The School Libraries Project

More than a year ago, I became involved in the School Libraries Project (SLP), a non-profit supported by the Capitol Hill Community Foundation as well as DCPS. Realizing that the disrepair of our public schools included the libraries, a group of concerned parents on the Hill took matters into their own hands and began raising money to renovate the libraries in neighborhood schools such as Brent, J.O. Wilson and Peabody. On October 24th, the final library will be complete, capping a multi-year effort that highlighted the commitment of an entire community to solve a serious problem.



As good as this project is, it serves only one neighborhood and eight schools. Thousands of children around our city deserve to have quality libraries. SLP is one of the few public school successes ocurring before the launch of Mayor Fenty's aggressive school reform plan. IT is also one that needs to be expanded.



Parents and residents in neighborhoods all across the city have a great example in SLP to see what their own schools can become. I encourage you to visit SLP and see for yourself. It truly is a model we should strive for as a city. My hat goes off to Todd Cymrot, Suzanne Wells, Catherine Townsend and many other parents who made this vision come to life.

The Importance of Quality Administration

DCPS Chancellor Michelle Rhee is working around the clock to improve our schools and give children in the District the same educational opportunities that students have in our surrounding suburbs. In a recent YouTube video, she discussed her frustration with our schools, describing the disconnect between the quality of education and the perception of the problem held by many parents. For example, she discussed a school with only 10 percent proficiency among students, but the main concern of the parents was the potential closing of the building.



Examples such of this are very troubling, because lack of understanding about the state of our education system can lead to increased barriers when Ms. Rhee is trying to make drastic changes. The biggest challenge she faces now is her attempt to remove underperforming administrators and reorganize the structure of DCPS. Certain residents have protested her attempts to fire hundreds of current DCPS employees, but while the political battle turns to protecting jobs, the kids continue to be neglected.



Ms. Rhee has an excellent plan to reform our schools. Our focus must remain on giving students the best education possible. I urge residents of DC to work together to support Ms. Rhee in her endeavour. She deserves the chance to succeed, and we need her to be successful.

An Old School Fathers Day

All around the country, fathers and their kids celebrated their unconditional love for each other on Fathers Day. Unfortunately, for many in the District of Columbia, children are without fathers. In some cases, dads are in jail or were murdered. In other cases, they simple choose not to be a part of their kids' lives and upbringing. No matter the reason, Fathers Day should remind us that many youth of this city desperately need our help.


The government cannot create fathers. All the money in the world will not create never-formed or broken bonds. But several groups of courageous and dedicated black men in the District have come together to create organizations that mentor children and steer them away from violence and crime. Yesterday, two such groups, Peaceoholics and Cease Fire, held a special Fathers Day cookout and baseball game for kids whose fathers are not there for them.


The baseball game featured my team, the "new school" Peaceoholics, coached by co-founders Jauhar Abraham and Ronald Motten, against the "old school" Madness, coached by Cease Fire founder Al-Malik Farrakhan. We were sure we were going to win, but at the end of the game, we were beaten by the "old school" brothers 20-0!!! I have never been so surprised, but Al-Malik fielded an amazing team.


Today, I was reminded again of two things:

1) There are great people doing great things in this community, doing everything they can to save and support our youth.

2) Respect our elders. Not only do they have the ability to make a difference in our community, but they are very good at baseball!

The Art of Risk Taking

Our mayor now has the future of more than 55,000 school children in his hands. We knew all along that this new governance structure was not going to support the status quo, and on Tuesday we were proven right. As soon as he could, Clifford Janey was sacked in favor of a seemingly untested 37-year old who started a non-profit whose mission is to improve urban public schools with out-of-the-box thinking. Questions have arisen about Michelle Rhee's qualifications, but DC has had "qualified" superintendents for the last 20 years, and look where that has gotten us, in a race to the bottom.

Mayor Fenty is certainly taking a risk by appointing Ms. Rhee, an accomplished and successful professional, but one who has never run a school system. But to the naysayers, I urge DC stakeholders to give her a chance and to do everything possible to support her success. Her success will be our success, for our children will get the education they deserve.


I don't have a crystal ball, but I applaud the Mayor for taking the road "less traveled by," and for pushing change. This appointment is certainly symbolic of the transformation of this city. New blood, energy, creative thinking. All hallmarks of success. We will all be watching to see if the execution is as good as the idea.

