On April 3, the mayor got her budget out—and the next day, budget oversight of DC’s education system began, with a hearing for public witnesses for the office of the state superintendent of education (OSSE), the deputy mayor for education (DME), and DCPS. That April 4 hearing started at about 9:22 am, about 20 minutes late. Hundreds of witnesses later, the hearing ended after midnight.

In all those hours, plenty of egregiously bad budget problems were mentioned, including the lack of a current DCPS teachers’ contract; cutting of the DC Futures program; elimination of the pay equity fund for early childhood educators; cuts to out of school time funding; and elimination of community schools (most of which were in DCPS).

But the centerpiece of awful were cuts to DCPS schools–even those with no enrollment loss. Here are a few takes on those cuts–some before the hearings started:

–Cuts as outlined by budget expert Mary Levy.

–Mary Levy’s outline of how budget increases are offset by less buying power as DCPS charges more.

–The Schools First In Budgeting act requires no educators to be cut in schools with increases in enrollment—yet they are being cut anyway.

As the council and mayor continue to duke it out on DC’s (still) piteously screwed education budget(s), it is worthwhile to get an accounting of what was said—and wasn’t said—at this season’s school budget oversight hearings.

To their credit, council members who attended these hearings (from what I could see, never in the entirety of the hearings and never with the entirety of the council) asked questions about, or commented on, many of the topics raised by witnesses.

But even with the acute budget crises now facing DCPS schools, especially EOTR, those same council members seemed to ask disproportionately about the Advanced Technical Center (ATC)—a project of the DME and OSSE–and the zeroing out of a 3% annual raise for the per pupil facilities allowance for charters.

The only explanation I have for this disconnect is that the people who hold the most power in DC education are not the parents, teachers, and community members who testified about items not directly connected to charter schools. Rather, the folks who do hold that power in the Wilson Building (ed reformers and charter staff and advocates) to a person complained about how terrible it would be if the charter facilities allowance did not get raised every year.

(Yes, really.)

To be fair, these same folks also gave credit to the mayor at every turn for the 12% raise in per pupil funding in this budget—though as far as I could see, never once to the DCPS teachers who made it possible through their contract negotiations for a pay raise (which the council and mayor determined also applied to charter teachers, most of whom do not enjoy union benefits).

Ed reformers and charter supporters also gravitated to several other topics, including supporting a new ATC in Ward 8; more equitable programming EOTR (often without mentioning budget cuts at DCPS schools EOTR that prevent offering anything but the basics); math training and intervention akin to the literacy training push (presumably, uncertified charter teachers need this?); and a school “navigator” to ensure schools offer what they say they offer (sounds like a bunch of fact checkers to me—but the price here is a little higher, running $750K/year).

Anyway, below is what I highlighted from dozens of hours of testimony and discussions across multiple education budget oversight hearings.

April 4 hearing (DCPS, DME, & OSSE budget oversight with public witnesses)

Here is the hearing witness list and testimony. There are two places to watch video:

There is a committee of the whole (COW) youtube video that leaves off 3 hours (out of a total of 15 hours). The council video has the entire hearing. (All the marks below are to the youtube video linked above until after hour 12, when the marks are to the council video.)

–It is well worth watching state board of education members testify, starting at the 28 minute, 50 second mark.

–At the 3:41:14 mark, DCPS parent Elizabeth Mitchell gets to the pain of being a parent here and now.

–Budget expert Mary Levy testifies at the 5:05:10 mark about DC’s budgetary absurdities.

—Tami Lewis of the DC Charter Alliance responds to a question at 6:51:30 that one DCPS modernization costs about the same as 1 year of charter facilities allocations (about $180 million)—without noting that DCPS modernizations don’t happen every year (much less at every school!) and the facilities in question are 100% owned by the public. OTOH, charter facilities allocations are untracked public funds gifted to charters that can be used for anything–including multiple renovations on the same city-owned building within the space of a decade by separate charters (yes, this really happened at the former DCPS school Bruce with Meridian and Chavez–fun!).

–At the 7 hour, 44 minute and 26 second mark, Woodson HS teacher Laura Fuchs gets to the brutal details of the budget cuts.

–At the 8 hour, 12 minute, and 40 second mark, Suzanne Wells of the Ward 6 education council (W6PSPO) discusses the costs of school choice and its inefficiencies.

