Well, we've got about 11 months before the all-important 2010 District of Columbia primaries. Just enough time, in other words, for candidates to gather some early information on how they stand with the city's electorate.

Which means polls!

Two of which City Desk has gotten some details on over the past couple of days. Details below.

Poll #1
The call starts off with a woman who mouths a line that sounds as if it had come straight from Mayor Adrian M. Fenty: Since the mayor took control of the schools, test scores have gone way up, but we still have a lot of work to do, according to an individual who received the poll this afternoon.

Shortly thereafter comes the question: Would you support Mr. Fenty for re-election? The respondent is asked how strongly or lamely he or she supports or opposes the mayor. "It felt like a push poll, especially with the talk of the schools," says a pollee.

Poll #2
This call appears to come from anti-Fenty interests, as it tests lines of attack against the incumbent. The polling person says something along the lines of: "I'm going to say some statements that opponents of Adrian Fenty are likely to say during the upcoming election. Please answer if these statements would make you much less likely to vote for him, somewhat less likely, or no impact."

The poll then gives this example of such an attack:

"Adrian Fenty only recently moved his kids from private to public school."

Then come the scenarios, in which the polling person asks who you'd favor in a number of races, including Fenty v. D.C. Council Chairman Vince Gray, Fenty v. At-Large Councilmember Kwame Brown, and Fenty v. Unknown Businessman.

This poll, says a source, features 40 to 50 questions and takes around 15 minutes.

DEAR READERS: PLEASE FILL THE COMMENTS SECTION WITH YOUR RECENT POLLING EXPERIENCES!

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

While this information is certainly cause for alarm, it does not accurately reflect the District's school system because the data specifically ignores the graduation rates of public charter schools, which, according to Friends of Choice in Urban Schools, is 24 percent higher than other public schools in D.C.  The data was also derived between 1996 and 2006, before Michelle Rhee came in to revamp the school system. Since then, graduation rates have risen but not drastically enough to signify a complete turnaround.  After all, the Obamas and other important figures in this city have rarely considered sending their children to public schools, favoring expensive private schools with plenty of resources or more stable public schools in the suburbs.

Speaking of suburbs, the discrepancy between the District's graduation rates and the graduation rates of neighboring school districts in Maryland and Virginia is truly astounding. A chart published on Education Week's Web site lists the graduation rates of the 50 largest school districts in the nation, and Montgomery County, Maryland, leads the country with a graduation rate of 80.7 percent.  Fairfax County Public Schools posts a graduation rate of 78.8 percent.  Location is by no means the only determinant in school success but access to resources and attention certainly make a difference.  D.C. is trying to keep up by developing more charter schools and closing underenrolled schools in order to save money, but something needs to be done in order to drag the city schools out of the depths.

Now Gray's crowing, because he says DCPS Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee has admitted he has a point in a letter sent to him yesterday.

In the letter, Rhee cites the work of independent researchers in coming up with the projections, but writes, "I understand your hesitance to accept the projected increase in enrollment....Based upon the assumptions we outlined...we believe we have sound evidence and data to suggest that DCPS's enrollment of October 2009 will increase slightly....However, as I shared with you Friday, I cannot guarantee that this will occur."

Gray sees vindication therein: "Basically, what I think it says is [that] I think we'll be proven right on the number," Gray said this morning at the council breakfast meeting. "It says in a lot of words that they don't know where 3,073 people are coming from."

As for a modus vivendi, a compromise has been fashioned: The council will vote today to restore DCPS funding on the October 2008 enrollment figure---meaning DCPS is free to spend about $24 million of the $27 million that council had threatened to place in escrow. The remaining $3 million will be set aside pending an audit of the fall enrollment.

For next year, however, Rhee and Gray have agreed to work together to "develop a uniform method by which enrollment projections will be completed by both DCPS and the charter schools." That would aim to end the inequity in the mechanics of charter funding versus DCPS funding: Charters have to refund money accepted due to overprojections, but DCPS doesn't.

Therein, LL asked a couple of questions: Why cut teachers first? Aren't there central-office savings to be reaped?

This week, some answers came to those questions, from DCPS spokesperson Jennifer Calloway. "DCPS has cut the central office budget to the bare minimum," she writes in a statement, "reducing spending over the past 2 years while significantly increasing funding going directly to schools."

