Last week, hundreds of students in DC’s publicly funded schools demanded democracy—specifically, for the U.S. Senate to vote down a continuing resolution (CR) that deprived DC of the right to use its own tax dollars and forced DC to revert to the prior year’s spending levels. The resulting $1 billion budget hole would mean layoffs of … Continue reading Before The Coming Fiscal Storm: Hearings & Legislation

Until the DC council held a hearing on Eagle Academy’s demise, on December 5, 2024, what was publicly available of the DC charter board's fiscal monitoring list was simply a quarterly list of school names. The schools were identified for inclusion on the fiscal monitoring lists by the charter board’s finance committee—without any specific explanation … Continue reading The Education Mysteries, Tale #5: Shell Games Of Fiscal Distress

--The DC council has now (kinda) posted its hearing schedule for performance oversight. Although some of the hearings below have not (yet) appeared on the hearing management system as of this blog post, I got all of this information from the folks at the committee of the whole and have linked wherever possible to the … Continue reading Slithering Into February: Recent Events

On December 5, the DC council held a hearing on what went down at Eagle Academy. It was an unusual moment, if for no other reason than the council has never exercised any extensive oversight of DC’s charter sector. As it is, at least some of what little the council has done on that score, … Continue reading Can’t See What You Don’t Want To See: The Eagle Academy Hearing

--The council is holding a public roundtable about the DCPS teachers’ contract renewal this Friday December 20, for invited witnesses. See here for more information. Expect charters to get a chunk of money associated with this renewal because of previous sector payment parity. BTW if you want to see how our charter teachers are paid … Continue reading Oh, The Places We Need To Go

The posted materials for the December 4 working session of the DC state board of education (SBOE) meeting contained a curious summary document about an SBOE working group that met twice in 2024 to discuss establishing education as a civil right here in DC. Some recent coverage suggested that codifying such a right would be voted on at SBOE’s regular December 11 meeting. … Continue reading The Strange Journey Of A Civil Right To Education In DC

In what one might interpret as a sign, the October 29 council hearing on teacher retention started half an hour late and went past midnight. Dozens of public witnesses testified, while the three government witnesses were called up at 10 pm. They included no one from DC’s charter sector. The only council member by that … Continue reading DC’s Teacher Retention Is Bad–And So Is DC’s Data On It

--The DC Council is teeing up some more education hearings, to accompany previously scheduled ones: 1. On November 13 at 1 pm, the council will hold a hearing on the use of athletic fields and facilities owned by DC. Expect outrage from DCPS families over lack of control of their school assets—and unhappiness from charter … Continue reading What’s Happening This Toasty DC Autumn

DCPS advocate Peter MacPherson died last month. Among his many public education advocacy roles, Peter was for more than a decade DCPS’s school library champion. For all the years I have had the great fortune of working with excellent public education advocates in DC, I never was pushed so relentlessly, and for so long, by … Continue reading The Fight For DCPS & Democracy: The Living Work Of Peter MacPherson

This week, a coalition of education advocates demanded a public hearing around the collapse of Eagle Academy. Sadly, they have ample reason for that demand. Consider that on August 23, Phil Mendelson, the chair of the DC council (i.e. pretty much the only person exercising any education oversight in the Wilson Building), sent a letter … Continue reading Inaction In The Face of Obfuscation & Misrepresentation Around Eagle