Think of the Children
Dear Adults:
The most cynical ploy in the debate over the mayoral takeover of the
public schools is the plea to “think of the children,” as though the
takeover had anything to do with the children. Let me be repetitive,
since I’ve written all this before. The mayoral takeover of the
schools will not do anything to hasten or speed up any improvement in
the education of our children. It will, instead, inevitably slow down
any improvement in the education provided by the public schools.
Here’s why. Adrian Fenty and his hapless, plagiarizing Deputy Mayor
of Education, Victor Reinoso, don’t have any ideas of their own about
how to improve education. Reinoso is building a duplicate school
bureaucracy within the mayor’s office, but his young and inexperienced
bureaucrats know much less about running a school system than the
bureaucrats within the school system of whom they are so contemptuous.
What Fenty and Reinoso have pinned their hopes on is that they will hire
a super superintendent, a miracle worker who will come to town, wave his
magic wand, and improve everything in a trice. There are a couple dozen
such miracle worker superintendents. They wander the nation going from
major city to major city, promising unimaginable wonders and staying in
each city for two, three, or four years, or until just before their
school boards catch on that nothing much has improved, and then they
move on to the next market at a higher salary. Fenty’s biggest hope is
that he will get Rudy Crew from Miami. Of course, Fenty’s model, New
York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, began his school takeover by firing
Rudy Crew, but we’re not supposed to remember that.
Bringing any new superintendent into a school system delays movement
toward improving the schools for at least a year, as the new
superintendent replaces the ineffective old guard with his or her shiny
new (and just as ineffective) assistants, subordinates, and cronies. If
the new superintendent is content simply to implement any educational
plans that were instituted by his or her predecessor, the delay will be
only for that year, but if the superintendent comes with new ideas and
new plans, in order to put his individual stamp on the system, the delay
will stretch out to two or three years, to allow time for the new plan
to be introduced and implemented. Over the past two decades in
Washington, we’ve had enough experience with introducing new miracle
worker super superintendents every few years to recognize and understand
the whole sick syndrome. We’re in the empty promises phase now; the
honeymoon with the miracle worker will last for about a year; and the
disillusionment will start soon thereafter.
In any case, if you wanted to “think of the children”; if you
wanted to improve the schools as quickly as possible; if you wanted to
prevent delay, you wouldn’t propose a radical remake of the DC public
schools or place your hopes in next year’s version of
Smith-Becton-Ackerman-Vance-Massie-Janey.
The text of Referendum 007, “Referendum on Certain Provisions of
the Public Education Reform Act of 2007,” is at http://www.dcwatch.com/election/ref007.htm;
Mayor Fenty’s letter to the Board of Elections and Ethics requesting
them to reconsider their decision that the referendum is a proper
subject for a referendum is at http://www.dcpswatch.com/mayor/070531.htm;
and the Attorney General’s complaint to DC Superior Court requesting
that the court find it is not a proper subject for a referendum is at http://www.dcpswatch.com/mayor/070601.htm.
Gary Imhoff
gary@dcwatch.com
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Whoda Thunk It?
Ed T Barron, edtb1@macdotcom
As I sit here on Saturday I’m hoping that Barry will make an
appearance at my house on Sunday or Monday. Who’d have thought that I’d
some day be cheering for Barry? That would have been an irrational
thought up until this week when tropical storm Barry made a first
appearance in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s coming up the coast after
putting out all the fires in Florida. I’m hoping Barry will dump some
needed rain all over my place in the next couple of days. Bring on
Barry.
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Allison Klein had an important article in Saturday’s Washington
Post, “New DC Data Alter Violent Crime Tally: After Reporting
Drop, Police Cite 9% Rise” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/01/AR2007060102648.html).
“Police revised the yearly crime tally after turning up major
discrepancies in their crime databases, officials revealed yesterday. An
internal review uncovered crimes that were misclassified or not counted,
officials said.” Klein reports Metropolitan Police Department
explanations about “discrepancies” that result from the use of two
different databases, but she also presents a clearer explanation from
Kristopher Baumann, chairman of the Fraternal Order of Police Labor
Committee: “‘They were playing with the numbers. Sooner or later, it
catches up,’ Baumann said. ‘You’re going to find a lot of
manipulation and cherry-picking of numbers.’”
