By Guest Contributor, on August 12th, 2013 By Erich Martel Retired DCPS Social Studies Teacher
At the July 31st meeting of the DC State Board of Education, Ward 8 Member, Mr. Trayon White, said that he had attended the 2013 graduation of Thurgood Marshall Charter HS and wondered why there were so few graduates when four years earlier, as a 9th grade, the class was much larger. No one replied. It’s time that our public officials conducted an independent investigation of this scandal.
Quick Facts about Thurgood Marshall Public Charter School
Between 2007 and 2013, only 45% of starting 9th graders graduated four years later. Between 2007 and 2011, only 32% of the tested 10th graders are African-American males.
Over the past seven years, 2007-2013, Thurgood Marshall graduated 394 of the original 872 9th grade students enrolled. That’s a completion rate of 45.2%.
What happened to the other 478 starting 9th graders counted by OSSE? 336 or 38.5% were transferred before the 10th grade DC CAS testing roster was set. 142 or 16.3% were transferred after the 10th grade test, but before graduation.
Thurgood Marshall has trouble keeping African-American male students. According to gender data reported on OSSE’s DC CAS website, of the 462 10th graders tested in the 5 years from 2007 to 2011: – 314 or 67.97% were female. – 148 or 32.03% were male. In no year, did the % of male students exceed 33%.
Of the 88 Thurgood Marshall students tested in 2011, 62 (70.5%) were female, only 26 (29.5%) were male.
At each of Councilmember Catania’s recent ward education “conversations” and at most of the Council’s Education Committee hearings, Councilmember Catania and/or Councilmember Grosso contrasted Thurgood Marshall as an example of charter school success against DCPS failure. According to the numbers, Thurgood Marshall does not live up to that distinction.
Mayor Gray chose Thurgood Marshall Charter HS as the symbolic site to announce his proposed legislation to give the chancellor chartering authority.
The public has a right to know – and the Mayor, Council and State Board of Education Members should demand to know:
The reasons why these students were transferred; Their receiving schools; Their practice scores (DC BAS) were before transfer; Their official DC CAS scores after transfer; Whether they graduated with their class or cohort; Whether any of them dropped out;
And many other questions that public officials holding positions of public trust should feel obligated to answer and not cover up as they make public education policy.
By Liane Scott, on May 17th, 2013 
CLICK HERE to take action today! Tell the DC Council to stop protecting a tax shelter for millionaires!
The Fair Budget Coalition has put out another action alert through the progressive list serves. Apparently, the Mayor and many City Council members are fighting to protect tax exemptions on out-of-state bonds. Being not wealthy enough to own stocks and bonds, I don’t even know what a bond is. So, I looked it up.
A bond is a sum of money that an investor loans to a company or the government. For example, U.S. citizens were encouraged to buy war bonds from the Federal Government during World War II. In this way, the government was able to raise the money needed to pay for the added cost of The War. What did the citizens who bought these bonds get out of the deal? The same thing that a bank or your local payday lender gets out of you when you ask for a loan. Interest. The company you buy the bond from will agree to pay back the money you’ve loaned them with interest. Generally, bond holders get an interest payment twice a year and then get the full amount they loaned to the company or government entity on an agreed upon date (the maturity date), which is usually some years after the original purchase.
In short, like a bank, buying a bond allows an investor to loan out some money, get the money back and a bunch of interest to boot. This is one of the ways middle-class folks with extra money and really wealthy people with a lot of money, accumulate more money without actually having to work for it. But it gets better. Or worse generally depending on where your income falls.
The mayor and many on the city council are proposing that the income that investors “earn” from the bonds they buy from out-of-state companies should not be taxed. Why?! According to the Fair Budget Coalition’s Action Alert this will cost the city $30 million in revenue. Hm? What could the city do with $30 million dollars? Help get the families living in DC General into homes of their own perhaps? Fund DC’s subsidized child care program so that parents who want to work or go to school can afford to do so, maybe?
To be fair, there are some DC residents with low or moderate incomes who rely on the interest from their out-of-state bonds to help make ends meet. So the Fair Budget Coalition supports offering the tax exemptions to those residents with low or moderate incomes. But giving up $30 million, so that folks who are already wealthy can just get wealthier is beyond me. We should not have to foot the bill for a millionaire’s tax shelter, especially when it depletes the money available for social programs.
The Fair Budget Coalition’s Action Alert goes on to say:
The DC’s Office of Tax and Revenue revealed that over three-fourths of tax-exempt interest income earned by DC residents goes to households who have income of $200,000 or more beyond what they earn from tax-exempt bonds. In fact, 43% of all tax-exempt interest earned on these bonds are earned by a small percentage of DC households who in 2010 made an average of $2 million from that interest.
But right now ALL millionaires who owned Out-of-State bonds before the tax took effect in 2011 still don’t have to pay taxes on their bonds. When the tax was originally passed by the Council, they added a “grandfather clause” to only put the tax on any new bonds but not existing ones. As we tell the Council NOT to repeal the Out-of-State bond tax, we must also tell them to extend that tax to ALL millionaires.
So TAKE ACTION TODAY to demand that Council choose to fund human needs and NOT a millionaire’s tax shelter!
CLICK HERE to take action today! Tell the DC Council to stop protecting a tax shelter for millionaires!
By Liane Scott, on May 16th, 2013 
Last week, Empower DC and a number of DC Public School parents went to court to plead for an injunction to keep 15 more schools from being closed under Mayor Vince Gray and Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson’s consolidation plan.
