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Despite the real estate slowdown, D.C. seems to be attracting interest in some of its vacant school buildings, but members of the D.C. Council aren't so enthused.

More than 150 people crowded into a "pre-bidder" meeting Jan. 9 to hear details on 11 former D.C. school buildings that city wants to put to new use in partnership with private developers. In the crowd were representatives from a bevy of developers, including Donohoe Development Co., Four Points LLC, PN Hoffman Inc. and William C. Smith & Co. The meeting also attracted charter schools looking for new space, including some that asked for room in empty schools last fall.

The schools, some of which were closed last year as Mayor Adrian Fenty and Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee restructured the school system, are scattered across the city and range from plots of land just under 1 acre to more than 5 acres, with buildings up to 131,000 square feet.

Officials from the office of the deputy mayor for economic development asked developers to submit creative ideas for re-use of the schools and told them they could bid on more than one property or bid with multiple teams on the same property.

With the difficulty in financing new development, interest has waned in bidding for some D.C. projects, such as the Park Morton housing development. But Corey Lee, the city's project manager, said only one deposit of $50,000 — smaller than usual — is required for an unlimited number of bids. Lee also said the city will consider the difficult lending environment, which he called "extremely unique, to say the least," when making selections. One of the city's frequent requests, asking developers to build below-market-rate housing, is not listed in the solicitation.

Fenty's plan to develop the properties still faces multiple hurdles. Although he solicited interest in the buildings last fall from charter schools, as required by law, none has yet received space, and charter school advocate Friends of Choice in Urban Schools is arguing that the mayor is eschewing his duty to consider charters for former school buildings.

Leaders from a number of charter schools, including Capital City Public Charter School and Washington Yu Ying Public Charter, a new Chinese language immersion school, attended the meeting.

Members of the D.C. Council are also unhappy with the prospect of selling off old schools.

Councilman Tommy Thomas, D-Ward 5, whose district has lost more schools than any other ward under Rhee, submitted legislation that would tighten the process of selling or leasing city property.

The vacant school solicitation "highlights the importance of establishing a rigorous process for determining whether District-owned properties are no longer needed for public purposes," Thomas said in a statement.

Similarly, a new bill by Councilman Marion Barry, D-Ward 8, calls for the State Board of Education — not the deputy mayor's office — to control vacant schools and establish a process for giving charter schools the first opportunity to bid. The mayor's office says it offered the buildings to charter schools first and that charters are still free to partner with developers.

Councilman Jack Evans, D-Ward 2, backed the mayor in trying to return life to the empty buildings. Ward 2 is home to one of the most valuable and discussed properties on the list, Stevens Elementary School.

"I think the process is working fine," Evans said. "I don't agree with Council member Barry or Thomas as to why they would want to slow these things down."

His preference for Stevens, on 21st Street NW, would be a use that activates the neighborhood outside of 9-to-5 on weekdays.

"Putting corporate offices in any of these buildings is not something I would be supportive of," Evans said. "Residential, hotel, retail, any combination thereof, is really important, particularly in these downtown areas."

He added, however, that there may be enough sentiment on the council against selling the schools to disrupt the solicitation process.

"It's going to be a challenge on where the votes are," Evans said.

Bids for the schools are due Feb. 27.

April 4, 1968, cast a long shadow in our nation's history. As we commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King on his birthday today, we are reminded of his legacy in so many ways.

Foremost among these, of course, is the historic election of the nation's first African-American president tomorrow. But perhaps the most enduring lesson he still teaches us is to believe in the power of education to change our society for the better.

Dr. King never saw violence as a way to end the terrible injustices of segregation, despite the segregationists numerous violent threats and deeds. In the face of danger, he fearlessly educated African-Americans about their constitutional rights. He also educated poor whites that they had nothing to fear from their black brothers and sisters.

Eloquently stating his case in his book, Called to Serve, King wrote: "The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and ... critically. ... Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education." He understood the critical importance of education in achieving justice.

When Southern schools were segregated, poor black children were ill served by the public education systems they encountered. They lacked access to the job and career opportunities that come with access to higher education. The solution of many African-Americans at the time was the only one available: to move north, including to the District.

Sadly, D.C.'s public education system, like that in many parts of urban America, fell into decline, leaving many families with no alternative to the city's failing public schools. Fortunately, enough people in the District's various communities believed in education sufficiently to change the law, allowing public charter schools to set up and provide alternative public education options.

The charter school movement educated the city government about the need for choice as ever-increasing numbers of parents switched to charters. Today, more than one in three D.C. students are educated in public charter schools.

