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37–362 PDF 2008

S. Hrg. 110–241

GREAT EXPECTATIONS: ASSESSMENTS,

ASSURANCES, AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN THE

MAYOR’S PROPOSAL TO REFORM THE DISTRICT

OF COLUMBIA’S PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM

HEARING

BEFORE THE

OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, 

THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE, AND THE 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JULY 19, 2007

Available via http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate

Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security 

and Governmental Affairs

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

BARACK OBAMA, Illinois 

CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico 

JOHN WARNER, Virginia 

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire

MICHAEL L. ALEXANDER, Staff Director 

BRANDON L. MILHORN, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

TRINA DRIESSNACK TYRER, Chief Clerk 

OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, THE FEDERAL 

WORKFORCE, AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

JOHN WARNER, Virginia

RICHARD J. KESSLER, Staff Director 

JENNIFER A. HEMINGWAY, Minority Staff Director 

EMILY MARTHALER, Chief Clerk 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Akaka .................................................................................................. 1

Senator Landrieu .............................................................................................. 16

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 23

WITNESSES 

THURSDAY, JULY 19, 2007

Hon. Adrian M. Fenty, Mayor, District of Columbia ............................................ 3

Michelle A. Rhee, Chancellor, District of Columbia Public Schools .................... 5

Robert C. Bobb, President, District of Columbia State Board of Education ....... 7

Victor Reinoso, Acting Deputy Mayor for Education, District of Columbia ........ 9

Deborah A. Gist, State Superintendent of Education, Office of the State 

Superintendent ..................................................................................................... 10

Allen Y. Lew, Executive Director, Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization, District of Columbia Public Schools ................................................ 12

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Bobb, Robert C.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 7

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 46

Fenty, Hon. Adrian M.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 3

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 39

Gist, Deborah A.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 10

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 55

Lew, Allen Y.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 12

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 61

Reinoso, Victor: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 9

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 51

Rhee, Michelle A.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 5

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 42

APPENDIX 

Background .............................................................................................................. 66

Questions and responses for the Record from: 

Mayor Fenty ...................................................................................................... 72

Ms. Rhee ............................................................................................................ 74

Ms. Gist ............................................................................................................. 79

Mr. Lew, with attachments ............................................................................. 90

(1)

GREAT EXPECTATIONS: ASSESSMENTS, 

ASSURANCES, AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN 

THE MAYOR’S PROPOSAL TO REFORM THE 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA’S PUBLIC 

SCHOOL SYSTEM 

THURSDAY, JULY 19, 2007

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT

MANAGEMENT, THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE,

AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,

OF THE COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC.

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:40 p.m., in Room 

342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Daniel K. Akaka, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Akaka, Landrieu, and Carper. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN AKAKA 

Senator AKAKA. It’s really good to see all of you here today, and 

I’ve got to say, the panel is loaded with all of the Mayor’s education 

team. This hearing will come to order. 

I want to welcome all of our distinguished panel and our guests. 

I would like to thank all of you for joining us here today for this 

very important hearing on the District of Columbia’s Public School 

System and the Mayor’s reform efforts. 

Before being elected to Congress, I was a teacher and a principal 

for my home State of Hawaii’s Department of Education, and I 

worked in the Office of the Superintendent. As you know, Hawaii 

has a unified school system. There is one superintendent and one 

school board. So I know first hand the challenges facing educational systems. 

After decades of failed policies, the system is in what I gather, 

a sad state. But as the Mayor knows, it cannot take us as long to 

revive DCPS as it did to erode the system. Every minute of a 

child’s education that is lost can never be replaced. 

With only 1 month to go before the 2007–2008 school year begins, much remains to be done. The challenges facing Mayor Fenty 

and his new leadership team are monumental. I want to commend 

the Mayor for making the education of the District’s children a top 

priority. 

2

Entire generations of students going through D.C. Public Schools 

have suffered through the failures of a broken system immune to 

reforms. In the past 20 years, this is the sixth major reform effort 

and no tangible improvements in student achievement have been 

realized. I will share a few statistics that highlight the problem. 

This is not new to you. Approximately $13,000 is spent per pupil per year, but only 45.5 

percent of those dollars are spent on educational instruction, compared to 54.4 percent for urban areas nationwide. 

Thirty-three percent of fourth grade students rate above basic in 

reading, compared to a national average of 62 percent. Forty-five 

percent of fourth graders rate above basic in math, compared to an 

average of 79 percent across the Nation. 

There are 74 critical health code violations, nearly 10,000 open 

maintenance requests, and 1,500 urgent maintenance requests. 

Eighteen percent of students have special education needs, and $75 million is given to other school districts every year because the 

District is unable to meet their needs. 

These statistics do not paint a clear picture of the daily challenges students face in buildings without bathrooms, falling plaster, doors with padlocks on them, and entire high schools without 

any working water fountains. These are not environments that promote learning. 

A study of DCPS released in December 2006, by the Parthenon 

Group, recommended that teaching, curriculum, testing, human 

capital operations, the central office and its support functions, special education programs, facilities management, and communitywide engagement all needed to be redesigned. The challenge now 

is breaking the record of failure and implementing the reforms and 

achieving measurable success. 

As the Parthenon study suggests, one of the major reasons for 

the failure of the school system, beyond poor management, crumbling facilities, unqualified teachers, and an overburdened bureaucracy, is the need for governance reform. While public school systems in the United States are traditionally run by elected boards 

of education, in many urban areas mayors across the country are 

increasingly seeking control of schools. It is important to lift the 

undue financial and bureaucratic burdens on resources, which will 

allow the focus to be on improving student learning. 

However, governance reform is not a solution in itself. Accountability standards and curriculum reforms must be implemented for 

educators, administrators, teachers, parents, and students to reach 

the ultimate goal, improved student achievement. 

Public education should be the great equalizer, not the great 

demoralizer. When our educational systems fails, those who need 

the system most are paralyzed and disenfranchised. When our 

schools are hampered with issues of poor student achievement, 

poor management systems, poorly maintained data systems, and 

unfit facilities, there is little to no attention given to the very individuals our school system is put in place to support, our children. 

One thing is certain. The system that is in place is not effective 

and has not been for years. There are pockets of achievement in 

the school system and many people are working, and working hard 

to cultivate an environment of learning and achievement. HopeVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:02 Jan 17, 2008 Jkt 037362 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\37362.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
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1The prepared statement of Mayor Fenty appears in the Appendix on page 39. 

fully, this reform effort will create more positive actors in the system. 

In this hearing, we hope to review the Mayor’s plan to implement 

reforms, establish expectations for the plan’s success, and set forth 

benchmarks for accountability. I am really hopeful that the efforts 

being made by the Mayor and his leadership team pay off and look 

forward to hearing how they plan to move forward to plant the 

seeds of progress. 

To the Mayor and your team, it is a huge challenge, but it is one 

that will make a huge difference in the future. From what I see already, Mr. Mayor, I would say that you have a good beginning, and 

so I want to be, in a sense, part of that team to help bring this 

about. 

With us today, we have the Hon. Adrian Fenty, Mayor of the District of Columbia. We have Michelle Rhee, Chancellor of the D.C. 

Public Schools; Robert Bobb, President of the D.C. State Board of 

Education; Victor Reinoso, Acting Deputy Mayor for Education; 

Deborah Gist, D.C. State Superintendent of Education; and Allen 

Lew, Executive Director of the Office of Public Education Facilities 

Modernization. 

Our Subcommittee rules require that all witnesses testify under 

oath, so therefore I ask you to please stand and raise your right 

hand and join me in this oath. 

Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give 

this Subcommittee is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 

the truth, so help me, God? 

Mayor FENTY. I do. 

Ms. RHEE. I do. 

Mr. BOBB. I do. 

Mr. REINOSO. I do. 

Ms. GIST. I do. 

Mr. LEW. I do. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Let the record note that the witnesses responded in the affirmative. 

Welcome again, and before we begin, I want you all to know that 

although your oral statement is limited to 5 minutes, your full 

written statements will be included in the record. 

Mr. Mayor, please proceed with your statement. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. ADRIAN M. FENTY,1 MAYOR, DISTRICT OF 

COLUMBIA 

Mayor FENTY. Thank you very much, Chairman Akaka, Members 

of the Subcommittee, and staff. Thank you very much for inviting 

us to testify today about the bright future of the District of Columbia Public Schools. For the record, my name is Adrian M. Fenty, 

the fifth elected Mayor of the District of Columbia. 

Mr. Chairman, I took office on a pledge to improve the lives of 

all residents of the Nation’s capital, but especially the Nation’s capital’s children. As a society, we have an obligation to make sure 

that our children have the tools they need to succeed as adults. 

Our children deserve the best environment we can give them for 

4

learning, and our teachers deserve the best environment we can 

give them for teaching. 

As you have stated, our public education system in the District 

has not done right by its students, including 55,000 in DCPS 

schools and more than 20,000 in the public charter schools, for 

quite some time. The situation is urgent because more than twothirds of our fourth graders are reading below grade level. Fewer 

than half graduate from high school in 5 years. This means that 

the vast majority of students in the D.C. Public Schools don’t stand 

a good chance of having what has been vital to the success of nearly every person in this room, and that is a college education. 

I took office in January knowing it was time to do something 

radically different in the schools. Why? Because we have had study 

after study dating almost back to when I was a D.C. Public Schools 

student documenting how the schools are failing our children. This 

has to end. 

Securing control over the schools is the first priority of my administration. After several months of careful consideration, including 70 hours of public hearings, the Council of the District of Columbia approved my School Governance Reform Plan on April 19. 

As you are aware, the bill was then approved by Congress and 

signed into law by President Bush on June 1. Let me take this opportunity to express my appreciation to you, Mr. Chairman, to Senator Voinovich, and to all the Members of the Subcommittee for 

moving that legislation through the Senate so quickly. 

