Mayor-elect Adrian Fenty promised major changes in the District of Columbia’s Public Schools system. Change won’t happen, though, if he keeps listening to the same educators, policy advisers, politicians and school employees who allowed it to get this bad in the first place.
In his Tuesday State of the Schools address, Superintendent Clifford Janey offered the familiar potpourri of blame: abdication of leadership, no accountability and “high tolerance for low expectations” for the current mess. Not a word did he mention about the basic problems — rampant nepotism, decades-long diversion of funds for personal gain, union stranglehold on hiring and failure to teach the basics — that make the DCPS the nation’s most embarrassing public schools system.
Even Janey’s real accomplishments since he arrived two years ago underscore the system’s mismanagement and corruption. For example, the superintendent bragged about completing a textbook inventory — DCPS’ first ever — and admitted an “absence of measurable performance goals for employees” prior to his arrival. But human resources, payroll and procurement have yet to be overhauled, despite the fact that these black holes have literally sucked hundreds of millions of dollars from District taxpayers while ripping off their children. “If the system’s foundation is shaky, we must lay a new foundation,” Janey said in his speech. Great soundbites do nothing to blast out the old foundation.
Janey is trying to do the right thing. He’s already right-sized six schools, initiated an aggressive program to train 500 nationally certified teachers within the next five years and hired 85 new principals. Under his direction, DCPS’ new academic standards have been ranked fourth best in the country by The Hoover Institution.
But he’s much too cautious in the face of the DCPS crisis. Janey says he’ll pick out six of the worst schools for “reconstitution” — replacing most or all of the staff and putting them under centralized control — but doesn’t say whether those same employees will be recycled to other schools, a practice which has doomed all previous attempts at reform. There are too many incompetents in the system, so moving them around the system does nothing to improve it.
And why is his innovation schools pilot program — which will give school employees greater autonomy in exchange for a greater degree of accountability — limited to just 10 schools, when it needs to be applied systemwide? There are 118 schools in D.C. that failed to meet academic targets under the federal No Child Left Behind law. All 118 need principals and teaching staff who are allowed to do what it takes to turn them around — but then are held personally responsible for the outcome. Those who don’t perform should be fired.
Fenty should reject Janey’s plea for more time. Ridding this sick system’s incompetent teachers and administrators for good will trigger a feverish “immune system response” from the education unions. If the new mayor is serious about healing D.C. schools, he must be willing to take the heat. That’s called leadership.