D.C.'s public charter schools are widely admired for raising the test scores of the African-American students who comprise 89 percent of charters' students. In federal, if not yet local, government, charters' success has built a strong pro-charter consensus that transcends party affiliation. President-elect Barack Obama for example, campaigning for his party's nomination, said: "I think we should foster competition within the public school system with charters."

D.C.'s charter schools are doing precisely that. Charters have raised the share of African-American secondary school students scoring advanced or proficient in math and reading tests 35 percent above the level attained in D.C.'s traditional public schools.

Economically disadvantaged African-American students in public charter secondary schools are twice as likely to score advanced or proficient in math and reading as their peers in the city-run schools.

Math and reading proficiency are essential prerequisites for a professional job in today's economy, and the career prospects and healthcare benefits such jobs can provide. These critical skills matter to anyone in today's challenging economy but are all the more important for African-Americans from D.C.'s most underserved neighborhoods. They need these skills to join the mainstream economy that has left so many vulnerable District communities.

We can build on the success of D.C.'s thriving charter schools by expanding them to accommodate those on waiting lists trying to get in, and by applying the lessons charters have learned in District-run schools.

There are signs that the city may try to do this by providing charter-like autonomy to some traditional public schools. By building on charters' success to ensure that every student has access to a good public education, we can use education to transform our city.

Donald Hense is chairman and founder of Friendship Public Charter Schools in the nation's capitol.

Stuart Butler's article ("Florida's school strategy a success," Nation, Friday) was correct that more than a quarter of Washington students attend public charter schools, but understated their student enrollment and popularity. In fact, more than one in three District students attend these self-governing schools. Thousands more are on waiting lists trying to get in.

Publicly funded, nonselective and independently run, these unique public schools also provide more education than their share of the student population suggests. The share of secondary-school students who are proficient at reading and math is more than 25 percent higher in D.C.'s charter schools than in District-run public schools.

More significantly, public-charter secondary-school students who receive school-lunch subsidies are twice as likely to score at grade level or above in federally mandated tests as their peers in city-run schools. No wonder President Obama has said, "I think we should foster competition within the public school system with charters."

NAOMI RUBIN DEVEAUX
Director of Academics
Friends of Choice in Urban Schools
Washington

It's been quite a week. The Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday came with the historic bonus of the inauguration of the nation's first African American president the next day. To see Barack Obama take the Oath of Office on the west side of the Capitol Building, built in part by slave labor, was a sight that many District residents thought they would never see. This milestone reminds us how far the nation has come. Yet other realities remind us of how far we have yet to travel.

While Robert Kennedy's 1961 prediction that an African American would ascend to the presidency in a few decades has come true, the promise of the Civil Rights Movement has yet to be realized in one key area. In D.C., as in many of the nation's other great cities, African American public school secondary students are half as likely to score advanced or proficient at reading tests as their White peers. The hope that so many now have for the White House has been slow to arrive in the public schoolhouse. But some District public schools are ahead of the curve.

Publicly funded, nonselective and independently run, D.C.'s public charter schools are helping bridge the reading proficiency divide that still bedevils the District. The share of African American students scoring advanced or proficient in reading tests is 20 percent higher in D.C.'s public charter schools than in the city-run public schools.

D.C.'s economically disadvantaged African American secondary students in charter schools are twice as likely to score advanced or proficient in reading as their counterparts enrolled in traditional public schools. No wonder the District's public charter schools are educating more than three times as many African American students in secondary schools to be proficient readers as the public school agency created for this purpose.

In some parts of our city, public charter schools have achieved amazing results. Thurgood Marshall Academy Public Charter High School in Anacostia sends 100 percent of its students to college. Their students are three times as likely to score advanced or proficient in reading as their fellow students in other Anacostia high schools.

Fulfilling the promise of civil rights means that every District child should have the opportunity for a decent public school education, which is their birthright as Americans. In a city in which one third of District residents lack the literacy skills they need to earn a living wage, fully engage in civic affairs, access information about health and safety issues, or wholly exercise their legal and civil rights, that landmark has yet to be reached.

Every District resident who cares about our city should remember that children who are not proficient at reading at age 15 are just a few short years away from joining the wrong side of that divide, assuming they don't drop out of school before then.

Of all the divisions in our city, that which divides those who are functionally illiterate from entering the world of words is perhaps one of the sharpest. This skill is essential for any member of our society. How much more important, then, is it for those whose brothers and sisters have felt the sting of discrimination and whose ancestors were denied the benefits of living in a free and open society?