Today, I would like to formally introduce you to my team, the architects of a new future for the District of Columbia Public Schools. 

For the record, each of these individuals has a long track record of 

service, either to the city, to young people, or to both. Each has my 

complete confidence. 

To start, I am very happy to introduce Michelle Rhee, to my left, 

our new Chancellor. She was confirmed by the Council just last 

week and has hit the ground running. She has already identified 

some of the key problems that need to be resolved before school 

starts in the fall and she and her team are already developing 

ways to fix them. 

On the budget front, Victor Reinoso, my Deputy Mayor for Education, has hired a team of auditors to take a close look at the 

school system’s finances so we can redirect more of our money to 

the classroom. He will also harness resources from across the government to address obstacles to success in school for our kids. 

Deborah Gist, my new State Superintendent, will head a State 

education agency for the District that is truly independent, addressing a longstanding concern of many school activists. 

Finally, Allen Lew, former head of the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission, will be in charge of facilities. He is sending 

construction professionals into every classroom in DCPS to make 

much-needed repairs right away. They are going to fix the roofs, 

the ceilings, and the toilets. Then he will turn to a full-scale effort 

to modernize buildings throughout the system. 

We are also very excited to work with the State Board of Education as we continue to make sure that we have a real partnership 

in excellence for our school system. 

5

1The prepared statement of Ms. Rhee appears in the Appendix on page 42. 

Across the board, we are going to set clear performance goals, 

improve the way we measure progress toward them, and demand 

results. 

As an aside, I recognize that our responsibility for educating our 

children doesn’t end when they graduate from high school, so I 

want to thank the Subcommittee and especially you and Senator 

Voinovich for your work in reauthorizing the D.C. Tuition Assistance Grant Program. With the help of Congress and private sector 

donors, such as the Gates Foundation, we plan to triple the rate 

of our students who finish college, beginning with the Class of 

2014. Many of these young people are the first in their families to 

attend college. Just imagine the long-term impact this program will 

have on our city. 

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan once said, ‘‘If 

you can’t get education right, nothing else matters.’’ In the District 

of Columbia, for the first time in a long time, we are in the process 

of getting education right. 

Chairman Akaka, this concludes my prepared remarks. I would 

like to thank you again for the opportunity to testify today and I 

am more than happy to answer any questions. Thank you. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for 

your statement. Ms. Rhee, you may proceed with your statement. 

TESTIMONY OF MICHELLE A. RHEE,1 CHANCELLOR, DISTRICT 

OF COLUMBIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

Ms. RHEE. Thank you and good afternoon, Chairman Akaka. I 

am honored to appear before you today and am grateful for your 

interest in the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS). For the 

record, my name is Michelle Rhee. Last week, I was confirmed by 

the Council of the District of Columbia to become the first Chancellor of DCPS. In this capacity, I have oversight of the District’s 

141 schools, from elementary through high school. I establish 

school curriculum, set performance standards for school staff and 

central office employees, provide the supports needed for teachers 

and students to succeed, oversee the school district’s budget, and 

set policies for all of the schools in DCPS. 

As Chancellor, I will work closely with my colleagues, the Deputy 

Mayor, the Director of the Office of Public Education Facilities 

Modernization, the State Superintendent, and the State Board of 

Education to ensure that the educational needs of our District’s 

children are being met. 

I am going to start by telling you a little bit about myself. I have 

worked in the field of urban education for the last 15 years. My career in education began in Baltimore, Maryland, where I was a second and third grade teacher at Harlem Park Elementary School. 

My experience there shaped the rest of my career because I had an 

experience where I saw that students who were performing at the 

bottom on nationally-recognized standardized tests could quickly be 

guided to be performing at the top through the hard work of teachers and through quality instruction. 

To help more children realize this potential, I founded an organization called The New Teacher Project (TNTP), one of the country’s 

6

most well-respected education reform organizations. TNTP is dedicated to improving public education by increasing the number of 

high-quality teachers who enter our public schools and the number 

who are working in low-performing schools and districts across the 

country. In its work with some of the largest urban school districts 

in the Nation, TNTP has had a positive systemic impact in ways 

that were not thought possible. Across the country, TNTP has 

brought in over 23,000 teachers to educate over two million children in the urban school districts across the country, and I have 

advised many of the most successful urban superintendents on the 

issues of teacher quality. 

All of this brings me to my first principle that will drive my work 

as Chancellor, which is the critical importance of having high-quality education professionals throughout our school system. I believe 

that people are absolutely paramount to the success of the District. 

To achieve the goals that we set forth, I will focus relentlessly on 

building a core of effective principals and teachers. 

At the same time, because we currently have so many excellent 

educators in the system, it is critical that we are supporting, recognizing, and rewarding the effective educators that we do have. In 

short, we must have outstanding induction, professional development, and career growth opportunities for staff at every level. 

Building human capital in this system will require improved working conditions in schools, a truly supportive central administration 

that gives educators the tools they need when they need them, and 

professionalism at all levels. Finally, the role of the school principal 

is critical in identifying and growing talent. We must support our 

school leaders so that they can become great talent managers. 

Next, I believe that we must transition from a culture of diffuse 

accountability to individual responsibility for student achievement. 

The Mayor has made clear throughout the city that he will focus 

on accountability and I intend to do the same. The way to do this 

is clear, through a combination of high expectations for performance and substantial support to those who meet expectations. We 

will establish and communicate very clear expectations for everyone in the system, from teachers and principals who will be responsible for improving student achievement to parents, staff, and administrators who are responsible for creating an environment in 

which educators can focus on children. Everyone must understand 

what they are responsible for doing, how it is aligned to student 

achievements, and how their performance will be evaluated. 

After we lay out these expectations, we must as a system ensure 

that all individuals have the training, support, and resources necessary to be successful. 

Last, I am going to insist on an instructional approach that is 

consistent and aligned throughout our schools, beginning with 

reading. By consistent and aligned, I mean that nearly every school 

will adopt the same highly proven programs and implement them 

with fidelity across grades and classrooms. Professional development will focus entirely on these specific programs and will be delivered in most cases by a single specialized provider across 

schools. We will track the progress in implementing the curriculum 

rigorously and consistently across schools and classrooms. 

7

1The prepared statement of Mr. Bobb appears in the Appendix on page 46. 

Consistency, however, does not mean a one-size-fits-all approach. 

Clearly, we must provide some autonomy in instruction to highperforming schools. We have many high-performing schools in this 

city who show strong academic results year in and year out and we 

want to make sure that those schools will be able to continue with 

their programs and, in fact, will look to them for best practices. 

Finally, I will implement a high-quality interim assessment system that will allow us to track individual school, classroom, and 

student data to ensure that we are making progress towards our 

goals as a system. 

We have everything we need to do this in our city and we can 

do this if we take our collective talents, resources, desires, and 

minds and turn them into an undeniable collective will. For me, 

that is truly the question before us today, is do we have what it 

takes to move forward, and I believe we do. Thank you. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Ms. Rhee. Mr. Bobb, 

please proceed with your statement. 

TESTIMONY OF ROBERT C. BOBB,1 PRESIDENT, DISTRICT OF 

COLUMBIA STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION 

Mr. BOBB. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee. I would like to thank you for this opportunity to testify 

before you today. My name is Robert C. Bobb. I am President of 

the District of Columbia State Board of Education, and joining me 

is Lisa Raymond, a member of our State Board. 

The D.C. State Board of Education was established by the District of Columbia Education Reform Amendment Act of 2007. The 

State Board of Education looks forward to discharging our new duties and responsibilities. In our new role approving and advising on 

city-wide education issues, we will approve learning standards and 

graduation requirements. We will approve the accountability structure that will dictate how lagging and failing schools are supported 

and held accountable for their performance. And we will establish 

the criteria for operating all types of education institutions 

throughout the District of Columbia, including the D.C. Public 

Schools, charter schools, private schools, supplemental education 

service providers, and the education programs administered at the 

college and university level. 

You have named this hearing ‘‘Great Expectations,’’ and I can 

think of no better unifying theme for our education reform efforts 

in the District of Columbia. We must continue to have extraordinarily high expectations for our students that are supported by 

standards that are among the most stringent in the Nation, and 

that is what the State Board will advance. 

I also believe that we must have extraordinarily high expectations for ourselves. There are many different benchmarks upon 

which to measure the performance of a State or school district, and 

I think we need to aim to have very high standards for ourselves 

and for our students. I also believe that the District of Columbia 

should aim for greater gains on test scores than the gains at all 

comparable large urban school districts across the Nation. And fiVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:02 Jan 17, 2008 Jkt 037362 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\37362.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
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nally, I believe that all students in the District of Columbia should 

be able to read at or above grade level. 

To get there, we will make it part of our work plan as a State 

Board. We will focus on early childhood education. We believe that 

there is a cohort of education experts who have said that the student achievement gap is the most important issue facing urban 

school districts, but we are listening to a different set of experts 

who say that we should be looking instead at the preparation gap. 

The preparation gap, which is defined and measured as the social, 

motor, and cognitive skills with which students arrive to begin 

their formal education, is especially prevalent in urban areas 

where children have a predisposition to certain socioeconomic and 

health risks. 

As outlined in the District of Columbia Public School System 

Master Education Plan, repeated research studies on early childhood education have shown that quality early care and education 

can have a significant and positive impact on a child’s school and 

life skills and that the results are particularly strong for education 

with certain health and socioeconomic risks. 

We will also work with the new Chancellor and with the city 

overall on a healthy focus on reading. We need a city-wide movement to improve reading proficiency in the District. Academic research demonstrates that children who are not reading by the third 

grade are less likely to succeed academically and professionally for 

the rest of their lives, and reading levels in the District of Columbia are dishearteningly low. 

