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That’s because spring break takes a different form at E.L. Haynes. The Petworth charter school operates on a year-round schedule, with eight- to 12-week academic sessions punctuated by breaks that include a week or more of “intersession.” During that time, school is optional and the classes are nontraditional. This year, for example, the 200 intercession students spent the week crafting quilts, taking drama classes and visiting museums on the Mall, among other activities.

Haynes founder Jennie Niles said the point of intercession is to introduce students to the kind of learning that falls outside the academic curriculum, and it’s especially useful for students whose parents don’t have the resources to pack their children’s schedules with extracurricular activities. “The purpose of it is really to level the playing field,” she said. “It’s not just school that’s helping enrich their lives.” Sixty-six percent of the students at Haynes qualify for free and reduced lunch, she added.

Niles, a former teacher, served as the head of the Charter School Office for the Connecticut State Department of Education before she completed the urban principal-training program New Leaders for New Schools in 2003. When she arrived in D.C., she came with a mission: “How do we start a school where all the students are prepared for college when they graduate?” she remembers asking her school reform- movement friends.

Haynes is her attempt to answer that question.

To that end, Niles said, the charter school synthesizes the best practices from institutions across the country. “We have borrowed or stolen liberally,” she said. For example, she got the idea of a year-round schedule from the Fairfax County school system, and the school’s teaching fellows program replicates a similar program established by the New Teacher Project, on a smaller scale.

At Haynes, teachers-in-training assist in classrooms while attending education classes at American University at night. Those teachers then compete for full-time jobs at Haynes, or for positions at other area schools. “It’s like an apprentice model,” Niles said.

At the school’s core is the philosophy that all students can achieve when they get the right mix of supports. “The key for us to teach the kids is: You’re not born smart or not smart. You have to work hard to get there,” she said. As a result, students must accept the principles outlined in the student promise: “Be Kind, Work Hard, Get Smart,” which is based on the KIPP charter school model. Posted on all the classroom walls, the promise instructs children to be respectful of their teachers, their classroom materials and each other, and to learn from their mistakes while avoiding excuses.

So far, Niles said, the school is netting impressive results. In 2008, Haynes students made 18 and 19 percentage-point gains in reading and math tests, respectively. That same year, Haynes was chosen from D.C.’s 56 charter schools as the winner of the Fight for Children’s Quality Schools Initiative Award. It was also a silver award winner in the New Leaders for New Schools’ Effective Practice Incentives Community (EPIC) grant program.

Robert Cane, executive director of Friends of Choice in Urban Schools, said Haynes exemplifies the promise of D.C.’s public charter schools — which now educate more than a third of the city’s public school students, according to enrollment data compiled by the D.C. Office of the State Superintendent. “It’s clearly one of the best-performing elementary schools in the city, including DCPS and public charter schools,” Cane said. “They combine extremely high standards with excellent teaching and much longer hours.”

Niles said she’s determined to keep the momentum going. Haynes first opened its doors in Columbia Heights in 2004. Since then, the school has grown by one grade every year, and it now serves 375 students in pre-kindergarten through sixth grade.

Last fall, E.L. Haynes moved into a new school building near the Petworth Metro station. Earlier this month, Haynes became one of a handful of charter schools the city selected to negotiate for a vacant D.C. Public School building. On March 16, the D.C. Office of Property Management announced that it would negotiate with Haynes to occupy Clark Elementary School in Petworth. The city will also negotiate with three other organizations — Washington Math Science Technology Public Charter School, AppleTree Public Charter School and the nonprofit group Building Hope — for use of the Taft Center in Brookland.

Niles said she is still ironing out the details of the Petworth purchase with the city, but she expects to use the new space as a high school for Haynes. “Probably what will happen is we’ll have to finance the capital improvements,” she said. “I think the mayor’s office has every intention to make it work.” She said the earliest the school could move into the new building is probably fall 2010. In the meantime, she said, she’s planning to scout out area high schools and see what’s working. “We know kids will know the grown-ups intimately,” she said. “We know we will have them out in the community often.”

Whatever the specifics of the program, she said, building a high school is key to achieving Haynes’ mission. “It really is a way to show that every child that starts with us will be ready to go to college,” she said.

