The Washington Examiner
Rays of hope and joy for D.C. public school kids
By Harry Jaffe
Sunday, November 15, 2009
It's time to start thinking about public education in Washington D.C. in a new light. Change is afoot, and the prospects for students of all ages and places are brighter -- much brighter. School Chancellor Michelle Rhee's wrenching reform is just beginning to have an impact on classrooms and test scores, but judging from the unveiling of a new charter school campus last Friday, students from the city's roughest neighborhoods can hope for a decent, even stellar, education.
Shantelle Wright, founder and head of Achievement Preparatory Academy, told me she wants to put the "J Factor" back in schools -- "J for joy." And her students, all in uniform, sang and chanted and danced their joy -- at having a clean, safe joyous place to learn. Their test scores are joyous, too.
At least three firsts took place at Draper Campus, in the far eastern edge of the city, on this rainy chilly Friday morning. Mayor Adrian Fenty showed up to cut the ribbon on a charter school. It was the first time he had given such attention to a charter. The public and private coalition that has been creating and funding the steady growth of charter schools was on public display for the first time. Discovered for the first time that the city's Office of State Superintendent of Education has been actively financing charter schools.
"It represents the bringing together of the pieces of the puzzle we have not seen before," Tom Nida, chairman of the public charter school board told me.
The "pieces" spoke to an auditorium of students and educators who had gathered to commemorate the opening of Draper. On hand were Victor Reinoso, deputy mayor for education; Stefan Huh, director of the Office of Public Charter School Financing and Support in OSSE and bankers. The master of ceremonies was Joe Bruno, president of Building Hope, a nonprofit funded by Sallie Mae that has built and financed and coaxed 30 charter schools into being.
Draper, once a run down school on a side street in the infamous Congress Heights neighborhood, was reborn as a new home to two charter schools, both the product of the "charter school incubation initiative."
The event was as uplifting as anything I've witnessed at schools in D.C., but I could tell it was especially sweet for three people: Tom Nida grew up a few blocks east on Southern Avenue and graduated from Anacostia High. He's a tall banker who now lives in Virginia, but Draper's in his 'hood. Marie Bibbs grew up in Congress Heights and graduated from Ballou High in 1971. She's now an executive vice president of City First Bank, which helped finance Draper. Shantelle Wright, founder and head of Achievement Prep, grew up in a tough part of Rochester, New York. A lawyer who came to D.C. in 1994, she dropped handling clients for teaching kids.
"It was time to quit complaining about schools and start doing something about it," she says. "Too many children are stifled because of their zip code."
Not any more, at least for the kids at Draper.
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