If confirmed by the D.C. council, Mayor Muriel Bowser’s nominee for D.C. Public Schools chancellor will arrive in office after a turbulent period in the traditional, city-run public school system. The system has been plagued recently by controversy surrounding inflated high school graduation rates and preferential access for officials to bypass school waitlists.
Unsurprising, then, that nominee Lewis Ferebee set a cautious tone, declaring, “We’re obviously not at the point where we are ready to run a victory lap, but we do have a steady foundation that we can build upon.”
Ferebee’s balanced judgment is surely right. DCPS has achieved much over the past decade, recent challenges aside. But the focus on this important appointment, and opportunity for the school system to turn the page, misses the bigger picture. This is because DCPS accounts for only half of public education provided in the District. Nearly half of all public school students are now educated at charter schools. Taxpayer-funded and tuition-free, like city-run schools, charters operate independently of DCPS, free to develop their own educational programs while being held accountable for improved student performance.
A vibrant and thriving part of D.C.’s public education offering, charters were born out of the near-collapse of the traditional school system, in which by the mid-1990s more than half the students dropped out before graduating. Student academics and safety were also seriously neglected. From this low point, charters raised the game, expanding initially from two small campuses to serving 43,000 students today, with a further 11,000 on waitlists to attend schools too full to accommodate them.
The reasons for charters’ popularity with District families are obvious. Charters’ high school graduation rate is 50 percent higher than the rate that prevailed before their introduction, and it’s also higher than the newly audited numbers for DCPS today. Moreover, D.C. parents and guardians can rely upon these numbers. The D.C. Public Charter School Board audits every graduating student’s transcript to protect the data’s integrity.
Beyond a higher share of students earning high school diplomas, a prerequisite for college acceptance, charter schools have also consistently raised student proficiency as measured by citywide standardized tests. This improvement has occurred while curricula have been enriched and after-school options extended. Charters’ autonomy has allowed them to offer specialist educational themes including law, public policy, bilingual immersion, classics, and STEM subjects.
Most importantly, charters’ gains have been shared across the city, rather than confined to high-income zip codes. The on-time (within four years) high school graduation rate for African-American charter students is almost identical to the charter average. And charter students in underserved wards 7 and 8 are twice as likely to meet state benchmarks for college and career readiness as their peers in the traditional system.
These public charter school achievements are especially important in terms of the city’s ongoing economic disparities, as charters educate a higher percentage of economically disadvantaged and minority students than the traditional system.
Recognition of charters’ achievements by recently elected officials — the mayor, the council, the Board of Education — would benefit the half of the District’s public school students educated in charter schools, not least of all because the city significantly shortchanges these students.
The city has a continued penchant for selling surplus school properties to private developers while charter schools struggle to acquire adequate school space. The District persistently underfunds charters, which are forced to educate children in facilities estimated to cost one dollar for every three spent on facilities for their DCPS student peers.
This inequity also extends to local taxpayer funding for schools’ operational costs, where charter students also are underfunded year after year compared to neighbors and siblings enrolled in DCPS. The D.C. Public Schools system receives between $72 million and $127 million a year in operating funds that public charter schools do not. That amounts to $2,150 per DCPS student that charter students don’t get.
Besides discriminating against some of the city’s most vulnerable students, these bad practices run contrary to District law. The law provides that public school students at the same grade or level of special education should receive the same level of city funds for school operations’ costs. Separate D.C. legislation also requires surplus schoolhouses to be offered to charters to buy or lease before developers can bid for them.
D.C.’s public charter schools are keen to work with the next DCPS chancellor to share best educational practices, thereby benefiting every District child. Meanwhile, the city would do well to step up to the plate by providing charters with the funding and facilities they deserve.
Dr. Ramona Edelin is executive director of the D.C. Association of Chartered Public Schools.
