Mayor Bowser

D.C. State Superintendent of Education takes new job

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WAMU’s Tom Sherwood just reported on X that D.C. State Superintendent of Education Dr. Christina Grant is leaving her post to become the executive director of the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University. According to today’s news release from CEPR, Ms. Grant has been at OSSE since 2021.

The announcement is fitting and completely in sync with Mayor Muriel Bowser’s schizophrenic view of the District of Columbia. Allow me to explain.

Last Friday I attended the D.C. Policy Center’s conference regarding the release of their study entitled “State of D.C. Schools, 2022-23: Challenges to pandemic recovery in a new normal.” The entire meeting came across as bizarre to me. All in attendance, including educators, local education leaders, and policy people, were in a tremendously good mood. It seemed that everyone was congratulating themselves and each other on the tremendous job being done to teach young people in our city. The opening remarks were provided by Ms. Grant and she stayed throughout the hour-long conference. I had not had the opportunity to observe the State Superintendent in action. I have to say I was impressed. Her words were highly enthusiastic and she remained that way upon returning to her seat. Sitting a few rows behind her I saw the Superintendent shaking her head affirmatively to all that she heard, while often using hand motions or clicking her fingers to show her complete support for the comments of panalists. At various points I thought she might just fly above the room. When I came home I actually commented to my wife that I could not imagine someone over this government agency being so animated as much of what OSSE does revolves around data collection and grant compliance.

There was absolutely no hint by Ms. Grant or others that she had accepted a new position. There was also little regard for the 2021 to 2022 PARCC standardized test results that demonstrated 31 percent of students in D.C. are proficient in English Language Arts, while 19 percent of students are proficient in math. My mood soured as the disconnect between the dismal state of academic achievement in the nation’s capital and the euphoria of the audience looked like a scene depicted in a surrealistic painting.

I have had time recently to watch online Mayor Bowser at various events around town. Her optimistic outlook seems an insult to what many are experiencing recently in the District. Allow me to give you an example. On my way to the Martin Luther King Library to join the Policy Center event, I arrived at 9 a.m., a half hour before the library opened. It allowed me to witness all the people sleeping in front of the structure . As I walked around the block looking for someplace to eat breakfast I saw building after building of vacant storefronts. The smell of marijuana filled the air. The streets were almost completely void of pedestrians. Considering all the crime that has been taking place in the city I was afraid to be there. The only way to describe the scene in comparison to before the Covid pandemic is night and day.

It is probably best that Dr. Grant is moving to Cambridge. I wonder how much longer she could have kept up the ruse.

Increased public school spending in D.C. will lower student test scores

mlerner10 Charter School Finances, Covid-19, DC Charter School Alliance, DCPS, Mayor Bowser, Standardized Test Scores Leave a comment

Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser announced yesterday that she is proposing in her fiscal 2025 budget a 12.4 percent increase in the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula. The change, according to the Mayor’s press release regarding the jump in funding, will bring the foundation amount schools get to educate a child to $14,668. In the same document Ms. Bower demonstrates the irresponsibility of this move:

“Over the past five years, DCPS has added nearly one school-based staff member for every newly enrolled student, with the number of full-time employees growing by 18% compared to a 2% increase in enrollment.”

Is this any way to run an organization?

I can guess as to why schools are desperate for this cash. As part of the pandemic emergency, schools were flooded with an extra billion in taxpayer dollars. As a natural response to a handout, schools added personnel. Now that this revenue stream is disappearing, they have no way to pay for the extra staff.

The public school bureaucracy has never seen a revenue increase it did not like. Here is a typical response from the DC Charter School Alliance’s Arial Johnson:

“As our schools will soon face a funding cliff with federal dollars running out this year, we applaud Mayor Bowser’s historic proposed increase to the UPSFF and her steadfast commitment to investing in our city’s education system. We’re especially grateful for her commitment to ensuring the ongoing costs of educator raises are covered and her focus on supporting the students most in need by increasing the UPSFF weights for students designated at-risk, alternative students, and adult students.”

