School Initiative
Dear Initiators:
Colbert King wrote yesterday about the fight over control of the
schools (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/05/AR2007010501737.html):
“It will be a quite a show. But chances of the fight actually
benefiting children are about as good as those of the Atlantic Ocean
being emptied next week with a teacup. That’s because the focus is on
gaining power and control, not on children. Pushing aside the school
board and granting the council line-item control over the school budget,
as Fenty proposes, invites lawmakers to micro-manage school spending and
operations. Any wonder it was [Mayor Marion] Barry who first proposed
that scheme?”
An Associated Press article on how “Mayors Seek to Take Charge of
Schools,” http://www.townhall.com/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ContentGuid=ad8bea58-93e7-4459-b296-3d9ff26dd08a,
reminds us that, “In most places, elected school boards and the
superintendents they hire govern school districts. It is a structure set
up about a century ago to insulate schools from political strife and
corruption in city government.” It is tempting to say that the
movement to dissolve, cripple, or undermine our school board is nothing
more than political strife and corruption striking back, and retaking
control of the schools’ money and property. That isn’t quite
accurate, since many people in DC who are tempted to approve of putting
control of the schools back in the hands of city hall are simply
frustrated with the incompetence and failure of our school board.
But our mayor and city council have been even less competent and
successful than our school board. The departments and agencies that are
run by the mayor and overseen by the city council are run no better —
and often much worse — than the school system. If the mayor and school
board ran the schools, is there any reason to believe that schools would
be rebuilt and repaired with any more speed and efficiency than the
libraries? Is there any reason to believe that the school facilities
would be maintained any better than our local parks and recreation
facilities? Is there any reason to believe that the school bureaucracy
would be any more responsive to the public than the Department of
Consumer and Regulatory Affairs? Is there any reason to believe that the
Office of Procurement would manage school contracts any better and more
honestly than it does other city contracts? Is there any reason to
believe that vocational training would be handled any better than the
vocational training done by the Department of Employment Services? Is
there any reason at all to think that the mayor and city council would
take better care of their wards in the schools than they take care of
their wards under the supervision of the Department of Mental Health?
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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The Education Debate Begins
Dorothy Brizill, dorothy@dcwatch.com
This past week, Mayor Fenty released his education reform initiative.
Here are some documents for you to judge this initiative for yourself.
The mayor’s bill for the school takeover, the “DC Public Education
Reform Amendment Act of 2007,” is at http://www.dcwatch.com/council17/17-001.htm.
The press release touting the takeover is at http://www.dcwatch.com/mayor/070104.htm.
The mayor is relying for “scholarly support” for the takeover on the
Parthenon Group’s “study,” “Fact-Base for DCPS Reform,” which
is actually a highly biased sales pitch; its executive summary is at http://www.dcpswatch.com/mayor/070104exec.pdf,
its full report at http://www.dcpswatch.com/mayor/070104rept.pdf,
and its appendix at http://www.dcpswatch.com/mayor/070104app.pdf.
The press release of Save Our Schools, which opposes the takeover, is at
http://www.dcpswatch.com/mayor/070105.htm.
Fenty argues that his “plan would ensure rational, streamlined
education policy” and “improve transparency of and accountability
for public education performance.” But rather than streamlining, the
initiative creates a new and complex bureaucratic maze to oversee DCPS.
The legislation creates a position of Chancellor of Schools, establishes
a Department of Education headed by the Deputy Mayor for Education,
turns the Board of Education into the State Board of Education,
continues and increases the authority of the State Education Office,
establishes an Interagency Collaboration and Services Integration
Commission, establishes an Office of Ombudsman for Public Education, and
creates a Public Education Facilities Management and Construction
Authority.
Fenty’s chief education adviser is Victor Reinoso, who will serve
as his Deputy Mayor for Education. Reinoso is a former staffer of the
Federal City Council, where we worked on public education issues.
Reinoso, however, has no management expertise and limited knowledge of
the inner workings of DCPS. Meanwhile, Fenty’s initiative is based on
the New York City model in which Mayor Bloomberg, with the appointment
and assistance of Joel Klein as Chancellor, took over NYC public
schools. As Colby King wrote in his Saturday column, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/05/AR2007010501737.html,
“Reinoso, in experience, stature, and moxie, is no Joel Klein, the
sophisticated New York City school chancellor.”
