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The Current's Dec. 10 article “Board of Education tackles District truancy problems” rightly drew attention to truancy issues in District public schools. But it is not correct that the Office of the State Superintendent of Education has the power to impose truancy regulations on D.C.'s public charter schools.

Truancy is much less of a problem in D.C.'s public charter schools, and imposing a one-size-fits-all regulation on these independent public schools would undermine the success they have already achieved. The rate of absenteeism at D.C.'s public charter secondary schools is almost half that of District traditional public schools. Perhaps not coincidentally, District students in public charter secondary schools with a majority of economically disadvantaged students are twice as likely to score advanced or proficient on math and reading tests as their counterparts in equivalent traditional public secondary schools.

Nonselective, publicly funded and independently run, these autonomous public schools are curbing student absenteeism by building stronger bonds among students, parents and teachers. This important success is especially impressive because D.C.'s public charter schools have pioneered longer school days, weeks and years. Their achievement should be shared among all District public schools so every D.C. child can benefit.

Robert Cane
Executive director, FOCUS
Friends of Choice in Urban Schools

In key ways, discussion of school reform in the District is missing the forest for the trees. Perhaps the biggest misconception is that reform begins and ends with the city agency overseeing the school district. The District of Columbia Public Schools is only part of the story.

Since the first two self-governing public charter schools opened in 1996, they have steadily attracted more families. Today, more than one-third of D.C. students are educated in schools that enjoy autonomy from DCPS and the city government. Publicly funded, nonselective and nonsectarian, these schools have pioneered reform in the District after decades of neglect of public education.

Before charters arrived, a generation of low-income students was written off by a failed public education system. Just 12 years later, economically disadvantaged students -- defined as those eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches -- in secondary charter schools are twice as likely to score at advanced or proficient levels on math and reading tests as their peers in traditional public schools, based on federally mandated national tests.

By proving the cynics wrong and ending the monopoly of those who abdicated responsibility for children from some of our most vulnerable communities, D.C. public charter schools set the stage for the reforms being carried out by Mayor Adrian Fenty and Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee. As they work to improve education in the city, Fenty and Rhee would do well to seek ways to provide the traditional public schools with more autonomy.

Autonomy is the linchpin of the charters' success. Independence lets charters control their own academic programs, enabling them to respond quickly and effectively to the needs of their students. It allows schools to specialize in certain subjects and to hire teachers who will do the best job for the children. This freedom to innovate enabled charters to pioneer longer school days, weeks and years and to find new ways for parents to get involved.

Despite the growth in charters, myths abound. A persistent one is that charters are flush with funds unavailable to traditional public schools. In fact, both types of public school are funded under the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula, which ensures that students in the same grade or at the same level of special education are funded equally. About $3,000 per student goes to charters to pay for facilities, while DCPS schools receive about $5,000 per student from the city government's capital budget. The big foundations make grants to both types of schools.

Charters' autonomy enables them to get a bigger bang for the same buck. A public charter school principal can spend all the public money that his or her school receives directly on the school. The traditional public school counterpart can spend only what's available after the city's education bureaucracy takes its cut. Free from micromanagement, charters can allocate their funds in ways that provide the best value for their schools; for example, from 1999 to 2005, they completed renovations at less than half the cost expended by DCPS schools, according to an analysis by Friends of Choice in Urban Schools.

Charters not only perform better when the playing field is level, but they do so even when the law is not enforced.

For instance, D.C. law requires that charters be given first crack at empty school buildings, before condo developers or non-educational city agencies can bid for them. Yet the city has in most instances denied charters unused school facilities, forcing them into the commercial loan market to pay high costs for spaces that are often inadequate.

The issue of these bank loans was raised recently in The Post, leading some to confuse the freedom that charters enjoy with a lack of accountability and oversight. Charters do have overseers: They are accountable to parents who choose them for their children and to their regulatory body, the Public Charter School Board, a nationally renowned model of accountability. For 12 years, this board has been doing what the city has just begun for traditional schools: holding charters to high standards, tackling under-performance and replacing ineffective school leaders.

