FOCUS DC News Wire 3/4/14

 

 

NOT SO long ago, public schools weren’t talked about much during D.C. political campaigns. What point would there have been? City schools were seen as hopeless. The public didn’t expect much, and candidates didn’t promise much.

 

It’s a hopeful sign, then, that education is dominating the debate in this year’s races for mayor and the D.C. Council. Reform is beginning to work, and people who had all but given up on the schools are expecting and demanding more.

 

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the contest for mayor. A WAMU-FM forum last week that featured the eight candidates in the April 1 Democratic primary focused on education. There was a consensus among the viable candidates that significant progress has been made since 2007, when reform kicked off with then-Mayor Adrian M. Fenty’s takeover of the public school system. Every measure — local and national test scores, graduation rates, enrollment, student satisfaction — shows D.C. schools headed in the right direction.

 

There was also agreement that too many challenges remain unmet. “None of us, myself included, would argue that we should declare victory in our work to improve schools,” Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson told the council’s education committee last week. More than half of students are not proficient in reading or math, according to the most recent local assessments, and a wide achievement gap persists between white and black students.

 

How to tackle these unmet challenges? First and foremost, don’t waver now from the course of reform established by Ms. Henderson and her predecessor, Michelle A. Rhee. Ms. Henderson has a clear vision of how to build on the strong foundation of school reform, and she should be supported in her efforts to target the system’s lowest-performing schools, lengthen the school day and the school year for students most in need, help English-language learners and put new rigor into middle and high school academics. The importance of Ms. Henderson’s stable, competent leadership cannot be overstated.

 

It’s also important to look beyond the school system to other city agencies and institutions that must contribute to any education solution. Public charter schools play a strong role, and collaboration needs to continue with the traditional schools in replicating successes and eliminating failures. Attention also should be paid to departments not pulling their weight. These include the problem-plagued Office of the State Superintendent of Education, the mission-challenged University of the District of Columbia and the city’s social services agencies, which should be addressing social and medical issues that can hinder a child’s learning.

 

 

Last week it was revealed that D.C.'s Attorney General Irvin Nathan found that the $6 million dollars allocated by the Council for a permanent facility for the D.C. International Public Charter School could not be spent because the new charter is a non-profit entity, not part of the local government.

 

But this decision goes directly against the School Reform Act and 17 years of practice.

 

D.C.'s charter school law, passed in 1995, was thought and continues to be viewed as innovative in that it included a facility allotment separate from the per pupil funds to operate the school. This money has been utilized by charter schools to rent space. As the charter school movement matured, schools began signing long term leases or purchasing their own buildings to obtain permanent sites. The facility allotment then became the source of funds, in addition to meeting the obligations to landlords or banks, to renovate classrooms. If the Council cannot provide capital money for charter schools then Mr. Nathan's rule has been broken almost from the time the first charter opened in Washington, D.C.

 

As I've explained, the problem I have with the special allocation to D.C. International is that all charter schools are not being treated equally when it comes to receiving this resource. But the opinion by the Attorney General makes no sense. My suspicion is that Mr. Nathan's conclusion is political in nature. The money for the new bilingual middle and high school would be a tremendous victory for Councilman Catania, who on multiple instances has hinted he will challenge Mr. Gray if the current Mayor wins the upcoming Democratic nomination. Support for my view comes from the speed in which Mayor Gray agreed with the Attorney General's report on the matter.

 

I certainly hope this is not the case because it would mean that politics is having a negative impact on children enrolled in charter schools. But then again, in D.C., we have not known it any other way.

 

 

It's been nearly 40 years since school boundary lines and feeder patterns in the District have been drawn.

 

And while school officials admit that the larger, more complex issues of race and class must first be addressed, they also contend that redrawing boundaries and feeder patterns are necessary and long overdue.

 

Deputy Mayor for Education Abigail Smith, whose office is spearheading the changes, called the system "pretty convoluted."

 

"It's been a very long time since boundaries have been redrawn in a comprehensive way in the District. The last time it was done was in 1968, so we definitely have a lot of changes" in store, Smith said during a recent town hall meeting.

 

Although much has changed over the years within the public schools' infrastructure — including closed and newly-revamped buildings and the merger of low-performing facilities with high-performing charters — the boundary plans set to take place by the 2015-16 academic year have generated a moderate amount of anxiety among parents.

 

"I'm very concerned," said Arlene Marcus, 41, a single mother of three children. "We live in Ward 5 and two of my children are at Eastern [Senior High School] when they would have been at Spingarn [Senior High School]. Phelps [Architecture, Construction and Engineering High School], which is also our community, wasn't really an option, so my children are actually out of boundary. If the lines are redrawn and they get reassigned [in Southeast] at Ballou or Anacostia — I wouldn't be too happy."

 

Inversely, parents of children who attend lower-ranked schools view the coming changes as an opportunity for them to attend high-quality schools in more diverse areas of the city.

 

At the same time, they fear redrawn lines could limit access to some of the best-performing schools such as Alice Deal Middle and Woodrow Wilson Senior High in Ward 3, which are currently at capacity.

 

The 20-member task force working with Smith's office on the project is set to present a final plan in September to Mayor Vincent Gray. To ensure that the public has ample opportunities for input, several working sessions under direction of the task force are slated to begin this month.