What follows here is my informal and inevitably idiosyncratic accounting of four recent education performance oversight hearings covering the charter board, DCPS, and OSSE (the office of the state superintendent of education), ahead of the expected budget release on April 1. 

A few things stood out to me across the many hours of testimony and questions:

–What public witnesses repeatedly described as problems were not necessarily (or sometimes ever) what the council followed up on with government witnesses. In many cases, the follow up was brief and seemingly inadequate for the severity or depth of the problems.

–The follow-up with public witnesses directly was often brief and, in at least one case, disrespectful (yeah, nothing to see with the council chair punching down on the state board of education president). The main factor for the brevity was the length of each hearing.

–What the council didn’t look into with government witnesses was pretty extensive despite stated objectives of saving money and greater accountability. 

–Some public witnesses were not there to outline problems that need attention, but were paid specifically to attest to the goodness of their work. This is not new—many charter schools do this, and it is an open question whether the council believes this constitutes true oversight of the charter sector. (It doesn’t BTW.) Regardless, when you blithely combine as public witnesses parents, students, and teachers not paid one dime to show up and who detail great needs with people paid handsomely to speak of the virtues of their own efforts (many in part to demonstrate how they continue to deserve public funding), it stands to reason that there are probably better ways to conduct oversight—like having a separate hearing specifically for DCPS and charter teachers, parents, and students.

–For most of the almost 30 hours (5 + 4 + 9.75 + 10) of these four hearings, most council members were absent. So it was that oversight of $2.5 billion in annual expenditures—a significant fraction of DC’s total annual budget—comes down to one person (council chair Phil Mendelson) and a few staff members. If you think that allows a lot to go unseen and/or be obfuscated, you are correct.

February 18 hearing: DCPS & charter board public witnesses (video is here: https://dc.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=10306)

Early on, the Ward 5 state board representative, Robert Henderson, mentioned how boards of individual charter schools don’t respond effectively to parent complaints. (See it starting after minute 7.) 

Council chair Phil Mendelson responded to this at about the 22:14 mark and then also at the 27:20 mark, basically saying nothing more can be done except to . . . complain. 

(Side note: On the one hand, this is pretty rich, given that Mendelson destroyed the education committee and now, as chair, has almost exclusive control of education oversight and apparently believes that screaming louder is a (the?) strategy for justice. On the other hand, given that more than a year ago I demonstrated to the office of open government that most charters do not follow the Open Meetings Act (OMA) for their boards and only three have since been investigated (and yes, they did violate the OMA), Mendelson may be on to something. After all, for all the effect of my efforts, I could just have screamed outside the Wilson Building with mostly the same result.) 

Multiple public witnesses laid into what appeared to be the moral bankruptcy of not using green card funds for educators, despite allocation of those funds to DCPS. Multiple witnesses (most pointedly, Maria Blaeuer of Advocates for Justice and Education at the 1 hour 25 minute mark) also noted problems with home and hospital instruction. Others talked about the ongoing threats from federal agents and lack of protection by school officials (see, for example, Caroline Pryor of EmpowerEd at the 1 hour 42 minute mark).

Multiple parents from various DCPS schools (ie Amidon-Bowen, Whittier, Chisholm) talked about renovation inequities (well, for those that are getting them–unlike Amidon-Bowen, which was just summarily dropped from all lists; see the 1 hour 55 minute mark). And multiple public witnesses talked about the lack of implementation of the Green Food Purchasing Amendment Act (not exactly an unexpected outcome, given how fraught food services have been historically in our schools). 

At hour 2 minute 18, Mendelson pushed back against the contention of EmpowerEd’s Scott Goldstein that a number of bills relating to education have stalled (including the legislation that doesn’t allow budget penalties for schools in renovation), while ceremonial bills naming schools have quickly passed. Mendelson then commenced an aria about how oversight doesn’t need the council to pass laws. 