The District is poised to embark on a second wave of school reform, efforts we applaud. But in trying to improve education, the worst thing the government could do is reduce the autonomy of any D.C. schools. This would risk the academic success charters have achieved, which includes raising graduation rates, and would endanger their achievements in curbing absenteeism and violent crime in schools. Ultimately, it would prevent the successes that autonomy brings from being shared with traditional public schools to benefit every District child.

Kevin Chavous, who represented Ward 7 on the D.C. Council from 1993 to 2005, is a distinguished fellow with the Center for Education Reform. Robert Cane is executive director of Friends of Choice in Urban Schools, a Washington-based nonprofit that advocates school reform in the District via the creation of public charter schools.

As many as 23 former D.C. school buildings are on the public selling block despite the fact that federal law says charter schools (also public) should get first dibs. Mayor Adrian Fenty has decided that developers are to get the first go - having offered 11 school campuses to retail, commercial and residential developers.

Law be damned, says the mayor. Parents and school reformers take heed. The mayor also has ignored another requisite - and that is to first declare the buildings surplus properties with the D.C. Register.

There is a longstanding history of opposition to school choice from proponents of the status quo. Former schools Superintendent Clifford B. Janey did everything he could to keep public charter schools - a choice for parents fed up with the troubled traditional schools - from competing on an even playing field. It meant that charter schools were routinely kept out of vacant and shared-space opportunities within public school buildings, forcing them to lease private space that was often inadequate and expensive. As a result, Rep. Tom Davis, Virginia Republican, helped craft a federal law that charter schools would get the first right of refusal of vacant school buildings. While Mr. Janey flouted that law, Mr. Fenty promised to reform traditional schools and support charter schools. Lawmakers now question whether the mayor intends to keep his promises.

"It is the law which says that closed public schools should be offered to chartered schools and/or used for governmental purposes. Development is the last resort when there is no other need for these buildings," said D.C. Council Member Marion Barry, who, like the mayor, is a Democrat. "This latest attempt by the mayor to steamroll something past the council is totally unacceptable. This is a use of space that no one wants to support. The mayor should know better." We concur with Mr. Barry.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the mayor working with the business community to increase the city's tax base. It is generally good policy to do so - and even more pertinent amid the recession. But the law is the law. And commercialization shouldn't trump education.

Maybe Mr. Fenty thinks he is advocating sound economic and academic policy by soliciting commercial proposals for the shuttered schools. But who would know? The mayor has yet to state his position and set his policy before the public. If the mayor opposes the law, then he should explain why. In the meantime, he must obey the law.

The council also has an opportunity to act should Mr. Fenty refuse: It can force the mayor's hand with legislative action. At this juncture, the lawmakers should exercise that option and the mayor should heed the wishes of parents over developers.

At its final meeting of the year, the D.C. State Board of Education approved new early learning standards for infants, toddlers and prekindergartners, truancy regulations for D.C. public school students, teacher preparation program standards, and an overarching statement of principles called a vision for education in the 21st century.

Members said the new standards and regulations marked the culmination of their work in the year and a half since the mayor took over control of the school system’s operations and the school board was reconstituted as a policy-oriented panel. The new rules and guidelines will pave the way for next year’s state board, which will be composed of many of the same members but, for the first time, all elected.

The new early learning standards set forth general expectations for children between the ages of 0 and 4. The state superintendent’s office says the guidelines are to be used as a resource for children in community-based early childcare programs, family childcare, Early Head Start, Head Start and pre-kindergarten programs.

“These standards, I think, are incredibly robust, and I wholeheartedly support them,” said Mary Lord, who represents wards 1 and 2 on the board. The board passed the standards unanimously.

