Mean
Dear Responsible and Accountable Citizens:
The meanness, the nastiness, the pettiness of the councilmembers who
supported the mayor’s power grab over the schools was on full display
in Tuesday’s hearing. When Councilmember Carol Schwartz simply
referred honestly to the deals that councilmembers had made to support
the bill, she was attacked by the worst blowhards on the council, all of
whom praised themselves for their hard work and diligence and protested
that they were simply working "for the children." Led by
Councilmember Cheh, Councilmembers Thomas, Catania, Gray, and Barry all
piled on. The nasty attitude of the majority, who knew that they would
win the vote handily, was reminiscent of the nastiness and meanness of
the majority of the last council who voted for the baseball stadium
giveaway.
The deals had been struck. Anyone who wanted to introduce any
amendment to the bill was cut off in short order. Mayor Fenty had put
out the word that he wanted the bill passed with no amendments, and the
council followed through, acting like a mindless rubber stamp. Jack
Evans moved to cut off debate on any amendments at the first possible
minute, and Vincent Gray was short and impatient with any thoughtful
statements made by the two supporters of DC democracy, Councilmembers
Mendelson and Schwartz, holding them to strict time limits that he didn’t
impose on any other councilmember.
When they knew they were going to win, and win big, why did they have
to treat their two dissenting colleagues so badly? Why were they so
grouchy, so grumpy, so unhappy about what they portrayed as a big win
for children? Perhaps because this was a win they could not feel good
about. They knew that they were undermining several key principles of
our city’s democracy -- emasculating the independent, democratically
elected Board of Education in favor of strongman control by the mayor;
passing an amendment to our Home Rule Charter without a citizen’s
referendum; and asking Congress to act as the city’s local legislature
by passing the necessary amendment to the Home Rule Charter. Perhaps it
was their bad consciences that made them so mean.
Or perhaps they were so mean, nasty, and petty because they had some
inkling of what they are in for. They have put the mayor in charge of
the schools and put themselves in the position of the school board,
being the only body that will have real and effective oversight over the
mayor’s mistakes. They have made themselves the school board, and they
have talked incessantly of accountability and responsibility. They don’t
intend to be accountable and responsible for the schools, of course.
They intend to tell citizens, parents, and students to go to the new
State Board of Education or to the new schools ombudsman, whose office
is designed to be powerless and ineffective. But no one should be
fooled, or should be sidetracked down these dead-end streets. The city
council will be the only body with any power over schools, aside from
the mayor and his Deputy Mayor for Education. Mayor Fenty and Deputy
Mayor Reinoso won’t be accessible to parents and citizens who have
problems with the schools; they’ll slough us off. Councilmembers are
the only people whom citizens and parents should go with their problems
with the schools, and they should be bombarded with every complaint
about the schools that we have, starting today, and held responsible for
resolving them. Councilmembers have promised that there will be
immediate, dramatic improvement in the education of our children. They
have promised that this improvement will continue rapidly, without
delay. These promises will not be met, and councilmembers know full well
they will not be met; they have no intention of meeting them.
Councilmembers will come up with multiple excuses and explanations for
why they’re not responsible and accountable for education. We can’t
let them get away with it.
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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Let’s See Some Action
Ed T Barron, edtb1@macdotcom
Looks like Mayor Fenty will take over the running of the DC schools.
If so, then it’s time for some long delayed action to close
underutilized schools and to consolidate enrollments into the best
schools that remain. Then sell the properties that have been vacated and
pour that money into the program to refurbish all the schools in the
DCPS. That should produce some near term funding to get a genuine
refurbishment program off to a running start.
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Rude E-mails from DCIndependents@gmail.com
Connie Ridgway, kaniru4 at yahoo dot com
Has anyone else encountered this situation — someone is sending me
E-mails from DCIndependents@gmail.com,
and when I try to unsubscribe, they send me a rude E-mail telling me I’m
not on their mailing list. Then I can’t return the E-mail they sent.
Does anyone know who these people are? I don’t want to log onto their
web site out of concern that they’re just spamming, but it’s http://www.dcindependents.org.
Here is an example of an E-mail they sent:
ONCE AGAIN, AND FINALLY! . . . YOU ARE NOT ON OUR E-MAIL LIST. THIS
E-MAIL IS A REPLY TO YOUR E-MAIL SENT TODAY 9:45 A.M. AS SHOWN BELOW.
AS INSTRUCTED IN AN E-MAIL ON MARCH 9, 2007 (5:32 P.M.), YOU MUST
CORRECT THIS ISSUE AT YOUR E-MAIL SOURCE, OR THE SOURCE FROM WHICH ANY
E-MAIL IS FORWARDED TO [ ] CORRECT THIS ISSUE, AS WE WILL NO LONGER
RESPOND TO YOU AFTER REPLYING TO TODAY’S E-MAIL. ANY FURTHER E-MAIL
FROM YOU WILL REQUIRE US TO RECORD AND REPORT THIS ISSUE TO THE
APPROPRIATE INTERNET, E-MAIL AND PROVIDER AUTHORITIES FOR
ADJUDICATION.
