The District’s crumbling schools found a friend in Mayor-elect Adrian Fenty in 2006, which could bode well for the city’s 58,000 students but rankle the bureaucracy that surrounds the largely failing system.
It’s likely no one is feeling more pressure than Superintendent Clifford Janey, whose role under the Fenty administration has been left up to speculation as the incoming mayor has hinted at a school takeover plan that could be released within the next week. Fenty has saidhe would give the Board of Education an advisory role, also casting uncertainty on the office of incoming Board President-elect Robert Bobb, who has said he disagrees with a takeover.
“I’m not going to make the children of the District of Columbia a political ornament,” Bobb said Wednesday.
As Fenty hints at his desire to clean house — appointing School Board member Victor Reinoso as his deputy mayor for education, to whom Janey would report — many parents and teachers have supported the superintendent, saying all he needs is time for his changes to produce results. The school board last week agreed to extend Janey’s contract for one year, to 2009.
Janey’s $2.3 billion Master Facilities Plan, as well as his Master Education Plan, have promised to provide results as they are implemented. Janey, in his first State of the Schools speech in November, said he wants to move the timeline for the completion of both plans up to between seven and 10 years, well before the original 2021 deadline.
The schools, which have hemorrhaged thousands of students in the last decade, had been mired in the neglect and apathy of officials and parents for years, officials have said.
Bobb said he wants “stronger oversight” for the board of the system with a “much stronger infrastructure.”
“I can tell you that this is not going to be a situation where I am going to be a guardian, or the board is going to be a guardian, of the status quo,” he said.
