Submitted by rcane on
Mayor Vincent Gray on Thursday of last week began what was billed as a major policy address by acknowledging that, 15 years ago, D.C. public education was “frankly, moribund.” But then, he said, we opened our first public charter schools, and everything changed.
Submitted by rcane on
Earlier this week, Mayor Vincent Gray, through his DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson, announced a “Proposed Consolidations and Reorganization” plan to close 20 under-enrolled DCPS schools in 19 buildings across the city. DCPS school closings should be good news for charters, and the thousands of students on their waiting lists, since the law gives them first crack at any buildings DCPS doesn’t need any longer for its own programs. But, unlike when former chancellor Michelle Rhee closed schools, the mayor is permitting the Chancellor to keep control of all of the buildings, keeping them out of the hands of the charters.
And what will she do with all of these buildings, from which she’s kicking out 3,000 DCPS students? Five will be saved and reopened "should population/demand increase" (DCPS, which has lost half its student body since the first charters opened in 1996, predicts—fantastically—that its enrollment will increase to nearly 70,000 in that period). Five will be saved until DCPS "works with the community to identify uses for the buildings that will benefit the children and families of those neighborhoods." Most of the rest will be saved for a variety of new and expanded programs that the shrinking school system promises to provide to its diminishing student body. Only three are slated for a “strategic partnership with a high-performing charter school.”