–Starting at the 8:45:50 mark, EmpowerEd teachers testify en masse, starting with Rachel Hargreaves, art teacher at Deal MS, who recites a list of tests and standards DCPS teachers have to deal with that micromanage teachers, deny students a fulsome education, and waste millions. (The EmpowerEd teachers wear shirts saying “Listen to teachers”—and council members do, except that the lack of questions suggests they do not entirely hearthem.)

–At the 9 hour, 15 minute, and 31 second mark, Janet Hailes, Ward 4 resident and mentor to Anacostia kids, gives powerful testimony about Anacostia HS.

–Sitting behind most of these public witnesses from the start of the hearing on for 9 hours, parent Lawrence Rawlings got his turn at the mic at the 9 hour, 44 minute, and 10 second mark. Every second of his 2 minutes was incredible. “I need the council to be here,” he intones several times—in response to which he got silence.

–At the 10 hour, 8 minute, and 17 second mark, Langley parent Anjali Dibner echoed earlier testimony about high carbon dioxide levels there (yes, the gas that doesn’t provide oxygen) and the lack of communication from DCPS about it. Langley’s renovation is slated for 2028.

–At the 11 hour, 27 minute, and 10 second mark, Johnson MS teacher and parent Dominque Moore decries DCPS erasure and lack of funding for community schools, the majority of which are DCPS schools.

–Starting at the 12 hour, 2 minute mark, several parents from the Capitol Hill Cluster School testify about a cut of $1.2 million, affecting two Title 1 schools (Watkins and Stuart-Hobson). This is at about 9:30 pm, and by now, a lot of people called up have dropped off.

–DCPS librarian KC Boyd testifies on National School Librarian Day at the 12:33:50 mark—it is after 10 pm.

–Several late witnesses testify about the Secure DC crime bill putting kids into chokeholds while cutting Ward 7 & 8 schools in a clear school to prison pipeline, culminating in incredible testimony at the 13 hour, 33 minute, and 40 second mark of the council video by Jackie Carter of the Children’s Legacy Theater. Carter puts all the pieces together of these budget cuts into the scenario of DC’s Secure DC crime bill. Interestingly, at the 13 hour, 35 minute and 53 second mark of the council video, as Carter testifies, you can hear Mendelson say sotto voce “that’s not correct” about the chokehold bit. He asked no questions and gave no comment afterward.

April 5, 2024 (budget oversight for DME (govt. witness only), state board and public charter school board (both govt and public witnesses))

The video is here. The witness list and testimony is here.

Notably, the executive director of the charter board was on the hot seat for about 26 minutes (starting about 26 minutes before the end of the video); by contrast, the DME had a couple of hours of questioning.

April 11 hearing (DCPS & OSSE budget oversight with government witnesses)

The video is here. The witness list and testimony is here.

By contrast with questioning of the charter board at the April 5 hearing, questioning of DCPS chancellor Lewis Ferebee at this April 11 hearing lasted for more than 3 hours. Both sectors get about $1 billion annually from DC taxpayers.

–At the 1 hour 28 minute mark, W5 council member Zachary Parker asks Ferebee for numbers of central office staff—and seems to get an answer at the 2 hour mark.

–At the 1 hour 45 minute mark, council chair Phil Mendelson and W3 council member Matt Frumin get into money going back to DCPS schools from use fees for fields.

–At the 2 hour 44 minute mark, Henderson cuts into Ferebee for spending $25M for an auditorium for MacArthur HS, noting that the entire building was bought sans auditorium and that other schools remain unrenovated. Henderson also asks about the PACE act (and doesn’t get a good answer).

–(Departing) OSSE head Christina Grant starts at 4:09:11.

–At the 5:02:34 mark, Grant says enrollment numbers will be out asap. (Still waiting as of this blog post >2 weeks later!)

–At the 5:18 mark, there is a slide and discussion about the ATCs. The current ATC has 191 students.

–At the 5:27:40 mark, there is a slide on the timing of OSSE buses that says they have a 96% on time “departure” rate.

–At the 6:20:45 mark, Mendelson asks about the effectiveness of high-impact tutoring (HIT); the slide shown is instructive, albeit without any note about the folks behind its funding—or the fact that OSSE’s own oversight documents showed that HIT served only 9% of students while spending $16.4 million.