Breaking news today for D.C. teachers: yesterday, the D.C. Council officially ended 2 ½ years of political jostling by approving a contract with the Washington Teachers’ Union that will significantly raise teachers’ salaries, according to WaPo’s Bill Turque. The contract is said to increase the average salaries of D.C. educators from $67,000 to an estimated $81,000, and creates a pay system based on performance in the classroom rather than seniority.  This comes as a huge victory for DCPS Chancellor Michelle Rhee, who has a somewhat tenuous relationship with the WTU and its parent organization, the American Federation of Teachers.

In case you missed it, the infamous Robert Wone trial has come to an uneasy close. The three housemates Joe Price, Dylan Ward and Victor Zaborsky, who were accused of covering up the stabbing of the D.C. attorney, have been exonerated from all charges. D.C. Superior Court Judge Lynn Leibovitz said that the prosecution was unable to provide enough evidence beyond a reasonable doubt for a conviction. The forensic teams never found the one-armed man after all. For a comprehensive history of the trial, check out Rend Smith’s coverage for City Paper.

If you saw police carrying excessively large automatic rifles in the Metro yesterday, you probably stumbled across an anti-terrorism drill. Metro Transit Police inspected trains and stations on the Red and Green lines for about four hours while staging the drill. Around 150 officers from local, state and federal levels participated. (Maybe next, Metro will work on anti-escalator outage drills.)

In other transportation news, the D.C. Council finally approved legislation to allow overhead wires for streetcars on H Street. The bill may give streetcar advocates some hope; a 120-year-old federal law banning overhead wires in the District has hindered the city's plan to provide more public transportation.

Photo by Iris Harris/U.S. Department of Commerce

When Capitol Hill residents smell something funny in their backyard, they get busy. For years, they've been concerned about a strange educational outfit at the corner of 13th and D Streets SE called the International Graduate University. The building just sort of sits there, with few students coming or going; the District government delicensed the university last year.

So when locals learned that a charter school called University High was seeking to move into the university's buildings if it receives a charter, they developed a healthy interest. An investigative interest, even.

Among the first steps was to vet the school's charter application. Aha! They discovered that portions of the application were nearly identical to articles on Web sites. The residents forwarded their findings to reporters and Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells. The Post's Bill Turque wrote about how the description of a proposed algebra class at University High is identical to a course description at the District's Gonzaga College High School. The plagiarism is much wider-spread, though: With the exception of one class, every one of University High's courses has a twin at Gonzaga.

University High isn't too eager to discuss questions of curriculum originality. "I don't think I should talk to you," Virginia Hayes Williams, a founding member of the high school and the mother of former mayor Anthony A. Williams, told City Desk. Williams said she and the other founders worked too hard on the application for anything to be plagiarized. “I know that there are so many people that try to stop anything good that comes."

When Williams refers to all that hard work, she's surely talking about some serious cutting-and-pasting operations. Take a look at the similarities—no, samenesses!—between course descriptions at the would-be school and the longstanding school:

University High's description of its proposed United States History Course:

UNITED STATES HISTORY /full year
This course covers major trends and events in the formation and development of the United States, beginning with the era of exploration and extending to the post-war era. It emphasizes the process of understanding and expressing the significance of historical events. In achieving those ends, students will learn to use historical documents and inquiry in the writing of well-crafted historical essays. During the fourth quarter, the writing program will culminate in a cooperative effort with the Library and English Department to develop the students'  understanding and mastery of a longer thesis paper. Required of all juniors.

The description is nearly identical to the description of a United States History at Gonzaga:

UNITED STATES HISTORY (430)/full year

This course covers major trends and events in the formation and development of the United States, beginning with the era of exploration and extending to the post‑war era. It emphasizes the process of understanding and expressing the significance of historical events. In achieving those ends, students will learn to use historical documents and inquiry in the writing of well‑crafted historical essays. During the fourth quarter, the writing program will culminate in a cooperative effort with the Library and English Department to develop the students' understanding and mastery of a longer thesis paper. Required of all juniors.

The nearly identical descriptions continue throughout the schools' curricula. In a political science course at University High, for example, students could expect to study the exact same eight philosophers as they would at Gonzaga. In the charter school's description of its English courses, the reader is referred to a class that does not exist in University High's application, but does at Gonzaga.

The only University High course without an equivalent at Gonzaga is English IV, which has no description at all.

Other parts of the application contain portions that are similar to articles on educational websites.

A call on Tuesday to Terry Shelton, one of University High's officials, went nowhere: A woman who answered said an injury prevented Shelton from coming to the phone.

