If you need a reason to smile about the future, keep reading: Yesterday, at the Lincoln Memorial, students from DCPS's Watkins Elementary recited from memory Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech. Yesterday marked Dr. King's 87th birthday. This recitation by Watkins students has been an annual event by the school for … Continue reading Celebrating Dr. King’s Legacy

So here is a challenge: go to this website for the DC Capital Stars gala, listen to and watch the DC public school contestants perform, and see if you can do all of this without smiling. The top ten students will perform at a gala on April 26th at the Kennedy Center; judges will determine which … Continue reading A Little (DC Public School) Music Makes the Heart Lighter

on January 26 at 6 pm--and now there is a location for that meeting: MLK Library, 901 G St. NW. As you may have read, the cross-sector collaboration task force will be meeting monthly for the next year or so to ensure that charters and DCPS figure out ways to co-exist in the city without … Continue reading The First Meeting of the Cross-Sector Task Force is . . .

The education committee of the city council (along with the committee of the whole council) is holding a hearing on proposed legislation to change the definition of truancy in DC public schools. The hearing will be held on Thursday, January 21 at 9:30 am at the Wilson Building; sign up by Tuesday 1/19/16 with Jessica Giles … Continue reading Hearing on Truancy Legislation: 1/21/16

The cross-sector task force for collaboration between charters and DCPS is sponsoring focus groups around the city during eight days in February, from 6-7:30 pm each evening (dates, locations, and signups announced here). According to a posting at my school by one of the task force members (Caryn Ernst), the focus groups will discuss a variety … Continue reading Cross-Sector Focus Groups–Sign Up Now!

Today, schools activist Peter MacPherson sent a missive (below) to members of the city council and the mayor. In it, he proposes a ballot measure for an elected school board that (presumably) would have control of both sectors of public schools in DC. Given the current state of opacity (and occasional corruption) in DC public … Continue reading Proposed Ballot Measure: Elected School Board

Once again, the education news reported in the Post (this time, via Fortune) became a little, um, personal for me. In promoting the Common Core, the chairman of ExxonMobil was quoted as saying that he was not sure if public schools understand that the entirety of the business community is their "customer": “What they don’t … Continue reading A New Year–and More of the Old Education Show

This past Friday, December 18, DCPS principals had run out of time to appeal enrollment projections. This is important because next year’s DCPS school budgets will be based on those enrollment projections, which DCPS principals had 11 days to argue up (or down). Right now, the timeline for the DCPS FY17 budget roughly follows this … Continue reading Happy Winter Break—or Why You Are Probably Already Behind in Lobbying for Your Public School

Yesterday, the deputy mayor for education (DME) made the announcement official: the cross-sector task force, to coordinate how charters and DCPS work together, is now ready to roll. The task force consists of 26 members, chaired by DME Jennifer Niles and former mayor Anthony Williams. The DME is the founder and former head of the … Continue reading Here’s Your Cross-Sector Task Force

In her blog post from the beginning of this school year, Suzanne Wells examined a phenomenon in DCPS neighborhood schools on Capitol Hill: the exodus of 4th graders from neighborhood DCPS elementaries to charter middle schools at 5th grade. As the principals of those neighborhood elementaries attested, the students who left to enroll in charters … Continue reading Where Have All the 4th Grade PARCC Scores Gone?