A city with a 33.7 percent student proficiency rate in English and a 21.8 percent student proficiency rate in math does not seem to prove the hypothesis that more money will solve our academic ills. And if history is any guide, it will not result in the intended impact. Below is a chart by the Cato Institute’s Andrew Coulson demonstrating the inverse relationship between spending and test scores in American schools from 1970 to 2010.

Unfortunately for our town, I only expect these trends to continue.

The DC Bilingual PCS new addition Ribbon Cutting

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Last Friday, on a perfectly sunny crisp fall morning, hundreds gathered outside on the grounds of DC Bilingual Public Charter School to celebrate the addition a spectacularly beautiful 27,000 square feet addition to the existing permanent facility. The new space grows the existing structure by 55 percent, and, most importantly, will allow the charter to increase its enrollment from its current size of 494 scholars to over 700.

Head of school Daniela Anello led the festivities that included, besides students and staff, the presence of many leaders of the school, the District of Columbia’s education sector, and D.C. government. In attendance were D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, State Superintendent of Education Dr. Christina Grant; chair of the DC Public Charter School Board Lea Crusey; DC PCSB executive director Dr. Michelle Walker-Davis; and D.C. Council Ward 4 Council member Janeese Lewis George. Following an energetic performance by the Busy Bees, the school’s dance team, there were emotionally charged speeches by Mayor Bowser and the charter’s board chair Nadia Ramey, who both congratulated the school body on this important milestone. The next individual to address the attendees was Ms. Anello.

DC Bilingual is a tremendously successful school on many levels. For example, while educational institutions across the country posted declines in academic achievement coming out of the pandemic, DC Bilingual’s 2022 PARCC standardized test scores were the highest they have ever recorded. After interviewing the head of school in 2017 I came to understand that this attainment is due to a plethora of effort. Perhaps we can glean the reasons behind this feat from the words delivered by Ms. Anello on this day:

“Hello everyone my name is Daniela Anello and I am the incredibly proud Head of School at DC Bilingual.

Thank you for joining us for this special event. Today we will hear remarks from Mayor Bowser, who we are so excited to host, and from our Board Chair, Nadia Ramey. Then we invite everyone to join us in the ribbon cutting celebration. Afterwards, students will return to their classrooms and we invite our guests to join us inside for a reception featuring a historical display of the use of the land that we are so lucky to be on & have a school tour. We hope you will be able to stay the whole time.

Today’s celebration is in many ways the culmination of decades of work by literally hundreds of dedicated staff members, families, and supporters.

This is my fourteenth year working here, which means that I have had the privilege of have made DC Bilingual what it is today.

At the very beginning, our school was located in Columbia Heights and we had shared building space. We had a planter box as a school garden, a playground on the roof of the building that got extremely hot on sunny days, and for gym space we had to walk across several city blocks to the local neighborhood recreation center.

Today, we have the second-largest school garden in the city, two large, age-appropriate playgrounds, access to a large field, designated spaces for each of our six specials classes, brand new and well lit classrooms, a bilingual school library, and we even have a food lab!

We are very lucky–and I am so grateful we have access to so much!

Like many of our students. I am a first generation immigrant.

When I was four years old, my parents moved my sister and me to New York from Viña Del Mar, Chile in search for more opportunities and a better education.

Since then, I have spent my life trying to seize every opportunity presented to me, and I have learned first-hand the power of spaces that allow people to feel fully and completely themselves and to feel like they belong.

It’s a simple thing, but I’ve realized that experiencing a sense of belonging comes from having the opportunity to learn how to be our full selves and having access to resources with which we can thrive. Sadly this is something that not very many have the opportunity to receive.

This mindset is what drives me each and every day in my role as a school leader, and it’s the commitment I have made to our students, our staff and our caregivers.

Over the next five years we are looking to grow our school to serve over 700 students, and our dream is to ensure it remains a beautifully diverse and thriving school community.

This year we adopted the equitable access preference, which gives school entry to any student experiencing homelessness, who is in the foster care system, or receives government benefits. Our dream to grow our school to serve the students we know need the highest quality education came true.

DCB Staff: I feel incredibly honored to be able to serve you in this capacity , and I do not take for granted what it means to me to be part of this learning community here with you, working each day to better serve our students. Your dedication to our mission, your drive and your ability to go “all out” is contagious — even if it means having to join you on a choreographed dance to Olga Tanon in front of the whole school!!

