Blog Archive » DC Public Schools

Almost 40 years have passed since that terrible April day in 1968 in Memphis when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. That's one more year than the entire span of years he had on this earth. He'd be 79 today, had he lived, but he was only 39 when he died. Imagine all that this extraordinary man accomplished in such a short time. Our contemporary culture sometimes makes fun of "thirtysomethings" — Dr. King was a legend by the time he was a "thirtysomething" and he left a legacy that endures for all ages. (Photo from The King Center website.)

As I watched today's news from the campaign trail and here in Washington, I found myself wondering, "What Would Martin Think?" about so many issues swirling through our public consciousness today.

In Atlanta today, Presidential Candidate Barack Obama gave a moving address at the Ebenezer Baptist Church, Dr. King's own church. I wonder what Dr. King would think of this bright young man, a leader from a new generation, someone who, in so many ways, is the heir of Dr. King's dream for equality, for justice, and for a nation in which leadership rests not with the color of one's skin but the content of one's character, to paraphrase a quotation from Dr. King's "I Have A Dream" speech. Full Article

This fall, the District of Columbia's long-suffering school children are experiencing even more upset and uncertainty as two major educational systems confront the massive dilemma of improving academic results while managing schools with some modicum of economic responsibility. Two months ago, the Archdiocese of Washington announced that mounting deficits for the inner-city elementary schools organized in what's known as the Center City Consortium would force these Catholic schools to close or to become charter schools under the public education umbrella, thus effectively ending Catholic elementary education in the city. Then, last week, Mayor Fenty and Superintendent Rhee announced plans to close 23 schools next year, most of them elementary schools, and the largest group in Ward 5, Trinity's ward, including the venerable Brookland Elementary and John Burroughs Elementary Schools. These closings are necessary, apparently, in order to achieve greater economic efficiency and to devote resources to reorganizing educational programs.

Everyone in D.C. is united in the ultimate goal, which is to improve educational outcomes for children. These decisions by the Archdiocese and the Public School leadership may well be the best way to achieve improved results in the long run. But in the more immediate moment, the families and children most affected by these decisions are left feeling uncertain, perhaps even betrayed. The idea of pride in one's school — school spirit — is something even the youngest first grader understands, and the cult of alumni loyalty lasts for generations from the most remote grade school through the most powerful universities. Closing schools does little to help children value their educational experiences more deeply. Very quickly, the educational and political leadership must move to assure the children that they will have schools to attend next year, and that they will not continue to experience disruption in their home bases for learning, wherever those bases might be as of next fall.

An article in today's Washington Post reveals some of the political tensions emerging over Mayor Fenty's style in managing educational reform issues. We all should be worried about the end-game if politics trumps reform. Failure is no longer an option for the children of D.C. when it comes to education. In spite of the feelings of pique over who-knew-what at the outset, the politicians all have to work together to provide the leadership the city needs to make educational reform a reality.

I have no opinion on closing schools or converting Catholic schools to charters per se, since I cannot possibly know all of the details. I do know what it's like to try to manage a relatively small academic budget with limited resources, so I'm sympathetic to budget controls and the need for radical change at times in order to keep doing the mission. I also know that educational excellence can exist in all classrooms, regardless of the size of the budget, where students and teachers really work together to learn well. Ultimately, excellence in education can only occur in a classroom — not in the Council Chambers or Mayor's Office. This city must find a way to stay focused on improving education on the ground, in the classrooms, in the libraries and community centers, in the homes where the children go each night where homework should come first.

The recent ratcheting-up of stakes and rhetoric seems to be moving farther away from real educational reform. Budget necessities must be addressed, yes, but all educational and political leaders need to be even more thoughtful about the impact of their actions on the citizens who have the most at stake, the children for whom all of this reform is supposedly being done. If the children hear that the future of their schools is even more uncertain, they will have little motivation to take school more seriously.

Just when you think that maybe the District of Columbia government is getting its act together, along comes the news of a scam so large, so breathtaking in its sheer audacity that even the cynics among us cannot quite believe that people charged with the public trust could be so profoundly corrupt. $20 million dollars has gone missing, not from any old government office, but the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue, the very public officials charged with collecting our money to use it for the public good. Or, apparently, purchases of luxury goods at Nieman Marcus, several mansions, and who-knows-what else. All of this happened on the watch of D.C. Chief Financial Officer Natwar Ghandi, a decent and smart financial manager whose good work in turning around the city's financial management and credit rating now appear to be at some risk of diminishment because of the utter corruption, selfishness and astonishing immorality of his subordinates.

The city and its citizens will be the biggest loser because of this scam. Already, out in the blog-o-sphere, those narrow minds who already take a dim view of the District are gloating over this latest example of humanity's dark side — as if corruption never happened in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago or elsewhere — Jack Abramoff and a few congressmen, anyone? But, sadly, for all the wrong reasons, people will use this incident to say, "See, I told you they couldn't govern themselves…" and the "they" word will be a thin veil over the racism that pervades too many perspectives on D.C. outside the Beltway, and even closer to home.