At its Dec. 17 meeting, the board also approved general requirements for teacher-training institutions with post-baccalaureate and non-degree educator programs that prepare candidates for positions of leadership. Only member William Lockridge, who represents wards 7 and 8, opposed the new requirements. He said he felt the board was rushed into approving them. In addition, the board set forth new policies for dealing with truancy.

Under the regulations, D.C. schools will be required to contact a student’s parent or guardian after one day of an unexcused absence. If a student accumulates five or more unexcused absences in one marking period, he or she will be referred to a school-based support team. After 10 or more unexcused absences, the school administrator will be notified and the school will be required to develop an intervention plan. A student between the ages of 5 and 13 with 10 consecutive unexcused absences, or 20 unexcused absences total, will be referred to the Child and Family Services Agency. A student over the age of 13 with 25 or more unexcused absences will be referred to the Office of the Attorney General and D.C. Superior Court’s social services division.

State superintendent Deborah Gist said her office is confident that the rules will apply to both D.C. Public Schools and charter schools, but Robert Cane, executive director of Friends of Choice in Urban Schools, disagrees. He said the autonomy granted charter schools in the 2007 school reform act exempts charters from such regulations.

“Everyone in public education in the District is concerned about truancy,” he said, but he noted that the D.C. Charter School Board is already attacking the problem with gusto. He said charters should be able to design their own policies, tailored to their specific student bodies.”One size fits all is a very bad idea in education,” he said.

The board also unanimously passed a sweeping statement of principles outlining targets for student engagement and achievement.

Published on: January 5, 2009

The city is soliciting proposals to redevelop or reuse 11 closed D.C. Public Schools facilities, a group that includes Grimke Elementary at 1925 Vermont Ave. in Shaw and Stevens Elementary at 1050 21st St. in the West End. "We have a rare opportunity to bring transformative projects that will improve neighborhoods across the city," Neil Albert, deputy mayor for planning and economic development, said in a Dec. 22 release.

"Teams must have an outstanding track record for community engagement and a proven capacity to bring projects to completion, not only on time, but on budget." According to the release, successful proposals will minimize the use of public subsidies and include commitments to small and disadvantaged businesses. The city will evaluate proposals based on their vision, plans for community involvement, designs and feasibility. They are due Feb. 17.

The deputy mayor’s office will then host a series of community meetings at which neighbors can address the bidders and outline their priorities for the sites. Selections will be made in the spring. Robert Cane, executive director of Friends of Choice in Urban Schools, criticized the call for proposals, saying the solicitation ignores the needs of area charter schools.

"What it means is, once again, the majority of the schools are going to be used for luxury condominiums and other developments and not for D.C. public school kids," he said.

"We have 60 charter schools on 96 campuses. They occupy everything from church basements to annexes and former warehouses to some school buildings. D.C. parents, more and more every year, want to send their kids to charter schools. Both legally and morally, the city government should be giving these schools to D.C. public school students."

In July, the Office of Property Management released a "request for expressions of interest" for eight of the city’s closed school buildings, including Grimke. But Cane took issue with the request, noting that, according to D.C. law, charter schools must be given the "right of first offer" to lease or buy the buildings at the appraised value. In September, the Office of Property Management released a revised request — this time including Stevens — that was geared specifically to charter schools.

According to Cane, 18 charters responded, with 33 offers for buildings. "Some charter schools made offers for more than one building," he said. But the outcome was disappointing, Cane said. In early December, the city offered six charter schools the opportunity to compete for three buildings: Clark Elementary at 4501 Kansas Ave. NW, J.F. Cooke Elementary at 30 PSt. NW, and the Taft Center at 1800 Perry St. NE.

Many of the charter schools that made offers were rejected, Cane said, and even those that got a green light still have to compete for the sites. "They may not win," he said. "The government gave us the right of first offer under duress, but there’s a question of whether it was a sham."

