Last week, we told you about D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s controversial new merit pay plan for teachers, as well as the impressive jump in DCPS test scores, both of which continued to provoke opinion throughout the weekend. Rhee’s compensation plan, under which teachers could choose to waive seniority and tenure in order to earn significantly higher pay tied to their performance, attracted the attention of both The Economist, which liked the idea, and The......

At a press conference this morning at Ward 7’s Plummer Elementary, Mayor Adrian Fenty and D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee happily announced that student performance on the D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System (DC-CAS) exams show improvement in reading and math at both the elementary and secondary levels. According to a release, elementary schools scored 46 percent proficient in reading, up 8 points from 2007, while math scores rose 11 points. Secondary schools showed 39 percent proficient......

If you’re not already familiar with the way teachers in D.C. get paid, it basically works like this – the longer you teach, the more you make. DCPS teachers are compensated on a seniority-based scale (pdf), something that was designed to encourage retention, but unfortunately also means that teachers are paid for their loyalty, not their performance. D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee has often said that she wants the District to have “the most highly......

The kid who fell asleep and was left alone for hours on a bus operated by D.C. Public Schools may have stolen the show in school bus coverage last week, but the real story is a bizarre new proposal from the Federal Transit Authority that would prevent the District from using Metrobus to get kids to school, a long-standing practice that transports about 20,000 kids a day during the school year. The Examiner reports that......

As a former high school teacher, I sometimes hear that past students have joined the military. There’s a decent sized JROTC presence in the D.C. public schools, and it wasn’t unheard of to see a military recruiter around the campus. Students in the JROTC talked up its scholarship opportunities, and several students, usually male, but not always, argued in classroom debates that the military was a good option for kids who couldn’t afford or didn’t......

Last month, D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee drew some heat for not renewing the contracts of 24 principals, including the principal of Oyster Adams Bilingual Elementary, where her daughters attend. This afternoon, she continued her crack down on administrators, firing 22 assistant principals, who like principals, work on year to year contracts. No specific reasons have been given for the terminations, which is consistent with DCPS's policy of not disclosing personnel details. DCPS spokesperson Mafara......

It’s been a bizarre week in D.C. education, as ostriches rallied on 14th St. and seemingly everyone from Katie Couric to Al Sharpton had their eye on the District’s schools. Thursday was the last day of classes for DCPS students, and while Mayor Adrian Fenty and Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee commemorated the one year anniversary of the schools takeover at a press conference at Langdon Elementary, a smaller gathering at the corner of 14th and......

To the discomfort of many a graduate, this week’s heat wave happens to coincide with the last week of classes for D.C. public schools, and students around the city are proudly perspiring beneath their polyester gowns as local schools hold their graduation ceremonies. In less hot graduation news, Education Week’s annual “Diplomas Count” report has released a dismal assessment of the District’s ability to graduate its students – only 57.6 percent of District 9th graders......

Critics and watchdogs, in the best cases, help keep leaders honest and organizations accountable. The D.C. government has a number of them, particularly when it comes to the public schools. But sometimes rhetoric can overshadow reason, even if there is a legitimate point to be made, as was the case last week in a letter from the usual suspects to Council Chair Vincent Gray opposing nominations for researchers to conduct an independent evaluation of the......

A Post editorial today notes that the most effective action Mayor Adrian Fenty has taken since assuming control of the D.C. public schools a little less than a year ago was to bring schools chancellor Michelle Rhee on board, remarking, “Michelle A. Rhee has done more in months to reshape the system than her predecessors did in years.” However, the editorial also cautions that it will be some time before any true achievement growth takes......

This week, Newsweek and Jay Mathews (both of the Washington Post) released their annual Challenge Index of top U.S. public high schools, which ranks schools based on the number of AP or IB tests given divided by the number of graduating seniors. People like lists, and the Challenge Index always gets a lot of attention despite being heavily criticized for inaccuracy and irrelevance. For example, the highest-ranking District school, Bell Multicultural High School, comes in......

This morning at Coolidge Senior High School, Mayor Adrian Fenty and Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee announced reform plans for the 27 DCPS schools that require restructuring under No Child Left Behind (NCLB) for failing to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for five years in a row. As we’ve mentioned before, the five restructuring options offered under NCLB include: reopening the school as a public charter, replacing all or most school staff relevant to AYP failure,......

UPDATE 12:42 p.m.: The Council has voted unanimously to reject the Mayor's proposal, maintaining the existing requirements concerning the release of DCPS budget information and hearings. Today, the D.C. Council is scheduled to cast its first votes on Mayor Fenty's proposed fiscal 2009 budget, including $773 million for the District’s schools. However, one proposal in particular by Mayor Fenty has been garnering the attention of parent and community groups around D.C. – the motion to......

With a little over a month remaining in the school year, things aren’t slowing down for Michelle Rhee. Never mind that the D.C. Schools Chancellor is being named in what looks to be a time-consuming vanity lawsuit by Washington Teachers’ Union vice-president Nathan Saunders, or that City Council Chair Vincent Gray is messing with her budget. The woman has work to do. As we mentioned this morning, Rhee has begun the process of notifying many......

Team DCist came out in force for Saturday's 2008 Servathon, presented by Greater DC Cares and Fannie Mae. About 3,200 volunteers spent the day painting, cleaning and pruning the campuses of 39 D.C. public schools. Team DCist was dispatched to Harriet Tubman Elementary in Columbia Heights, and we all had a blast sprucing up the courtyard, repainting the playground, and brightening up some dull brown lockers in classrooms. Thanks to everyone who participated, especially our......