When we address the reading crisis in the District, we will be addressing many other pressing challenges facing our city. For example, many children are misclassified as special education children, 

not because of a learning disability but because they simply cannot 

read. By improving reading skills, we will begin to reduce the 

daunting number of District children in special education, which 

will help us reduce costs and focus special education services on 

those with the most need. And by focusing on reading, we can also 

begin to address the extremely high unemployment levels within 

the District of Columbia. 

The nature of these challenges calls for a coordinated multi-faceted solution, and I endorse the Mayor’s plan to unite all education-related services from birth to adulthood in one State agency 

to help us to address these problems comprehensively. 

There are many positive examples for the District to follow to 

foster a city-wide reading improvement. For example, in Jacksonville, Mayor John Peyton put forward a wide-ranging initiative 

called Rally Jacksonville around reading initiatives throughout the 

community. 

I look forward to working with the Mayor, the Chancellor, the 

State Superintendent of Education to institute an initiative across 

the District of Columbia to address the reading crisis within the 

District of Columbia directly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Mr. Bobb. Mr. Reinoso, 

we look forward to your statement. Will you please proceed. 

9

1The prepared statement of Mr. Reinoso appears in the Appendix on page 51. 

TESTIMONY OF VICTOR REINOSO,1 ACTING DEPUTY MAYOR 

FOR EDUCATION, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 

Mr. REINOSO. Thank you, Chairman Akaka. I am Victor Reinoso, 

the Acting Deputy Mayor for Education of the District of Columbia. 

Thank you again for inviting us here today to discuss the exciting 

reform efforts underway. 

I am here to talk to you about our reform efforts from a broader 

perspective and how with the newly-created D.C. Department of 

Education we are bringing all of the government’s resources together to support public education in a comprehensive way that I 

believe will make us successful in raising student achievement. 

The Mayor has made education the first priority of his administration. Recognizing that in order to truly reform and improve the 

delivery of educational services in the District, there must be coordination and alignment of resources, policies, strategies, and 

services at the cabinet level, the Mayor established the Office of 

the Deputy Mayor for Education, and through the District of Columbia Public Education Reform Amendment Act of 2007 formalized this role by creating a D.C. Department of Education. 

The Department of Education addresses a longstanding need in 

the District, the lack of central, coordinated, and aligned service 

delivery across all education levels, from birth into adulthood, pre–

K through post-graduate work. In the District, we have over 50 

local education agencies, including the D.C. Public Schools and 

each public charter school, a public university, a public library system, and numerous providers of early childhood and adult education services. Additionally, we have dozens of supplemental and 

out-of-school-time service providers for services ranging from violence prevention training to college preparation and workforce 

training. 

Yet in the past, these services have not been coordinated or focused on a single set of goals and there has been no District-wide 

plan to bring these services together, ensure that they are effective, 

and strategically link them to better results for the children and 

families most in need. A similar lack of coordination has existed 

among other child and youth-serving agencies and services of the 

District Government. 

Instead of providing direct services or replacing the work and efforts that are ongoing within agencies, the Department of Education works to ensure that the Mayor’s vision for education and 

youth development in the District is implemented methodically and 

supported consistently across agencies and stakeholders, public and 

private. Since the beginning of the year, we have been working on 

several projects aligned with the Mayor’s vision that lay the 

groundwork for policy decisions and implementation by the State 

Superintendent and Chancellor. 

We have completed a review of potential teacher incentive programs in place in other cities and States, initiatives directed by 

nonprofit organizations, and innovations being implemented or 

planned by DCPS. We continue to build a strong working relationship with the Washington Teachers’ Union, and we have reached 

out to leaders on this topic from across the country, including the 

10

1The prepared statement of Ms. Gist appears in the Appendix on page 55. 

New Teacher Center, the Teacher Advancement Program, and the 

National Center on Performance Initiatives. We have developed 

two school facilities initiatives to reduce the backlog of work orders 

in the school system and we have worked diligently on accelerating 

the process by which surplus school buildings are made available 

to public charter schools in need of space. 

Strengthening the current system of early childhood care and 

education programs in the District has the potential to yield some 

of the best results for our long-term education reform efforts. 

Whether we are working to ensure that children are prepared 

when they enter elementary school or identifying issues that can 

impede a child’s education and implementing the appropriate interventions, aligning efforts between early childhood and the K–12 

system is an important focus of the Fenty administration. 

In addition to this substantial education-related policy work, my 

staff is also coordinating and facilitating support from other District agencies in support of the needs of the public education system. We coordinated with the City Administrator and the Office of 

Property Management to provide additional technical manpower to 

address pressing facilities needs during the severe cold periods of 

January and February. In addition, we have intervened to address 

potential lead contamination in drinking water. We have convened 

a working group comprised of the staff of the EPA, DCPS, the City 

Administrator, the Water and Sewer Authority, and the D.C. Departments of Environment and Health to develop and implement 

an accelerated intervention plan. 

In preparation for the transition in governance, we felt it was 

critical to conduct a comprehensive review of the school system’s finances, operations, and management structure. With a generous 

contribution from the nonprofit District of Columbia Education 

Compact, private firms were engaged to conduct these critical reviews, which should be completed by the end of September. Rather 

than doing just another study, we have structured this work to encompass key areas and produce deliverables that we can use to realign resources to support our main objective, high quality educational opportunity and increased student achievement. 

The District’s Public Education System faces many challenges. It 

will take a collective strategic effort, along with the resources, 

human capital, and a strong system of accountability, to accomplish 

our goals. Under the leadership of the Mayor, we are acting aggressively to meet the urgency of this situation, but also deliberately 

to address the complexity of the problem. 

Again, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today 

and speak on the Mayor’s education reform initiative. I am happy 

to answer any questions you may have. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Mr. Reinoso. Ms. Gist, 

you may proceed with your statement. 

TESTIMONY OF DEBORAH A. GIST,1 STATE SUPERINTENDENT 

OF EDUCATION, OFFICE OF THE STATE SUPERINTENDENT 

Ms. GIST. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairman Akaka, Subcommittee Members, and guests. I am Deborah Gist and I serve as 

11

the State Superintendent of Education. I am pleased to be here this 

afternoon to share my vision for the new Office of the State Superintendent of Education. 

As specified by the requirements of the D.C. Public Education 

Reform Act, we are currently engaged in developing a detailed 

transition plan that will be submitted to the Mayor no later than 

September 10. This transition plan will provide a timeline and a 

road map for the transfer of each State-level function from the D.C. 

Public Schools, the Department of Human Services, and the University of the District of Columbia to the authority of the Office of 

the State Superintendent of Education. 

The D.C. Public Education Reform Amendment Act accomplishes 

the goal of separating the District’s local education functions from 

its State-level education functions, a goal that has long been sought 

by the U.S. Department of Education and more recently by the 

U.S. Senate. DCPS staff and State education agency staff will have 

separate reporting structures. As such, both the LEA and the SEA 

will be housed in different locations with different staff performing 

their respective functions. 

This new structure ensures the independence of the Office of the 

State Superintendent of Education and that State-level policy making and its compliance-related activities while providing for oversight of the agency by the Mayor and the Deputy Mayor for Education. This independence is achieved through the appointment of 

the State Superintendent of Education to a fixed term from which 

she can only be removed for cause. This key distinction provides 

the SEA with the autonomy that it needs in order to effectuate the 

necessary reform. 

Under the structure established in the education reform legislation, the Office of the State Superintendent of Education will be 

able to move forward with a distinct but coordinated agenda with 

the DCPS LEA. The Office of the State Superintendent will provide 

a structure whereby enhanced oversight, accountability, and monitoring will replace a system with inherent conflicts of interest. As 

such, the Office of the State Superintendent of Education will have 

the responsibility as defined by Federal law to provide supports 

and interventions for all local education agencies when they are 

non-compliant with the law, specifically as it relates to student 

achievement. On the LEA side, the D.C. Public Schools will be able 

to move forward implementing their core mission, educating the 

children, absent the distraction of also performing the State-level 

functions. 

The District of Columbia Public Education Reform Amendment 

Act is consistent with each of the requirements called for in Senate 

Appropriations Committee Report, S. Rept. 109–281. Specifically, 

the legislation places the Office of the State Superintendent of Education in charge of implementing the State-level requirements for 

‘‘No Child Left Behind.’’

Second, the distribution of State-level education functions established in the legislation is consistent with the structure in other 

States. In New Mexico and Texas, for example, the governor is responsible for the appointed chief State school officer, while the 

State Board of Education is an elected body. 

12

1The prepared statement of Mr. Lew appears in the Appendix on page 61. 

Finally, the Act establishes a strong and clear framework with 

regard to implementation of the Federal law. I am confident that 

the requirements established under Federal law provide the Office 

of the State Superintendent of Education with the tools that we 

need to support all of our local education agencies, both DCPS and 

the public charter schools, to intervene when necessary and to hold 

all LEAs accountable for performance. 

It is important to note that we will have many challenges as we 

move through this transition process. First, we must ensure that 

the separation of the responsibilities is carried out in a thorough 

and thoughtful manner. Currently, there are employees at D.C. 

Public Schools who manage both State and local functions in any 

given day and we must pay attention to how those responsibilities 

are divided. Second, we must ensure that the Federal grants process meets the needs of the U.S. Department of Education’s corrective action plan for our designation as a high-risk grantee. Also, we 

must pay specific attention to how we manage special education 

functions during this transition process. 

Despite these challenges, I am confident and I am deeply committed to ensuring that the transition of State-level education functions is a success and that we act to utilize every tool at our disposal to make the necessary changes to increase student achievement and enhance our systems of accountability. 

