- Congressional spending bill includes good news for D.C. charter schools [FOCUS mentioned]
- The DC Council's education committee may disappear after Catania's departure
Congressional spending bill includes good news for D.C. charter schools [FOCUS mentioned]
The Examiner
By Mark Lerner
December 10, 2014
The bipartisan omnibus spending bill agreement reached yesterday by the U.S. Congress yesterday includes the following statement in reference to public education in the District of Columbia:
"The Mayor is directed to submit, as part of the 2016 budget, a detailed FY 2016-2019 public education facilities plan that will ensure public charter schools access to surplus and underutilized space."
You cannot get much more direct than this mandate. Here in the nation's capital charter schools, which now educate 45 percent of all public school students and that teach over 38,000 pupils, have been operating as if one hand as been tied behind their backs due to inequitable funding compared to the traditional schools and the lack of access to surplus DCPS buildings. Well the new year could significantly change this dire situation.
In 2015 progress will almost certainly be made on the lawsuit engineered by Friends of Choice in Urban Schools challenging the illegal awarding of money to DCPS outside of the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula. Although the Mayor and D.C. Council will argue that they have every right in the world to supplement with cash the school system they control, it will prove extremely difficult, if not impossible, for a judge to decide that the law is not what it states it is in black and white as part of the School Reform Act. Fair is fair.
In addition, unless the new Mayor wants to ignore a directive from Congress one of the first things on her to do list will now have to be to device a plan for turning over the approximately 20 vacant buildings DCPS now has in its possession for use by charters. This would go a long way to bringing more high performing charters to the kids who need a quality seat. It might just solve the whole problem with public education in Washington, D.C. once and for all.
The DC Council's education committee may disappear after Catania's departure
Greater Greater Washington
By Natalie Wexler
December 9, 2014
Does the DC Council need an education committee? That question has come up for debate as the committee's chair, former mayoral candidate David Catania, prepares to step off the council.
The famously aggressive, apparently indefatigable Catania made the education committee a force to be reckoned with during the two years he was at its helm. Some applauded his efforts to light a fire under DC's education officials, while others complained he was micromanaging the schools, and even that he was a bully.
Now some have suggested that DC Council Chair Phil Mendelson is thinking of abolishing the committee. Education activists are urging him to keep it and appoint a new chair, arguing that education issues will languish without it. Mendelson has said he doesn't know what he's going to do and is talking about the issue with other councilmembers.
The council had an education committee until 2006, when Vincent Gray, then the incoming council chair, abolished it. Gray argued that having education matters come before the full council would allow all members to participate. But it also gave Gray himself more influence over a hot political issue that could serve as a springboard to the mayor's office.
Shortly after voters elected Mendelson council chair in late 2012, he decided to revive the education committee and make Catania its chair. At the time, Mendelson said those moves would be "very good in intensifying our work in public education."
So why is Mendelson now thinking about doing away with the committee? Unlike Gray, he doesn't seem to have mayoral ambitions, and he hasn't demonstrated a keen interest in education, so it's unlikely that he wants to claim the limelight for himself. Perhaps he feels the committee's work actually became too intense.
Catania as committee chair
Catania got a lot done: among other things, he visited 150 schools, helped procure funds for school renovations, proposed a tuition-assistance program for graduates of DC high schools, revived the moribund office of school ombudsman, and introduced a sweeping package of seven bills that he drafted with the help of a law firm.
Not all of those bills passed, but Catania had notable achievements with legislation that increased funding for at-risk students and overhauled the special education system.
On the other hand, some of his proposals duplicated initiatives that the Gray administration was already working on, and others seemed to be at cross purposes with them.
And in his rush to shake things up with his bills, it sometimes appeared that Catania hadn't thought through their implications. For example, his proposed DC Promise college scholarship program threatened to jeopardize an existing federal scholarship program for DC students.
Aside from the sheer volume of things Catania did, his manner was a problem. While his supporters praised his aggressive style, it didn't always make for smooth relations with the many other cooks in DC's education kitchen.
He and DC Public Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson began their relationship cordially enough, but it soon became tense. When he questioned her at committee hearings, he sometimes sounded like a litigator cross-examining a hostile witness.
The case for keeping the education committee
Does that mean there shouldn't be an education committee? It's arguable that DC has enough entities overseeing its education system. In addition to DCPS and the Public Charter School Board, there's the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education, the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, and the State Board of Education. So maybe we don't need yet another governing body.
But when the DC Council appropriates funds, it clearly needs to ensure that government agencies spend them responsibly. Education spending is a significant part of the DC budget, so it makes sense that a separate committee should exist to monitor it.
And, with one exception, all of DC's education-related government bodies have members or leaders who the mayor appoints or nominates. The exception is the elected State Board of Education, but its role is only advisory. So the council's education committee is the one DC entity that can serve both as an independent watchdog and a meaningful conduit for public frustration with the state of the District's schools.
Of course, before the schools went under mayoral control in 2007, the local school board served those functions—and the schools failed to improve. Some argue that the whole point of mayoral control was to streamline decision making and centralize accountability. If you have two sources of control, they say, it's not clear who to blame or credit.
That argument may have force in other cities, but DC is an anomaly. Here, there's no state government to oversee the mayor's management of the schools, and a mayoral election once every four years may not be enough to ensure accountability.
Plus, findings in a recent study showed that many DC residents feel mayoral control has reduced the public's voice in education. True, the old school board may have given the public too much of a voice, politicizing questions that should have been left to policymakers and experts and blocking needed reforms. But in the long run, reforms are more likely to work if they have public support and don't just come from the top down.
Some have warned that the council's education committee has been on track to replicate the worst aspects of the old school board. But that doesn't have to be the case. A new, less confrontational but still energetic committee chair could change the dynamic and forge a productive partnership with mayor-elect Muriel Bowser's administration, while at the same time providing a check on unfettered mayoral control.
It looks as though the likely replacement for Catania, should the committee remain in existence, will be Councilmember David Grosso. He's demonstrated an interest in education and a sense of urgency about reform, but he doesn't seem to have Catania's acidic edge. He might be just what DC's complicated and increasingly polarized education landscape needs right now.