Leah Fabel

Credo: Jeanne Allen

President Obama called on states and school districts this week to embrace school reform. But for veteran reformer Jeanne Allen, the talk isn't quite good enough. "The president and his education secretary are, too often, giving states credit for talking about charter schools rather than actually changing laws to improve the likelihood that children will have real school choice," she said. The 49-year-old president of the Center for Education Reform shared with The Examiner what change could look like, and the faith and ideals that keep her fighting for it. Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith? As a first generation Italian, I was born a Roman Catholic. I...

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D.C. school officials to discuss partnership with university

Top officials from D.C. Public Schools and the University of the District of Columbia will meet for the first time in two years to brainstorm joint programs designed for the city's students. News of the plans came about a week after Chancellor Michelle Rhee's contentious hearing with the D.C. Council over her management of the school system, leading some city officials to wonder if the meeting is a move toward appeasement. "I brought it up at the hearing last week, but also at a hearing eight months ago," said Councilman Michael Brown, D-at large. "I've been pushing and pushing, and maybe now she's agreed." Rhee spokeswoman Jennifer Calloway said the timing of the meetings, to be...

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Value of Md. college savings plan drops 20 percent

The investments that make up Maryland's statewide college savings plan took an enormous hit last year, increasing the pressure to hold college tuition steady even as the state budget demands otherwise. Money in the state's prepaid college trust, a savings program that allows families to lock in tuition rates long before their students attend college, declined by more than 20 percent, resulting in a deficit of more than $52 million, according to its 2009 annual report. That means that if all of the more than 16,000 enrollees, newborns to high school seniors, were to tap their tuition tomorrow, the fund would come up $52 million short. Virginia's version of the savings plan, the Prepaid...

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Leggett threatens legal action over state school funds

Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett said he is prepared to use legal action against Maryland to resolve a school funding dispute. The dispute is over nearly $80 million in funding that the county government by law must give the schools to maintain previous years' spending levels and ensure stability in the school system. This year, Montgomery County, with a go-ahead from the school system, applied to Maryland for a waiver of the "maintenance of effort" funds. The rationale was that school employees had agreed to forego raises, saving the system more than $80 million that the county could put toward its hard-hit general budget. Maryland's State Board of Education denied the...

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States' student tests set low bar, Education Department says

Maryland and Virginia are setting the bar too low in measuring their students' success, according to the Department of Education. Some of the standards used by the two states to determine student success are significantly lower than the expectations set by the Department of Education, even as both states score well on national tests. In fourth-grade reading, both states were among 31 nationwide that were deemed to have set a standard of "proficient" lower than the federal standard for "basic," using 2007 data. Typically, students' standardized test scores are organized into three categories: basic, proficient and advanced. Too many students scoring at the "basic" level can mean...

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Educators benefit most from stimulus funds

More than 6,000 educators in Maryland, D.C. and Virginia can credit their paycheck to stimulus funds, according to a report released Monday by the U.S. Department of Education. Virginia has seen the biggest bump, with more than 4,500 positions "saved or created" by last winter's massive influx of dollars, including almost 3,000 teachers. The remaining jobs range from bus drivers to psychologists. Maryland reported more than 1,900 positions, in addition to nearly 900 education-related "government service" jobs, such as parole officers. The District reported 141 jobs saved or created, but at the time of reporting had spent less than 1 percent of its total funds. While governments...

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Correction

Because of an editing error, a story in Friday's edition of The Washington Examiner misstated the number of D.C. Public Schools teachers fired in early October. In fact, 229 teachers and 159 school staff members lost their jobs....

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School reform supporters organize to back Rhee

Local supporters of D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee have grown more organized in recent weeks, as her attempts at reform have come under sharper attack from union officials and members of the city council. “I’ve never gotten more e-mails from people all over the city asking what they can do to help,” said Anne Martin, executive director of D.C. School Reform Now, an advocacy group in favor of systemwide changes such as entrusting principals with more power to hire and fire. The group’s online petition has collected 700 signatures in little more than a week. More than 200 of those came Friday and Saturday, following Rhee’s nine-hour D.C. Council...

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Credo: Mark Batterson

In 1996, Mark Batterson opened a "church for the unchurched" with about 50 worshipers meeting in Union Station's dingy, basement movie theaters. Today, National Community Church, named one of America's "most innovative and influential" by the Christian Outreach magazine, has expanded to three more D.C-area theaters, a Capitol Hill coffee shop, and weekly attendance of about 1,500 people. The unexpected early October closing of the Union Station theaters left one congregation homeless, but faithful. Batterson, 39, spoke with The Examiner about where his faith comes from, and what place has to do with it. Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith? I'm a...

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Council members accuse Rhee of breaking law in teacher showdown

D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray accused Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee in a daylong showdown Thursday of breaking a law that led to the firing of nearly 400 teachers and school staff earlier this month. Rhee argued that her decision to blatantly disregard the city council's July decision to cut more than $9 million from summer school was both legally defensible and made with the interest of students in mind. The battle is part of a two-year struggle for control of the direction of the school system. The recent round of firings led to an explosion of anger among teachers, union officials and council members who felt they were left in the dark as Rhee made her decisions. "I was...

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Alexandria schools facing stiff budget cuts

Deep cuts to teachers and classrooms are expected next year in Alexandria public schools, the latest local district to warn of dire budget shortfalls. "I have only bad news for you tonight," Alexandria schools financial chief Jean Sina told the school board before rattling off sobering figures. Projections put the next year's shortfall between $11 million and $17 million, Sina said. That's as much as 9 percent of the school district's current $198 million budget. In Arlington County schools, the combined shortfall for this year and next is more than $44 million, or about 6 percent of the current budget. And in Fairfax, the state's largest school system, next year's gap is about $176...

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Swine flu sweeps through Washington region

Two die in Maryland from H1N1 As waves of swine flu sweep through schools, families and even professional sports teams, doctors are shrugging their shoulders and urging the ill to hunker down at home until the virus passes. In the vast majority of cases, that's proved the best medicine. But on Wednesday, Maryland reported that the H1N1 virus caused the deaths of two residents who showed no underlying health conditions. One first-grader in Virginia with no underlying medical conditions died last week, Virginia health officials said. In Fairfax County Public Schools, the number of students missing school has doubled from last year to between 6 and 7 percent, spokeswoman Lori...

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H1N1 expected to replace seasonal flu in coming years

Vaccination seasons in the coming years likely will feel far less chaotic as the swine flu replaces the seasonal flu as the illness to reckon with. "Over the course of the next year or two, H1N1 will likely supplant the seasonal flu," said Steven Salzberg, director of the University of Maryland's Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology. He added that a similar virus "replacement" happened after the 1967-68 flu pandemic. When a new virus comes along, he said, old flu strains tend to die off. "In a pretty short time, we'll be back to vaccinating only once," Salzberg said. At that point, states and counties will be back to mundane dispersal of ample vaccinations, as...

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Montgomery baffled by students quitting school

Trading in on a diploma Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Jerry Weast said in a memo released Monday that falling graduation rates and rising dropout numbers were "discouraging" and defied easy solutions. Weast wrote that the graduation rates of black and Hispanic students, which have decreased at faster rates than their white and Asian peers, were especially disheartening. Despite "myriad strategies" to keep students in school, "we continue to lose students, and there appear to be as many unique sets of factors and facts as there are students who drop out," Weast said. The graduation rate fell to about 87 percent in 2009, down from a recent peak of nearly 93...

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Tax increases, service cuts expected in Arlington

Arlington County residents who have weathered the economic downturn should prepare for tax increases and cuts to schools and county services, school and county officials said. The news comes as a sobering reminder of the reach of the recession. In past downturns, Arlington has hardly wavered. Even as neighboring jurisdictions made deep cuts in the spring, Arlington emerged relatively unscathed. This year, however, commercial real estate assessments are expected to drop by 14 percent, compared with an expected 5 percent decline in home assessments. The resulting shortfall in property and other taxes would total more than $44 million, according to new numbers from county...

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The 3-minute interview: Elizabeth Muse

It's a beautiful autumn morning and all you know is you want to get out of the city, but after a long workweek you have no idea what's going on, or where. That scenario was too familiar for Muse, co-founder of A Day's Outing. So she created www.adaysouting.com, a free Web site offering thousands of ideas for local outings tailored to location, time and type of event. What inspired your site? I was visiting my mother in Roanoke with my two children and she said, 'Let's take a day trip!' It was a beautiful fall day in 2007. And I thought for sure I could find something, but I was amazed that I couldn't find a site that would take my specifications and give me a selection of ideas. So I...

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Credo: Keith Stroup

When the Obama administration last week changed its drug-enforcement policy to stop the pursuit of medical-marijuana sellers and users in the 14 states that allow it, Keith Stroup earned one more small victory. The 65-year-old founder of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws sat down with The Examiner to discuss his life's efforts to legalize pot, and the libertarian values that have guided his work. Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith? I was raised as a fundamentalist Baptist in southern Illinois, but I managed to escape that culture. I respect those people for whom religion plays a larger role, but I am personally not religious in any traditional...

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Child care financial assistance at risk in Montgomery

Low-income families in need of subsidies for child care costs in Montgomery County are finding the money in shorter supply and under greater budgetary scrutiny. Advocates worry that a decline in aid because of budgetary pressures will mean more families choosing unlicensed -- and cheaper -- child care, or none at all. Two Montgomery programs offer financial assistance to hundreds of county residents to offset thousands of dollars in private child care costs. Officials say hundreds more likely are eligible, but either are not aware of the programs, or fear signing up because they are illegal immigrants. A portion of one subsidy program -- called Working Parent Assistance -- was cut...

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Schools asking for more money for healthier lunches

Local school officials faced with growing populations of low-income students are petitioning Congress for more federal dollars to fund free and reduced-price school lunches. The call for more money comes in advance of expected moves to reauthorize the federal Child Nutrition Act by early next year, as well as continued clamor for healthier lunch options. "We need help," said Montgomery schools Superintendent Jerry Weast, speaking Tuesday to Gov. Martin O'Malley and asking him to mobilize Maryland's members of Congress on behalf of a favorable reauthorization. As part of the act, the federal government reimburses school systems $2.68 for each free lunch provided to eligible students,...

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Graduation rate declines in Fairfax County

The graduation rate for Hispanic students in Northern Virginia remained far below that of other students, despite pockets of improvement, according to numbers released Tuesday by the state's department of education. In Fairfax, the state's largest district, 73 percent of Hispanic students graduated with the class of 2009, down from 74 percent in 2008. About 95 percent of their white peers earned a diploma. In Alexandria, 65 percent of Hispanic students reached the academic milestone, compared to 87 percent of white students. Even so, that's up from 58 percent for the class of 2008. In Arlington, the rate jumped to 69 percent from 64 percent, while 96 percent of white students...

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O'Malley warns of cuts to education

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley warned the state's school superintendents on Tuesday to prepare to face cuts as a result of the state's $2 billion budget shortfall. "You know what the reality is," O'Malley told the executives gathered in Annapolis. "There's no spin I can put on a $2 billion shortfall in a $13 billion general fund." O'Malley took great pains to convince the superintendents that he's been an ally, including using federal stimulus dollars to fully fund the state's portion of education costs, or about 40 percent of its total budget. But unless the federal government somehow extends financial aid to states, O'Malley said that the good times will likely be...

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New school boundaries proposed in Silver Spring

A new Montgomery County schools boundary proposal would ease overcrowding in Silver Spring, but could lead to a packed middle school in the near future. Under Superintendent Jerry Weast's proposal, Sligo Creek Elementary School would lose the most students, easing the pressure on its bursting seams. The proposal comes at a time when the school district is experiencing a sharp turnaround in enrollment after years of slight declines. The district has about 142,000 students this year, up from fewer than 138,000 just two years ago. Sligo Creek enrolled about 650 students this year, up from 615 last year and about 120 over its official capacity. As a result, the conference room is now a...

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Credo: Bob Bennett

The media portrayal of the Mormon Church during the Salt Lake City Olympics offended Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah. "People would address it as if no one of any education or intelligence could possibly believe such an outlandish story," he said. So the 76-year-old congressman penned a defense. Many hope that the resulting book — "Leap of Faith: Confronting the Origins of the Book of Mormon" — will help to dispel skepticism about fellow Mormon and likely presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Bennett sat down with The Examiner to discuss his lifelong faith, and its fought-for place in the public square. Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith? I am...

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Teachers, principals caught in fraud case

Fairfax educators sue over alleged land scam Two Fairfax County public school principals and dozens of teachers they recruited into a North Carolina land deal have been caught up in what could be the largest mortgage fraud case in state history, according to court documents. A federal grand jury in North Carolina has been probing the massive fraud case. Teachers were left with worthless land and gaping holes in their bank accounts, according to lawsuits growing out of the case. Daniel Meier, principal at Fairfax's Robinson Secondary School, and his brother Thomas Meier, principal at McLean's Langley High School, worked with a former student, Mark Dain, to motivate investors to pay...

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Despite improvement, D.C. students' math scores still lagging

Md. 4th-graders show progress; no Va. gains D.C. public and charter school students showed significant progress on the most recent round of national math tests, but not enough to nudge the District out of last place compared with the 50 states. Maryland fourth-graders bucked national trends by showing improvements on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often called "The Nation's Report Card." But the state's eighth-grade scores stagnated. In Virginia, both grade levels failed to earn significant gains since the last exam in 2007. Maryland and Virginia test scores remain among the top in the United States. In both states, students scored higher than national averages and...

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White Flint development worries parents, school officials

Plans for urban development along Montgomery County's Interstate 270 corridor have angered parents and school officials threatened by overcrowded classrooms and possible redistricting. A draft proposal by the county's planning commission to develop new homes and businesses near the White Flint Metro station would bring more than 400 new elementary students, according to school district projections. Similar plans -- with similar potential for controversy -- are moving forward at other sites along the corridor, such as Germantown, Gaithersburg and Clarksburg. But the White Flint plan, released in July, does not set aside land for a new school near the affected area, and instead...

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D.C. Council to hold hearings on teacher firings

Two D.C. Council hearings set for later this month will attempt to clear up the confusion and bad feelings stemming from the teacher firings Chancellor Michelle Rhee announced two weeks ago. D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray will host community members on Oct. 16 and Rhee and Mayor Adrian Fenty on Oct. 29. Still not clear after two weeks of protest is why more than 900 teachers were hired since last spring even as cuts seemed likely. In a legal complaint, Washington Teachers Union President George Parker said the 934 new classroom teacher hires were "far in excess of the number of new teachers hired for any school year in the recent past." He did not include past years' numbers....

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Montgomery grapples with looming school retirements

A full one-third of Montgomery County school employees will be eligible to retire in 10 years, leaving county officials asking who will fill the void in leadership and how to fund generous pensions. That figure compares with fewer than one in 10 employees eligible for retirement this year, according to a report discussed Monday by the Montgomery County Council. Among school principals and central office administrators, about half could be retired by 2018, compared with fewer than 17 percent today. About 25 percent of the school district's teachers will have reached the retirement ranks, compared with 6 percent this year. Valerie Ervin, chairwoman of the council's education...

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Credo: Leith Anderson

While political strategists speculate on issues to inspire the favor of evangelical voters, Leith Anderson prefers simply to focus on their faith. "Politics is a part of people's lives, but God is the center of their lives," said the 64-year-old president of the National Association of Evangelicals, representing more than 40 denominations in 45,000 churches throughout the U.S. He sat down with The Examiner to share why that distinction is important. Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith? I am a Christian, and in many ways that's all the definition that I need to have. Recognizing that it's helpful sometimes to offer more detail, I am an evangelical Christian, and...

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Teachers union pushes anti-Rhee protests

The Washington Teachers Union filled downtown's Freedom Plaza on Thursday with more than 1,000 teachers and labor union faithful as they struggled to capture public opinion following Chancellor Michelle Rhee's recent round of firings. "No matter how many times Mayor Fenty talks about bad teachers, we know it's a lie," shouted WTU President George Parker from a stage filled with local and national union leaders. "We know you are good teachers." Parker's protest came one day after the union filed a lawsuit in the District's Superior Court claiming that last week's firing of nearly 400 school employees under the pretext of a budget shortfall was an "attempt to...

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Maryland next battleground for private school vouchers

Advocates for Maryland public schools and teachers unions have taken a pre-emptive strike against renewed efforts to pass a law creating a voucher system that would pay for children to attend private schools. The vouchers are part of legislation expected to be introduced to the state's General Assembly during its 2010 session, beginning in January. They would be funded by donations from businesses to organizations that would grant private school scholarships. The contributions would be eligible for a 75-cent on the dollar tax credit for the businesses. "In the current economic situation, we cannot possibly conceive of the rationale for giving away hundreds of thousands of dollars in...

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Rhee calls charges over teacher firings 'unsubstantiated'

D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee fired back Wednesday against the "completely unsubstantiated" rumors concerning the recent firings of nearly 400 school employees. To the charge of targeting veteran teachers for firings, Rhee said, "such a practice is not only illegal but morally reprehensible." The percentage of fired school staff over 40 years old "mirrors almost exactly the percentage of veterans within the DCPS work force," she said. Employees with three or fewer years of experience "are more heavily represented" among those fired than among total staff. Rhee also attempted to explain why more than 900 teachers were hired over the summer if hundreds were going to...

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Teachers union plans lawsuit against Rhee over firings

The D.C. teachers union's leader said Tuesday that the labor group would sue the city in an effort to reverse a round of firings by Chancellor Michelle Rhee. "We're looking at age discrimination, and we're looking at the unfairness of the process," Washington Teachers Union President George Parker told WTOP radio. Rhee postponed on Tuesday providing specific details about the firings, which included 229 teachers. Her spokeswoman Jennifer Calloway said she expected an update Wednesday. So far, information has not been released about who specifically lost a job, but Rhee's opponents are insistent that older black teachers were targeted. A lack of trust is at the heart of the...

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The 3-minute interview: Sameer Lalwani

At the tender age of 26, Lalwani is figuring out the most effective policies for counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Lalwani is a research fellow for the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation and a contributor to the AfPak Channel at www.foreignpolicy.com/afpak. What's the AfPak Channel? It's sort of a mix of a news aggregator, a blog, and informed comment about what's going on in Afghanistan and Pakistan. I'm a contributor, along with about 30 to 40 other people -- a lot of whom know more than I do about the region. It's an online collaboration between New America and Foreign Policy magazine. Where do you look for news coverage of the region? I try to look...

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D.C. Council, Rhee spar over schools' budget gap

The D.C. Council and public school system are at odds over a $24 million accounting gap in the schools budget, as community anger grows over last week's layoff of 388 school employees. As a result, opponents of Chancellor Michelle Rhee have used her silence as evidence of her desire to rid the system of older, mostly black teachers. More objective critics worry that confusion over the budget will distract from productive conversations about real reform. Rhee fired 388 school employees Friday, including 229 teachers, blaming an unanticipated $44 million budget shortfall and efforts to match funding to enrollment. "It's a mystery -- we can't understand it," said D.C. Council Chairman...

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Suspensions drop as educators keep troublemakers in school

Suspension rates have dropped sharply over the past few years in many area schools, but not because of a profusion of angelic adolescents. Instead, superintendents have signed on to the idea that kids behaving badly only turn worse when forced out, and often see suspension as a reward. The goal, educators say, should be to keep them in class. But suspension-reducing policies have meant at best devoting time and resources to in-school discipline, and at worst more disruptive and dangerous hallways and classrooms. "Teachers at various points have not felt supported when they have rebellious children in the classroom," said a Montgomery County school employee who asked that her...

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Credo: Brian Lee

John Calvin's 16th century Reformation theology faces a tough crowd in 2009. Enslavement to sin sounds somewhat hopeless, and heavenly predestination downright unfair. But Brian Lee, 37, a defense consultant as well as founding pastor of Christ Reformed Church in Washington, D.C., hopes to place Calvin in a new light during this 500th anniversary year of his birth. His church is hosting a Calvin in the Capital speaker series on Thursdays, Oct. 8 through Nov. 12. Lee shared with The Examiner by e-mail thoughts on Calvin's faith, and his own. Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith? I am a Reformed Protestant, because of what the Reformation says about the grace of God. All...

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CREDO: Brian Lee

Brian Lee John Calvin’s 16th-century Reformation theology faces a tough crowd in 2009. Enslavement to sin sounds somewhat hopeless, and heavenly predestination downright unfair. But Brian Lee, 37, a defense consultant as well as founding pastor of Christ Reformed Church in Washington, D.C., hopes to place Calvin in a new light during this 500th-anniversary year of his birth. His church is hosting a Calvin in the Capital speaker series on Thursdays, Oct. 8 through Nov. 12. Lee shared with The Examiner by e-mail thoughts on Calvin’s faith, and his own. Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith? I am a Reformed Protestant, because of what the Reformation says about...

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Teachers struggle with 'keep 'em in class' directive

When one scoundrel student throws a classroom into chaos, teachers have long relied on the power to send the offending student out. But with a directive to keep kids in their desks, schools are trying to adapt. "In some cases it means Saturday detention," said Prince George's County school board member Rosalind Johnson, who sits on the district's Suspension Reduction Task Force, created last spring to try to bring down the district's shocking number of offenses. In 2007-08. more than 21,000 incidents led to suspensions of at least one day, according to state records. "But too often children doing the foolish behavior are just bored. Those kids need a curriculum and a way of teaching...

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D.C. schools fire 229 teachers

Nearly 400 D.C. Public Schools employees, including 229 teachers, received notice Friday that they're out of a job. The district issued a statement Friday afternoon attributing the cuts to an unanticipated $44 million budget shortfall. Opponents of Chancellor Michelle Rhee have spent the past week protesting the impending firings and blasting the district for hiring 900 new teachers over the summer. George Parker, president of the Washington Teachers Union embroiled in two-year contract negotiations with Rhee, called the timing of the firings reflective of "at best ... extreme mismanagement and a lack of transparency." The school system emphasized that most schools will see...

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Hundreds rally to try to save D.C. school voucher program

Students missing class gathered with politicians and parents by the hundreds on Capitol Hill Wednesday in a last-ditch effort to save the District of Columbia's private school voucher program. Since earning passage in Congress in 2003, the program has granted federally funded vouchers for children to attend private school in the District. But this year, a Democratic Congress is less inclined to renew it. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., chairman of the appropriations subcommittee responsible for the vouchers' funding, has criticized the program for a lack of proof that students are doing any better in private schools than in public institutions. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has...