At his press conference announcing the education initiative, Fenty
acknowledged that the initiative would require a charter amendment, but
he said that he intended to have the city council approve the
legislation but then avoid a public vote to ratify it. He plans instead
to forward the legislation to Capitol Hill to have Congress impose it on
the city. Since the September primary, Fenty and his staff have been
lobbying key Congressional leaders (for example, Senator Mary Landrieux,
Rep. Henry Waxman, and Rep. Tom Davis) to support his school takeover
proposal. He has walked a precarious tightrope, posing as an advocate of
statehood, home rule, and self-determination and denouncing
Congressional interference in DC policy issues, all the while seeking to
use Congress to bypass DC voters’ right to approve of a Charter
Amendment. However, Fenty may have outsmarted himself. A careful reading
of his bill indicates that Section 1002 requires that the titles of the
bill that do require a Charter Amendment “shall take effect as
provided in Section 303 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act,”
and that section provides that the Charter “may be amended by an act
passed by the Council and ratified by a majority of the registered
qualified electors of the District voting in the referendum held for
such ratification.”
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The council should quickly reject Mayor Fenty’s highly undemocratic
proposal to go above voters’ heads with his school restructuring
proposal. Fenty wants the council to ask Congress to amend our Home Rule
Charter for us: to castrate our Board of Education, turn DCPS into a
regular agency headed by an appointed Chancellor, and grant the council
full budgetary and legislative authority over our public schools. (Note:
as proposed, this is a council takeover, not a mayoral takeover. Unlike
in NYC and probably all other cities, our legislature would be in full
control of our local schools; Fenty would have to do what the council
tells him to do.) Councilmembers who value home rule and local autonomy
should refuse to cosponsor or co-introduce the legislation at least
until Section 204 of the bill — which is the request to Congress to
amend our Charter — is changed to refer, instead, to ratification by
the voters. The Home Rule Charter’s amending procedure leaves
legislative control essentially in the hands of the council, where it
should be, granting ratification power to the voters and veto power to
Congress. If the District bypasses this procedure, Congress will have to
actively pass exactly the legislation we want; who knows what else
Congress will do to us in the process. A referendum will let voters
weigh in on who we want controlling our schools: a Board of Education
elected solely to govern schools, or a city council with hundreds of
other competing pressures and interests. Perhaps DC voters will choose
the city council over the school board. But voters, not 535 visitors to
the District, should make this decision.
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Takeover of DC Public Schools
Clyde Howard, ceohoward@hotmail.com
Recently, Mayor Fenty indicated that he has a plan to take control of
the DC Public Schools because of their failure to educate the children
of this city. My question is, how does he know what the educational
quality of the DC Public School System entails, since he had enrolled
his children in private preschools? Now that they are of the age to
advance further, what private school will he place them in for their
future education when he takes control of public schools?
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Watch Out for Snively Whiplash (and The Hat)
Ed T Barron, edtb1@mac.com
Sure he was standing behind Mayor Fenty when the new mayor was
announcing his plan for taking over the DC schools. but Whiplash, alias
Vincent Gray, is a great bushwhacker and opportunist, lurking in the
background. He may well be working to undermine Fenty’s plan for the
schools.
There’s been some controversy about our new mayor’s hat, the
fedora that looks just like then one worn by convicted lobbyist Jack
Abramoff. I recognized that fedora from my trips to Italy over the past
few years. While on holiday there we generally have a brew or two with
dinner and order the local Peroni beer. On the label of that beer there
was a sinister looking chap wearing the same fedora sported by Mayor
Fenty.
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Convert a School to an DMV Building
Aeolian M. Jackson, ajack10970@aol.com
I do hope that the city governors will urgently consider converting a
northeast surplus schools to an Department of Motor Vehicles building to
replace the shameful arrangements at the Brentwood Road office. That
heavily used DMV office is located in, essentially, a narrow strip mall
with space tightly used. There is no place inside to form a waiting line
and a long line forms outside in cold weather. Tempers flair. The
employees appear to do the best they can, but their working conditions
have to be stressful.
When the office finally opens at 10:00 a.m. (why bankers’ hours),
seniors are let in first, ten at a time. Some wait outside up to an
hour. Placement of the DMV office in this location appears to be an act
of desperation, indifference, or favoritism -- it doesn’t matter
which.
A vacated school with its playground could be a perfect DMV building,
with its available playground and accesses already in place and the
classrooms dedicated to specific DMV functions, including a space for
seniors and the frail to wait in comfort and with available bathroom
facilities.
