By Sarah Livingston, on June 13th, 2013 
From left to right – Adrian Fenty, Vincent Gray, Kaya Henderson and Michelle Rhee.
Although the injunction that would have stopped the closing of 15 DC Public Schools was denied and we’re still waiting to find out the date for the hearing that will decide the actual merits of the case, it might make sense to remind ourselves of the events that led to the lawsuit in the first place.
In my experience, the seeds for the lawsuit were sown in the first week of January, 2007, when the newly elected Council chair (Vincent Gray) dissolved the Committee on Education and the newly elected mayor (Adrian Fenty) announced his intention to take over the schools.
There was strong opposition to that idea expressed in testimony at the hearings and through protests and demonstrations. There was a call for the matter to be decided by the people in a referendum since a mayoral takeover required a change to the Home Rule Charter that would decrease the people’s power in determining their own affairs for themselves.
By June, Fenty had, through the Public Education Reform Amendment Act of 2007 (PERAA), stolen the power of the people and taken it unto himself. The law further decreased the power of the people by putting the elected Board of Education way over there to the side as an advisory body with little if any power, while the Council’s power to focus on education matters through a committee was weakened to near nothing by being dispersed among all thirteen members.
With the people shoved aside–no more Board of Education responsible for hiring the best qualified school Superintendent and no more Education Committee on the Council–Fenty used his power to appoint into the PERAA created position of “chancellor,” a woman who had never run a public school district before in her life. This too was opposed because the mayor bypassed the provisions of the law that first, required a search committee be formed to find candidates for the position, and second, required that the person be qualified by education and experience. That opposition was ignored as well.
Rhee’s experience in education consisted of attendance at private schools herself, three years of Teach for America experience in a pilot program to test a profit making company’s idea in a Baltimore public school, and 10 years as the founder and president of a teacher placement agency called the New Teacher Project in NYC. Nevertheless, Fenty handed DCPS over to her on a silver platter and the two of them quickly adopted an attitude that DCPS belonged to them in a very private manner and no one else had any say in it. Within two years of the establishment of the Ombudsman’s office, it was “defunded” and never heard about again.
Parents protest the closing of their children’s schools.
Throughout their tenures, opposition arose to many of the actions they took. Hundreds of people, elementary, middle and high school students among them, testified at innumerable Council hearings about the way teachers and their union were being treated–closing 23 schools, budgets that were all over the place, the assignment and reassignment of principles in all manner of nonsensical ways and much, much more. For the most part, the Council’s response was to shrug their shoulders claiming there was nothing they could do.
In 2010, Fenty was defeated by Gray; Rhee left; and Gray, also ignoring the provisions in PERAA for filling the position of “chancellor,” simply calls up Rhee’s Deputy, Kaya Henderson, who had no more idea of how to run a public school system than Rhee. Henderson came from public schools in a middle class suburban district, also got into teaching the Teach for America way and spent 3 years teaching Spanish before she became the Vice-president of the New Teacher Project (NTP). In that position she acquired a contract for NTP with DCPS to place teachers in it and eventually moved to DC to manage the contract on site.
Henderson and Gray have continued what Fenty and Rhee started–keeping the public’s voice out of any say in how the schools are run, despite the fact they they are funded by the public’s money.
The five year report on the mayoral takeover required by PERAA came due in 2012. But it has not been forthcoming. What the public got instead was another so-called Five Year Strategic Plan, “A Capital Commitment” that reads as nothing more than a list of many of the same problems DCPS started . . . → Read More: Events Leading Up To DC Public School Closings Lawsuit
By Liane Scott, on November 29th, 2010 
Vince Gray is very proud of the legislation he sponsored making pre-k education universal for all 3- and 4-year-olds. He declared it as one of his major accomplishments in all of his town hall meetings prior to November’s general election. To be sure, early childhood education is extremely important. Children who receive high-quality child care from an early age are better prepared for school, more likely to graduate high school, go on to college, and to stay out of prison. But which service providers are able to take advantage of the money made available by this legislation is also important.
