A few days ago, on August 30, the first of three community meetings was held (at Roosevelt HS) to get feedback from residents and others in the DCPS community about what they would like to see in the next DCPS chancellor. The other two forums are September 7 and September 14, Eastern HS and Savoy … Continue reading So, How is The Chancellor Selection Thing Going?

[the following was sent via email to Martin Austermuhle, reporter at WAMU] Dear Martin, I saw your recent story online, of the 20th anniversary of charter schools in DC, and was moved to write to you. As evidence of lack of success, you cited how DCPS had lost kids from 1971 to 1996, when charters … Continue reading Do You See How This Works?

Well, it might be surprising if you did: On July 12, OSSE (the office of state superintendent of education) announced that this group (here denoted as the UPSFF working group) was formed. The group is by law mandated to oversee how best to implement a uniform per student formula through DCPS and public charter schools. … Continue reading Did You Know About the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula Working Group?

For the Post, apparently, the title above is news, at least as it relates to physical education at one DC public school. For many of us with kids in DC public schools, it’s not news at all. Here’s a quick test: Does your child’s DC public school have healthy food? Does your elementary age child … Continue reading Yes, The Healthy Schools Act Isn’t Enforced: Food and Water Edition

In addition to this letter signed by every ward education council, asking the mayor to keep in mind important qualifications for the next DCPS chancellor, the Washington Teachers' Union (WTU) recently put out a survey to members, and parents, asking for feedback on the importance (or lack thereof) of qualifications and experiences in/of a new … Continue reading Qualifying Chancellor Qualifications

In taking some weeks away from this blog to attend to summer, I didn’t realize that I might miss the entire DCPS chancellor selection process. As it is, the mayor’s chancellor selection advisory committee (announced just last week) might not even have time to hear much public input, as the mayor has indicated she wants … Continue reading DCPSSpeeding: Selecting the Next Chancellor

Today, July 12, the city council will vote on the new contract for food services for DCPS. This is a fascinating exercise, given that the contract was months late, with hardly any time for review, and that food will be served to students starting on August 8 (yeah--even earlier than I thought before). The council … Continue reading DCPS Food Contract Approval (or Not): Today

As someone with a young child in DC during DC’s lead in water scandal of 2004, I thought my reactions to lead in water were pretty, well, reasonable. That is, I think I know the science and the possibilities both in remediation as well as damage. But I was wrong about my reasonableness. Because as … Continue reading Lead in Water: Getting Angry

In DC, the legislation that delivered mayoral control of public schools (the Public Education Reform Amendment Act, or PERAA) also specified a clear process for the mayor selecting the head of the by right system, DCPS: "[The mayor shall] "(A) Establish a review panel of teachers, including representatives of the Washington Teachers Union, parents, and … Continue reading School (Chancellor) Choice

In an earlier blog post, I wrote about the (generally unknown) fact that different DC public middle schools administered different PARCC math tests to their students last year without any accurate or obvious public acknowledgement of this. The lack of sunshine is extensive: test scores reported on all four publicly available websites for DC public … Continue reading When Standardized Testing, and Its Reporting, Are Not Standardized