IGU's relationship with University High is unclear. IGU President Walter E. Boek told City Desk Tuesday that he has no relation with the potential high school beyond IGU's possible future location in his building.

In its application for a charter, however, University High lists the same phone number that IGU has on its Web site. The high school's articles of incorporation list IGU's address at 1325 D St. SE as the location of its initial office, and Boek as its initial agent. Both Boek and Shelton are signatories on the articles of incorporation.

In a two-hour meeting with neighbors that Turque described as "bizarre," Shelton acknowledged knowing Boek but refused to explain further.

A call to that phone number Tuesday was answered by a man who acknowledged that University High's Shelton worked there. Asked whether the number belonged to IGU or University High, the man said, "This is not the charter school," and hung up.

On Wednesday, City Desk tried to get in touch with Boek and Shelton again. A woman answered the phone and said she didn't think talking to Boek was a good idea. Besides, calls to Boek have to go through Shelton first—and he was out for the day.

*A sentence has been deleted from the original post.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

On his blog today, Alexander gives his patented treatment to the Bill Turque–Jo-Ann Armao–Michelle Rhee–Fred Hiatt meltdown. The post includes comments from Metro reporter Turque, who wrote the blog post heard around the newsroom, and from top Metro editor Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, and from education editor Craig Timberg, and from other key players.

It covers all the central ethical issues involved in the spat—except perhaps the most important one.

While the Post seems obsessed with whether Turque was on firm ground in slamming Armao and the editorial board over its favorable editorials about schools Chancellor Rhee, and whether he could have been more guarded or fairer in his writing, no one seems too concerned with the paper's digital hygiene.

To recap: After Turque blasted the people on the other side of the firewall, newsroom brass took down the offending blog post, edited out all the juicy stuff, and reposted it without any italics. Meaning, there was no explanation that the original post had been altered and, honestly, bowdlerized.

That's bad enough. What's worse is that the ombo chose not to explore the question in his posting on the matter. So what you have here is a newsroom that doesn't seem to respect blogspace and an ombo that ignores it—not a constructive combo.

Reached on the matter, Alexander would say only, "It’s a legitimate issue that I plan to look into. I never comment beyond my blog or column."

Now Metro's board got a new chair
And newbies with fantastic hair
But that isn't all
They've stemmed the shortfall
By adding a dime to the fare

Well, Butterstick, what a good run
Your time in D.C. is near done
Before China takes
Let ol' Land O'Lakes
Treat all of your fans to some fun

Catania will seek reelection
With Motley the other selection
The fight may be fair
But one thing they share:
A hist'ry of party defection

The Washington Post editorial board is pissed beyond words about Bill Turque's Wednesday blog post regarding the board's relationship with D.C. public schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee. In the post, which the paper temporarily deleted from its site last night, Metro education reporter Turque blasted editorial writer Jo-Ann Armao for furnishing Rhee a "print version of the Larry King Show."

When reached today for reaction on Turque's strong words, Armao said, "I am not talking about it in any way, shape, or form," noting that she's not even gossiping with friends who've approached her on the matter. When asked why she's going covert on this one, Armao said she was busy with a bunch of other things. I said, "Aw, come on," and then pointed out that the journalistic thing to do is to open up.

Armao then apologized in advance for hanging up. Dial tone.

Perhaps Armao is busy counting the reasons why she's so pissed at Turque. They're right there—or were right there—in the item he posted yesterday afternoon. First he noted that Armao has more success getting Rhee on the line than he does. Then he noted that the ed. board had been "steadfast" in its support for Rhee. And then he noted one case in which that support, in his view, afforded Rhee safe harbor—a flareup in which the mayor's kids miraculously landed in a fabulous out-of-boundary school. Though Rhee has never explained how that all happened, the editorial board gave her a pass on the matter, offering an "innocent explanation" to excuse what appears to be an abuse of power.

Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt wasn't happy with Turque's scribblings when he caught wind of them around 8 p.m. He walked into the office of Post Managing Editor Liz Spayd, pointed out the item, and "expressed my unhappiness," says Hiatt. Then he left.

Spayd says she then pulled the item from the site, on the following grounds: "Where it went over is where it ascribed motive to Chancellor Rhee’s decision to speak to our editorial board and, more importantly, I don’t think that he should be challenging or seeming to assess the stances of our editorial board or questioning their integrity, and I think that that blog did that."

Asked whether Turque is going to be in trouble for such transgressions, Spayd declined to comment.