D.C. Public Schools and New York City Public Schools have a lot in common – both are large, expensive, chronically low-performing systems that have recently come into seasons of serious reform under mayoral control. Both are also currently wrapped up in brewing controversies over excessed teachers, and it’s not pretty in either town. Basically, an excessed teacher is a teacher within a district but without a job, and due to the upcoming closings of 23......

ABC7 is reporting that two students were shot this afternoon at the Excel Institute in Northeast. There's not a lot of information yet about what happened, but the good news is that both students' wounds appear to be non-fatal, and the gunman was caught while fleeing the scene near 19th and C Streets NE. After the suspect entered the school and shot the two students, he carjacked a vehicle outside, then attempted to carjack two......

The Washington Teachers Union (WTU) has been getting a lot of attention lately, much of it a result of the growing rift between WTU president George Parker and vice-president Nathan Saunders. First, there was the ruckus when Saunders, who has long-accused Parker for being “too cozy” with D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, vocally encouraged teachers to reject Rhee’s new program providing transition bonuses for up to 700 teachers at schools slated for closing or re-structuring.......

Yesterday, the Post ran a story by Jay “Challenge Index” Mathews profiling Bell Multicultural High School in Ward 1, which offers only Advanced Placement (AP) English courses to its 11th and 12th graders. I read the story with interest, not just because the students and teachers Mathews interviews are my former students and colleagues from the years I taught at Bell (2005-2007), but because I was also an “AP for all” teacher, and once struggled......

Earlier today, students in the Ballou Senior High School’s marching band were treated to a surprise visit from Mayor Adrian Fenty, Ward 8 Council member Marion Barry, D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and Macy’s Parade officials to announce that the band has been chosen to perform at the 2009 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. The parade is viewed by over 3.5 million live spectators in New York City and over 50 million television viewers nationwide,......

It seems that the Post and the Times aren’t the only ones with early retirement plans in the works. Today at 3 p.m., Mayor Adrian Fenty and D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee will announce new Teacher Transition Award Opportunities, meant to provide aging teachers with long service to the district opportunities to retire early with full benefits. Officials from the Washington Teachers Union held a meeting last week to discuss the expected announcement. According to......

It seems everyone has an opinion on the new security policies that were put in place today at Wilson Senior High School in NW following the arrest of 13 students in fights earlier this month. Most attention has centered on D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s decision to confine students to classrooms for lunch for two days this week as the students return from spring break, while school officials work out a new plan to keep......

Last week, Mayor Fenty and Chancellor Rhee offered up their FY 2009 schools budget, which at $773 million, is about $23 million less than the current year’s budget. However, because of savings from the scheduled closures of under-enrolled campuses and recent mass firings from the DCPS central office (about $44 million) ,as well as the shifting of special education responsibilities to the Office of the State Superintendent ($231 million), the budget actually increases the amount......

Federal officials using the District as a testing ground on which to push their preferred domestic programs is nothing new, particularly when it comes to the city’s public schools (ahem, Sen. Landrieu). True to form, nestled deep within President Bush’s 2009 budget proposal is a $5 million increase for a school voucher initiative called the DC Opportunity Scholarship program (OSP). Currently, around 1,900 low-income students receive scholarships up to $7,500 to attend area private schools......

D.C. Public Schools has some chronic problems keeping good principals around. Over 250 principals have turned over in DCPS in the last ten years, and as research consistently shows that effective principals are characteristic of effective schools, it’s time D.C. start recruiting, training, and (perhaps most importantly) retaining strong school leaders. Over the weekend, the Post covered Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s nationwide recruitment efforts to attract new principals to D.C. schools. The District has launched......

Too often, D.C.’s public schools, and by extension, its students, are dismissed as failing, disorganized, and hopeless. But Patrick Torres doesn’t see them that way. Instead, he sees stories waiting to be told, students waiting to be empowered, and language as a tool for social change. Torres is program manager of The Young Playwrights' Theater, D.C.’s only professional theater company dedicated solely to arts education. YPT uses playwriting to advance student literacy, creative expression, and......

Late on Friday D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee fired 98 central office employees, taking a big step toward her promise to “create a culture of accountability.” Mafara Hobson, Rhee's spokesperson, has said the dismissals were based “partly on employee performance and on Rhee's plans to make the central office more efficient,” and the city's Department of Human Resources has not yet released the names of those terminated, in an effort to preserve their privacy. Predictably,......

Earlier this week DCist readers commented on how they decide where to send their kids to school, so it seems appropriate to point out that next Wednesday, March 12 is the deadline for parents to apply for the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) Out-of-Boundary program. Every year, each school projects how many seats will be available for students who live outside the neighborhood boundary. Parents can view current projections and apply online. With limited......

As we mentioned briefly in today’s Morning Roundup, a number of D.C. area private schools are seeing drops in applications and enrollment, resulting from a combination of demographic shifts and a troubled economy coupled with rising tuition costs. The Post reported that the number of children living in the District between the ages of 5 and 9 declined 13.4 percent between 2000 and 2007, and is projected to drop further between 2007 and 2012, leaving......

Even with Mayor Fenty's re-organization plan of D.C. public schools, we all know they're still struggling, and not just academically. That's why DCist is organizing another team this year to participate in the annual Servathon, organized by Greater DC Cares and their sponsor Fannie Mae, which is focusing only on fixing up school facilities this year. The date to roll up your sleeves is May 3. Last year, 27 DCist staff members and readers turned......