Former mayor Anthony Williams, co-chair of our city's cross sector collaboration task force, recently recorded a video in support of President Trump's nominee for education secretary, Betsy DeVos. The video was made on behalf of charter, private school voucher and school choice interest group American Federation for Children. Although she has never been educated in public schools, … Continue reading Call The Mayor If You Think Our Public School Task Force Co-Chair Should Not Shill For Private School Vouchers

As you may know, the cross sector task force has formulated a policy proposal to address student mobility (access the policy proposal here). The task force held several public meetings to get feedback. Total attendance was about 60 people. Given that 60 people doesn't exactly denote a popular landslide, you may want to weigh in--and now … Continue reading Survey On Student Mobility Proposal

On Thursday January 19, at 3 pm, come join hundreds of your fellow DC citizens, including teachers, parents, and students, at rallies around DC public schools to ensure our public schools remain places of learning and freedom as a new presidential administration gets underway. Here is a a flyer with more information. Rallies will be … Continue reading January 19: Defending Public Education

On January 10, the chair of the council education committee, David Grosso, introduced legislation to ensure that the minimum staffing level for nurses at each public school in DC would be 40 hours per week. Suffice it to say that this would be a sea change in our city. Hopefully, the new legislation will include … Continue reading School Nurses: Three Years (And Counting!) of Short Staffing

The Post recently ran a story about the opening of a new Ward 4 DCPS middle school in 2019 to feed into Coolidge high school. Titled “Can gentrifying Ward 4 support two new middle schools?,” the story took on the current real estate/gentrification boom in the ward, along with the fact that DCPS’s MacFarland middle … Continue reading Hmm: About Those New Ward 4 DCPS Schools . . .

DCPS's School Food Advisory Board (charmingly represented by the acronym SFAB) is looking for students, parents, and school staff to serve on it for 2017. Applications are due on January 23. Sign up and more information are here. Here's the wording from that website: "The roles & responsibility of serving on the SFAB are: - … Continue reading Be A DCPS Food Taster: Sign Up By Jan. 23

Next week, on January 12, DCPS will hold two public meetings on school renovations, one at Maury Elementary and one at Jefferson Academy middle school. Besides being about the long-delayed renovations of both schools, the meetings have a lot more in common: Both start at 6 pm. Both are in Ward 6. Both will happen … Continue reading In With the New Year and The Old DCPS: Facilities Edition

So, yesterday evening, I got a forwarded email that said the following: “Engage Research is conducting a paid research study for mothers of traditional public school children in Washington, DC on Tuesday, January 10, 2016. The group will take place at 5:30 pm and will last 2 hours. You will receive an honorarium of $125 … Continue reading Participate In This Focus Group—Well, If You “Qualify”

STAMP SAGE PARCC (ELA, math, writing) NEAP ANET Math Standards Mastery I-Ready diagnostic SRI3 MAP2 NGSS According to a DCPS staffer, these ten standardized tests are being administered in every DCPS middle school this school year. My daughter is in 6th grade in DCPS and told us last night at dinner that her math class … Continue reading Bet Your Middle School Didn’t Have These

Starting January 10, the deputy mayor for education (DME) and the cross sector task force (which the DME runs) will hold three public meetings to discuss the task force’s first policy proposal, on student mobility. For nearly a year now, the cross sector task force has discussed issues of coordination and cooperation between the two … Continue reading Weigh In On What the Cross Sector Task Force Has Done Thus Far: Student Mobility Edition