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Fairfax County warns of higher taxes, larger school classes

Fairfax County Executive Anthony Griffin warned Tuesday that the county may have to raise taxes to cope with a growing budget shortfall next year. "In all candor, I'm going to have to put a number of things that were on the table last year back on the table this year," Griffin said at a meeting of county and school leaders, including a potential 11-cent increase in the real estate tax rate and a vehicle registration fee that could bring the county about $27 million. County officials are projecting a nearly $316 million deficit in fiscal 2011, which starts in July. But school officials warned of more increases in class size, inevitable achievement declines and school closures...

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Construction a bright spot for schools

New textbooks may be rare and teacher raises unlikely, but schools are finding an upside to the recession: construction. As materials and labor costs drop because of a dearth of private-sector demand, public-sector buyers like counties and school districts gladly reap the savings. Arlington Public Schools saw a 24 percent savings from its original estimate for a new Yorktown High School. Instead of spending $110 million for the construction currently under way, the cost will be closer to $83 million, said Mary Beth Chambers, the district's associate superintendent for finance. "Yorktown was a very pleasant surprise, and it means we don't have to sell as much in bonds," Chambers said....

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Alexandria superintendent targets students who are 'sneaking in'

As school systems in the Washington area face rising enrollments and shrinking budgets, one superintendent has gone public with administrative penny-pinching. Alexandria Superintendent Morton Sherman is making sure every last student attending the city's schools is a bona fide resident. "Evidence and data show that less than 1 percent of our 11,000-plus student population is 'sneaking in,' " Sherman wrote recently on his superintendent blog. "Still, I will not tolerate this. It is a burden that Alexandria taxpayers should not have to share." Morton encouraged parents to send tips about students who might live outside Alexandria's boundaries, and he said the district would use...

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Credo: Mohammad Mehboob

When the Muslim holy month of Ramadan ended last week, Mohammad Mehboob expected his Manassas mosque and community center, Dar al Noor (House of Light), to fill four services. Instead, nearly 6,000 people showed up and they had to add a fifth, as well as provide a shuttle service from overflow parking at the nearest shopping mall. In 10 years, Mehboob's community has expanded from 100 Muslims meeting at a small home to nearly 1,000 at weekly Friday prayers. The 55-year-old president of Dar al Noor and Dale City business owner sat down with The Examiner to discuss his faith and what it has inspired. Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith? I am a Muslim. The best thing --...

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Hundreds of Md. graduates use test waivers

Students from MontCo, Pr. George's account for 62 percent of total Waivers allowing high school seniors to skip Maryland's newly required graduation tests were used more frequently in Prince George's and Montgomery counties this year than in all other districts, save for beleaguered Baltimore. Prince George's accounted for 211 student waivers, the most in Maryland and about 40 percent of the state's total. Montgomery issued 117, or about 22 percent of the total, according to new data released by the state's education department. The waivers are used to nudge seniors across the graduation stage even if they haven't passed the four required exams -- biology, English, algebra and...

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Montgomery County graduation rates fall

Montgomery County's graduation rate has fallen to the lowest percentage in more than a decade. Only about 87 percent of Montgomery County Public Schools students who should have earned a diploma in 2009 actually did, down from a recent peak of 92 percent in 2003. The percentage of graduates slipped below 90 percent for the first time in 2008, to 89 percent. "Even [87 percent] is not good enough," said school board member Laura Berthiaume. "It should be 100 percent. There should be no excuse for not graduating 100 percent of our kids, if not in four years, then at least in six." It was the lowest graduation rate for the county since the state changed the way it...

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Arlington leads region in advanced degrees

The District of Columbia leads the 50 states in the percentage of residents with advanced degrees, but compared with the city's surrounding suburbs, Washingtonians are downright average. Arlington County earned the region's boasting rights for its nearly 37 percent of residents with graduate or professional degrees, according to the 2008 American Community Survey, released late Monday by the U.S. Census Bureau. That compares with about 27 percent in the District. In Alexandria and Montgomery County, chances are almost one in three that the adult you pass on the street has a master's degree or better -- both jurisdictions have a rate of about 29 percent. Fairfax County follows at about...

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Credo: J. Reilly Lewis

J. Reilly Lewis serves God with his music, filling Washington's grandest spaces with the chords and choirs imagined by the world's great composers. The 65-year-old D.C. native is the founder and musical director of the Washington Bach Consort, the organist and choirmaster at Clarendon United Methodist Church, and the 25-year musical director of the Cathedral Choral Society, whose season begins with Verdi's "Requiem" on Oct. 18 at the Washington National Cathedral. Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith? I was raised Episcopalian, and I'm still a member of St. Paul's Parish on K Street. But as a professional church musician I've been employed happily by the Methodist church...

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Obama tries to rally young supporters to push health package

President Obama told a packed arena at the University of Maryland that he needs young people to propel health care reform just as they propelled him to the presidency. So far they've been slackers. "Just like the change that began in our campaign," he told them, "it starts with people -- especially young people." Those Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 handed Obama two-thirds of their votes in the 2008 presidential election. About 45 percent of them identified as Democrats last year, compared with only 27 percent as Republicans, and most polls show the majority favor Obama's far-reaching reform proposals. But while they give pollsters the nod of approval, the...

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The 3-minute interview: Mark Glaser

As the president of the nearly 4,000-member Fairfax County Federation of Teachers, Glaser makes friends and foes in near-equal measure. The school board knows just how he feels about the district’s budget — not great. And his teachers know that whatever their worry, Glaser is their staunch defender. What’s the point of a teachers union in a state without teachers contracts? We still work on issues of wages, benefits and working conditions. And we also exist to protect teachers’ rights under the due process procedures of the U.S. Constitution. This doesn’t go away in the absence of a contract. In fact, it becomes even more important because employees have...

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To save D.C. school vouchers, senators want accountability

Participating private schools will need to become more accountable if D.C.'s federally funded voucher program stands a chance at continuing, senators said Wednesday at a hearing on Capitol Hill. The call for more data to determine student success gets at the heart of the school choice debate: What determines the viability of a school: parental standards or government standards? The voucher program, called D.C. Opportunity Scholarships, allows about 1,700 low-income students in the District to attend private schools, at a cost of about $13 million this year. A bill pending in Congress would reauthorize the five-year-old program and expand the number of eligible students. But some...

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District to lay off teachers at end of month

D.C. Public Schools officials will lay off teachers and staff at the end of September to shore up a multimillion-dollar shortfall in the school system's budget, Chancellor Michelle Rhee said Wednesday. Rhee estimated the district could be short as much as $40 million, but said an amount would not be certain until the official enrollment was determined in October. How many employees will lose their jobs is impossible to estimate because different schools will deal with their cuts differently, she said. One principal might choose to lay off a teacher making $100,000, while another might lose three classroom aides each making $33,000. Washington Teachers' Union officials, furious about...

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Credo: Bishop Richard Graham

In a city that thrives on contention, Bishop Richard Graham spreads a message of peace and humility, here and around the world. The 58-year-old leads nearly 35,000 members of 80 congregations that make up the Metropolitan Washington, D.C., Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. This summer, the ELCA joined other Protestant denominations in grappling with the issue of same-sex relationships among its clergy. Bishop Graham shared with The Examiner by e-mail his thoughts on the outcome of that debate, and his hopes for the region’s future. Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith? I’m a Christian and I serve God in the Lutheran Christian tradition. I...

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Asian students land prime spots at premier science school

Asian students for the first time this year took more than half of the coveted spots at the Washington region's top public high school, maintaining a stunning trajectory of academic success. In the past five years, the ranks of Asian students have risen to 54 percent of admitted students at Fairfax County's Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, commonly called TJ. That's up from 32 percent five years ago and 45 percent last year. Those familiar with the region's Asian community -- comprising Indians, Chinese, Koreans and others -- attribute the ascendancy to an immigrant work ethic combined with cultures that value education above nearly all else. "Many Asian...

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Teachers focus on quality of life, instead of raises

Montgomery County teachers and school staff are focusing on quality-of-life issues as school system officials come to contract negotiations lacking the resources to offer raises. School employees gave up a scheduled 5 percent raise for the current school year -- the third year of a three-year contract -- as a result of emergency negotiations last fall to address the county's budget shortfall. Negotiations are have started for 2010-2013, and teachers don't want to feel skunked. "The paperwork burdens are tremendous and annoying," said Eric Luedtke, a seventh-grade social studies teacher at Silver Spring's Mario Loiederman Middle School. With a raise out of the question, Luedtke said...

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Black, Hispanic students disappearing from TJ

The number of black and Hispanic students accepted into the Washington region's premier high school has dropped by more than half in the past five years, according to numbers from Fairfax County Public Schools. Only six Hispanic students and eight black students earned acceptance to the class of 2013 at Fairfax County's Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, down from 12 black students and 19 Hispanic students for the class of 2009. About 480 students were accepted this year overall. U.S. News and World Report ranks Thomas Jefferson, commonly called TJ, as the best high school in the nation. Its admissions process involves an academic test and an extensive review of...

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Draft contract for D.C. teachers includes firing provision

The freedom of D.C. Public Schools to fire its teachers has resurfaced as a critical issue in ongoing and overdue contract negotiations. A draft version of a contract two years in the making includes a provision that "teachers could be subjected to performance-based excessing," according to a copy obtained by a teacher turned blogger, Candi Peterson. To be "excessed" is to lose a job when a school is closed, merges with another school or is taken over by an outside agency aiming to reform it. Those teachers would have options such as buyouts, early retirement, or one year to find a new job in the system while participating in professional development and earning a full salary for...

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Obama calls on students to set goals

President Obama urged students to set goals and persevere in a back-to-school address Tuesday from Arlington’s Wakefield High School that largely avoided its preceding controversy. “Your goal can be something as simple as doing all of your homework,” Obama said, keeping his message free of partisan language while impressing upon students their role in securing a stable future for the nation. In Arlington County and in districts throughout the Washington area, schools downplayed the politics of the moment and allowed principals to decide if and when to show the speech. At Montgomery County’s Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, Obama was broadcast in every...

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Arlington's new schools chief faces relatively minor hurdles

As neighboring Washington-area school systems watch achievement wane and funding disappear, the biggest challenge for Arlington's first-year superintendent, Pat Murphy, is improving on a status quo that isn't half bad. Test scores are above average, the racial achievement gap has shrunk, most parents are content -- among them U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan -- and budget shortfalls are minor compared with the county's neighbors. But in today's educational culture created by the No Child Left Behind Act, only improvement ensures that schools avoid sanctions, and Murphy seems undaunted. "Everyone is pulling in the right direction," Murphy said. Between 2002 and 2008,...

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Credo: Kristan Hawkins

Kristan Hawkins doesn't like to discuss her age, but not out of vanity. The 24-year-old wants to be sure that her right-to-life agenda is taken seriously. As the executive director at Arlington-based Students for Life of America, Hawkins and her team start and support pro-life movements on college campuses around the country. And as the mother of a young child with cystic fibrosis, she has appeared on national news and radio in opposition to current efforts to reform health care. Hawkins will speak alongside politicians and activists at the Values Voter Summit later this month in Washington, D.C. This week, she spoke with The Examiner about the source of her struggle for the sanctity of...

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Test scores go missing at D.C. high school

Half of the standardized tests at a D.C. public high school went missing last spring, and with them any official explanation. Now, parents at Northeast's long-struggling Spingarn Senior High are left wondering not only how their children performed, but if the school made any academic progress at all after six years of near-straight failure. They also would like to know who is to blame. "We've gotten about six different stories," said James Long, the school's PTA president. "I was told they'd e-mail me the information," said Rosalind Lyle, who served last year as the school's parent coordinator. No message had arrived by Friday evening. The test, called the DC-CAS, is supposed to...

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Schools audit targets bureaucrat salaries, day care inspections

Bureaucrats at the Maryland State Department of Education earned hefty salaries in apparent violation of state law, while day care centers operated without proper inspections, according to a state audit released this week. Nearly 70 "loaned educators" -- county school officials contracted by the state for various projects -- were paid a total of almost $9 million in fiscal 2009, averaging about $130,000 annually and often "significantly higher than state employees serving in similar positions," the report said. Their forces have ballooned since 1990, when 21 loaned officials earned less than $1 million. According to the report, compiled every three years by the state's Office of...

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Loudoun schools opt out of Obama speech

Loudoun County school officials will not show their students President Obama's back-to-school speech on Tuesday amid a swirl of controversy about the appropriateness of the moment. "There will be no forced showings," said Loudoun spokesman Wayde Byard. "It's not a philosophical thing, it's just logistical." Byard said that schools "want instruction to start on the first day," and said that the speech would be available online for teachers who wished to use it as part of a lesson plan. Obama will be appearing at Arlington County's Wakefield High School to "speak directly to the nation's children and youth about persisting and succeeding in...

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Archdiocese requiring more money for schools

Collected funds will go to tuition assistance programs Catholic parishes in the Washington Archdiocese will be required to direct a significantly larger portion of their offertories next year toward education funding, according to policy changes released this week. Parishes that do not already support a school will give 9 percent of donations to educational assistance beginning in July 2010, while parishes that do support a school will give 3 percent. In past years, all parishes contributed 2 percent of offerings to K-12 education. "It has to do with accountability for our schools, and understanding that everyone in the Catholic community has the responsibility to pass along the...

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The 3-Minute interview: Madison Hartke-Weber

As most ninth-graders are planning their next trip to the mall, Madison is angling for the next big scoop. The 13-year-old is a student at D.C.'s Duke Ellington School of the Arts and a reporter for the Scholastic Kids Press Corps, found at scholastic.com/kidspress. You've interviewed some of D.C.'s most powerful people. Any favorites? One of my recent favorites was U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan. That was a big deal because I go to a D.C. public school and I was able to talk to him about a lot of issues that my school faces. And I even got in a question about playing basketball. Did he have any interesting replies? One thing he said was that we all need to read a lot. So if he...

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Vaccination not required, but strongly urged

State and local health officials haven't made flu vaccinations a must, but recommendations have come to the point of using all capital letters. "The seasonal flu vaccinations that we will offer are NOT mandatory for school-aged children," wrote Montgomery County health department spokeswoman Mary Anderson. "But we are encouraging EVERYONE (all ages) to get a seasonal flu vaccination this year." Anderson and her colleagues in other counties said that residents have expressed confusion between the seasonal vaccination, generally the domain of the elderly and those slightly more prone to worry, and the swine flu vaccination due out as early as October. Seasonal flu vaccinations will...

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D.C. police receive hundreds of calls about violence at schools

The buildings and grounds of D.C. Public Schools were the sites of 3,500 emergency calls to the D.C. police during the 2007-08 school year, according to a new report by the Heritage Foundation and the Lexington Institute. More than 900 of the calls cited violent incidents, including assaults and sex offenses. Nearly 1,400 calls complained of property incidents such as auto theft and vandalism. The remaining 1,250 calls reported acts such as drug offenses, gunshots, suicide and disorderly conduct. D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee "and her team have been incredibly effective about communicating school accountability and reforms, but there's been very little in the way of...

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Schools focus on swine flu prevention as students return

The typical thrills of the first weeks of school are tempered this year by the near-panic of parents, teachers and district officials guarding against an onslaught of swine flu. "They'll be bombarded with washing their hands," said Rosalind Johnson, a Prince George's County school board member. "I think we all need to brace ourselves for a major epidemic," said Pat O'Neill, vice president of the Montgomery County school board, whose college-age daughter is recovering from the knockout illness. The flu, officially referred to as the "2009 influenza A (H1N1) virus," has spread worldwide, infecting Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and prompting World Health...

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Schools crack down on rising truancy

School districts in the Washington area are revamping their truancy policies in an effort to keep in school the thousands of students for whom attending class simply is too onerous. In the District, where an estimated 20 percent of all students are truant, a policy passed in late August by the city’s school board includes extending to 25 the number of unexcused absences a student must accumulate before referral to the city’s juvenile-justice authorities. Previously, the threshold was 15 days, but officials said the policy was neither effective nor evenly enforced. “I don’t want us funneling students with non-criminal issues into the criminal justice...

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Credo: Lester B. Wallace III

Lester B. Wallace III knows the power of a good education. He graduated from Morehouse College in Atlanta, one of the best historically black colleges in the country, before earning a master's degree from George Washington University. But the 30-year-old also respects the pull of his passion for creating music and influencing young lives. He works with Words, Beats and Life Inc., teaching radio production skills to young people in the D.C. area. And under the pseudonym 2-Tone Jones, Wallace spins records at clubs in D.C. and New York City, hosts "Ill Street Grooves" Monday nights on 89.3 WBFW, and plays every Tuesday night with Sound of the City at the U-Street Corridor's historic...

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Credo: Lester B. Wallace III

Lester B. Wallace III knows the power of a good education. He graduated from Morehouse College in Atlanta, one of the best historically black colleges in the country, before earning a master’s degree from George Washington University. But the 30-year-old also respects the pull of his passion for creating music and influencing young lives. He works with Words, Beats and Life Inc., teaching radio production skills to young people in the D.C. area. And under the pseudonym 2-Tone Jones, Wallace spins records at clubs in D.C. and New York City, hosts “Ill Street Grooves” Monday nights on 89.3 WBFW and plays every Tuesday night with Sound of the City at the U-Street...

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Low scores dominate Maryland science exams

Students in the Washington area's Maryland suburbs showed slight improvements on the state's standardized science tests, but most scores remained dismal while troubling gaps persisted among racial groups. Science struggles Eighth-graders in Montgomery and Prince George’s scored poorly on the state’s standardized science exams, and racial achievement gaps persisted. Montgomery County eighth-graders scoring “advanced” and “basic” on Maryland’s science exams: Race; advanced; basic Asian; 14 percent; 13 percent Black; 1 percent; 43 percent White; 13 percent; 10 percent Hispanic; 1 percent; 47 percent Prince George’s County eighth-graders...

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Virginia leads region on SATs

Public high school seniors in Virginia outpaced the national average as well as their peers in Maryland and the District on the 2009 SAT college entrance exams, according to scores released Tuesday. Virginia students scored an average of 1,515 on the 2,400-point test that measures reading, math and writing skills. The writing portion was added to the test in 2005. Virginia's average score compares with 1,493 nationally, 1,478 in Maryland and 1,196 in Washington, D.C. The District's scores declined by six points since 2008, while Maryland's stayed the same and Virginia's increased by one point. The national average increased by two points. "Average scores may fluctuate from year to...

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Montgomery schools freeze spending

The Montgomery County schools superintendent has announced a spending freeze, affecting nearly everything but repairs to the copy machine. All vacancies are frozen, with exceptions for principals and teachers supplemented by federal dollars, such as special educators and English as a second language specialists. Currently, the schools have fewer than a dozen vacancies that qualify to be frozen. Superintendent Jerry Weast instituted the freeze with an eye toward savings in preparation for the fiscal 2011 budget. County projections anticipate a gap of about $353 million, according to a memo issued to the school board. And while the economy is showing the first signs of recovery, local...

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D.C. schools open for the year without 'drama'

Students streamed through the doors of D.C. Public Schools on Monday morning largely without the chaos that has marked years past. About $200 million in renovations, including five new school buildings, was completed before the first day. Last fall, some projects remained unfinished even as students sat in their classrooms. Some parents voiced complaints about paint fumes in newly renovated John Burroughs Elementary, but an air quality report over the weekend gave the go-ahead for occupancy. "In the past there has been a lot of drama about schools being ready," said Ward 6 Councilman Tommy Wells. "This year is notable for the lack of drama." The new year started...

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More cuts loom as states chop spending

Washington-area educators are on edge, awaiting the possibility of more budget cuts as state officials continue to grapple with deficits. In Virginia, officials expect Gov. Tim Kaine to come out with what will likely be bad news in early September. Kaine said last week he will have to cut $1.5 billion more from the current fiscal year's budget, and potentially more in the next two years. The state's department of education, with other departments, submitted proposals for 5 percent, 10 percent and 15 percent reductions earlier this summer. "We'll have no details until after Labor Day," said department spokeswoman Julie Grimes. In Fairfax County, where the school board cut its...

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The frills are gone as students head back to class

When school bells start to ring this week, students across the Washington area will fill crowded classrooms led by fewer teachers and lacking many of the pricey perks they enjoyed in years past. Fairfax County, which begins class after Labor Day, lost about 250 positions as a result of spring's budget cuts. "Everyone -- students, teachers and administrators -- will take a hit," said Fairfax School Board member Dan Storck. "Classes will be crowded at all levels. ... High school students will see some elective options disappear." First day of school District First day D.C. Public...

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Credo: Darell Hammond

Darell Hammond Soon after Darell Hammond moved to Washington, D.C., in 1995, he read a newspaper story about two children who suffocated while playing in an abandoned car. He knew it could have been prevented had they had somewhere else to play, and the story inspired Hammond’s career. The 38-year-old co-founder and chief executive officer of D.C.-based KaBOOM! now oversees a nonprofit devoted to bringing communities together to build playgrounds across the country. Last weekend, KaBOOM! completed its 1,669th project. Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith? I consider myself much more spiritual than religious. I don’t identify with any particular faith, but I am...

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Area colleges score well in annual national rankings

Washington-area universities made a respectable showing on the 2010 U.S. News and World Report list of best colleges, with two institutions ranked as among the top 15 in their categories and two local schools heading the list of "up and coming colleges." Best National Universities (2010) 1. Harvard (Mass.) 2. Princeton (N.J.) 3. Yale (Conn.) 4. CalTech (Calif.) 4. MIT (Mass.) 4. Stanford (Calif.) 4. Penn (Penn.) 8. Columbia (N.Y.) 8. U. of Chicago (Ill.) 10. Duke (N.C.) Local universities: 14. Johns Hopkins (Md.) 23. Georgetown (D.C.) 24. U. of Virginia 33. William & Mary (Va.) 53. George Washington (D.C.) 53. University of Maryland, College Park 71. Virginia Tech 84....

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Enrollment in D.C. public schools plunges as students go elsewhere

Enrollment in D.C. Public Schools has been cut in half since 1980, dropping consistently through several generations from 100,000 students in 1980 to the 45,000 expected in the traditional public schools when classes start on Monday. But now, D.C. public school officials say they believe this year's students will be the front end of a system-wide turnaround. Since 1980, nearly 30,000 students have left the city's public school system for the promise of opportunities elsewhere. As the city's schools have seen enrollment slip from more than 100,000 students to less than 73,000 in public and charter schools, suburban systems have grown by up to 40 percent. Private schools have attracted...