When the bill to make pre-k education universal was first proposed in 2008, 50 percent of the new slots provided were supposed to go to community-based child care providers. By the time the legislation was passed, that number was down to 25 percent. In addition, funding for the District’s Child Care Subsidy Program, which also benefits community-based child care providers as well as low-income parents in need of affordable child care, has been cut each of the past five years.
While Gray wants to do right by his youngest constituents, he seems less concerned about their parents or the middle-class workforce that at one time provided the backbone for DC’s tax base. A pattern that we should be familiar with from the Fenty Administration, who closed down Department of Recreation Early Childhood programs in wards 6, 7 & 8 while leaving the same programs open in the wealthier wards. This action, which Gray is unlikely to reverse, insured an increase in the unemployment rates in those wards hardest hit by the recession as child care providers from the Department of Recreation were fired. The closing of the Recreation Department child care programs also increased the burden on low-income parents by decreasing the number of affordable child care providers within the city’s poorest communities, a number which has already been decreased by the consistent de-funding of the District’s Child Care Subsidy Program.
Subsidized child care, which provides low-income parents with vouchers that pay a portion of their child care costs, is one of the most important work support programs available in DC and around the country. Child care costs can easily amount to $15,000 per year, per child. Without subsidies that help to make child care affordable for low-income families, thousands of parents in DC would be unable to work, unable to look for work or attend school so they are better qualified for work.
In addition to the huge benefits for children and their families, investing in early child care and education helps to strengthen a field whose workforce in DC is predominantly low-income women of color. Child care providers rely on these subsidies from the government to cover their costs. Without them, they would have to lay off the hundreds of people, mostly women, who work in this field. Many child care providers have already had to close their doors for good, even though these are precisely the kinds of small business that Gray claims to support.
The District of Columbia City Council will hold a a public hearing Tuesday November 30, 2010 to hear testimony regarding childcare in the District’s budget. Community members who are impacted–children, parents, child-care providers, etc., are encouraged to testify. If you are interested in testifying at the hearing, attending in support or getting more information, contact Ben Parisi, Child Care organizer for Empower DC at (202) 234-9119 or Ben (at) empowerdc.org.
By Liane Scott, on November 12th, 2010 
Have you ever heard the phrase, “if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu?” The Parents and Friends of Bruce Monroe Elementary School thought they were at the table when former School Chancellor Michelle Rhee and soon to be former Mayor Adrian Fenty promised that the school would be rebuilt by the fall of 2011. They sent their children off to Parkview Elementary School on Warder Street NW, out of the site of hungry developers and the passing traffic that helps keeps crime on Georgia Avenue at bay.
While test scores dropped and rodents infested the cafeteria, the $20.3 million allegedly put aside to help rebuild the school seemingly disappeared. The city did manage to come up with $2 million to construct an interim-use park on the site, so as not to remind the community that they don’t have the school they were promised. The first request for proposals that the city put out didn’t garner any serious takers now that Georgia Avenue doesn’t look like the developers dream that it was before the recession. And the latest RFP requires that developers submit two proposals, one for a school with commercial elements and one for commercial development only. No school included. Our presumptive mayor Vincent Gray has gone from saying that the promise made to the Bruce Monroe parents was a “cruel joke,” to “we can only afford one school,” meaning either Bruce Monroe or Parkview.
On August 10th, when the city planned to present this new RFP to developers, the Parents and Friends of Bruce Monroe Elementary School, were not invited to the table, as is blatantly clear in the video posted above. But being unwilling to be eaten alive, they showed up in force anyway.
Having community members show up at a meeting that was clearly meant for developers only may help to keep the Bruce Monroe site in the hands of the city’s residents. The Parents and Friends of Bruce Monroe Elementary School are scheduled to meet with Mayor Elect Gray, Ward One Councilmember Jim Graham and Council Chair Kwame Brown on Tuesday November 16. At the Ward One Town Hall meeting, Vince Gray expressed his appreciation for the activism of the Bruce Monroe community and claimed to be an activist himself. Next week will tell us whether he’s also willing to give them a meaningful position at the negotiating table.
To get involved in the Campaign to Rebuild Bruce Monroe, contact Empower DC’s education organizer Daniel Del Pialago at Daniel@empowerdc.org.