This large crime must not be allowed to tarnish the city's great progress in the last several years. D.C. has truly come a long way from the dark days of bad management and corruption that required the Congressional imposition of the Financial Control Board. With the leadership of Mayor Anthony Williams and now Mayor Adrian Fenty, the District of Columbia is steadily improving fiscally, reputationally, even educationally. The economic boom in the city is clear in many places where new homes and new businesses have replaced once-abandoned blocks. Chancellor Michelle Rhee is bringing new energy and vision to the D.C. Public Schools. Thousands of people — citizens, business leaders, academics and politicians — are working together to ensure that the District of Columbia continues to grow in stature and stability as the home town where the nation's capital also resides.

Mayor Fenty must act quickly to address the conditions in the D.C. Tax Office that allowed this shameful crime to occur. He and Chancellor Rhee must also act quickly to address another scandal that emerged last week concerning the management of student activity funds in the schools. The fact of these crimes is sad; but the measure of the city's strength will be found in how well and how quickly the leadership moves to root out the co-conspirators and put safeguards in place to be sure it doesn't happen again.

Here at Trinity, we take great pride in the community of honor, symbolized in the Honor Agreement that students sign as freshmen, and repeated and reinforced at every exam period. Sometimes, students wonder why Trinity is so strict about the Honor System. My response is: just read the newspaper. Sadly, in too many places, dishonesty seems to be the norm, and institutions and people suffer greatly because of the corruption of a few. Just ask the former employees of Enron or Worldcomm, giant corporations that collapsed because of the crimes of greed of their executives.

We who work in education in the District of Columbia need to redouble our efforts to teach our students the most fundamental moral values of honesty and integrity. Too many children grow up today in a public climate that tolerates lies and deception, in households that teach them to take whatever is available whether it belongs to them or not. Children absorb the moral values of the adult community. When a public scandal like this week's news breaks open, we need to use the opportunity to teach children about why this behavior is wrong — not just because these public officials got caught, but because they took what did not belong to them, even worse, money they had access to because the public trusted them to handle the money with integrity.

Read Colbert I. King's column on the scandal

This nation has already spent almost $600 BILLION (yes, that's with a B) on the War in Iraq, and economists forecast that the cost of the war could soon exceed $1 TRILLION.

Yet, President Bush says he will veto legislation to guarantee health care to children because it costs too much. He also rejects the idea that the funding could come from increasing the tax on cigarettes, go figure — such a tax would have the double benefit of dissuading some more people from the slow death of nicotine while funding basic health care for children.

Even conservative Republicans in Congress like Senator Charles Grassley are increasingly vocal in calling on the President to do the right thing and sign this bill. This is not a matter of partisan politics; if ever there were a moral issue ingrained in legislation, a program to care for the health of children would seem to be Priority One.

Tonight at a meeting of the presidents of the nation's women's colleges — the annual meeting of the Women's College Coalition — I heard one of the great civil rights and human rights leaders of our time speak passionately about the children who are the focus of her life's work. Marian Wright Edelman, founder and President of the Children's Defense Fund, called on all of us who lead the women's colleges to be more passionate advocates for the causes affecting women and children. Quoting Eleanor Roosevelt, she reminded us that if women in power don't care about women and children who lack power, who will? We have a great obligation to raise our voices for those who cannot be heard.

President Edelman is a great friend of Trinity — she holds an honorary doctorate from Trinity, and many Trinity students have had internships at CDF, including Maggie Williams '77, former chief of staff to then-First Lady Hillary Clinton. Mrs. Edelman reminded me to recommend more Trinity interns for CDF, since the track record of our students and alumnae there is great. She also talked to our group about establishing a global education alliance to support women and girls internationally; we've also talked about this here at Trinity, and we will join forces with the Children's Defense Fund in this new project.

Last weekend, during the excellent Sower's Seed Lecture by Amy Costello '92, and then during our Cap and Gown Convocation where D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee addressed our seniors, we heard repeated calls to action for social justice, which is a central tenet of the Catholic faith and a core component of the mission of the Sisters of Notre Dame. Chancellor Rhee called improving education for D.C. children one of the great civil rights issues in our city (listen to her speech here). Amy Costello spoke about how she has used her skills as a journalist to tell the stories of the women and children she has seen in Darfur and Sudan and other places of great human suffering.

In all of these messages, we remind our community here at Trinity of the vital importance of standing up for those whom the U.S. bishops call "the least, the lost, the left out among us." All major faiths share this fundamental idea of charity and the obligation to serve justice.

In thinking about the sheer financial costs of the current war and the sheer social costs of allowing children to grow up without a decent education and without proper health care, it seems that our moral values as a society have gone profoundly awry. We invest in what we believe in. Right now, this nation is investing a pittance in children compared to the stunning investment in a war whose end seems as far off today as ever. Truly, these are not just political matters, these are matters of conscience. We all must do more to restore some sense of balance — the balance of justice, which also is essential for peace — in the calculus of national investment.