The implications of illiteracy in adult life from employment and earnings to looking after oneself and one's family are life changing. Tackling this challenge is essential if we to end the age-old burden of intergenerational poverty and with it the ills that beset so many vulnerable communities.

Let's resolve to take the next step for civil rights, so that every adult can fully join civil society. The District has been the home of so many civil rights landmarks from Brown vs. Board of Education and the passage of the Voting Rights Act to the March on Washington almost 100 years after the District of Columbia Emancipation Act.

Previous generations have struggled to win for our children the end of segregation and the first critical steps toward Home Rule. For 12 years, D.C.'s public charter schools have led the way to the next step: empowering every child to fully take part in the society of which they are an equal part.

Charters' success deserves to be encouraged, built upon and shared with traditional public schools so that every D.C. child can benefit. This historic election won by an African American who knows the value of education in his life reminds us all in the nation's capital that it's high time that we taught all of our children to read.

As The Current reports in its Jan. 21 editorial "Take it case by case," Ward 6 Council member Tommy Wells introduced a bill that would rewrite D.C. law to allow the District's public charter schools — publicly funded and independently run — to become selective. His bill would allow District public charter schools to give admission preference to students who live nearby. That might sound like a good idea — everyone wants public schools to have strong community ties — but Wells' proposal would hurt the District communities that benefit the most from public charter schools.

Right now, when a charter school has more student applicants than places — which happens often as there are thousands of children on waiting lists trying to get in — it must hold a public lottery. This requirement is important. It means that D.C.'s public charter schools cannot select their students, as some city-run schools do, by screening out those who don't seem academically promising or who live in communities under- served by traditional public schools, as do so many children who live in Southeast and Northeast D.C.

In contrast to D.C.'s public charter schools, traditional D.C. public schools that are nonselective must enroll students from inside their city-allocated boundary before accepting children from farther afield. But this has not created a strong system of neighborhood schools. Six in 10 students in city- run schools live outside their schools' boundaries. Only in D.C.'s wealthiest ward do a majority of students who live in the ward attend city-run schools there. In wards 5 through 8, less than one- third of resident students attend city-run secondary schools in their ward.

Southeast and Northeast D.C. parents increasingly choose charter schools over the District-run alter- natives for unsurprising reasons. For example, economically disadvantaged secondary school students in D.C.'s public charter schools are twice as likely as their peers in D.C. public schools to score at grade level or above. D.C.'s charter secondary schools also have half the rate of absenteeism and much higher graduation rates than District-run public schools. D.C.'s charters have created stronger school communities by strengthening bonds among students, parents and teachers. Even though they don't give preference to children who live nearby, charter schools are great neighbors: invested in their communities and often revitalizing the neighborhoods they call home. Charters also have helped to break down barriers among the city's many diverse communities. Children from D.C.'s most vulnerable communities need charters to remain nonselective so they can access opportunities that otherwise would be unavailable.

Robert Cane
Executive Director
Friends of Choice in Urban Schools

Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee is right to focus on improving teacher quality in the District's traditional public schools. But contrary to what has been implied by much of the news coverage of Ms. Rhee's proposed reforms, the D.C. government does not consistently back school reform.

The District's most successful school reform to date was the introduction of public charter schools 12 years ago. Publicly funded, nonselective and independently run, the District's public charter schools educate more than one in three D.C. students.

Their success is clear.

Disadvantaged secondary students in public charter schools are twice as likely to score at grade level or above as their peers in District-run schools.

Sadly, this school reform has been undermined by D.C. government, which has prevented public charter schools from leasing or buying vacated public school buildings at almost every turn. As a result, many D.C. public charter schools occupy warehouse, retail or office space and church annexes and basements.

The District closed 23 under-enrolled city-run schools last year and last week proposed closing three more. When will the city stop selling empty public school buildings to condominium and office developers and let public charter school students into them?

RAMONA H. EDELIN
Executive Director
D.C. Association of Chartered Public Schools

Audited enrollment figures quietly posted on Friday confirm that D.C. public schools suffered their steepest annual decline since the District started using an outside firm a decade ago to verify the student population.

Enrollment for the 2008-09 academic year stands at 45,190, down 8.5 percent from last year's 49,422. That figure has spiraled steadily downward, to 80,000 in 1980 and to 67,000 in 2000.

Public charter schools continue their upward trend, showing a more than 14 percent percent rise over last year, to 25,729 from 21,947. Charters now represent slightly more than 36 percent of the District's total public school enrollment.

