In a strongly worded commentary yesterday the pro-school choice Center for Education Reform rejected the plan approved by the D.C. Board of Education under the Every Student Succeeds Act to place charters and the traditional schools under the same accountability system to be administered by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education.  The organization writes:

“The District of Columbia State Education Agency submitted an ESSA plan that commits both traditional public and charter schools to a ‘common accountability system,’ with the blessing of the charter leadership in the city.  It’s extraordinary that there was so much support to capture charter schools under the SEA state plan umbrella, when no such requirement exists in federal law and the charters themselves are LEAs, accountable for federal law through their authorizer, not the district/state.  It’s as if they believed that pulling all charters under one accountability umbrella is consistent with their mandate to offer diverse options across all D.C. students attending public schools and charter schools. Does anyone know that ESSA plans become the foundation for federal intervention (no matter what administration comes and goes)? Guess not.”

I received an energetic response from the DC Public Charter School Board when I covered this news about a month ago, publicly posing the question of what the future was for the Performance Management Framework, the tool that has been utilized for the last four years to tier local charters.  Although I was told that an answer was in the works, nothing has yet to materialize.