December
7, 1999
December
7, 1999
Letters to the Editor
Washington Times
Dear Editor:
Superintendent Ackerman claims that her proposal to create a new DCPS program at Paul Jr. High School was done for the benefit of neighborhood parents ("Ackerman plan mimics charter school programs" December 7). But well over 2/3rds of those parents voted to convert Paul to a public charter school. They did so on the assumption that their children would continue to attend school in the Paul building.
The D.C. public charter school law strongly supports that assumption. Conversion charter schools are permitted to give preference in admissions to pre-conversion students, their siblings, and neighborhood children. The implication is clear: conversion schools like Paul are supposed to continue to serve as neighborhood schools.
But by evicting Paul, DCPS would ignore the law, overturn the parents' vote, and leave 700 school children in limbo. And why? Mrs. Ackerman says it's just competition – and how could the charter schools object to that?
Giving parents a choice is at the core of what public charter schools are about, and where there's choice competition inevitably follows. But the effort to evict Paul is a transparent attempt to short-circuit the kind of competition that a conversion charter school like Paul represents.
There's plenty of room for DCPS to establish its new program without confiscating Paul's building. As is well known, dozens of former DCPS school buildings stand empty, blighting the neighborhoods in which they sit. What's more, there are millions of square feet of unused space in buildings currently housing DCPS schools. Two of these – with 220,000 square feet of empty space - are within a short distance of Paul, which has only 128,000 square feet altogether.
We would be delighted for DCPS to create new programs that are more like charter schools. And if these programs encourage parents to stay in the system, so be it. But in seeking to evict Paul, DCPS shows that its true object is to protect its turf – not to offer neighborhood parents a real choice.
Sincerely,
Robert I. Cane
Executive Director
Friends of Choice in Urban Schools