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Failing grade: Where’s the outcry? (Published September 10, 2001) By JONETTA ROSE BARRAS

D.C. and federal officials are all exercised over what might happen to plate glass windows, newspaper boxes and the stuffed-shirt bureaucrats and pampered diplomats who will blow into town later this month for meetings at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. The federal government is spending $16 million while the city has pledged $13 million to provide what amounts to private security for this elite group. Who knows who will pony up the $2.5 million for the 9-foot fence that Metropolitan Police Department Chief Charles Ramsey and others want to construct to cordon off a 70-square-block area to circumvent protesters who have promised to shine a bright light on the secretive activities of the two power centers.

The hand-wringing and expense are enough to make the average citizen sick, especially when weighed against the reaction of elected and self-appointed leaders to more pressing problems facing the nation’s capital. Consider standardized test scores posted by D.C. Public Schools students as a case in point. There hasn’t been any righteous indignation and demand for action – now – over the recent abysmal showing by the more than 60,000 students in the city schools. There wasn’t even a tiny whimper when Stanford 9 test scores revealed that the majority of D.C. students still rank at – or below – the level of basic competency in English and math. Proficiency is an alien concept. Compounding that bad news were SAT scores, released last month: The average scores of D.C. students dropped by 24 points, the largest decline in the region.

In 1996, the D.C. financial control board concluded that children do worse the longer they stay in the city’s public schools. The news caused the five-member, congressionally created panel to snatch the authority for the operation of the system from the elected board of education. There was the promise that schools would improve dramatically. But five years, millions of dollars in new appropriations, three superintendents and a revised governance structure later, it seems things are just as bad — not better. The control board’s greatest failure will be its inability to reform the District’s public schools, despite the panel’s unprecedented power and its deep pockets.

School board President Peggy Cooper Cafritz called the SAT news "horrible" and expressed the opinion of thousands of parents when she said the city’s high schools are "awful" – which has to be one reason the number of parents opting for private or charter schools is steadily increasing, making the District’s "educational choice" programs among the fastest growing in the nation. More than a few residents also are beginning to look at vouchers not as a bogeyman, but as a savior. (Interestingly, the board of the failing school system has the audacity to try to close three charter schools, citing the performance and administration of those institutions.)

Why hasn’t the city’s school system changed despite the intense scrutiny and attention it has received over the past five years? Some people, after reading the series published recently in the Washington Post about the achievement gap between minority and white students in Montgomery County, are now talking about economic disparities; they cite poverty rates and the number of children in the District who receive free lunch as indicators of "economic segregation." There can be no denying that children from poor and working-class families often are without at-home resources to effectively compete with their middle-class counterparts. But for most of black America, that always has been the story.

Growing up in public housing, in the segregated South, my mother worked two jobs. Although the familial narrative of many of my schoolmates wasn’t as hard-scrabble, it wasn’t all roses and sweet melodies. Getting an education in separate and never-equal schools was a challenge. Principals, teachers, parents and the entire community rose to the occasion. The District, during the height of segregation – economic and political – had one of the best public education systems in the country. In New Orleans, my junior high school teacher, Ara Dozier, didn’t marry until she retired from teaching – not because she wasn’t beautiful and desirable, but because she didn’t want to dilute her commitment to her students. This was the teacher corps to which young poor black children like myself were treated.

Today’s young people are without these defenders. There are people who will battle for the right of individuals to protest in front of the IMF and the World Bank. There are people who are prepared to die defending the right of uptight bureaucrats and overpaid diplomats to meet wherever and whenever they please – even if it means closing down half a city. There are those who will fight against closing down D.C. General Hospital – a 100-year-old, poorly managed institution – decrying the loss of jobs and the lack of services for non-existent patients. There are people who spend their weekends and holidays on the National Mall, lobbying for statehood and voting rights for the District.

But who stands for the children of the District? When will there be a major protest to decry the state of city schools? When will city leaders stop blowing smoke, stop offering a sea of promises, stop relying on political solutions and actually roll up their sleeves and do the hard work of improving the District’s public education system?

Someday, if we’re all lucky, the District might graduate an entire class of students ready to compete at the national level. Now, however, we should consider our community fortunate if a third of the next graduating class exceeds the category of functional illiterate, required to spend two years in remedial classes before beginning regular college freshmen courses.

Vouchers anyone?

Copyright 2001, The Common Denominator