To our parents & caregivers: thank you for choosing DC Bilingual to be part of your family, thank you for being part of our school team, and thank you for trusting us each day with your incredible children. We love them, we are inspired by them, and we are grateful for the chance to be a part of their lives.

To the DC Bilingual Board of Directors: thank you for helping our students follow their dreams, for opening new doors for us, and for always steering our ship in the right direction.

To our donors, and volunteers: you made this all possible, and we hope to make you proud.

To our Mayor, our councilmembers, ANC commissioners & our school partners: thank you for working hand in hand with us to ensure our students are safe and have access to the resources that will ensure the best experience possible at DC Bilingual.

To our project team, Gilbane Construction, Hord Coplan Macht (HCM), and John Breyer. Thank you for the design and construction of the building addition. The added facilities and outdoor spaces are more beautiful than we ever imagined, and we can’t wait to grow to fill all of our new spaces that you built for us.

And finally to our students: You are amazing. I urge each of you to seize every opportunity presented to you and that you proudly become bilingual scientists, mathematicians, avid readers, gardeners, cooks, performers and much more. But most importantly, I wish for you to become fully and completely yourselves. Know that you deserve all of this and remember that you always belong.

At DC Bilingual we have a tagline–“juntos somos lideres” or “Together we LEAD” This tagline couldn’t be more true for all of us right now. Let’s seize the opportunity to lead together and make sure everyone feels safe and welcome in the spaces we create. Thank you for being part of the DC Bilingual community. Juntos Somos Lideres!”

Public school reform advocates should vote for Muriel Bowser for D.C. Mayor

mlerner10 Charter School Facilities, D.C. Council, DCPS, Mayor Bowser, OSP, OSSE, PCSB, SBOE Leave a comment

I have to admit that Robert White Jr.’s comments on public education scare me. As WAMU’s Martin Austermuhle pointed out, when the Mayoral candidate was asked during a May 4, 2022 debate as to whether schools should remain under the control of the city’s chief executive, he apparently answered in this way:

“We need a mayor who’s not just going to go to the easy talking points, but who’s going to get in the details. And this mayor has not gotten into the details. And that’s why she doesn’t have a clear understanding of why so many students are leaving our schools. Right now, 30% of elementary school students leave D.C. Public Schools before middle school. There is an urgent problem, and we need a mayor with a sense of urgency on public education.”

Mr. White’s vague answer on this critical issue brought a strong response from current Mayor Muriel Bowser, according to the WAMU reporter:

“D.C. residents want a mayor they can trust. And if your answer shifts depending on which way the wind blows, they can’t trust you with their kids. And the most important thing you have to do as mayor is provide mayoral leadership of the schools. I think it is a seminal issue in this race. And I think what we’ve heard are councilmembers who are equivocating and waffling. I’m straight forward.”

For close observers of the education scene in the nation’s capital, the unified opinion is that we cannot move backward to the time when the D.C. Board of Education ran the public schools. Going to a public school was dangerous then, and there was a distinct lack of pedagogy going on in the classrooms. The buildings were crumbling literally and figuratively. We just cannot allow this to happen after so much progress.

Mayor Bowser has been a supporter of public education reform but has not been as strong as charter school advocates have desired. She has consistently annually raised the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula, the baseline money allocated each year to teach a student, but has lagged in her willingness to also increase the per pupil facility allotment. The most glaring weakness of her Administration has been the unwillingness to turn over surplus DCPS facilities to charter schools. While recent previous Mayors Adrien Fenty and Vincent Gray have given buildings in the double digits, I believe that Ms. Bowser has relinquished two. Her almost total avoidance of following the law when it comes to these structures resulted in an End The List Campaign in 2019 that mobilized the charter school community in an effort to force her to do the right thing.

The Mayor has also put pressure on the DC Public Charter School Board not to approve new schools. This is an area where the board has to find a way to stand up to her. Finally, she has been exceedingly slow to nominate replacement members to the PCSB.

