[Ed. Note: The following is by DC public schools advocate Peter MacPherson] What I write here appears to be a success story: right now, the District of Columbia Public Schools has a credentialed librarian in almost every school. The system as a whole has more books that meet national standards in terms of currency than … Continue reading DCPS School Libraries: The Continuing Saga of the Inequitable and Underfunded

Not sure what announcements will be made this week other than city giving a long-term lease on the closed Keene Elementary School to DC Bilingual Public Charter School.  Must be why they chose this location for the event. MEDIA ADVISORY     FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 29, 2017 CONTACT: Susana Castillo (EOM) – (202) 727-5011; susana.castillo@dc.gov Shayne … Continue reading Accelerating School Reform???

[Ed. Note: The following is a message drafted by a group of school advocates, including me and Caryn Ernst, a fellow DCPS parent. Please pass it on.] The Every Student Succeeds Act of 2016 (ESSA) gives states the opportunity to reduce the extreme weight on test scores to rank schools, which was the cornerstone of … Continue reading This May Be Your LAST CHANCE to Give Input on DC Public School Accountability Measures

Former mayor Anthony Williams, co-chair of our city's cross sector collaboration task force, recently recorded a video in support of President Trump's nominee for education secretary, Betsy DeVos. The video was made on behalf of charter, private school voucher and school choice interest group American Federation for Children. Although she has never been educated in public schools, … Continue reading Call The Mayor If You Think Our Public School Task Force Co-Chair Should Not Shill For Private School Vouchers

As you may know, the cross sector task force has formulated a policy proposal to address student mobility (access the policy proposal here). The task force held several public meetings to get feedback. Total attendance was about 60 people. Given that 60 people doesn't exactly denote a popular landslide, you may want to weigh in--and now … Continue reading Survey On Student Mobility Proposal

On Thursday January 19, at 3 pm, come join hundreds of your fellow DC citizens, including teachers, parents, and students, at rallies around DC public schools to ensure our public schools remain places of learning and freedom as a new presidential administration gets underway. Here is a a flyer with more information. Rallies will be … Continue reading January 19: Defending Public Education

On January 10, the chair of the council education committee, David Grosso, introduced legislation to ensure that the minimum staffing level for nurses at each public school in DC would be 40 hours per week. Suffice it to say that this would be a sea change in our city. Hopefully, the new legislation will include … Continue reading School Nurses: Three Years (And Counting!) of Short Staffing

The Post recently ran a story about the opening of a new Ward 4 DCPS middle school in 2019 to feed into Coolidge high school. Titled “Can gentrifying Ward 4 support two new middle schools?,” the story took on the current real estate/gentrification boom in the ward, along with the fact that DCPS’s MacFarland middle … Continue reading Hmm: About Those New Ward 4 DCPS Schools . . .

DCPS's School Food Advisory Board (charmingly represented by the acronym SFAB) is looking for students, parents, and school staff to serve on it for 2017. Applications are due on January 23. Sign up and more information are here. Here's the wording from that website: "The roles & responsibility of serving on the SFAB are: - … Continue reading Be A DCPS Food Taster: Sign Up By Jan. 23

Next week, on January 12, DCPS will hold two public meetings on school renovations, one at Maury Elementary and one at Jefferson Academy middle school. Besides being about the long-delayed renovations of both schools, the meetings have a lot more in common: Both start at 6 pm. Both are in Ward 6. Both will happen … Continue reading In With the New Year and The Old DCPS: Facilities Edition