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Kudos: I absolutely loved Paul Shapiro’s song on the police cruiser
lights [themail, January 3]! Someone should send it to the DC council.
Thumbs down: some idiot thinks it’s very cute to spam anyone whose
E-mail address has appeared in themail with messages that come with
multimegabyte attachments of lengthy pseudo-legal, probably defamatory
documents that I have not requested. I completely refuse to even
consider this jerk’s political opinions because of his absolutely
unspeakably rude approach to making them known. Let’s stop jerks like
this by complaining to his Internet service provider, as I have done.
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Just last month I renewed my driver’s license. I tried doing it
online, but the Department of Motor Vehicles site indicated that because
my old license number was my Social Security Number, I’d have to apply
in person and get a new number.
According to the site, federal law now prohibits use of one’s SSN
as a driver’s license ID. While I still question why a random number
can’t be assigned online just as easily as in person, I found the
experience at the main DMV office to be reasonably fast and painless.
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When are the federal powers-that-be going to remove Social Security
Numbers from the Medicare Insurance Cards?
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
CityVision Final Presentation, January 12
Lauren Searl, lsearl@nbm.org
Friday, January 12, 6:00-8:00 p.m., CityVision Final Presentation:
Young Designers Envision Future DC Monuments and Memorials. The Museum’s
CityVision program teaches participants how to initiate and promote
change in their communities. Through the processes and products of
design, students learn problem solving, teamwork, and advocacy. During
the fall 2006 semester of CityVision, participants from Paul Public
Charter School, Browne Junior High School, and MacFarland Middle School
worked with the National Capital Planning Commission to enhance areas
surrounding the National Mall. Students will present their
"monumental" ideas for improving East Potomac Park, Banneker
Overlook, and the RFK stadium site. Free. At the National Building
Museum, 401 F Street, NW, Judiciary Square stop, Metro Red Line.
Refreshments will be served. RSVP by January 5 to Sarah Smith at
272-2448, ext. 3413 or cityvision@nbm.org.
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DC Public Library Events, January 12
India Young, india.young@dc.gov
Friday, January 12, 12:00 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial
Library, 901 G Street, NW, Great Hall. Dr. Ronald Walters, professor of
Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park, and
director of the African American Leadership Institute will lecture on
The Dream: Has America Made Substantive Progress Toward Racial Equality?
For more information, call 727-1261.
Friday, January 12, 3:00 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial
Library, 901 G Street, NW, Great Hall. Sopranos Lee-Folia Brunt and
Valerie Harris Gregory will perform a concert in honor of the civil
rights movement, with narrations and songs. For more information, call
727-1285.
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Oral Arguments in Tax Assessment Class Action
Suit, January 12
Peter S. Craig, swedecraig@aol.com
The District Government’s appeal from Judge Eugene Hamilton’s
decision ordering refunds of increased taxes paid in 2002 will be the
subject of an oral argument before a three-judge panel of the DC Court
of Appeals on Friday morning, January 12. The case is the third of three
one-hour arguments scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. in the sixth floor
courtroom of the Court of Appeals at 500 Indiana Avenue, NW. The panel
assigned to the case include Chief Judge Eric T. Washington, Associate
Judge Phyllis D. Thompson, and Senior Judge John M. Steadman.
The class action case, captioned Peter S. Craig, et al., vs.
District of Columbia, et al., was filed in the Superior Court in
September 2002, after four named defendants (Henry Riley, Herbert Huff,
Natwar Gandhi, and Mayor Anthony Williams) refused to vacate
across-the-board increases in assessments that exacerbated preexisting
discrimination among homeowners. On cross motions for summary judgment,
Judge Eugene Hamilton found in September 2005 that the increased
assessments on residential property in Triennial Group 1 neighborhoods
were in violation of the Due Process and Equal Protection guarantees of
the US Constitution and were otherwise also in violation of DC law. In
January 2006, he ordered that increases in taxes resulting from these
assessments should be refunded to the taxpayers. The District estimates
these refunds would total $15 million, plus 6 percent annual interest.
Since the case was filed in 2002, the District’s lawyers have
attempted every stratagem to delay and frustrate the homeowners’
attempts to seek relief from the Office of Tax and Revenue’s actions,
which Judge Hamilton found to be unlawful and unconstitutional. It took
the District’s lawyers over two hundred days to submit their brief to
the Court of Appeals and over two months to file their reply brief.
