D.C. School Takeover May Come Easy for Fenty
Maybe the biggest news about D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty's formal announcement of a planned school takeover is that it might not be news at all. Flanked by nine members of the D.C. Council -- a considerable number given that there are currently only 11 seated -- Fenty yesterday detailed his plans to hand most budgetary and management authority to a chancellor appointed by him, leaving the elected School Board to handle education policy matters. While a majority of the council and the Post lauded Fenty's initiative, the only real opposition seems to be coming from School Board president and former city administrator Robert Bobb -- indicating that Fenty's plan may prove to be less of a battle than originally expected.
How come?
Well, the city's public schools have gotten so abysmally bad that anything approaching radical reform is likely to be endorsed, and warmly so. Fenty also played his cards just right by announcing his plans early on, traveling to a number of cities to see how their school takeover plans were devised and implemented, and taking into consideration the opinions of a number of council-members. More importantly, though, Fenty has made himself the sole stakeholder of any potential failures of his plan -- should the schools not improve, everyone will know who to point to, and will likely do so with gusto. Fenty has built a foundation solid enough that Bobb's objections seem more like petty turf battles than principled opposition.
But what do the teachers think? They are, after all, the front-line fighters in what has until now been a losing battle. A number of teachers we spoke to expressed their support for the plan, noting that the status quo just couldn't hold any longer. One teacher who came to the District after a stint in New York told us:
Having taught in New York where the school system was taken over by the mayor and it changed things for the better, I have a pretty positive view of Fenty's proposal. I think centralizing the system means there will be fewer cracks for money and resources to slip through, a chronic problem in DCPS. If we can make clear what the expectations are for schools across the city, accountability for teachers, administrators, and parents becomes a real possibilty.
Another teacher who taught in Anacostia expressed similar support, but worried about how quickly any change would come and how current Superintendent Clifford Janey would react:
...like everything else in this world, change is a slow and difficult process that cannot be undertaken lightly; there is no shortcut or quick fix that will 'turn around' DCPS and, indeed, part of the problem with the system is that many of the individuals who are involved are unwilling to stick around to effect real change. My fear for Fenty's plan is that it will alienate Janey to the extent that he will leave, and thus, become one more short-term superintendent for the District, leaving it with a rotating stream of interim superintendents until a new superintendent who is willing to agree to the school restructuring can be found.Clearly, simply getting control of the District's public schools may be the easy part for Fenty. Judging his plan's success in four years, though, may be more difficult.
The takeover plan now goes to council chair Vincent Gray, who has promised a number of hearings on the matter. Considering the initial support Fenty has gotten, these may well go smoothly. And in the world of school reform, that's about as good as it will get.