Submitted by mmusante on
By Michael Musante
For those of you old enough to remember the Rocky and Bullwinkle show (a satirical cartoon that aired in the early 1960s), one of my favorite parts was when Sherman and Mr. Peabody (not related to recently retired FOCUS Board Chairman Mike Peabody) would step into the “WABAC” machine (pronounced “wayback”) and visit events in the past. Mr. Peabody usually delivered some dreadful pun that would deliver a poignant message about what they saw.
If I had access to the “WABAC” machine, I would ask mayor Gray to travel with me to the heady year of 2010, specifically to Friday, July 2, so that he could read the following clip from the Washington Post that reported on then-candidate Gray’s plans for education:
Gray outlines his agenda for education in District
By Bill Turque and Nikita Stewart
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, July 2, 2010; B01
Calling the Fenty administration's approach to education reform "shortsighted, narrow and sometimes secretive," D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray unveiled a blueprint Thursday to guide education policy if he is elected mayor. The plan promises more transparency, funding equity for public charter schools, tax credits for early-childhood programs and greater support for the city's neighborhood high schools.
For those of you who are education reform advocates, please take note of the above and imagine how fascinating it would be to hear candidate Gray and mayor Gray debate the funding [in]equities in the latter’s proposed FY ‘14 budget. This budget—his third—y et again fails to provide equitable funding for public charter school students, much less the uniform per student operating funding required by law.
If the D.C. Council approves the mayor’s budget, next year DCPS will receive $80 million in funding outside the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula (UPSFF): $31 million to the Teacher Retirement Fund; $2.4 million to the Attorney General’s office to provide free legal services to DCPS; and finally, $46.3 to the Department of General Services (DGS) to provide free maintenance services to DCPS, even though DCPS already receives funding for all of these through the UPSFF.
Ah, well, like New Year’s resolutions, there’s always next year, and perhaps things will be different and the Mayor and I will no longer have to travel through time in my “WABAC” machine to remember the promises of yesteryear.