[Confidential to Chairman Mendelson: As long as we are on this subject, let us talk about laws that actually COULD help with oversight, based on everything I—and you!–have heard in these hearings:

A student bill of rights
An independent OSSE
An annual list of all city-owned school buildings with their conditions and capacities (yeah, this doesn’t publicly exist)
Holding school budgets harmless during renovations (oh wait, this legislation exists but you didn’t move it, chairman!)
Ensuring equity IN renovations—not just when they are scheduled or where they occur—and ensuring all school buildings in DCPS control are included in a comprehensive list for the PACE Act
A detailed annual accounting of charter facilities funds
A detailed annual accounting of city-owned buildings that charters rent, including facility condition assessments, rent credits, and payments
Empowering the elected state board of education more (oh wait, this legislation exists but you didn’t move it, chairman!)
Annual list of all due process complaints in every publicly funded school (and not just in DCPS)
Mandated reporting of charter schools that do not have open board meetings (oh hey, charter board: how’s that staffer of yours doing attending board meetings that are not publicized?)
Mandated reporting of average teacher compensation at every charter school—not voluntary or just with published schedules without numbers of teachers at each level.]

Finally, if you have time for only one person, make sure you listen to a DCPS teacher at the 4 hour 50 minute mark talk about over-testing. (It’s educational.)

February 19 hearing: DCPS government witnesses (video is here: https://dc.granicus.com/player/clip/10322)

Unlike the prior day’s hearing detailed above, multiple council members attended AND appeared to be involved with questioning, including inquiries about DCPS’s green card program (which doesn’t seem to be paused, just that the federal level processing has slowed such that DCPS has not moved ahead—see the chancellor’s response to this starting at 2:37:23). Most, however, inquired about projects and schools in their own wards.

A curious exchange began at the 1 hour mark, where Phil Mendelson quoted an unnamed source about changing demographics in DCPS schools, with the contention that more white students have resulted in rising test scores. The chancellor (thankfully) didn’t take the bait and noted that all subgroups have made progress in the post-pandemic “recovery journey”—so it’s not accurate to say that only increasing white students results in test score gains.

Perhaps predictably, Mendelson neglected to mention that it was this blog post that was his source—possibly because it not only is inaccurate but also because it never once accounted for whether the students taking the tests at the end of the year are the same as those who start at the beginning. (Oops.) At least we now know who Mendelson and his staff listen to for education data—and who they don’t.

At the 1:26:55 mark, Mendelson scratched his itch about data showing a reduction in enrollment, to which the chancellor responded that audited enrollments are not yet out (ditto the preliminary enrollment counts from fall 2025), but there are both declining birth rates and fewer preK students. (None of that demographic information is new BTW.) About an hour later, at the 2:40:33 minute mark, Mendelson directly questioned the 1200 student reduction in DCPS’s enrollment projections, to which the chancellor promised a detailed explanation of shifts in grades. 

Mendelson also asked about DCPS’s home and hospital program—and got the canned response that DCPS has approved 80% of requests. (No word about what the disapproved 20% do.) He also inquired about due process complaints in DCPS and at 3:54 DCPS’s huge commitments to testing, including nonalignment of RCT testing with the curriculum. (He didn’t get a good answer for any of it, except for eliciting an admission that one test for 2nd graders was unaligned. Oops.)

By hour 4 minute 1, Mendelson got to modernization disparities, which were outlined by a variety of parents directly experiencing them now (ie Chisholm, Whitter, and the forgotten Amidon-Bowen). He mentioned that back in the day, he was an Eaton parent—which for me is fascinating, inasmuch as Mendelson currently lives on Capitol Hill and thus surely knows that no DCPS elementary school on Capitol Hill looks like Eaton—before or after renovation. (Well, maybe Logan Montessori now, though that’s stretching it.) While Mendelson did ask whether budgets determine renovations or whether needs do, it remains that disparities are commonplace and, sadly, in one direction only. 

Close to the hearing’s end, Ward 5 council member Zachary Parker illuminated that all DCPS field trips are approved by 1 or 2 people in DCPS’s central office. (Yeah.)

February 25 hearing: Deputy mayor for education (DME), state board of education, charter board, UDC, DC athletics association (video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G91k92fJ_7E)

For more than 4 hours, nearly 100 public witnesses provided testimony on pressing issues, including the need to protect kids and their parents from ICE; special education transportation; out of school time programming; changes in governance to empower the state board more; and lack of accountability and transparency.