In looking at the long-term priorities of the Office of the State 

Superintendent of Education, it is essential that we focus on efforts 

to prepare students to succeed in the 21st Century creative economy. To address this issue, we will, with the advice and support 

of the State Board of Education, focus to ensure that our standards 

are aligned with college and workforce readiness expectations, that 

our teachers are of the highest caliber, and that our students enter 

the classroom ready to learn, and we will ensure that there is a 

focus on providing high-quality early care and education and literacy programs to our residents. 

Again, I appreciate this opportunity to testify on our transition 

efforts and our priorities and I look forward to further dialogue as 

we move forward with this transition effort. Thank you. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Ms. Gist. And now, Mr. 

Lew, you may proceed with your statement. 

TESTIMONY OF ALLEN Y. LEW,1 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION FACILITIES MODERNIZATION, 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

Mr. LEW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you 

today. I am Allen Lew. I was nominated to this post by the Mayor 

several weeks ago and the City Council confirmed my appointment 

last week. Since being named, I have worked to assemble an interim team of staff, consultants, and contractors and have tasked 

them with thoroughly assessing the conditions in our schools and 

beginning long-overdue repairs in the schools that our children are 

attending. 

13

Today, I will share with you our initial findings regarding the 

prior facilities management structure at DCPS and the benchmarks we intend to establish going forward so that our efforts can 

be accurately monitored and assessed in the months and years 

ahead. 

The problems of DCPS facilities are well documented, so I won’t 

recount them here. I will tell you, however, that I intend to establish a new culture for school facilities management that will be 

proactive and results-oriented. The current system has too many 

layers of bureaucracy and is too inwardly-focused. We will create 

a leaner, flatter management structure that is more like those in 

the private sector than a traditional government model. We will 

treat the school system’s students, parents, and staff as our customers, our clients, and deliver school facilities that meet their 

needs. 

In the immediate term, I am committed to resolving the longstanding problem of deferred maintenance in our schools. Specifically, we will tackle several thousand outstanding work orders over 

the next several months. However, we are also examining the full 

scope of work to be performed at each school, whether or not the 

problem was submitted as a work order. 

To that end, Mayor Fenty has charged me with pushing forward 

to address critical quality-of-life issues for students and staff before 

the opening of schools in the fall. The first initiative is the Summer 

Blitz program recently approved by the City Council for 37 schools 

most in need of remedial repair. This phase of the work is focused 

on the most significant building deficiencies—leaking roofs, nonfunctioning gutters, repairs to boilers, heating systems, air conditioning, ventilation systems, and bathroom, kitchen, and plumbing 

problems. Additional work will include replacement of drinking 

fountains and windows. 

While most of this work will be completed by the start of the 

school year, we will necessarily have to push into the fall semester 

to complete all of the work on the scopes of work for these initial 

projects. In my discussions with the school principals, I have been 

heartened to learn that they share the Mayor’s view that it is more 

important to do the work correctly the first time, completely the 

first time, and have the necessary maintenance plans in place to 

ensure that these problems don’t reoccur rather than rushing in to 

meet a particular deadline. 

At the Mayor’s direction, we also are undertaking an accelerated 

program this summer to make targeted repairs to another 33 

schools. This work program was originally anticipated to begin in 

fiscal year 2008 but has been moved forward so that the most serious problems at many of the schools can be addressed sooner. 

For the longer-term, I am focused on recruiting the staff necessary to run the large-scale modernization effort and ensure successful, cost-effective projects that are completed on a timely basis. 

Within the larger charge to my office of systemwide school modernization, my staff and I are in the process of analyzing the school 

system’s Master Facilities Plan. We plan to present to the Mayor 

and the Council any proposed revisions to the Master Facilities 

Plan as soon as practical. Going into this, we know that the Master 

Facilities Plan was designed as a 10- to 15-year program. We need 

14

much faster results because we believe it is not fair to ask or expect that students and teachers wait this long for relief. 

It is my intention that the new D.C. Public School facilities are 

on par with the best in the world. We will engage the most talented architects and engineers in the Nation to raise the design 

standards for D.C. Public Schools. We will develop these design 

standards and best practices with the help of groups like the American Institute of Architects. We will examine what works and what 

does not. 

We will hire District businesses and residents to build these 

facilities. We will develop internships and special programs for students interested in architecture, engineering, environmental, historic preservation, business practices, as well as, obviously, construction. Perhaps, most important, we plan to include students 

and parents at every stage possible as we move forward with our 

modernization and renovation campaign. 

As I mentioned previously, I know that our success will be predicated upon building the best and brightest staff, hiring the most 

qualified contractors, and changing the culture in the school facilities operation. The same standards and formulas were applied 

when we developed the new Convention Center in Washington as 

well as the Washington Nationals Ballpark currently under construction. We will use the same approach to instill a results-based, 

no excuses, bottom-line attitude to the tasks ahead. 

With regard to benchmarks, by this time next year, each school 

in the system will be functional, with all major systems—heating, 

cooling, drinking water, bathrooms, roofs that do not leak, and all 

other quality of life essentials—fully operational. In addition, plans 

for both new and modernized facilities will be well underway after 

an exhaustive and inclusive community design review process. 

I am excited to begin the process with Chancellor Rhee, principals, parents, most importantly, students, and the larger community to develop and modernize school facilities that will be true centers of education and community life in our city. 

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Subcommittee, that concludes my 

testimony. I look forward to any questions. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Mr. Lew. 

I have some questions to ask. After I do that, I want to introduce 

our Senator from Louisiana to make her remarks and ask any 

questions she may have at that time. 

Mayor Adrian Fenty, I am really glad to hear what I did from 

your team. It appears that you have a good beginning, and a good 

team. As I mentioned in my opening statement, in 1989, the Committee on Public Education released a 180-page report entitled, 

‘‘Our Children, Our Future.’’ The report detailed the challenges facing DCPS and offered recommendations to reform the school system. Since then, five additional reform efforts have come and gone. 

However, the challenges remain largely the same, and in some 

cases have gotten worse. 

I know you mentioned or it has been mentioned that one of your 

aims is accountability. What accountability standards, performance 

measures, and benchmarks have you established or will establish 

to monitor the effectiveness of your team in the short- and longterm? 

15

Mayor FENTY. Well, it is a great question, Mr. Chairman, and 

thank you again for having us and asking it. We believe that despite all of the studies and different recommendations that the success behind this particular plan is at least two-fold. One, that there 

is accountability from the top. So in the past, when someone would 

do something wrong, it was difficult to know who to blame. That 

is no longer the case. I alone have said that if something is not 

right in the system, I can be held accountable. As we all know, 

every 4 years or so, the Mayor of the District of Columbia has to 

go back to the voters to keep his or her job. We think that is an 

important part of the accountability here. 

The second thing I want to put on the record is that we didn’t 

stop at saying the buck stops at the Mayor. We really thought that 

peeling away school facilities, State education functions, and the 

ombudsman role was critical in making sure that the Chancellor 

had as her sole focus the curriculum, the test scores, the operations 

of the classrooms and schools under her and that she could focus 

on those things. 

Some of the benchmarks were mentioned in the Chancellor’s own 

testimony, as she talked about making sure that there are written 

benchmarks for every position, making sure that we are training 

our staff better, that we have instruction, that we are giving our 

schools autonomy. 

The legislation envisions that in 5 years, we will come back, but 

we envision that every year, at the least, we will come back and 

check how test scores are improving, whether or not we are recruiting more teachers into the system, whether or not we are meeting 

the standards of No Child Left Behind, etc. We also believe through 

the Council’s oversight process, through going into the community 

repeatedly, and then through the budget process which comes up 

annually through the City Council, we will have opportunities to 

show we are meeting those standards and report that back to the 

community. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Ms. Rhee, in your new role as Chancellor, you bring a fresh perspective to a troubled system. As I understand it, troubled urban education systems is your area of expertise. Now, a simple question to begin with is after a month on 

the job, what is your initial assessment? 

Ms. RHEE. I am feeling extraordinarily confident and hopeful 

right now about our ability to turn this system around. Having 

been here for 4 weeks and having spent the majority of my time 

in schools and in neighborhoods talking to students, parents, teachers, principals, and community members, I don’t think I can have 

anything but optimism at this point. 

There is a tremendous will right now amongst the public in the 

District to ensure that its schools are successful, and I have been 

spending a lot of time with students recently. Yesterday, I was at 

Ballou Senior High School, which is probably one of the most troubled high schools that we have in the District, and I sat in a room 

with a group of students. The building there is literally crumbling. 

Paint is peeling off the walls. Ceiling tiles are falling down. There 

is no air conditioning in that building. The food is not great. I 

mean, there are sort of a myriad of problems. 

16

And I sat with this group of students and I said to them, what 

do you think I can do to help improve the schools, and they looked 

at me and they said, ‘‘Bring us great teachers.’’ It was poignant to 

me because they didn’t say we need a subway or a Coke machine 

or something like that. They were extraordinarily focused on what 

I think is the right thing, which is how do we bring great educators 

into the system. 

And as I have talked to their parents and as I have talked to 

businesses, everyone in this city understands that human capital 

and bringing great talent into this system and retaining the great 

talent that we have is really going to be critical to our success. So 

seeing that alignment through everyone in the system, seeing the 

hope that people have and their willingness to literally do anything 

that it is going to take to make the system succeed, I think gives 

me a tremendous amount of confidence right now. 

Senator AKAKA. Well, that is great to hear and to hear you have 

visited with the school. I, like you, am amazed at that answer. 

Ms. RHEE. Yes. 

Senator AKAKA. Yet somebody was thoughtful enough to know 

what was needed, and for it to come from students, that is really 

great and so I thank you so much for that response. 

At this time, I have more questions to ask, but I am so happy 

to have the Senator from Louisiana, Mary Landrieu, here to join 

us. I know she always has remarks to make and she always has 

good questions to ask, so this is your time, Senator. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANDRIEU 

Senator LANDRIEU. Thank you, Senator. I really appreciate you 

calling the hearing and your oversight and partnership with this 

great team that the Mayor has assembled and the leaders of the 

District. It is good to see all of you. 

