D.C. Public School Articles

I've created a special section for news articles about these schools because the happenings in the District are most illustrative of the patterns we've been seeing and I've been following developments in the District fairly closely over the years. For background, experimental voucher and charter school legislation were recently passed by Congress (which has the authority to govern D.C.) over the bitter objections of the teachers Unions and, therefore, many Democrats in the Senate. D.C. has the highest rate of spending per student in the nation and the lowest test scores in the nation. Again, money is not the problem. Both of these legislations only passed after the public schools were guaranteed not only not to loose any of their funding, but in some cases even given additional funding!

Sometimes all it takes is a bit of simple math. I'd like to apologize to readers, as I quoted the $13,00 number repeatedly in 'A Charter School Tale'. Coulson makes a pretty strong case here that the number is actually twice that:

We're often told that public schools are underfunded. In the District, the spending figure cited most commonly is $8,322 per child, but total spending is close to $25,000 per child -- on par with tuition at Sidwell Friends, the private school Chelsea Clinton attended in the 1990s.

What accounts for the nearly threefold difference in these numbers? The commonly cited figure counts only part of the local operating budget. To calculate total spending, we have to add up all sources of funding for education from kindergarten through 12th grade, excluding spending on charter schools and higher education. For the current school year, the local operating budget is $831 million, including relevant expenses such as the teacher retirement fund. The capital budget is $218 million. The District receives about $85.5 million in federal funding. And the D.C. Council contributes an extra $81 million. Divide all that by the 49,422 students enrolled (for the 2007-08 year) and you end up with about $24,600 per child.

For comparison, total per pupil spending at D.C. area private schools -- among the most upscale in the nation -- averages about $10,000 less. For most private schools, the difference is even greater.

I visited public schools that were scenes of barely controlled chaos. I walked halls that teemed with students 15 minutes after the bell had sounded for the start of class. I choked on the smell of marijuana in the stairwells. Little had changed when I visited a District high school last year.

I've listened to teachers and principals talk about students with barely disguised contempt, heard teachers gossip about students' sexual activity and had others refuse services or accommodations that they were legally obligated to provide.

When some neighbors considering the school called to schedule a visit, however, the receptionist was genuinely puzzled.

My neighbors and I kept calling. Two or three weeks later, school staff members agreed to let us in. I found the building clean and well-maintained. The classes were quiet and students attentive.

The next step was meeting with the principal. That took more letters and calls; so many, in fact, that Fenty -- then our Ward 4 council member -- offered to call on our behalf. I thanked him but said no. It shouldn't take a council member's intervention to get a principal to meet with parents.

We thought we were going to be able to when our son won a lottery spot in a bilingual Montessori charter school that was just starting. For three years, from preschool through kindergarten, we watched him thrive with the same teacher, who truly valued him. Early in his first-grade year, however, it became clear that while energy and passion were important in starting a school, they were poor substitutes for teaching and administrative experience.

The problems began when the school finally moved into a building of its own. Pepco and Verizon wouldn't start services because a clerk in the District's notoriously inefficient Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs hadn't completed the paperwork for the certificate of occupancy.

Staff members worked to correct this, but it took parents' writing the utilities (I asked Verizon's president how it would look if something happened to a child because no one could call 911) to get the lights turned on and the phones working.

2/5/06 Washington Post Long rebuffed in their pleas for more money for decrepit public schools, frustrated parents said they were outraged when the mayor and council agreed in 2004 to spend more than $500 million on a baseball stadium, a price tag that since has risen.

I can sympathize with their latter complaint. The spend happy DC council decided that the best use of money forcibly conscripted from businesses and DC residents would be to build a bloated and wasteful baseball stadium. This was done in the name of 'benefiting these citizens'. Of course, if the citizens of DC had been allowed to keep their own money, they surely would have found more 'beneficial' uses for it.

Regardless, I think this article is more notable for its omissions than content.

On Tuesday, the council is expected to give preliminary approval to a bill that would devote an additional $100 million a year -- $1 billion over the next decade -- to school modernization, enough to complete a systemwide overhaul.