Ms. Bowser has also been a steadfast supporter of continued operation of the Opportunity Scholarship Program, the private school scholarship plan for low income children living in D.C. A 2017 letter from D.C. Chairman Mendelson to the U.S. Congress to bring an end to the vouchers was opposed by the Mayor, and interestingly, was not signed by Councilmember Robert White.

There is one aspect of Mr. White’s proposed education program with which I strongly agree. I have advocated, as he is doing now, that the Office of the State Superintendent should be independent of the Mayor. I think OSSE should be separated from political pressure. However, although we agree on this one concept, I do not believe that education reform would be in steady hands if he won the upcoming election. Despite her failings in the area of public education which I have documented, Muriel Bowser is my choice for Mayor.

DC Charter School Alliance names Hall of Fame members: where is Patricia Brantley?

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As part of Charter School Week, over the past few days the DC Charter School Alliance has been announcing additions to the Charter School Hall of Fame. First created by Friends of Choice In Urban Schools back in 2016, the Hall of Fame was formed “to recognize the key individuals whose contributions have helped shape DC’s thriving charter sector.” If ever there was someone that needed to be added to this esteemed group it is Patricia Brantley, the chief executive officer of Friendship PCS. Here are just a few sentences from Ms. Brantley’s biography on the Friendship website:

“Patricia oversees all operations at Friendship, has secured more $95 million in public and private funding, effected cohesion among the 12 campuses, and established the Friendship Teaching Institute as a model of professional development. She spearheaded the takeover of Washington’s first multi-campus charter management group, ensuring that hundreds of children could remain in their school of choice.”

Ms. Brantley moved up to CEO at Friendship after serving as its chief operating officer. Here’s what I wrote about that tenure when I interviewed her six years ago:

“Her accomplishments during her dozen years at the charter school as chief operating officer include transforming Collegiate Academy to create a school with college-level courses.  She arrived in September and by January she had brought Advanced Placement and pre-Advanced Placement courses to the campus.   She led the development of teacher quality initiatives that includes Fellows, Professors, and Master teachers.  Ms. Brantley also supports the development of school leaders by encouraging their attendance at Relay, a leadership training program.  During her tenure, she expanded Friendship to include Southeast Academy, Technology Prep, Friendship Online, and Armstrong campuses.”

As I have watched her work, I see Ms. Brantley as a savior to D.C.’s charter school movement. When charters get in trouble and are fighting for their existence, Ms. Brantley comes to their rescue, like a superhero swooping in at the last minute to challenge evil. It started with the takeover at Community Academy PCS, proceeded to Ideal PCS, and most recently expanding Friendship’s online school to medically fragile students desperately needing a virtual option. When the William E. Doar, Jr. PCS for the Performing Arts (City Arts and Prep PCS) was closed by the DC Public Charter School Board, she brought its program into Armstrong PCS. After multiple safety issues came to light at Monument Academy PCS, and it appeared that the most vulnerable children in the nation’s capital would literally lose their homes, she engineered a takeover by the Friendship Foundation. Finally, after the PCSB could not see past fear from Mayor Muriel Bowser to open Capital Experience Lab, a new middle and high school charter, Ms. Brantley brought the exciting pedagogical approach to learning into Blow Pierce PCS. She had been serving on its board of directors. Ms. Brantley sets the blazing example of what true leadership looks like.

Actually, when the DC Charter School Alliance started to announce their inductees into the Charter School Hall of Fame, Ms. Brantley’s name should have been first.

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg donates $200 million to charter schools

mlerner10 Charter School Expansion, Charter School Facilities, DCPS, Mayor Bowser, PCSB, School Choice Leave a comment

A couple of days ago Cayla Bamberger of the New York Post revealed that former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg granted two charter networks, Success Academy PCS and Harlem Children’s Zone PCS, $100 million each in order to help them grow to accept more students. The money is only the beginning of Mr. Bloomberg’s investment in these alternative schools. His goal is to spend $750 million nationwide. The former Mayor told the Post:

“I don’t know that 30 years from now, when they don’t have the kind of life that we’d want for them you can explain to them what happened and why we were asleep at the switch.”