I just want to say a few things briefly and then have just one 

or two questions. Mayor, I think it really is an extraordinary effort 

to take on the challenge of retooling and redesigning the school system. But obviously, and I am sure that your testimony offered this 

when you began, you have recognized the need for significant improvement. 

These numbers that are reflective of the District’s situation, although they are very stark, are not unique in the sense that we 

have this challenge and difficulty throughout many parts of the 

country. In fact, we in New Orleans, as you well know, are going 

through a monumental shift, partly driven by our need for reform 

and to improve achievement, and then partly due by the results of 

a terrible storm, and floods that are forcing us to rethink everything about our city. 

But these numbers are really startling, that only 43 percent of 

the students in the District graduate from high school within 5 

years. The national average is 68 percent. Twenty-nine percent enrolled in post-secondary education. Only 9 percent attending a secondary degree within 5 years of enrolling in college. And that is an 

average. I think I read here that it is only 6 percent of males and 

12 percent of females. 

17

So if people challenge us, and ask us why we are in some urgency to fix this system, is there anyone listening in this room that 

could argue that what we have is working? 

Now, having said that, I spent years, as you know, helping the 

chair working on this issue as Ranking Member of DC Appropriations Subcommittee, trying to figure out what we could do from 

Congress to push, to prod, to be a partner, to hear good things coming from the District, because Congress does have a role in supporting not just the District of Columbia, but in helping other districts in the country, as well, and we are doing that through major 

breakthrough laws like No Child Left Behind. Senator Lieberman, 

Senator Coleman, and I just introduced with your wonderful new 

Superintendent supporting us, the Chancellor supporting us, the 

All Children Can Achieve bill that we introduced yesterday, which 

will bring into focus on the issue of getting the best teachers in the 

classrooms where they are needed the most, as well as many other 

things. 

We must keep in mind, that these improvements must come from 

traditional public schools, and some of our charter schools I have 

worked to push for, the numbers aren’t as high as they should be 

or we would like to see for charter schools and independent public 

schools and entrepreneurial. So clearly, even though there have 

been some good steps that have been taken, Mr. Mayor, I just want 

to commend you for trying to take this to another level, because 

these numbers have got to improve and we have got to get more 

children graduated, into college, and through college. And we have 

got, I think, to be open to—I don’t want to use the word ‘‘experiment,’’ but I will use the word ‘‘try,’’—try some new things. Try 

some different things. Obviously, what we are doing is not working. 

And the second thing I would like to say about facilities, the District is fortunate in one sense—in many senses—that you do have 

facilities that are available, if we could just get them into the right 

uses, with the right groups. There is excess space. Sam Brownback 

and I had a hearing, Senator. I think we found five million square 

feet of excess space in D.C. Schools. I see Dr. Gandhi. That space 

can be used more appropriately for innovation, etc. 

I want to continue to press on this authority, this facilities authority. Maybe our teachers or administrators are too busy about 

the buildings and not busy enough about the schools, so let somebody in the real estate business manage the schools and let us get 

about the business of getting teachers trained and educating children. 

And the final point is this Federal law that we are operating 

under now, all of us are operating under, requires there to be a 

separation between the management of schools on a day-to-day 

basis and then the independent sort of State authority. Obviously, 

the District is unique. It is not a State now. Maybe it will be one 

day, but it is not now. But there needs to be some independence. 

So, Mr. Mayor, how did we end up working through this to make 

sure that the District is in compliance as all school systems are required to be in having that issue dealt with? 

Mayor FENTY. Thank you very much, Senator Landrieu. In State 

Superintendent Gist’s testimony, she really addressed this issue, 

but I do want to, for the record, state that the thrust of the SEA/

18

LEA division in the legislation really came out of working with you 

and your staff and the great advocacy you have done on this point 

for years now. 

Essentially, the structure, we think, brings the District into compliance because we have separated out the local education functions from the State-level education functions. Essentially, the 

Chancellor and the State Superintendent report to different people, 

as has not been the case in the past. We will completely separate 

all State-level functions from the LEA, and I think we have until 

September 10 to do so. 

We think by having different people in charge, by separating out 

the functions completely, we have addressed the lion’s share of the 

problem, and as Ms. Gist’s testimony relates, we think that we follow the model of several States, including New Mexico, Texas, and 

others, where the governor was responsible for appointing a chief 

State school officer, but we retain an elected State Board of Education who has substantive policy and standard recommendations 

and establishment of a strong and clear framework that we have 

to implement. 

So we think we have now, for the first time in the system’s history, established that type of independence, despite the fact that 

we are not yet a State. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Thank you. I will finally just add that I look 

forward to working with Chairman Akaka, and continuing to be a 

reliable and respectful partner with you all to help us to really lift 

the quality of education that children can receive in the District. 

And again, it is a challenge throughout many parts of our country, 

but you all are in a special circumstance to be able to, I think, appropriately call on the resources of this Congress to help you in a 

very direct way that other jurisdictions don’t have that ability. And 

frankly, I know some of them that would like to have that ability. 

So please come to us. We want to be a good partner in your efforts and look forward to continuing to really bring up these benchmarks and grades and academic achievements of all of our children, and for the economic future of the city. I think this is just 

crucial to get a fine, operating, excellent school in every neighborhood, accessible to the students and making parents comfortable 

and happy with living here in the District and not having to move 

other places to search for something that they can’t find right in 

their own neighborhood. So thank you very much. 

Mayor FENTY. Thank you. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Landrieu, for 

your comments and your statement. 

The reporting mechanisms on DCPS data, I think you would 

agree, are flawed. Be it special education data, DCPS contracts, 

there is not an exact figure. When we talk about DCPS contracts, 

I understand it is in a mess. In the area of student achievement, 

the method for tracking and reporting accurate, verifiable, and 

transparent information are not there. 

So here is the question, in two parts. One is, what steps have 

each of you taken to address this issue? Within your areas as 

Mayor, Chancellor, President of the Board, as Deputy Mayor, and 

also Executive Director of Facilities, State Superintendent of Education, what steps have each of you taken to address this issue? 

19

And second, what plans do you have to implement systems that 

will be able to provide accurate, transparent, and verifiable data? 

Mr. Mayor. 

Mayor FENTY. As you are aware, Chairman, under my predecessor Anthony Williams and the CFO, the District’s finances have 

rebounded tremendously. But one of the biggest threats to our financial stability is actually the annual audit and specifically what 

has been identified by auditors in it in the past year as a material 

weakness related to the school system. And one of the big problems 

in the school system over the past couple years has been the inability to keep accurate track of our personnel, our records, and everything that relates to that. 

One of the things that we have begun—just since June 12, when 

we took over the system, is to really make sure that we are using 

technology and best practices to keep track of those personnel 

records, one, because the Chancellor is going to need them to pay 

people and everything else, but two, because, again, it is at the 

heart of this material weakness which we have to get rid of both 

for our own audit purposes and for the U.S. Department of Education. So literally, we have a team that has gone into the DCPS 

personnel office and found boxes of personnel files piled high. This 

is something you may imagine from 50 years ago. And we have a 

technology team that is working hard to put them all into computers and to do this hopefully in 6 to 8 weeks. 

So this is the type of transformation that we are having to engage in at the school system, but it is going to have dramatic results immediately. I will yield to the Chancellor to talk a little bit 

about what she has found in the school system. 

Senator AKAKA. Ms. Rhee. 

Ms. RHEE. As you know, for years, the D.C. Public Schools have 

been failing the children of the city, and unfortunately, the only 

people who have been suffering any ramifications or consequences 

of that failure have been the students whose life chances and life 

outcomes are negatively impacted by the fact that we are not providing them with the education they deserve. 

And so when I agreed to take this job, one of the major drivers 

for me was the fact that the Mayor is solely focused on accountability at all levels. So we have to bring that accountability in a 

real way to the school system. 

What we have begun to do is we know that we have to sit down 

with every single person who is employed in our system, have a 

very clear job description, and set very clear and measurable outcomes for what we expect to see. These all have to be measurable. 

And then we have to have tracking mechanisms in place so that 

we can see where progress is being made or not made, and ultimately, we have to hold people accountable to this, meaning that 

their performance and how their performance is evaluated has to 

be tied to these goals. 

But the bottom line as I have walked through the District and 

talked to people over the last 4 weeks, people don’t have a strong 

sense of what they are responsible for. So if you ask multiple people in the District very simple things like, how many students do 

we have, or how do we ensure that we can move out of corrective 

action status on our bilingual education, the people who I would 

20

think would have the answers to those don’t. And it is, I think, because of this lack of clarity around who is ultimately responsible 

for these things. 

So the process that we are going to go through over the next few 

months of clarifying those expectations and setting very measurable goals for every employee in the system, I think is going to be 

critical in terms of moving forward and ensuring that we have the 

data necessary to ensure student achievement. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Mr. Bobb. 

Mr. BOBB. From the State’s standpoint, with respect to how we 

track students and come up with the number of students in the 

school system, there is an annual audit that takes place to determine the number of students in the school system. But at the end 

of the day, as was stated, we really do have to have a system to 

be significantly driven by technology and there is a need to improve 

technology across the entire system so that we are not just tracking 

students at the beginning of the school year and at the end of the 

school year, but that we are in a position to not only track the 

number of students who are coming into the system, but have a robust system wherein we can track students as they move throughout the system, throughout the course of the school year. 

This is not only tied to where students are living, but it also has 

implications with respect to cost and budgetary issues, and so there 

is definitely a need for significant investment across the entire 

school system with technology, state-of-the-art technology that not 

only tracks students, but student movement, students coming into 

the system, but technology that addresses the issues of personnel 

moves, personnel systems. The financial systems definitely need to 

be significantly improved, not just from a technology standpoint, 

but also from a human resources standpoint, as well. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Mr. Reinoso. 