What Klein didn’t report was the anecdotal experience of numerous
citizens over the past decade who found that crimes against them or that
they had personal knowledge of were either never officially reported or
were minimized, reclassified, and underreported. When police performance
reports, pay raises, promotions, and pay bonuses depend on ever-falling
crime statistics — when District Commanders’ jobs are on the line
unless their statistics are made to look good — why wouldn’t
widespread fiddling with the reports and the statistics be expected?
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If Google Bought the Washington
Post
Phil Shapiro, pshapiro@his.com
If Google bought the Washington Post, could our hometown paper
emerge as the premier digital newspaper — the one that others around
the country seek to emulate? Imagine the phone call to the newspaper’s
paper supplier: “Thanks, you don’t need to send any more paper after
the end of this month.” Two minutes later: “We won’t be needing
any more ink after the end of this month. Thanks.”
A clean cut with the past would prevent the painful hemorrhaging
happening at other newspapers. Screen resolutions will soon be
approaching the quality of paper. Those who prefer reading their
newspaper in print have the option of printing it out on their home
printer. Want an affordable printer that prints 60 pages per minute? It’s
coming soon (http://tinyurl.com/25oewl).
Guess what? With digital distribution, the cost of subscribing just
went down to $5 per month. And the bulk of that subscription fee will go
to reporters and editors, not to paper supplies, ink supplies, printing
presses, delivery trucks, delivery persons, etc. You prefer to subscribe
at less than $5/month? You can subscribe for 0 dollars per month if you
care to write a few articles about your community, create video
interviews with the people who are the greatest assets in your
community, lend your time and creative talents to Creative Commons
projects, participate constructively in your neighborhood wiki, and much
more. Or we could continue on the current path.
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It seems to me that if it is so important to relocate night clubs
into a single area of the city, it should not be in the New York Avenue
area of the city, which is the gateway to the city from the north. DC is
not the Las Vegas of the east, and we do not need the glitter of neon to
advertise that we are open to any and all matter of lurid entertainment.
Why should Ward 5 be dumped on, and why should the clubs be centralized
in one place? It looks like there is some kind of caballing going on to
pick one area of Ward 5 for all of these displaced clubs to be built.
DDOT has on the table a redevelopment plan for New York Avenue that
would make it a grand artery into our capitol city and make it an
extreme pleasure to enter the city through a beautified developed vista.
Those who know what New York Avenue used to look like as a main route
going south before construction of the Beltway and the Interstate
system, certainly would not want a throwback to those dingy days of
travel.
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Bicyclists Versus Cars
Richard Stone Rothblum, richard@rothblum.org
I think that DC law states that bicyclists should stay as far to the
right as “practicable.” As a committed cyclist, I have found out the
hard way that it is not a good idea to go around stopped cars at an
intersection. They may try to exact revenge. I was almost killed in a
tunnel by a Trailways bus driver who didn’t think I should have passed
him as he was stopped for a light. When I was between him and the tunnel
wall, he ran his bus right into the curb of the tunnel, actually
bouncing off the curb from the impact. I barely escaped. Since then, if
I do go around cars stopped at an intersection, I ride on the sidewalk
(legal except for the downtown business district) for long enough for
those cars to pass me. This is only fair. When I am motoring, I resent
waiting behind a cyclist to pass safely, only to have the cyclist pass
me while I am stopping for a light, forcing me to wait to get around
him. This is clearly not fair. When this happens, it is tempting not to
wait for as long as I should to ensure the cyclist’s safety as I pass.
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Just imagine what could have been accomplished if the money spent in
the various studies was used for installing the appropriate devices
saving lives and making it safer to walk in marked crosswalks. According
to the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, pedestrian
fatalities outnumber homicides in many jurisdictions.
George Bernard Shaw once wrote, “The single biggest problem in
communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” An interesting
point is the lack of police enforcement, since they look the other way
on this issue. (But they ticket a walker for having an unleashed dog.)
The following MPD Newsletters might be of interest: June 3, 2005; June
17, 2005; and December 1, 2006. It is an uphill battle and only will be
resolved after more people speak-up and make our stewards accountable.