Briefs in support of Judge Hamilton’s decision were filed by the Craig
case petitioners represented by four Cleveland Park lawyers, by two
intervenors represented by Gilbert J. Hahn and by the DC Federation of
Citizens Associations, represented by John M. Goodman, who filed an
amicus brief. For the oral argument, the court has allotted thirty
minutes to each side. The crux of the District’s argument before the
Court of Appeals is the claim that the D.C. courts lack the power to
review the lawfulness of the city’s assessment methods and that, in
any case, they may not be challenged by a class action lawsuit, despite
the fact that Congress has specifically authorized suits in the District
of Columbia to remedy the deprivation of any rights secured by the
Constitution, 42 US Code §1983, and despite the fact that Congress has
specifically authorized class action suits “regarding any matter
relating to real property taxes.” DC Code §47-827.
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The Friends Wilderness Center near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, will
host An Evening Under the Stars: Night Skygazing, with a professional
astronomer and his telescope and celestial maps on January 20. This is a
great opportunity to visit this Quaker-affiliated center (accessible
only by car) and its nature preserve, enjoy early supper, and even to
opt to camp or cabin over for the night. Details at http://www.friendswilderness.org.
Registration required.
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CLASSIFIEDS — HELP WANTED
After School Program Coordinator
Chitra Subramanian, chitra@momiestlc.org
M.O.M.I.E`s T.L.C (Mentors of Minorities in Education`s Total
Learning Cis-tem) is a dynamic child development organization that
offers creative and culturally relevant after school enrichment and
academic support for youth, ages 5 through 10. M.O.M.I.E’s mission is
to “nurture the genius” of children by creating a transformative
educational experience. M.O.M.I.E’s provides comprehensive, holistic
support for our children, so that each child’s “gift” is nurtured
and developed. The After School Program offers a variety of components,
including guided meditation and self-reflection; individualized academic
support; the arts; recreation; and the Great Persons Series, a
humanities-based series that teaches children about great heroes and
sheroes of color.
We are seeking a highly organized and creative After School Program
Coordinator to support Program activities. The position is part-time,
with a commitment of 25-30 hours per week. We are looking for someone
who is passionate about community development and social justice work,
and who has a love for working with children. To view the entire job
description, click on http://www.idealist.org/en/job/203944-321.
If interested, please send a cover letter highlighting relevant work
experience, resume, and three references to info@momiestlc.com.
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CLASSIFIEDS — FREE
Free Home Radon Testing Kits
Candace McCrae, candace.mccrae@dc.gov
The District Department of the Environment (DDOE) is offering free
Radon testing kits to help DC residents maintain safe and healthy homes.
According to the EPA and the District Department of the Environment, you
can’t see Radon, you can’t smell it or taste it, but it may be a
problem in your home. Radon is a pollutant that comes from the natural
radioactive breakdown of uranium in soil, rock, and water and can enter
the air we breathe. Radon has been found in homes all over the United
States, including the District of Columbia.
The kit is easy to use by placing it in the home for two days and
then sending it to a lab for analysis in the kit’s prepaid postage
package. If the results are positive, a list of abatement companies can
be provided. The severity of radon contamination will determine how much
it will cost to get rid of the problem. This time of year is especially
sensitive to Radon pollution because people keep windows and doors
closed to keep in the heat. If the home is contaminated, it usually
registers at a higher level during the cold months. January is Radon
Awareness Month, and DDOE is starting now to alert DC residents to know
that Radon is a serious health risk. The National Academy of Sciences
reports that Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the US
that causes about 15,000 deaths a year.
DDOE will be holding three Radon information workshops in January.
The times and locations will be advertised and listed on the DDOE web
site at http://ddoe.dc.gov. For more
information and to get a free Radon test kit, DC residents should call
the Radon hotline at 535-2302.
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CLASSIFIEDS — RECOMMENDATIONS
A New Journal of Architectural Criticism on
the District
Julian Hunt, AIA, jhunt at huntlaudistudio dot com
“The whale has no famous author.” — Herman Melville. Dcenter,
our new journal, contains new writing on our “leviathan,” the
District of Columbia, and architectural criticism as a lens with which
to view the construct of the nation. Irreverent, difficult, sometimes
wrong, and definitely irritating, the journal is available for purchase
through our web site, http://www.dcenter.net
or through Amazon.
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