Reflections from a Town Hall

Last night I attended an Education Town Hall in Ward 8 hosted by Mayor Fenty. The auditorium had no air conditioning and was extremely hot, letting residents experience what their children have to go through attending classes. But the place was packed, as parents and activists alike filled the room to let their views be heard.

There were multiple tables at the meeting, each one with a facilitator who helped participants offer their ideas. Each table came up with their top ideas and presented them to the Mayor who guided the entire forum. I was very impressed with the efficiency and effectiveness of this model and its ability to draw opinions out of residents.

Ideas ranging from increased security to more busing to more parental involvement were discussed at each table and ultimately presented to the Mayor. Whether or not the Mayor takes all of these ideas and puts them into practice is up to him and his staff, but the fact that he shows up and wants to hear what residents have to say goes a long way. I look forward to attending more of these and encourage city residents to do the same.

Plagarism, Policy and Protection

The news last week that the Fenty administration took verbage, word for word, in its draft education plan from school system plans of other cities should not come as much of a surprise. The Mayor and his team specifically expressed that they were using best practices to make up the bulk of the school takeover implementation. Using best practices is an excellent way to find a solution that works, and an academic citing the work of others is completely acceptable. Unfortunately, this work was not attributed.

Fenty's gaffe is serious, but should not be used to criticize his administration's education policy. The Mayor is well-intentioned and wants a stellar public education system in Washington, DC. He made a mistake, now let him move on so that we can help our kids. What really worries me, though, is that blame is being put squarely on the shoulders of Victor Reinoso. Note that in an earlier blog I wrote about the risk to the oversight of DCPS if Reinoso had to spend most of his time facing attacks that had little to do with the day-to-day operation of schools. It looks as if we are facing that right now. Here is my blog from 4/5/07:

I haven't seen much publicly written about this topic yet, and criticism
has not really been aired citywide, but I would like to offer some advice. In
New York, when people attack Joel Klein, Mayor Bloomberg immediately rushes
to his defense. After all, Mayor Bloomberg is really the person in charge,
and he needs to take the heat so that the Chancellor can do his job without
distractions.Mayor Fenty needs to do the same thing with Mr. Reinoso if it
ever gets to that point. It will be some time before we can objectively rate
the job that Mr. Reinoso is doing, so let's not make predictions or launch
ad homonym attacks. Only the children will suffer if the new education
system falls prey to politics and public relations.

We are now at "that point." Now is the time for Mayor Fenty to ensure that Victor Reinoso is protected so he can effectively manage DCPS. We all know that plagarism is wrong, but let's put our childeren first and let the Deputy Mayor for Education concentrate on the job of educating our children.

More Ways to Fix the Schools cont'd

As promised, I have added additional tactics that I think will enhance the efficiency of our schools and provide teachers and administrators with increased resources to put toward educating students. Let's try these on for size:

DCPS should work closely with the rest of the DC government to move from a human resource system relying on paper to the electronic system that is used by other city agencies. Under the current structure, records are lost and sometimes destroyed, leading to inaccurate budgeting and disgruntled employees. People may become lost in the system and sometimes never even accounted for. It was also recently discovered in a limited survey that the average teacher looses at least one day of classroom time due to personnel matters. With electronic records, this could easily be solved.

DC Government should help DCPS streamline the partnership process for both government and private grants. While the District has a long-established system to solicit, accept and process grants, DCPS currently stands without a policy. This is a cause for concern because it provides no road map for spending grant money and likely causes DCPS to lose out on millions of dollars that are donated elsewhere.

Channel 99, also known as DC Schools Television, is ineffective and lacks the funds to provide real value to students. The Office of Cable Television should serve as a program partner with Channel 99 to bring real Career Technology Education into the schools. By allowing Channel 99 to share resources with other government channels, it will give producers the ability to enhance programming across the board.

More Ways to Fix the Schools

My good friend, Kris Benjamin, and I had a converstion the other day. Kris is one of the most dedicacted and sincere local activists I know, and she had several very good ideas to fix the mess at DCPS. While everybody is focused on structure, here are some concrete changes that can be implemented immediately in her opinion. She is a former employee of DCPS and I think her ideas carry lots of merit:

Shared resources of MPD and D.C. School security will provide solutions in addressing school security concerns, and relieve teachers from the burden of being in class referees.

Coordinating programs between Parks and Recreation, the Libraries and DCPS will help move children from schools to other constructive activities and will decrease the time a student spends idle. After-school hours are the times children are likely to commit crimes or be victim to a crime.