Mr. REINOSO. My office has been engaged in a number of activities, but let me focus on some of the interagency work that we have 

been doing because I think one of the powers of this new Deputy 

Mayor position is the ability to coordinate and look across all city 

agencies. And so through the newly-created Interagency Collaboration and Integrated Services Commission, we will be bringing together the heads of all youth-serving agencies to work together and 

to hold them accountable as a group on youth development-related 

measures. So integrating those measures with the education measures that we will track at the State level, and at the DCPS level, 

will allow us to better coordinate the delivery of human services in 

support of the reform of our school system, and that is a critical 

opportunity that hasn’t previously existed within the city. 

As an example, a subgroup of that effort is a group we are calling 

the Reconnecting Disconnected Youth Task Force, which has been 

engaged on understanding the data around the population of students who have dropped out of school and are unemployed. This is 

a group that obviously is at high risk and needs interventions, and 

as a city, we haven’t engaged in a systematic way of looking at who 

these kids are and at what points they disconnect and what interactions they have had either with the juvenile justice system or 

with other human services agencies so that we can plan targeted 

intervention strategies that affect this population. And so that iniVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:02 Jan 17, 2008 Jkt 037362 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\37362.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
21

tiative is underway. We are currently reviewing the data through 

that system. 

Ms. Gist will, I am sure, speak to some of the State-level data 

systems that we are working on, but we will be working in coordination, again, to ensure that effort can be integrated with other 

city-wide data systems, because again, reforming the education system will go beyond the silo of the public school system or the silo 

of the individual LEAs to looking across that to address the larger 

social problems that can contribute to a failed education. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much. Superintendent Gist. 

Ms. GIST. Yes. From the State perspective, it is our responsibility 

to ensure that we have strong systems in place, that we ensure 

that we have highly-qualified teachers in every school in the District of Columbia, that we have strong standards that are aligned 

both in terms of our standards, our service delivery, and our assessment, but also from the life of a learner, so from early childhood pre–K through 12th grade, post-secondary, and also adult 

education. 

We also are responsible for ensuring that there is consistent reporting to schools, to parents and students, to policy makers, to the 

U.S. Department of Education, and, of course, to Congress. We also 

are responsible for interventions and supports when we have challenges with performance and accountability for student achievement ultimately rests with the State. 

Now, that summary combined with everything that the panel has 

described so far has to have a tool in order to make that happen, 

and I am really pleased to tell you that the Mayor has set aside 

$19 million over the next 5 years for the development of a data 

warehouse to enable us to have the technology to use data in the 

way that everyone has described, and in addition, we are very 

pleased that we received one of the U.S. Department of Education’s 

data grants. They were recently announced, and we received a $5.7 

million grant. 

We have a steering committee that is in place that is working on 

the development of that data warehouse. That steering committee 

represents the D.C. Public School System, the charter schools, our 

higher education community, our early childhood programs, and so 

it will truly be a data warehouse that will keep data about students, student achievement, teachers, and schools at every stage of 

a learner’s experience in the District. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much. Mr. Lew. 

Mr. LEW. We are currently examining all of the existing management systems for data, for information, for where the contracts are, 

for where every dollar is located. At the same time, we are setting 

up new systems as we go forward. We want to get to the point 

where every repair order can be tracked, when it was called in, 

when it was triaged, when it was expected to be delivered, and 

when the site was inspected, when the monies are made available, 

all of these kind of conditions that are kind of spread out and diffused at this point. We are looking to bring our data management 

process up to 21st Century standards. 

It is going to take us a couple of months to get our arms around 

all of this and to put in place all of the necessary systems so we 

can go forward and manage it like a business. At this point, all I 

22

can tell you is that what you read in the newspapers is true. The 

system is broken. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Before I call on my colleague, Senator Carper, let me ask this question of the Mayor, the Chancellor, 

and the Acting Deputy Mayor. It seems that DCPS has been in crisis mode to address these issues for some years. As we all know, 

it is rare that crisis mode decisions are sustainable solutions. How 

do you plan to address the short- and long-term problems while 

creating sustainable policies and solutions? 

Mayor FENTY. Well, let me begin, and then I will yield to the 

people on the front lines. There are a couple of things that have 

already begun. One, there is a real need to closely examine and 

then quickly make improvements to both the training and the recruitment and retention of personnel. As any big city mayor will 

tell you, the No. 1 thing I have to do is hire good people. We have 

done it at the top, but the Chancellor has to be able to do that 

throughout the system. 

Two, we have to make sure that as we go forward, we make some 

of the very difficult decisions early on. As we get into the next 

school year, the longer we get into running this system, the more 

we will have to focus on the day-to-day. But we know as a team 

that there are some really difficult decisions that need to be made 

about school autonomy, as I think Senator Landrieu said, thinking 

outside the box, trying new things, and when the Chancellor was 

interviewing for the position, one of the things we agreed on 100 

percent was that this wasn’t the time for either of us to think 

about how long we could be the Chancellor or the Mayor. This is 

the time to try some very bold things around personnel, around 

school autonomy, around facilities, and that is exactly what we 

plan to do, and we are going to have to do it very quickly. 

I will yield to the Chancellor Rhee. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Chancellor Rhee. 

Ms. RHEE. It is interesting that you say that we have been operating in crisis mode, because I think that what has struck me from 

being in the District for 4 weeks is the actual complete lack of urgency with which we are operating, and this is a problem because 

every decision that we are making at the District level, every decision that is being made at the school level, is impacting kids and 

their lives. Given that is the gravity of the situation, I would expect 

that our employees would be operating in a manner that understands that and we are not currently. 

Right now in the District, we have a culture of compliance instead of a culture that is focused on quality, and that would be one 

thing if we could actually be in compliance with anything which we 

are currently not. So we do really have to shift our focus towards 

one in which we are looking at quality, the impact that our actions 

are having on students. 

I will say also that if you look at the way in which we are working on a day-to-day basis, we are very much in reactive mode. So 

as problems arise, we are trying to solve those problems, but in trying to do that, what we have failed to do is actually think longerterm, think more strategically, and be more proactive about how 

we are going to ensure that we don’t end up in this situation where 

we have the consistent backlogs of facility orders, etc. 

23

So my hope is that we can, as we are moving forward, take the 

time and be very disciplined about creating longer-term strategic 

plans around how we are going to proceed in these areas so that 

we can have the foresight to do these things carefully and really, 

then, sort of balance that against working with a true sense of urgency. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. 

Mr. REINOSO. Along similar lines, I want to borrow an analogy 

that Mr. Lew used in his testimony about a real physical problem, 

but I think one that pertains to the broader problem. You can’t run 

into a school building and say the ceiling needs to be fixed and 

then work quickly to fix the building and walk out without having 

asked the question, have you addressed the real core of the problem, being roof repairs and gutters, et cetera, and that is how the 

management by crisis has created a false kind of energy—an urgency that isn’t grounded in long-term solutions but an urgency 

that is reactive, as the Chancellor said, and that is something that 

has affected efforts in the past to turn around academic programs 

and schools—a lot of activity at the surface without addressing and 

putting in place the long-term foundation. 

So what we have to do is strike that balance between urgent 

interventions while building a culture that supports long-term solutions, and ultimately, I think that is the issue. It is about a culture 

of accountability that isn’t about ‘‘gotcha,’’ but it is an accountability that tells you, that focuses your work every day, wherever 

you are in the system, around education and then provides you targeted support that recognizes that, historically, the city hasn’t provided the school district or its students the professional development and the other supports that families need, that teachers need, 

etc. 

And so the current structure that the Mayor has put forth creates the focus at each level of the organization, with the Chancellor 

focused exclusively on what is going on in the classroom, a facilities 

director focused exclusively on the facilities issues, State Superintendent now truly focused at the State level with the strong community support of the State Board in setting those State expectations, and then the Deputy Mayor helping to provide that big picture, unifying and coordinating resources city-wide. And so I think 

that framework will allow us to, in fact, respond with real urgency 

as we implement long-term solutions at all levels of the organization. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. And now I would like to call on my 

friend, Senator Carper, for his statement or questions, as well. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER 

Senator CARPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks for putting this all together today. I am just going to telegraph my pitch, 

if I could. 

I am an old governor. I have been here for about 61⁄2 years with 

Senator Akaka and my colleagues, but I still think like a governor 

and am described by some of my colleagues as a recovering governor. But I have a great deal of interest as a governor in what 

we are doing in the schools in our State and, frankly, in the country. I served for a while as chairman of the National Governors AsVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:02 Jan 17, 2008 Jkt 037362 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\37362.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
24

sociation. The focus of my year as chairman was really education 

and a couple of aspects of what we are doing to strengthen our 

schools. 

I would like to have a chance to hear some of your thoughts or 

your advice for us as we approach the reauthorization of No Child 

Left Behind. How can we do it in a way that would be especially 

constructive for the students and the families that you are here to 

represent? 

A little bit on early childhood. What are you doing with respect 

to early childhood? We focus a whole lot on K to 12. One of my old 

colleagues as governor and here in the U.S. Senate, Zell Miller 

from Georgia, used to say, if I had it to do all over again, I don’t 

think I would fund the 12th grade. We would just take all those 

resources and put it in zero to five. There is actually some merit 

for that. 

I would like to hear a little bit about what you are doing to attract and retain good teachers. We have in my State and other 

States, good teachers have a propensity to end up in the good 

schools with better pay and students who are more likely to succeed. 

I would like to hear from you about what you are doing to be 

able to identify best practices and then to replicate those best practices from school to school. 