Weirdly, at minute 30 a person with the DC Policy Center worried through enrollment numbers for (checks notes) DCPS, without mentioning charter enrollment (because those are not DC residents?). Apparently, the real concern is with all those future underutilized DCPS facilities (which could go to charters–naturally).

Now this makes for a truly interesting intersection of interests! 

During the February 19 DCPS government witness hearing, for instance, Patrick Ashley of DCPS said (at about the 1 hour 54 minute mark of that hearing) that Stuart-Hobson Middle School has a capacity of 610 students. This was disputed by a parent at the school—who also happens to be the Ward 6 council member. Indeed, Charles Allen noted the school is bursting at the seams currently with less than 500 students. 

Turns out that the most recent MFP supplements posted by the DME have put the school’s capacity at over 600, with one document from SY21-22 saying the school’s capacity was 676 (!). Now this should come as quite the surprise to the creator of this 2019 MFP document (which actually is the same person under the same DME, Jennifer Comey), which says the school’s capacity is >200 students LESS, at 450 (p. A-53). Fascinatingly, Stuart-Hobson has not changed its square footage or programming since its renovation was finished in fall 2015. 

So it seems someone somewhere has been busily cooking up numbers to make utilization rates of at least one DCPS building decline no matter what its enrollment is–and DCPS is happily going along with it! And also fascinatingly, utilization rates below 85% have historically ensured those buildings were flagged as underutilized or even eligible for closure. 

(No wonder the DC Policy Center is focused on DCPS enrollment—just think of all the underutilized buildings in the pipeline for charters if you juke capacities as enrollment declines!)

Continuing the weirdness, the head of Lee Montessori congratulated the successful closing of a paper alley at its Ward 8 facility without noting how adjacent houses were damaged by the construction of that facility by Eagle. A short time later, at about minute 49, Phil Mendelson said planners are looking at “revenue raisers” because one cannot raise taxes enough to cover costs—which is true if you simultaneously ignore other ways of raising revenue or forgo looking for wastes of money, like the extra $20 million we pay charters every year in facilities funds. (Naturally, within an hour of that, an ed reform organization head said that facilities funds for charters need to be increased.)

Mendelson was not present when a parent, Lorena Flores, gave this powerful testimony at the 3:28:45 mark about how she was given the run-around by the charter board and her own charter school when problems arose. That testimony elicited the interest of the council member chairing the meeting at that moment (Zachary Parker). Only many hours later, with 5 minutes left in the hearing, Mendelson noted to the executive director of the charter board (at the 9 hour, 42 minute mark) that he became aware of a school’s board not communicating with or responding to parents—and got the run-around, to which he didn’t respond. (Their entire exchange lasted less than 2 minutes.)

At the 4 hour 35 minute mark, government witnesses were called up. At the 5 hour 11 minute mark, Mendelson took issue with the state board’s president, Jacque Patterson, in response to Patterson’s critique of not receiving timely agency responses to state board queries. The exchange is well worth listening to, if for no other reason than to hear a DC elected official (Mendelson) declare that another DC elected official (Patterson) has no special privilege in pursuing on behalf of the public he represents agency proceedings or responses. Indeed, Mendelson even berated the specificity of board requests for information. (Won’t anyone think of the poor agencies?!?)

Thankfully, former state board member and current Ward 5 council member Zachary Parker interjected the proceedings with reality, noting among other things that during his time on the state board, members’ access to data was constantly frustrated by DC agencies, including with teacher retention data. (Naturally, the bill for empowering the state board would permit more prompt access to data—and naturally, Mendelson has ensured it has gone nowhere.)

Incredibly, about an hour after the deputy mayor for education got on, Mendelson asked the DME (at the 8 hour 34 minute mark) what he thought about the state board legislation. Naturally, the deputy mayor said it was “unnecessary.”

(Isn’t it nice when the powerful agree to disempower the people who made them powerful?)