Both big shots in this drama agree that Hiatt never recommended any course of action and didn't participate in the decision to take the item down. Nor did he preside over or take part in the removal of its juiciest passages and its re-posting on the site.

Nor did Hiatt hang up when asked to comment on the post. In his trademark calm, he listed his concerns with it:

• "It’s my own feeling—and the policy that most people at the newspaper try to follow—that when anyone has reason to be unhappy with anyone else, we try to bring it to each others' attention rather than putting it into print."
• "To suggest that Jo-Ann Armao is in anybody’s pocket is so far from the truth that it sort of takes my breath away....I have had a lot of editorial writers work for me. None of them have been more diligent and assiduous about getting both sides of any story and being fair minded than Jo-Ann."
• "In this case, I find it particularly strange to say that the statement landed in our laps because of our editorial views, for a couple of reasons: Tom Sherwood also seems to have come up with it, and I don't see anyone accusing him of anything other than being independent-minded reporter." Also, Hiatt claims that Rhee called a Metro reporter and apologized for the uneven distribution of her statement. An inquiry on that question to the Metro desk fetched a no-comment.

Now here's what City Desk readers should take away from the Turque crisis:

• Hiatt's right about Armao being a fabulous editorial writer; as we've noted on this blog before, she's done great reporting and has a record of holding public officials to account. Rhee, however, is certainly not tops on that list, and Turque is on terra firma in shaming the board for its editorial on the Fenty kids' accession to Lafayette Elementary School.
• The Post is a complicated and fascinating place. As Turque pointed out in his post—in both the original and edited versions—the fact that the editorial board had a scoop and the news side didn't speaks to the strength of the vaunted "firewall" separating the two. Yet Hiatt managed to sneak through an opening to report his displeasure to Spayd.
• The entire episode speaks to the newspaper's inability to graduate from Web 101. A lot of news organizations—this one included—treat their blog work like the inviolate, sacred space that it has become. You don't just take down a post because it pisses someone off, especially someone within the organization. And if you edit or change or delete or remove or alter a post in any way, you make that plain to the reader. To this moment, the edited Turque post contains no alert that the original has been bowdlerized. The subtext here is that, Hey, it's just a blog post—it's not the paper. You can take it down, pass it around, whatever.

• The transparency that Turque provided in his piece is just the sort of content that today's savvy readers crave. That he seeded it with a couple of elbows and some juicy language bolsters the case in his favor. After this spanking, you can bet that Turque's next few blog items are going to be boring as shit, custom-designed to stay off the radar of his superiors. It's time to give creative, talented reporters like Turque some space to breathe on the paper's blogs. Loosen up, Post!

Rhee, as the entire city knows, got herself in big trouble last week when comments she'd made to Fast Company magazine surfaced on the Web. Among other things, Rhee stated that a round of controversial layoffs last October had dumped teachers who had had sex with DCPS children.

It was an unsubstantiated charge that demanded elaboration, and that's where the local media comes in. Turque pushed as hard as anyone for details, badgering Rhee and her lieutenants for specifics on the abusive teachers. But in the end, he got scooped—not by the Examiner or Washington City Paper, but an in-house competitor: Jo-Ann Armao, another bulldog reporter and a member of the paper's editorial board.

As has happened on previous occasions, the Post editorial board got an early heads-up from the Rhee administration. The results popped up in editorial page copy Tuesday morning, leaving Turque and many others in the dust.

After the story had settled down, Turque apparently felt compelled to tell readers why one compartment of the Post had an exclusive while another sat there empty-handed. So he got into it: The edit board's Armao, wrote Turque, has a solid relationship with the chancellor. The fact that the opinionmongers nailed the scoop, published it, and didn't invite Metro to share in the bounty, continued Turque, only goes to show what Post editors have been telling the public for years: That there's a firewall between the two sides of the newspaper.

In Turque's words: "The news and opinion columns of The Post are wholly separate and independent operations. This assertion frequently draws a torrent of skepticism, but if this episode does nothing else, it should give the lie to the notion that there is some sort of sinister linkage."

Turque had more. He said that Armao & Co. were entitled to speak with Rhee and then write favorable things about her reforms, as they had done on many occasions. Churning out opinions, after all, is what editorial boards do, he noted.

Toward the end, the Metro beat writer sharpened the edge, arguing that the Post editorial board has excavated a safe harbor for Rhee. And like any good blogger, he threw in an example—the time when Rhee and Mayor Adrian M. Fenty came under fire for somehow allowing Fenty's twin sons to enroll in the outstanding Lafayette Elementary School in upper Northwest last August. The powers that were failed to give any kind of explanation as to how the Fenty kids managed to land in such a prized out-of-boundary school. Reporters hounded administration officials for days—weeks!—on the matter and got nowhere.