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A Question for All Readers of themail
Jonathan R. Rees, jrrees2006@verizon.net
No matter where you turn, you see allegations that our mayor, city
council, and school board are corrupt or at minimum dysfunctional, and
these allegations have been going on ever since I came to DC in 1979. If
the foregoing allegations are even half true, wouldn’t they be a good
argument that DC Home Rule has been a failure and it is time to return
control of the District of Columbia to the United States government?
I know that the mere suggestion of abolishing DC government as we
know it and letting the United States government take back control will
anger a lot of people and result in a flurry of angry and insulting
E-mails. It is my sincere belief that it is time to put down this sick
dog for its own good rather than see it suffer any more and make all of
us sick over it.
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FOI on Paper, But Not in Reality, in DC
Aaron Lloyd, aaronlloyddc@hotmail.com
I studied the history of the DC Freedom of Information Act while in
law school, and have followed its recent bastardization, and am sorry to
say that Peter Craig’s experience (themail, April 1) has not been
unique through the years. I believe part of the problem, along with a
culture of disregard for DC FOI laws that flows from the top, is DC Code
§2-537(d). As Mr. Craig mentioned, DC Code §2-537(d), declares: “Any
person who commits an arbitrary or capricious violation of the
provisions of this subchapter shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon
conviction shall be punished by a fine not to exceed $100.00.” This is
not an effective deterrent, and here’s why. The most important part of
that one sentence is “upon conviction.”
Imagine someone wants a public document, and an agency refuses to
deliver it. No punishment will fall upon any person in that agency under
DC Code §2-537(d) until they are “convicted.” That means the
average citizen must go to the trouble of bringing suit, bearing the
expenses of appeals and the years of litigation it might entail, before
they can obtain a conviction. Even then, they may not receive any money
if the official in question has some barely plausible reason for their
denial of public documents, as fines are only available for “arbitrary
or capricious violations” of the law.
When the law was first introduced it had more teeth. The “upon
conviction” language was not there, and the fines were higher. But the
real solution is more automatic dispersal of information, with a process
that allows the government to hold back information upon a convincing
showing of just cause. Let’s pass laws that require the government to
automatically post categories of information on the web. Let’s put the
burden on the government to show why it must withhold information, not
on a few determined individual citizens to pry out what should be public
knowledge. It’s our information. We did pay for this government, didn’t
we?
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E-Filing Income Tax in DC
Ed T Barron, edtb1@macdotcom
Someone complained in last Sunday’s themail that they could not
E-file their 2006 D.C. income tax file using the Turbo Tax computer
program. The very last thing I’d ever do, knowing the history of the
District’s computer systems, is to file my taxes with DC
electronically. I’ll continue to go the old fashioned way -- a paper
submittal via certified mail. Then I know exactly what they got and when
they got it. Can’t trust those quirky electrons when they get
downtown.
[A reader who doesn’t want to be named writes to clarify the
statement in the last issue of themail that there is no electronic
filing option for DC state taxes. That’s true for commercial tax
programs, but the reader sends the reminder that DC offers an electronic
filing option on its own web site, at http://cfo.dc.gov.
— Gary Imhoff]
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The April “Silver Spring: Then & Again” column is now
available on-line. This month I profile two 1930’s buildings in
downtown Silver Spring that are rare (and endangered) survivors
representative of our community’s early automobile heritage. The
article may be accessed at these two URLs: http://www.silverspringvoice.com/archives/pdfs/SS/SSpdf_14.pdf
and http://www.silverspringvoice.com/archives/pdfs/SS/SSpdf_15.pdf.
Please forward this article to anyone you know who might be able to
provide additional information on the featured subjects.
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What the Trusting Board
Overlooked or Wouldn’t Tell Us
Erich Martel, Wilson High School, ehmartel at starpower
dot net
If Board of Education members arrived at their unanimous decision to
increase the list of specifically mandated graduation requirements from
19.0 credits (only West Virginia with 21.0 requires more) to 22.5 (now
the most rigid in the US) while cutting electives from 4.5 (twenty
states require five or more) to 1.5 (behind twenty-eight states) on the
basis of success -- from anywhere -- shouldn’t it share that good news
with us? Here’s what the Board overlooked (did the superintendent tell
them?): 1) the Master Education Plan asserts that more requirements will
provide more time “to master the academic core,” but consider how
much effective classroom time students will lose when they take the
mandatory ninth grade Algebra I in a senior high school instead of in
their former junior high school. On a daily junior high school schedule
with six subjects, he/she would spend 50-55 minutes in each class, every
day. With the proposed Wilson High School eight-period/subject schedule,
the student spends eighty minutes every other day in Algebra I class. In
two weeks’ time, the junior high ninth grader would get 500 minutes of
class time (50 minutes times 10 days), but only 400 minutes in grade
nine at Wilson H.S. (80 minutes times 5 days). But many of those 80
minutes are lost minutes, since many adolescents to remain attentive for
more than 50 minutes, so that the 400 minutes results in much shorter
quality learning time.
