[Ed. Note: On September 16, the DC Council heard testimony on a revision of the Schools First In Budgeting act. Introduced back in December 2021, the bill had a public hearing in January 2022--after which followed months of silence. The bill was one of a pair that council chair Phil Mendelson had introduced to address … Continue reading Ignoring The $1 Billion Elephant In The Budget Room

On August 1, the deputy mayor for education (DME) and several of his staffers met with C4DC to discuss education planning in DC. But the DME didn’t really discuss what he is actually planning with respect to DC’s publicly funded schools other than to report on three things he hopes to accomplish in 2023: finishing … Continue reading Fiddling While DC’s Schools Burn—And Action To Take Today

[Ed. Note: This blog post on where to find education agency oversight responses is intended to be a resource. Many thanks to DCPS budget analyst Mary Levy for her excellent help and insight locating and enumerating these sources. Background: Every spring the DC council holds oversight hearings—budget and performance—for each DC education agency. The council … Continue reading DC Education Agency Oversight Responses: A Resource

In April 2021, and then again in October 2021, my husband sent an email to the generic email (dme@dc.gov) for the office of the deputy mayor for education (DME). In both emails, my husband requested enrollment data by DCPS boundary for the 2020-21 school year. Previous years’ data had been released publicly—but not for that … Continue reading When The Long Arm Of The Law < Public Shaming: DME FOIA Follies

[Ed. Note: The following is simply a dump of data that are in my estimation basic to DC school planning. These data sets are also very difficult, if not impossible, to come by in any one DC agency or website. Nonetheless, they are central to annual master facility plan (MFP) updates, along with a possible … Continue reading Good School Planning: A Data Dump

[Ed. Note: The following blog post is by former DCPS teacher Kathleen Coughlin, who here has outlined how the DC Department of General Services (DGS) has not been following DC law for timely and accurate reporting of HVAC repairs and inspections in DCPS schools for the better part of a year. In June, Coughlin wrote … Continue reading Once Again Flouting DC Law: DGS And School HVAC Reporting

. . . most of which have not been well-publicized in my view: --DC is sponsoring vaccination clinics this summer for DC students. See here for the only listing I was able to find, courtesy of this tweet. A roundtable on the subject held the other week by the DC council revealed that >25% of … Continue reading July Happenings . . .

[Ed. Note: The following is an email exchange from December 2021 between a member of the public (who granted me permission to print this) and the privately held XQ Institute. The email exchange discusses how teachers were asked to organize DCPS students for interviews for XQ, even as some teachers (and their school administrators as … Continue reading No Comment

In April, like tens of thousands of other DCPS parents, I received an email from DCPS about the Advanced Technical Center (ATC). The email discussed classes in cybersecurity, general nursing, and health information technology starting in fall 2022 for DC high school students who will be juniors or younger. According to ATC director Richard Kincaid, … Continue reading Remaking DC High School Education . . . Somewhere, Somehow

--On June 29 at 11 am, the DC council will hold a roundtable on vaccinations for DC students. Immunization rates in DC’s schools are horribly low. Whether the result of ignorance, propaganda, or access (or some combination thereof), this reality portends nothing less than avoidable tragedy. With vaccination rates for DC’s school kids in January … Continue reading Recent & Upcoming Events (Chopping Wood Edition*)