My point exactly. The pandemic has created a magnificent opportunity for charters. I do not understand why pro-charter organizations are not buying up vacant office buildings to house schools. I’m sure there are great deals to be had in the current marketplace. Is there no one in D.C. who will be embarrassed in 30 years that they did not act when they had the chance?

The DC Public Charter School is currently on a year-long pause for considering new schools and the expansion on existing ones. This needs to end now with the result being that it is simpler for new charters to open and easier to add more seats for those that are already operating.

I found interesting that the Washington Post’s Perry Stein found the need in her recent story about D.C. middle schools to talk about Mayor Bowser’s view of the expansion of the charter sector. The reporter wrote:

“While charter schools are independent, the mayor can have a role in shaping the sector and the Bowser administration has been considered charter-friendly. Bowser appoints the D.C. Public Charter School Board, which authorizes which charter schools can open and which must close for low-performance. She said she speaks with all her appointees about the need to approve only charters that address an unmet need in the city.”

Ms. Stein contradicts herself. She claims that charters are independent yet simultaneously points out that they are overseen by the PCSB whose members are selected by the Mayor. But this is slightly off topic. I just love the quote that Ms. Stein includes in the article from past charter board chair Rick Cruz regarding the growth of charters while many DCPS school are under enrolled.

“It means little to us and even less to many D.C. families to hear that there are thousands of seats in many schools that boast poor academic results.”

Right on! It is now time to wake up from our Covid-19 lull. Come on Mr. Bloomberg, District charters are ready to accept your cash. Who else is out there that wants to pitch in?

Shantelle Wright joining D.C. Public Charter School Board

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Charter school watchers in the nation’s capital have been puzzled by the lack of nominations to the DC Public Charter School Board by Mayor Muriel Bowser. The board is down to three out of seven members, with Rick Cruz’s term coming to an end. Well, it appears that the six-month wait for names to be announced is finally over. The board revealed the other day that there are three people up for D.C. Council confirmation.

The most shocking individual on the list is none other than Shantelle Wright. Ms. Wright is of course well known to the local movement. She is the founder and previously long-term chief executive officer of Achievement Prep PCS. During her tenure at Achievement Prep, it was common for Ms. Wright to offer highly emotionally charged comments critical of the PCSB, especially in regard to the views of former executive director Scott Pearson. She has been part of a segment of charter school stakeholders, best represented by attorney Stephen Marcus, that believe that the Performance Management Framework which is used to grade charters in Washington, D.C., is biased against at-risk children. Achievement Prep serves a large proportion of students living in poverty.

However, as I reported in April, 2018, at an event marking the first ten years of operation of Achievement Prep, Ms. Wright seemed to have a change of heart. Here are my observations:

“In her speech, Ms. Wright admitted that mistakes at the school had been made and that most recently it has not been serving the children of Ward 8 according to its mission ‘to prepare students to excel as high-achieving scholars and leaders in high school, college, and beyond.’  She explained that Achievement Prep had grown too fast, an expansion that has resulted in the school’s Wahler Place elementary, serving pupils in pre-Kindergarten three to third grade, being ranked Tier 3 school on the DC PCSB’s Performance Management Framework for the last two years. Its Wahler Place Middle school, enrolling grades four through eight, has earned a grade as barely a Tier 2 facility over the same time period.  In 2013 and 2014 this campus’ quality school report placed it at Tier 1.  During the November meeting of the DC PCSB, the elementary school campus was given strict PMF targets it will have to meet in coming years or it will be closed.”

Achievement Prep closed the Wahler Place Middle School at the end of the 2019-to-2020 school year. This facility was taken over by Friendship PCS.

During the same ceremony, Mr. Pearson expressed his admiration for Ms. Wright:

“In comments that were especially animated for my friend, he related that during the many tense confrontations he has had with her over the years regarding differences of opinion, he has always loved the persona of Ms. Wright.”

It will be fascinating to see the direction that the PMF takes with Ms. Wright on the board. The DC PCSB has announced that the PMF is in the process of being revised.

Others nominated to the board include Shukurat Adamoh-Faniyan, who was once executive director of the now shuttered Democracy Prep PCS and who is now executive director of Reading Partners, a group working to increase literacy, and Nick Rodriquez, CEO at Delivery Associates who once served on the California Board of Education. Both individuals have extensive experience trying to close the academic achievement gap and therefore will be easily approved by the Council. Current PCSB chair Lea Crusey has also been re-nominated.

