So, we now have a small group of people not representative of the population helping select someone unelected for an important public position to make decisions that could last for generations. Oh, you thought I was talking about the new supreme court justice? Well, I was talking about the search for our new DCPS chancellor. … Continue reading Stacking The Deck: Chancellor Selection Edition

For a city filled with people who profess progressive outlooks, it's amazing how hard our city leaders work ensuring the public is blindfolded and unable to see what the public servants it pays for actually do. Today, for instance, the city council is voting on the FY 19 budget, which contains within it legislation to … Continue reading Closing Open Government (And Public Schools) in DC

A coalition of ward education councils and stakeholders from across the city has crafted a document addressed to the mayor and city council that demands transparency in the selection of the DCPS chancellor as well as the deputy mayor for education (DME). The document asks for a meeting with the mayor on her selection of these … Continue reading Want A Say In The New Chancellor And DME? Sign This Document To Demand It

DCPS is forming five parent advisory boards for school year 2018-19. The deadline for signing up is midnight tomorrow, Friday June 22. The boards are: --Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Board --Deputy Chancellor for Social Emotional and Academic Development Parent Advisory Board --Deputy Chancellor of Innovation and Systems Improvement Advisory Board --Special Education Parent Advisory Board --Strategic … Continue reading Sign Up TOMORROW For DCPS Parent Advisory Boards

Really, you would think this is old news, worthy of yellowed newspaper clippings only, but no: our city is apparently again not doing due diligence in testing and remediating drinking water sources in schools. Parents at Maury Elementary created this petition, after discovering that the city agency in charge of lead in water testing, DGS, did … Continue reading Lead In School Water Again: Now With A Petition!

So, several rounds of feedback sessions concerning the school report cards have already been held (and are still ongoing--sign up here). This is after all feedback was supposedly stopped on May 4 (funny how long that month was/is). Adding to the time warp, just yesterday OSSE (the office of the state superintendent of education) announced … Continue reading Since They Really (Really?) Want To Hear About Those Report Cards, Let’s Tell Them

The wondrous world of mayoral control of schools (well, DCPS, anyway) has led our mayor to declare that she is not going to do anything regarding selecting a new chancellor of DCPS until after the primary next week (June 19, to be precise). To ensure that this time--unlike the last three times--our city follows the … Continue reading Want DC To Follow The Law? Sign This Petition

In the (long!) trail of ugly current events in DC public education, several recent expansions of rights for DC families deserve highlighting. Unlike so much of what education has become (at least here in DC), rights are not subject to statistical analysis nor can be represented by numbers or tests. Indeed, for American public education, … Continue reading The Good News About Rights In DC Education

This Sunday June 10, join Brookings Institution researcher Andre Perry and DCPS teacher Clare Berke in a discussion and workshop on integrating our public schools. The event--sponsored by Integrated Schools--will take place from 1:30-3:30 pm at the Petworth Library (4200 Kansas Ave NW). Snacks will be provided and childcare is available. More information, including instructions on RSVPing, … Continue reading Integrating Our Schools: June 10 Discussion

Back in the olden days of this spring, our office of the state superintendent of education (OSSE) announced a deadline of May 4 for obtaining feedback on its state report cards in a variety of public meetings as well as online surveys. At the OSSE session I attended, we looked at mock-ups of report card … Continue reading Paying (Off) The Public Voice