Sean Madigan, a spokesperson for the deputy mayor’s office, said the schools are welcome to resubmit their proposals, or team up with developers. "It is not restricted," he said. But charter schools will have to prove the financial feasibility of their proposals, he said.

"What we really want to do is maximize the value of these assets," Madigan said. He added that his office is open both to leasing the buildings or selling them outright. Asher Corson, chair of the Foggy Bottom-West End advisory neighborhood commission, said the community had hoped to see an educational use for Stevens — one of the 23 schools closed by Chancellor Michelle Rhee last spring.

And according to Cane, plenty of charters were interested. Appletree Early Learning Center Public Charter School, Capital City Public Charter School, Community Academy Public Charter School and the Living Classroom Foundation all submitted applications for the 21st Street school and got rejected. But neighbors would also be enthusiastic about transforming Stevens into a public gathering spot.

"Most neighborhoods have community space or a recreation center," Corson said. "We have nothing like that in Foggy Bottom." Neighbors of the Grimke School have also made their opinions known. The structure, built in 1937, ceased functioning as a school in 1978. It now contains offices for the Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department and the Department of Corrections, but plans call for both agencies to move.

Cane said Capital City Public Charter School, E.L. Haynes Public Charter School, Maya Angelou Public Charter School, Meridian Public Charter School and Yu-Ying Public Charter School all expressed interest in the site. But the area is already home to several schools, said U Street area advisory neighborhood commissioner Phil Spalding, and "the community around there isn’t terribly encouraging about charter school use" for the site. Instead, he said, neighbors have put their support behind the African American Civil War Memorial Freedom Foundation and Museum, which has outgrown its current home at 1200 U St. He noted that the museum would probably need only 20,000 to 30,000 square feet, so another use would be possible as well. Either way, Spalding said, he’d like to see more outreach. "The response from the city has not been terribly transparent," he said. Ward 5 Council member Harry Thomas agreed. On Dec. 23, he announced his intention to reintroduce a bill that would set guidelines for the disposition of city property. The bill, originally called the Public Land Surplus Standards Amendment Act of 2007, would amend existing rules to create standards that must be met before any property is excessed. "Across the city, residents to have their voices heard in the process," said Thomas spokesperson Vicky Leonard-Chambers. "Once you dispose of a District- owned property ... you don’t get it back."

Increasingly renowned for raising test scores for D.C.'s most disadvantaged students, the District's public charter schools—which now educate more than one in three D.C. students—have found that their growing prominence attracts press interest.

Recently, the city's other daily newspaper ran an inconclusive—later partially corrected—piece on the bank loans taken out by some charters. Sadly, their enthusiasm for a big news splash failed to guide them to the real scoop.

The story reporters at The Washington Post missed is why the city's charters have been forced into the commercial loan market in the first place. D.C. law requires that charters be given “the first right of offer” on vacant school buildings before condo and office developers or D.C. government agencies can bid for them. The scandal is that the city has continuously denied charters the public school space their students need.

Thanks to the city's defiance of its own law, D.C.'s public charter schools pay high costs to acquire and remodel often-inadequate space—lacking playgrounds, cafeterias, auditoriums and other school necessities.

The unsuitable buildings that charters are forced to occupy include church buildings, basements and converted warehouse, retail and office space. Meanwhile, record numbers of surplus school buildings stand empty under lock and key.

Recently, acres of school-appropriate space became available following Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee's decision to close 23 under-enrolled traditional public schools.

Yet the D.C. government allowed the charters to make offers on fewer than half of these. Worse, following the offer process charters were invited to negotiate with the city on only three buildings; adding insult to injury, two charters are in competition for each of the three.

If not for public education, what are the city fathers' plans for D.C.'s vacant school facilities? A total of 11 school buildings that the charter schools badly need have just been offered to developers.

Another six have been reserved for city agencies. Even if this didn't break the law, it simply doesn't make sense for the city to spend money to convert schools to office use while schools have to convert offices for school use.