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Enrollment swells in Washington-area suburbs

Enrollment in the Washington area's suburban school systems has ballooned in the past 30 years, as the District's schools have lost half of their students. Fairfax County schools saw enrollment grow by more than 30 percent since 1980, to 169,000 students last year. The system expects nearly 174,000 students in the fall, placing it among the 15 largest districts in the country. Across the Potomac River in Montgomery County, the region's second-largest school system expects nearly 2,000 more students in the fall, bringing enrollment close to 141,000. Montgomery's enrollment has grown by 41 percent since 1980; at the same time as it has become the region's most racially diverse...

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The 3-minute interview: Jennie Niles

People might’ve scoffed a decade ago at the idea of a high-performing public school in D.C. But educators such as Niles are turning that reputation around. She’s the founder and head of school at E.L. Haynes Public Charter in Petworth, where 80 percent of students passed the city’s math exam this year, and 66 percent passed the reading exam. What makes E.L. Haynes successful? We have high expectations for every single child, and we work really hard to use data in a variety of forms to understand what kids know and what they don’t know, and then tailor our instruction so we’re teaching them what they do need to know. And that allows them to learn really...

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U.S. students middling on international exams

American students are slogging along in the middle of the pack compared with their contemporaries around the world, according to test data released Tuesday by the U.S. government's National Center for Education Statistics. Among fourth-graders tested for reading literacy, 14 countries of 45 that participated scored higher than the United States, including Hungary and Bulgaria. Math results were more dire. Among 15-year-olds in 30 developed countries, the U.S. scored sixth-worst, ahead only of a handful of countries in southern Europe, and Mexico. "Today's report is another wake-up call that our students are treading the waters of academic achievement while other countries' students...

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Study backs vouchers for special education

Offering vouchers for students diagnosed with special needs to attend private schools leads to fewer diagnoses and could save state and federal dollars, according to a new study by the pro-school-choice Manhattan Institute. More than 20 percent of D.C. public school students are diagnosed with learning disabilities, compared with about 12 percent in Montgomery County and about 14 percent in Fairfax. Educators have long worried that failing districts label students as disabled when, in reality, they are behind academically for other reasons. Vouchers could help the District, according to the study's authors, because the city has a disproportionate number of special needs students and is...

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Montgomery students petition for a later school bell

Montgomery County students, after a long summer of sleeping till noon, are begging the school board to start classes one hour later. "We are concerned by endemic sleep deprivation in the student population," says an online petition introduced Monday, created by "students, parents, teachers and administrators," but written by student Josh Rothman, according to its Web site. It goes on to include facts from the National Sleep Foundation, including the average adolescent's required shuteye: 9.25 hours. By late Monday afternoon, the petition had collected more than 300 signatures. "I hate waking up at [five o'clock] in the morning to get ready for a bus that's...

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Credo: Bonnie McElveen-Hunter

From Katrina-stricken New Orleans to troubled regions throughout the world, Bonnie McElveen-Hunter has spent much of her life sharing herself and her resources with those in need. In her current position, McElveen-Hunter serves as the first woman to lead the Board of Governors of the American Red Cross. She is the founder and chief executive of Pace Communications, and served as the U.S. ambassador to Finland under President George W. Bush. Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith? I am a Presbyterian — sometimes known as “the frozen chosen.” Faith surely is not determined by denomination, but is a lifelong journey. Most important is how we put our faith to...

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Montgomery County middle schools score poorly on tests

Middle schoolers in Montgomery County turned in disappointing results on the state’s 2009 standardized tests, with special-needs students showing the worst performance since 2006. Twelve of the county’s 38 middle schools failed to meet all of their performance targets under the sweeping federal education legislation of No Child Left Behind compared with five schools last year. That target pertains to a percentage of students required to pass the tests. Special education students fared worst of all the groups the law requires states to measure, including low-income students and five racial categories. In eight of the middle schools, special education students did not perform...

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Credo: Chaplain Barry Black

Chaplain Barry Black When the cameras are off and the lobbyists aren’t listening, Senate Chaplain Barry Black’s door remains open. Since 2003, the 60-year-old retired rear admiral and chief of Navy chaplains has served senators, their families and staffs through counseling and spiritual care. He shared with The Examiner by e-mail his thoughts on the position, and the faith that has always guided him. Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith? I am a Seventh-day Adventist Christian. I appreciate the fact that my faith assures me that nothing can separate me from God’s love. Did anyone or any event especially influence your faith, or your path in...

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Area housing market up, for now

Signs point to a strengthening housing market in much of the the Washington region, but experts warn the recovery will wane when hit with a second round of foreclosures and the end of a hefty tax credit for first-time buyers. The gains parallel a more robust market nationally, revealed in Tuesday's release of the pending home sales index by the National Association of Realtors. The index, a leading indicator of actual sales, was up nearly 7 percent nationally from June 2008, and up almost 4 percent from May. The southern region, of which D.C., Maryland and Virginia are all a part, grew by 9 percent in the past year and 7 percent since May, the widest gain of all four regions...

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Students in other counties outpace Montgomery's on MSAs

From Calvert County to Howard County, students in Maryland's outlying towns and suburbs are outperforming those who attend the vaunted Montgomery County school system and those in neighboring Prince George's County. An analysis of recently released results from the 2009 Maryland Standardized Assessment, commonly called the MSA, shows that Howard County's third and eighth graders more often scored in the highest category than Montgomery County students in both reading and math. The tests are given each year to students in grades three through eight and are scored "basic," "proficient" or "advanced." Calvert County, with 17,000 students on a peninsula...

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Education reformers push for school funding alternatives

Putting the brakes on school spending without stripping students of quality will require revolutionizing how districts are funded, and some experts say the timing couldn’t be better. Local officials spent the past year wincing through painful cuts to schools. In Fairfax and Montgomery, home to about half of the metro area's students, staff and teachers will go without cost-of-living raises next year. In D.C., summer school slots will be cut in half in 2010 and about $175 per student was sliced from the mayor’s budget request for the schools. Many reformers say greater local choice is key to making the most efficient use of dwindling dollars. Daria Hall, a K-12 analyst at...

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Taxpayer cost per student soars in region

Educating a public school student in the Washington, D.C., region costs taxpayers about 45 percent more than it did in 2002, according to district budget figures, with that robust influx of dollars funding only modest gains in student performance. The region's per-student expenditure was about $14,240 in 2009, using comparable numbers from D.C. Public Schools, Montgomery and Prince George's county schools, and Fairfax, Arlington and Alexandria City schools. In 2002, it was about $9,800. In-state tuition at Maryland and Virginia's public universities was about $8,100 and $9,500, respectively, for the past school year, although out-of-state students subsidize the cost. Across the K-12...

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Credo: Matthew Crawford

Matthew Crawford Earning a doctorate can lead to many careers, but a motorcycle repairman generally isn’t one of them. Not so for Matthew Crawford, holder of a doctorate in political philosophy from the University of Chicago and a champion of grease monkeys everywhere. The 43-year-old left his job at the helm of a K Street think tank for the life of a Richmond mechanic. He will be discussing his recent book “Shop Class as Soulcraft” at Politics and Prose bookstore in Northwest D.C., Tuesday at 7 p.m. Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith? I feel no need to posit a supernatural agent who watches over me — that strikes me as one species of narcissism...

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Most D.C. voters back charters, vouchers

Nearly three-fourths of registered D.C. voters support education reforms such as charter schools and private school vouchers, the same time as confidence in public schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee is inching up, according to a new survey. The report, released jointly by eight Washington-area organizations that advocate shaking up the traditional public school system, partly reflects the growth seen in nonpublic education. Charter schools now enroll more than one-third of public school students, up 17 percent from 2008. The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program, which has provided money for low-income students to attend private schools, has served more than 8,000 students since its start...

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Univ. of Md. hiring freeze to hit students

The University of Maryland will freeze hiring and reduce staff at its College Park campus, the university president said. C.D. Mote, who said he would shrink the staff through retirements and possibly layoffs, said the university needs to cut $14.6 million from its 2010 budget. The hiring freezewill mean larger classes, fewer courses and trimmed-back student services as students return to campus next month. Officials have warned that more statewide budget cuts scheduled for September could result in a tuition increase in January, breaking a four-year tuition freeze. Gov. Martin O'Malley told the state university system it has to cut $37.8 million from its budget to help overcome the...

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Three-minute interview - Raymond Collazo

Collazo, 17, is a city kid with a woodman’s job. The T.C. Williams High School student is spending his summer with the Student Conservation Association, working with a crew of teens to build trails, plant trees and restore natural habitats. Collazo and his co-workers took a break from the outdoors last week and traveled to Capitol Hill to applaud the Public Lands Service Corps Act of 2009, helping to fund programs like his. What do you do every day? I have to be at the Rosslyn Metro at 7:45 each morning, then we drive from there to our site for the day, usually in Northern Virginia. We rebuild trails, we weed around the trees, we mulch, anything the park needs done. We use a lot of...

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Rhee plans arts, language, technology schools in D.C.

Amid continued declines in enrollment, D.C. schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee announced plans on Tuesday to reshape curriculum at certain schools in an effort to attract students back. The District expects about 45,100 students when school starts at the end of August, down from about 47,200 last spring. The District's public charter schools are expecting about 28,000 students, up from about 25,600 last year. The new initiative at 13 neighborhood schools will infuse the entire curriculum with one of three focus areas: arts, world cultures, or science, technology, engineering and math -- commonly called STEM by educators. Eaton Elementary in Cleveland Park, for example, will become a world...

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With contract vote pending, Fairfax superintendent chided for poor outreach

Parent and community groups unhappy with Fairfax schools Superintendent Jack Dale are voicing their complaints more vigorously in the run-up to a vote on renewing his contract. Fairgrade, a parent group founded around an effort to convert the schools’ grading scale to make an ‘A’ slightly easier to earn, sent out an email to its supporters last week informing them of the upcoming renewal. “Fairgrade has legitimate concerns about Superintendent Dale’s leadership,” the note said. It went on to remind readers of Dale's initial disapproval of the grade scale change, and of questions of transparency with regard to proposed renovations of a new and...

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Portable classrooms expanding in Montgomery

Unexpected enrollment bursts and a state law mandating full-day kindergarten mean that more Montgomery County students will spend time in portable classrooms this fall, even at some recently constructed schools. Kensington Parkwood Elementary underwent a major expansion and reopened its doors in 2005. This fall, it will have at least four of the trailer classrooms long maligned by parents concerned about health risks. Clarksburg High School and nearby Little Bennett Elementary were newly built for the 2006 school year. This year, the senior high will have four trailers, and the elementary will have six. In total, 12 schools built or renovated in the past 10 years will have at least 68...

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Credo - Alan Merten

Alan Merten grew up in Milwaukee as the son of a shoe repairman with two years of high school. But his parents strove to put him through college, and today Merten, 67, is the president of George Mason University. He uses his personal story to inspire the many first-generation Americans and college students who attend his school, recently ranked the top "up-and-coming national university" by U.S. News and World Report. He sat down with The Examiner to share the faith and ideas that guide him. Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith? Since my childhood, I've been a member of the Lutheran church. I've attended Lutheran churches of all stripes but have found over the...

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Rhee rebuts GAO report on schools

D.C. schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, appearing before a Senate panel Thursday, defended the school system against a congressional report critical of her reforms. The report, drafted by the Government Accountability Office, commended steps the public schools have taken since coming under mayoral control in 2007, but criticized a lack of foresight in the often hurried implementation of new initiatives. Rhee, who took the helm in 2007, acknowledged that many in the system have felt overwhelmed, but emphasized a sense of mission. "When you come into the lowest-performing school district in the country where things really were so dysfunctional and there's so much work to be done, we...

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Montgomery officials push to change school-funding law

Dozens of state and local officials representing Montgomery County strategized Tuesday morning about easing an $80 million funding problem threatening school and other agency budgets.

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Md. suburban students score slightly higher

Students in the Maryland suburbs showed slight improvements on the most recent round of standardized tests, but persistent pockets of mediocre performance remained. In Montgomery County, 91 percent of students in third through fifth grade scored "proficient" or "advanced" on the reading portion of the Maryland Standardized Assessment, commonly called the MSA. About 88 percent of the students scored proficient or higher on the math portion. Those numbers are up significantly from 2003. But compared with 2007, fewer fourth-graders scored proficient in reading, and fewer fifth-graders scored proficient in math. "We're always looking for improvement, and we're...

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Inattentive kids most likely to struggle with grades, studies find

Young children labeled troublemakers because they pick fights on the playground or act up during downtime are not the most at risk of falling behind academically, according to several recent studies. Instead, the students most at risk are those who from a young age have trouble paying attention, according to researchers. The findings come as a surprise to many educators, who have long connected bad behavior with bad performance in school. In time, the results could affect how attention disorders are caught and treated, both medically and in the classroom. "Ideally, new attention to children's attention could lead to some crossover between the health and education communities,"...

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Credo: Bishop Harry Jackson

Bishop Harry Jackson Gay marriage is not an equality issue, according to Bishop Harry Jackson, but an attempt to redefine a sacred institution. And he’d rather leave the traditional definition alone. Jackson, 56, leads the outspoken movement of religious leaders in D.C. opposed to efforts to recognize gay unions. And when he’s not influencing policy, he’s influencing nearly 3,000 souls every Sunday as the senior pastor at Beltsville’s Hope Christian Church. Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith? I am a born-again Christian evangelical preacher. What’s most comforting to me about my faith is the ability to rely on the words of Scripture to...

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Charter schools see performance gains amid push for higher quality

Student improvement on standardized tests has heartened officials at D.C.’s charter schools, but expansion efforts are more focused on bolstering quality than increasing enrollment. At the middle and high school levels, the percentage of charter students scoring at least “proficient” on the city’s reading test jumped more than 6 percentage points compared with last year, to about 53 percent. Math proficiency in secondary schools saw more progress, jumping 9 points to nearly 57 percent. At the elementary level, gains were smaller. Both reading and math scores improved less than 1 point over 2007-2008, compared with a 4-point reading gain and an 8-point math gain...

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Senator's abortion comments cause a stir among conservatives

A U.S. Democratic senator's recent comments about blacks and abortions in Washington, D.C., have angered some conservatives who called the remarks racially insensitive, but drew shrugs from local supporters. "It is a fact that a disproportionately large number of African-Americans seek abortion in America, not just in the District of Columbia, but all across the nation," said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. He added that "it's also a fact that a disproportionately large number of African-Americans live in the District of Columbia." Durbin made the remarks during a recent committee meeting discussing the District's awaited fiscal 2010 budget. He used the statements to argue...

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Charter schools see performance gains amid push for quality

At the middle and high school levels, the percentage of charter students scoring at least "proficient" on the city's reading test jumped more 6 six points compared with last year, to about 53 percent. Math proficiency in secondary schools saw more progress, jumping 9 points to nearly 57 percent.

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D.C. withholds payment to city charter schools

District officials failed to deliver to the city's charter schools an expected $103 million payment Wednesday, causing some teachers to wake up without a paycheck. "This is part of an ongoing outrage characterized by indifference to the reality of trying to run a charter school for D.C. public school children," said Robert Cane, executive director of advocacy group Friends of Choice in Public Schools. Cane's group, along with the schools, learned about the funding shortfall Tuesday evening, one day before the dollars were supposed to be in the bank. Charter schools operate independently and are often small, penny-pinching organizations. "Many of them are essentially at...

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Three-minute interview - Tommy McFly

In a city notorious for its traffic, the regulars at rush hour are especially thankful for a solid afternoon disc jockey. Tommy McFly, 23, has earned a spot keeping thousands of Washingtonians company in the car with his evening show on Mix 107.3 FM. And to think he nearly became a lawyer. How did you become a DJ? Well, I wanted to be a lawyer. But I started radio at 15 because a family friend who worked for the station said he’d get me a job. So I called every day for three months, and then I stalked the program director until I got a job. It was Froggy 101 in Scranton, Pa., and I was literally Mr. Froggy. But then they needed someone to do a midnight show on Sunday, and someone...

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District students make gains on test scores

The District's public and charter school students improved their math and reading skills in the past year, but more than half remain below proficiency, according to standardized test results released Monday. About 47 percent of the city's students in grades three through eight and high school sophomores achieved proficiency in math, up six points from 2008 and 16 points from 2007. In reading, 47 percent of students reached proficiency, up three points from 2008 and 10 points from 2007. Despite student gains, only 34 of the city's 126 regular public schools achieved "adequate yearly progress" under the No Child Left Behind law, down from about 45 schools last year. Schools officials...

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Parents fret over Montgomery schools' readiness plan

Montgomery County schools' new blueprint for college readiness has some parents worried that both the top learners and those most struggling will suffer. The plan, introduced earlier this year to much fanfare in the county, is called Seven Keys to College Readiness, and lists goals from passing Algebra II by the end of 11th grade to a score of 1650 on the SAT, or slightly better than the national average of about 1500. If students can achieve those goals and several others, they will be prepared to begin college-level work, the district argues. The plan isn't designed to change curriculum, but to inform parents and students of the necessary steps. But the standards are too low for...

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Federal cuts to voucher program force parents to look elsewhere

Recent moves at the federal level to cut funding for the District's private school voucher program has forced parents and school choice advocates to regroup and plan anew. "The prospects look pretty bleak for school choice in D.C.," said Neal McCluskey, associate director of the Cato Institute's Education Freedom Center. Since 2003, the federally funded D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program has granted vouchers for about 1,700 low-income students to attend private schools. It was passed by a Republican Congress more ideologically disposed to support school choice. This year, as the voucher program faces reauthorization in a Democratic Congress, support has been more scarce....

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Credo: The Rev. Jim Ball

The Rev. Jim Ball On the list of political issues championed by evangelical Christians, environmentalism usually falls off the page. The Rev. Jim Ball, 47, hopes to change that. The Brunswick, Md., resident is the president and chief executive officer of the Evangelical Environmental Network and its publication, Creation Care Magazine. Ball and his network of pastors work to “bless the facts” about the environment, and convince Christians to care for it. He spoke with The Examiner about his green and godly work. Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith? I’m a Baptist Christian of the evangelical variety. My faith provides me with the ultimate meaning of my...

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College grads upended by unemployment

The job market for recent college graduates is the bleakest it's been since 1983, forcing a generation that has basked in possibilities to contend with dwindling prospects. And that's only when they're trying to avoid mowing Mom and Dad's lawn. "I've taken on the role of a teenager again," said Jeremy Kelly, jobless despite a successful background in doctoral-level HIV/AIDS research at George Mason University. "I'm not paying rent, but it's funny being told to mow the lawn at 28 years old." Eric Donahue, 21, just graduated from the University of Maryland with an undergraduate degree in economics. "I've gotten a lot of replies from employers saying I'm not...

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D.C.-area prices for drivers ed vary by hundreds of dollars

Teenagers might drive as if they own the road, but they have paid significantly different prices for the opportunity. In Northern Virginia, drivers education courses are offered in most of the public school districts. But while Loudoun County high schoolers will pay up to $300 for a classroom course and 14 hours of behind-the-wheel training, the same regimen in Arlington County costs $620. Prince William students enjoy a $315 deal, while Fairfax students pay $460. Across the state lines, most D.C. and Maryland students don't have a driver's education option in high school, but they often end up faring better financially. A survey of several of the ample private offerings, like AB...

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Recession does long-term damage to new careers

College students with the bad luck to graduate during the worst recession in decades will likely find themselves playing catch-up on wages throughout their careers. Each 1 percent increase in the unemployment rate at the time of graduation "impl[ies] an initial wage loss of 6 to 8 percent" compared with graduates in more flush times, according to a recent study by Yale School of Management professor Lisa Kahn. Kahn's data showed that even 15 years after graduation, the loss of wages was about 2.5 percent, and graduates who entered the work force during tough times were slightly less likely to have achieved career milestones such as tenure or major promotions. "This is suggestive...

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Summer school expands in area, bucking national trend

Washington-area school districts are bucking a national trend by maintaining and even expanding summer school despite their crunched budgets. In Montgomery County, $1.2 million of stimulus funds were used to expand a free summer school program at elementary schools with large low-income populations. The money allowed the county to expand the program from 23 to 30 schools with full transportation services, said a spokesman for the school system. In D.C. Public Schools, summer school enrollment has grown to 12,000 students, or more than one in four overall, according to a school spokeswoman. Last year, about 7,500 students took part. "When you have a school system like ours where...

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Schools now planning for cash-strapped 2011

With a bruising budget season behind them, the D.C. region's two largest school systems are preparing for an even tougher struggle over fiscal 2011. On the line again in Montgomery and Fairfax counties are teaching positions, pay raises, and class size. But in contrast to last year, difficult measures to save dollars have already been made, and financial corners have already been cut. Variables like fall enrollment, health care costs and tax revenue are unknown, but in both school districts the first two are trending upward while the latter is trending down, meaning higher costs but fewer dollars. "The savings made last year will continue," said Marshall Spatz, budget...

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Credo: Mario Dorsonville

In a city populated by the powerful, the poorest among Washingtonians often go unnoticed. But at the Catholic Charities’ bustling Spanish Catholic Center in Northwest D.C., Father Mario Dorsonville, 48, takes notice and takes care. He directs the center providing health and social services to more than 31,000 people each year. Father Dorsonville sat down with The Examiner to explain what inspires his service. Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith? I am a Catholic. One of the most important things for me is how Catholics are united — by one prayer, one faith, by our respect for others’ needs and sufferings, and by how this universal church is expressed in...

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Local Madoff victims still feel the shame of the swindle

Hundreds of Washington, D.C.-area investors received partial justice Monday morning with con-man Bernard Madoff's 150-year prison sentence for his role in a massive Ponzi scheme. Thus far, however, none have received any of their money back, and most seem to want to put the entire episode behind them. A spokesperson from Vornado/Charles E. Smith Realty, prominent property owners and developers in the Washington region, said the firm will not comment and is not involved with the scandal. Documents listing victims, however, reveal the firm numerous times. Other mum area investors include Marion Rosenthal, car dealership mogul, Roger Sant, co-founder of Virginia-based power company AES,...