2) What about DCPS high schools on a 4x4 schedule (two semesters
crammed into one with 80 minute classes every day)? The students will
have 80 minutes of Algebra I every day (800 minutes, 80 minutes times 10
days) in two weeks’ time: the same four subjects, each for 80 minutes,
every day, but only for a semester. But, since it’s over in one
semester, they still get less time than on a yearlong junior high
schedule. Did Board members ask the superintendent to provide them with
evidence that student learning is improving under this schedule?
3) Assurance? Board members were reportedly told that students in
seventh and eighth grades are using a new math program that should
prepare students for Algebra I. That’s all they needed, Were they
given evidence, data? Were they invited to classrooms to see it used?
Were they encouraged to speak with teachers, both those who think it
works and those who don’t? That new math program is probably the
"Connected Math Project," which has drawn extensive criticism
for being difficult to use, especially by students without access to
parental or tutorial help (See http://www.illinoisloop.org/mathprograms.html#cmp)
4) Why did the Board mandate four math credits, but only specify
Algebra I and Geometry? One Board member commented that Algebra II
should be required, yet almost all who graduate from Wilson and from
other DCPS high schools take Algebra II/Trigonometry, after Algebra I
and Geometry. Did the Board members ask for details about the rigor of
current instruction and achievement in these courses? Did they ask for
data!?
5) Every DCPS senior must show proof of college acceptance in order
to receive a high school diploma! That is the effect of these
requirement. For years, DCPS has offered only one route to a high school
diploma. Now that one route has been made more difficult for the
students who are farthest behind. Why must every last DCPS student,
including those who want to go into HVAC or masonry or carpentry or
plumbing or cosmetology or the arts and design, etc. have to follow the
same narrow and rigidly prescribed route to a high school diploma? What
does the Board have in mind for students of the successful barbering
program at Woodson High School or the growing construction trades
program at Cardozo High School? Must they all take a rigid, college-prep
curriculum on top of their vocational or trade courses?
6) In 1992, Supt. Franklin Smith increased graduation requirements by
3.0 Carnegie units promising that "The new high school course
requirements . . . would require District students to take a broader
range of courses and reach a significantly higher level of math
achievement than their counterparts in other schools across the
nation." Four years later, reality struck. Smith was out and the
Control Board in.
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
Free Tax Preparation for Seniors and Single
Parent Households, April 7
Karen James, karenl.james@yahoo.com
Tax preparation day, Saturday April 7, Emory United Methodist Church,
6100 Georgia Avenue, NW, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Are the tax laws too confusing
and often times challenging to understand? Sloan & Associates are
providing an opportunity to help seniors and single parent households
make sense of it all free of charge! Volunteers from the IRS Income Tax
Assistance Program will be on hand from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. to prepare tax
returns for senior citizens and single mothers who live in Ward 4. While
priority will be given to registered voters in Ward 4, all seniors and
single moms who live in Ward 4 are welcome.
Currently, there is significant tax relief available to seniors and
lower income residents to increase their after-tax income and offset the
impact of rising housing costs, both for renters and homeowners.
However, getting this information to the people that need it the most
remains a challenge. Help us; help the residents of Ward 4 understand
the federal and state tax codes while utilizing the programs that can
benefit them the most. The April 15 tax deadline is just a few short
weeks away!
If you would like to volunteer your time to prepare taxes or help out
in another capacity. Please contact: Reuben Canada, 315-9465.
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Citizens to Debate Council Vote and School
Reform Proposal at PCDC Public Forum, April 11
Hazel Thomas, thomashazelb@aol.com
Premier Community Development Corporation (PCDC), a nonprofit
community membership organization designed to improve housing, economic
development, and the quality of life in Ward 5, is sponsoring a forum to
discuss the school reform proposal. The forum entitled: “Standing Up
for Children, Families, and Communities: The Role of Government and
Stakeholders in Improving Our Schools, Our Neighborhoods,” will be
held on Wednesday, April 11, 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., at the North
Michigan Park Recreation Center located at 13th and Emerson Streets, NE.
