More School Protests To Come
I caught up with Maria P. Jones, one of the chief anti-school closure activists, this morning. Jones is currently visiting family in New Orleans. But she still had some thoughts–and a lot of anger and perhaps wishful thinking–on Fenty’s revised school closure plan.
“He’s still playing games,” Jones said meaning Fenty. “That’s not doing anything for the people. You still have all of the schools that will remain open will be weakened by all the closures around them. Our stance is still the same. And that stance is: we are calling an immediate cease and desist of all the school closures. What we want to happen is to have a conversation that does not solely focus on school closures. The conversation—if it is about school reform—then all the major stakeholders should be involved. The teachers, the principals, the city council people, the parents, the students, the school board members, the chancellor. Everyone should be involved in that discussion. There are so many things we need to look at before we get to school closures.”
Among the items on Jones’ agenda:
*Equitable distribution of funds across all schools.
*To make sure the modernization money is allocated properly
*To look at the buildings, all of the vacant buildings where we could move DCPS staff and administration into those buildings.
*To put a cap or moratorium on new charter school openings.
“When we have a discussion like this, school closures may not enter into the conversation,” Jones says. “We’re going to help the Fenty Administration by changing the conversation.”
What about future protests, I asked.
“We’re always planning,” Jones said. “You are definitely going to see increased resistance.”
Stay tuned!
2 Responses to “More School Protests To Come”
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February 6th, 2008 at 11:54 am
Every stakeholder Jones mentions was, in fact, invited to participate in the hearings held by Fenty and Rhee. As City Paper and other news outlets reported, too many hearings were a portrait of absenteeism by those very stakeholders.
Were they all at Jones’ protests? The numbers at her events suggest not. She can promise “increased resistance” alright, because with only a handful of people attending a recent protest, instead of the thousands promised, Jones’s dog and pony shows can only go up.
Even Marion Barry has shifted away from Jones and her maddening chicken-and-egg rhetorical claims. Sorry, Maria, but you are just a dead cat bouncin’, don’t even realize you’re gone yet.
February 6th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Make no mistake, D.C. public schools, public buildings, public lands, even the air rights over these properties are all the exclusive property of taxpaying (and voting) District of Columbia citizens! We are the Coalition to Save Our Neighborhood Schools, consisting of ever increasing groups of parents, teachers, students and community activists - members of the D.C. electorate. WE WILL REMEMBER IN NOVEMBER – and take effective ongoing action as a coalition.
Though, predictably, there will be the usual D.C. (and non-D.C.) skeptics and critics, there’s no getting around three critical questions:
1) Where will all the current tax-paying families and the ones we want to attract to D.C. send their kids?
2) What will be the attraction for revenue-generating families to move into the District if there are not enough good and conveniently located schools for their children?
3) Are mayor Adrian Fenty, the takeover team, some councilmembers and developers actually speculating that mostly or only high-income CHILDLESS couples and singles will gentrify and finance the District?
Sure, it’s easier to sell our public property than doing the hard work of rebuilding our public schools into centers of educational excellence. It’s time to pause, think and consider the long term consequences, and at least one genuine and effective student-focused idea beyond closing schools, and selling taxpayer-owned property to private developers.
Why not renovate and convert parts or all of the under-enrolled schools into wrap-around academic service centers for each school’s population. Also, existing schools can be co-located with evening adult training and education centers, strategically located pre-school learning centers, DCPS satellite offices, family preventative healthcare centers, and community-based D.C. government agency offices (DMV, employment, tax, housing, etc.). Once these public properties are sold for private use, they’re gone forever.
Moreover, to attract more revenue-generating families with conveniently located schools of academic excellence, let’s redevelop D.C. public and charter schools into non-tuition citizen and teacher controlled Public Academies standardized by 10-student class sizes. Isn’t the point to make D.C. a truly family-friendly city by also having and improving our public schools?
Lastly, what happened to the billions in revenue mayor Fenty and others said was budgeted for improvements based on dissed and dismissed superintendent Dr. Clifford Janey’s plan? All of what mayor Adrian Fenty and chancellor Michelle Rhee is doing sounds like the familiar D.C. shell game behind a crap game.
No wonder the parents, teachers and students of the Coalition to Save our Neighborhood Schools are disgusted and determined to stop autocrat Fenty and corporatist Rhee. Clearly, it takes average citizens (voters), as in actual “stakeholders” to alert elected public officials about the educational and fiscal consequences of incompetent so-called “leadership.”
Without a doubt, we will remember in November!
Dennis Moore, Chairperson,
District of Columbia Independents for Citizen Control (DCICC) Political Party
http://www.DCIndependents.org
dennis@DCIndependents.org
http://www.SaveOurNeighborhoodSchools.org
ESP Public Academy Concept and Education Week details:
http://www.DCIndependents.org/#CitizenControlOfDCSchools
http://www.EdWeek.org/media/ew/qc/2008/18shr.dc.h27.pdf