"Central office," by the way, is shorthand for all school-system functionaries who aren't directly serving students in schools---not just those who work at DCPS headquarters at 825 North Capitol Street. And if the central office has indeed been cut to the bone, Rhee will have accomplished quite something.

As LL detailed in a fall 2007 cover story, superintendents have been railing about a bloated DCPS headquarters for years. Rhee was granted the ability in late 2007 to fire central office employees at will; on one day last March, she fired nearly 100 employees working at 825 North Capitol.

Calloway points out that the proposed 2010 budget includes about $138 million in central office spending; $110 million of that are for "fixed costs" that include "utilities, food services, security, student data systems, payroll, human resources and procurement."

Then there's the matter of stimulus money. In the Fenty administration's initial request for stimulus dollars, schools were made a top priority.

So why not tap some of that money? That, according to Bill Turque in the Washington Post, is what council Chairman Vincent C. Gray has been suggesting.

Calloway says that DCPS is entitled to $29.4 million in stimulus funds for next year, and that money has "already been rolled into the per-pupil funding formula" for the year. "This money is not an independent piece of the overall budget that can be reallocated at will," she writes. As for an additional $42 million in federal funds from the education department, she says, "We presented the federal government with a proposal that included specific innovations and reforms; therefore it is not an option to use the funds for other purposes."

The budget tussle is set to come to a head Tuesday, when budget legislation comes up for a second and final vote---and Rhee's savvy politicking is put to the test.

"Ultimately, if the Council makes the decision that DCPS enrollment will be at 42,000 students," Calloway writes, "the only responsible action we can take is to staff to that number."

"As you know," the letter starts, "the DC City Council has proposed an amendment to set aside $27.5 million from the DCPS budget for the upcoming 2009-2010 school year.....In this smaller budget, the budget of [SCHOOL NAME] will be reduced by [DOLLAR AMOUNT], that is [NUMBER] teacher positions....I am hopeful that this situation can be rectified, however. We feel that the proposed amendment is based on inaccurate information, and we are working with Council in hopes that this can be corrected prior to the vote."

Here's the big question: Why would you cut the teachers first? Aren't there central-office savings to be reaped somewhere? Or is this just the most expedient way of fomenting outrage at the council's move?

The moves come ahead of next week's council confirmation hearing for Gist's replacement, former federal education official Kerri L. Briggs (pictured).

"They're cleaning house, getting rid of whole divisions," one person familiar with the changes tells LL. Prior to her departure, Gist was said to be unhappy with efforts to move traditional state-level responsibilities for educational oversight out of her agency.

The departed employees, LL is told, include several folks who were hired by or close to Gist. They include: John Parham, deputy superintendent of business and support services; Kevin Clinton, the agency's chief financial officer; Khaled Falah, the chief information officer; Shanika Hope, assistant superintendent for school improvement; Gloria Benjamin, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction; Glenda Partee, formerly assistant superintendent of post secondary and workforce readiness. Also terminated were several members of the agency's accountability and testing team, including William Caritj, who was widely recognized as the top expert in the city on interpreting student testing.

Said one employee fired last week, "They come very two weeks and take a whole bunch of people. They seem to be downsizing to a very tight K-12-focused state education agency." The firings, by several accounts, have happened swiftly and without warning, with employees told to gather their belongings and leave within minutes.

Mayoral spokesperson Mafara Hobson would not provide an accounting of departed employees or any explanation for the personnel moves. "These are all simply personnel matters," she writes in an e-mail.

Mathieu had come form the top athletic post at Grambling State University in Louisiana, and had overseen athletics programs for the Dallas public schools.

The key portion of Goldenbach's report:

A source who has worked closely with Mathieu said it became difficult for him to enact change due to the structure of the DCPS administration.

"He has so many people over him that it's impossible to do anything," the source said. "The problem with this job is, nobody is going to allow you to make any major moves because they just want to save their job."

That'll be a tough thing to hear for a city administration supposedly devoted to cutting bureaucracy---especially at DCPS headquarters.

The two schools, together the "Columbia Heights Education Campus," are among the newest facilities in the school system. Without working toilets, students were escorted by administrators, teachers, and security guards to use restrooms at the nearby Target and Capital City Charter School.