You can read current PCSB executive director Dr. Michelle Walker-Davis’s testimony in favor of these nominations here. I now cannot wait to once again tune into the monthly PCSB meetings. I promise, they will not be boring.

Friendship PCS Blow Pierce Elementary Campus’s Dominique Foster is D.C.’s Teacher of the Year

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I received the following press release yesterday from Patricia Brantley, Chief Executive Officer Friendship Public Charter School:

Washington, DC) – Today, Mayor Muriel Bowser presented Dominique Foster, a pre-K teacher at Friendship Public Charter School (PCS) – Blow Pierce Elementary with the 2022 DC Teacher of the Year Award. The Mayor was joined by Acting State Superintendent Christina Grant and Friendship PCS Blow Pierce Elementary students and staff to surprise Ms. Foster with the award. The prestigious honor, which comes with a $7,500 prize, is awarded annually to a DC Public School or public charter school teacher who has demonstrated outstanding leadership and commitment to student achievement.


“Washington, DC has the strongest universal pre-K program in the nation, and it’s because of creative and passionate teachers like Ms. Foster who help our young people become curious learners,” said Mayor Bowser. “Thank you, Ms. Foster, for all you have done for your students and school community. Now, we’ll be cheering you on for 2022 National Teacher of the Year!”


In addition to receiving this honor, Foster is now in the running for the National Teacher of the Year Award<https://ntoy.ccsso.org/>, which is run by the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). She will also receive an additional $2,500 to support travel to national conferences, workshops, and other professional development opportunities during her one-year term as 2022 DC Teacher of the Year.


“Throughout the COVID-19 public health emergency, Ms. Foster provided a high level of instruction and robust educational experiences during distance learning. When field trips weren’t possible, she brought the community to her virtual classroom, inviting special guests to share their lives and experiences with her young learners,” said Acting State Superintendent Christina Grant. “It’s so important that we honor teachers like Ms. Foster who go above and beyond their call of duty. Congratulations, Ms. Foster, for the well-deserved honor of being named 2022 DC Teacher of the Year.”


The Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) also awarded $1,500 to two other 2022 DC Teacher of the Year finalists: Dr. Takeisha Wilson, a fourth grade English Language Arts and Social Studies teacher at Shepherd Elementary School, and Rickita Perry Taylor, who teaches medically fragile students and students with profound disabilities in grades K-2 at Turner Elementary School.


Foster has been teaching for 13 years, six of which have been at Friendship PCS Blow Pierce. She earned a bachelor’s degree in organizational communication from Xavier University and is currently working on a master’s degree in Montessori Education at Xavier. She has extensive training and experience in Montessori, Reggio Emilia, International Baccalaureate and Creative Curriculum approaches to learning and pulls from each to create an engaging and inclusive classroom learning environment for children of all backgrounds.


Foster began her career at Howard Road Academy Public Charter School in Ward 8, and has held kindergarten teaching positions during the school year and summer at two other Friendship PCS campuses: Woodridge International Campus and Southeast Campus. Foster also supports developing and maintaining a positive school climate through several Friendship PCS leadership roles, including a new educator mentoring program, the annual Friendship Blow Pierce Women’s Expo, a yoga instruction program, and tutoring for young learners and the school’s Early Childhood Graduation program.


“I enthusiastically congratulate Dominique Foster on this accomplishment,” said DC Public Charter School Executive Director Michelle J. Walker-Davis. “Ms. Foster makes learning an experience and believes her students, no matter how young, should have choice and voice in their learning environment. She lives and teaches by that philosophy every day which she is why she is the 2022 DC Teacher of the Year.”


Foster also has participated on committees and teams focused on the charter network’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including virtual learning and the school’s reopening plan. She considers the virtual learning experience during the 2020-21 school year one of the highlights of her teaching career. While she initially considered teaching Pre-K students through a computer screen a “formidable task,” Foster said the experience quickly evolved into “a life-changing experience we, as a class community, will cherish forever.”


