- Football: D.C. Could Add High School Playoff, Create a True City Champion Under New Proposal [Friendship Collegiate Academy Charter School is mentioned]
- Cut Funding from Child and Youth Investment Trust Leaves D.C. Students in Need
Football: D.C. Could Add High School Playoff, Create a True City Champion Under New Proposal [Friendship Collegiate Academy Charter School is mentioned]
The Washington Post
By James Wagner
May 3, 2012
High school football teams in the District could vie for a true city championship as early as this fall, according to a proposal by statewide athletic director Clark Ray.
The proposal includes a four-team playoff of public charter schools, independent schools and private schools, with the winner to meet the champion of the Turkey Bowl, the D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association title game traditionally held on Thanksgiving Day.
The city-wide championship game is proposed for nine days later, on Dec. 1. The proposal would have to be approved by Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) with the blessing of the Office of the State Superintendent of Education and D.C. Public Schools, Ray said. Gray has been pushing to include the growing public charter schools in city-wide athletics next school year.
Students enrolled at public charter schools make up 41 percent of total D.C. public school enrollment.
“Everyone is interested in playing for a ‘state title,’ ” Ray said. “There is a lot of excitement, especially in the football community,” he added.
The bracket opposite the DCIAA could include such private schools as St. John’s, Carroll or Gonzaga of the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference, St. Albans of the Interstate Athletic Conference, or Sidwell Friends and Maret of the Mid-Atlantic Conference.
Seven private schools and five public charter schools in the District played football last season, with more expected this fall.
“I like the entire setup of the way that every high school in D.C. can participate in the form of a championship,” said Friendship Collegiate Academy charter school Coach Aazaar Abdul-Rahim, whose team finished last season ranked No. 7 by The Post yet didn’t play a postseason game . “I was also impressed with how Clark structured it in how the history of D.C. high school football can be kept intact. . . . I’m happy for all the charters schools as well as the private schools that can compete for a championship like the mainstream U.S.”
How the four teams would be selected is still “up for discussion,” Ray said. His office could create a point system and select the top four teams. The winner of a public charter school league, if there is one next season, could possibly be awarded an automatic bid as a semifinalist, said Ray, who stressed he wanted the process to be transparent.
All schools participating, however, would have to agree on a common set of eligibility rules, Ray said, a possible sticking point for schools since not all compete in the same leagues.
Ray has been meeting with school officials since January, when he started in his newly created position at the Office of the State Superintendent.
Cut Funding from Child and Youth Investment Trust Leaves D.C. Students in Need
The Washington Post
By Maggie Riden
May 3, 2012
Before the District’s Child and Youth Investment Trust made headlines last year in the embezzlement scandal that has landed former Council member Harry Thomas Jr. a prison sentence, it was a quietly functioning nonprofit that provided critical grant support to hundreds of youth programs across our city.
In the wake of the Council’s probe, the trust’s executive director has been let go and the organization is barely surviving with dwindling funds. Now the D.C. Council is set to consider whether the city’s money funding the trust should be reallocated elsewhere, leaving thousands of students without access to after-school, summer and other youth-serving programs across the District.
While it may seem politically expedient to do away with the trust, such a decision would not only be misguided, but also costly. Absent political manipulation, D.C.’s trust leverages millions in private and public dollars to support programs that operate on the barest of margins.
The programs operate in the neighborhoods and in schools (both D.C. Public Schools and the charters) and they are valuable community resources. Funders, especially the large national foundations that invest in whole systems of youth development, will not invest in the District without an efficient intermediary to ensure that their investments will have a measurable impact.
In fact, D.C. has already lost significant private funds as a result — not of a lack of faith in the mission and value of the trust but because of political meddling. Our local philanthropic community, despite having been a committed partner through the years, has made it clear that it simply does not have the resources to keep struggling programs afloat on its own.
Without the trust, thousands of children and youths in the highest-need communities across the city may be left with nowhere to go when school lets out. Trust-funded after-school and summer programs such as Higher Achievement, Beacon House, Martha’s Table, Kid Power, Brainfood and New Community for Children and Families teach important leadership and academic skills, provide exercise and recreation and keep kids safe and out of trouble. Many of these programs, including those at schools, also provide nutritional snacks and meals for children who may otherwise go hungry.
Indeed, the trust must be restructured to boost accountability, but it should also be strengthened to maintain its own integrity and to be more effective. First and foremost, voting board members should not be politically appointed, as they are currently by the mayor and Council, an arrangement that practically invites corruption.
The trust should also develop a community council or board made up of advocates, program providers, youths and parents to ensure that the community’s needs are being heard and met. Finally, the trust should be required to publicly report its data on outcomes and impact on a regular basis.
Across the country over the past two decades, youth funding intermediaries similar to D.C.’s trust have evolved in their structure and scope to become much more efficient, stable and outcome-driven. By instituting protections against undue political influence but maintaining a high level of coordination between community partners and government, youth intermediaries in cities such as New York and Baltimore are able to attract significant private investment and blend multiple funding sources to expand and improve youth services.
This is the value of the trust. Even today, D.C.’s trust serves an important role beyond grant-making as a coordinator, a capacity builder and quality control for youth-serving organizations and agencies. But this function should be expanded as one of the trust’s core responsibilities.
Under Mayor Vincent Gray’s Cradle to Career Initiative, the District is moving in the right direction to promote a more robust and coordinated system of services for children and youths. Instead of reinventing the wheel, the District should take this window of opportunity to rebuild the trust so that it truly serves its intended purpose of enriching the lives of our youths — not lining the pockets of politicians.
Maggie Riden is executive director of the DC Alliance of Youth Advocates , a citywide coalition that works to ensure policies, programs and practices within the District of Columbia that promote and propel youths into a productive and healthy adulthood.