D.C. Schools Insider

D.C. Schools Insider is moving.

Washington Post Staff — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 17:07:00 GMT

D.C. Schools Insider is moving to a new format and a new page. Go to washingtonpost.com/education for the latest education news in the District and around the region.

This page will be redirected to the new Education Page soon.

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Can traditional school systems be replaced by charters?

Emma Brown — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 14:14:00 GMT

When activists from the District and across the country gathered Tuesday at the U.S. Education Department to call for an end to school closures, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten issued a statement in solidarity: “It’s time to fix, not close, our schools,” she said.

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Are school closings just the start of DCPS reorganization?

Emma Brown — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 14:58:00 GMT

Closing 15 D.C. schools is a first step in what will be a larger effort by the school system to reorganize resources, find new efficiencies and offer stronger academic programs across the city, Chancellor Kaya Henderson says.

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Henderson outlines boundary change process

Emma Brown — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 14:17:30 GMT

A citywide task force will lead the effort to determine new school boundaries and feeder patterns in the District, Chancellor Kaya Henderson said Wednesday.

DCPS will convene the task force next month, Henderson told the D.C. Council’s Education Committee in a hearing Wednesday. The task force will gather input from parents and community members before making final recommendations in June.

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D.C. considers new graduation requirements

Emma Brown — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 20:28:00 GMT

D.C. high school students would have to study more art and music, get more physical exercise and complete a thesis project under proposed changes to city graduation requirements.

The proposal by the D.C. State Board of Education would raise the total number of required high school course credits in the District from 24 to 26 — more than students need to earn diplomas in Maryland, Virginia and many other states.

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Kaya Henderson to answer council’s questions on school closures

Emma Brown — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 18:00:00 GMT

D.C. Council members will have a chance Wednesday to question Chancellor Kaya Henderson about her plan to close 15 city schools.

Henderson is scheduled to testify before the council’s new education committee at noon in Room 412 at the John A. Wilson Building.

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Empower DC plans to sue over D.C. school closures

Emma Brown — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 21:26:00 GMT

Grassroots community organization Empower DC plans to sue the District over Chancellor Kaya Henderson’s school-closure plan, saying that the closures disproportionately affect black students.

“The Constitution is colorblind. The proposed school closings are not,” lawyer Johnny Barnes, who will lead the litigation, said in a statement Friday. “Citizens who live in Anacostia are entitled by law to be treated the same as those who live on Albemarle.”

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DCPS to announce final school closures Thursday

Emma Brown — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 13:05:54 GMT

D.C. school officials said Chancellor Kaya Henderson will announce final decisions about District school closures Thursday, two months after she first proposed shuttering 20 city schools for low enrollment.

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Catania: No plans to reinvestigate alleged cheating in DCPS

Emma Brown — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 21:57:19 GMT

D.C. Council Member David Catania (I-At Large), chairman of the newly reconstituted education committee, said Friday that he has no plans to investigate allegations that staff in some District schools cheated on standardized tests between 2008 and 2010.

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D.C. charter board proposes closing Imagine Southeast for poor performance

Emma Brown — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 22:00:00 GMT

The D.C. Public Charter School Board is proposing to shutter a Ward 8 school for poor performance and will vote on the measure Thursday night.

Imagine Southeast, which serves more than 500 elementary and middle-school students, opened in 2008 and has since failed to meet four of the five goals laid out in its charter agreement, according to the PCSB.

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D.C. charter school board objects to Rhee’s report card

Emma Brown — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 19:32:00 GMT

When Michelle Rhee’s Students First lobbying organization released its first state policy “report cards” this week, one of the fiercest critics to emerge was an important policy player from her old backyard: The D.C. Public Charter School Board.

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Michelle Rhee responds to federal investigation of alleged DCPS cheating

Emma Brown — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:58:00 GMT

Federal investigators announced Monday that they found no evidence of widespread cheating in D.C. Public Schools, despite detailed allegations of systematic cheating laid out in a whistleblower complaint by former Noyes Education Campus principal Adell Cothorne.

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Rhee’s Students First gives District education policies a middling grade

Emma Brown — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 15:20:00 GMT

The District ranks fourth in the nation for reform-minded education policies, according to state report cards released Monday by Students First, the national lobbying organization headed by former D.C. Schools chancellor Michelle Rhee.