With the due date approaching for development proposals at 11 shuttered D.C. Public Schools facilities, Foggy Bottom-West End neighborhood leaders quizzed Ward 2 Council member Jack Evans on the likely fate of the former Stevens Elementary at 1050 21st St.

“There’s been a lack of information about what will happen” after the March 27 deadline for submissions to develop the historically landmarked site, complained advisory neighborhood commission chair Armando Irizarry at the neighborhood meeting Evans attended. Evans claimed no special knowledge of the process but said he would like to see a development that would contribute to a lively neighborhood —- something that charter schools and office buildings, he said, do not necessarily accomplish.

“I want life in those buildings 24 hours a day,” Evans said. The commission has repeatedly stated its support for an educational use at Stevens, which was the District’s oldest school in continuous operation before it closed in 2008.

In an earlier round of submissions, four charter schools — Appletree Early Learning Center Public Charter School, Capital City Public Charter School, Community Academy Public Charter School and the Living Classroom Foundation — applied to occupy the site and were rejected.

Charter schools have been “encouraged” to apply in the current round, wrote Sean Madigan of the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development in an e-mail to The Current. His office has received no bids yet for the site, said Madigan, but he added that submissions typically arrive in the deputy mayor’s office on the due date.

The Stevens site is zoned C-3-C, which means that the space is available for “matter-of-right development for major business and employment centers of medium/high density development, including office, retail, housing, and mixed uses,” according to the city’s submission materials. The other former schools included in the current round of bids are zoned for residential use, a designation that also permits churches and public schools to occupy a site.

Though a school is not explicitly named as a potential use for Stevens, neighborhood leaders sought to convince Evans that a school would be the best use of the site for the community. Commissioner Florence Harmon pointed out that a charter school at Stevens could function as a lower school for nearby high school School Without Walls. “I know that’s how [School Without Walls principal Richard] Trogisch wants to use that site,” said Harmon. Trogisch, whose school is on spring break, did not return a call for comment.

“There are too many empty condos already” in the West End neighborhood, Harmon said of one possible use for the site. “We don’t need any more built.”

The community’s reasons for wanting a school are valid concerns, said Evans, but he challenged residents’ resistance to more residential uses. “That kind of thinking in the early 1990s would have meant no one living downtown now,” he said. What’s more, continued Evans, the recent economic downturn should lead taxpayers to question the pattern of more and more charter schools in the District. “Where does it all end?” Evans asked. “You’re paying for two systems now. There’s a lot of overlap. ... In the good times we could do it, but the good times are gone.”

Robert Cane, executive director of Friends of Choice in Urban Schools, disputed Evans’ characterization. “We have one system — DCPS. When they lose a child to a charter, they lose that funding, so the notion that we’re funding two systems is wrong,” Cane said.

Charter school facility questions recently became more urgent, said Cane. He said his organization is “extremely upset” over an item in the recently released city budget that makes it more difficult for charters to access $24 million in facility funds. First the city rejects the needs of charter schools in favor of possible private development, complained Cane, and then the mayor proposes to reduce funding for the facilities that the charters do occupy. Charter schools have had some luck finding space recently; the city announced this month that it will negotiate leases for two closed public school buildings, the former Clark Elementary School in Petworth and Taft Center in Brookland, with four public charter schools.

The eventual occupant of the Stevens site will have to demonstrate a successful track record as well as “the organizational and financial wherewithal to pull off the project they’ve proposed,” according to Madigan. Furthermore, in what may quite literally be a tall order given the Stevens site’s zoning, he said the District will want to maximize the site’s value. Proposals that do not request District subsidies will also be looked on favorably he added.

OUTLINING HIS proposed budget to the D.C. Council, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) stressed his commitment to education. We applaud that commitment and the mayor's efforts to fund badly needed improvements in the public schools. But it's troubling that the mayor's prepared testimony had not one word on charter schools, which educate 36 percent of the District's public school students. Even worse, his proposal to radically change how these schools are funded could well stunt a key component of education reform in the District.

The $10.3 billion spending plan for 2010 that Mr. Fenty released last week eliminates hundreds of jobs, uses federal stimulus money and imposes new fees to offset the loss of $802 million in local revenue. The proposal, which contains $5.4 billion in local funds, would increase education spending at a time when most agencies' budgets will be cut. Particularly noteworthy is the mayor's support of a 2 percent increase in the local per pupil funding formula. Charter schools would benefit from that increase and, because of increased student enrollment, would get a 10 percent bump in operating funds.