At the 9 hour 3 minute mark, Mendelson began questioning the executive director of the charter board. A few minutes in, he asked why there is so much cash on hand for some schools and read from a charter board document in his hand. The executive director replied that the cash ensures real estate stability, among other reasons—but that the charter board doesn’t ask about high levels of cash on hand. Fascinatingly, Mendelson noted that the document he was reading from has Eagle Academy on it, which he found surprising given that Eagle went out of business in 2024. 

What Mendelson didn’t say (or perhaps even realize) is that most of the charter board’s public-facing accounts of charter finances are (and have long been) literally years behind the present. What Mendelson was reading from, for instance, was the charter board’s most recent financial analysis report (FAR), which was posted in January 2026, almost 2 YEARS after Eagle went out of business. This is literally the ONLY public document DC has for financial analysis of all DC charters until—I don’t know—January or February 2027. 

[Confidential to the charter parent who declared to me that there is plenty of stuff posted on the charter board website about finances: Yes, that is true—but as the inestimable Mary Levy noted, garbage in, garbage out. Not only are many of the most recent posted financial documents frankly old, but the only ones that detail any problematic financials on a reasonably current basis are fiscal notices/citations of concern, which have been posted more regularly in public only after 2024. And even then, the charter board just zeroes out schools if those schools have met their conditions or corrected the problems. The upshot is that as a member of the public you have no idea if the school you have just chosen for your child has had a history of financial problems—you can only see that it’s not on a list *at this moment*. Which is fine and well until it isn’t—which appears to be the entire point. (But school choice, baby!)]

By the 9 hour 17 minute mark, Mendelson mentioned the higher turnover of teachers in DC charters and suggested that charter schools with large amounts of cash on hand should pay their teachers perhaps better—and that maybe there was a correlation between retention and teacher pay. He then quickly moved on. (If you think that anyone in the Wilson Building asked actual people actually employed by DC to do this analysis, you would be disappointed.)

Likewise, if you thought Mendelson would get hot and bothered by due process complaints in charters like he did for DCPS, you would also be disappointed (apparently, magic ponies take care of all of that messy stuff in DC charters, possibly by way of kicking those kids out to DCPS). And you would be disappointed if you think anyone besides Mendelson questioned the DME and the executive director of the charter board–who were there for about an hour and less than 45 minutes, respectively. 

By contrast, the DCPS government witness oversight hearing lasted more than 4 hours. DCPS has about the same amount of money as the charter sector. For a person who chairs a legislative body charged with oversight, sitting on pending legislation and pretending legislating isn’t oversight is a little lost about what constitutes his job. (Oops.)

And now, a coda!

March 4 hearing: OSSE (video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WEVcH87rwI)

The 10 hours of this hearing were mainly public witnesses, many of whom testified about special education transit problems; failures in providing special education services; governance (OSSE is not independent despite the need for its work to be independent); the need to protect students from ICE; and horrific cuts to childcare subsidies and early educator pay.

Those last two things are particularly poignant now that we have masked thugs running around DC at the behest of racist authoritarians. Simply put, loss of childcare affects the ability of parents to work at all and to ensure their children can attend school. It was rendered yet more poignant by the council chair going into an aria (again!) about the impossibility of raising revenue (see it at 2:14:38 and at 5:20), which was thankfully rebutted by EmpowerEd’s Scott Goldstein (see the 6 hour 22 minute mark). Perhaps unsurprisingly, despite arguing that one cannot raise enough revenue to cover the $1 billion that DC lost from its budget because of federal shenanigans, Mendelson said nothing about giving up $1 billion of DC taxpayer funds for a privately held stadium. (Naturally.)

In the wake of questions from council members (plural!) about special education buses and parent complaints about the bus call center, it wasn’t clear how anything would improve.  With minutes left in the hearing, Mendelson asked about OSSE’s slow responses to queries from the state board of education. Turns out, OSSE apparently thinks there is no problem—and Mendelson seemed to be OK with that.

Finally, be sure catch the testimony of Maria Blaeuer of Advocates for Justice and Education at 2:35:24—or read her testimony here. She gets to the through line of DC public education, wherein parents are sidelined, problems and complaints ignored–and children bear the burden of it all.