After years of deferred maintenance, many of the city's 147 schools are in appalling condition. The buildings -- 73 years old, on average -- have leaking roofs, stopped-up bathrooms, ancient lighting and air-handling systems that leave classrooms freezing or stifling.

Boo Hoo! Why, from this blatant editorializing by the Washington Post there can be no doubt that anyone opposing what will probably end up as a tax increase just doesn't care about the 'children'.

Yet, nowhere is it stated that the cost of educating students in the District of Colombia is the highest in the nation at around $13,000 a year! And that this record expenditure results in... the worst test scores in the nation! (and apparently crumbling buildings too) Money is not the problem, and more money is not the solution! School choice is the solution.

But in late spring, Fenty, Evans and others started polling. When the results came in, education popped off the page. In Fenty's poll, it exceeded other issues, including crime and affordable housing, as the top concern by more than 40 percentage points.

This is because people recognize how horrible the public schools are in the district of Colombia. What they do not recognize is that the problem stems from the schools themselves, notably the Teachers Unions, who fight tooth and nail for their monopoly on public funds and the status quo stagnating top down system.

"Here's my quote: The bill is consistent with the priorities of the people of the District of Columbia. People find the schools a complete embarrassment," he (some DC politico) said.

I'd agree that the schools are an embarrassment, but, then again, so is this bill, along with the reporting done by the Washington Post.

8/11/05 Washington Post Twenty-seven KIPP charter middle schools, including one in the District, have posted "large and significant gains" beyond what is average for urban schools, according to a report by the Educational Policy Institute. The Virginia Beach-based research organization, using data provided by the Knowledge Is Power Program, said 1,800 mostly low-income black and Hispanic fifth-graders showed gains significantly above average in reading, language and mathematics from 2003 to 2004.

It was the largest study so far of KIPP, which has 48 schools in the United States, including three in the Washington area. Some experts have cited KIPP, begun by two teachers in 1994, as an example of what disadvantaged students can achieve if given more time in smaller schools, as well as firm homework requirements and well-trained principals with the power to hire and fire teachers.

I wonder what these teachers think about the teacher's Unions attempts to outlaw and crush their schools. In 'A Charter School Tale' I state:

In fact, brutal bidding wars between the Charter schools often erupted over the top teachers. Headhunter type organizations were paid handsomely by Charter schools to seek out and recruit top teachers and administrators from across the country. Although teacher salaries, especially the starting salaries, were often lower then they had been under the monopolistic public schools, with hard work and perseverance, the top teachers and administrators could often make more than ever would have been possible under the stifling Unions. Some teachers quit the public schools to start their own Charter schools. A few of these teachers, through their hard work and successful school design, became fabulously wealthy as their schools prospered. Some of the larger Charter corporations went public and their stocks soared. Billions of dollars of newly created wealth, added to the national GDP, reflected the success of the new educational system. Teachers sometimes owned, or were paid in, stock from the school they worked at. The most successful Charter corporations created hundreds of millionaires among its veteran teachers and administrators.

KIPP is a real life example of this. It also follows the theme in my story about the poorest of the poor and minorities etc.. being helped the most by school choice:

The KIPP DC:KEY Academy, the first KIPP school in the Washington area, opened in 2000 and has 320 students in grades 5 through 8. It has the highest math scores in the city, though more than 80 percent of its students come from black families poor enough to qualify for federal lunch subsidies.

Shame on the Democratic Party and the Teachers Unions for working against the opportunities these children and their families now have (thanks to Republican legislation).

