What is outlined below happened thus far in 2018 in just one of our public education sectors. As far as I am aware, no DC public official has publicly commented with concern nor called for any investigation of the charter board's actions. --The charter board and its staff appear to be tied--in ways that remain unknown to … Continue reading This Is How We Spend >$700 Million Every Year

The Coalition for DC Public Schools and Communities (C4DC) is sponsoring a public education candidates forum on Tuesday June 5, from 6-9 pm. The forum will be held at the Thurgood Marshall Center, 1816 12th Street NW. Starting at 6 pm will be the two candidates for chair of the city council--Ed Lazere and incumbent … Continue reading Candidates Forum On Public Ed.: June 5

A lot of education reformers, it turns out. That was apparent at last week’s council hearing on May 16. As you may recall, the hearing was a re-convening of the public roundtable on the future of school reform in DC held by the city council education committee on March 19. As a statement on the … Continue reading Who’s Afraid Of DC Education Data?

[Ed. Note: The following is by DCPS parents and education advocates Iris Bond Gill and Erin Roth, who unlike many other education reformers in DC actually have skin in this game. Visit them on twitter at @iris007gill (Iris) and @erotheroth (Erin)] By Iris Bond Gill & Erin Roth In our nation’s capital, where school reform … Continue reading Still Segregated 64 Years After Brown v. Board: It’s Past Time To Do Better, DC

We unelected and unappointed DC citizens apparently know more about our president’s sexual proclivities than we do about residency fraud or graduation accountability in our publicly funded schools. For instance, back in March, during her agency’s performance oversight hearing before the council’s education committee, state superintendent of education Hanseul Kang promised to provide a list … Continue reading It’s Not Just Ellington—Or Ballou

Billed as only for government witnesses, the city council’s April 19 DCPS budget oversight hearing also featured public witnesses who had been unable to testify during the DCPS budget hearing for public witnesses, held over spring break. (Minor aside: Despite a petition to move that DCPS public witness hearing, the city council moved only the … Continue reading Springtime For DC Schools: Begging, Diamond-Encrusted Door Locks & An Independent Commission

As with getting a straight answer on hair dye (or paying off people for the occasional indiscretion), tracking whether our publicly funded schools use at risk funds appropriately appears to be difficult. Given that DC’s two schools systems (DCPS and charters) outline the use of at risk funds differently, even simple measurements become a tough … Continue reading Do They—Or Don’t They?

In a 2003 interview, novelist Kurt Vonnegut was quoted saying the following: “It’s perfectly ordinary to be a socialist. It’s perfectly normal to be in favor of fire departments.” I was forcibly reminded of that statement during meetings in the last few weeks to get public feedback for cross sector task force recommendations; the master … Continue reading It’s Perfectly Normal To Be In Favor Of By Right Schools

The following is a transcript (starting at 2:28:45 in the video available here) from the budget oversight hearing of the public charter school board on April 11, before the education committee of the city council. In it, committee chair David Grosso asks charter board executive director Scott Pearson about illegal out of school suspensions. Besides … Continue reading “This Is Not A Law That We Are Enforcing”

Our office of the state superintendent of education (OSSE) is developing school report cards, per our city's adoption of the Every Student Succeeds act (ESSA) . (See here for background information (and see OSSE's official outline here). Our city's adoption of a plan for ESSA was to replace the prior rules of the No Child Left Behind … Continue reading School Report Cards: What’s Your Grade?