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…

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…

Written by DCist contributor Sara Mead The District of Columbia’s Public Schools open today for the 2007-08 school year, the first for DCPS under control of Mayor Adrian Fenty and the leadership of Chancellor Michelle Rhee. Questions that have become an annual start of school ritual in D.C.—Will students have textbooks? Will there be enough teachers? Will the bathrooms work?—take on added weight this year, because their answers offer the first tangible results by…

>> Experts warn of lightning-strike injuries with iPods [AP via CNN.com] >> “The District has awarded a contract for managing its troubled Medicaid transportation program to a St. Louis-area company that the Missouri governor’s office called ‘scurrilous’ after the company paid millions of dollars to resolve a fraud investigation.” [WashTimes] >> “In the lingo of anti-smoking zealots, smoke flow from dwelling to dwelling is called “seepage” and for now, it seems, there’s nothing a renter…

The D.C. Council is meeting for the final day of its summer session as we speak, and as we mentioned in this morning’s roundup, a confirmation vote for deputy mayor for education Victor Reinoso has been postponed until at least September. But other key Fenty school takeover appointments are expected to be confirmed today, including Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and Allen Lew, acting director of the new Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization. Yesterday, Lew…

>> While half the DCict staff was still buzzing from this weekend’s Dismemberment Plan shows, stereogum chatted with front-man Travis Morrison about his day job as “lead JavaScript programmer for advertisements for the Washington Post website.” All of a sudden the Post seems so much cooler. Any other semi-retired rock gods looking for jobs at a D.C. Web site? We can offer you cookies and a handful of DCist temporary tatoos! >> Cops in…

Good Morning, Washington. It looks like we survived the full moon, a night of Georgetown-less championship basketball and visit by Yoko Ono. It was worth it to enjoy another day of idyllic weather before it all goes to hell. By Friday the region will be back in the 40’s with cloudy skies. As the National Park Service pleads with visitors not to touch, climb or even taunt the Cherry Blossoms, let’s hope the expensive…

No, when rising in the wee hours of the morning to we didn’t suffer a sudden wave of nostalgia for bad perms, The Bangles and “Mr. Belvedere”. We were confronted by all four networks confirming that temps are hitting eighty degrees today. Awesome. This mild weather was welcome news for the hundreds of Georgetown students who camped out in line to get their hands on one of the 1,000 tickets made available around 9:00…

It’s here! As of 8:07 last night, spring has officially sprung. Today’s going to be a little chilly, but by the end of the week we’ll have almost cracked 70 degrees. Woohoo! Pedestrian Safety Initiative Kicks Off: The Post reports on the pedestrian safety program that regional governments launched yesterday morning from a press event at Thomas Circle. What will this mean for you? Perhaps some new traffic lights, and definitely some additional enforcement…

Have you been dying to get a few minutes to ask D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty questions about his controversial plan to take over the District’s public schools? Washingtonpost.com will give you a chance this afternoon at 1 p.m., when they moderate an online chat with the Mayor about his proposal. You can submit your own questions for the Mayor here. We’d really like to know what the Mayor thinks about Colby King’s idea to…