What is worrisome is a proposal to fundamentally alter the facilities funding for charters, which aren't guaranteed public space. In place of the current $3,109 per student per year, the mayor's budget proposes that charter schools submit "allowable costs" to the D.C. Public Charter School Board, which would use a sliding scale of $1,000 to $3,109 per student. There is no question that the current funding formula produces inequities between charters that have different needs and demands. But the mayor's plan would prevent charters, many of which are crammed into inadequate spaces, from saving money to build up the capital reserves needed to secure bank loans to obtain new space.

Commercial space is the only option for schools that are shut out of public school buildings. Some charters are fearful their current loan arrangements could be upended. Compared with traditional public schools, the charters already operate at a funding disadvantage, and the extra facilities funds help narrow the gap.

No doubt the mayor, who has staked his political reputation on improving the traditional schools, is feeling some heat: The latest audited enrollment figures showed the biggest charter increase since 2000, up 17 percent, while the public schools' enrollment fell 9 percent. But the measure of success for Mr. Fenty should be how many students have access to decent schools -- not whether those are charter or not. Impeding the growth of schools that have demonstrated success in raising test scores is to no one's advantage; it most certainly will not help Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee improve the traditional public schools.

This month’s prize for being disingenuous goes to George Parker, the Washington Teachers’ Union president, for his statement quoted in the March 18 Current, defending tenure for D.C. teachers: “All tenure does is give the employee due process.”

Due process, defined by the teacher contract, is a labyrinthine set of provisions that have defeated the most tenacious principals who have attempted to navigate them. Under the current union contract, if a teacher has been in the school system for three or more years, the “professional performance evaluation process” must be initiated for due process. This requires a “pre-observation conference” with the teacher and then a “classroom observation,” after which the teacher will be rated according to skills and performance. Fair enough. Almost always, a teacher will be rated as needing improvement, rather than unsatisfactory, and will then go through the “improvement process” for 90 school days. Then the teacher is re-observed and re-rated.

You might imagine that such an extensive process would constitute reasonable due process. But not in D.C. Public Schools. If such a teacher is rated “unimproved,” the principal does not have the authority to let that teacher go. Instead, the unimproved teacher is entitled to another cycle of conference, observation, rating and “improvement process” for another 90 school days.

Have they had enough due process yet? Not according to the D.C. teachers union. If they’re still rated as “unimproved,” they are entitled to a third cycle of the process for yet another 90 school days. Since the average length of an academic year is 180 school days, this effectively means an unimproved teacher could remain in the classroom for two academic years! Moreover, each of these steps must occur at precise times which, if not adhered to, can force the principal back to the start of the process. And if a teacher files a grievance, it can interrupt the process at any of several points. It’s easier to fire teachers who’ve been in the system less than three years.

Faced with these hurdles, principals find it much easier to persuade teachers to transfer to other schools, where other principals have to deal with their lack of improvement. Where, a reasonable person might demand, is the benefit to the city’s children in this “due process”?

One wonders why any school board would have signed a contract with such onerous provisions — until one appreciates the enormous power teachers unions gained in the late 1960s when they began to participate in the political process. Using union member dues to finance campaigns and union staff and teachers to do outreach, they became extremely successful in electing local officials. They have been particularly influential in school board elections, where the vote count is much lower. As a result, on many occasions, their representatives have effectively been on both sides of the negotiating table.

Nationally, the teachers union is one of the three or four most powerful lobby groups. As an example, one out of every six voting members of the last Democratic convention were members of a teachers union.

What makes the current negotiations with the D.C. teachers union so interesting is that Washington is the first major U.S. city where the union monopoly over public education has been broken by the rise of public charter schools — which now enroll 35 percent of the student population. Indeed, Parker is perhaps the first leader of a teachers union to publicly recognize the new landscape and counsel his members to be ready for more accountability or charter schools will take more of their jobs.

However, if sacred tenure and seniority rights are lost in D.C., it would begin to undermine teachers union positions nationwide, which is why Randi Weingarten, the head of the American Federation of Teachers, is heavily involved in these negotiations.

