February
27, 2001
February
27, 2001
Testimony of Robert I. Cane, Executive Director, Friends of Choice
in Urban Schools (FOCUS)
District of Columbia Council Committee on Education, Libraries, & Recreation
Public Hearing
Public Charter School Oversight
Good afternoon Mr. Chavous, members of the Committee, and staff. My name is Robert Cane, and I'm executive director of Friends of Choice in Urban Schools, a non-profit support group for the District's public charter schools. Thank you for providing me with this opportunity to testify.
The Year So Far
As you know, D.C. ranks first in the country in the percentage of public school students attending public charter schools – 13% or nearly 10,000 students. More than in any other American city, D.C.'s parents have taken to these new schools, which are publicly funded and publicly accountable, free to D.C. residents, and open to all D.C. students without screening of any kind.
Seven new public charter schools opened this year, bringing the total to 40, and five additional schools are scheduled to open next fall. Upwards of 17% of the public school population could be in the public charter schools next year. Although one can never be sure that a trend will continue, there appears to be a deep well of demand among D.C. parents for more of these new schools.
We think it is good public policy to ensure that District parents continue to have a choice of public schools. For this to happen, the District government must ensure that all sorts of public schools can flourish. As to the public charter schools, this primarily means two things: sufficient funding and suitable school buildings.
Regrettably, until this year the District's public policy had the opposite effect. Rather than being able to concentrate on student achievement, public charter school leaders found their energies drained by the impact of under-funding, late funding, and the inability to find decent school buildings at an affordable price.
Funding
Thanks largely to your personal involvement in the matter and the work of your Committee, for the first time this year public charter school students were fully funded in accordance with the law. What's more, the CFO and the Mayor's office now appear to understand that the budget they propose to you each spring must take into account the anticipated growth in the number of public charter school students.
Census of Public School Students
In this context I should address a matter that came up yesterday during your oversight hearing on the new State Education Office, namely the requirement for a census or head count of all public school students. As you know, the School Reform Act completely changed the way public education in the District is funded. Instead of funding charter schools or DCPS, it is now each student who is funded. If a student chooses a DCPS school, DCPS gets that student's funding. If he or she chooses a charter school, that particular school gets the funding.
To support this new system, the School Reform Act mandated an annual census count of all District public school students. The annual count was considered especially critical given the perception that DCPS had historically exaggerated its enrollment.
The current law requires that all schools count and report enrollment four times a year and that the October 5 enrollment count be audited. Each year, the auditors have done a census of public charter school students and a sampling of DCPS students. This fall, for example, 9,800 public charter school students were counted but fewer than 4,000 DCPS students were.
In addition to being illegal and inequitable, the sampling is likely to be inaccurate. For example, sampling does not pick up DCPS students who leave the system to go to public charter schools or elsewhere but who for some reason are not removed from the rolls.
The stakes here are very high. As you know, all local education funding must be done through the formula – something like $700 million dollars. An over-count of just 167 out of the 79,000 public school students would cost the District a million and a half dollars – the amount it would cost for the legally-mandated census.
School Buildings
We trust that the census issue will be resolved in the same just and equitable manner that the other funding issues have been dealt with by you and others. When it comes to finding suitable school facilities, however, the picture is not nearly so rosy. Although some progress has been made, it appears that your active involvement and that of your Committee is required if a solution to this thorny problem is to be found.
Surplus DCPS School Buildings
As you will remember, last spring the mayor was given jurisdiction over 32 surplus school buildings. Ten of those buildings already were occupied by the public charter schools. Summer-long negotiations with the staff of the mayor's Economic Development Office yielded an agreement giving the public charter schools the opportunity to bid on three of the most decrepit of the buildings (Armstrong, Kingsman, and Nichols). A decision on the use of more than 20 other buildings – half occupied by D.C. government agencies at little or no rent -- was postponed and is expected shortly. DCPS has asked for the return of many of these buildings, several house difficult-to-move government agencies, and Economic Development covets several others for commercial purposes.
Although we hope for the best, we fear there is a strong likelihood that DCPS, Economic Development, and various other government agencies will split the lion's share of the buildings with the public charter schools taking the hindmost.
Built as schools with taxpayer money, vacant school buildings – especially those in reasonably good condition – are the best option for public charter schools. Recognizing this, the School Reform Act provided that the public charter schools would have a preference in acquiring these buildings – a preference largely ignored over the intervening years. The buildings under the mayor's jurisdiction are the last of the surplus and should be made available to the public charter schools to the greatest extent possible.
The Long Range Facilities Master Plan
Another possibility for the public charter schools is to have their facilities needs met as part of the Long Range Facilities Master Plan. Dr. Vance has expressed a willingness to permit just that, and in fact the draft plan does contain a section in which each school's needs are described. However, so far the Plan itself makes no provision for meeting those needs.
This must be rectified. In an era in which D.C's public school students have a choice of schools, there is no justification for limiting the master planning process to DCPS schools. All of our public school students have the right to attend school in safe and otherwise suitable school buildings. As the plan now stands, the ever-dwindling number of DCPS students will be taken care of, but the ever-growing number of public charter school students will be left to fend for themselves.
Steps to be Taken
If the will of the District's parents is not to be frustrated, we need a concerted effort by the Council and the mayor to find suitable space for public charter school students. We urge the Committee to take the following steps:
This concludes my remarks. We are very grateful for the continued support of
the Education Committee and the Council.