Candi Peterson, a school counselor (not at Bell or Lincoln) and union activist, blogged about the incident this morning, and Jennifer Calloway, a DCPS spokesperson, confirms this afternoon that there was a "major inconvenience" for the schools.

Calloway explains in an e-mail that "protecting valuable instruction time and the lack of notice for parents to arrange alternative childcare prompted our decision to keep school open." Everything, she reports, is back to normal today.

Peterson complains that "[d]espite not having...optimal sanitary conditions, lunch was still served to students on schedule which was a cause for alarm for some especially given recent outbreaks of the swine flu and other potential viruses." Calloway says that because "food was already prepared before the water was turned off, sanitation protocol was not affected."

"Our first priority," she writes, "is always the safety and well-being of our students."

The letter laid out all the money that would have to be pulled from schools---itemized and broken down by ward. (Smart move: Hey, Harry Thomas, want to explain to your constituents why you voted to cut $3.9 million from Ward 5 schools?)

This wasn't the first letter Rhee had sent Gray and the council.

Last week, she had sent another missive [PDF], asking the council to reconsider its moves to cut the budget of the Deputy Mayor of Education's office and to remove the State Board of Education from the Office of the State Superintendent of Education. Rhee says the council moves, which were ratified yesterday, "begin to erode the structure established by and the progress which has ensued under" school reform legislation passed in 2007.

Much of the letter concerns the decision to take the Interagency Collaboration and Service Integration Commission (aka ICSIC---"ick-sick") out of DME Victor Reinoso's shop and put it in the DCPS Office of Youth Engagement. That office, Rhee writes, "is building twilight programs, student attendance and truancy initiatives, and the Youth Engagement Academy," and as such "cannot take on the additional responsibilities of ICSIC without diverting its focus from these other important initiatives." Better, she says, to leave it with Reinoso, where it "has the force of the Mayor's office to coordinate across agencies and the dedicated focus and resources which would otherwise be lost in the day-to-day functions of another agency."

Rhee also takes issue with the council's move to pump up the SBOE's independence, saying it is "likely to lessen the policy focus of the Board and create the temptation to micromanage" and claiming that moving the school ombudsman's office under their aegis "is likely to politicize" that operation.

In closing, she writes, "we need to continue our progress within the structure and the time line promulgated by the Act. It is too early to turn back."

Full letter after the jump.

May 5, 2009

The Honorable Vincent C. Gray, Chairman
Council of the District of Columbia
1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, Suite 504
Washington D.C. 20004

Dear Chairman Gray:

I respectfully ask you to reconsider the recommendations made by the Committee of the Whole ("COW"), which begin to erode the structure established by and the progress which has ensued under the Public Education Reform Amendment Act ("the Act"). In April 2007, the Council took the bold step of passing the Act and giving the Mayor control of the public school system. At its heart, the Act sought to improve student achievement by clearly defining the various functions of the different educational agencies and affording time for the reform to occur. More specifically, the Council was explicit in its desire to create an environment that allowed the District of Columbia Public Schools ("DCPS") to focus on the central business of the teaching and learning, in part by protecting the school system from functions that served to distract from this singular focus. Even more importantly, the Council wisely established a five-year commitment to measure the success of the new governance structure. The multi-year time frame acknowledged what we know: Real change and real results take time.

Last week, the COW recommended changes which undo key components of the Act. If adopted by the Council, the COW's recommendations will undercut the defined structure, the dedicated focus and the five-year timeframe established by the Act. These changes will be particularly challenging less than two years into our collective reform efforts. The recommendations also move away from the structure and focus of the Act, which charged other entities with assuming responsibilities once entrusted, but often ignored, by DCPS.

We are beginning to see the results of some initiatives embedded in the Act, such as the Interagency Collaboration and Service Integration Commission ("ICSIC"). Among its many accomplishments in the first 18 months, ICSIC has launched DC START, the District's first evidence-based early intervention program aimed at reducing the number of children and families who slip into crisis; led to the receipt of federal grant dollars for school emergency preparation and planning and provided innovative training for MPD School Resource Officers; produced a Children's Health Action Plan and begun work on a citywide school health strategy; and created a vetting program that has increased the quality of afterschool programs provided by community-based partners in schools together around a common agenda focused on shared challenges and results. The impact of providing these "wrap around services" to our children is significant.