Winning this battle is absolutely essential for advancing reform in D.C. Public Schools. Without the right to hold teachers accountable (which means eliminating tenure and seniority), principals cannot create school cultures strong enough to overcome the street culture their students bring in. Our charter schools are able to establish strong cultures because principals have full control over both staff and budget, and the results are clearer to see. Such authority is less important in suburban schools, where family sociology is much stronger and expanding bureaucracies can still absorb the lemons among the faculty members. However, in D.C., where over two-thirds of the children are from single-parent, low-income families, this authority is essential.

Public charter school advocates are upset about a proposed change in the District's funding formula -- one that D.C. officials say is intended to make the schools more accountable for their facilities costs.

Like public schools, public charter schools are funded according to a per-pupil allocation. The basic amount--which is adjusted for grade level and special needs--would be $8,945 under Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's proposed 2010 budget.

Unlike public schools, charters enter the world without buildings waiting for them. So they receive an additional per-pupil allowance to help pay rent, mortgage or other facilities-related costs. This year's per rate is $3,109.

But controls on how charters actually use the money have been loose, District officials say, and some schools have been spending the facilities funds to defray other costs, such as payroll. Fenty wants to scrap the formula and cut the amount of facilities money available by $24 million (to $66 million). Charter schools would be required to submit evidence of allowable costs to the D.C. Public Charter School Board in order to receive payment.

Robert Cane, executive director of FOCUS (Friends of Choice in Urban Schools), an advocacy group, said the change would make it difficult for charter schools to accumulate the kind of capital reserves needed to secure bank financing to buy a building. He said he finds Fenty's decision highly inequitable, given the growth in charter school enrollment this year (up 17 percent). He also said it is part of a pattern of hostile decisions by the mayor, which include limits on the number of surplus public school buildings being made available to charters looking for new quarters.

"I would say that the Fenty administration appears to be upset because not every charter school is spending every dollar on facilities," he said. "So now what they're saying is we're not going to let you spend any of those dollars on academics." It creates an incentive, he said "to be just as profligate in spending as DCPS is."

The formula flap is expected to surface today when the D.C. Council holds its annual budget hearing on charter school funding.

By Bill Turque | April 2, 2009; 6:55 AM ET

Redevelopment bids are in for 11 shuttered D.C. Public Schools facilities, and two Northwest sites attracted several bids each. The former Stevens Elementary at 1050 21st St. was among the most popular, with nine bids, and the old Grimke Elementary School at 1925 Vermont Ave. received three.

Although many in the West End-Foggy Bottom neighborhood, including the advisory neighborhood commissioners, wanted Stevens to reopen as a school, there is no school listed among the bidders who submitted plans to the city by the March 27 deadline.

Proposed uses are varied and include offices, residences and a nonprofit center to house and train formerly homeless and incarcerated men to rejoin the workforce.

The program — Ready, Willing & Working — was developed by the Capitol Hill Business Improvement District and currently employs 13 men in Capitol Hill. If the program acquires the Stevens site, 100 to 200 men — depending on funds — would be housed there for up to 14 months, said the Capitol Hill group’s executive director, Patty Brosmer.

“It’s not a shelter — it’s really an anti-shelter,” Brosmer said. Participants in the program, which is based on a model developed in New York City, would work for revenue-producing businesses, which may include maintenance and food service, Brosmer said.

She predicted the city will be attracted to such a use, because although the group would pay only $1 a year in rent, the program would save the city money in social services. What’s more, she said, the program would likely remain in the site for only five to 10 years, allowing the city to redevelop the school later in a potentially healthier economic climate.

Other bidders say they don’t need to wait for the national economy to recover — they’ve got cash in their pockets now.

The locally based Neighborhood Development Co. has partnered with Chicago-based behemoth Equity Residential to propose converting the circa-1868 building to condominiums. “Our partner has a lot of money in the bank,” said Adrian Washington, Neighborhood’s president. That backing, he predicted, will be attractive to city officials.

Ward 2 Council member Jack Evans has expressed his desire to see the site used for residences. Washington’s offer would yield approximately 200 units, some on the upper floor of the school (“It’ll be a funky, adaptive reuse,” he said of the loft-style units in the historic building) and the bulk in a condo tower to be constructed alongside. Most units would be market-rate, said Washington, but 8 to 10 percent would be designated affordable for those earning 60 to 80 percent of the area’s median income.