6/23/04 Washington Post Shorter, 33, could not have afforded the Catholic school's tuition in the past. But her children were among 1,249 low-income students selected last week to receive the District's first tax-funded private-school vouchers, and she wanted them to be first on the school's list. The public schools in Southeast Washington that her children have attended have low scores and limited programs, she said, "and I want them to be able to get all kinds of learning." Shorter and the families of more than 500 other voucher recipients jammed into the small building, now called the Thurgood Marshall Center Trust, Monday evening and yesterday afternoon to visit tables staffed by representatives of 44 private D.C. schools that have agreed to participate in the program. She and the other parents soon learned that arriving early did not boost their children's chances of getting into any particular school. But the line to get into the school fair was an indication of the excitement among the families who will be pioneers in the school-choice initiative, which Congress approved in January.

11/13/05 Washington Post A report on one of the few Charter schools allowed by the teachers Unions and Politicians:

The [Charter School], which offers the standard curriculum in first through sixth grades this year, is distinguished by its rigorous atmosphere, including a restrictive student dress code and a volunteer work requirement for students and parents.It already has developed a strong following; Whitehead said there were waiting lists at every grade level except fifth. Parents still call every day. The families whose children are enrolled, courtesy of a blind lottery [this means there is a waiting list to get out of the public schools], are paying close attention, Whitehead said. There's pressure to achieve test results similar to Pennington, a similar school in Manassas. Pennington students routinely achieve more than a 90 percent passing rate on the state Standards of Learning tests. Parents "are watching you," Whitehead said. <.> It is the atmosphere created by the school rules that is different -- and popular.

12/23/04 CNN from the AP - Gang violence is rising. School buildings are crumbling. An embezzlement scandal plagues the teachers' union. The superintendent abruptly quit. And with a budget deficit of about $21 million, school officials said this month they would cut 771 jobs -- 545 of them teaching positions. <.> D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams recently referred to the school system as a "slow-moving train wreck." <.> Police have gone to schools numerous times to break up fights, some between rival gangs. <.> Devin Fowlkes, 16, a promising student and football player at Anacostia High School, was shot and killed outside his school on October 30. A 15-year-old girl was wounded. Police do not believe either was the intended target. A 15-year-old boy has been charged with first-degree murder. <.> 37 percent of the city's adults read below a ninth-grade level. <.> The problems are prompting some parents to remove children from public schools. Enrollment has fallen nearly 16 percent since 1998, from 77,111 to 65,099. During that period, 10,147 students chose instead to enroll in the 22 publicly funded charter schools created in the city. <.> Under a five-year plan pushed by Republicans and agreed to by congressional negotiators, $13 million would be provided to let at least 1,700 poor children attend private or parochial schools. In return, D.C. public schools would get an extra $13 million in federal funds. Board of Education member Dwight E. Singleton opposed the idea. "Charter schools and private school vouchers are instruments of exploitation and experimentation that members of Congress are reluctant to impose in their home states," he said. Let's look at how ridiculous this statement is. First, 38 states have passed some sort of Charter legislation. Second, long waiting lists have formed for the current Charter schools in D.C., who can't by law take more students because of Board members like Dwight. Third, the public schools will receive 13 million in EXTRA funds, they won't even loose anything when their students flee. They can spend even more then ever (per student)! They would rather fire their own teachers (545) than give parents a choice on where to send their kids! Why are they so scared? The only conclusion I can come to is that they must realize how screwed up the system is. If they know this how can they in good conscious defend it? "It's kind of criminal when you look at the facilities our students have to go to school in," Cafritz said. I'd say its kind of criminal the way these board members and teachers Unions support the stagnation of our children.

11/8/2004 Washington Post - Speaking of Criminal: The defendants include former union officials Gwendolyn M. Hemphill and James O. Baxter II and accountants James A. Goosby Jr. and Robin Klein. They were indicted after the central figure in the case -- former union president Barbara A. Bullock -- pleaded guilty to conspiracy and other charges in the theft of $4.6 million in union funds from 1995 to 2002. <.> The case is one of the biggest white-collar prosecutions launched by the U.S. attorney's office in Washington in recent years. It became public in December 2002, when the FBI carted away truckloads of luxury items, including artwork and furs, in searches of the homes of Bullock, Hemphill and Baxter. <.> Hemphill, for example, allegedly used union money for $29,000 in dental implants and other dental work for herself and her husband. Baxter, the union's former treasurer, allegedly charged the union for more than $31,000 in club seat tickets to Washington Wizards basketball games for himself and friends. And this isn't even counting the millions this Union undoubtedly misspent on political causes lobbying against Charter and Voucher schools.