This inclusive class community, Foster noted, involved parents, siblings and even neighbors who offered support, guidance, and encouragement during distance learning lessons that combined hands-on learning, family involvement and real-world connections to engage students of all backgrounds and abilities.


“Family involvement allowed learning to extend beyond the virtual classroom, as parents became active participants and even co-teachers in the daily lessons. Time spent in the virtual classroom space was limited but maximized, as each lesson and activity allowed for cross-curriculum integration,” Foster explained in her DC Teacher of the Year application. “My belief in making learning an experience transcended the traditional classroom setting and we discovered how to bring joy into learning on a virtual platform.”


For more information on the DC Teacher of the Year program, visit the OSSE website<https://osse.dc.gov/service/district-columbia-teacher-year>.

https://www.localdvm.com/news/washington-dc/2022-dc-teacher-of-the-year-announced-during-surprise-celebration/

It’s time for an independent Office of the State Superintendent in the nation’s capital

mlerner10 D.C. Council, DC Charter School Alliance, Mayor Bowser, OSSE, SBOE Leave a comment

There are two bills being debated currently in the D.C. Council regarding the reporting structure for the Office of the State Superintendent of Education in the District of Columbia. One suggestion is to have OSSE fall under the purview of the State Board of Education. This legislation should be dead on arrival since it reminds me of the terrible old days when the Board of Education contributed to our town having one of the worst run school systems in the country. No one wants to go back to those days.

However, the second proposal, authored by Councilmember Mary Cheh, comes out of more recent controversies around DCPS that arose four years ago. Beginning in November 2017, the traditional schools faced a trio of problems that came in quick succession. First, a study by WAMU and NPR found that many seniors attending Ballou High School should never have graduated. From their report:

“An investigation by WAMU and NPR has found that Ballou High School’s administration graduated dozens of students despite high rates of unexcused absences. WAMU and NPR reviewed hundreds of pages of Ballou’s attendance records, class rosters and emails after a DCPS employee shared the private documents. The documents showed that half of the graduates missed more than three months of school last year, unexcused. One in five students was absent more than present — missing more than 90 days of school. . . Another internal email obtained by WAMU and NPR from April shows that two months before graduation, only 57 students were on track to graduate, with dozens of students missing graduation requirements, community service requirements or failing classes needed to graduate.”

Then in February 2018, Deputy Mayor for Education Jennie Niles and DCPS Chancellor Antwan Wilson resigned after the D.C. inspector general had found that with Ms. Niles’ assistance one of Mr. Wilson’s children had bypassed the school lottery to gain admission to Wilson High School. She had been enrolled at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts but was not happy there.

That same month the Washington Post reported that OSSE had discovered that as many of half of the students attending the Duke Ellington School of the Performing Arts lived outside of D.C. but were claimed to be residents so the families would not have to pay tuition. The story stated that a lawyer at OSSE told officials in his organization to slow the fraud investigation “because of the risk of negative publicity during a mayoral election year.”

These incidents point to the problem of having OSSE report to the Mayor who also controls the traditional public schools. As Ms. Cheh indicates in her proposed legislation:

“However, in 2007, with the passage of the Public Education Reform Amendment Act of 2007 (“PERAA”), the SEO became the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, a change that came with much greater responsibility. OSSE took over a
number of responsibilities previously handled by the Board, including developing state-level standards and assessments, grantmaking, and, importantly, oversight of the District’s public schools. In addition, under PERAA, control of DCPS shifted from the Board of Education to the Mayor. For the first time, the District’s state level oversight body and its public school system were subordinate to the same person—the Mayor.

For this reason, OSSE is unlike any other state-level oversight body in the country. In every state, school districts answer to state-level education authorities, which are empowered to audit all school data and demand corrective action where an audit identifies areas of concern. In no other state does the state-level oversight body report to the head of a school system it oversees. This conflict of interest compromises the work of our Superintendent, risking the public’s trust in the integrity of our school data. Unfortunately, the effect of this conflict of interest on OSSE’s work is not merely speculative. In recent years, there have been concerning reports regarding OSSE’s oversight of our public school data, and failures to adequately identify errors or misrepresentations in data on student attendance, suspensions, and graduation rates. In these instances, it was members of the media—not OSSE—who identified these data issues and brought them to the public’s attention. In the normal course, such issues would have been identified as part of regular audits; that they were not raises genuine concerns about our audit processes and how OSSE oversees our school data. What’s more, at that time, it was reported that an OSSE attorney directed staff to delay a particular investigation because it was a mayoral election year.”