Robert Holland of Holland Development Group, which teamed with a few other developers to submit a proposal for the Stevens site, typically focuses on residential and hotel projects. But right now, he said, “getting financing on residential is very difficult.” As a result, Holland and his partners are proposing to convert the school into office space.

D.C.-based developer Akridge is also proposing an office development. Firm spokesperson Mary Margaret Plumridge said preservation of the landmarked building is a priority, and partners like architectural firm Martinez & Johnson have been selected with preservation experience in mind. Akridge proposes to build on top of the school’s playground.

Both Holland’s and Akridge’s proposals include potential redevelopment of the Humane Society of the United States’ L Street offices near Stevens. “How we would participate will be negotiated,” said Tom Wade, the society’s chief financial officer, who added that decisions would follow “what makes sense financially. ... With prominent real estate, you have to be aware of the value scenario,” he said. Wade said it’s possible the society might not occupy the site after redevelopment.

Those who want Stevens to be a school again may feel some envy for the neighbors of the former Grimke Elementary, whose three bids include two schools: Capital City Charter School and Meridian Public Charter School.

But residents have expressed reservations about adding another school to the neighborhood.

The Westminster Neighborhood Association earlier this year supported a set of goals that prioritized “low- to medium-impact uses” in the 46,100-square-foot building.

They suggested office, retail or residential uses as possibilities, and recommended that if a school takes possession of the site, its enrollment should be capped at 200 students.

Meridian now serves 550 students, and Capital City has 244 students.

The three bids for the circa-1937 building show one name popping up twice: the African American Civil War Museum, now squeezed in its current space at 1200 U St., according to museum director Frank Smith.

Smith’s partners for the two alternative proposals are the Meridian School and architectural firm Torti Gallas. If awarded the bid, Torti Gallas would close its Maryland office and move 100 employees to the Grimke site. The museum and Meridian have partnered in a previous bid for Grimke, but the city rejected it. This time around, Smith said, the museum has been “more involved” with the architectural firm. Torti Gallas reserved space in the proposal for the museum before Smith even asked for it, he said.

But Smith said he’ll be pleased if the city picks either of the proposals with his museum’s name on it. “We’re prepared to go either way,” he said. “We’re all sitting here with our fingers crossed.”

Redevelopment bids are in for 11 shuttered D.C. Public Schools facilities, and two Northwest sites attracted several bids each. The former Stevens Elementary at 1050 21st St. was among the most popular, with nine bids, and the old Grimke Elementary School at 1925 Vermont Ave. received three.

Although many in the West End-Foggy Bottom neighborhood, including the advisory neighborhood commissioners, wanted Stevens to reopen as a school, there is no school listed among the bidders who submitted plans to the city by the March 27 deadline.

Proposed uses are varied and include offices, residences and a nonprofit center to house and train formerly homeless and incarcerated men to rejoin the workforce.

The program — Ready, Willing & Working — was developed by the Capitol Hill Business Improvement District and currently employs 13 men in Capitol Hill. If the program acquires the Stevens site, 100 to 200 men — depending on funds — would be housed there for up to 14 months, said the Capitol Hill group’s executive director, Patty Brosmer.

“It’s not a shelter — it’s really an anti-shelter,” Brosmer said. Participants in the program, which is based on a model developed in New York City, would work for revenue-producing businesses, which may include maintenance and food service, Brosmer said.

She predicted the city will be attracted to such a use, because although the group would pay only $1 a year in rent, the program would save the city money in social services. What’s more, she said, the program would likely remain in the site for only five to 10 years, allowing the city to redevelop the school later in a potentially healthier economic climate.

Other bidders say they don’t need to wait for the national economy to recover — they’ve got cash in their pockets now.

The locally based Neighborhood Development Co. has partnered with Chicago-based behemoth Equity Residential to propose converting the circa-1868 building to condominiums. “Our partner has a lot of money in the bank,” said Adrian Washington, Neighborhood’s president. That backing, he predicted, will be attractive to city officials.

Ward 2 Council member Jack Evans has expressed his desire to see the site used for residences. Washington’s offer would yield approximately 200 units, some on the upper floor of the school (“It’ll be a funky, adaptive reuse,” he said of the loft-style units in the historic building) and the bulk in a condo tower to be constructed alongside. Most units would be market-rate, said Washington, but 8 to 10 percent would be designated affordable for those earning 60 to 80 percent of the area’s median income.

