At a contentious meeting last week, the D.C. Board of Education named acting Chief Academic Officer Robert C. Rice as interim superintendent. He replaces interim Superintendent Elfreda Massie, the chief academic officer who replaced Superintendent Paul Vance when he stepped down in November. Neither Mr. Rice nor Ms. Massie wants to be the District’s permanent school chief - and that’s OK at this juncture. It’s always easy to find a warm body to sit in the school chief’s chair. But parents, children and teachers deserve better. We seriously doubt officials will find a highly qualified chief executive in the next few weeks to lead the school system out of political bondage.
Indeed, when it comes to public education, the so-called leaders of the nation’s capital rarely reach a consensus on any issue of importance. The majority of elected officials oppose school choice. The school board, the council and the mayor cannot come to terms on whether the board should be comprised of elected or appointed members, or a hybrid mixture of the two. Also, the school board has become rancorous within its own ranks, employing its favorite public pastime: bickering. One board member at last week’s meeting on the appointment of the interim superintendent went so far as to suggest that the board “disband” if it cannot get its act together. While his remarks were ill-tempered, we nonetheless agree. The city needs to implode the school system.
What else to do with a $1 billion agency whose educrats produce the troubling news that was reported by the Associated Press on Friday? To wit: 83 of 151 D.C. public schools got a failing grade on standards set by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Further, only 11 secondary schools met federal reading standards, and only seven passed the math requirements.
Indeed, the NCLB mandates that parents who chose to opt out of those failing schools be provided opportunities elsewhere. Some of those parents will choose charter schools, vouchers or tutoring programs. But what options within the system will parents have, when better than half of the schools are in the same sinking ship?
The school board historically encourages each superintendent to merely reshuffle the deck chairs and institute “professional development” programs for teachers, while the D.C. Council wreaks additional havoc by resurrecting the governance issue and providing political cover. None of that is reform.
Mayor Williams has said he will put his job on the line if the council gives him shared oversight of the school system. (He drew a similar line in the sand when he was Marion Barry’s chief financial officer.) Each point enumerated in Mr. Williams’ proposal, including the creation of a chancellor of schools, can be implemented with all deliberate speed by the current board and school administration. But reforming the system means holding educrats accountable. No proven change agent wants to play the city’s game — whether the official title is chancellor or superintendent.
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