I attribute the success of ICSIC in large part to the fact that the Deputy Mayor of Education ("DME") has the force of the Mayor's office to coordinate across agencies and the dedicated focus and resources which would otherwise be lost in the day-to-day functions of another agency. This model has been proven in both the private and public sector. It is proving itself in the District.

At this time, DCPS has neither the dedicated focus nor ability to continue this important work at this level. The Office of Youth Engagement ("OYE"), which the COW has proposed to oversee ICSIC, has existed for only a few short months. OYE is building twilight programs, student attendance and truancy initiatives, and the Youth Engagement Academy. Next year, OYE will take on the mammoth task of implementing the new student discipline policy. At this time, it cannot take on the additional responsibilities of ICSIC without diverting its focus from these other important initiatives.

I also question the COW's recommendation to move the Office of the Ombudsperson to an expanded office of the State Board of Education. At its current staffing level, the State Board of Education has clearly focused on state policy level functions such as adopting academic standards and state rules in key areas like attendance, residency and truancy. The proposed increase to 18, including the Ombudsman office, positions is beyond the staffing for other comparable state boards and likely to lessen the policy focus of the Board and create the temptation to micromanage. I believe the transfer of the Ombudsman to an expanded State Board is likely to politicize the Ombudsman's office that has responded to over 1,000 parent and community concerns.

Chairman Gray, we need to continue our progress within the structure and the time line promulgated by the Act. It is too early to turn back. I respectfully ask that you reconsider the changes proposed in the COW's recommendations relative to the Fiscal Year 2010 Budget.

Michelle A. Rhee
Chancellor

Cc: Mayor Adrian M. Fenty
Members of the Council of the District of Columbia

According to a budget report released tonight, Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray is proposing to cut the office of Deputy Mayor for Education Victor Reinoso by some 80 percent. Where the mayor had proposed a $4.04 million budget for the office, Gray is proposing outlaying only $778,000 for the office. He proposes taking the office from 21 employees down to seven.

In other big news, all the lobbying by charter schools and their advocates has paid off: Gray's looking to restore $16.7 million to the charter facilities budget (though not the full $24 million). Where did the council find much of the money to do so? From Fenty's beloved summer jobs program.

The proposed reduction in the deputy mayor's budget corresponds to a movement of various functions out of Reinoso's shop and into others. Some agency oversight functions are being transferred to the State Superintendent of Education; the Interagency Collaboration and Service Integration Commission and its $2.3 million budget is being sent to the DCPS Office of Youth Engagement; and the schools ombudsman will fall under the State Board of Education's purview.

As for charter facilities funding, under the committee plan, the method of funding will remain the same for another year, delaying the mayoral effort to move to a "cost-based" system. However, the formula will decrease from $3,100 per student to $2,800 per student.

If you think mayor-council relations were bad before, consider this a declaration of all-out war. Gray is taking direct aim at what Fenty considers the cornerstone of his mayoral legacy: public education reform. Reinoso was tasked with being Fenty's big-picture, behind-the-scenes guy responsible for steering the whole educational ship in the District, from early education to charter schools to facilities management to DCPS to UDC. But Gray never saw much strategic direction out of Reinoso's office, and it didn't help that Reinoso repeatedly clashed with Gray when he testified before him---if he testified at all.

That's borne out by the report, which reads, "[S]ince the creation of the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education, no statewide education strategy has been created or established, even though approximately $2 billion is invested annually in public education in the District of Columbia, not including the District’s educational facilities capital program....The Committee is concerned that there is a continuing environment of uncoordinated efforts, initiatives, and budgets between early childhood education, the traditional public schools and charter schools, and the University of the District of Columbia, as well as the strategic planning of educational facilities for all public education sectors."

The slap being delivered by raiding the Summer Youth Employment Program for $10 million is even more vicious for who is delivering it: Marion Barry, the father of the summer jobs program and current chair of the committee on housing and workforce development. It's rare for a committee chair to willingly give up a huge chunk of the budget under his oversight, but make no mistake that Barry considers it worth it to send a message to Fenty.

The plan is still subject to a vote by the full council---this is the committee of the whole, after all---but expect Vince to have the votes on this one.