Governments work better when people communicate among themselves about
public problems.
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A Review of Mark’s Kitchen’s Mango Curry
Entree
Phil Shapiro, pshapiro@his.com
People who know me know my propensity to push the boundaries, so
although themail focuses on DC, I just had to share this review — http://tinyurl.com/yucsde
— of an exquisite dish at Mark’s Kitchen in Takoma Park, Maryland, a
scant two hundred yards outside the DC line. I realize the venue of this
review might get challenged on constitutional grounds, but I offer the
review anyway as a Friend of the Court brief.
And if you want to talk appeal, let me tell you, this dish has wide
appeal. The only way this dish could get overturned is with your fork.
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A Chance for Democracy
Harold Foster, Petworth, incanato@earthlink.net
Apparently there will be a chance, a slim one, for the citizens of DC
to be heard on Fenty’s governance proposal. If you go to www.dcboee.org
you can get the Board of Elections and Ethics proposed summary of the
school governance proposal that would go to referendum. The referendum
advocates have very little time as I understand it, about a week, to
collect something like 20,000 to 27,000 signatures. And, of course, as
we advocates of campaign spending limits have found out, the city
council is under no obligation to respect the results of the referendum.
But I am getting ahead of myself.
As with most polities, local and national, the city is clearly
divided about this fairly radical reconstitution of the DC Public
Schools. John Adams’ old one-third-one-third-one-third assessment of
public sentiment towards independence from Great Britain seems
applicable here also: some are desperate to change, some don’t think
the advantages of this particular approach justify the extremities to
which it goes, and some are just plain desperate, period, where public
education in this town is concerned.
Well here’s everyone’s chance to get directly in the debate. The
other opportunity is to attend the mayor’s town hall sessions that
Fenty is holding around the city.
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Twenty Thousand Signatures, Yes, But
Ed T Barron, edtb1@macdotcom
The petition to hold a referendum on whether or not Mayor Fenty will
take over the public schools will get more than the required 20,000
signatures. The petition will not succeed, however, because signature
collectors will be unable, in one week, to collect the required
distribution of signatures — 5 percent of the registered voters in
five Wards of the city.
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Journalist’s Bias Blocks Free Speech on
Democracy
Dennis Moore, dennis@DCIndependents.org
Self-styled journalist and analyst Jonetta Rose Barras truly must
believe DC is an abbreviation for dumb citizens or docile constituents.
Her unwarranted and biased attack on members of a citizens referendum
coalition marks her clearly as having no journalistic integrity. There’s
no doubt she’s volunteered herself as the unofficial spokesperson for
the special interests and government elites who are intent on
maintaining the District as America’s last political plantation — at
the expense of democracy and due process.
Her nasty, immature and unsubstantiated rhetoric as a columnist for The
Examiner newspaper (http://www.examiner.com/a-755990~_Sour_Grapes_Gang__fighting_takeover_ignores_the_children.html)
and co-host on WAMU-FM radio’s Kojo Nnamdi Show brings into question
whether she is a credible representative of legitimate news media. Even
a fifth grader can understand that if we want to become a state, we need
to start acting like one. Citizens of the other US states have the
normal expectation of referendum rights on matters that govern them.
Welcome to America, Ms. Barras. No doubt, her attempt to distort and
dilute the actual message behind the citizens’ voices for basic
democracy and due process, is standard operating procedure for people
who have no link to journalistic integrity or the facts. We are hopeful
that the editors and managers of The Examiner and WAMU Radio are
more sensitive to the rights of District citizens, and the news
consumers who believe democracy is not a doormat for the ignorant. Real
news should not be smothered by the misinformation of uninformed scribes
with a personal agenda.
Jonetta Rose Barras is entitled to her own opinion and agenda. But if
Ms. Barras is presenting herself as a credible and credentialed member
of legitimate news outlets, she is definitely not entitled to her own
facts.
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
DC Public Library Events, June 5, 7
Randi Blank, randi.blank@dc.gov
Tuesday, June 5, 1:00 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial
Library, 901 G Street, NW, Enhanced Business Information Center (e-BIC),
1st Floor. If you are starting a business or want to take your existing
business to the next level, speak to experts from the Department of
Consumer and Regulatory Affairs and the Office of Tax and Revenue during
special office hours at the Library. For more information, call
727-2241.
