Yesterday, the House of Representatives voted to extend federally funded vouchers for DC private and parochial school students--despite the fact that earlier this month, a majority of city council members asked them to not do so. Congress' apparent enthusiasm for federally funded vouchers for private and parochial schools only extends to DC, as this program … Continue reading Speaking of (Education) Stuff That DC Didn’t Create . . .

Not everyone makes it to council hearings. The education committee hearing on October 14, for a bill on charter fiscal transparency, was a case in point. Only two members of the education committee attended the hearing (Grosso and Allen). They were joined part of the time by at large council member (and wannabe ed. committee … Continue reading One Take on the Charter Fiscal Transparency Hearing

Take Note! A number of hearings in the council have now been scheduled and a few deadlines are quickly approaching. Get Your Voice Heard: October 28: Last day to submit written testimony for the DC council on charter fiscal transparency legislation. October 30: Last day to give feedback on DCPS taking over the school improvement … Continue reading Deadlines for Input–and More Hearings

David Grosso, chair of the education committee of the DC council, has scheduled a hearing for October 29, 10 am, on two proposed laws that would provide preferential admission to DC charter schools for the children of military personnel. Proposed law B21-0039, “Military Installation Public Charter School Amendment Act of 2016,” would empower the charter … Continue reading Hearing on Admission Preference for Charter Schools

The last week of September was eventful for public education in DC--but perhaps not for the expected reason. Tanya Chutkan, a judge in the U.S. District Court for DC, determined that the lawsuit against DC for inequitable charter funding could proceed. That lawsuit was filed last year by the DC Association of Chartered Public Schools … Continue reading Where’s the Equity in the DC Public Education Lawsuit?

Tomorrow, October 14, the education committee of the DC Council will hold a hearing on proposed legislation for charter fiscal transparency. The proposed legislation came about in response to a desire for the charter board to oversee charter school fiscal management in the wake of scandals at several DC charter schools (Dorothy Height Community Academy … Continue reading Hearing on Charter Fiscal Transparency

As noted a few weeks ago, DCPS is changing how renovations are handled and taking over management of the school improvement team (SIT) process--and desires public input on the changes by October 30. Any school undergoing a renovation forms a SIT, which is comprised of school stakeholders, including staff, parents, and community members. In the … Continue reading New School Improvement Team (SIT) Process

Where I live, on Capitol Hill, new condos are going in daily—and with them, a new and growing population of DC residents. All that population influx has city planners in a tizzy. So: Are DC students growing at the same rate? Look at one set of US census data from 2000 and 2010 for DC’s … Continue reading Predicting the (Education) Future in DC

On April 17, 2014, Chan Tei DuRant was worried. The education aide for councilmember Marion Barry had been too busy to make the council hearing that day on DCPS renovations. But she desperately wanted to know if parents from Orr Elementary, in Ward 8, had showed up to testify about the sad state of their … Continue reading Parent Engagement in Schools: Part 3

Some weeks ago, the Progressive Policy Institute released a study titled “A Tale of Two Systems: Education Reform in Washington, DC.” The study was funded by private organizations that promote charter schools and concluded that in DC, charter schools have structural differences that allow them to “outperform” traditional public schools run by DCPS. The only … Continue reading A Tale of More Than Two School Systems