And then maybe a little bit about accountability. I want to hear 

about your standards, the standards that you already have, if you 

have them set, how you regard the rigor of those standards and assessing performance. I guess all of your students take the NAPE, 

in grades four and eight. Some of the States dumbed down their 

standards in order to be able to demonstrate that they are doing 

well against their standards, but we catch them when they take 

the NAPE, because if they are doing great on their State tests but 

poorly on the NAPEs, that suggests that maybe they don’t have the 

most rigorous standards. So I would like to talk about how you deal 

with that. 

But before we do any of that, I would like to ask, have any of 

you been to Perryville, Maryland? 

Mayor FENTY. Is that right off of 95, near Havre de Grace? 

Senator CARPER. Yes. 

Mayor FENTY. Yes, I have. 

Senator CARPER. Has anyone been to Perryville, Maryland, this 

summer? Have any of you been in Perryville this summer to swim 

by Pig Run? 

Mayor FENTY. I know I have. Have any of you? 

[Laughter.] 

You are not going to read my time into the record, are you, Senator? 

[Laughter.] 

Senator CARPER. My son, Christopher, is going to be a sophomore 

in college, Mr. Chairman, and he has gotten into triathalons, halftriathalons, and mini-triathalons, and he participated in that race, 

finished in the top 10 percent. 

Mayor FENTY. Wow. 

Senator CARPER. He says, next year, I would like for you to do 

that with me, Dad. And I try to stay in good shape. I said it would 

25

probably kill me, but I know you were there and participated and 

I applaud you for that. It is nice to see you here today. Welcome. 

Let us talk about reauthorizing No Child Left Behind. 

Ms. RHEE. Sure. 

Senator CARPER. Do you have some advice for us as we approach 

the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind? 

Ms. RHEE. Yes. I think there are two main things that I think 

about as we are discussing the reauthorization, and I think that it 

is incredibly important for policy to take into account the 

practicalities that are going on in the District, so I will talk about 

two main areas here. 

The first is around the current provision within NCLB around 

highly-qualified teachers. I think the positive thing that this provision has one is really to bring a focus on qualified teachers in a 

way that did not exist before NCLB. There is no doubt about that. 

From having worked with most of the urban districts across the 

country before and after the passage of this law, I know that there 

is a focus on high-quality instruction in a way that there was not 

before. 

However, I think that we need to sort of take the next iteration 

of that and focus not on the qualifications necessarily of someone 

coming into this system, but rather looking at how effective are 

they once they are in the classroom, because I think we have seen 

that experience, degrees, those things don’t actually correlate directly to student achievement. Those inputs can’t tell us, unfortunately, whether or not somebody is going to be an effective teacher. 

So I think we have to move much more towards a system where 

we are looking specifically at student achievement data so it is related to teacher performance and really then gauge teacher effectiveness on that. So that is the first thing. 

I would say the second thing, I think—

Senator CARPER. Let me interrupt. So the teacher performance 

would be evaluated, at least in part, by student progress? 

Ms. RHEE. Correct. As opposed to credentials or degrees coming 

in. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Thank you. 

Ms. RHEE. The second piece, I think, that is important to look 

at is AYP. I think one of the important things that has happened 

is that we are now looking at students broken out by subgroup. I 

think this is incredibly important, because, as you know, the 

achievement gap in this country is severe and we have lots of districts across the country who are serving some students well but 

not others, and that is often masked if you don’t break out by subgroups. So I think that is an incredibly important thing that has 

happened. 

I think, though, again, when you look at the tactical level, if you 

are a school that has met 21 out of 22 performance indicators, you 

still don’t meet AYP, which is very different than a school who has 

only met 7 out of 22 indicators, and so I think there has to be more 

granularity looking at the progress of schools and not just in the 

sort of black and white, met AYP or didn’t, because I think within 

those various indicators, you can see a lot. 

26

Senator CARPER. And when you are talking about the progress 

that is being made in schools, can you sort of weave into that any 

comments on the proposed—going to a growth model as part——

Ms. RHEE. Yes. 

Senator CARPER. Is that what you are alluding to? 

Ms. RHEE. I think it is incredibly important to look at a growth 

model because you want to make sure—and this is going to your 

previous point of making sure that we are incenting the best teachers to go to the schools that need great teachers the most. And I 

think that if you just look at the data thing, how many of your kids 

are on grade level, well, then obviously that is much easier to 

achieve if you are looking at higher-performing schools. What is 

more important is to look at where the students started when they 

came into a particular teacher’s class or into a particular school 

and to understand how much growth they saw over that given 

year. I think that moving toward that model is incredibly important and does not in any way handicap the lower-performing 

schools from attracting the best talent. 

Senator CARPER. Okay, good. Mr. Chairman, my time has expired. Will there be another round of questions? 

Senator AKAKA. Do you have more questions? 

Senator CARPER. I do. 

Senator AKAKA. Yes. 

Senator CARPER. Okay, thank you. Let me come back in the next 

round of questions and I will follow up on some of the points that 

were raised. Thanks very much. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Carper. 

Mr. Lew, while your office will be responsible for modernization 

and new school construction, I understand that minor repair and 

maintenance will remain with DCPS, which still brings up the 

issues of accountability in maintaining schools. There does not 

seem to be a clear division of these responsibilities. Who will be responsible for the maintenance of the public school facilities, and 

have schools received information and direction on how to work 

with your office to have their maintenance needs resolved? 

Mr. LEW. Mr. Chairman, the legislation speaks of modernization 

focused on the new facilities, the major renovation projects, and defines maintenance, routine maintenance as not being part of that 

responsibility. It is my belief, and I believe it is also the Mayor’s 

belief, that given the state of the schools, with the backlog of repairs, it is important that this office tackle all of the repairs outstanding, then put into place a system going forward that can correct these problems when they occur, not 2 years or 3 years later. 

I have jokingly said at hearings that I would like to apply my 

wife’s standard, which is you call the plumber, they come that day, 

they fix it, it is done, not 2 years later, not 3 years later. It has 

gotten to the point where school system employees are so demoralized that they don’t even submit work orders because they know 

they are not going to get responses. 

I think that we can talk about how the future will go once we 

resolve the present, and the only way the present will get resolved 

at this point is if my office tackles this maintenance backlog, clears 

the slate, gets all of the backlogged repairs out of there, and then 

establishes a new system and new order, and helps restructure 

27

that organization so that maintenance becomes truly maintenance. 

Janitorial and custodial services stay with the schools. Repairs are 

conducted in a professional way and in a timely way. So there is 

still some communication going back and forth between the Council 

and our offices and the Mayor as to possibly redefining what my 

office is charged with, at least for the near term. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Mr. Bobb, I am pleased to see that 

the Board intends to promote early childhood education and literacy as two critical issues, and I am also pleased to see or to hear 

a commitment on the part of the Board to set rigorous graduation 

requirements. The very low proficiency ratings across DCPS, the 

high dropout rate that was mentioned, and the lack of a strong 

educational foundation means many of the students are far behind 

the curve. A lot of work must be done to prepare those students 

to meet the rigorous standard for graduation that I think you intend to set. 

What effort is the Board taking to promote the needs of the students who have fallen behind in preparation for graduation? 

Mr. BOBB. Previously, the Board did approve very rigorous graduation standards and those are on the books now. Those graduation standards require students to take more courses in math and 

science and also requires more support services for students who 

are falling behind in various classes. 

But I might add that the State Board, while it promotes higher 

standards, cannot do it in a vacuum. It cannot sit in its room and 

then promote these higher standards for graduation, for dropout, 

for reading, et cetera, without having a real partnership with the 

Chancellor and her team and her staff, because at the end of the 

day, it does the system no good to set very high standards unless 

the school, the State Board, understands the practicality of actually 

implementing those standards at the level of the Chancellor. 

So, whenever the State Board promulgates higher standards for 

graduation, for student achievement, et cetera, it has to do so in 

concert with the Chancellor and her team so that we are working 

together to reach the higher standards, and we can also put in the 

services that are needed to assist these students in reaching these 

higher standards so that we are not working as a school system, 

as a State Board of Education, in a vacuum, but are working cooperatively and we are doing it together. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. I have a question here for Ms. Gist. 

The U.S. Department of Education has placed DCPS on its grantee 

high-risk list. In a June 28 letter, the Department lays out the explanation of why DCPS is on the high-risk list, the required corrective action necessary, and ramifications for non-compliance. What 

steps are you taking to develop and implement a corrective action 

plan and comply with the U.S. Department of Education’s requirements? 

Ms. GIST. Removing the designation of the high-risk grantee is 

one of our highest priorities, and we do have a corrective action 

plan in place that we have worked very closely with the Department of Education to create. The Department has been incredibly 

supportive of DCPS over the recent years in its role as both the 

LEA and the SEA and has actually detailed an employee over to 

DCPS to the SEA to assist with the development of that corrective 

28

action plan and over the past few months has begun implementing 

that plan. 

And so once the legislation passed, I began working closely with 

the Chancellor and her senior staff and with the U.S. Department 

of Education to take a look at that corrective action plan and to 

begin to monitor how we are doing on that plan. 

Much of the work that needs to happen to remove the status of 

high-risk grantee needs to happen at both the LEA level and the 

SEA level. So while the designation is a designation of the SEA 

and while the SEA is ultimately responsible for ensuring that all 

the improvements take place, the work is work that the SEA as an 

entity needs to change in its practices as well as being work that 

all of the LEAs need to improve in their practices. 

Much of the work that needs to happen is improving the efficiency of our bureaucracy and our documentation, our monitoring 

of time and attendance toward grants, for example, allowable cost. 