Tuesday, June 5, 4:15 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial
Library, 901 G Street, NW, Room 215. Assistive Technology Users Group
and Support. Assistive technology users meet to share information. For
all levels who use assistive technology for the blind and visually
impaired. For more information, call 727-2142.
Tuesdays, June 5-June 26, 6:00 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Memorial Library, 901 G Street, NW. For more information about the
series, call 727-1265. June 5, Deja Vu (2006). This slick mix of action,
romance and science fiction stars Denzel Washington. Directed by Tony
Scott. Rated PG-13. June 12, The Queen (2006). Oscar winner Helen Mirrin
plays Queen Elizabeth during her public relations struggles after the
tragic death of Princess Diana. Directed by Stephen Frears. Rated PG-13.
June 19, Pan’s Labyrinth (2006). A young girl escapes from the harsh
realities of fascist Spain in the 1940s into a fascinating fantasy
world. Directed by Guillermo del Toro. Rated R. June 26, Stomp the Yard
(2007). A street dancer from Los Angeles tries to fit in at a Black
university in Atlanta. Columbus Short and Meagan Good star in this film
directed by Sylvain White. Rated PG-13.
Thursday, June 7, 10:00 a.m., Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial
Library, 901 G Street, NW, Enhanced Business Information Center (e-BIC),
A-level, e-BIC Conference Center. The Business Planning Process. Learn
the steps you need to take to start a business in DC This class is free
and cosponsored by DC’s Small Business Development Center. For more
information, call 727-2241.
Thursday, June 7, 12:00 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial
Library, 901 G Street, NW, Room A-5. Brown Bag Recital Series. Join us
for a performance by Cellist Vassily Popov, pianist Ralitza Patcheva,
and guest artist Erich Ulreich, on guitar and electric guitar. Call
727-1245 more information.
Thursday, June 7, 1:30 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial
Library, 901 G Street, NW, Enhanced Business Information Center (e-BIC),
1st Floor. Local, Small, Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (LSDBE)
office hours. Are you eligible for LSDBE certification? Come to the
Library during LSDBE office hours if you are a small business owner in
the District, plan to become one, or currently sell to the District
Government. Please call 727-2241 to sign up for this session.
Thursday, June 7, 2:30 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial
Library, 901 G Street, NW, Room 221. Let’s Talk About Books. We will
discuss Ibsen’s play "An Enemy of the People," as adapted by
playwright Arthur Miller. Call 727-1264 for more information.
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National Building Museum Events, June 14
Lauren Searl, lsearl@nbm.org
Thursday, June 14, 6:00 p.m., VIP reception; 7:00 p.m., general
reception. Join the National Building Museum for its 21st Honor Award
Gala, which will salute Related, an industry-leading, fully integrated
real estate development firm. This prestigious award will be presented
to Stephen M. Ross, chairman and founder of Related Companies, and Jorge
M. Perez, chairman of The Related Group, in recognition of their
commitment to design excellence, affordable housing, mixed-use
development, and community revitalization. The black tie gala will
include tributes from David M. Childs, FAIA, partner of Skidmore, Owings
& Merrill LLP; Daniel L. Doctoroff, New York City’s Deputy Mayor
for Economic Development and Rebuilding; and Bernardo Fort-Brescia, FAIA,
principal of Arquitectonica. For more information and table/ticket
prices please visit our website at www.nbm.org/honoraward.html
or contact Tasha Passarelle, Development Events Manager, at 272-2448,
ext. 3112, or tpassarelle@nbm.org.
At the National Building Museum, 401 F Street, NW, Judiciary Square
stop, Metro Red Line.
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CLASSIFIEDS — SERVICES
Are you, or do you know, a DC-area 501(c)(3) nonprofit that urgently
needs graphic design, web, or communications consultation but can’t
afford to pay for them? CreateAThon, a twenty-four-hour marathon of
design occurring this September, can help your group. Even if your group
has participated in CreateAThon before, you still may qualify this year
for new services: office, grant, and communications consulting. To apply
for free services for your organization, download an application at http://www.mediastudio.com/createathon.
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