Two-thirds go for private schools D.C. Council members are sending their kids to pricey private schools instead of putting them in the city’s troubled public system that they urge other parents to invest in.
Just one councilman sends his child to a neighborhood public school — in upper-middle-class Cleveland Park. Council Chairman Kwame Brown sends his kids to the same top-performing elementary school instead of his neighborhood school in Anacostia. The other four with school-age children send them to private schools.
| Learning their ABCs — privately | ||||||
| Councilmember | Children’s school level | Neighborhood school(s) | Where the children attend | |||
| Kwame Brown | Elementary | Stanton Elementary* (9% of students proficient in math, 13% reading) | John Eaton Elementary (75% math, 79% reading) | |||
| Jack Evans | Middle and High | Hardy Middle (66% math, 75% reading); Wilson Senior High (66% math, 64% reading) | National Cathedral School ($33,130+), St. Patrick’s Episcopal Day School ($28,321+); Gonzaga College High School ($16,850+) | |||
| Harry Thomas, Jr. | Elementary and High | Langdon Education Campus (72% math, 67% reading); Springarn Senior High (12% math, 16% reading) | Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom Public Charter School (63% math, 57% reading); St. John’s College High School ($15,350+) | |||
| Phil Mendelson | Elementary | John Eaton Elementary (see above) | John Eaton Elementary (see above) | |||
| Vincent Orange | High | Roosevelt High (40% math, 32% reading) | St. John’s College High School (see above) | |||
| Michael A. Brown | High | Wilson Senior High (see above) | Kingsbury Day School ($32,000+) | |||
| Note: Proficiency statistics are from 2010 standardized tests. | ||||||
| *Kwame Brown’s address zones his children for Randle Highlands Elementary (44% math, 41% reading), but he says that his neighborhood school was Stanton at the time he enrolled his children. | ||||||
Brown’s children attend John Eaton Elementary, even though he lives in Southeast across the Anacostia River.
His children’s neighborhood school is Stanton Elementary, but, “My wife was just not into that discussion,” Brown told The Washington Examiner. He declined to elaborate.
Instead, he drives them nine miles across the city to Eaton in Cleveland Park, where 79 percent of kids can read proficiently, along with 75 percent who pass muster with math.
Compare that with Stanton, where just 9 percent of students are proficient in math and 13 percent in reading. Citywide, 44 percent of D.C. Public Schools students are proficient in reading, and 43 percent in math.
At-large Councilman Phil Mendelson also sends his daughter to Eaton, her in-boundary school, “because I’m committed to the D.C. public school system,” he said.
But Jack Evans, Harry Thomas Jr., Vincent Orange and Michael Brown all have children in private schools — even kids zoned for the city’s most respected public campuses.
Ward 2 Councilman Evans’ two daughters are in the eighth grade at National Cathedral School, where they will continue through high school; his son attends St. Patrick’s Episcopal Day School, and will enroll as a ninth-grader at Maret School in the fall. His teenage stepson attends Gonzaga College High School, a Catholic boys school, his staff confirmed.
At-large Councilman Orange and Ward 5 Councilman Thomas both have teenagers at St. John’s College High School, where annual tuition exceeds $15,000.
Thomas sent his older son to Coolidge Senior High School in Takoma, but said his younger son does not attend their neighborhood school, Springarn — where 16 and 12 percent are proficient in reading and math, respectively — because his son wants to play college baseball.
“He’s one of six pitchers in his school in a rotation, so he doesn’t get burnt out,” Thomas said. “If I send him to a school like Springarn and he’s a baseball kid, he’s pitching half the game.”
Thomas said he sends his daughters to a public charter school, instead of DCPS’ Langdon Education Campus, for its language-immersion program.
At-large Councilman Michael Brown, whose two sons attend the private Kingsbury Day School, declined to comment. Orange, whom the Washington Teachers’ Union endorsed in the recent special election, and Evans did not return phone calls.
The District’s top officials have been working with increased fervor to improve the chronically underperforming public school system, from academic performance to safety. But critics charge that the council cannot fully understand what they’re dealing with if their kids are not in the system.
“I for one did not understand the school system until I had a daughter and a son in the schools,” said Ward 6 parent Christine Mullins, who is fighting D.C. Council redistricting plans that could move her children’s neighborhood schools into Ward 7.
Fred Lewis, a spokesman for acting D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson, said that “families have to decide on their own which school best fits their needs.”
The now-grown daughters of Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh attended their neighborhood elementary school, Murch in Upper Northwest. But then she sent them to Georgetown Day School. “It was a totally different era in DCPS — [Murch] would open late because of broken boilers, there were fire hazards,” said Cheh, adding there was “no question about it” that she would enroll her children in DCPS today.
It was “surprising” that other council members didn’t, she said.
