By Harry Jaffe
March 24, 2009
If you want to witness true evolution in D.C. schools — rather than the death dance between Michelle Rhee and the teachers union — show up at the Capital City Public Charter School tomorrow at 6 p.m.
What you will see is the future of public schooling in the nation’s capital and perhaps in urban school districts across the country. Capital City will hold its annual admissions lottery on its Columbia Heights campus. The school says 1,300 students applied for 50 slots. Getting into Capital City is comparable with being admitted to Harvard.
President Barack Obama put Capital City on the media map by showing up there last month. But families from across the city have known for years that their kids could find a safe and dynamic place to learn there.
Capital City’s success reaffirms a trend: The public school system in the nation’s capital is heading toward extinction.
Fifty years ago, white families fled the D.C. Public Schools for suburban districts or private academies; now Hispanic and African-American families are leaving for charter schools, or using the few vouchers available to reach for private education. White families who adhere to pubic schools are switching to charters, too.
The charters finance their schools with tax dollars, but their teachers and administration and curricula operate independently of the D.C. Public Schools system. There are 59 charters in the city on 95 campuses, according to the Public Charter School Board.
A week ago, D.C.’s Office of State Superintendent of Education posted its student count for the current school year. D.C. didn’t put out a press release. The number of students attending charter schools, such as Capital City, rose 17 percent, from 21,866 to 25,614
. The drain came from the District’s public schools, where the population dropped nearly 10 percent, from 49,422 to 45,190.
Roughly 4,000 students and families are voting with their feet. They would rather bus their kids across town to a decent charter school where they can get the benefits of public education. This is Darwinian on two levels.
First, students increase their chances of surviving and succeeding in life by choosing a school that will actually teach them. Second, the better school system will survive, the other will wither away.
D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee understands the “survival of the fittest” equation. She is using the No Child Left Behind law to reinvigorate failing schools with charters. How else are we to evaluate her choice of New York’s Bedford Academy High School to take over Coolidge and Dunbar High next year? Or her asking the District’s Friendship Public Charter School to manage Anacostia High?
Capital City Charter surely is one of the best in the city, but there are others that are succeeding in Rhee’s ideal that every child — regardless of how hungry or parent-deprived he or she may be — can learn and succeed, if the teachers are good. Spend a day at one of the KIPP academies. You will be astounded.
And you will see why DCPS is dying.