An independent OSSE would avoid the inherent conflict of interest that was established with PERAA’s passage in 2017.

I should mention that Shannon Hodge, the founding executive director of the DC Charter School Alliance, testified before the Council that she is opposed to both acts currently being debated about OSSE’s reporting structure. About Ms. Cheh’s suggestion she commented:

“Making OSSE an independent agency within the DC government, as the Office of the State Superintendent of Education Independence Amendment Act of 2021 (Bill 24-101) would do, would separate it from other agencies that it is deeply interconnected with. For example, OSSE and DC Health work closely together on a number of issues relating to the ongoing pandemic and need to be able to make coordinated decisions. OSSE simply needs the support and collaboration of every city agency to best accomplish their work.”

It is an unusual position because the new organizational structure of OSSE mirrors that of the DC Public Charter School Board. With the PCSB, the Mayor appoints the members but the body is run on its own. I say the council should pass this legislation.


Mayor Bowser quietly transfers closed Wilkinson Elementary to DC Prep PCS

mlerner10 Charter School Facilities, Charter School Transparency, Charter Schools, Covid-19, D.C. Council, DCPS, Mayor Bowser, PCSB Leave a comment

A search yesterday of legislation before the D.C. Council revealed that Mayor Muriel Bowser has granted DC Prep PCS the right to lease DCPS’s former Wilkinson Elementary School in Ward 8 that was closed in 2009. The Council was scheduled to approve the transfer on Tuesday. The move by Ms. Bowser solves a major facility problem that for about three years has plagued the school founded by Emily Lawson in 2003. The approximately 146,000 square foot building will house DC Prep’s Anacostia elementary and middle schools.

Remember that back in 2019, shortly before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, DC Prep had purchased a property on Frankford Street S.E. for its Anacostia Middle School. The acquisition brought a public outcry at that year’s November meeting of the DC Public Charter School Board during which multiple community members testified that the charter had failed to inform them of its intention to open at this site. DC Prep had also leased space in the Birney Building and was hoping to take over this facility since the former Excel PCS was using this property, its rental agreement with Building Pathways was coming to an end, and it had converted to become a traditional school after being closed by the charter board. The Birney Building at the time was designated as a site for charters through an arrangement between Building Pathways and the D.C. Department of General Services.

Fast forward to May 2021 in one of the peaks in the public emergency, when Ms. Bowser took time to provide a facility update as part of a discussion around her upcoming budget proposal. As reported by the Washington Post’s Perry Stein:

“She plans to move the new Bard High School Early College to a permanent location in 2023 at the original Malcolm X Elementary — a shuttered campus in Southeast Washington — and allocate $80 million to the facility. The closed Spingarn High School in Northeast Washington would be home to the D.C. Infrastructure Academy. Excel Academy Public School will remain permanently at its current location at the old Birney building in Southeast Washington, which the city owns but has been leasing to charters. Bowser’s proposal would give charter school operators the option to lease the closed Wilkinson Elementary in Southeast Washington by 2024.”

The news that Wilkinson was being offered to charters represented only the second time in her tenure as Mayor that Ms. Bowser has turned a surplus DCPS building over to the alternative sector. In addition, the decision regarding the Birney Building was a blow to DC Prep. However, now we know that in the end the situation turned out exceedingly well for the charter school.

Anti-charter blogger Valerie Jablow has a lot to say about the apparent secretive nature of the awarding of Wilkinson to DC Prep. I have to say she has a point. There was no public announcement of the decision and it is not known if any other school bid for this property. The charter’s September 21, 2021 board meeting lists as an agenda item “AMC,” and then in the minutes of the session there is a discussion and vote on securing the new location but the name of the building is omitted. This is not exactly in the spirit of the Open Meetings law. As a movement we have got to do better than this.