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Student wins battle for spot in Montgomery classroom

Montgomery County schools relaxed a two-year stance on Monday that kept a 14-year-old North Bethesda resident from receiving a free public education and forced him to tutor himself at a library. Jeff Sukkasem's plight was first revealed in an April article in The Examiner, in which he and Rockville lawyer Pat Hoover described their legal battle with Montgomery County Public Schools. According to the school system, Sukkasem did not qualify for free tuition because his parents lived in Thailand and had sent him to live with a guardian in Montgomery for the sole purpose of a good education. School officials said at the time that Sukkasem's guardian would need to pay the $12,000 per year...

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Jackson’s time in D.C. devolved from honors

In an era of pop stars clamoring for political clout, Michael Jackson’s early visits to Washington were almost always about the music. The Jackson 5 in their earliest days brought their act to D.C. as they worked the black nightclub circuit in the 1960s, according to Jackson 5 fan Web sites. In 1979 the star siblings returned as part of a summer Destiny Tour, singing to crowds at the now-demolished Capital Centre. And in 1984, when Michael Jackson posters hung in the bedrooms of millions of adoring fans, and his popped-collar profile was pinned to the collar of countless denim jackets, he sold out RFK Stadium twice for his Victory Tour. The dancing rhythms of “Beat...

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Md., Va. resist charter schools, despite federal push

A groundswell of federal support for an expansion of charter schools likely will not be enough to overcome resistance in Maryland and Virginia. Charter schools in the Washington metro area Number of operating charter schools: D.C.: 93 Md.: 34 Va.: 4 Year charter law was passed: D.C.: 1996 Md.: 2003 Va.: 1998 Score (out of 55) and rank (out of 41) of strength of charter school law: D.C.: Score - 47; Rank - 1 Md.: Score - 14; Rank - 32 Va.: Score - 8; Rank - 39 (Data and scores compiled by the Center for Education Reform, Ranking and Scorecard 2009) Charters, intended to be publicly funded schools independent of school districts and teachers unions, traditionally have been a...

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Credo: Robert Wright

Robert Wright ran up against his Southern Baptist upbringing when the theory of evolution was introduced in his 10th-grade biology class. He left that faith, but never those topics, and has been a champion of religion’s potential to propel social evolution toward the good. Wright, 52, is also a founder and editor of BloggingHeads.tv, a Web site devoted to intellectual discourse. His most recent book is “The Evolution of God.” Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith? I do believe that there is some larger purpose unfolding that has so far carried humanity on balance toward the good. And I think for that reason you could say there’s a transcendent source...

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Getting Hitched: Saving the date and keeping it simple

Eco-friendly invites rule this season Gone is the day when wedding invitations took up the entire mailbox and weighed as much as a magazine. “Couples are looking for things to be a little simpler, a little bit more handcrafted and reflecting a greener sensibility,” said Paul Rubenstein, owner since 1976 of Northwest D.C.’s The Written Word paper store. The trend toward simplicity has been happening for the past few years, he said, and has only picked up as the economy has turned down. “Five or seven years ago, we were doing some really, really elaborate invites,” he said. “The issue of the budget was the smallest issue.” Now, though, couples...

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Credo: Lewis R. Brown III

Lewis R. Brown III By day, Lewis Brown measures the risk of pesticides for the Environmental Protection Agency, but in his off hours, the 39-year-old becomes a radio personality on WFAX-AM 1220, “Christian Radio for the Nation’s Capital.” On his broadcast pulpit, “The Gospel Train for Jesus Christ,” he hears callers’ problems and promises that, with God, he will help them. Brown spoke with The Examiner about why he can feel so confident. Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith? I am a Christian and I have faith in Jesus Christ. And as long as the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are recognized at the church I attend, and the church teaches...

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Top honors multiply at local schools

The valedictorian has disappeared from some area high schools. At Burtonsville’s Paint Branch High, they have been replaced by an awards dinner recognizing the top 5 percent of seniors — nearly 20 students. At Silver Spring’s Montgomery Blair High, no one sits at the top of the class. The school is broken into a handful of “academies,” and choosing the highest flier would detract from the feeling of school community, a staff member explained. Quince Orchard High School, across the county in Gaithersburg, still honors its valedictorians — this year five students were named, instead of the traditional one. The increasing number of students being...

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‘Safety’ schools getting tougher

Colleges that used to be considered “safety” schools have become more selective as Washington-area schools push and prepare more students to pursue higher education. “With a certain transcript, kids applying 10 years ago to Virginia Tech, University of Maryland, [University of Virginia], George Mason — they would’ve been safe,” said Jane Strauss, a longtime Fairfax County School Board member. But now, she said, when she talks to college admissions counselors she asks, “Are you getting more applications? ‘Yes.’ Are the kids better prepared for college? ‘Yes.’ Are you able to be more selective? ‘Yes.’...

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Holocaust Museum shooting suspect had history with hate groups

A violent past and vehement anti-Semitism defined the life of the elderly man identified by police sources as the killer of a guard at the National Holocaust Museum. James von Brunn, 88, was particularly focused on the June 8, 1967, attack on the U.S.S. Liberty, struck by Israeli fighter jets during the Six-Day War, which resulted in the deaths of 34 American crewmembers. The incident is recognized by the U.S. government as having been friendly-fire, but has been seized upon by conspiracy theorists. He published his book, “Kill the Best Gentiles: A new, hard-hitting expose of the Jew conspiracy to destroy the white gene-pool,” on June 8, 1999, with a memorial to the...

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Local school systems among tops in nation

Suburban Washington high school graduation rates are among the highest in the nation, according to a report released Tuesday. Loudoun County led the region with 89 percent of its high school students estimated to earn a diploma within four years, according to federal data compiled by the trade publication Education Week. The survey tracked trends between 1996 and 2006, using the most recent nationwide information available. Montgomery County schools, at 81 percent, tied with the Cypress-Fairbanks school system in Texas for the top rate in the nation among the 50 largest school districts. Montgomery is the 16th-largest school system in the nation. “Our goal is for every one of our...

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Britain's Brown in showdown with rebels demanding his ouster after heavy election loss

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown faced renewed challenges to his grip on power Monday after his ruling Labour Party suffered its worst electoral results in a century and another minister quit his government.

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Credo - Allen Raymond

After a three-month stint in federal prison for political dirty tricks, Allen Raymond has written a tell-all book about his 10 years as a Republican political consultant: "How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative." A specialist in "robo-calls" used by campaigns, Raymond hired a firm to make endless calls to a Democratic phone bank to prevent outgoing calls urging voters to head to the polls in the 2002 New Hampshire Senate election. The 42-year-old Bethesda claimed he was acting at the behest of another operative who was later convicted of similar charges. That conviction was later overturned on appeal. He spoke with The Examiner about how his...

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Credo: Allen Raymond

Allen Raymond After a three-month stint in federal prison for political dirty tricks, Allen Raymond has written a tell-all book about his 10 years as a Republican political consultant: “How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative.” A specialist in “robo-calls” used by campaigns, Raymond hired a firm to make endless calls to a Democratic phone bank to prevent outgoing calls urging voters to head to the polls in the 2002 New Hampshire Senate election. The 42-year-old Bethesda claimed he was acting at the behest of another operative who was later convicted of similar charges. The conviction was later overturned on appeal. He spoke with The Examiner...

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Experts: State-run college savings plans still effective

Statewide college savings programs reporting major losses from the economic downturn are still a safe bet for frugal families, according to financial experts. College savings primer » What are 529 plans? These plans are tax-advantaged investment tools used for future higher education costs. » Who can invest? Anyone can open a 529, but to receive the state tax credit (up to $4,000 in D.C., $4,000 in Virginia starting in 2009 and $2,500 in Maryland), the investor or the beneficiary must be a resident. » When can they be opened? Prepaid college tuition plans can be enrolled in at birth, or in Virginia between December 2009 and February 2010, and in Maryland between...

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Thomas tells high school grads: Always do right, even when it’s hard

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas spoke before several hundred graduating seniors on Monday and commended to them the same timeless values he said had led him to their podium. “It is never wrong to do what is right,” he told Gaithersburg’s Quince Orchard High School class of 2009. “Hard, but never wrong.” The rare public appearance began with a conversation on a flight from Omaha, Neb., to Washington, D.C. Quince Orchard football star Terrence Stephens was returning from a recruiting trip at the University of Nebraska. Thomas, a die-hard Cornhusker fan, recognized him immediately. The young man had no idea who Thomas was. “It was scary because...

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Credo: Thomas McInerney

Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, USAF (retired),like his father before him, has devoted his career to defending the United States. He completed four combat tours in Vietnam, flight reconnaissance missions during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and air escort missions in the Berlin Corridor before becoming assistant vice chief of staff for the Air Force. In his retirement, 72-year-old McInerney has worked as a businessman promoting advanced technology in the service of national defense. He spoke with The Examiner about the beliefs that have guided all of his life. Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith? I am a practicing Catholic and I have a very strong Catholic belief, although...

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Alexandria to vote on revamping middle schools

To improve Alexandria’s troubled middle schools, the district is thinking small. Bringing home the bacon Pay increases for Rockville employees: Full-time police officers » 6.75 percent Other union city employees » 6.5 percent Nonunion city employees » 3.25 to 6.5 percent Source: Rockville government The school board is voting this week on part of the superintendent’s reforms that would create new three small schools within the city’s two existing middle school buildings. The plan also would install a new academic plan at the original two schools, Francis C. Hammond and George Washington. The goal, according to first-year schools chief Morton...

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Credo: James Reston Jr.

James Reston Jr. James Reston Jr.’s most recent fame stems from his portrayal in the movie “Frost/Nixon” as Frost’s laser-focused adviser intent on convicting the former president. The 68-year-old Chevy Chase resident has written 13 books and three plays, from novels to crusader histories to a memoir about his mentally handicapped daughter. Reston will speak Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Politics and Prose bookstore about his most recent book, “Defenders of the Faith: Charles V. Suleyman the Magnificent, and the Battle for Europe, 1520-1536.” He spoke with The Examiner about the values and ambitions that have shaped his life. Do you consider yourself to be...

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Experts: Recession affecting college prospects

An economic downturn affecting both families and universities is causing many of the region’s college-bound students to take a closer look at options older siblings may never have considered. Proper preparation Five summer tips for college-bound high school students Write a generic admission essay: Prepare an essay in advance that can be tailored to different applications. Develop a preliminary list of colleges: Call, write, or use the Internet to gather information. Find an alumnus in your area. Participate in interesting activities: Volunteer, develop an internship, try something creative and productive. Keep a summer journal: Chronicle your activities, and help yourself...

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Md. school officials target class of 2012 to improve graduation rate

Maryland school officials already are focusing on saving potential dropouts in the class of 2012, as the class of 2009 prepares to graduate. In Montgomery County, about 9 percent of eighth-graders and 17 percent of ninth-graders were ineligible for extracurricular activities three out of four quarters last school year, putting them in a high-risk category for leaving school altogether, according to a district report. Broken down by race, the numbers are more revealing: 30 percent of black ninth-graders faced the same problems, with 33 percent of their Hispanic peers. “Grade eight and nine students may be particularly vulnerable to the effects of personal, social or educational...

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Credo: Alberto Cairo

Alberto Cairo In his mid-30s, Alberto Cairo picked up his life as an Italian lawyer and physical therapist to move to Kabul, Afghanistan, to oversee an International Committee of the Red Cross rehabilitation center for victims of the war with the Soviet Union. Since then, Cairo, 55, has overseen the opening of five more Afghan clinics that have cared for 95,000 patients, including non-war victims. Nearly all of his 320 staff members have similar disabilities as their patients, a practice Cairo calls “positive discrimination.” He sat down with The Examiner to share why he gives what he gives, and how more of us could, too. Do you consider yourself to be of a specific...

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State board denial means more cuts for MontCo, P.G.

The county councils in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties will spend the coming week slicing millions of dollars from their already bare-bones budgets, but little will be coming from the schools. Back to the chopping block Economic troubles plaguing Montgomery and Prince George’s counties: Montgomery County Denied waiver request from the State Department of Education: $80 million County’s proposed allocation to the school system: $1.5 billion Estimated budget shortfall for fiscal 2010: more than $600 million Unemployment (March 2009): 5 percent Home sales: down 18 percent in 2008 Prince George’s County Denied waiver request from the State Department of...

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Graduation tests may bar diplomas to hundreds of Md. seniors

Hundreds of high school seniors in the Maryland suburbs are at risk of not receiving a diploma this spring because of a first-time requirement to pass graduation tests. In Prince George’s County, more than 900 seniors have not passed the High School Assessments or completed alternative “bridge” projects in at least one of four subjects: English, algebra, biology and government. “It’s a worry every day,” said Prince George’s Schools Superintendent William Hite. “We hope that as we continue to score the bridge projects, that number will come down.” In the past three weeks alone, the district has approved 918 projects, said...

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Feds add weight to Bay cleanup

After 25 years of failed efforts to clean up the Chesapeake Bay, the federal government jumped in on Tuesday to bolster states’ efforts to revive the dying watershed. Who’s responsible Estimated costs between 2009 and 2011 to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus pollutants in the Chesapeake Bay watershed: Jurisdiction Amount Delaware $17 million District of Columbia $266 million Maryland $774 million New York $15 million Pennsylvania $68 million Virginia $1.2 billion West Virginia $22 million State breakdown of Bay pollution: State...

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Montgomery County high school seniors rush to meet volunteer requirement

Some Montgomery County seniors are desperate to become do-gooders as they rush to complete the community service hours the county requires to graduate. Service rules Community service hours required for Montgomery County students to graduate from high school: » Students graduating before 2011: 60 hours »Students graduating as of 2011: 75 hours Approved activities: » Those done in middle- and high-school classes » Those included in school-sponsored clubs and organizations » Those supervised by preapproved community organizations At Col. Zadok Magruder High School in Rockville, 79 seniors had yet to complete the requirements as of Monday, according to...

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Credo: Thomas Buergenthal

As a young Jew in Nazi-occupied Europe Judge Thomas Buergenthal found his faith tested in the crucible of war. By luck and guile, he survived the ghettos of Poland and concentration camps at Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen. As an adult, Buergenthal has devoted his life to promoting human rights and international justice, including serving on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and his current position as the American judge on the International Court of Justice at The Hague. His most recent book is titled “A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy.” Buergenthal spoke with The Examiner about the ethics that have guided his extraordinary years. Do you...

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Danger zones: Violence a daily fact of life in area schools

Students get into a fight, commit a sexual offense or are caught with a deadly weapon an average of almost once a day at some area high schools, according to recent data compiled from suburban public school districts. And surprisingly, middle schoolers are involved in even more violent episodes than students in high schools, according to the data. At Suitland High School in Prince George’s County, nearly 250 suspensions were handed out for fighting in 2007-08 and a dozen for bringing weapons on campus. At Alexandria’s George Washington Middle School, officials reported 168 incidents of fights or serious personal offenses, such as bullying or sexual harassment, averaging...

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Montgomery, Fairfax cutting school budgets next year

The Washington suburbs’ two best and largest school systems will lose some luster next fiscal year because of impending budget cuts, but both are trying to spread the pain evenly across programs. Chopping block Select budget cuts to Montgomery and Fairfax schools Montgomery: 13 librarian positions 29 academic intervention teachers 15 literacy coaches 11 middle school staff development teachers Fairfax: 130 core high school teachers 80 core middle school teachers 234 core elementary teachers 14 librarian positions Both Montgomery and Fairfax counties are reducing the number of teachers available for unique learners — students with special needs, or in special magnet and...

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Credo: The Rev. Jim Wallis

The Rev. Jim Wallis has long been a voice for the religious left, calling on principles of social justice developed in the turbulent 1960s, and principles of evangelicalism inspired by his Christian faith. His most recent book is titled “The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith and Politics in a Post-Religious Right America.” The 60-year-old Washingtonian and founder of Sojourners spent the past week hosting a conference on ending poverty, including a thousand-person prayer vigil outside the Rayburn House Office Building. Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith? I am a Christian, but I relate to almost all of the denominations. I made a decision when I was a young...

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Schools chiefs unite for stimulus funds

State school superintendents in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., are setting aside traditional differences to cooperate in an effort to grab a slice of the available $5 billion in stimulus fund grants. The jurisdictions have in the past collaborated irrespective of borders on issues such as crime and highways. During January’s presidential inauguration, for example, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty issued a joint letter to congressional representatives requesting funds to help cover nearly $20 million in additional transportation costs. But submitting a joint application for education funding would be a first for the...

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Reading, math scores stagnate for high schoolers

Reading and math scores for high school students have stagnated since the early 1970s, according to national test results released Tuesday by the Department of Education. But scores among 9- and 13-year-olds increased slightly over the same time period on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, aka The Nation’s Report Card. Since the last release in 2004, achievement gaps between white students and their black and Hispanic counterparts have remained largely unchanged. Among 17-year-olds, gaps in reading scores have widened. “For 17-year-olds, the final products of our system, we don’t seem to be able to make any improvements,” said Neal McCluskey,...

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Test scores stagnate for high schoolers

Younger students fare better Reading and math scores for high school students have stagnated since the early 1970s, according to national test results released Tuesday by the Department of Education. But scores among 9- and 13-year-olds increased slightly over the same time period on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often referred to as the Nation’s Report Card. Since the last release in 2004, achievement gaps between white students and their black and Hispanic counterparts have remained largely unchanged. Among 17-year-olds, gaps in reading scores have widened. “For 17 year olds, the final products of our system, we don’t seem to be able to make any...

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Credo: Nancy Goodman Brinker

As breast cancer stripped the life from her sister, Nancy Goodman Brinker made a promise to fight back. So in 1982, Brinker started Susan G. Komen for the Cure, named in her sister’s honor. Over the past 27 years, the organization has become the largest breast cancer charity in the world, raising more than $1 billion for research, education and health services as the mortality rate has continued to fall. Brinker, now 62, was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2008 for the work she has done worldwide to combat the disease. She spoke with us about her efforts, and what inspires them. Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith? I’m Jewish....

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Fairfax County School Board approves $232 million for renovations

The Fairfax County School Board has approved plans to move forward with nearly $233 million in new construction and renovation projects for the 160,000-student district. School spending 10 years of bond referendums for Fairfax schools capital projects 1999: $297,205,000 2001: $377,955,000 2003: $290,610,000 2005: $246,325,000 2007: $365,200,000 2009: $232,580,000 The sum, which must first be approved by county residents in a November bond referendum, leaves several projects languishing on the district’s wish list, including $40 million in requested renovations at the top-ranked Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. “We are chronically and dramatically...

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Teens have slim pickings for summer jobs

Teens hoping for summer cash will need to get creative this year or look extra hard, because traditional jobs are in short supply. Montgomery County’s Let’s Get it Started Youth Job Expo on Saturday barely filled up with employers in time, said organizer Janelle Cauthen of Maryland Multicultural Youth Centers. “We expect the employers who come to be ready to hire at least two employees,” Cauthen said, adding that many weren’t certain until the last minute that they could make an offer. The county’s community pools hired 100 students at last year’s event. This year, they were expecting to offer only 20 slots, Cauthen said. About 50 employers...

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Credo: Robert Rigsby

Robert Rigsby In 2002, Robert Rigsby was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as a judge on the D.C. Superior Court. Before that, he served as the District's attorney general under Mayor Anthony Williams. But in one week, 47-year-old Rigsby will travel to Iraq as a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve to preside over military courts adjudicating charges against U.S. service members. Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith? I was raised Baptist but my wife is Catholic, and so I consider myself a "Batholic." Our son attends a Catholic school and we go to Shiloh Baptist Church. I appreciate things about both faiths, but the one thing that is at the core is the...

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Gist resigns for top education slot in Rhode Island

D.C. State Superintendent of Education Deborah Gist has resigned after two years on the job to become the top education official in Rhode Island, according to city education officials. She will be replaced by former Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education Kerri Briggs, a top official said. Briggs, who is an authority on charter schools and individual school governance, served in her federal role since March 2007 under former U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings. Gist, who was appointed to the state education office in 2004 by then-Mayor Anthony Williams, oversaw the transition of the department as it merged with several other offices under Mayor Adrian...

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Hispanics top list of high school dropouts in Northern Virginia

As many as one in four Hispanic students in Northern Virginia dropped out of high school, according to new data from the state Department of Education. Skipping school Northern Virginia dropout rates for the class of 2008: Alexandria — 11 percent Arlington County — 9 percent Fairfax County — 6 percent Falls Church — 0 percent Loudoun County — 3 percent Prince William County — 10 percent Source: Virginia Department of Education Overall, nearly 9 percent of Virginia’s class of 2008 left high school before receiving a diploma. That rate rose to 11 percent in Alexandria, for the highest rate in the Washington area. In Loudoun County, only 3...

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Three-minute interview - Wesley Mann

Wesley Mann is a senior at St. Anselm’s Abbey School in Northeast D.C. who recently took top honors at the District’s Poetry Out Loud competition, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts. Next month, he’ll compete nationally at George Washington University, where he’ll be judged by radio personality Garrison Keillor and Tony award-winning actress Tyne Daly. The winner will walk away with a $20,000 award. Which poems did you recite in your winning performance? “Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold and “I Am” by John Clare. Were you nervous? I wasn’t nervous — there’s no point in being nervous. I don’t mean to...

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Cash-strapped Md. may be forced to delay expansion of preschool

Four-year-olds would be the latest Maryland residents affected by the state’s economic woes as efforts to expand access to pre-kindergarten will likely be delayed because of a lack of funds. The news Monday from a spokeswoman for Gov. Martin O’Malley came as Montgomery County Councilwoman Valerie Ervin released a list of county task force recommendations for how to provide universal access to pre-kindergarten in the county by 2014 — using some state money. The cost to the county would be nearly $18 million, the report estimated, with the cost to the state closer to $40 million for Montgomery alone. The financial distribution would be in line with a plan issued by the...

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Wealthiest school districts get little stimulus funding

The Washington area’s wealthiest school districts are receiving little federal stimulus money although they are among the hardest hit by the recession. SCHOOL STIMULUS Approximate Title 1 and IDEA stimulus funding per student in the Washington area: » District public and charter schools: $758 » Alexandria: $481 » Prince George’s County: $426 » Arlington County: $326 » Anne Arundel County: $321 » Montgomery County: $308 » Fairfax County: $295 » Prince William County: $259 » Howard County: $192 » Loudoun County: $171 » Falls Church: $159 Source: House Education and Labor Committee and individual school districts...

