Thursday, April 13, 2006
Facinating Update On Charters From FOCUS
An April Fools Day hearing held by the Board of Education to give the public a chance to weigh in on the idea of consolidating programs and closing schools quickly turned ugly, a string of witnesses characterizing the Board's plan as playing into the hands of "arrogant" whites and "ruthless" charter schools. The Board, under pressure from the Council to cut unneeded school space in exchange for $2.2 billion in facilities funding over the next ten years, had scheduled the hearing as the first step in a "transparent" school closing process by which the Board hopes to reduce its facilities burden by one million square feet this fall and by a total of three million square feet by the fall of 2008. Recent studies have shown that the school system, which has lost 30% of its enrollment since 1996, controls up to six million square feet it doesn't need for its students, most of it in bad repair.
The first of the hostile witnesses, a longtime DCPS teacher, decried the "wholesale marketing and exploitation of minority, mostly black, children by whites and middle class blacks" and the "privilege and arrogance" of D.C.'s white residents, who, she said, care only about their own children. Several witnesses following her, all members of the small but virulent anti-charter group calling itself "Save Our Schools," urged the Board not to close schools "in neighborhoods whose schools are being crushed by public charter schools," which "ruthlessly recruit teachers and students away from DCPS" and "renovate [school buildings] on the backs of D.C. school children." To give in to charters, one said, would be to encourage the District's "power ruling elite," who use "back channels to maintain white privilege."
No Board member challenged the accuracy - or questioned the propriety - of these assertions.
Save Our Schools two years ago tried unsuccessfully to stop Two Rivers Public Charter School from opening on Capitol Hill (where SOS’s founders live) and lately has picketed the D.C. residence of Senator Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and held an anti-charter school "teach-in" at Eastern High School. In published materials, SOS has referred to D.C.'s charter schools as "segregators," relying on a national study purporting to demonstrate that charters can "contribute to segregation by race and class." According to these materials, D.C. charter schools, which by law are public schools run as non-profit corporations by D.C.-resident boards of trustees, are "privately owned and operated" and are in league with condominium developers and others whose actions are "fundamental to the process of gentrification." According to SOS, charters are "not only racist and greedy...[but show] an utter lack of respect for the people of Washington DC."
D.C.'s public school population is largely minority. While about 35% of the general population is white, 95% of the students attending school system schools and 98% of those in charter schools are members of minority groups (almost all black and Hispanic). SOS’s founders are white.
DCPS Interest Groups Gain Delay in Consolidations, Closures
Bowing to pressure from a variety of advocacy groups and individual community members, the Board of Education pulled back from its recent decision to announce on April 15 a list of schools to be consolidated or closed. Instead, the list will be made public when the Board receives the revised Master Facilities Plan from the superintendent on May 15. Community meetings on the MFP will begin on June 5, and the Board will take official action on the Plan on June 28.
The new schedule makes it likely that few, if any, charter schools will be able to occupy vacated DCPS space next fall.
PermaLink | 1:56 PM |
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The first of the hostile witnesses, a longtime DCPS teacher, decried the "wholesale marketing and exploitation of minority, mostly black, children by whites and middle class blacks" and the "privilege and arrogance" of D.C.'s white residents, who, she said, care only about their own children. Several witnesses following her, all members of the small but virulent anti-charter group calling itself "Save Our Schools," urged the Board not to close schools "in neighborhoods whose schools are being crushed by public charter schools," which "ruthlessly recruit teachers and students away from DCPS" and "renovate [school buildings] on the backs of D.C. school children." To give in to charters, one said, would be to encourage the District's "power ruling elite," who use "back channels to maintain white privilege."
No Board member challenged the accuracy - or questioned the propriety - of these assertions.
Save Our Schools two years ago tried unsuccessfully to stop Two Rivers Public Charter School from opening on Capitol Hill (where SOS’s founders live) and lately has picketed the D.C. residence of Senator Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and held an anti-charter school "teach-in" at Eastern High School. In published materials, SOS has referred to D.C.'s charter schools as "segregators," relying on a national study purporting to demonstrate that charters can "contribute to segregation by race and class." According to these materials, D.C. charter schools, which by law are public schools run as non-profit corporations by D.C.-resident boards of trustees, are "privately owned and operated" and are in league with condominium developers and others whose actions are "fundamental to the process of gentrification." According to SOS, charters are "not only racist and greedy...[but show] an utter lack of respect for the people of Washington DC."
D.C.'s public school population is largely minority. While about 35% of the general population is white, 95% of the students attending school system schools and 98% of those in charter schools are members of minority groups (almost all black and Hispanic). SOS’s founders are white.
DCPS Interest Groups Gain Delay in Consolidations, Closures
Bowing to pressure from a variety of advocacy groups and individual community members, the Board of Education pulled back from its recent decision to announce on April 15 a list of schools to be consolidated or closed. Instead, the list will be made public when the Board receives the revised Master Facilities Plan from the superintendent on May 15. Community meetings on the MFP will begin on June 5, and the Board will take official action on the Plan on June 28.
The new schedule makes it likely that few, if any, charter schools will be able to occupy vacated DCPS space next fall.
PermaLink | 1:56 PM |
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