- D.C. Charter Schools: 15,000 on Waiting Lists [E.L. Haynes, KIPP DC, Capital City, and Two Rivers PCS are mentioned]
- Simmons: How Mendelson Handles Schools to Test Leadership
D.C. Charter Schools: 15,000 on Waiting Lists [E.L. Haynes, KIPP DC, Capital City, and Two Rivers PCS are mentioned]
ABC 7
By Mike Conneen
June 26, 2012
About 15,000 names are on waiting lists for the District of Columbia's charter schools, and more than 700 slots remain available at some schools.
The D.C. Public Charter School Board has compiled self-reported data from the city's 98 charter school campuses.
One school, E.L. Haynes Public Charter School, has nearly 3,000 students waiting to enroll.
"We started at 138 students Pre-K through second grade, and now next year, we'll have 950 through 10th grade," said Haynes' founder Jennifer Niles.
Niles started the school in 2004.
Today, the Kansas Avenue campus has a new wing under construction for the addition of high school grade levels.
Even still, space is limited.
Niles said, " It's painful to think of all of the families that don't have a school or they haven't found that right school, so it's with a little bit of mixed emotion."
Kipp D.C., Capital City and Two Rivers are also attractive charter school programs to parents. They each have hundreds of students on their waiting lists.
Naomi Deveaux, who is on the D.C. Public Charter School Board, said, "You can find programs for language specific, you can find programs that are geared for college and these are really important. They emphasis small class sizes, different learning styles."
The board says it's collecting and releasing this information to be transparent with parents.
Board members might also use the data when approving future charters.
"You can think about replicating those schools offering more or similar programs that offer these schools so parents can get into more schools that they want to get into," Deveaux explained.
But if programs like E.L. Haynes are working, why not expand or open more campuses to accommodate these wait listed students.
Niles said a better solution is to preserve the program she created while helping other existing schools succeed. To do so, she is hosting workshops, sharing best practices with educators from across the District, both charter schools and D.C. Public Schools.
"Instead of starting more EL Haynes charter schools, having these different systemic reform efforts we think can move the needle across the city in a different way than replicating ourselves," Niles added.
The waiting list of 15,000 announced this week represents about half the 33,700 students already enrolled in public charter schools for the fall.
Charter school board Executive Director Scott Pearson says the numbers show D.C. families' demand for quality school options.
For the first time, the charter school board is posting information about waiting lists online with available openings by school and grade.
The lists will be updated in July and August.
The Washington Times
By Deborah Simmons
June 27, 2012
Thanks to my colleague Tom Howell Jr. and News Channel 8’s Bruce DePuyt, D.C. stakeholders have a pretty good idea of the priorities new D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson plans to focus on following summer recess.
One is campaign finance reform, which always dilates my pupils because progressives and Democrats, like Mr. Mendelson, often fail to see that their idea of reform quiets free speech and dilutes the First Amendment.
The other issue revolves around education, and as every city stakeholder knows, take your eyes off the D.C. public education landscape for one academic quarter and you will be dismayed by the meddlesome ways of city hall, where power trips often lead the power brokers down a path to nowhere.
Enter Mr. Mendelson, who voted against a passel of laws in 2007 that plopped oversight of education into the hands of lawmakers and gave the mayor responsibility for implementing them.
Has the system of educating youths and adults improved since then? Not really.
Oh, they did add the title “chancellor” to the school governance discussion, but other issues, such as charter school funding and unchecked public school spending, remain problematic.
Indeed, if it weren’t for the sustained efforts in charter schools, more than 40,000 youths still would be trapped in traditional schools and heading toward the same future as their parents, many of whom are undereducated and unskilled after 12 years or more years of schooling.
That is why it’s important to further broadcast some comments Mr. Mendelson made on Monday.
Mr. Howell reported in The Washington Times that day that Mr. Mendelson does not plan to reshuffle the dais chairs this legislative period, which means that in addition to serving as chairman of the Committee of the Whole, he will continue to chair the panel on public safety and the judiciary.
If Mr. Mendelson thinks he can hold down the council fort, provide effective oversight of the city’s first responders and criminal justice affairs and run for office this fall, so be it.
But will he tighten screws on the mayor or take a tough law-and-order approach?
Mr. Mendelson handed out his general promissory note this way: “I promise you, we will be moving aggressively right after the recess.”
While Mr. Mendelson has firmly grasped the chairman’s gavel, how he handles the disparate council views on education surely will be a test of his leadership skills.
Some advocates want the council to diminish school oversight by the Committee of the Whole and restore oversight by a smaller panel, a panel on education — a proposal that would entail support from his colleagues, the mayor and Congress.
As things have stood since 2007, the council continues to be the same rubber stamp for Mayor Vincent C. Gray as it was for Adrian M. Fenty. In fact, you could say all lawmakers have done is pile their wish list on top of Mr. Gray’s — and we know whom that has not benefited.
During an interview with Mr. DePuyt on Monday, Mr. Mendelson seemingly laid out his oversight argument, saying a “lousy chair” can produce lousy oversight. (No argument here.)
Then, saying he wanted to choose his words carefully, Mr. Mendelson said that “education should be the sole focus of a committee” and that he “will present my proposal in January.”
Hallelujah.
This is exciting news for a few reasons.
1) The fall elections will be over.
2) If prosecutors have a hammer — even if it’s a mere rubber mallet — they likely will have leveled it come January.
3) Parents and other stakeholders will have gotten a close-up look at whether Mr. Mendelson is a leader or a follower, another of those Democratic jackasses that fails to bray at failed policies and poor spending habits but instead sniffs out the trails laid before him.
Congratulations to Mr. Mendelson on his chairmanship and very own bright spotlight in city hall.
Let’s see if he has something up his sleeve that the mayor and his predecessor, Kwame R. Brown, did not.
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