first offer on all surplus school buildings. By purporting to give that right to a non-charter entity, the emergency legislation falls directly under the prohibition contained in the 2000 amendment.
FOCUS also believes that under the School Reform Act it is the mayor, not the Council, who has exclusive authority over the disposition of surplus school buildings. Under the Act, once the Board of Education declares a school building to be surplus to its needs the mayor has two options only: to offer the building to the charter schools or to let it rot. But Mayor Williams, not wishing to challenge the Council, submitted surplus school buildings for Council approval under a law antedating the School Reform Act that requires Council approval of the disposition of all D.C. Government surplus properties.
The Council process has two stages. In the first, the Government Operations Committee determines whether the property is "surplus," that is, no longer needed by the D.C. government. In the second, the Economic Development Committee decides whether to accept or reject the mayor's nominee to acquire the surplus building. But the requirement to give the charter schools the right of first offer on a building is triggered by the Board of Education's determination that it is surplus to school system needs; the "need" of the D.C. government for the building is irrelevant.
FOCUS has asked the Fenty administration to refuse to implement the law and is waiting for a response.
Bills Would Create Ombudsman, Mandate State Education Data System, Make Other Changes of Interest to Charters
In the last edition of the Bulletin [April 25, 2007, at http://www.focusdc.org/news/news.asp?View=Bulletins] we highlighted several key changes to the current way of doing education business in D.C. brought about by the Fenty school takeover bill (the Public Education Reform Amendment Act of 2007), including giving the mayor direct control over DCPS and shifting state functions from DCPS to the mayor's State Education Office (now to be called the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, or OSSE). But the Act also makes other changes of interest to charter schools. In addition, the FY 2008 Budget Support Act, now before the Council, contains other provisions that would have an impact on charters.
Education Reform Act
Charter school cooperation¯ with the new Education Ombudsman
The ombudsman's primary responsibilities will be to hear and respond to complaints about system and charter public schools, maintain a database that keeps track of the complaints, and report on the complaints to the Deputy Mayor for Education. The ombudsman also will have the authority to refer complainants to school officials who might be able to deal with the complaints, to "recommend policy changes, staff training and strategies to improve the delivery of public education services," and to gain access to student educational records "as allowed by federal and local law." As to DCPS, the bill also gives the ombudsman access to all relevant records and the power to forward to the inspector general any complaints that may require an audit or an investigation of a school or program. The charter schools are required by the Act to "cooperate"¯ with the ombudsman; the nature and extent of the cooperation is not defined.
Charter school participation in the state data warehouse
The fiscal year 2008 Budget Support Act includes legislation requiring the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (formerly the State Education Office) to work with the Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO) to develop an education data warehouse capable of producing longitudinal data reports on all public schools in D.C. The "Educational Data Warehouse Act of 2007," which is expected to pass the Council, provides that all publicly funded schools in D.C. are required to participate in the data warehouse and to submit data when requested to do so by the OSSE (formerly the SEO). Both students and teachers will be given unique identifiers, making it possible to track their individual performance over time.
The Act requires that the warehouse system be designed to be compatible with data systems currently in use by charter schools and others; it also specifies, however, that requested student, teacher, and school data is to be "standardized and submitted in a format to be determined by the [OSSE]."¯
Planning for the data warehouse already is in high gear. FOCUS is on the steering committee and will be seeking charter school input and reporting to the schools on the committee's activities on a regular basis.
Repeal of the local charter school law
D.C. has had two charter school laws on the books from the beginning the School Reform Act, passed by Congress in 1996, and the Public Charter Schools Act of 1996, passed by the Council shortly before the SRA in an attempt to head off the Congressional bill. All 55 of the District's charter schools were chartered under the SRA, which takes precedence over inconsistent provisions in the PCSA. Even so, the continuing existence of the PCSA enabled some mischief-making, as when the Board of Education sought to assess its charter schools for the administrative fees permitted to the Board under both laws; and created the potential for more serious actions, as when the Board asked a prominent local law firm to research whether the Board could turn its charter school responsibilities over to the superintendent, an act clearly prohibited by the SRA but not necessarily by the PCSA.
**A PDF of the final Council version of the Act is attached. The DCPS takeover and most of the charter school provisions of the Act do not become law until affirmative enactment by Congress, which is expected soon**
Budget Support Act
Charters could be required to pay for Attorney General legal services
The Commercial Transactions Cost Recovery Act Amendment of 2007¯ would permit the mayor to pass on to non-profit and for-profit entities the cost of legal services provided by the Attorney General in connection with loans, grants, and revenue bonds. The mayor also could bill organizations for legal costs related to the sale or lease of District-owned property.
DCPS, like the charter schools, to be funded based on current year enrollment
Under current law, the charter schools are funded on the basis of current year enrollment, while DCPS is funded for the number of students it enrolled in the previous school year. This discrepancy has meant that DCPS, on average, has been funded each year for around 2000 students it did not actually enroll. The amendment, if passed by the Council, will require DCPS to make do with the funding justified by its actual enrollment.
Friends of Choice in Urban Schools
1530 16th Street, NW #104
Washington, DC 20036
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