8/3/2004 Washington Post - And some more criminal news... Students at nearly half of the District's public schools are entitled to switch schools under the federal No Child Left Behind law, according to test scores released yesterday, but D.C. officials said such transfers will be highly restricted because there are not enough open slots at higher-performing schools. <.> Sixty-eight of the 149 city schools that were assessed failed for the second year in a row to make adequate yearly progress in reading and math, as measured by the Stanford 9 tests administered in April. Under the federal law, those schools now are deemed in need of improvement, and their students must be offered the option of transferring. <.> Among the city's 15 traditional high schools, all but three are classified as needing improvement. The remaining three -- Banneker Senior High School, the Duke Ellington School of the Arts and the School Without Walls -- are magnet schools that have special admission standards and are not open to students who don't meet those criteria.

What are magnet schools? From Magnet Schools of America we get this: In other words, if a magnet school voluntarily attracts students and teachers, it will succeed because, more than for any other reason, those in attendance want to be there. They will have chosen that school. When a parent chooses a school for his or her young child, that school is more likely to succeed for that child than would one to which that child was assigned. <.> Milton Friedman, for example, thought that education should be considered a part of the free marketplace with the learners and families as consumers. Mr. Friedman thought that having families shop around for the kind of school that best satisfied their tastes would result in increased options. Quoting Milton Friedman! These Magnet schools are free to D.C. residents, but have special admissions requirements and, we can be assured, long waiting lists.

Returning to the Post story and the D.C. schools: And 18 of the city's 20 traditional middle and junior high schools are in need of improvement. <.> Yesterday's announcement was a stark reminder of the immense challenges facing the 64,000-student D.C. school system. The system's overall performance levels on the Stanford 9 exams, particularly in reading, remain among the lowest in the nation, even when compared with other large cities. <.> The New York and Chicago school systems have had similar problems accommodating transfers. Last month, New York officials announced that transfers would be restricted because of a lack of space at higher-performing schools. Do you see what is happening here? Federal law (albeit unconstitutional :)) is being broken with impunity because the interests that be in these failing school districts are fighting tooth and nail the right for parents to spend the their tax dollars at a school of their choice.

Tommy Wells, who represents Wards 5 and 6 on the D.C. Board of Education, said the federal law imposes new requirements without providing funds to meet them. "It continually forces the school system to try to allocate and prioritize its resources to go to the lowest-performing schools and students, which means that we have less money for the schools that are doing what they are supposed to be doing," he said. "And so it will be difficult to maintain the higher-performing schools." Susan M. Aspey, a spokeswoman for the Education Department, countered that the District's share of money under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 -- the major source of federal funds for public schools -- has risen from $28.3 million in fiscal 2001 to a proposed $55.6 million in fiscal 2005. On top of this, recall (because it isn't mentioned in this story) that D.C. students spend the most per students of any public school in the entire nation. And they have the gall to ask for more money!

9/2/3004 Washington Post A perfect description of the lack of accountability and apathy at the public schools that these parents are forced, because of political pressure from teachers Unions and Democrats, to send their kids to. Three officials in the District's school system were fired on the first day of school yesterday, after hundreds of students at Eastern Senior High School were turned away because administrators failed to complete a schedule of classes and room assignments. Top officials said they were taken by surprise and were not informed about the scheduling problem until hours before classes were to begin. <.> Back-to-school problems have plagued the District before, notably in 1996, when the start of classes was postponed for three weeks by a legal battle over unsafe conditions. <.> . Janey, who was hired Aug. 11, crisscrossed the District on a day-long tour of school facilities, and Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey and other city officials announced a major reorganization of school security in response to recent violence in and around school buildings. <.> School officials sent faxes to the news media about 7:50 a.m. to announce that Eastern would not be open, but by then, most students were well on their way to school. An automated system that places telephone calls to parents for major school announcements was not activated on time. <.> "I'm pleased that Dr. Rice took the action and took it immediately, because we've been in a situation for years where there's no accountability," Cafritz said. How encouraging...