UPDATE, 12:30 A.M.: After having a closer look at the COW report, LL realizes he may have buried the lede. Gray is proposing to essentially triple the proposed budget of the State Board of Education and to make it "a separate entity within the District of Columbia Government, with sufficient resources and staff to fulfill its important mission." That responds to concerns that, under the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, the board did not have sufficient institutional distance from executive functions of government. But before you start thinking this is the second coming of Peggy Cooper Cafritz, read this: "No additional roles, responsibilities or authority over educational decisionmaking will be assumed by the Board as a result of this transition."

Another item of note: Gray has found $5.4 million in his proposal to fully fund the "Pre-K for All" legislation passed by the council last year. The report had strong words for the gap in the mayor's budget plan: "Disappointed is a mild description of the Council’s response to the failure of OSSE and this Administration to honor its commitment to the expansion and enhancement of pre-kindergarten (pre-k) services to District residents."

The conflict remains.

On Tuesday, Reinoso showed up before Gray for his office's budget hearing. Among the topics discussed was the charter school facility allotment, which is, rather controversially, being cut by $24 million. Gray and Reinoso discussed the topic for more than 15 minutes, and Gray seemed satisified enough with the answers that he invited Reinoso to attend the hearing on the charter schools budget two days later.

Reinoso, though, had a hard time committing to that date. He kept telling Gray that he'd confirm the next day; Gray didn't understand why he couldn't just give a yes-or-no answer. "Is that a decision you can make independently?" he asked Reinoso, who sheepishly replied that it was. [Watch the hearing, WMV format, forward to 3:07:50]

Fast forward to yesterday's hearing, where, surprise, Reinoso doesn't show.

"I'm gonna begin this portion of our hearing in a bit of an unusual manner," Gray began. He explained that he had asked Reinoso to attend the hearing, but because he hadn't heard back as promised, he called the deputy mayor's office. "We're told that since he had been the acting city administrator last week, he needed to take a couple of days off. So he is not at work today, and tomorrow presumably. So what I decided to do is something a little bit different from what we do here. Rather than just wringing my hands and decry the fact that he's not here to be able to talk on this issue, we took the time to excerpt portions of the hearing yesterday."

Gray then played the 15-plus-minute clip from Tuesday, complete with the scheduling squabble. [Watch the hearing, WMV format, forward to 00:01:30]

Applause and chuckles greeted Gray when the clip ended. "Well, there you have it!" he said, before engaging in some of that hand-wringing. "I think what is especially bothersome to me is that, if one was going to be off, you could have said that earlier in the conversation---that I can't be there because I'm not going to be at work on Thursday or Friday. Which, of course, would leave some cynic to believe that you decided that you were gonna be off Thursday or Friday after this exchange."

Said Gray before moving on to the rest of the hearing, "I think it would have been better if we could have had the deputy mayor here to present it himself, but, one step short of it, we had him on video, whether he chose to be or not."

WaPo's Bill Turque is reporting that State Superintendent of Education Deborah Gist has resigned to take a similar top job with an actual state---Rhode Island, to be precise.

Turque includes some fun stuff about tensions over Gist's role in the District's newfangled edubureaucracy:

While her agency took on increased responsibilities for special education, charter schools and compliance with federal laws, her influence was limited by her peculiar status under the terms of the mayoral takeover in which she was, in effect, a state superintendent without a state. Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee, a Fenty appointee, has been the dominant force in school reform. On the District's organizational chart, Gist actually reported to [Deputy Mayor Victor Reinoso].

At one point she asserted that she had authority over Rhee's plans to restructure the management of schools deemed to be failing under the federal No Child Left Behind Law, but she was later overruled by District lawyers. Last year, she was forbidden by Fenty to discuss teacher certification policy with a Post reporter.

Gist will be replaced by former assistant education secretary Kerri L. Briggs, Turque reports.

From the release: "The first radio ad features the voices of two current DC public school teachers and highlights the need for innovative and collaborative solutions to fix education in Washington. The Web site [unitedfordckids.org] is a location where visitors can see highlights of the WTU proposal, stream the radio ads and other media, sign up for e‐mail updates, and read the latest news related to the contract proposal."