The Post editorial board, meanwhile, printed a rationale for the Lafayette placement—that the twins needed to be in separate classes, and the in-boundary school for the Fenty family wasn't big enough to accomplish such a separation. The editorial came off as a regurgitation of whispers from some top official in the Fenty-Rhee axis. In any case, that argument about keeping the twins apart had many drawbacks, as Loose Lips columnist Mike DeBonis has noted.

Savor the words that convey Turque's scorn for the coziness between the edit board and schools officials: "Where this gets complicated is that board's stance, and the chancellor's obvious rapport with Jo-Ann, also means that DCPS has a guaranteed soft landing spot for uncomfortable or inconvenient disclosures–kind of a print version of the Larry King Show."

When something that juicy gets taken down, phone calls are in order. Reached in his office right in the middle of the State of the Union Address, editorial board chief Fred Hiatt wouldn't get into it. "I don’t have anything to tell you," he said.

A newsroom source, however, confirmed that the post had indeed been taken down. The problem, according to the source, was that the post contained more opinion than allowed in the blog post of a beat writer. Translation: No posts with passion, outrage, and great writing are allowed on washingtonpost.com. Well, at least not if you're on a beat.

Late Wednesday night, Posties were working on a new version with duller elbows. Compare the new thingie with the original, retrieved and pasted below, in all its glory:

One newspaper, two stories

Many of you may have noticed something more than a tad odd Tuesday morning in our coverage of Chancellor Rhee's now immortal comments to "Fast Company." My story, which appeared on the front of the Metro section, said that Rhee had yet to explain or elaborate, and that there would be no comment until later in the day. My Monday evening blog entry said pretty much the same thing.

The editorial page told a different story. Citing "information released by the chancellor's office on Monday," it said that of the 266 teachers laid off in October, six had served suspensions for corporal punishment, two had been absent without leave on multiple occasions, and one was on administrative leave for allegedly having sex with a student.

So, after asking DCPS about this since Friday–and being promised a response all day Monday–I read the answers in an editorial. Channel 4's Tom Sherwood also had Rhee's explanation on the air Monday.

But it's the disconnect between the editorial page and the news section that I feel requires some kind explanation. So let me try.

The news and opinion columns of The Post are wholly separate and independent operations. This assertion frequently draws a torrent of skepticism, but if this episode does nothing else, it should give the lie to the notion that there is some sort of sinister linkage. I have little-to-no contact with Jo-Ann Armao, who writes The Post's education editorials (full disclosure: Jo-Ann hired me in 2002 when she was the assistant managing editor for metro news; but we're all allowed a lapse of judgment now and then). About the only time we cross paths is at news events involving District education. Jo-Ann is a dogged journalist who pursues her own information.

That includes talking to Chancellor Rhee. And while I don't have their call sheets in front of me, I would wager that the Chancellor talks to Jo-Ann more than she does to me. (After a well-documented period of silence, the Chancellor started taking my calls and e-mails again last summer)

That's fine. Chancellor Rhee can obviously talk to whoever she wants about whatever she wants. While some of my colleagues don't agree, my view is that Jo-Ann isn't responsible for watching my back journalistically any more than I would be expected to align my reporting with her points of view.

The chancellor is clearly more comfortable speaking with Jo-Ann, which is wholly unsurprising. I'm a beat reporter charged with covering, as fully and fairly as I can, an often turbulent story about the chancellor's attempts to fix the District's public schools. The job involves chronicling messy and contentious debates based in both politics and policy, and sometimes publishing information she would rather not see in the public domain.

Jo-Ann, on the other hand, sits on an editorial board whose support for the chancellor has been steadfast, protective and, at times, adoring.

That's what editorial boards do. They form opinions and write about them. People can buy in.

Or not.

Where this gets complicated is that board's stance, and the chancellor's obvious rapport with Jo-Ann, also means that DCPS has a guaranteed soft landing spot for uncomfortable or inconvenient disclosures–kind of a print version of the Larry King Show. This happened last September during the flap over the out-of-boundary admission of Mayor Fenty's twin sons to Lafayette Elementary in Chevy Chase.

The chancellor repeatedly sidestepped questions about whether policies and procedures had been followed to place the kids in the coveted school. A few days after the dust settled, an editorial offered, without attribution, an "innocent explanation": the Fentys neighborhood school, West Elementary, had only one fourth grade class. Lafayette's multiple fourth-grade sections made it possible to separate the twins, which studies show is developmentally desirable.