9/4/05 Editorial by the Washington Post - Slams D.C. public schools. Besides mentioning the lack of a first day of school at Eastern High and low SAT scores the Post says: On Thursday two school system managers were terminated based on internal audits. That case, involving questionable contracting for copy machine services and the possible misspending of millions of dollars, has been turned over to the city's inspector general and the U.S. attorney's office. In addition, the inspector general has been called in to investigate the evaluation and award of the school system's multimillion-dollar security contract. In both instances, school leaders believe the attention of professional investigators and prosecutors is warranted.

9/10/2004 Washington Post Lists some of the disciplinary problems. Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, states and the District are required to use data on violence to identify "persistently dangerous" schools and give students in those schools a chance to transfer. <.> Auditors reviewed a random sample -- 119 of the 1,709 incidents -- and examined how the incidents were handled and recorded. Nearly half of the incidents were listed as "pending" as of the end of 2003, months after they were first reported. About a quarter of the incidents were not reported to the city's police or fire departments, as the school system's policies require. In two-thirds of the cases, parents were not notified, again contrary to school policies.<.> The poor record-keeping could have financial costs because it has caused the school system "to lose cases in court and in arbitration," the auditors found, citing education officials whom they interviewed. In two-thirds of the cases audited parents were not notified. No wonder parents are upset with these schools! But it doesn't matter how upset they are, their kids still have to go the same school.

10/6/04 Washington Post Reporters interview the new head of the D.C. public schools. He cautioned that improvement will not come quickly to the long-troubled system, and he was unsparing in his assessment of its deficiencies. <.> "I've been enormously disappointed in the lack of sound management policies," he said, adding that he was particularly upset about the shabby condition of many school buildings and the inefficient operation of food services. "There will be some dismissals in response to some of these audits that have just painfully pointed to irresponsible actions on the part of certain staff." <.> He said he would consider contracting out "those operations that affect the quality of life of students" until the school system's "internal capacity" to run those operations is improved. <.> Janey, 58, said the school system has suffered from "a series of false starts" over the past decade, with the constant turnover in the superintendency being only the most extreme example. He said he has noticed a "deep sense of despair among a wide range of parents, constituents [and] advocates" and wants to hold a citywide education summit this fall or winter, at which residents can express their opinions on the schools. <.> He also questioned the $8 million that he said is paid annually in rent for the school system's central offices at 825 North Capitol St. NE. "I'm hard-pressed to look my teachers and principals in the face when my office looks like a hotel room," he said. "It's a painful contradiction." <.> He said that nepotism and cronyism are "alive and well" in the school system and that he is determined to avoid any political pressure about whom to hire or what contracts to award. <.> Janey said he would consider shutting schools that have low or declining enrollment and in some cases sharing the buildings with space-strapped charter schools, which have soared in popularity since they were first authorized in 1995. With situations like this it's no wonder they became popular. The cap forcibly locking in the enrollment at Charter schools, a cap demanded by the teacher's Unions, are preventing them from becoming even more popular.

Janey's solutions? He would, 'raise teacher standards', 'establish high school graduation exams', 'recognize the need for a core curriculum and greater uniformity in what students study', 'favors a midyear assessment of student performance, starting in January, in addition to the standardized tests administered to all students each spring', and thinks principals 'may have too much leeway in determining curriculum'. Sounds like he is in favor of a monolithic, bureaucratic, uniform, uncreative, bloated top-down, socialistic type system that can only be doomed to failure! He is the person who can solve on the problems by creating a strong central system under his omnipresent wisdom. Does he even once mention the needs and desires of the parents and their kids? Well, he does say he would like to use some of the buildings to create "parent education centers" that would offer classes on effective parenting... Again, condensation and elitism rears its head. It's not the schools fault, it's the parents fault their kids are failing!