It appeared initially that DCPS' drop would not be as steep. An Oct. 6 count showed 46,208 students in the system's 120 schools. But a subsequent review of student records hompson, Cobb, Bazilio and Associates, the audit firm retained by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE), confirmed a larger drop. The enrollment figures were posted Friday on the OSSE's website. The annual audited count is usually accompanied by an official announcement. But this year, none was made.

Enrollment in Washington, D.C., charter schools jumped by 17 percent in the past year as the number of students declined by nearly 9 percent in D.C. Public Schools.

The city’s 60 charter schools have attracted nearly 26,000 students, up from about 22,000 in 2007-08 and accounting for more than one-third of all publicly educated students in the District. The enrollment increase is the largest the schools have seen in eight years; charters have existed in the District for almost 13 years.

A December analysis by The Washington Post found that, while not all D.C. charter schools outperform regular city schools, charter students on the whole score higher on standardized tests than their non-charter peers.

Among middle schoolers, charter students scored 13 percent higher, on average, on the city"s standardized tests.

An analysis of low-income students specifically found that those attending charters scored consistently higher on national assessments of both reading and math.

Compared to nationwide averages, however, both charter- and regular-school students in D.C. lag behind their peers.

Enrollment trends overall correlate with trends among special education students and English language learners. Enrollment among special education students fell by 11 percent in regular schools while it rose by 12 percent in charters. English language learners increased by 4 percent to 4,300 students in regular schools, but swelled by 31 percent to 1,600 students in charter schools.

Robert Cane, executive director of D.C.-based Friends of Choice in Urban Schools, praised the trend and cited it as evidence for charter expansion.

“Charters’ 36 percent share of public school students underestimates their popularity among parents as thousands of children enrolled in city-run schools are on waiting lists trying to get into charters,” Cane said.

D.C. schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee has been a supporter of charters in the city, as well. She could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

As District residents face new economic challenges, the D.C. unemployment rate just out is sobering news. The D.C. unemployment rate increased to 9.3 percent in January-higher than in 43 states, as well as higher than the national rate.

And the D.C. rate masks the fact that the tragedy of involuntary job losses is not felt evenly among all communities. We know, for example, that the African-American unemployment rate is almost double the rate for whites. No one imagines that the picture in D.C., if we had the data, would look any different.

But an intelligent response to the bad economic news that is sweeping across some of our most deprived neighborhoods requires us to look deeper into the data.

Of the over 15 million African-Americans working across the nation, the overwhelming majority graduated from high school. Indeed, the higher level of educational attainment among African-American women is one of the reasons why overall more women have jobs than men among African-Americans nationally. Over one and a half million more black women work than black men.

The plain and painful truth is that the educational achievement gap between black and white students casts a shadow for children over their adult lives. In the District, black public secondary school students are half as likely to score at grade level or higher in reading as their white peers. This places black students at a disadvantage when they graduate high school-big time if they fail to graduate.

In any labor market-especially one as challenging as today's-the harshest consequences are reserved for those who are least prepared. The unemployment rate for black men aged 20 to 24 without a high-school diploma is a staggering 55 percent. For those aged 19 to 20 the rate is a heartbreaking 91 percent.

When we look at unemployment among African-American college graduates, the picture becomes crystal clear. The unemployment rate of black college graduates last year was four percent: lower than the national rate.

The benefits to the individual-and society-of being a college graduate go beyond employment to encompass earnings and careers: African-Americans with a bachelor's degree or higher earn more than twice as much as their peers who have less than a high school diploma. They have the building blocks that create careers that are rewarding for them and for society as a whole.

By contrast, of those who fail-and are failed by urban education systems-to become proficient readers, a dismal future awaits. One in three District residents are functionally illiterate, unable to fully function in our society. The opportunities for such individuals is extremely limited anywhere in the nation but all the more so in the District because here over half of all jobs require college or advanced degrees, compared to only one in four nationally.

Fortunately, many vulnerable District children are getting an essential head start. D.C.'s public charter schools are educating three times as many black students to be proficient readers as the city-run public schools.

The District's public charter schools also have much higher rates of high school graduation and college acceptance. Many of these unique public schools send close to or fully 100 percent of their students to college.

As D.C. grapples with a weak economy that has hurt our city more than many predicted-and hit African-Americans harder than most-we should build on what we know works.

That education is essential to the progress of my community should not be news. What was it that the abolitionists used to say? "To educate a man is to unfit him to be a slave."

Norm Johnson is headmaster of the IDEA Public Charter High School in the District of Columbia.

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.