A better management of construction authority can coordinate city services and make school management more efficient. Examples of such are Water and Sewer, Urban Forestry (in the case of a dangerous tree) and DDOT, all of which relate to school maintenance but are not coordinated under the current system.

I will continue with more solutions to the schools crisis tomorrow. Kris had so many ideas it is impossible to write them all in one post.

Arch Training Center

Today my good friend and Ward 8 activist, Charles Wilson, and I were invited speakers at the Arch Training Center in Historic Anacostia. Arch is a center funded by federal grants and donations that complements the public schools through adult education and after-school programs for youth involved in the juvenile correctional system. Charles and I spoke for over an hour about our life experiences, and did our best to relay the values of hard work and dedication as the best way to succeed in life.

There was much personal satisfaction from mentoring the students today, but it was disheartening at the same time. Most of these kids have no families, esentially live on the streets and are being electronically monitored by the Department of Corrections. Most have little hope in their lives and many wanted little to do with Charles and me. It is hard to figure out how to reach somebody that does not want to be reached. Part of me feels it is too late for many of them, but there were some that I believe we did actually reach. Discussing my military experiences really seemed to peak interest in some of them.

The experience of spending time at Arch has helped me to consider two things. First, without a strong family life or caring support system, it is very difficult to make a real impact through stop-gap solutions. Second, if many community members spent two hours per month mentoring needy and troubled youth, we could probably make a big difference. It really does "take a village."

Schools Part 3 - A friendly reminder

School governance has been on everyone's mind lately. Each person has an opinion on who should be in charge. The Mayor? School Board? Congress? Some combination of the three? As we are debating these, problems persist, and I want to just take a minute to let everybody know that while we are debating, the kids are suffering. Here's an example of what's wrong, as outlined by DC School Board President, Robert Bobb, after he visited a local school:

He talked about school security being so porous that teachers call each other at the end of classes to serve as safety escorts. He mentioned school supplies being borrowed or puchased by the teachers themselves due to budget errors and lack of funds. Facilities were so dilapidated that parts of the classrooms are not in use. His list of issues and concerns observed in one day were so numerous we could not mention them all here. Imagine if you were the student. Imagine if your child had to go to school in these conditions.

One more thought: DC spends more money per pupil than any other school system in the country. Things cannot get much worse. Let's get to work.

Schools Part 1

We all saw the 9-2 vote in the City Council yesterday indicating a pending approval of the Mayor's takeover plan. Now that the plan appears almost certain, let's discuss how to move forward. I believe that if the school board had done such an effective job running the schools, we would never have arrived in the dire state we are currently in. Whether the takeover was the right way to solve the problem is now a moot point. But there are some aspects that worry me, and one in particular:

As of now, I believe the City Council will have line-item veto power over the budget. This is worrisome because it leaves the door open for political game playing, with council members trying to direct money to their particular wards in order to please constituents. That could turn into pork-barrel politics, DC style.

Things cannot get much worse than they are right now, so let's not play games with the lives of our children. At this point, it is up to Mayor Fenty to provide the way forward for our schools. Let's let him do the best job he can without allowing politics water down his agenda. In four years we will give him his report card.

Learning from the Arts

Last night I went to a show at the Lincoln Theater on U Street called The Capitol Movement Project (CMP). CMP is the resident dance company at the historic theater, and with 73 members, it's the largest company in the Washington area. I was impressed with its mix of hip-hop, pop, modern rock and even some interpretive pieces. Dancers ranged from adults to young children and I could feel the passion among all the pieces.

The project has a large non-profit component that works with schools and underprivileged children and teens from across the area. Because it includes elements of pop culture, it becomes an attractive outlet for young people and an interesting alternative to some of the negative influences they may be exposed to.

CMP is a great example of how the arts can have a positive impact on young people and keep them in an environment where they can contribute to a better society. Not only do they stay in healthy physical shape, but they learn teamwork, a greater appreciation for the arts and for music. Programs like CMP can help kids who do poorly in school find something in which they can succeed, which helps build their self-esteem.

Unfortunately, arts programs are severely lacking in the DCPS and are often the first to be cut. CPM, Arena Stage, and others are leading the way in DC to demonstrate how arts programs for students can be part of the solution to the problems young people face. Let's help public officials take note and make the arts an integral part of DC's education system. For more information, visit http://capitolmovement.org/ or http://arenastage.org/.