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Rhee lays out guidelines for new uniforms policy

D.C. Public Schools students could be trading halter tops and low-cut jeans for khakis and polo shirts next year due to a uniform policy recently enacted by Chancellor Michelle Rhee. The policy authorizes school principals to “establish and implement mandatory uniform policies for the 2009-2010 school year” and beyond, and lays out guidelines far more detailed than the district’s previous policy. As in the past, individual school codes must be gender-neutral and designed to promote an environment of respect and cleanliness. The new policy, however, takes pains to close any potential loopholes. “Extremes in style and fit and extremes in style of grooming, as...

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Frederick County barred from withholding school funds in illegal immigration dispute

The Maryland State Board of Education issued a unanimous ruling Tuesday forbidding Frederick County commissioners from holding back school funds until school officials counted the number of illegal immigrant students. The strongly worded opinion that sided with the county’s school system came about six months after Frederick County commissioners suggested collecting data about students’ residency status. “I’m not saying don’t educate them, I’m just saying count them,” Commissioner John Thompson Jr. said in an October interview with WTOP Channel 8, adding that a number would help the district lobby for more state and federal funds. But the...

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Cuts could force college tuition to rise

Slashed budgets are forcing local community colleges to cut programs and consider tuition increases even as increasing numbers of students are relying upon the schools as an affordable step toward a better-paying job. At Northern Virginia Community College, where enrollment increases last year surpassed those at nearly every college in the nation, the commonwealth has cut funding by 10 percent in the past 10 months for a loss of more than $8 million. The school is planning for more cuts as Virginia revenues continue to decline. The commonwealth provides about half of the school’s total funding. The eight-campus school, commonly referred to as NOVA, responded by eliminating 45...

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Families slim down summer camp plans

Jacqueline Donnell hoped her sons could spend their summers kayaking and camping, but as bills piled up, the possibility of outdoor adventure seemed further and further away. “We were going to do sleepaway camp, but I’m getting Pepco bills that are soaring,” said Donnell, a single mother from Gaithersburg who works as an administrative assistant for a D.C. law firm. “The only camps that are affordable are [Montgomery County Department of Recreation] ones, and I’m not thrilled about them,” she said. Like many families in the region, Donnell was forced to scale back her sons’ summer hopes to keep ahead of the economic downturn. The trend has...

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Credo: Chrysanthe Broikos

Washington, D.C., boasts the nation’s most awe-inspiring monuments and neoclassical buildings, but hidden behind an unassuming brick façade in Chinatown, the National Building Museum is one of the city’s architectural gems. Chrysanthe Broikos, 43, has been a curator there for nine years, overseeing nearly 20 exhibits. She shared with us by e-mail her thoughts on faith, and how architecture can help to inspire it. Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith? Yes, I am an Orthodox Christian, and I was baptized and married in the Greek Orthodox Church [my husband is Roman Catholic]. There is no other place that can truly ground me, which might sound odd since...

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Teachers, parents push for maximum cash

Montgomery County’s top educators and parents are pushing hard to win the school system as much funding as possible, as uncertain amounts of state and federal aid make next year’s budget a moving target. Millions of dollars are up in the air, awaiting action from the state legislature and Gov. Martin O’Malley, as well as negotiations within the county government. Superintendent Jerry Weast addressed the school board’s fiscal management committee Tuesday morning, urging it to demand state dollars considered owed to the district for both the current school year and years to come. On Monday evening, 40 representatives from the county’s parent-teacher...

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Credo: Franklin Kameny

In an era when homosexuality was a secret and a stigma, Franklin Kameny stood up and said, unapologetically, “Gay is good.” In 1961, the World War II veteran was the first to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of civil rights for gays; in 1971, the D.C. resident became the first openly gay candidate for U.S. Congress. Kameny, 83, shared with us by e-mail his thoughts on nearly 50 years of struggle for gay rights. Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith? This depends upon the definition of faith. As a scientist by training, background, and temperament, for the past 68 years I have termed myself “a good pious atheist.” I believe in reason and...

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Voucher advocates hope national effort isn’t stymied

Advocates for private school vouchers outside Washington hope that the likely demise of D.C.’s program won’t kill efforts nationwide. “My first hope is the program doesn’t end in D.C.,” said Howard Fuller, the former superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools who helped craft the district’s nearly 20-year-old voucher program. “My second hope is if it does, it won’t impact programs in other parts of the country.” Across the nation, proponents are closely watching measures in Congress that require reauthorization of D.C.’s federally funded vouchers used by 1,700 mostly low-income students. The likely requirement signals a death...

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D.C. students face tough choices if scholarship voucher program ends

Vonette Davis knew she found the right school for her son when instead of angry notes from teachers, the fifth-grader at Southeast’s St. Thomas More Catholic School came home with a clarinet. “He loves music, and I think it will help with his math and English, too,” Davis said. “If the voucher program stays in place, I’d like him to continue it through eighth grade and onto Archbishop Carroll High School or Duke Ellington [School of the Arts].” Julio Davis is one of about 1,700 mostly low-income D.C. students who use up to $7,500 of federal money for tuition at a private school through the District’s Opportunity Scholarship Program. But the...

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KIPP charter school network set to expand in D.C.

A network of ambitious public charter schools known for more classroom hours and strict behavior management announced plans to expand its presence in Washington, D.C. KIPP D.C., the local branch of the California-based Knowledge Is Power Program, will open three schools this summer — two in Southeast and one in beleaguered Ward 8 — bringing the citywide total to six. By 2012, KIPP plans to add four more, eventually serving 3,400 students in some of the city’s roughest neighborhoods. But though all of the 66 KIPP schools nationwide — set to grow to 100 by 2011 — have student bodies with significantly higher-than-average test scores, some educators worry the...

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Report: Special ed integration fails expectations

In the Montgomery County schools, phasing out of segregated classrooms for students with significant learning disabilities has been met with a districtwide report raising serious questions about its success. The report showed that 100 percent of the students in transition out of the segregated classrooms scored at the lowest level on the Maryland state math exam, and 81 percent of them fared equally poorly on the reading portion. It also found that only about 25 percent of teachers used “differentiated” instruction with the special-needs students, meaning different assignments and varied presentations of the information to best reach each learner. A mandatory training for...

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Finding the right fit in a private school

When it comes time to choose a private school for your child, experts advise setting prestige aside and focusing simply on comfort, not just for students but for the whole family. Academics shouldn't take a back seat but should be a part of what makes the child feel like he or she will fit in, said Judith Greenberg, founder and director of School Finders, a private school consulting group based in Washington, D.C. “The right fit is the most important thing for your child,” Greenberg said. “That you may have heard of schools from neighbors or cousins whose children did very well there is fine, but that doesn't mean your child will.” Steven Roy Goodman, a D.C.-...

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The best and the brightest: Looking at the region’s top private schools

In a region renowned for the best public schools in the nation, parents and students who choose a private school expect greatness multiplied. And in some cases, they can find it. The Examiner has put together a list of the best private schools in the region, with the full understanding that what makes a school perfect for one student may not show up in SAT scores or college matriculations. The analysis reflects the expected course work (Catholic boys schools take the prize for rigor), the variety of classes (Maret School’s “Subtropical Ecology” students camp out in the Florida Keys) and the wide variety of special programs from riding courses to summers in China. But...

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Council panel questions schools’ spending on high-tech chalkboards

The Montgomery County Council’s education committee said Monday morning that the county could be on the hook for millions of dollars in spending on classroom technology never approved by the council. The expenditures — about $13 million during four years despite council approval for less than $1 million for one year — were used for the l ease of 2,600 interactive online chalkboards that cost about $5,000 apiece. Portions of the cost will be covered each year by federal rebates for school district connectivity. The lease expands the much-vaunted “smart board” technology to 65 percent of the county’s middle and high school classrooms. When the council...

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Maryland state song may lose the ‘Northern scum’

Descendants of “Northern scum” may find more reason to feel welcome in Maryland if a bill to change the state song passes in the state legislature. The term is found in the last stanza of “Maryland, My Maryland,” as “Huzza! [Maryland] spurns the Northern scum!” It was penned by James Ryder Randall in April 1861, following the bloody Baltimore Riot between Union and Confederate sympathizers in the first days of the Civil War. A class of fourth-graders at Anne Arundel County’s Glen Burnie Park Elementary found the overall tone sufficiently impolite for 2009 that they complained to their state representatives. “The song talks about [Abraham]...

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Berthiaume stands out on MontCo school board

The Montgomery County school board has been criticized in recent years by some education advocates for rubber-stamping plans of Superintendent Jerry Weast, but the newest voice at the table seems intent on avoiding that charge. Laura Berthiaume was elected to the board in November on a platform of a more transparent budget process with more parental input. Last week, she was the sole member to vote against adoption of the schools’ $2.1 billion budget in part because it didn’t jibe with those ideals. “If it’s the board’s intent to always support the [superintendent’s] proposed budget in February as is ... then perhaps we should just have [him] present...

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D.C. looks to recoup some costs from inauguration

D.C. spent nearly $50 million on Barack Obama’s inaugural festivities, and now the city is gearing up to ask for some of that money back. Overtime and holiday pay ate up almost $16 million, and about $15 million was spent on commodities, goods and services, according to Dan Tangherlini, D.C.’s city administrator. Tangherlini and other officials testified before the D.C. Council’s finance and revenue committee Thursday morning. Transporting 4,000 visiting police officers from 99 jurisdictions and putting them up in 2,000 hotel rooms cost nearly $5 million. The purchase of 1,000 new 800-megahertz radios set the city back almost $4 million, and new fire and emergency...

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Obama uses Caterpillar to push stimulus plan

President Obama chose a Northern Virginia construction site on Wednesday to personalize the stakes of the stimulus plan, saying its passage would give back jobs to laid-off Caterpillar workers. The company “has announced some 20,000 layoffs in the last few weeks,” Obama said, adding that Chairman and CEO Jim Owens “said that if the [stimulus] passes, his company would be able to rehire some of those employees.” Obama plans to travel on Thursday to a Caterpillar manufacturing plant in East Peoria, Ill., as part of his tour touting the $789 billion package — which includes funding for school and road construction. But as Obama travels the country putting...

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Fenty, Rhee tout minor gains for District’s school system

District Mayor Adrian Fenty and schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee touted improvements in graduation and truancy rates Monday — from abysmal to slightly less so. High school students with more than 15 absences by December, an average of one absence per week, declined by 30 percent from 2007 to about 2,290 students in 2008. At all grade levels, that number fell by 16 percent to 3,430 students. Overall, however, more than 7 percent of the District’s 46,000 students were chronically truant through December, compared with more than 8 percent in 2007. Efforts to improve attendance are ongoing, Rhee said, adding that under her watch accurate recording of students’ whereabouts...

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Credo - MIchelle Rhee

D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee has been called the city’s biggest celebrity — at least before President Obama came to town. The 39-year-old has made the cover of Time magazine and been a topic in presidential debates for her bold and controversial approaches to reforming D.C. schools. Now, she shares with us by e-mail her thoughts on faith, values and why she does what she does. Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith? I would say I am a curious agnostic. I appreciate that people connect with each other through their faith, and last year I started to attend services at churches across D.C., often one of the Baptist churches where I meet parents who have...

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County school boards hoping for boom from stimulus checks

School boards in two of the nation’s most highly regarded districts are angling for a stimulus check to forestall teacher layoffs and increased class sizes as budget deadlines loom. Fairfax County’s school board approved Superintendent Jack Dale’s proposed budget Thursday night and passed along the dire figures to the county executive and Board of Supervisors to be approved by the end of April. The stimulus-less proposal included reductions totaling nearly $158 million, the net loss of 248 jobs, and no salary increases. If federal money comes through, it could boost Fairfax schools by $75 million by the end of fiscal 2010, according to an analysis of the House package by...

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Money may only balance budgets for area’s cash-strapped schools

Proposed federal stimulus money aimed at low-income and special-needs students may end up only balancing budgets and maintaining the status quo at local schools. In districts like Fairfax County where school officials are weighing teacher layoffs, stimulus money is being eyed for avoiding layoffs, said board member Jane Strauss. But it would not likely be used to expand programs for the at risk students originally conceived to benefit from the funds. “We would be able to spend on our federally mandated special education needs, which could ease pressure in other areas,” Strauss said, explaining that special education requirements have never received full funding from the...

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3 Minute Interview-Zell

Wayne Zell is an estate planner based out of Reston. And in a time when many people are asking themselves, “What estate?” he offers some surprisingly optimistic words of advice. What do you say to people who’ve lost a lot of money or value on their assets in the past year? Don’t panic. If you believe in the American economy, which I do, then you can trust it will recover. Some companies will fail, but unless you concentrated heavily in all of the companies that are failing, you have a prospect to regain what you lost. Think about rebalancing your portfolio — you may behave a little bit more conservatively when you do, but don’t panic. There are a lot...

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Growing number of Web sites offer students money for class notes

Students tempted to sleep through class can rest a bit easier thanks to a growing number of Web sites offering to pay top students at schools like Georgetown University for their lecture notes. GradeGuru.com, the latest addition to the Web-based trend, pays up to $50 per class per semester for notes that are downloaded by peers who may have partied a little too long the night before. It joins other companies with names like ISleptThroughClass.com, HowIGotAnA.com, and PostYourTest.com. All offer rewards for the most prolific note-takers, such as Starbucks gift cards, iPods and cash. Not all professors are so pleased. “I happen to think that note-taking is one of those things you...

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Maryland, Virginia, place first, third on AP scores, while D.C. ranks 47th

Maryland and Virginia students led the nation in passing scores on college-level Advanced Placement exams, according to data released Tuesday. Nearly 25 percent of Maryland high schools’ class of 2008 scored 3 or higher out of a possible 5 on one of nearly 40 AP exams offered, making it the top state in the country. About 21 percent of Virginia students did the same, earning it third place honors behind New York, according to the College Board, the New York City-based test administrator. A score of 3 is the lowest a student can earn and still get credit at many of the nation’s colleges. The exams are taken after a semester-long AP course aimed at the test. Subjects vary from...

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Montgomery Co. sees falling home-sale prices, rising jobless rate

Montgomery County’s existing-home sales price fell by nearly 8 percent in 2008, according to a County Council budget update Tuesday that contained a litany of bad news for county residents. The report also showed that the unemployment rate rose by more than 1 percentage point last year. In December 2008, about 4 percent of the county was unemployed, or 19,000 people, compared with 12,000 people in December 2007. In addition, job growth in the county has slowed dramatically. “There was basically no employment growth in 2008 over 2007,” Office of County Council Staff Director Stephen Farber said, adding that the county saw a net gain of 420 jobs. The combined effect of...

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Enrollment in faith-based schools down nearly 20 percent

Urban faith-based schooling options have declined by nearly 20 percent in 20 years, according to a recent report by the White House Domestic Policy Council, and officials warn that poor and minority students are most adversely affected. Nationwide, the number of students enrolled in urban religious schools declined by 18 percent to about 1.8 million between 1989 and 2006, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics, an arm of the Department of Education. Urban Catholic schools were hardest hit, losing 27 percent of their students since 1989, dropping to an enrollment of just over 1 million overall. The Archdiocese of Washington bowed to that trend last spring with...

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Report faults Maryland’s oversight of Bay cleanup

Maryland has not properly monitored cleanup goals for the Chesapeake Bay set in 2000, according to a report released by the Maryland legislature’s Office of Policy Analysis. Of 13 cleanup categories agreed to by the state in 2000 to be achieved by 2010, more than half have met fewer than one-third of their objectives. Three categories, including reducing the risk of pesticides and restoring the Anacostia River, have met none of their goals. “If 2020 is set as the new restoration date, then Maryland needs to accelerate implementation by 2.5 times,” the report said. But Robert Nelson, a public policy professor at the University of Maryland and longtime follower of the Bay...

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Area schools juggle rising enrollment, less funding

Enrollment numbers are growing in the Washington region’s two largest school systems, but economic realities are forcing officials to plan strategies to minimize overcrowding, instead of breaking ground on new construction. In Montgomery County, where enrollment jumped by a surprise 2,000 students this fall to nearly 140,000 total, Superintendent Jerry Weast recommended delaying additions for at least one year to six growing elementary schools. “We will continue to monitor economic conditions and hope that in future years we will be able to resume a more robust building program,” Weast wrote in a letter introducing the district’s capital plans. While the delays...

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Dividing the stimulus among D.C., Va., Md., Metro

As state officials crafted their budgets, those in Maryland bet on the promise of federal stimulus dollars, while Virginia leaders planned for the worst. “It’s clear the governor of Maryland did not want to spread the pain,” said Donald Norris, professor and chairman of the Department of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. “And it looks like the Virginia legislators don’t mind spreading the pain.” The prime example, Norris said, was Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley’s willingness to factor as-yet uncertain federal stimulus money into his $14.4 billion fiscal 2010 budget, released last week. O’Malley’s $350...

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Area officials anxiously await impact of today’s icy weather

Treacherous ice-filled forecasts had area officials on edge and preparing for another day of cancellations. “It’s very difficult to predict,” said Esther Bowring, a spokeswoman for Montgomery County. “We plan for the worst and hope for the best.” Bowring and her D.C.-area colleagues kept a close eye on National Weather Service predictions Tuesday of 1 to 2 inches of snow and sleet overnight topped by a layer of ice this morning, as many schoolchildren kept their fingers crossed. Final decisions about today’s closings will be made in the pre-dawn hours by superintendents and county executives. The snowfall is the first that many in the region have seen...

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Montgomery unions feel pressure to give up raises amid downturn

A move by Montgomery County teachers to forgo raises because of the tough economic times has increased the pressure on other county labor groups to do the same. Last week, the Montgomery County Career Fire Fighters Association released details of a tentative contract with County Executive Ike Leggett that would eliminate holiday pay benefits and force a three-month delay of their 4 percent cost of living increases, but would not eliminate it altogether. Earlier this month, school employers unions agreed to a contract revision that eliminated their scheduled 5 percent increases. “It’s necessary for the county employees to match what the school employees have done,” said...

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Montgomery schools audit vindicates parents’ watchdog group

Members of a parents’ group in Montgomery County are claiming another victory after an audit of the county school system detailed a host of familiar shortcomings. Most notable in the report, compiled between November 2007 and July 2008 by Maryland’s Office of Legislative Audits, are lapses in oversight of district-issued credit cards. In fiscal 2007, about 1,200 employees made credit card purchases, for a total of about $5.6 million, according to the school system. A review of 161 transactions found that 50 of them, totaling $22,800 and applicable to nine people, were not recorded on transaction logs. For 41 other transactions, there was no evidence of approval by a supervisor....

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Prospects dim for green project funds

Montgomery County officials were hoping that a pitch for nearly $100 million in green projects would attract federal stimulus funds, but as the economy has deteriorated, so have their chances. Soon after the 2008 elections, talk of an economic stimulus package gave hope to local politicians, and environmentally minded projects seemed a surefire strategy. Montgomery Council President Phil Andrews and Executive Ike Leggett wrote a letter to the county’s congressional representatives asking for stimulus funds to be directed locally, and included a list that contained more than 30 green projects. “Montgomery County is a prime example of a local government that is able to quickly...

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Obama revelers: Tired but happy

With sore legs, sleepy eyes and empty pockets, thousands of inaugural revelers made the trek home on Wednesday, but few regretted their stay. “The inauguration was the least relaxing vacation of my entire life,” said John Thomas, a California lawyer who got stuck outside of the ticketing gate on Tuesday but said he wouldn’t trade his overall experience for anything. “You can usually say you need a vacation from a vacation, but after this one I truly feel the need to sleep for 24 hours — but it was still great,” Thomas said. Charles Mininger bore the extra burden of chaperoning 26 Chicago high schoolers through the Mikva Challenge, a program designed to...

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Experts: Obama crowd smaller than reported

Experts are questioning the National Park Service report that 1.8 million people attended the inauguration of President Obama. An estimate using satellite imagery produced Wednesday by intelligence publishing company Jane’s Information Group counted between 1.3 million and 1.7 million in and around the Mall and parade route. Clark McPhail, an expert in crowd counting and professor emeritus at the University of Illinois, said that 1.5 million people spread from the west lawn of the Capitol to the far end of the reflecting pool would have a consistent density equivalent to packing nearly 2,000 people on a basketball court. Maggie Daniels, a George Mason University professor of...

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Estimated 1.5M pack Mall, parade route

Tired feet and frozen fingertips didn’t chill the spirits of the record-breaking crowds who actually made it to Tuesday’s swearing in of President Obama, but some would-be revelers hit a wall. The approximately 1.5 million people who did pack the parade route and much of the National Mall shoulder-to-shoulder, and spilled over into the space between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, will likely go down as the largest crowd in Washington’s long history of giant events. The 1.1 miles between the West Lawn of the Capitol and the Washington Monument appeared to be packed with people at “high density,” or two-and-a-half-square-feet per person, said...

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Largest-ever crowd packs Washington for Obama

What is likely the largest crowd in Washington history poured onto the National Mall in the bitter cold predawn, and kept on arriving as the sun rose higher and Barack Obama become the 44th president of the United States. “I am stunned,” said Clark McPhail, professor emeritus at the University of Illinois who is one of the leading experts in the science of crowd estimates. The 1.1 miles between the West Lawn of the Capitol and the Washington Monument appeared to be packed with people at “high density,” or two-and-a-half-square-feet per person, McPhail said. That would amount to about 1 million people in that space, though he cautioned that the photos weren’t...

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MLK Day celebrations take on new importance

Martin Luther King Jr. Day has inspired pride and service among many Americans in the 25 years since it became a national holiday, but on the eve of the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama, many felt those emotions multiplied. Inaugural poet Elizabeth Alexander, a Pulitzer Prize finalist known for her evocative poems echoing the black experience, stood atop the north side of the U.S. Capitol on Monday morning, looking out over the National Mall where she’ll speak Tuesday before millions. As she wrote the poem to be read tomorrow for the first time, Alexander said she could not ignore memories of King. “The convergence” of King’s holiday with Obama’s...

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Experts hope sanitation supply meets demand

Even if only 1 million people show up near the National Mall on Tuesday, sanitation experts say there simply won’t be enough toilets. “Basically, you’ll have sewage rolling down the streets,” said Roy Morris, a sales manager with Maryland’s United Site Services, providing about half of the Mall’s portable toilets. Morris, only half-joking about the sewage, said the 7,500 regular portable units and 1,200 handicapped units are far fewer than the 13,000 needed. “They’ve got a 60-gallon holding capacity,” he said. “Typically, that’ll be filled by 75 people in a six-hour period.” According to Morris’ formula, a...