According to Johnny Barnes, the lead attorney in the case, the case includes four complaints:
1) The school consolidation plan violates the law that requires equal protection to all District Citizens. “Hobson v Hansen made clear that the equal protection clause applies to DC through the 5th amendment: If you offer education to one student you have to offer to all.”
2) The school consolidation plan violates Title VI, which states that you can’t treat different classes of individuals disparately.
3) The school consolidation plan violates the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act both of which contend that when dealing with special education students, you have to design individually, not with a blanket plan to close a school.
4) The school consolidation plan is in violation of the District of Columbia’s Human Rights Act.
In a 31-page opinion, which analyzed each of plaintiffs’ claims, US District court Judge James E. Boasberg ruled against Empower DC, stating: “In this case, there is no evidence whatsoever of any intent to discriminate on the part of Defendants, who are actually transferring children out of weaker, more segregated, and under-enrolled schools.”
But according to Barnes, “The case is not over. The battle is just beginning…The ruling was on the injunction, not on the merits on the case. The govt has not even filed a response.” Barnes’ case centers around “protected classes” of race, residence, disability, he said, noting that 100 schools have been closed in DC since 1976, but not one in Ward 3, home to the city’s wealthiest residents.
Attorney Barnes and Jonetta Rose Barras discuss the judge’s ruling during the May 16, 2013 episode of We Act Radio’s Education Town Hall, which airs every Thursday at 11:00 AM. The full interview can be found at the link is posted below:
Jonetta Rose Barras and Johnny Barnes, Esq. on The Education Town Hall w/Thomas Byrd May 16 2013 by Education_Town_Hall on Mixcloud
Attorney Johnny Barnes and Empower DC plan to appeal the case. The courts ruling should be judged against the mounting evidence that DC’s School Consolidation and Reorganization Plan have not saved the District of Columbia money or improved school outcomes.
By Liane Scott, on September 17th, 2012 
Empower DC member lobbies City Council.
The District of Columbia City Council returns from its summer recess this Tuesday, September 20, 2012. It’s time for them to set their legislative priorities for the upcoming year.
The question is, will those priorities include issues that are important to long-time DC residents? Will the laws and policies they ultimately implement positively impact low- and moderate-income communities or will they continue to force folks out of the city in search of a friendlier, more affordable environment? Will families be able to raise their children in the District knowing that they will have access to quality and affordable housing, health care, child care and schools that are responsive to the needs and wishes of the community?
Members of Empower DC’s Education Campaign are working to make sure that Mayor Gray, Schools Chancellor Henderson and the city council are accountable to all the residents of DC and not just those that fund their campaigns. Education campaign members are concerned about the threat of public school closures in our city. School closing have not improved educational outcomes and have not yielded the savings that we were promised. Mayor Gray and Chancellor Henderson continue to publicly express that closures will save money which will be reinvested in schools that stay open, but as we have seen from the recent DC Auditor report, the last round of closures in 2008 actually cost us $30 million more than expected. Time and time again, community members are shut out of the process leading up to the closing of a school. (See Bruce Monroe Elementary School & River Terrace Elementary School)
Education organizer Daniel del Pielago says, “what we need now is better planning to ensue that Public schools are strengthened and are a viable choice for DC residents now and for the future.” To that end, Empower DC will visit the city council this Tuesday demanding that they do the following:
1. Place a Moratorium on school closings, turnarounds and transfer to charters for 5 years.
Why this demand? Because the only data which the city has made public to inform “right-sizing” the school system is the IFF report. a report prepared by a pro-charter, real-estate organization who’s single indicator analysis test scores) on school performance lacks any real information on why students score poorly. Their recommendations to close/turn over public schools to charters needs to be refuted. we need this moratorium to plan and execute an accurate building needs assessment and to develop a process which is more inclusive of parents, students, teachers and the community at large.
2. The council needs to have the evaluation of PERA (Public Education Reform Act) as soon as possible.
The DC Public School System has been under mayoral control since 2007 without a valid evaluation of its actual effect on the schools. Many decisions have been made (namely, school closures/turnovers to charters) that have not resulted in any considerable improvements of DCPS. We cannot wait until September 2014 (changed from September 2012 by the 2009 Budge Support Act) for this evaluation.
3. The council needs to hold hearings and vote on any school closing proposed this year.
Currently there is no process to involve those who will be directly impacted by closures and for the community at large to weigh in on these decisions. We need council leadership to ensure that DC residents aren’t left out of this process.
Join Us… Tuesday, September 18 10 am ’til noon John A. Wilson Building (City Hall) 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue NW (meet in the lobby)
In addition, SHARC (Shelter, Housing and Respectful Change) will be joining Empower DC members as we visit the council. They will be focusing on the displacement of the poor, highlight the impending threat of losing 1,200 or more shelter beds in 2013 and demand affordable housing for ALL low-income residents of DC. The District of Columbia Government and business community (including landlords) are creating and instituting policies that displace tens of thousands of low- and no-income residents, many of whom have called DC “home” for a long time. At least 39,000 Afro-Americans have been gentrified out of DC over the past 10 years by high rents. Schools, libraries and clinics have been closed or relocated away from the communities that need them most. High-priced amenities such as street cars have been brought to poor neighborhoods, forcing the rent up and many residents out. Social services are being eliminated and 1,200 to 2,000 of DC’s 7,000+ homeless people may . . . → Read More: Welcome Back City Council. Here Are Our Demands!
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