With the new school year underway and the Democratic primaries but one week away, we spoke with D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee about soul food, sexism, what the mayoral election means for her job, and what’s next on the agenda for DCPS.

The Office of the State Superintendent of Education has made the District’s 2010 DC-CAS individual school scores available online, through a searchable database. Check it out to see how your neighborhood’s public and public charter schools fared in math, reading, and science this year. The DC-CAS is the test that measures whether D.C. schools are making “Adequate Yearly Progress” under the No Child Left Behind law, and is taken by students in grades 3-8 and…

Earlier this morning, the Washington Teachers Union sent its members the results of a survey about IMPACT, the new employee evaluation system used by DCPS. The survey was sent out to DCPS teachers last spring, and was completed by 928 teachers. According to an email from the Washington Teachers’ Union, the results are being released now because, “media interest in the survey results is much higher than earlier this year.” That’s probably true — just hours ago, news broke that 241 teachers had been fired for “ineffective” performance under the new system. George Parker, president of the WTU, has announced that the union will appeal the firings.

Yesterday we heard that DCPS was preparing to fire a “sizable” number of teachers for ineffectiveness, and this morning, the Post reports that “sizable” means 241 226. That’s how many educators were let go earlier today, after receiving poor ratings under the new IMPACT teacher evaluation system. The system assesses teacher performance using several criteria, including growth in student test scores, contributions to school culture, and classroom management. IMPACT also provides financial bonuses to…

Photo by rjs1322 Earlier this week, Newsweek released its 2010 “America’s Best High Schools” list, designed in part by the Washington Post’s Jay Mathews. This year, two D.C. public high schools made the top 100 — Bell Multicultural High School (#37) and Woodrow Wilson High School (#100) — along with a smattering of campuses in Maryland and NoVa. It’s great to see Bell and Wilson — two DCPS schools that really are among the…

Here’s a sweet series—yesterday at lunch, almost every D.C. public school celebrated Strawberries and Salad Greens Day to kick off the District’s new efforts to include more fresh, local food in school cafeteria menus. DCPS’s goal is that next school year 20 percent of the food served will be local. “We are hoping to become the model for all urban food programs,” says recently-installed DCPS Food Services Director Jeff Mills. “This puts us on the…

Here’s a sweet series—yesterday at lunch, almost every D.C. public school celebrated Strawberries and Salad Greens Day to kick off the District’s new efforts to include more fresh, local food in school cafeteria menus. DCPS’s goal is that next school year 20 percent of the food served will be local. “We are hoping to become the model for all urban food programs,” says recently-installed DCPS Food Services Director Jeff Mills. “This puts us on the…

Teachers take a lot of crap, and and those teaching in DCPS have the added insult of being used as political punching bags on a regular basis. The difficulty of their jobs is frequently misunderstood, and their hard work doesn’t come with the prestige or career ladders than many other professions enjoy. While much has been made over the District’s bad apples during this time of education reform, a significant number of our city’s…

In the rush of dramatic D.C. school news last week—a beloved principal’s murder, a disputed $34 million surplus—a bit of good news was lost in the shuffle. In a surprise ceremony last Thursday morning, seven D.C. high school seniors were awarded Gates Millennium Scholarships. The extremely competitive awards cover tuition and all expenses for any major at any university, for as long as it takes the student to graduate, and can be extended through…

Photo by David Clow – Maryland For once, Washington Teachers’ Union president’s George Parker’s robo-call to teachers assuring them that contract negations were nearly finished wasn’t just talk. City Paper’s Mike DeBonis first broke the news Tuesday evening that the union had at last reached a tentative contract agreement with D.C. Public Schools, ending more than two years of extremely contentious negotiations. DeBonis obtained draft internal documents detailing elements of the agreement, and they’re…