Robert Holland of Holland Development Group, which teamed with a few other developers to submit a proposal for the Stevens site, typically focuses on residential and hotel projects. But right now, he said, “getting financing on residential is very difficult.” As a result, Holland and his partners are proposing to convert the school into office space.

D.C.-based developer Akridge is also proposing an office development. Firm spokesperson Mary Margaret Plumridge said preservation of the landmarked building is a priority, and partners like architectural firm Martinez & Johnson have been selected with preservation experience in mind. Akridge proposes to build on top of the school’s playground.

Both Holland’s and Akridge’s proposals include potential redevelopment of the Humane Society of the United States’ L Street offices near Stevens. “How we would participate will be negotiated,” said Tom Wade, the society’s chief financial officer, who added that decisions would follow “what makes sense financially. ... With prominent real estate, you have to be aware of the value scenario,” he said. Wade said it’s possible the society might not occupy the site after redevelopment.

Those who want Stevens to be a school again may feel some envy for the neighbors of the former Grimke Elementary, whose three bids include two schools: Capital City Charter School and Meridian Public Charter School.

But residents have expressed reservations about adding another school to the neighborhood.

The Westminster Neighborhood Association earlier this year supported a set of goals that prioritized “low- to medium-impact uses” in the 46,100-square-foot building.

They suggested office, retail or residential uses as possibilities, and recommended that if a school takes possession of the site, its enrollment should be capped at 200 students.

Meridian now serves 550 students, and Capital City has 244 students.

The three bids for the circa-1937 building show one name popping up twice: the African American Civil War Museum, now squeezed in its current space at 1200 U St., according to museum director Frank Smith.

Smith’s partners for the two alternative proposals are the Meridian School and architectural firm Torti Gallas. If awarded the bid, Torti Gallas would close its Maryland office and move 100 employees to the Grimke site. The museum and Meridian have partnered in a previous bid for Grimke, but the city rejected it. This time around, Smith said, the museum has been “more involved” with the architectural firm. Torti Gallas reserved space in the proposal for the museum before Smith even asked for it, he said.

But Smith said he’ll be pleased if the city picks either of the proposals with his museum’s name on it. “We’re prepared to go either way,” he said. “We’re all sitting here with our fingers crossed.”

Utterly unfair. Downright cruel. Only strong words do justice to the way the Obama administration, the Democratic congressional leadership, and Mayor Adrian Fenty broke official promises of education financial assistance made years ago to nearly 2,000 poor families in D.C. What these officials have done is worse than merely pulling the rug out from under the affected families; it’s more like pulling a ladder out from under them with nothing below to cushion their fall.

With President Obama’s obvious blessing, Congress effectively voted in February to kill the District’s Opportunity Scholarship program as of spring, 2010, despite preliminary, data-driven analyses by experts at Georgetown University, the Manhattan Institute, and the U.S. Department of Education. Those analyses showed the program to be overwhelmingly popular with parents and a boon to the academic progress of their children. The Senate’s anti-school choice leader, Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Congress could always reauthorize the program if later studies showed conclusively it was helping the children’s educational performance. As it turns out, such a study had already been completed by the Department of Education last November. But the public did not know about it because the Obama administration sat on the results for months, then buried them in a larger report released late in the afternoon of April 3, a Friday. The report showed that scholarship recipients are reading at a significantly higher level t an their public school counterparts.

It’s worth noting that Obama has made an absolute fetish of claiming to let facts drive public policy – but when it comes to the scholarships, not even the federal government’s own peer-reviewed, data-driven, apolitical study moved Obama to stop the political interference with the program. Even worse, Obama’s Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, decided to revoke “new” scholarships for 200 incoming students who already had been told the award was theirs.

As for Fenty, he is not only failing to defend the D.C. Opportunity Scholarships, he is also hobbling the even-more popular District charter school program. Fenty proposes to cut the charters’ “facilities” budget by 26 percent (from $90 million to $66 million), while increasing funding for the chronically failing conventional public schools by 5 percent ($13 million) – despite the fact charter school enrollment is up 17 percent and down 9 percent in the failing schools. Once again, the politicians opted to reward failure instead of encouraging success.

