This Is What Democracy Doesn’t Look Like: Banneker/Shaw Edition

By Guest Contributor, on November 19th, 2018

Cross-Posted from Education DC Written by Valerie Jablow

At last week’s November 15 council hearing, on the plan to build a new Banneker high school at the site of the closed Shaw Junior High, dozens of public witnesses testified, advocating for either Banneker or a Shaw middle school of right on the site.

But after more than four hours of their testimony, it took less than 10 minutes for the two government witnesses to outline DC’s newest educational initiative–which would be doing whatever someone in power wants.

The opening 5-minute salvo came during acting DME Paul Kihn’s opening testimony, in which he presented a rationale for not putting a Shaw middle school of right in Shaw–as called for in multiple capital plans as well as the 2014 boundaries study.

Cautioning about “using data” to determine a need for a Shaw middle school, Kihn recited population forecasts from the office of planning as well as current and expected enrollments, the “average boundary participation rate” in DCPS (24%), and available capacity at Cardozo.

After blithely concluding that all that “data” show that there is no need at all for a Shaw middle school of right, Kihn amazingly floated the idea of a citywide middle school at the Shaw site because, uh, no boundaries!

It’s hard to imagine that Kihn really does not know that the lottery works for schools of right as well as for schools of choice.

As it is, boundary participation rates are not indicative of enrollment–as the staff in his own office know very well because by using their own data, I can see that DCPS’s Sousa middle school has a 68% in boundary participation rate–and is underenrolled. While Stuart-Hobson, fully enrolled for the last several decades, has a 25% in boundary participation rate.

Yeah.

The other seminal moment of testimony was this 2-minute clip of interim chancellor Amanda Alexander (who in that role is subordinate to the acting DME).

In it, Alexander responds to a question from education committee chair David Grosso, who asked her to explicate the meetings DCPS held with the Banneker and Shaw communities about the plan to locate Banneker at Shaw. While explaining (eventually) that the decision to locate Banneker at Shaw was made after the feasibility study was completed (August 15, 2018), the interim chancellor stated that the Shaw community was engaged on the subject starting in May 2018.

This sounds good until you realize that the idea of Banneker at Shaw had been raised months before, in February 2018 (see here for all the Banneker modernization plans), when the Banneker feasibility study was undertaken.

But the feasibility study strangely explored only two options: Banneker at its current building and Banneker at Shaw. As thorough as it is in its examination of those options, the study contains nothing about a Shaw middle school in Shaw nor any discussion about other sites for Banneker–or data to justify expanding it to almost twice its current size.

It appears that someone somewhere ruled all of that out well before February 2018–something no official at the hearing ever raised.

The sad truth behind all of this public obfuscation is that Banneker still needs a renovation and an appropriate facility.

More to the point, Banneker’s renovation has been deferred for so long that it falls in the same disturbing pattern of inequity that we have already seen in our city for school resourcing and modernizations. It was that pattern, in fact, that led the council to enact the PACE Act in the first place, to ensure political power was not the driver of modernized, adequate, and safe school spaces.

Yet, instead of focusing on that urgency and the fact that no one in his own office pursued a fulsome feasibility study examining all the “data” for Banneker around the city, the acting DME used his time at the hearing to admonish advocates for a Shaw middle school of right for not being “practical” and “fiscally responsible.”

This was pretty rich, given that later in the hearing the acting DME had no accurate cost estimate whatsoever to share with the council on the new Banneker at Shaw.

And it was also pretty rich given that Kihn spent time talking about how he thought some Shaw residents “feel excluded” from the planning and the importance of public officials not going into public meetings with a “predetermined outcome.”

