D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty and schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee on Wednesday unveiled one of the most contentious parts of their ambitious plan to overhaul the city’s failing public school system — eliminating millions of square feet of unused space by closing 19 under-enrolled schools next year and five more by 2010. Fenty and Rhee are right that spending $23 million to staff and maintain half-empty schools doesn’t make much sense, but, as usual, the devil is in the details.
Consolidation was already in the works when Rhee arrived in June. Former D.C. Schools Superintendent Clifford Janey had announced plans to close schools as enrollment continued to drop precipitously, from 55,000 to 49,600 this year. But Janey’s multiyear “right-sizing” plan — which also slated 19 schools for closure, including five adjacent to crime- and drug-infested public housing projects in Southeast — was slow and methodical compared with this. More importantly, the public was involved.
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Rhee originally promised to delay school closings for at least a year, saying she wanted to get a handle on the system’s strengths and weaknesses before launching a major downsizing that was certain to create controversy. What changed her mind? Earlier this month, Rhee said she would forgo community input so closure decisions could be made by January, which would give her time to handle enormous staffing and logistical problems before the next school year begins.
But schools are part of the glue that holds neighborhoods together, and residents should be given an opportunity to express their views before any decisions are made about which ones to close. Seeking public comment is doubly important because 14 of the schools now targeted by Fenty and Rhee were not among those slated to close in the 2007 Facilities Master Plan. Residents should be told the grounds for the decisions made about each school dropped and added to the closure list.
Fenty bypassed the D.C. Public Schools Board of Education and the D.C. Council in selecting Rhee, and reportedly did not consult with them this time, either. But the public is entitled to know whether any political pressure was involved in these closure decisions. If the selections were based solely on objective criteria like condition of the buildings, current enrollment and the presence of another school nearby, city residents should support these painful changes. Fenty and Rhee should welcome public input and be as transparent and concrete as possible about the reasons for each of the proposed school closings.