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DCPS should guarantee librarians in every school, task force recommends

Emma Brown — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 22:15:00 GMT

All D.C. public schools should be guaranteed money to hire a librarian, according to a task force convened by Chancellor Kaya Henderson to make recommendations regarding school libraries.

Currently more than 50 DCPS schools have no librarian, a fact that has rankled parents, activists and D.C. Council Member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), who proposed legislation this fall to require one in every building.

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D.C. charter schools band together to form new high school with focus on foreign language

Emma Brown — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 21:54:00 GMT

The D.C. Public Charter School Board offered support this week for a plan to open a new middle/high school that would offer International Baccalaureate programs and intensive foreign-language instruction.

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Judge dismisses long-running Petties case, gives final approval to D.C. control of special-ed buses

Emma Brown — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 20:27:00 GMT

Update 3:30 p.m. Judge Paul L. Friedman has signed an order to dismiss the case.

Original post:

After 17 years of litigation, a federal judge on Wednesday said he will give final approval to D.C. government control of transportation of special-education students, a milestone for the city and Mayor Vincent C. Gray.

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Parents concerned that DCPS does not require lockdown drills

Emma Brown — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 16:29:52 GMT

As my colleagues Donna St. George and Lyndsey Layton reported Tuesday, parents across the country are asking questions about school security following the fatal shooting of 26 students and staff at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn.

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D.C. releases results of nation’s first-ever standardized test on health and sex ed

Emma Brown — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 21:25:13 GMT

Fifth- and eighth graders in the District are pretty well-versed in emotional-health issues but have a lot to learn about the human body, according to results from the city’s (and the nation’s) first-ever standardized test on health, physical education and sex ed.

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Meet Julia King, D.C. Teacher of the Year

Emma Brown — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 14:33:00 GMT

Mayor Vincent Gray surprised Julia King in her classroom last week with the news that she had been named the city’s teacher of the year.

Just a few hours earlier, King, a seventh-grade teacher at D.C. Prep Public Charter School, hadn’t been feeling much like a superstar.

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D.C. may restore ombudsman to field parents complaints, concerns about schools

Emma Brown — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 21:13:00 GMT

D.C. parents may soon be able to take their complaints and concerns about city education to an independent ombudsman charged with helping them navigate D.C. public schools and public charter schools.

The ombudsman position was created five years ago during the mayoral takeover of schools to ensure that, despite losing an elected school board, parents would have a voice, a way to vent and a central clearinghouse to take problems in need of investigation and resolution.

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Forgotten-child episode should not derail Petties settlement, judge says

Emma Brown — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 18:13:31 GMT

An episode last week in which a 4-year-old boy was left forgotten aboard a school bus for seven hours should not interfere with the upcoming settlement of a long-running class-action suit involving transportation of D.C. special-education students, a federal judge indicated during a status hearing Wednesday.

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D.C. Council candidate Matthew Frumin sees need for a vision on city education

Emma Brown — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 19:10:00 GMT

Longtime education activist Matthew Frumin has decided to run in the April special election for an at-large D.C. Council seat, my colleague Tim Craig reported today.

Frumin is a Wilson High parent, advisory neighborhood commissioner and onetime Democratic U.S. House candidate in his native Michigan.

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Ward 8 parents, teachers challenge D.C. school closure plan

Emma Brown — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 18:33:00 GMT

A standing-room only crowd of parents, teachers and activists gathered Tuesday evening at Savoy Elementary School in Southeast Washington to critique and challenge Chancellor Kaya Henderson’s plan to close 20 under-enrolled schools.

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More details on D.C. bus driver, attendant who left special-needs student alone for hours

Nikita Stewart — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 16:56:49 GMT

A bus driver and attendant who were fired Tuesday after leaving a 4-year-old student with special needs on a bus for hours broke several procedures, said Hosanna Mahaley, the District’s state superintendent.

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D.C. Council, community, to discuss future of buildings vacated by school closures

Emma Brown — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 21:05:00 GMT

Update 4 p.m.: The D.C. Council’s roundtable on vacant school building has been canceled and “may be rescheduled for a later date,” according to an e-mail from a staff member for Council member Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4).

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