These vacant public school buildings—like those the city has denied charters over the years—were built at taxpayers' expense to be used for public education. Public education today means both DCPS and the charter schools, but while the government has committed more than $2 billion to provide state-of-the-art school buildings for the children of the former, public charter school students do not even merit space in the decayed school buildings discarded by DCPS.

The law that the city flouts is there for a reason, so kids come first. Economic development is obviously important, but not more so than public education. Perversely, D.C.'s government would benefit from letting students use the surplus school space.

By making charters move into commercial space, the city government loses the property tax receipts that their previous for-profit occupants would have paid. Charters also save the city precious public education dollars by completing school renovations at far less cost than the city's traditional public schools.

Few, if any, District residents want public school buildings converted into condos when children in good public schools lack appropriate facilities. Denying kids schoolroom space in which to learn says much about the attitude of the city government to the education of the District children who are our city's future.

D.C. law and our consciences say that D.C.'s public school buildings are for our children. It's time that the Mayor and council members said so too and let the children in so all D.C. kids have a good place to go to school.

Robert Cane is executive director of Friends of Choice in Urban Schools, a Washington-based nonprofit that advocates school reform in the District via the creation of high quality public charter schools.

DISTRICT OFFICIALS recently announced that they have 11 former school buildings for sale to developers interested in using the sites for retail, offices or housing. Never mind that at least a dozen charter schools, desperate for new facilities, had hoped to acquire the spaces. Never mind that, by law, the charter schools are supposed to get first dibs. What's clear is that Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) is being as stingy as the previous administration was in denying public charter schools their rightful access to public facilities.

The 11 buildings put out to bid by the mayor's office of planning and economic development are among 31 schools throughout the city that have been shut in recent years. Most were closed by Mr. Fenty and Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee at the end of the 2007-08 academic year as part of their reforms of the school system. The large number of closures gave charter school advocates hope that schools operating in cramped or makeshift facilities would finally obtain relief. Indeed, 18 charters made 33 separate bids on 10 buildings offered last fall; the city, however, selected six of the charters to negotiate on just three of the buildings -- with two charters competing for each one.

Charter school operators nationwide struggle to find suitable facilities, with many schools having to move repeatedly after starting out in inadequate spaces. So it's maddening to see students crowded into church basements or small offices while facilities that were built specifically for the education of children go unused. Obviously, charters shouldn't be automatically entitled to every old school. There are situations in which other uses make more sense for economic reasons or because of neighborhood concerns. Stevens Elementary in Foggy Bottom, for instance, is sitting on a piece of property potentially so valuable that it would be shortsighted of the District not to investigate a sale during these hard budget times. But charter school advocates are right when they argue that they are continuously shut out of the process.

As a result, charters are forced into the commercial market, where they often end up paying top dollar for substandard space. What D.C. officials seem to forget is that the money being spent comes largely from the city's taxpayers and that the students they are slighting are the city's children.

Charter school population in D.C. is soaring, and burgeoning programs are desperate for facility space, but the city government is offering to lease or sell 11 of its closed school buildings — including Stevens in the West End and Grimke in Shaw — to developers.

After closing 23 traditional D.C. public schools in early summer, officials began soliciting redevelopment proposals for the facilities. In July, the city released a "request for expressions of interest" for eight of the buildings. Despite a D.C. law requiring the city to give the "right of first refusal" for unused school buildings to charters, the request went out to the whole development community.

In September, officials re-released the request, gearing it specifically toward charters "to maximize the right of first offer ... ." It also added three school buildings to the list. According to Robert Cane, a charter school advocate, 33 charters submitted offers for 10 of the buildings. But the city rejected most of them, he said. It offered only six charter schools the opportunity to compete for three buildings.