The Current is right to highlight the expansion of E.L. Haynes Public Charter School, one of the most successful in the city, and its popularity with parents — the reason for the school’s expansion plans [“Charter sees rising scores, expansion,” March 25].

In fact, the latest audited student enrollment figures released by the D.C. government reveal that the popularity of E.L. Haynes is the rule rather than the exception among the city’s public charter schools.

Compared with the previous school year, student enrollment at District public charter schools increased by 17 percent — the largest annual increase since 2000.

D.C.’s chartered public schools have created more intimate learning environments in which teachers are free to innovate, parents can get more involved and students are provided the structure they need to learn.

If the government wants to reverse the sizable D.C. Public Schools student enrollment decline shown by the current audit, it would do well to allow city-run schools more charterlike freedoms and responsibilities.

Leaders of the District's public charter schools are appeal ing to D.C. Council members in the wake of Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's proposed $24 million, or 26 percent, funding cut.

Lawmakers have until May 12 to amend the mayor's budget before voting on it.

The proposed cuts followed the release of city-audited enrollment data that showed a 17 percent increase in student enrollment in public charter schools and an 8.5 percent drop in enrollment in city-run schools.

The cutting is to the charter schools' facilities allowance, which is used to lease, buy and renovate buildings. The mayor's budget, meanwhile, would increase facilities funding for city-run schools by $13 million, or 5 percent.

Victor Reinoso, deputy mayor for education, told the council earlier this month that the $66 million allotted for charter school facilities is "sufficient to support all current facilities costs with a 10 percent growth rate."

Public charter school leaders dispute this. They believe the cut is unfair because only their schools would take the hit. They argue that charters are already underserved for facilities, compared with traditional public schools.

They also point out that charter schools are ahead of the curve in one of the city's primary education goals - closing the achievement gap between black and white students - despite facing greater facilities challenges.

"African-American middle- and high-school students in public charter schools are almost twice as likely to be proficient at reading and math as their peers in city-run neighborhood schools," says Donald Hense, chairman of Friendship Charter Public Schools. "The mayor's planned $851-per-student cut for charters is bad for D.C. school reform as well as the children. But will the city council members stand up to the mayor and remove it?"

Robert Cane, executive director of Friends of Choice in Urban Schools, an advocacy organization and resource for the city's charter schools, said: "Public charter schools educate 36 percent of D.C. public school students but are being asked to take 100 percent of the education cuts planned by Mayor Fenty."

Charters, moreover, are being denied access to public school buildings that are no longer required by the city-run schools while facing cuts in the funds the charters need to acquire and develop commercial space, charter leaders say.

Mr. Cane says the District is entertaining 35 offers from private developers on 11 school buildings closed by Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee. Charter schools made 33 separate offers on surplus public school buildings, but the city accepted only six offers on three buildings - with charters competing against each other.

Mr. Cane argues that the city government has frustrated charter school access to the surplus buildings despite D.C. law that says the schools should have the "right of first offer" to negotiate to buy or lease them before the District can offer them to condo and office developers.

"Many charters are crammed into often-inadequate warehouse, commercial or retail space and church annexes and basements," he said, adding that the average square footage per student is less than half that of the city-run schools.

Mr. Reinoso countered by saying that not all charter school facilities' funds are spent for facilities each fiscal year.

Charter leaders say that their difficulty obtaining school facilities means that in many cases they must save for a down payment to purchase a building or to undertake renovations necessary to convert commercial space to school use.

Many D.C. public charter school leaders also worry that, having been forced to borrow to renovate high-priced commercial real estate, the facilities funding cut will make it harder for them to get loans.

Lenders have extended credit to some charters to acquire facilities based on the assumption that the current facilities allowance of $3,109 per student will only be adjusted for the cost of living. School leaders fear that if their funding for facilities is subject to change owing to political considerations, then credit - already scarce because of the overall economic downturn - will become impossible for schools to obtain.

Charter leaders also are concerned that the cuts may place their schools in default on existing loans. Mr. Hense, whose Friendship schools enroll almost 4,000 students, is one.

"It is quite clear that the current proposals jeopardize the bonds that we have and without some fancy dancing could force us into default," he said. "If we are able to dodge default, the proposals will surely thwart the growth of charters."