Now, it is possible that hundreds of people complaining for weeks before the hearing–and testifying in droves during the hearing–about the lack of . . . → Read More: This Is What Democracy Doesn’t Look Like: Banneker/Shaw Edition

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How To Have Effective Teachers In Every School (Or, What DC Doesn’t Do–But Should)

By Guest Contributor, on July 16th, 2018

Teachers are the single most important school-based factor affecting student learning. Ensuring that students in all schools have access to effective teachers is critical for academic success. Yet, as in many other school districts, high-poverty schools in DCPS have fewer highly effective teachers compared with lower poverty schools. . . . → Read More: How To Have Effective Teachers In Every School (Or, What DC Doesn’t Do–But Should)

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This Is How the District of Columbia Spends More than $700 Million Every Year

By Guest Contributor, on June 5th, 2018

Cross-Posted from EducationDC written by Valerie Jablow

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 the public–to a private organization that gets public money through contracts with charter schools regardless of its actual performance with those schools. Charter school staff have reported being afraid of the organization.

–Despite knowledge throughout 2017 of the fiscal woes of Washington Mathematics Science Technology high school (WMST), and with its own reportsshowing deep financial troubles as early as 2014, the charter board appeared to take no action to help WMST. Public notification of the school’s dire fiscal situation also was not apparent.

–In January, the charter board staff completed a 20-year review of WMST, which was posted on the charter board website. I saw the review in late February or early March and noted that it seemed only mildly concerned about the school’s finances. In April, I looked again for the review, but it was gone. When I asked about it, a staff member directed me toward this review, dated March 12, 2018. On that day, the charter board met in an “emergency” session to vote to begin revocation of the school’s charter. This version raises concerns with the school’s finances that I recollect the January review did not. I asked several charter board staff what happened to the January review. No one responded. The January review existed, as materials the City Paper received via FOIA regarding WMST (see hereand here) make reference to it (see in the first link pages 315, 428, and 623).

–These points together suggest that rather than allowing school performance to actually determine a school’s fate, the charter board (or its staff or both) determines which schools will be closed through the board’s own actions–or lack thereof.

–This week, I testified about WMST to the charter board. I noted that most of the city block where WMST is located was bought in May 2017 for $66 million by Douglas development and LLCs associated with it. The intention was to make a major development there. After that May 2017 Douglas purchase, the only properties on that block not owned by Douglas and its investors (who are publicly unknown) were WMST and a fast food restaurant on the corner of New York Avenue and Bladensburg Road. That meant that after May 2017, WMST was the only impediment to a contiguous Douglas development there.

–In February 2018, WMST applied with the charter board to get a new location. Its application made clear that it would sell its property, but remain in it until 2019. In March 2018, around the time ground was broken for the Douglas development, the charter board voted to allow WMST to stay open only if it sold its property within a month, to raise money. In April 2018, Douglas bought WMST’s property for $6.25 million–well below its assessed value of nearly $10 million. The purchase price was enough only to pay off the school’s outstanding loan–but not to continue operations. The charter board executive director stressed repeatedly that the school’s value was much too high at $9 million.

–The charter board voted on April 23 to have DC charter schools report only contracts that are greater than $100,000, citing the “burden” to schools to do otherwise. It is not clear that the charter board has the authority to make that rule. Such rulemaking may require the scrutiny and approval of elected leaders, as it changes the guidelines of the School Reform Act, the authorizing legislation for DC charter schools.

–When the new contracts rule goes into effect later this year, no one in the public will be able to access or know about any contracts in any DC charter school less than $100,000, unless the schools themselves voluntarily disclose those contracts or the charter board asks them to. This is because no DC charter school is subject to FOIA. Charter schools in other jurisdictions are subject to FOIA.

–The transcript of the April 23, 2018 charter board meeting approving the contract change notes that there were 6 public comments on the rulemaking. But none of the comments are publicly available.

–The charter board violated the FOIA law, in not giving a complete disclosure of documents during the reporting on . . . → Read More: This Is How the District of Columbia Spends More than $700 Million Every Year

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How Progressive Is the DC City Council?

By Guest Contributor, on March 16th, 2018

This Saturday’s candidate forum and a political scorecard provided by Jews United for Justice might shed some light on those council members whose positions lean left of center. . . . → Read More: How Progressive Is the DC City Council?

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