The Washington Post recently reported a “sharp reversal” in the expected graduation rates for Washington, D.C., public schools after heading upwards in recent years. Only “42 percent of seniors attending traditional public schools are on track to graduate.” What happened? Mainly, it seems, officials have stopped lying. The rate had been climbing handsomely in recent years—but that’s because school officials, some now under FBI investigation, were inflating the numbers.
“Last year, only 178 out of 2,307 graduates from all DCPS high schools had satisfactory attendance. Almost half of DCPS students who missed more than half of the school year graduated last year,” notes Max Eden, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. The federal investigation reportedly centers on Ballou High School (see “Unearned Diplomas,” by Eden and Alice B. Lloyd, in our January 1 issue), where the graduation rate made the improbable leap from 57 percent to 100 percent in just a year.
Another recent Washington Post report found that half of the students at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, which has a nationally recognized theater and arts program, may not even live in D.C. It would seem the city’s poorest kids are losing out in school lotteries so that rich kids from the Maryland suburbs with politically connected parents can attend one of the city’s few well-regarded public schools for free.
Spending on D.C. public schools in recent years has run upwards of $29,000 per pupil, in addition to another $120 million in private philanthropy that has been poured into the system since 2007. Whatever staggering problems D.C. schools have, a shortage of resources is not among them.
It’s good to see the Washington Post find room among its denunciations of Betsy DeVos, Trump’s education secretary, for some fine stories (belatedly) covering the corruption problems in D.C. public schools. And it’s a timely reminder for liberal critics of DeVos that her passion for charter schools and school vouchers is no threat to America’s children. These reforms are a lifeline to children trapped in unaccountable and corrupt public schools, which are sadly not a phenomenon unique to D.C.