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With Obama’s inauguration, U.S. will move closer to King’s mountaintop

When Barack Obama stands on the steps of the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday and takes the oath of office, the words of Martin Luther King Jr. proclaimed more than 45 years ago on the opposite end of the National Mall will still be echoing in the air. “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed,” King said on Aug. 28, 1963, standing before 250,000 people crowded before the Lincoln Memorial. “ ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.’ ... I have a dream today.” Now, the first black man to ascend to the presidency will do so one day after the nation celebrated King’s own...

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Backers hope King’s goals stir Obama

With a proven ability to organize and a mile-long list of e-mail contacts, many of Barack Obama’s supporters are wondering today whether that will be enough to pick up where Martin Luther King Jr. left off. In 1967, having achieved his goal of desegregation in the South, King wrote a book describing what he knew to be a far more difficult struggle ahead. “The practical cost of change for the nation up to this point has been cheap,” King wrote in “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?” “Jobs are harder and costlier to create than voting rolls. The eradication of slums housing millions is complex far beyond integrating buses and lunch...

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Panhandlers expect no increase in largess with inaugural crowds

Even though millions of inaugural revelers will pour into Washington this weekend, local panhandlers aren’t too hopeful they’ll get much change. “I expect to see less money than normal,” said Ruth Neary, confined to a wheelchair, at 15th and H streets NW. Like many Washington-area residents, Neary is considering not coming downtown at all because of the crowds and potential chaos. “Mostly people from out of town are scared of D.C. and its homeless people,” Neary said. “That’s why you don’t see much panhandling on the Mall.” Drew Sanders, who usually stands outside of Georgia Brown’s Restaurant near the White House, said...

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Police opt for new approach to fight vagrancy

Police sweeps have become passe in the field of fighting vagrancy, and in the run-up to the inauguration, D.C. opted for recently tested, more comprehensive approaches. “If the goal is to reduce crime, and that’s the only goal, then sweeps can be an effective strategy,” said John Roman, a law enforcement researcher at the D.C.-based Urban Institute. “But if you care about the well-being of the people, it’s not good unless you link to services.” In preparing for this weekend’s mass movement of homeless people, D.C. sought the advice of cities which that recently accomplished the same thing: Denver, for the Democratic National Convention, and St....

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Inauguration spurs some to leave town

The skies, roads and rails will soon be full of more than a million descending upon D.C., which is exactly why many Washington-area residents are setting their sights as far from the capital as possible. “Even if I can walk on the sidewalks, I have this vision in my head of an anthill and people running around everywhere,” said Ashley Garber, a Georgetown lawyer soon to be skiing in Breckenridge, Colo. “I just wouldn’t be able to enjoy the city the way I normally do.” Garber is not alone among D.C.-ites who enjoy relative quiet. And recent news of closed bridges, an overwhelmed Metro, and the city’s designation as a federal emergency zone have only...

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Inaugural fever boosts volunteer numbers

Inaugural excitement has precipitated a deluge of volunteerism around the Washington region, and some organizers are finding themselves with more do-gooders than they can deal with. The biggest crowds are turning out on Monday for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service. The volunteer-focus of the holiday was initiated by Congress in 1994, but the “call to service” of President-elect Barack Obama has inspired unprecedented numbers of participants. Greater DC Cares, an organization that coordinates volunteer opportunities for individuals and businesses, filled 550 opportunities more than a week ago and have 100 people on a waiting list, said spokeswoman Sarah...

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Emergency declared in D.C. to allow for more federal aid

President Bush has declared an emergency in the District of Columbia for the inauguration of his successor — an unprecedented move that will allow federal funds and disaster resources to flow more freely to local agencies, according to a FEMA spokesman. The declaration was requested by D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, who warns that inauguration crowds could overwhelm area hospitals and emergency responders. Terry Monrad, a spokesman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said similar declarations have only ever been pre-approved for natural disasters like hurricanes. When reviewing Fenty’s request for extra federal aid, the agency looked at “if D.C. [on its own] would...

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With inauguration one week away, early arrivals begin to pack D.C.

Donna Robinson is on her way to Washington from Anniston, Ala., with 15 friends and relatives packed into a rented recreational vehicle, fulfilling a promise she made to herself during the presidential campaign. “I said, ‘If Barack wins, we’re going to Washington,’ ” she told The Examiner in a phone interview. “I want [my] boys to learn. Look how Barack walks. Look at the way he speaks. Look at the way he carries himself. He doesn’t let his pants droop.” Robinson, 43, will be among millions coming to the nation’s capital to see the first African-American take the oath of office as president of the United States. New York college...

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Obama’s peers descend on D.C. for inauguration

Barack Obama’s alma maters — from his high school to his graduate school — are planning to claim a small piece of the president-elect at gatherings throughout the inaugural week. Few families are more suited for the events than that of Hawaiians Richard Turbin and Rai Saint Chu, who will arrive in D.C. on Thursday for an early start on the festivities. They have family connections to most all of Obama’s schools. “Our kids went to Punahou School, our son went to Occidental College and is now the track coach there, our daughter went to Columbia University and my husband went to Harvard Law School,” Saint Chu said. “How could we not support...

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Despite restrictions, city still will be packed

Near-impossible car access to the District on Inauguration Day could limit crowd size and leave many stranded on the region’s roadways, but within the city packed conditions likely will remain. Even if only 1 million people make their way through Metro congestion and security checkpoints, that’s about twice as many as can fit on the National Mall, according to crowd expert Clark McPhail, a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois and author of “The Myth of the Madding Crowd.” Allowing for 5 square feet per person, slightly larger than an opened newspaper, just over 500,000 people can fit between the West Lawn of the Capitol and the Washington Monument. Pack...

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FBI outlines possibility of a Mumbai-style attack on D.C.

Federal authorities warned of a Mumbai-style terrorist attack to a group of nearly 400 D.C.-area businesspeople gathered for an inaugural security briefing. Special Agent Andrew McCabe, chief of the counterterrorism division of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, gave a presentation advising business managers to double-check their security plans and prepare for the possibility of sophisticated terrorists. He added that “no credible threats to the inauguration” currently exist. In the November Mumbai attacks, 10 men dressed in Western-style clothing terrorized the city with a military-style siege of several buildings, as opposed to the “spectacular” tactics of...

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Feds warn of Mumbai-style attack in DC

Federal authorities warned of a Mumbai-style terrorist attack to a group of nearly 400 D.C.-area businesspeople gathered for an inaugural security briefing. Special Agent Andrew McCabe, chief of the counter-terrorism division of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, gave a presentation advising business managers to double-check their security plans and prepare for the possibility of sophisticated terrorists. He added that "no credible threats to the inauguration" currently exist. In the November Mumbai attacks, 10 men dressed in Western-style clothing terrorized the city with a military-style siege of several buildings, as opposed to the "spectacular" tactics of Al...

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Local, state governments to pay $20M for trasportation costs

Local and state governments will pour more than $20 million into transportation costs to accommodate the expected onslaught of inaugural revelers, and cash-strapped agencies are wondering where the money will come from. Virginia alone will pay $10.6 million to cover everything from overtime wages to extra buses to shuttle pedestrians across closed bridges and to and from the Metro. Maryland has estimated $4.8 million for transportation costs, and D.C. expects to pay $2 million. In addition, the three jurisdictions could bear $3.5 million in extra Metro costs. As of December, the District faces a budget deficit of $127 million. Maryland faces a possible $1.2 billion deficit, and the...

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Md. ranks first, Va. 4th and D.C. last in schools survey

Maryland’s public school system is No. 1 in the nation and is followed closely by fourth-place Virginia, according to an annual report card released today by Education Week. he District’s schools were rated last in the survey, though D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee called that an unfair comparison of city schools with statewide systems. “We’re doing the right thing,” said Nancy Grasmick, superintendent of the Maryland State Department of Education, adding that her office was celebrating after confirming the news on Tuesday. Overall, Maryland scored an 84.7 based on six categories from students’ “chance for success” to K-12 achievement and...

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D.C. school voucher program in danger of expiring in 2010

As the new Congress settles in and Barack Obama assembles his team of educational advisers, prospects are dimming for the 1,900 mostly low-income District students who use federally funded vouchers to attend private school. he vouchers, up to $7,500 per student, come from a pool of about $14 million designated by Congress specifically for D.C. The program, started in 2003 as a five-year pilot initiative, will run through the first semester of the 2009-10 school year. If Congress does not renew it by this summer, the money will disappear. Five of the students using the vouchers attend Sidwell Friends School, where Obama’s daughters began class on Monday. Across the country, about...

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Obama girls attend first day at school

Surrounded by Secret Service agents and awaited by throngs of reporters and cameramen, Sasha and Malia Obama began classes as normally as possible Monday morning at Sidwell Friends School. A caravan of sport utility vehicles carrying the girls and their mother departed from the incoming first family’s temporary home at the Hay-Adams Hotel just after sunrise, and swept them away to Malia’s middle school campus in the District, and Sasha’s primary campus in Bethesda, according to reports. Early morning family photos showed President-elect Barack Obama seemingly offering a bit of first-day advice, and the girls stood by all smiles in puffy jackets and stuffed backpacks. At...

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Governor Kaine tapped to lead Democratic National Committee

In a change of heart since he was first asked in November, Virginia Governor Tim Kaine will heed Barack Obama’s request to take over leadership of the Democratic National Committee, according to Sunday news reports. Kaine, whose gubernatorial term ends in one year, will take the DNC job on a part-time basis until January 2010, when he’ll assume full-time duties. Virginia’s constitution bars governors from serving two consecutive terms. The long-time Virginia politician was one of Obama’s first and most vociferous backers for president, but was widely perceived as out of the running for administrative positions because of his stated intentions to complete his...

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Fewer cabs likely on roads during inaugural celebration

Those celebrating Barack Obama’s inauguration may find it hard to get a cab as most taxi drivers, citing standstill congestion, closed main streets and impatient passengers, are opting to stay home. And even among those drivers who intend to brave the crowds, almost all are planning to avoid the daytime and downtown, hoping to take advantage of the evening partygoers in farther-out neighborhoods. “This taxi will not be in the city,” said Robert Studevent, 86 years old and a 63-year veteran of the taxi trade. “You must think I’m really stupid.” Even if the meter is running in deadlocked traffic, Studevent said, there won’t be enough getting from...

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Inaugural announcer cherishes the long view

On the afternoon of Jan. 20, not even Barack Obama will enjoy the best seat in the city for his inaugural parade. “The president has one of the worst seats for the parade — ground level, can hardly see a thing,” said Charlie Brotman, the man who will hold the best-seat honor. “They’re not kidding about calling me the president’s announcer — I need to tell him what’s coming!” And if anyone in the city is up for that task, it’s Brotman — a 14-time veteran of introducing the floats and the bands and every last marcher for one of the biggest events of every four years. The 81-year-old’s first shot came in 1957 at the...

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Critics of atheist lawsuit scoff at its chance of altering inauguration

Supporters of public expressions of faith say that a lawsuit filed to keep the phrase “so help me God” and prayers out of Barack Obama’s inauguration is doomed to failure. The suit, filed by notable atheist Michael Newdow along with lawyers from the D.C.-based American Humanist Association, argues that government neutrality ought to be the bottom line — not only among people of different faiths, but between people who believe in God and people who don’t. The attempt is not Newdow’s first. In 2001 and 2005, he lost similar cases, and he’s fought numerous legal battles over the use of “so help me God” in the nation’s Pledge of...

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Inaugural organizers concerned disabled may have to stay home

Those with physical disabilities will find Barack Obama’s inauguration all but inaccessible, and organizers are concerned that people with disabilities may be forced to stay home. According to a release from the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies — the group responsible for the details of Obama’s swearing-in — parking restrictions near the Capitol include cars with disability plates or tags. Drop-off points for the disabled will be located several blocks away, and “traffic conditions and restrictions may make reaching these drop-off locations extremely difficult,” the release said. Even for those who finally arrive, designated areas...

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3 Minute Interview-Nosanchuk

Rabbi Robert Nosanchuk leads the 480-family Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation in Reston. On the last day of Hanukkah, he shares some thoughts about what the holiday means. What is the history behind Hanukkah? The holiday is a celebration of a battle victory. It was a revolt around the 4th century B.C.E., at a time when the Jews were being forced into assimilation into the larger Greek and Hellenistic culture. The leader of the revolt was Judah Macabee — the odds were against the Jews and they won the battle. So it was a victory against conforming? It becomes ironic — or at least interesting to note that it’s a holiday about celebrating our resistance to...

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Restauranteurs ready for Jan. 20 rush

While most downtown workers will treat inauguration day like Christmas and stay far from the office, area caterers and restauranteurs are madly preparing to ensure employees and food soldier through Metro mayhem, security lockdowns and roadway gridlock. “We’ve been preparing for the past 60 days,” said Ashok Bajaj, owner of upscale eateries like Chinatown’s Rasika and 701 Pennsylvania Ave., located as its name implies along the inaugural parade route. Employees names have all been sent to the Secret Service, Bajaj said, and the bulk of food deliveries will be made in the days before Jan. 20. “No one will take a chance driving,” Bajaj said of his chefs...

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Choice of Warren for inaugural magnifies role of U.S. ‘civic religion’

An often ignored minute of presidential inaugurations is shaping up to be one of the most closely watched next month as evangelical Pastor Rick Warren will momentarily test the controversial role of faith in American public life. Past prayers have been “a sidelight,” said Jim Bendat, author of “Democracy’s Big Day,” a historical jaunt through presidential inaugurations. “When you watch the tapes, people are usually milling around during those things, but they’ll probably pay attention this year because of the selection.” Evangelicals like Warren are nothing new to the ceremonies — Billy Graham led inaugural prayers for every president...

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Inauguration Day crowds could push area jails, hospitals beyond their limits

Four million people or more, as wide-eyed crowd estimates project, packing the National Mall and downtown streets for Barack Obama’s inauguration could overwhelm regional hospitals and jails, according to experts. And even 2 million, as more modest estimates project, would still prove problematic in case of an emergency. Health officials say hospitals in the Washington region are expecting to see up to 60,000 patients over the four-day inaugural festivities — roughly double the number of patients they would normally treat. But that projection doesn’t take into account a possible catastrophe or an unexpected outbreak. “If the question is ‘Is there a large...

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An uneasy Christmas

The Very Rev. Samuel Lloyd III, dean of the Washington National Cathedral, has one Christmas wish for the country that his church serves. Learn the lessons of Advent. Wait patiently, live simply, and prepare for brighter times ahead. In this uneasy Christmas, even Americans who usually go to church out of a sense of obligation will be seeking solace from their pastors and priests — and Lloyd, as the leader of the national church, will help set the tone for observances across the country. In Lloyd’s view, the four Advent weeks preceding Christmas on the church calendar offer a special lesson for the present moment. “Christ himself was born in a very difficult time, and...

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Keeping the faith at a time of economic duress

When clergy at the Washington National Cathedral preach to their congregation of about the burdens of the current economic crisis, they speak from personal experience. Since May, the Very Rev. Samuel Lloyd III has overseen nearly $10 million in cuts to the fiscal 2009 budget, down about 40 percent from a proposed spending level of $24 million. A much-loved greenhouse closed its doors, and the Cathedral College, a school for continuing spiritual education, will no longer offer classes beginning in March. On Jan. 1, 76 employees from gardeners to office managers will lose their jobs. The remaining 94 employees, overseeing everything from the pulpit to the crypts, will do more with less and...

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Inauguration planners remain perplexed by event’s logistics

With only one month to go before record-breaking crowds are expected to descend upon Washington, D.C., top level planners are scrambling to sort out the details. “We’re still working on that” seemed to be the phrase of the day on Thursday at the first joint meeting of hundreds of inaugural organizers, from Metropolitan Police Department officials to military honchos to the chairman of President-elect Barack Obama’s inaugural committee. The group gathered at Northeast’s D.C. Armory where a 40-foot by 40-foot map of the National Mall and surrounding streets was laid out on the floor, marked with the 16-block parade route along Pennsylvania Avenue. Not labeled...

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‘Sprinkling of Americana’ to perform at inaugural

Entertainment superstars and culture powerhouses with a focus on the black experience will take to the Capitol’s inaugural stage in January to usher in President-elect Barack Obama. Immediately prior to the swearing in, legendary singer Aretha Franklin will perform for what’s likely to be her largest-ever audience packed along the National Mall, according to an announcement Wednesday by the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies. A quartet of internationally renowned classical musicians will perform a piece by American composer John Williams, whose accomplishments include film scores for “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones.” The musicians...

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All aboard: Obama family taking train to District

President-elect Barack Obama will board a train in a month and retrace Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural journey to Washington, D.C., but hopefully with much less mayhem. At least, there will be less time for anything to go awry. As opposed to Lincoln’s two-week trek in 1861, Obama’s journey will begin and end on Jan. 17, setting off from Philadelphia and making a stop in Wilmington, Del., to pick up Vice President-elect Joseph Biden Jr. and his family, and a stop in Baltimore for an unspecified event. The entourage, aboard a chartered train, will arrive in the District in the evening. “The cities have obvious symbolic importance,” said Kevin Griffis, a spokesman...

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Area bracing for weather

A wintry mix in mid-December makes for a miserable commute, but officials are gearing up for misery multiplied should Mother Nature let loose on January’s Inauguration Day. “The bottom line is there is a tremendous amount of people coming into any one given area, which means we’ll have to be in full-scale operations mode,” said David Buck, a spokesman for the Maryland State Highway Administration. “Gosh forbid there’s even a flake of snow.” Lousy weather would hardly be unprecedented. The average noontime temperature for past inaugurations has hovered around freezing. And rain, sleet or snow have fallen six times since the swearing-in of Franklin...

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D.C. Council stands firm on bar hours

Opposition to District legislation allowing bars and restaurants to stay open 24 hours during inauguration week has emerged from local churches to the halls of Congress, but the D.C. Council seems reluctant to budge. The legislation “is not unprecedented,” said a Wednesday statement from council Chairman Vincent Gray replying to a request to reverse the law from Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Sen. Robert F. Bennett, R-Utah. Gray cited New Year’s Eve as “a night of large crowds and celebrations” when the city allows liquor to be sold until 4 a.m., but said he “[looks] forward to further dialogue with the senators on this issue.” The...

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Big-name talent likely to be highest cost of inaugural balls

Big talent could be the deciding cool factor for the more than 50 balls and parties set to take place during the week of Barack Obama’s inauguration, but it won’t come cheap. One local planner aware of someone trying to deliver diva megastar Beyonce Knowles said he was told the pop phenomenon normally demands half a million dollars for her performance alone, but could be willing to drop it to about $300,000 out of patriotic fervor. Stars like Alicia Keys with just a bit less glow are rumored to have dropped to $150,000 for the privilege of performing during the historic festivities, from a regular price of about $300,000. On top of the base charge, party hosts need to pay for...

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Media access for inaugural likely scarce

Many of the thousands of national and international reporters who have swamped inaugural planners with requests for credentials for Barack Obama’s swearing-in will likely be out of luck. And the ones who make the cut may find themselves camping out at their offices the night before just to get the story. “I had no idea there are so many daily papers in America, and every one of them has applied,” said Joe Keenan, superintendent of the Senate Press Gallery, which is responsible for handing out media credentials for the inaugural ceremonies. Keenan’s team is expecting about 5,000 requests for daily print media alone, about triple the number of inaugurations...

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More Maryland students taking AP tests, but scores drop

More Montgomery County students are taking college-prep classes and exams after a decadelong push, but the percentage who succeed has fallen, according to results released Monday. Students took nearly 26,000 of the highly prized Advanced Placement tests in 2008, up from almost 17,000 in 2003. Seventy-one percent of those tests earned a passing score, but that number has fallen every year but one since 2003. Individual students often take more than one of the exams that can earn them college credit if they score a three (out of a possible five) or better. Black participation grew from 220 tests in 1999 to 2,510 tests in 2008. But while 68 percent earned passing scores in 1999, only 46...

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Rhee-style reformer unlikely for Secretary of Education

Nothing would thrill education reformers more than if Barack Obama appointed someone like D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee to lead the Department of Education, but the hopeful are reluctant to believe it could actually happen. Rhee, who has received national media attention for her willingness to plow past the Washington Teachers Union, represents the revolutionary side of a long-forming rift between Democratic educators. Her supporters tends to favor initiatives like merit pay, charter schools, and expedient methods for firing teachers who don't perform. The old guard consists of teachers-union faithful and those insistent upon traditional paths to the classroom, like an...

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Norton asks for $15 million more to offset inaugural costs

District congressional Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton requested $15 million in additional federal funding Friday to combat what’s expected to be a nearly $30 million D.C. price tag for President-elect Barack Obama’s inaugural festivities. A well-placed source within the D.C. government said the city is budgeting for a $25.9 million price tag, but expecting that number to go up as the January celebrations approach. The extra cash would bring the total federal contribution to $30 million, said Norton spokeswoman Sonsyrea Montgomery. The city receives $15 million per year to help pay for federal events such as the Fourth of July celebration and state funerals. Norton’s...

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‘Marginalized’ to attend D.C. inauguration event

Now that a Fairfax County businessman has put up $1 million to host an inaugural weekend for hundreds of people who’ve hit hard times, he and his planners may face an even more challenging task in deciding who will attend. Earl Stafford, a churchgoing Baptist and chairman and chief executive officer of a Centreville tech company, said Thursday he intends to invite about 1,000 Americans to The People’s Inaugural Project to be held Jan. 19 and 20 at downtown D.C.’s JW Marriott hotel. At least one-third of them, he said, will be “marginalized or distressed,” including those suffering terminal or mental illnesses, wounded veterans or the unemployed. Each guest,...

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Coming to the inauguration? Time to get creative

Last-minute travelers hoping to roll into town for Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration in January may want to consider packing a sleeping bag and a fuel stove. The only hotel rooms left near the city cost thousands of dollars, like $999 per night at Alexandria’s Morrison House hotel with a minimum four-night stay. The nearest beds that won’t cost a life’s savings are at least 100 miles out of the city in towns like Midlothian, Va., and Salisbury, Md. Even in Midlothian, rooms at the $51-per-night Super 8 Motel are a hot commodity. Of 41 total, only four are still vacant during inauguration week, down from nine Tuesday, manager Bob Bater said. For the...

