--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.” The ostensible reason for this legislation is that school closures are hard on students—which is indisputable. But the presumptions … 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