By Liane Scott, on November 8th, 2010 
After completing a two week outreach tour with DC Hip Hop sensation Head-Roc, Empower DC celebrated at the Potter’s House. Members had the opportunity to take a last swing at recently deposed mayor Adrian Fenty and school’s chancellor Michelle Rhee. Not literally of course, we used a pinata with Fenty & Rhee’s picture attached. But the whole experience was pretty cathartic. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRu3OBvkcyg
By Liane Scott, on October 8th, 2010 
Often times I feel that the progressive movement in DC is getting nowhere. I’ll make the mistake of reading the comments following some article that actually pertains to community organizing on DCist or the City Paper site and I am sickened by the classism and thinly veiled racism there. Spend too much time wading through DC’s blogosphere and one can start to believe that the gentrifiers are the only people whose opinions matter in this town. By contrast, last night’s Organizing for Post Election Accountability Empowerment Circle was heartening.
DC Rapper Head-Roc performs Change In America.
We discussed the record of the soon to be previous mayor Adrian Fenty. He and the city council did many things that the community didn’t appreciate in the last four years. In many ways, the city is not better off. We are not better off without Franklin Shelter, or the 23 neighborhood schools that were closed down, or the 13 early childhood and out of school time programs that were shuttered at Parks and Recreation Centers in wards 6, 7 and 8. But none of those things were taken away without a fight.
Hundreds of homeless and homeless advocates protested in Franklin Square, testified before the city council and won emergency legislation to keep the shelter open. Mayor Fenty ignored the emergency legislation, and the city council that enacted it did not sue the Fenty Administration for flouting the law, but the activists did. The fight to reopen Franklin Shelter continues. On Friday, October 8, the federal courts will hear the case. Go to Reopen Franklin Shelter Now for the latest updates.
Under Mayor Fenty, schools chancellor Michelle Rhee managed to close down 23 neighborhood schools that were supposedly under-enrolled and/or under-performing. As it turns out, some were and some weren’t. She fired 266 teachers and support staff due to a shortfall in the budget that turned out to be some kind of accounting error. And she fired or forced to retire dozens of beloved and committed school principals. But none of this came without a price.
After rallies, demonstrations, school walkouts and many, many lawsuits over illegal terminations, alleged warrior woman Michelle Rhee’s days are numbered. Parents from Bruce Monroe Elementary School, which was closed with the promise that a new school would be rebuilt on the site, have continued to pressure the Fenty Administration, the city council and even the developers who’ve shown an interest in building commercial property on the site. So far as the parents are concerned, the school will be rebuilt as promised. The plan to turn Hardy Elementary School in Georgetown, a high performing feeder school that caters to children from every ward in the District, into a neighborhood school that serves only the wealthy and mostly white students from Georgetown, has also met stiff opposition. For developments on opposition to school reform without community input, check out long time DCPS advocate Candi Peterson’s blog The Washington Teacher.
While we are still waiting to hear the outcomes of the lawsuits on behalf of those Park and Recreation employees who staffed the early childhood programs in Wards 6, 7 & 8, before they were closed down, another lawsuit was won outright.
Remember the checkpoints in Trinidad? In the summer of 2008, the Northeast DC neighborhood began to take on the feeling of a police state, as motorists were stopped and asked to provide ID and prove that they had a “legitimate” reason to be in the neighborhood. Those checkpoints are gone now. Why? That would be because the Partnership for Civil Justice sued the District on behalf of four activists who simply refused to accept the infringements on their rights. You can read the details in the Washington Post article Federal Court Says D.C. Police Checkpoints Were Unconstitutional.
The point of all this and the Empowerment Circle that reminded me of these events is that organizing works. We have held Mayor Fenty accountable by firing him. Although the city council, complicit in the above crimes against the community, has not been held accountable, half of them will be up for re-election again in 2012. We’ve all agreed that we can expect little better treatment from presumptive mayor Vincent Gray, but we’re not going to wait for him and the council to disappoint us as many did with Mayor Fenty. Holding our elected official accountable is a process that must be consistent and ongoing.
To that end, Empower DC has planned a series of events designed . . . → Read More: Post Election Accountability and The Empower DC Outreach Tour
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