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Around the clock bars week of inaugural concerns officials

The decision to allow bars and nightclubs to stay open around the clock during the week of Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration could have violent consequences, critics say. Despite promises from Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lanier to control all corners of the city, worries abound that her staff will be overtaxed and that extra forces in town for the inauguration won’t be on night duty. “The police aren’t going to be available,” said Councilman Phil Mendelson, who voted against the bill Tuesday night. “They’ll have their hands full with crowd control and that many people in the city, and now they want to add liquor to...

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Bars get OK to stay open longer for inauguration

Washington, D.C., bars and restaurants will stay open around the clock between Jan. 17 and Jan. 21, just in time for the potential millions in town to celebrate the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama. The legislation passed by the D.C. Council on Tuesday night excludes nightclubs and institutes a liquor hiatus between 5 a.m. and the establishment’s regular opening hour. Nightclubs hosting inaugural balls or parties may be able to apply for a special exception. Speaking on behalf of the 12 council members in support of the bill, Jim Graham of the bar-hopping Adams Morgan neighborhood said it would ensure restaurants and bars could meet the demand of inaugural visitors...

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D.C. Council mulling longer bar hours

District bars could be allowed to stay open around the clock as what may be millions descend on the city to celebrate Barack Obama’s inauguration. A measure put forth today by D.C. Councilman Jim Graham — who represents the party-friendly Adams Morgan neighborhood — would allow bars and restaurants licensed to serve alcohol to keep pouring until 5 a.m., and to keep doors open 24 hours per day between Jan. 17 and Jan. 21. Charles Allen, chief of staff for Councilman Tommy Wells, said the council received information about the proposal Monday and will vote on it today. The National Restaurant Association had already notified council members of its support for the...

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Bars may stay open around the clock for inaugural

District bars could be allowed to stay open around the clock as what may be millions descend on the city to celebrate Barack Obama's inauguration. A measure put forth today by D.C. Councilman Jim Graham - who represents the party-friendly Adams Morgan neighborhood - would allow bars and restaurants licensed to serve alcohol to keep pouring until 5 a.m., and to keep doors open 24-hours per day between Jan. 17 and Jan. 21. Charles Allen, chief of staff for Councilman Tommy Wells, said the Council received information about the proposal Monday and will vote on it today. the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington had already notified Council members of its support for the...

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Buses definitely coming for inaugural; where they’ll park remains uncertain

Thousands of charter buses from around the nation will converge on Washington in seven weeks for President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration, but no one quite knows where they’ll park. “We’re working with the city on that,” said Allen Kinney, president of Cleveland’s Great Day Tours. “They’re not positive about where we’ll be.” So far, 16 groups and more than 100 individuals have staked out a seat on one of Kinney’s 20 buses loading up for the event. “We’re pretty much maxed out,” he said, adding he’ll transport 1,100 people, from neighborhood groups, churches, political action clubs and those...

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Students warned against subletting dorms for inaugural

Cash-hungry college students eager to make a buck off D.C.’s inaugural housing market are getting a word of advice from administrators: Don’t. With houses and apartments being offered for upward of $20,000 on the classifieds Web site Craigslist.com, a handful of area coeds thought a dorm room could be worth at least a few hundred. Wary campus housing directors acted quickly, even threatening expulsion. George Washington University, the school closest to the inaugural festivities, issued a special guest policy earlier this month to take effect Jan. 16 through Jan. 21. Inaugural ceremonies take place Jan. 20. “Students are reminded that they are not permitted to sublease...

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Capping inaugural contributions likely won’t put damper on party

When inaugural revelers take to the ballroom floor on Jan. 20, chances are few will complain that the party planners cheaped out. While promises by President-elect Barack Obama’s inaugural committee to cap contributions at $50,000 and to shun donations from corporations and political action committees are hopeful signs to his supporters, they aren’t likely to reduce the total tab. “Ultimately, there are always ways to get around things,” said John Samples, director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Representative Government. While money might not come in a chunk from a PAC or a corporation, Samples said, it could still come from individuals who would...

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3 Minute Interview-Saba

The shortage of excellent teachers in the United States bothers Virginia resident Dave Saba, so the father of two has dedicated his career to finding solutions. As president of the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence, Saba and his group work to place career changers into American classrooms that need them the most. What accounts for the decline in people coming out of college prepared to teach? In 1972, 21 percent of four-year degrees were in teaching. Today it’s 7 percent, in part because majors are nearly limitless. And especially for women, who haven’t always had every option available to them. The prestige has declined, too. We need to bring that back...

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Inaugural panel eyes smaller donation amounts, more of them, to fund galas

Plans for the inaugural rolled out by President-elect Barack Obama’s newly announced committee echoed Obama’s campaign: bigger events and smaller — but plentiful — donations. Individual contributions will be capped at $50,000, according to the inaugural committee, as opposed to donations for past events as high as $250,000. In addition, money will not be accepted from corporations, political action committees, or federally registered lobbyists. “It’s the only thing they could possibly have done,” said Stephen Hess, a veteran of the Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford and Carter administrations and author of “What Do We Do Now? A Workbook for the...

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Daley seen as top pick for inauguration team

If President-elect Barack Obama taps hard-boiled corporate and political heavy hitter William Daley to run his inaugural committee as expected, it will indicate less concern with extravagant galas and more focus on averting a logistical meltdown. Daley has served as an economic adviser to Obama throughout the campaign and has tight Chicago ties to senior adviser David Axelrod and incoming Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. He led the Department of Commerce under President Clinton, and managed Al Gore’s narrow loss for the White House in 2000. “He is a no-nonsense, get-it-done kind of a person,” said Robert Mallett, senior vice president at Pfizer Inc. who served as...

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White House chefs on alert: Obama girls ‘love ice cream’

Barack Obama will have a new challenge to his fitness regimen thrust upon him as soon as he moves into the White House: 24-hour chefs at his service. And with the stresses of Obama’s job already mounting, the kitchen staff could find their workload up, too. For President Bill Clinton, it was strawberry cake, said longtime White House pastry chef Roland Mesnier. Mesnier was hired by Rosalynn Carter in 1979, and retired in 2004. “President Clinton was allergic to flour, dairy and chocolate — but he loved dessert!” Mesnier said, throwing up his hands. So the chef created an allergen-free strawberry cake that Clinton guarded with all his presidential power. Mexican...

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Inauguration crowds will test D.C.’s transit, lodging capacities

Federal officials have called D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty’s estimates of as many as 5 million attendees for Barack Obama’s inauguration an exaggeration in part because of their experience with massive crowds in the city before. Veterans of major city events from agencies such as the Secret Service, Park Police and the FBI are expecting about 1 million people to descend on Washington. Fenty, though, has claimed that one in every 60 Americans may be in the District to see Obama on Jan. 20. Part of what limits crowd size on the Mall is the means for getting people there. In 1976, 1 million visitors for the nation’s bicentennial festivities clogged the subway-less...

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Officials estimate nearly 1 million for inauguration

Federal and local officials voiced skepticism Tuesday at conjecture from D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty and others that 3 million to 5 million people would come to Washington for the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama. “It’s kind of erroneous to go down that road of 4 million,” said Malcolm Wiley, spokesman for the U.S. Secret Service, referring to published media reports Tuesday that floated that number as an estimate for the crowd on Jan. 20. “We’ve seen preliminary numbers from 800,000 to 1 million people,” said Joseph Persichini Jr., director of the FBI’s Washington Field Office. “I haven’t seen the statistics to back up that 4...

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Soaring costs for inauguration could break the bank for D.C.

Soaring costs expected to accompany huge crowds in town for the Jan. 20 inauguration of Barack Obama could stick cash-strapped Washington, D.C., with a record-breaking bill for services. Security and capacity measures recommended by the District’s congressional delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton and others will almost certainly surpass the $15 million the federal government gives to the District each year to defray the cost of events, Norton said. In 2005, with an estimated 300,000 in attendance, the second inauguration of President Bush cost the city more than $17 million, some of which was reimbursed with federal funds. This year, officials estimate nearly five times that many people...

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Thousands offer rooms to visitors for inauguration

Nearly 5,000 hospitable Washingtonians have listed their homes or apartments on the online classifieds site Craigslist.com in hope of getting a financial boost during the week of Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration. Rental offerings range from the outlandish to the opulent. For $50 per night, travelers can camp in a Rockville backyard with a less-than-subtle political message: “Up for rent is space in a tent city,” the advertisement said. “A neo-Hooverville,” referring to the shantytowns set up during the Great Depression presidency of Herbert Hoover. For those looking for more than a shanty, $60,000 will cover a four-bedroom Woodbridge, home complete...

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Fairfax school officials fear retreat in academic gains

Fairfax County school officials fear recent academic gains, especially among minority students, will creep backward in coming years because of budget-induced teacher cuts and drastic class size increases. More than 1,500 school and central office jobs may need to be eliminated next year, at the same time as enrollment is expected to increase by about 5,000 students, according to school board proposals. Class sizes could go up to 30 students in some lower elementary classes and 35 students in upper elementary grades. “Make no mistake — this will impact achievement,” said school board member Martina Hone at a gloomy budget-planning summit on Friday between the school board...

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Montgomery County school workers unions agree to new contract talks

Montgomery County’s three school employee unions agreed this week to go back to the negotiating table in order to throw a lifeline to the cash-strapped district, despite being midway through a three-year contract. As part of a contract agreed upon in 2006, teachers received a 5 percent pay raise this year and expected a 5.3 percent raise next year. But with millions of hoped-for dollars lost to decreased revenues and increased costs, a 2010 pay increase strikes many as unaffordable. “It’s one of the most difficult things we’ve had to do as a union, but we’re doing it in good faith,” said Bonnie Cullison, president of the Montgomery County Education...

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School choice a policy signal?

President-elect Barack Obama’s choice of elementary school for his two daughters will give that school bragging rights, and it could point to practical details of an education policy that on the campaign trail offered something for everybody. Though his daughters attend a private school in Chicago, Obama has long supported charter schools, and at a September event promised to double their federal funding. He pleased teacher unions by backing bigger paychecks and accountability based on more than test scores. He even stretched to the right last February with tepid support for school vouchers. D.C. schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee said she has provided information to the Obamas about...

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3 Minute Interview: Haroon Mokhtarzada

In 2001, Haroon Mokhtarzada and his brothers had a wild idea: Create a computer program so simple that even their mother could build a Web site. Now 28, Mokhtarzada’s initial (and successful) plan has grown into Silver Spring-based Webs.com, with more than 20 million Web sites to its credit. Besides a profit, are there any grand ideas are behind your social publishing venture? My family is originally from Afghanistan, so freedom of speech and expression has always been really important to us. It’s motivated us to allow all people to contribute to and publish their ideas on the Internet. Have you run up against problems from more restrictive countries? China has been the...

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Enrollment surge adds to school upgrade delays

Meager state funding and surging enrollments in Montgomery County schools will mean delays in school construction and modernization, and more students in temporary trailer classrooms. Six elementary schools - four in Silver Spring, one in Kensington and one in Rockville - are in need of a total of 24 additional classrooms because of unexpected enrollment jumps, according to Superintendent Jerry Weast’s recommended capital budget for fiscal 2010. Those delays are in addition to slowdowns at the high school level in last year’s capital budget. This year, the state has announced $260 million for school construction, down from $340 million last year and $402 million the year...

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Number of homeless students jumps across the Washington Metro area

When Sabrina West lost her job and apartment last spring, her oldest son moved in with cousins while she and her two younger sons moved into a $475-per-week motel. But it’s been anything but a vacation from the stresses of school. “My middle son has started to slack off in his new school. He’s not into his homework or classwork, and his grades have dropped tremendously,” West said. “My 6-year-old is starting to act out — he wasn’t that way before.” West’s children are three of more than 5,000 homeless students in Washington-area classrooms, defined by law as living in a shelter, motel or other temporary residence due to hardship. And...

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Alexandria fastest growing school district in the state

Students from around the Washington region have poured into Alexandria City Public Schools this fall, causing the system to undergo a faster rate of growth than any other Virginia district. The higher-than-expected numbers in Alexandria, as well as in neighboring Arlington County, are straining their tight school budgets at the same time as they reflect suburbs that are more economically attractive to families than others in the region. As of November, nearly 700 new students have showed up in Alexandria’s classrooms, a 7 percent increase from last year and the fifth-highest increase in the state, despite the district’s relatively small status. As a result, 10 new teachers...

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Will Obama kids go public?

Presidential children have eschewed D.C. Public Schools since Amy Carter’s four-year stint in the late 1970s, but recent reforms to the district could lure back the nation’s new first family. However, the odds aren’t great. Malia Obama, 10, and Sasha, 7, currently attend the University of Chicago’s Lab School, a select private institution in a sea of public schools with reputations little better than their D.C. counterparts. “I’d have to say it’s a real long shot,” said Michael Petrilli, vice president at the reform-focused Thomas B. Fordham Institute. “There are some great elementary schools in the District, and some great charters,...

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Graduation test stats underscore changes in Montgomery schools

Recently released data on the number of Montgomery County students not on track to graduate this spring have underscored what many county residents are reluctant to believe: Once-vaunted Montgomery County schools are struggling. As of last spring, 82 percent of the county’s seniors had passed the tests in algebra, English, biology and government required this year for a diploma. Among Hispanic students, the number dropped to 69 percent. Among blacks, it dropped to 68 percent. Students from low-income families fared worse — barely three in five of them were on track for a diploma. “One thing these tests have done is increase accountability,” said Gordie Brenne, a...

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MontCo focus of key school board contest

School board contests in Washington, D.C., suburbs on Tuesday will focus on familiar election-year themes: dwindling budgets, security concerns and special interests. For boards of education, that means keeping enough teachers in classrooms, keeping students safe and juggling the often-expensive requests for students with special needs such as autism and giftedness. While several districts have open seats, the only contested elections will be held in Montgomery County. Three-term incumbent Stephen Abrams is up against Rockville lawyer Laura Berthiaume in Montgomery’s District 2, which includes Potomac and Rockville. An at-large seat currently occupied by Sharon Cox is sought by...

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School officials, teachers urge slots rejection

Montgomery County educators and officials took to a microphone outside the old Rockville courthouse on Thursday to encourage voters to reject a ballot proposal for statewide slot machines. The gathering, which included State Comptroller Peter Franchot, slammed a pro-slots ad campaign funded in part by “out-of-state gambling executives,” saying the ads have misled the public by promising windfall revenues for schools. As opposed to reaping the rewards from gambling revenue, the speakers said, teachers and schools would bear the brunt of social burdens like addiction and poverty. Ken Allen, a teacher at Takoma Park’s Piney Branch Elementary, recounted the story of a...

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School cafeterias not meeting inspection laws

Roaches, rodents and too-warm tunafish have all been found in area school cafeterias in the past year, and many schools have failed to meet a federal law requiring the local health department to inspect cafeterias twice a year. At Forestville, Md.’s Suitland High School, a 2007 complaint to the health department charged that there were mice and roaches infesting the cafeteria. There had only been one inspection recorded with the health department in the previous two years. Two days after the complaint was lodged, an inspector showed up. “Mouse droppings were detected on food service line, hot food line, and kitchen hot line prep station inside below storage cabinets,”...

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Budget crunch means fewer health inspectors on payroll

Fewer inspectors are examining the kitchens of Prince George’s County restaurants, nursing homes, schools and day cares due to a hiring freeze and dwindling county revenues. In an office of about 70 people, including clerical workers, six critical positions are vacant, with no immediate replacement plans. One of the missing employees is the main sanitarian for the schools; One is the supervisor for the division that oversees school inspections. “At this time, it’s extremely difficult,” said Paul Meyer, the county’s director of environmental health. Meyer explained his department is calling upon other employees to perform inspections, and working in...

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Nearly one-fifth of Montgomery seniors may not graduate in 2009

Nearly one in five high school seniors in Montgomery County will fail to graduate this spring unless they are quickly able to pass standardized tests or complete one of several alternative projects. According to data released this week by the Maryland State Department of Education, Montgomery ranks 19th of 24 state school districts in its percentage of seniors yet to pass all four tests required this year before receiving a diploma. Overall, 83 percent of Maryland’s seniors have passed the tests. Neighboring Prince George’s County ranks last in the state, with fewer than 65 percent of its seniors on track to graduate. Broken down by subgroup, Montgomery County’s black...

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Rhee plans to reshuffle $100M among schools

D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee announced Monday a plan to reshuffle $100 million to address complaints about overcrowded classrooms and missing teachers. About $88 million would align school budgets with their actual enrollment for the year, according to the school system. Schools with higher-than-expected enrollments would receive funds to hire teachers and administrators, while underenrolled schools could lose positions. Staff members pushed out of schools with lower-than-expected enrollments would not be fired, but could be placed elsewhere in the 45,000-student system, according to district spokeswoman Dena Iverson. The request came on the same day that D.C. Council...

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Delay sought on linking test success to diplomas

With time running out for thousands of Maryland high school seniors, the vice president of the State Board of Education called last week for a one-year delay in linking success on standardized tests to getting a diploma. Blair Ewing, a longtime Montgomery County politician in his second year on the state board, joined ranks with Montgomery schools leadership in calling for the delay just days before a Tuesday meeting with State Superintendent Nancy Grasmik, an ardent supporter of the tests. “Fundamentally, it’s a question of fairness,” Ewing said. The graduating class of 2009 is the first that will be required to pass four tests — one each in biology, algebra,...

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Homebuilding slowdown a relief to school planners

Bad news for housing developers this year meant a small bit of relief for Montgomery County schools as enrollment numbers in the fastest-growing suburbs fell below expectations. Over the past several years, the school system has had to funnel resources into booming towns like Clarksburg, where developers have built or are planning to build hundreds of new homes. The district has responded with plans for pricey new school buildings and an influx of teachers. This year, though, Clarksburg Elementary had 69 fewer students than expected. Several miles away, Cedar Grove Elementary had 65 fewer than expected. Nearby Little Bennett Elementary, where most of the past growth has been concentrated,...

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3 minute interveiw-LaFree

Gary LaFree is a professor of criminology at the University of Maryland and the director of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, or START, which is funded through the Department of Homeland Security. People might remember the attention START gained after deeming Boise, Idaho, one of the top targets for a terrorist attack. What’s the greatest misconception Americans have about terrorism? The biggest that Americans in particular have is a misconception about is how much terrorism is domestic versus transnational. After 9/11 there’s been a tendency to see major terrorist attacks as terrorist agents acting in foreign countries. But...

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MontCo residents urge school board to keep services as cuts loom

Even as severe budget cuts loom over Montgomery County schools, community members have been offering district officials an earful about exactly what to save. “We may end up with everyone a little unhappy,” said Marshall Spatz, the district’s budget director. But he quickly pointed out gains the school system has already made. “We’ve been working on our reforms since 1999, and that means there are already a lot of things embedded in the structure of the system” such as reduced class sizes in at-risk schools and a strong push for advanced-level college preparation at every high school. But past gains didn’t stop hundreds of community members from...

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5-year-old disappears while shopping with grandmother in Fairfax County

Police in Fairfax County and Alexandria City are searching for a 5-year-old boy who disappeared while shopping with his grandfather shortly after noon on Sunday. Kamron Wells was last seen at Shoppers Food Warehouse on Little River Turnpike. “He was at the store with his grandfather, and when his grandfather turned a corner and looked behind him, he was gone,” according to Fairfax Police spokeswoman Tawny Wright. Wells is described as about 3 feet tall and 50 pounds with short black hair. He was last seen wearing a camouflage t-shirt, a gray hooded sweatshirt and blue jeans. As of Sunday evening, 23 officers and several canine units were actively searching for the child....

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Economic crisis proves valuable teaching opportunity

Bianca Ely, 16, waved dismissively at her computer screen late last week. She’d just lost $16,000. “I bought a lot of stock yesterday because they were going up,” said the junior in an economics class at Vienna’s Oakton High School. “And then they went down yesterday afternoon, and I lost. A lot.” Luckily for Bianca and her classmates, the dollars are virtual and used only for a class project. But her concerns have turned a financial bust into a classroom boom. “There’s obviously been turmoil personally, but it’s made for great teaching,” said Bianca’s teacher, Tim Hudenberg, who added that the current crisis is his most...

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Hundreds of 2009 Montgomery seniors off track for diploma

Hundreds of seniors in Montgomery County’s class of 2009 have failed to pass four standardized tests required this year for a diploma, according to data from Montgomery County schools. Of nearly 10,000 seniors with adequate grades and attendance, more than 400 have yet to pass the algebra exam; 400 have not passed the English test; nearly 200 have fallen short on the government exam; and 150 have not made the mark for biology. Those numbers do not include students who have failed the tests but would be ineligible for graduation for other reasons. The seniors must pass all the tests by June — or complete an alternative project — in order to graduate. The numbers underlie...

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Montgomery schools seek graduation test extension

The Montgomery County school board asked Maryland’s State Board of Education this week for a one-year delay before linking standardized assessment tests with a high school diploma, saying the tests are unfair. Though the tests have been in place for years, the class of 2009 is the first that must pass them to graduate. Montgomery’s school board cited long-standing criticisms ranging from different test standards for different graduating classes to an alternative test that is “overly complex and fraught with unresolved issues.” If supported by the state board, led by State Superintendent Nancy Grasmick, the move would throw a lifeline to potentially thousands of...

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Investigation: Many purchases made with student funds were improper

Investigations into student-raised funds at 11 Montgomery County high schools reveal problems that spread beyond the use of the money for staff perks and leadership retreats. At nearly all of the schools, large purchases were made with the money without principal approval, as required by district policy. Many of those purchases were made with staff members’ personal credit cards and were not properly recorded with the school. The most extensive list of abuses, reported in The Examiner on Tuesday, occurred at Rockville’s Richard Montgomery High School under then-Principal Moreno Carrasco. In June, Carrasco was appointed by Superintendent Jerry Weast to direct secondary...

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Schools take nearly $40M budget hit

Gov. Martin O’Malley’s budget cuts released Wednesday eliminated nearly $40 million in education funds from early childhood through post-secondary education. The University System of Maryland took the biggest hit with a $15.6 million reduction. In anticipation, the colleges instituted a hiring freeze last week, a spokesman said. Community colleges lost $8 million of their expected $16 million in state aid. “We’re considering several proposals, including a hiring delay or freeze, restrictions on nonessential travel and a delay of major purchases,” said Elizabeth Homan, a spokeswoman for Montgomery College. Homan added the college expected further reductions...

