Washingtonians cast their ballots last month for a new School Board. As the new year draws near, voters might wonder whether they’ve cast those ballots for the last time.
Mayor-elect Adrian Fenty has floated the idea of taking over the city’s stricken schools, reducing the Board of Education to an advisory body.
Fentywill meet resistance from board President-elect Robert Bobb.
“I didn’t spend all this time, effort and energy running for president of the School Board to head the school system here in the District of Columbia as an advisory board member,” Bobb was quoted as saying after his election.
Bobb met with the incoming board on Friday. Whatever the outcome of the struggle with Fenty, Bobb said, wholesale changes are ahead.
“The infrastructure of the system is not built for success,” Bobb said.
Bobb said he hopes Superintendent Clifford Janey will “move quickly and decisively” to clean out the bureaucracy.
Public patience in the schools appears exhausted. Every candidate for city office this year named education as a top priority. And, after years of scandals, along with falling test scores, enrollment in the traditional public schools has plummeted to near-record lows.
Congress already took away control of the schools’ budgets and gave it to the city finance office. Earlier this year, the Department of Education rated D.C.’s schools “high risk” because of shoddy accounting practices. The designation threatens the schools’ federal funding.
Fenty has already changed the shape of the School Board, picking two outspoken school reformers for the deputy mayor for education and chief lobbyist spots.
Both members were outspoken reformers.
Tommy Wells gave up his seat on the board to run a successful campaign for the D.C. Council.
“There are very good, committed people in the schools. Those who are committed to their work,” he said. “And those who are not need to be out the door as quickly as possible.”
