Just the other day, while the charter board approved almost 2000 new school seats (in the face of an official determination that we have thousands of unfilled seats already), and while many schools of right in wards 7 & 8 face unbelievable budget cuts (see the chart here, on p. 2) that will ensure they have … Continue reading Where Is Our Safe Room?

Just a quick highlight of several education events happening this weekend in DC: On Sunday May 19, from 1-5 pm, there will be a panel discussion to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the decision in the Bolling v. Sharpe court case, which desegregated public schools in our city. See more information here. The discussion will … Continue reading Upcoming Weekend Events (And Beyond!)

[Ed. Note: The following editorial is by former DCPS parent Peter MacPherson] by Peter MacPherson I’ve spent many years advocating for public education in the District of Columbia. My 22-year-old daughter spent every day of her 14 years as a primary and secondary school student in DCPS. In all that time, I have personally witnessed … Continue reading Mayor Bowser’s Second Term: Endgame For DCPS?

This blog post is accounting for how you are not a part of DC's public schools, even if you think and believe you are. Last week, I discovered that no one in the public can anymore view the June 2017 charter board meeting, because the video was accidentally destroyed. Several summers ago, in this blog, … Continue reading Accounting For Public Exclusion

In this budget season, fraught as it always is, there are actions that all of us can take right now to help our schools. 1. To demand that our neighborhood schools are properly funded (please!), the Washington Teachers' Union (WTU) is sponsoring a rally this Thursday April 25 at 4 pm at Freedom Plaza, across … Continue reading Rallying For Our Schools: What You Can Do NOW

Back in January, I made several FOIA requests of DC government agencies for information about future plans for the building currently occupied by DCPS’s Banneker high school, on Euclid Street. I did this because the plan to re-locate the school to the site of the closed Shaw junior high never mentioned what would become of … Continue reading What Is The Plan For Banneker High School’s Current Building? (Or, Conflicts Of Interest And “The Middle School Program”)

In the wake of excellent reporting about the private nature of publicly funded charter schools in Los Angeles and New Jersey, I wanted to get an answer to the question in the title of this blog post, prompted by that picture above, which I took in February. That is: who really owns St. Coletta charter school … Continue reading Just Tell Me: Who Owns This?

That statement above was uttered on March 19 by DCPS chancellor Lewis Ferebee, at a meeting of Ward 6’s Public School Parent Organization (W6PSPO). It was, literally, the last thing the chancellor said as he was leaving the room--and it was in response to a question by a parent, who asked whether DCPS would be … Continue reading “We Will Not Be Closing Schools In Ward 6”

[Ed. Note: Today, as nearly 200 public witnesses take hours out of their day to document at the ongoing DCPS budget hearing how our schools and kids are being shorted yet again, this (very long!) blog post by DCPS teacher Laura Fuchs is eminently fitting. It shows the expenditure of more than $77 MILLION in … Continue reading The Generosity Of DCPS (Central)

At the March 6 council hearing for the renomination of Hanseul Kang as the head of our office of the state superintendent of education (OSSE), I had the odd distinction of being the only one of 13 public witnesses to testify against the renomination. Given what has transpired at OSSE during Kang’s tenure—a major graduation … Continue reading The Generosity Of OSSE