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Audit blasts Maryland foster care system

Maryland’s foster care system left children vulnerable to potential abusers due to a faulty computer system, according to a three-year state audit released Tuesday. The report blasted the department’s failure “to ensure that all individuals known to be guilty of child abuse or neglect, or found responsible for indicated abuse or neglect, were identified as such in a central registry.” Auditors were looking at the system from 2004 until 2007, focusing on the dire shortcomings of a $68 million computer program implemented in piecemeal fashion starting in 1997. More than 2,500 foster children of about 10,000 in the state did not have their placements recorded in the...

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Audit: School staff misused student funds

Thousands of dollars raised by Montgomery County students and “belonging to the student body” were spent on staff perks last year, according to an audit of student funds at Rockville’s Richard Montgomery High School. About $9,400 sent 17 staff members to a leadership retreat on the Chesapeake Bay. Another $5,100 paid for meals for Richard Montgomery’s then-principal, Moreno Carrasco, and various administrators. And $1,100 bought eight $143 jackets for staff members. The student funds, to be overseen by each school’s principal, are collected via various classroom fees, ticket sales and fundraisers. District policy specifies the money be used to “promote...

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Survey shows cheating on rise in high school

High school students are increasingly likely to cheat their way to the top, according to the latest data from a nationwide survey about teenage ethics. In 2006, more than six in 10 of about 34,000 high schoolers admitted to cheating on at least one exam in the past year. For 2008, data to be released in early November shows a slight increase, said Michael Josephson, founder of the Los Angeles-based Josephson Institute, which publishes the Report Card on the Ethics of American Youth. Students who admitted to shoplifting increased by several percentage points, as well, from about 28 percent in 2006. “Those are pretty shocking numbers when you realize this is the next generation of...

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Episcopal High School’s honor code dates to circa 1870

Students at the elite Episcopal High School in Alexandria are asked to live by a simple code — don’t lie, don’t cheat, don’t steal and report your classmate who does. “That fourth point is the kicker, of course,” said F. Robertson Hershey, headmaster at Episcopal. School historians say the campus is home to one of the oldest honor codes in the nation, instituted around 1870, and one of the few remaining schools that demand responsibility for classmates. “From that time forward it’s been our cornerstone value,” Hershey said. “Our feeling is if students don’t take responsibility for their own code, it becomes a...

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The mayor and the chancellor: A partnership built on trust

Mayors of other major cities have hired reform-minded school superintendents, but in choosing Michelle Rhee, Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty has gone further. He is staking his political career on her success. “Mayor [Michael] Bloomberg [in New York] and [Richard] Daley [in Chicago] are great people,” Rhee said. “But they don’t hold a candle to Adrian Fenty in terms of the support they offer their superintendents. And I know those superintendents, so I know that none of them even come close.” Rhee called people with her kind of passion “a dime a dozen,” and said only the mayor’s backing has made her reforms possible. “Transfer me...

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Rhee battles union in drive to reform D.C.’s schools

Michelle Rhee gives herself one F: for the way she handled a classroom of second-graders at Baltimore’s Harlem Park Elementary School. “My first year teaching was a huge disappointment. I don’t think I was able to give those kids what they deserved in terms of an education,” said Rhee, now in her second year as chancellor of Washington’s public schools. “But that initial challenge has fueled what I’ve done my entire career.” And to hear Rhee tell it, she hasn’t failed since. Sixteen years after her first days in the classroom, the steely 38-year-old is among an elite cadre of young education reformers around the nation who flout the...

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3 Minute Interview-Getman

D.C. native Tim Getman joins a cast of eight onstage at Arlington’s Signature Theater for Washington’s first production of Martin McDonagh’s “The Lieutenant of Inishmore.” The dark comedy set off the coast of Ireland revolves around a dead cat mourned amid the violent struggle for Irish independence. “The Lieutenant of Inishmore” runs through Nov. 16 at Signature Theater, sig-online.org or 703-820-9771 What were the biggest challenges in rehearsing the play? It’s set in Northern Ireland and none of us are Irish, so getting on the same page in terms of the dialect and sounding like we’re all from the same world was tough. But I think...

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Nearly one in five high school seniors fail to graduate

Nearly one in five Virginia high school seniors, or about 18,000 students, failed to graduate on time in 2008, the first year the state used a new and more accurate measure for determining the figure. In Northern Virginia, Fairfax County graduated 91 percent of its students who entered high school in 2004-05. Loudoun County graduated 93 percent and Arlington County fell closer to the state average at 82 percent. Alexandria schools had the lowest rate in the region at 76 percent. The figures contrast sharply with the districts’ reported drop-out rates, a sign that the new measure reveals more nuanced information than had previously been captured. Fairfax and Arlington reported a 2...

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Rhee set to proceed with reform plan despite stalled union talks

District Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee announced Thursday that she will move forward with her reform package, even though talks with union leaders about the teacher accountability plan remain stalled. Rhee’s actions center around her plan for tougher teacher evaluations based on proven student achievement, and acting aggressively to oust failing instructors. “Despite the fact that [contract negotiations] have stalled, I still have an obligation to ensure that every single child in this city has an excellent teacher,” Rhee said, adding she needs “to ensure that children are not suffering from the games adults are trying to play.” Union President George...

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Fewer than 1 in 50 teachers dismissed for poor performance in suburbs

Fewer than 2 percent of the teachers in Montgomery and Fairfax county schools were ushered out for poor performance last year, a sign to some of overprotective unions, but to others of schools that work. In traditionally dysfunctional D.C. schools, Chancellor Michelle Rhee got rid of nearly 270 teachers out of more than 4,000 total, or more than 6 percent, that were deemed ineffectual either for poor performance or failing to meet the certification requirements of No Child Left Behind. For most of them, that meant failing to pass an exam in their subject area. In Montgomery County, 23 of nearly 13,000 teachers were let go. In Fairfax, 28 of nearly 14,000 were shown the door, according to...

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Report: Low-earning dropouts hurt economy

A recent report on the economic drag of high school dropouts finds that annual lost wages in D.C., Maryland and Virginia could amount to nearly $14 billion. Nationwide, nearly $320 billion could be lost annually from the 30 percent of students who fail to earn a diploma, according to the report by D.C.-based Alliance for Excellent Education, an organization focused on improving American high schools. “I understand the attention on Wall Street,” said Alliance President Bob Wise, “but the economic cost of dropouts will make today’s bailout look like small change.” Wise added that the necessity of a high school diploma increases every year, as “90 percent...

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Pr. George’s officials wary as schools chief Deasy resigns

Tuesday’s unexpected resignation of Prince George’s County Public Schools Superintendent John Deasy left officials shocked but hopeful the troubled district could stay on a reformist path minus its top reformer. Deasy, in his third year leading 130,000 students in the nation’s 18th-largest district, announced his new position as of Feb. 1, 2009, as deputy director of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s educational division. “It’s going to be tough on the county,” said Prince George’s County Councilman Will Campos. “We’re back to the drawing board.” In 2 1/2 years, students have made gains under Deasy and the ball has...

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‘Open-sourcing’ textbooks coming to Virginia schools

A textbook innovation taking off in higher education circles will make its way to Virginia’s schools this winter, potentially saving districts money and broadening their educational reach. The product is a first-of-its-kind online physics textbook with updatable text — a concept called “open-sourcing” because registered experts have the ability to add and edit material as the field progresses. Imagine being able to edit a chapter to reflect Pluto’s demotion from planet status, for example. “This is the coolest project ever,” said Aneesh Chopra, Virginia’s secretary of technology, adding that it’s free, and could help save some of the...

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State budget officials threaten to pass teachers’ pension costs to Montgomery

Responding to the bleakest budget since the early 1990s, Maryland budget officials threatened on Tuesday to pass responsibility for pricey pensions on to cash-strapped Montgomery County. The conversation between state number-crunchers and the Montgomery County Council came amid a crescendo of chatter surrounding slot machines. If Maryland voters say yes to slots on November’s ballots, proponents like Gov. Martin O’Malley say schools will see more money. But if they say no, counties have been warned they’ll need to come up with more money on their own. Currently, a state board operates pensions for teachers, but a disproportionate amount of payments are doled out in...

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Report blasts schools’ push for algebra in 8th grade

More than half of Washington-area middle schoolers are pushed to take algebra by eighth grade, but a new report finds many of them don’t have the fundamentals they need to understand it. “We’re putting kids who don’t know arithmetic into algebra classes that teach fake algebra, and staffing them with teachers who have fewer credentials, and walking away from the problem,” said Tom Loveless, director of the D.C.-based Brookings Institute’s Brown Center on Education Policy. “It’s counterfeit equity,” Loveless said. His study compared state results on the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress with the percentage of...

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Immigration growth slows as economy, crackdowns make changes

New Census estimates show a significant slowing of immigration to the United States and the Washington area last year as the economy lost its footing and local law enforcement efforts gained traction. Maryland’s immigrant growth in 2007 slowed to 1.7 percent from the year before, bringing the state’s total foreign-born population to 694,590. Between 2000 and 2006, growth was about 3.3 percent each year. In Virginia, growth slowed to about 2.6 percent, or 794,246 foreign-born residents in 2007. Between 2000 and 2005, growth was about 3.4 percent each year. “The number of legal immigrants have remained pretty high,” said Steven Camarota, director of research at...

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Shortage of special ed teachers increases strain

A chronic shortage of special education teachers in Maryland schools is compounding the strain of shrunken budgets and forcing schools to stretch staff to meet the needs of some students. In Montgomery County, about 18 special education positions remain unfilled. Prince George’s County is going without 30 teachers even after allotting about 100 fewer positions than originally proposed. Both districts have many more vacancies in speech and occupational therapy. Together, the districts have nearly 50,000 students with special needs. For worried parents, one less teacher means one less person trained in handling the growing number of students with challenges detailed on special needs...

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Council OKs two-week furloughs for county workers

Nearly 6,000 Prince George’s County employees will give up two weeks of pay this year after the County Council unanimously passed legislation on Tuesday designed to close a projected $57 million budget shortfall. Union officials say the County Council acted too quickly. “They presented it and voted on it in one day,” said Vince Canales, president of the county’s police union, despite union calls for a one-week delay. “They did not want to sit and have the public discussion.” The unpaid leave will save the county $20 million. The remaining $37 million will come from measures like stripping $14 million from the school system and $4 million from police...

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Pr. George’s exec urges furloughs for workers to reduce deficit

Prince George’s County Executive Jack Johnson wants to put county employees on two weeks of unpaid leave and strip millions from school budgets to balance a projected $57 million budget deficit. The furloughs would affect 5,900 workers, from police officers to the executive’s senior staff to trash collectors, and would save the county $20 million. “It will be done in such a way as to have no negative impact to county services,” said Johnson spokesman John Erzen, declining to provide details. The school system has been looking for ways to implement a proposed $14 million in cuts for about a month, said district spokesman John White, though no decisions have been...

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Gifted and talented abounds at suburban schools

For children living in the middle-class suburbs of Washington’s metro area, odds are good they’re prodigies, at least as measured by the school systems’ gifted and talented programs. At Bethesda’s Westbrook Elementary School, for example, 87 percent of second-graders in 2006-07 were designated as eligible to take part in “gifted and talented” instruction. At the town’s Bradley Hills Elementary, 84 percent attained that status. But in fact, the number of D.C.-area geniuses hasn’t inexplicably soared. Instead, according to school administrators, “gifted and talented” has come to mean “above grade level,” and some...

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Schools still in need of backing for much-needed renovations

District, Prince George’s students ‘incredibly frustrated’ with current learning environment School chiefs in D.C. and Prince George’s County recently released plans aimed at reviving crumbling classrooms, but both face an uphill battle to secure the backing needed in times of dwindling budgets. D.C. Public Schools’ long-awaited Master Facilities Plan unveiled Wednesday called for renovation of all public schools within five years. That followed months of criticism that Chancellor Michelle Rhee had failed to meet construction schedules for the current school year. Rhee, along with Mayor Adrian Fenty, said Wednesday that this plan would more evenly distribute...

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School officials relieved when McCain moves rally to park

Some Fairfax County school officials breathed a sigh of relief Tuesday when Republican presidential candidate John McCain moved a Wednesday morning campaign rally from a public school to a public park. The move came amid public outcry in the battleground state from parents and officials claiming Republican favoritism and a violation of school policy. “To say the least, people were uncomfortable,” said Jane Strauss, a Fairfax school board member who said she and her colleagues were pleased with the decision. The McCain campaign said the decision was made to accommodate higher attendance than originally predicted, due in part to the popularity of vice presidential candidate...

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D.C. superintendent’s office releases 5-year plan for education

Nearly one year after Mayor Adrian Fenty created the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, it released on Monday a first-of-its-kind, five-year plan for improving city schools and bolstering adult education. The plan, which received public feedback Monday night at a forum moderated by State Education Superintendent Deborah Gist, lays out familiar aims: bring up test scores, improve teacher quality, widen access to quality prekindergarten and better serve students with special needs. Experts say the proof will be in the pudding. “You’ve gotta start somewhere,” said Walter Smith, executive director of D.C. Appleseed, a nonprofit focused on Washington-specific...

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Survey: Illegal drug use on decline for teens, but prescription abuse up

Illegal drug use is on the decline among teens and young adults, but a growing number are turning to pharmacies and medicine cabinets to abuse legal substances, according to local officials and a new national survey. In 2007, illicit drug use among 12- to 17-year-olds in the month before the survey fell to 10 percent, down from 12 percent in 2002, according to data collected by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Agency. Current marijuana use among the same age group dropped to 7 percent, from 8 percent in 2002. Young adults between 18 and 20 saw the highest rate of past-month illegal drug use, at 22 percent. Cigarette and alcohol use saw similar declines among 12- to...

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Credo: Dennis Bakke

Are you of a particular faith? By God’s grace, I am a follower of Jesus Christ. It is God’s love that allows an imperfect person like me to live and work to serve others, and along the way serve my own needs and the needs of my family. You and your wife began Imagine Schools after your long and successful career as a businessman. What inspired the life shift? After leaving AES and writing “Joy at Work,” [a 2005 book about management techniques], I was looking for another avenue to serve others and create a new joyful work place. A friend suggested that I look into charter schools. When I realized it was something I could do with my wife, Eileen, who is a...

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The changing face of Thomas Jefferson High

Asian-American students are now the largest incoming group Asian-American students make up 46 percent of this year's freshman class at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, making their demographic, for the first time, the largest group of incoming students. Throughout the school, they make up 41 percent; white students account for 48 percent; mixed-race students are 6 percent; and black and Hispanic students account for 2 and 3 percent, respectively. The numbers aren't representative of Fairfax County schools, where Asian-American high schoolers make up only 19 percent of the population, whites 52 percent, blacks 11 percent and Hispanics 14 percent. But they do...

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TJ clubs represent diverse extracurricular interests

Every Wednesday and Friday afternoon at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, students prove they can be as much like Thomas Jefferson as like pure scientists and tech-whizzes. The last periods of those days are given over to student-sponsored clubs, and while the requisite physics and math teams remain, offerings also include clubs to exercise the right-brained among the students, too. Of nearly 200 clubs this year, there’s Classic Rock Appreciation, which includes no geological content, and the Bridge Club — cards, not engineering. Other clubs contribute to an eclectic learning environment: Knit and Crochet Circle, Teenage Republicans, Swing Dance, and...

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TJ's Renaissance man on campus creates public school success

America's finest public high school is in a cluttered old building in need of repairs. But Alexandria's Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology doesn't need a new glass and steel structure to be the best. The challenge of maintaining its success rests with third-year Principal Evan Glazer. “My role,” Glazer said, “is to provide the students and teachers an environment where they can pursue and share their passions, so they can do extraordinary things.” At a time when American high school education is widely seen to be in decline, Jefferson is a beacon of excellence. In 2007, TJ, as the magnet school is affectionately called, earned the No. 1 spot...

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Family dog saves owners from house fire

A black Labrador saved a Potomac family early Monday morning when the dog’s barking warned them of a fire that would go on to consume their home and cause more than $1 million in damage. Lawyer Steven Kelber, his wife and a child visiting from New York were asleep around 1:30 a.m. when Jet, a longtime family pet, alerted them to smoke coming from the garage of their home on the 11000 block of Lake Potomac Drive, according to Montgomery County fire officials. Jet survived the fire along with the family. But by the time firefighters brought the blaze under control, a Jeep Cherokee, Infinity G35 and Mitsubishi Spyder were destroyed, along with up to $800,000 in structural damage to the...

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Examination of SAT scores reveals poor performance

A school-by-school examination of SAT test scores released last week in Montgomery County reveals pockets of dismal participation and performance, especially within the county’s rapidly growing population of Hispanic students. The results came as a setback to the district’s attempts to make achievement in the schools indistinguishable by race. Throughout the county’s 25 high schools, just over half of the 1,600 Hispanic graduates took the SAT, the far more popular of two college entrance exams required by nearly all four-year colleges and universities. Of those students, 440 of them graduated from 10 high schools where the average score on each of the test’s...

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My Credo: Roberta Combs

Throughout Roberta Combs’ eight-year presidency, the Christian Coalition of America has faced challenges from within and from outside critics. But with an election year under way, the 62-year-old has no intention of abandoning her faithful fight. Do you belong to a particular faith? I belong to the Christian faith and I attend an interdenominational church. I love the fact that there I can exercise my faith freely and enjoy the fellowship of Christians. I enjoy the open expression of Christian love of believers one for the other. As a young person, who most inspired you? In my youth, I was inspired by my parents who instilled in me principles of righteousness. They were loving...

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Ex-teacher charged with selling student cocaine

A former Montgomery County public school teacher was charged with distributing cocaine to a child, authorities said Tuesday. Theresa Cunningham Duarte, 44, of Rockville, taught English at Wootton High School for four years until she resigned this summer. She has been charged with two counts of cocaine distribution. Duarte was released from the Montgomery County Detention Center in Rockville after posting $150,000 bond. County police said there was “concern” Duarte had sold drugs to other students. Michael Doran, the principal at Wootton, sent a letter to parents today alerting them of the arrest. He said the alleged drug sales did not take place on school grounds, and that no...

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Area college entrance exam results mixed

Scores on the 2008 SAT college entrance exam declined for the third straight year in Montgomery County schools, while students in Fairfax County saw a slight gain. Montgomery students averaged 1,616 points on the 2,400-point, three-section test administered by the College Board, down 18 points from 2006. Fairfax students outdid their cross-Potomac counterparts with an average score of 1,654, up 15 points from 2007. Both districts outperformed their respective states. The average Maryland student scored 1,498, while the Virginia average was 1,525. Nationwide, the average score remained at 1,511 even as the percentage of minority participants increased and fee waivers for low-income...

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Schools face stalled reforms, tight budgets, surplus students

Suburban Maryland schools are asking families for patience this week as students return to schools with stalled reforms, skimpy budgets and surplus students. In Montgomery County, some of the traditionally highest-performing schools, like Bethesda’s Walt Whitman High School, are working to juggle an unexpected influx of students from private schools, said school board member Pat O’Neill. “Every year brings a new issue or concern,” O’Neill said. “This year, it’s about staffing.” The 10-year board member explained that a tighter reserve budget and more students may result in larger class sizes, at least until enrollment figures settle at the...

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Black, Hispanic enrollment blooms in Md., Va. public universities

The swelling enrollment of black and Hispanic students at public universities in Maryland and Virginia has cheered educators but also caused worries about whether college graduation rates will decline. At Virginia’s public universities, black student enrollment increased by 52 percent between 1996 and 2006 to 86,540 students, according to data compiled by Atlanta-based Southern Regional Education Board. Hispanic enrollment climbed to 17,163 students, a 111 percent increase from 1996. In Maryland, the number of black enrollees grew by 41 percent over the same 10 years to 82,635, while Hispanic students increased by 93 percent to 12,298. “Those were the underserved populations,...

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Church attendance tied to academic performance

A recent study suggests that there is one more thing that parents can do to help boost students’ school performance: Go to church. A student who attends religious services regularly is expected to have a grade point average .144 higher than a student who never does, according to an article published by three professors from the University of Iowa and Notre Dame in the most recent edition of the Sociological Quarterly. That boost surpasses the advantages found by students whose parents attained high levels of education, the authors said. “Church attendance in particular lends itself to fostering certain kinds of skill patterns of stick-to-it-iveness and persistence,”...

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Credo — Will Franklin Graham IV

Are you of a particular faith? I am a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The thing that I love the most is that the Creator of the universe loves me (and all of you) so much that He knows us by name, knows the number of hairs on our heads, knows the concerns of our hearts and wants a personal, eternal relationship with us. Who most inspired your faith as a young person? My father, Franklin Graham, has always had the biggest impact on me. He was the one who led me to Christ as a young boy and who raised me to be the man I am today. Of course, my grandfather Billy Graham, whom we grandchildren call Daddy Bill, has always been a huge influence as well. He’s given me two pieces of...

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Most money incentive initiatives too new to evaluate

Washington schools joined a growing number of districts nationwide Thursday to flash cash before lackluster students, but most programs are too young to reveal whether the incentives result in higher achievement or duped administrators. A program set to begin this fall in 14 southern Virginia high schools, along with five other states, is modeled on a 12-year-old Texas program that pays high-scoring students in poor and minority schools up to $500 for taking an Advanced Placement course and passing a final exam. Success on the AP test can be used at universities for advance credits. The first study of the Texas program, and one of the only studies completed on cash-incentive programs, was...

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School fees frustrate families

As students prepare for Monday’s first school bells, many parents already hit by the crumbling economy are reeling from hundreds of dollars spent on supplies and fees they believe ought to be covered by a “free” public education. “Money-wise, it’s harder than Christmastime,” said Megan Kirkes, a stay-at-home mother of five children, four of whom attend Montgomery County Public Schools. Kirkes’ husband recently was laid off from his job as a credit counselor, crippling the family’s income and forcing the family to shut off their phone service. “They want us to buy tissue, paper towels, baggies, hand sanitizer gel, fine-tipped markers,...

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Schools feeling budget crunch

The two largest school systems in the region with two of the tightest budgets expect their student populations to rise even as costs increase and government resources shrink. Nearly every school system in the D.C. metro area saw significant reductions to its budget for the coming academic year, but few were more publicized than Fairfax County, where nearly all summer schools were wiped out, and Montgomery County, where long-anticipated middle school reform has been slowed and a prized magnet program has been cut to the bone. And with only days before the start of the school year, officials are bracing for the possibility of more enrollees than initially projected, bringing Fairfax’s...