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.
It's high school graduation season here in the nation's capital which means two things: ridiculous crowds outside Constitution Hall all day, every day; and the publication of Education Week's graduation issue. It's the latter that is causing greater concern because contained in the June 11 edition are the results of the magazine's ten-year analysis of [...]
Since he moved last month to hold $27 million from the D.C. Public Schools budget over an enrollment dispute, Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray has been pleading for an answer to a simple question: Where are the schoolchildren that DCPS is projecting will enroll this fall—more than 3,000 more than if longstanding trends hold—going to [...]
Last week, on his way out of the door for a long weekend, LL threw up a post about how D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, faced with threats from the D.C. Council to cut $27 million from her fiscal 2010 budget over an enrollment dispute, had sent letters to her principals telling them that [...]
Yesterday, Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee dispatched letters to principals of DCPS schools informing them that their budgets next year stand to be cut, pending the D.C. Council's decision to put a hold on some $27 million due to concerns about possibly inflated enrollment projections. The letters included specific per-school figures on amount of money and [...]
The Office of the State Superintendent of Education has been getting a personnel overhaul this month, LL has learned. Several top deputies to Deborah Gist, who left the OSSE post for a state superintendent's job in Rhode Island earlier this year, have resigned or been forced out in the past two weeks.
The moves come ahead [...]
The Washington Post's Alan Goldenbach is reporting that Troy Mathieu, who took over as athletic director for the D.C. Public Schools not 10 months ago.
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 [...]
D.C. Public Schools students are used to doing without certain resources, but students at Bell Multicultural High School and Lincoln Middle School yesterday did without a rather essential one: water. A water line break left the schools with minimal running water starting in the mid-morning. Students were kept in class during the outage.
The two schools, [...]
Yesterday, after the D.C. Council voted to hold back on some $27 million in D.C. Public Schools funding, Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee wasted no time writing a nastygram [PDF] to Vincent C. Gray and his colleagues.
The letter laid out all the money that would have to be pulled from schools—itemized and broken down by ward. [...]
Looks like Vince-'n'-Victor show has turned into a bit more than a show. More than that, it looks like the baseball ticket feud between the council and Mayor Adrian M. Fenty has given way to conflict much more substantive.
According to a budget report released tonight, Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray is proposing to cut the [...]
Last month, LL covered the sizable personality conflict between D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray and Deputy Mayor for Education Victor Reinoso.
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 [...]
The world-record holder for most consecutive kisses in a minute is no longer employed by the District of Columbia.
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 [...]
The Washington Teachers' Union is airing radio ads and launching a Web site to promote their teachers contract proposal, according to press release just issued by the union.
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 [...]
Accompanying yesterday's Washington Post story on DCPS student discipline was this photo, taken by Sarah L. Voisin:
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!
An Eckington charter high school will close by February's end, parents were informed today.
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 [...]