10/29/2004 Washington Post Charter schools would not have these sorts of problems with Unions. D.C. school officials said yesterday that they have fired 23 bus drivers and attendants who did not show up for work Monday, when about 260 drivers and attendants called in sick. Why fire only so few? On Monday, nearly 20 percent of the city's 692 school bus drivers and 714 attendants -- whose job it is to ferry special education students to and from school -- failed to show up for work in what school officials called an illegal union sickout. <.> George Johnson, executive director of District Council 20 of the American Federation of State, County and Federal Employees, which represents Local 1959, the drivers' and attendants' union, denied Monday that a strike or work stoppage had been called, noting that it is illegal for public servants to strike. But he complained that the employees have been dealing with chronic payroll problems that he said the school system has not addressed. <.> Roxanne Evans, spokeswoman for the school system, said that Monday's situation "was a major disruption to parents" -- affecting about 13 percent of the bus routes -- and that employees would not be allowed to violate rules with impunity.

4/5/2005 Washington Post A misleading hit piece on the voucher program, but which does (somewhat) illustrate my preference for Charter schools over Voucher schools. Only 79 applications - 4 percent of the total - came from 15 Washington schools designated as in need of improvement under the No Child Left Behind Act. All were awarded scholarships of up to $7,500 to pay tuition, fees and transportation expenses for nonpublic elementary or secondary schools in the current school year. By contrast, 518 eligible applicants came from private schools. Only 43 percent of those students got vouchers. Of the 1,251 other public school students who applied, 85 percent were admitted into the program. <.> Legislators stood by their creation. Try to ignore the editorializing at the end and look at these numbers closer and you can see how they are being skewered. How small are the 15 schools compared to the total? What about the 15% of the public school kids that didn't get them? A better headline would have been 'Demand for Vouchers Outstrips Supply', or 'Hundreds of Poor Parents unable to Attain Vouchers'. However, the valid point being made is that many of the poorer parents might not have been able to afford the additional tuition, transportation, and other expenses, (although the story says 'most' schools would be fully covered by the tuition) and it was unclear if many of these parents were fully aware of their options. Some might have been hesitant to try a new program the first year, or may have been mislead by the term 'voucher' and the privatization demonization campaign of the Unions. Also, if 'most' of the schools were fully covered by this tuition, then what does that tell us about the $13,000+ taxpayer funded public schools these kids are leaving? It tells me we're wasting $5500 per year, per student! But it apparently tells the teachers Unions something else: "Parents whose students are already (in private school) want public assistance to help their students remain there," said Roxanne Evans, spokeswoman for D.C. Public Schools. "That's one of the tragedies of vouchers - that private school students use public money to fund private education." Let's rewrite this so it's accurate: "That's one of the tragedies of a socialistic education system - that public schools use private money to fund public education". And, what about the tragedy of poor parents paying almost double (taxes then extra) in order to save their kids from the $13,000 a year schools they would otherwise be forced to attend?

More evidence that the Vouchers the reporter in the above story disparaged would not have covered tuition in many schools. This WP story says:

Tuition at Archbishop Carroll is $6,975 for Catholics and $7,100 for non-Catholics, and incidental costs are about $700. Parents purchase the books and uniforms. Peterson said she is not certain that the two $7,500 scholarships will cover the costs, but she is willing to make up the difference. <.>

The Baptist school's principal, Shirley G. Hayes, is on the board of the Washington Scholarship Fund and for 23 years was principal of the District's Park View Elementary School. The private school's tuition is $4,100. Fifteen voucher students had enrolled as of Friday, out of 168 children. $4,100 tuition? As compared to $13,000 publicly spent? This school costs 3x less than public schools and parents still scrounge to pay up, some needing Vouchers, to take their kids out of the 'free' public school and into this school. If you have read this entire paper and are still not convinced that our public schools are failing and that competition and school choice is the answer, I suggest reading the previous sentence again.