Now that school year 2026-27 is well underway, let us get to some recent events: --As you may have read, a federal grand jury has been convened in an investigation of DCPS. The investigation apparently revolves around truancy, attendance, and graduation rates. Now, while those rates in DCPS have not been good, they have also not … Continue reading New School Year, New Events–And Old Problems

As DC celebrates 30 years of charters here, it seems fitting to point out that at no time in any of those decades have DC taxpayers enjoyed timely and complete public financial data around the schools that now educate nearly 50% of DC students. For DC leaders, however, that lack of fiscal (and democratic) clarity … Continue reading Fiscal Black Holes & The Poisoning Of Democracy

Tomorrow, Monday July 6, the DC council is holding a hearing on legislation for charters to have a lottery preference for students from closing schools. Note that this date is a change from the previously scheduled date for that hearing, which was July 9. While the date change may ensure fewer people testify about the many problems with this legislation, … Continue reading In The Tangled (Education) Webs Of DC

--On July 9, the DC council is holding a hearing on a bill to “require charter schools to offer a preference to any applicant who, during the current or immediately preceding school year, attended a school that was closed.” [Update 7/5/26: The hearing has been moved to Monday July 6; see this link for more information.] The ostensible … Continue reading Springing Into Summer

You may have missed last week’s May 18 deadline to submit public testimony to the DC council around applications from Friendship, DC Prep, and Harmony for DC revenue bonds.  But that may have been because the record was open for a mere 2 business days after the May 14 hearing on the revenue bonds--and a mere 2 … Continue reading Adventures With DC Revenue Bonds & Charter Schools

While individual education budget hearings are now over and Wilson Building money-wrangling continues, inequities in DC’s education budget and systems loom very large—albeit seemingly without a lot of sense.  For one, most of the dozens of hours of those budget hearings had very few council members in attendance. For his part, council chair Phil Mendelson … Continue reading Oh, The Budget

Last month, the mayor (finally) released audited enrollment data. But the report created by the office of the state superintendent of education (OSSE) is dated January. So let us examine some reasons for those months of silence. --Enrollment is not demonstrably increasing. The total audited numbers this year (including adults) are 51,782 for DCPS and 48,065 for … Continue reading Welcome To DC’s Brave New World Of Decreasing School Enrollment

--DC’s proposed budget is out—here is DCPS and charter school information and here is capital information (starting on p. 231 for DCPS).  --As of this blog post, most education budget oversight hearings have been officially listed on the council calendar, which has sign-up information for those who wish to testify. What listings I found with sign-up information I have put immediately … Continue reading April Hearings & Happenings

At some point while listening to the February 9 PACE Act hearing, it occurred to me that although DGS and DCPS appeared to care less about the public trust in DC’s school buildings than, I don’t know, carrots in Idaho, they were not alone.  For me, the tell was at the 1:50:55 mark of the hearing video, … Continue reading Erasing The Public In DC Public School Facilities

So as we peruse DC’s newly released audited enrollments (see also here; all the data was held for two months until released last week) AND as we wait (again!) for the mayor to bring forth a new budget, let us take a moment to see where we are regarding education governance ahead of the June 16 DC primary … Continue reading Education Governance in DC (And Beyond!)