Then last month, officials announced that they were again soliciting development proposals for all 11 sites. A spokesperson for the deputy mayor for planning and economic development, who is handling the process, said the charter schools are welcome to resubmit their proposals or team up with developers. "It is not restricted," he said, noting, though, that charter schools will have to prove the financial feasibility of their proposals. "What we really want to do is maximize the value of these assets."

This rationale seems contrived to foster the buildings’ sale. Shouldn’t right of first refusal mean that if a charter school’s offer sufficient, it wins the contract.

Charter schools educate D.C. children just as traditional schools do, and they shouldn’t have to do so in sub-par facilities just because old school buildings look good to developers.

DISTRICT SCHOOLS Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee spent nearly a year developing a new disciplinary policy for students. A draft of her proposal was just published in the D.C. Register, and three hearings are scheduled so the public can comment on it. But maybe Ms. Rhee shouldn't have bothered: The D.C. Council wants to strip her of much of the power to set rules for the children in her charge.

In a Dec. 16 vote that attracted little public notice, council members passed emergency legislation giving the state superintendent of education and the reconstituted elected school board the authority to formulate standards for disciplinary policies and procedures. Included in the council's mandate are requirements for "a detailed description" of how principals are to be trained and evaluated and "detailed plans for implementation by school." To make matters worse, the council aims to include the District's public charter schools in this ill-conceived idea. How often does the council need to be reminded that much of the success of the charter schools is because of their independence from the D.C. government?

More important, the council seems to have forgotten that its wise decision to make the mayor responsible for the schools was rooted in the historical failure of elected school boards to do right by the children of this city. Don't get us wrong: We admire the job that State Superintendent of Education Deborah A. Gist and the new board have done in setting broad education policy. But the day-to-day functioning of the schools is not their business, nor was it ever the intent of the council to make it their business. And nothing is more elemental to the operation of schools than setting and enforcing rules for behavior. There's no question that the discipline policy currently in place is ill-conceived and haphazardly applied and that the council is right to demand improvement. There's probably even a role for the board in establishing broad criteria, but it is counterproductive to undercut Ms. Rhee in the middle of her reform effort.

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) has yet to exercise his veto power, and the unanimous vote for this measure will no doubt give him pause. Nonetheless, this bill sets a troubling precedent and is bad public policy. Mr. Fenty should reject it, and council members who say they want Ms. Rhee to succeed in fixing the schools should let her do her job.

As developers consider 11 former D.C. school buildings the city is offering for reuse, charters schools are crying foul.

Charter schools are required by law to get the first crack at empty school buildings, so D.C. offered up 14 of its 31 unused schools to charters in September and is in competitive negotiations for three of them. It then offered 11 directly to developers, issuing a request for proposals in December.

But Robert Cane, president of the advocacy group Friends of Choice in Urban Schools, says that isn't enough. He filed a public documents request and found there were 18 charter school bids for the 11 buildings currently up for grabs. Cane doesn't see why developers should get a shot at those buildings if charter schools want them.

"Naturally we're very upset and wonder if the city operated in good faith in offering charter schools first right of offer," Cane says.

The Fenty administration's position: It gave the charter schools a chance, as required, and those organizations can still partner with developers in bids for schools this time around. The D.C. Council is likely to get involved, with multiple council members already submitting legislation to alter rules for former schools.

The sites range from just under 1 acre to more than 5, with buildings up to 131,000 square feet. They include such prime sites as Steven's School at 21st and L streets NW and Hine Junior High School on Capitol Hill.

Cane doesn't understand why so much attention is given to improving some school buildings — see Fenty's Buff & Scrub initiative — but not others. "The government buys into the notion that we should have beautiful school buildings for kids in DCPS … and the 35 percent of students in charter schools have to fight for every inch that they can get."

D.C. Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development Neil Albert invited interested developers to a pre-bidders meeting scheduled for Jan. 8. Proposals are due Feb. 17, and a decision could come in the spring.

This article can be found at: http://www.bizjournals.com/dayton/othercities/washington/stories/2009/01/05/daily70.html