The Forum will be a public discourse on school governance and will
focus on critical topics such as: citizens’ involvement in the
decision making process, the impact of the environment on academic
achievement in the District, and possible solutions to improving schools
and neighborhoods. Invited guest panelist include: representatives from
the mayor’s office, School Board President, Robert Bobb and others.
The panel will address questions from the moderator and the audience;
for example: the mayoral schools takeover — a panacea, cure-all,
current fad, or public relations attention-grabber? What is the cost of
the proposed school takeover and the impact on bureaucracy? What does
accountability entail? Will being in charge guarantee success and
problems fixed? How can DC reduce the problems in communities and homes
that affect teaching and learning? How can the DC school system improve
school performance now? What are the roles and responsibilities of
parents, teachers, civic leaders, business leaders, labor, faith
community, and government leaders in improving education? How does the
“No Child Left Behind” law impact schools? How can we make a
difference in education and make DC a model for the world? Should
traditional DC schools be funded like charter schools? Why are charter
and traditional schools regulated differently overall? Should there be a
referendum for any Home Rule charter changes? Can we wait for Wards 4
and 7 elections? The forum is free and open to the public.
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DC Public Library Events, April 10-11
Randi Blank, randi.blank@dc.gov
Tuesday, April 10, 12:00 p.m., West End Neighborhood Library, 1101
24th Street, NW. West End Library Film Club. Bring your lunch and enjoy
watching a film. For more information, call 724-8707.
Tuesday, April 10, 7:00 p.m., Cleveland Park Neighborhood Library,
3310 Connecticut Avenue, NW. Cleveland Park Book Club. We will discuss
Ian McEwan’s novel Saturday. For more information, call
282-3080.
Wednesday, April 11, 1:00 p.m., Juanita E. Thornton/Shepherd Park
Neighborhood Library, 7420 Georgia Avenue, NW. Shepherd Park Wednesday
Afternoon Book Club. Enjoy a lively book discussion of The Kennedy
Men: 1901-1963 by Lawrence Leamer. For more information, call
541-6100.
Wednesday, April 11, 6:30 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial
Library, 901 G Street, NW, Room 307. In celebration of Emancipation Day,
Mary Kay Ricks will discuss her book Escape on the Pearl: The Heroic
Bid for Freedom on the Underground Railroad, the story of seventy
slaves who escaped captivity by ship in 1848. Her discussion will pay
special attention to those slaves that were later involved in
emancipation in the District of Columbia.
Wednesday, April 11, 7:00 p.m., Francis A. Gregory Neighborhood
Library, 3660 Alabama Avenue, SE. Book discussion. For more information,
call 645-4297.
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DC Voting Rights March, April 16
Kevin Kiger, kkiger@dcvote.org
March for voting rights with Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and DC Vote on DC
Emancipation Day, Monday, April 16. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, the
DC city council, nearly sixty-five coalition members, and thousands of
citizen activists will join Mayor Fenty at 2:30 p.m. on Freedom Plaza
and march down Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, to the Capitol. At 4:00 p.m., we
will rally in front of the Capitol Reflecting Pool at 3rd Street, NW,
where we will be joined by civil rights leaders, Secretary Jack Kemp,
Congressman Tom Davis, and other members of Congress. Join the fight to
end taxation without representation in the nation’s capital. This is
your opportunity to be part of the largest DC voting rights
demonstration in history. Pledge to march with us at http://www.VotingRightsMarch.org.
To march and volunteer, sign up online or call 462-6000 x25.
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Ward Three Dems Meeting, April 17
Tom Smith, tmfsmith@starpower.net
The next meeting of the Ward Three Democratic Committee is scheduled
for Tuesday, April 17, at St. Columba’s Episcopal Church, 4201
Albemarle Street, NW. The meeting will begin promptly with roll call at
7:30 p.m. We will have a full agenda for this meeting.
Councilmember-at-large Kwame Brown will be the major speaker for the
meeting. Councilmember Brown is expected to focus his remarks on
economic development and other issues now before the DC city council.
Additionally, the meeting will include a forum of candidates seeking
election to the currently vacant District 2 seat on the DC Board of
Education. This special election for registered voters in Wards 3 and 4
is set for Tuesday, May 1.
Prior to the beginning of the meeting, the Ward Three Democratic
Committee will hold a special caucus to fill vacant precinct delegate
slots in Precincts 7, 9, 10, 11, 30, 32, 50, and 138. All registered
Democrats in those precincts are entitled to participate in the caucus.
The caucus will begin at 7 p.m. and conclude by 7:20 p.m. Additionally,
an election will be held beginning promptly at 7:20 p.m. to elect an
Area Representative for Area 4. Ward Three Committee delegates in
Precincts 32, 50, and 138 will be eligible to participate in the Area
Rep election. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.
I look forward to seeing you on April 17.
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