Are Fenty and Rhee gaming the system by using the editorial page this way? Of course. Is this a healthy thing for readers of The Post? Probably not. Is it going to keep me from doing my job effectively?

Nope.

Not sure if there ever was any grounds for supposing that you'd be safe pulling over along a highway and getting out of your car to watch cars race at blistering speeds. But now that these accidents-waiting-to-happen have happened, there are no grounds whatsoever.

I'll be surprised if the New York Times hasn't shut up the American Medical Association, tort-reformers, and all the others out there who squawk about the problem that lawsuits pose for healt-care costs. The front-pager in today's edition is just a game-changing article, about a long series of medical mistakes in a Philadelphia hospital. The findings are that one unit in this VA hospital bungled 92 of 116 cancer treatments over six years. And that's not even the news. The news is that neither the hospital nor regulators nor other doctors did squat to stop the reign of error. Here's a snippet of about the fallout:

One patient was the Rev. Ricardo Flippin, a 21-year veteran of the Air Force. “I couldn’t walk and I couldn’t stand,” he said, citing rectal pain so severe that he had to remain in bed for six months, losing his church job and his income.

Pastor Flippin first learned of what his doctors called a radiation injury not from the V.A., but from an Ohio hospital where he underwent rectal surgery in 2006 to treat the damage. “There are times when I don’t have control over my bowels,” he said one recent Sunday, after excusing himself during a service at a church in West Virginia where he now preaches.

Post Ombudsman rehashes the story of Bill Turque and Michelle Rhee. Rehashes, you say? Yes, because it's been told before. The D.C. schools chancellor's policy of not speaking to the Post's education beat reporter tells you a lot about this woman—how she's petty, resistant to accountability, stubborn even when she's dead wrong, and needy for attention. Turque is a fine reporter who's never done a damn thing to deserve this treatment. The Post is right to keep him on the beat, and Rhee, in the end, will suffer for this, as she should.

The catchy lede, on why Rhee appeared on the cover of Time mag holding a broom—a cliched pose for a reformer of any institution. Here's the Post's Bill Turque, reporting Rhee's account to D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray of why she allowed this photo to go get shot:

Rhee explained that most of the shoot for the Dec. 8 issue involved images of her with children. The idea for the broom, which she gripped while standing stern-faced in front of a blackboard, came up near the end, she said, according to Gray's version of their meeting. She told Gray that it wasn't her first choice for the cover but that the decision wasn't hers. Gray wasn't satisfied.

"Why did you let the picture be taken in the first place?"

Then comes the nut graph!

Other key points:

*There are pockets of success in a context of continued failure;

*She has confidence in about a third of her principals;

*She has some perspective on herself: "We weren't doing a good job of communicating," she said regarding her too-fast push for change;

*She must kiss the asses of D.C. councilmembers to get the funding she needs;

*Good observation skills by Turque: "Rhee now sits at hearings for hours at a time waiting to speak, per the council tradition that has members of the public appear first. She can be seen fiddling with her BlackBerry, conferring with aides and idly cracking her knuckles, one hand at a time."

The skinny on this Rhee front-pager is that it's a great way for people to catch up on all things Rhee. It's comprehensive and there's fun stuff about the politics of Rheeism. But for dweebs who've been following the twists and turns of the chancellor's reform efforts, not a lot of smashing-new content here.

And now for the official Weekend in Review retrocast: Amazing weekend on the weather front, in all respects. Low humidity, dry after a long wet spell—perfect for just about any kind of outdoor activity. Sun a bit intense during those peak afternoon hours, but hey, this is D.C.

Check out the analysis of ubiquitous sports analyst Dave McKenna on the latest woes of Six Flags. And to think that just after Snyder took that company over, I was seriously considering buying stock. After the way he was so successfully fleecing Redskins fans, I figured, Hey, how can I lose? Good thing I never pulled the trigger on that one.

And speaking of more financial woes, LaVar's restaurant didn't work out so well.

Wouldn't be a weekend roundup without visiting the Washington Times, and this weekend, the editorial staff is really on a hot new topic: tasteless video games!

Rant of the weekend: Yes, the Francis has long been something of a scene, a cruising spot, and so on. But if you're going to take it to the next level and make out and roll around on the concrete and really kinda get into it, you should bring some more padding than just a towel. It can't be that comfortable to mash around like that on that hard concrete surface. Try multiple towels, an inflatable raft, or the grass on the field just outside. Those are more comfy options.