Save Our Schools DC

By David Nakamura and V. Dion Haynes

Washington Post
January 5, 2007

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty proposed yesterday a dramatic restructuring of the D.C. public schools that would give him ultimate authority over the troubled system, create an independent agency in charge of a $2.3 billion capital construction budget and establish an ombudsman to investigate complaints from parents.

Flanked by nine members of the D.C. Council at a morning news conference, Fenty (D) pledged to stake his political future on the performance of the 58,000-student system if he gained control of it.

"There have been decades of failure," Fenty said in a crowded briefing room at the John A. Wilson Building. "There can be no more delay, no more broken promises."

Within hours, new Board of Education President Robert C. Bobb criticized the plan and threatened to resign if it is approved.

"Taking the board and making it an advisory board is not something we embrace," said Bobb, joined by three board members during a news conference at the board's headquarters in Northeast. "I did not run to serve in an advisory capacity."

The school board members said they were angry because Fenty did not include them in developing the proposal and did not brief them before his announcement. They said they learned about the details by watching a live broadcast of the conference.

Fenty's 48-page legislative proposal, which was prepared over the past two months, describes significant changes. The bill would give line-item budget control to the council and consolidate responsibility for all charter schools in the District -- which are overseen by two organizations -- under a sole entity, the D.C. Public Charter School Board.

The school construction authority would be headed by a chief executive appointed by the mayor and would be charged with speeding up the city's school modernization effort, which Fenty and others have said is too slow. It also would oversee routine maintenance and repairs. The authority would carry out a decision by Fenty and the "school chancellor" or superintendent to close about 20 underenrolled schools identified in School Superintendent Clifford B. Janey's master facilities plan.

The nine-seat Board of Education, now a mix of elected and appointed members, would be rechristened as a "state board of education," Fenty said. The board would lose all of its authority in overseeing day-to-day operations of schools but would retain its role in devising policies on such matters as standardized testing and teacher certification.

The proposal would require a change in the city's home rule charter, meaning that Fenty's legislation would need approval from the council and Congress. Fenty could have put the issue to a referendum but said he did not largely because he and six council members had just won an election in which voters called for drastic measures to improve the schools.

Most of the nine council members who joined Fenty yesterday said they support the main tenets of his proposal. Members Phil Mendelson (D-At Large) and Carol Schwartz (R-At Large), who have said they oppose a takeover, did not attend the briefing. Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D) refrained from endorsing the bill but vowed to hold public hearings and schedule a vote quickly. "The question is, will our kids be better because of the changes we make?" Gray said. "That is the litmus test."

Fenty said he has briefed key congressional members, and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) said yesterday that she would support the plan if the council approved it.

Reaction in the community was mixed. Gina Arlotto, a Capitol Hill mother and co-founder of Save Our Schools, said she would rally opposition because she favors an elected school board and worries that the new structure would disrupt progress Janey has made.

"Put it to the people, Fenty. Let the people vote on it," said Arlotto, who is organizing a protest for tomorrow outside the Washington Convention Center before Fenty's inaugural ball. "If the majority of people say, 'We want Fenty to take over schools,' I wouldn't agree with it, but that's the will of the people."

But Marika Torok, a Mount Pleasant mother who brought her two young children to Fenty's briefing, reacted positively to his bill.

"I'm impressed that he has said education will be his number one priority, and he's following through on that, not even wasting a day," said Torok, who teaches her children at home and thinks they would not get a good education in the D.C. school system. "He's showing he's serious. This is the first step, getting a functional structure in place."

For most of his two-year campaign for mayor, Fenty, whose twin sons attend a private elementary school, did not discuss taking over the system. As a council member in 2004, Fenty joined in defeating a similar measure offered by then-mayor Anthony A. Williams.

Shortly after winning the Democratic primary in September, however, Fenty said he was studying the takeover model established four years ago in New York City by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (R). Fenty explained his change of heart by saying he believed the District's multi-headed governance system had led to diffuse authority and a lack of accountability.

Fenty said the school system has failed time and again to improve despite decades of efforts and numerous superintendents. He said Janey would be able to move more quickly under the new structure to implement changes detailed in the system's Master Education Plan.

"Janey has a lot of great ideas, and his vision makes sense," Fenty said. "This will give him the power to move faster." Janey declined yesterday to comment on the plan.

But Fenty's proposal has raised questions about whether it would lead to more streamlined school governance.

"It's not clear to me whether the lines of accountability, authority and program decision-making are any clearer than they were before -- and could they, in fact, be fuzzier?" said Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools. "One has to worry whether the alignment is as clear-cut as they want it to be."

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