Last month, the WTU issued a counter-plan to DCPS Chancellor Michelle Rhee's famous/infamous Green Tier/Red Tier plan that would reward teachers who discard their tenure rights with significantly higher salaries. The WTU plan's gotten fairly light coverage, certainly relative to the attention Rhee's plan has gotten, so it's no surprise that the union honchos are trying to generate some heat here.

A glance at the Web site shows that the WTU is dipping into the Rhee lexicon in describing its plan, calling the proposal "bold and progressive" and promising that it will "dramatically improve teaching and learning in our schools."

LL's trying to track down some more details on the campaign.

UPDATE, 1 P.M.: The Web site domain is registered to Adelstein Liston, political consulting firm with offices in Chicago and D.C. Among their specialties, according to their Web site: "Message Development" and "Media Buying and Strategy." Their client list features almost exclusively Democratic political candidates and liberal-leaning activist groups.

UPDATE, 3:50 P.M.: WTU spokesperson Monique LeNoir says the ads have already started airing on local radio stations including WMAL-AM, WAMU-FM (which doesn't run pre-recorded ads...hmm), WHUR-FM, WPGC-FM, and WMMJ-FM "in mornings, significant times when members and the public can hear them." As far as Adelstein Liston's involvement, she says, they produced the Web site only; the radio ads were done in-house. LeNoir declined to give a dollar figure for the campaign.

It needs a caption!

Perhaps: "Is it raining in here?" or "Red tier, green tier? Red tier, green tier? Red tier, green tier?"

Or something else entirely---put it in the comments!

City Lights Public Charter School, which was founded in 2005 to serve special-needs children of high school age, sent a letter today explaining that the decision to close comes after "notice from the DC government that the school's funding is being reduced and that this reduction raised significant issues regarding the school's budget and its ability to operate."

[UPDATE, 5:30 P.M.: LL is told that the school was unable to prove District residency for some students during an audit, leading to a serious reduction in its anticipated per-pupil funding.]

Executive Director Iris Lewis, who wrote the letter, was not immediately available for comment. Nona Richardson, a spokesperson for the Public Charter School Board, which oversees City Lights, says the school's financial difficulties are "related to enrollment." LL is told According to PCSB statistics [PDF], City Lights enrolled 62 kids in fall 2007; only one senior graduated the following spring.

A recent PCSB review of the school was critical in a number of areas. City Lights, the board found, had "no overarching curricular framework reflecting [its] academic and nonacademic goals." It also found problems with staff turnover and an "urgent need...for certified special education teachers. Currently, there are none on staff." In addition, the school was found not to have "sufficient systems to collect, record and analyze student academic data and gauge success in the academic and nonacademic goals" and that "very little in terms of academic and behavioral curriculum policies and procedures are written down."

The school was issued a notice of probation in March 2008 for "deficiencies in its services to special needs students." It was lifted by June.

Richardson says that the vast majority of students at City Lights are "high-level special-needs kids" and are likely to be placed though D.C. Public Schools. A community forum will be announced next week, she says, "which will lay out for parents what had happened and what the next steps are."

Letter is after the jump.

January 23, 2009

Dear City Lights PCS Parents and Guardians,

City Lights Public Charter School wanted to notify you that the school has received notice from the DC government that the school's funding is being reduced and that this reduction raised significant issues regarding the school's budget and its ability to operate. Regrettably, the City Lights PCS Board of Trustees in consultation with me as the school's Executive Director and Ron Holmes, our Chief Financial Officer, has determined that it is necessary for the school to cease operations and close. The school will remain open in order to transition our students. We anticipate that this transition will be completed no later than the end of February, with the goal of completing the transition over the next two weeks. City Lights PCS wants to assure you that our paramount concern is ensuring that the educational needs of our students continue to be met with minimal disruption.
The school has had various conversations with the DC government agencies that provide the school's funding and oversight and is continuing its discussions with these agencies. We recognize the serious repercussions for our students and are making every effort to minimize disruption. We are actively exploring with the DC government what options may be available, including placement options for our students. We will update the City Lights PCS community on this process as it moves forward and if you have questions in the meantime regarding your child's particular situation, you may contact the City Lights PCS administrative office at 202-832-4366. As I noted above, our students' educational needs remain our paramount concern as we work through this difficult juncture.

Iris Lewis, M.Ed.
Executive Director

cc: City Light PCS Board of Trustees