So these are fixable problems. I am very confident—the Chancellor 

and I are very confident that we can get this designation removed, 

and this is a priority of the Mayor, as well. He recently held one 

of his CAPSTAT sessions specifically focused on these issues. And 

we feel like we are moving in the right direction to get that designation removed. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much. Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. The second point that 

I wanted to get into was early childhood. My boys were born a couple years before I became governor, and I had the opportunity to 

watch them the first few years of their life just be little sponges 

and just suck up incredible amounts of information in their first 

few years before they were eligible to go into kindergarten. One of 

the things we sought to do in our State, and George Voinovich had 

done this earlier in Ohio, was to fully fund Head Start for all 4-

year-olds who lived in poverty using State money to make up the 

difference. 

We also provided extra learning time money to school districts 

and we said, we don’t care how you use it, but we want you to demonstrate progress. We are going to hold you accountable. But, we 

said, you can use this extra learning time money for longer school 

days, longer school weeks, Saturday academies, summer institutes, 

whatever. You can also use it for pre–K for ages three and four. 

But what we set up was a vehicle by which we could track performance and just to see over a number of periods of years whether it 

works. 

And we found that taking kids from some of the most disadvantaged backgrounds at the age of three and putting them in early 

quality pre–K programs and then full-day kindergarten and first 

grade, second, third grade with enrichment, longer school days, 

that kind of thing, we found that when we tested them with the 

State test in the third grade, they performed as well as kids from 

two-parent intact families who had every advantage in life compared to these youngsters. If I wasn’t a believer in early education 

before, that sure made me one. 

We bemoan the fact that we have a lot of kids who drop out, who 

are disruptive in school when they get into middle school and high 

school. I think we drop the ball way before that. It is not just the 

29

schools, it is parents, many of whom do not do a very good job of 

preparing their children for education or being a partner with their 

children’s teachers and so forth. 

But just talk to me about where you are on early childhood—

maybe there is something we can do in terms of funding that can 

help you in that regard. 

Ms. RHEE. Absolutely. If you look at the data, which I am sure 

you have seen, kids from low-income communities come to school 

with up to 10,000 words less, having exposure to 10,000 words less 

than kids from more affluent communities. 

Senator CARPER. Chris Dodd argues to me that it is more than 

that. I have said it may be as high as 25,000. He says it is even 

higher than that, but I know what you mean. 

Ms. RHEE. Yes. So, I mean, this is going to impact their ability 

to be successful. It impacts their ability to read quicker. And what 

we know is that kids from home environments that are print-rich 

are at a significant advantage when it comes to educational outcomes. So we really believe that it is critical that we are thinking 

about school readiness. Before we even have kids step foot into a 

kindergarten classroom, what can we do to ensure that they are as 

ready as possible? 

I would say that, having been here for 4 weeks, my major concerns when it comes to early childhood education are sort of twofold. One, how do we ensure that we have high quality? Right now, 

we need to look to outside providers and other folks to help us with 

the early childhood piece, and so what I think is critical to us as 

a District is ensuring that we put systems and processes in place 

to ensure that any outside providers who might be adding capacity 

to the District in terms of providing services to pre–K kids really 

do meet a high standard and that we can actually measure the 

progress of those children in those programs. So I think that is the 

first concern. 

And then the second, as you mentioned, is funding. As we look 

at our budgets, I actually think that it could be a tremendous investment on the front end that will pay dividends on the back end 

several-fold if we could actually help to find funding for pre–K programs. As you mentioned, when we look at the discipline and academic issues that exist for our kids at the secondary levels, both 

middle school and high school, oftentimes those are actually linked 

to their academics. Because kids are operating so far below grade 

level, they are frustrated in class that they cannot keep up, and 

that is oftentimes the impetus for their behavioral problems and 

issues. 

So I really do think that if we can find a way to make the investment at the front end, that we really will see significant benefits 

later on. 

Senator CARPER. Anybody else? Yes, sir, Mr. Bobb? I love saying 

that, Mr. Bobb. 

Mr. BOBB. Thank you. I like that, too. 

[Laughter.] 

Just real quickly, I came into this late, but I really like what I 

have seen from a lot of experts when they start speaking about the 

preparation gap. And as someone who is familiar with urban cities, 

I have become a champion for it because I just think that when it 

30

comes to funding, where we really need to put our funding is between zero to three, because without the prenatal and postnatal 

health care, that impacts a child’s ability to learn. And when you 

have a child in a household where the household itself has parents 

who are functionally illiterate by the State standards, that impacts 

a child’s ability to learn. If a child lives in a household where there 

is lead-based paint and plays on playgrounds where there is leadbased paint, that impacts a child’s ability to learn and impacts a 

child’s cognitive schools. 

There are programs wherein they use community volunteers and 

others who actually go into some of the homes at the age when a 

child is 16 months of age and start introducing into those households learning-appropriate toys, learning-appropriate materials, 

and start working with that child’s cognitive and motor skills on 

the front end and working on the other pathologies within those 

communities. So I believe when it comes to making major investment in our urban cities, you need to make that investment at the 

time a child is conceived in the community and work with that 

household up until the child reaches age three and then enter the 

other universal pre–K programs. So I think it actually starts earlier. 

Senator CARPER. OK, good point. Ms. Gist. 

Ms. GIST. You can tell that you have tapped into something here 

on this panel as it relates to early childhood education. This is an 

issue that is very near and dear to all of us, including Mayor 

Fenty, who intentionally—

Senator CARPER. Is that true, Mr. Mayor? 

Mayor FENTY. I think what she is getting to is we actually made 

a change in the structure to allow the State Education Office to 

have much more of a role in early childhood education. It is definitely the case. I support what you said on the record. 

Senator CARPER. Good. Ms. Gist. 

Ms. GIST. That is exactly what I was going to say. The Mayor 

intentionally in his structure moved early childhood, early care and 

education into the Office of the State Superintendent of Education 

so that we can focus on it, so we can focus on the quality of early 

care and education that we have in the District, and so that we can 

ensure that we have alignment from those early childhood programs and through the rest of our educational system. 

And if I may, I also just wanted to thank you, Senator. Secretary 

Val Woodruff up in your State has been—

Senator CARPER. You know Val Woodruff? 

Ms. GIST. We do. She has been incredibly helpful to us, and I just 

wanted to thank you. She and her staff have been wonderful to us 

as we have been setting up our new State office. 

Senator CARPER. Well, that is good. Thanks for saying that. I 

asked Ms. Woodruff to become our Secretary of Education in our 

State a number of years ago, my last term as governor, and she 

is still our Secretary of Education and does, I think, a very fine job. 

One of the things we realized in Delaware is that in terms of accountability, we figured out it was important to hold schools accountable. We figured out it was important to hold school districts 

accountable and it was important to hold students accountable. We 

are searching and probably still searching for ways to truly hold 

31

parents accountable. We also wanted to extend accountability to 

educators, not just the teachers in the classrooms, but to administrators and others, as well. That was a difficult battle, as you 

might imagine. As a matter of fact, our State still struggles with 

how do we hold educators accountable and parents accountable. 

I don’t know to what extent you are looking at what is oftentimes 

referred to as pay-for-performance, but to the extent that you can 

come up with an approach that is fair, equitable for teachers, and 

fair to parents, fair to kids, we would look to you as a model. So 

if you do that kind of work, I hope you can share that with all of 

us. 

The last thing I want to say, or can I ask one more question, Mr. 

Chairman? 

Senator AKAKA. Yes. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. Talk to us for just a moment about 

your academic standards. We set academic standards in math, 

science, English, and social studies, and have come along and updated those and created some other standards for other core curriculum, and we think they are pretty rigorous standards. And I 

talked earlier about how some States like to dumb down their 

standards and that way they can make it appear that they are 

doing better when the kids take the test, but we find out later on 

when they take these NAPE tests in the fourth and eighth grades 

in reading and math that the kids don’t do so well, and so you figure out, these schools or States are just dumbing down their standards, which doesn’t really do the kids a favor in the long run nor 

the States. 

Talk to us about the standards that you have in place. How long 

have they been in place? Do you look at them from time to time? 

How do your kids do under your standards when you test your kids 

annually, and how do they do on the NAPE? 

Ms. GIST. We do have new standards in the District of Columbia. 

Within the last 2 years, our Superintendent in his role as the Chief 

State School Officer and our Board, which was then operating as 

both the Local and the State Board, approved standards for reading, math, science, and social studies, and we have draft standards 

in place for our world languages, health, P.E., and others are in the 

process right now. 

Our standards are actually quite rigorous. They were, when compared with performance on the NAPE, rated very high, in fact, 

among the highest in the country. They were modeled after the 

Massachusetts standards. We feel confident that we have high 

standards, strong standards in place right now, although we do intend to take another look at those standards. We want to make 

sure that our standards are aligned across all educational levels, 

as I mentioned earlier, as well as ensuring that they are aligned 

with college and workforce expectations. But we do feel confident 

in the standards that we have in place and we also have a new 

State test that is aligned with our new standards. 

Senator CARPER. OK. 

Ms. RHEE. I would like to just comment and say that I agree 

with Superintendent Gist that our standards are very strong. Our 

challenge right now is ensuring that we have a curriculum and 

that we have instruction in the classroom that is actually standVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:02 Jan 17, 2008 Jkt 037362 PO 00000 Frm 00035 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\37362.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
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ards-based and is teaching the children to meet those high standards, and that is really where we are struggling, is to make sure 

that the instruction in the classroom every day is standardsbased—

Senator CARPER. So it aligns with the standards. 

Ms. RHEE. Absolutely. 

Senator CARPER. Good point. Let me close, if I can. Is this the 

end of the hearing, Mr. Chairman? Are you ready to wrap it up? 

Senator AKAKA. Yes. 

Senator CARPER. Okay. I won’t give the benediction, the Chairman will give the benediction, but if I could just mention one last 

thing. We are so fortunate in Delaware, we have a State motto, Mr. 

Chairman, that is we are the first State that ratified the Constitution. For one whole week, Delaware was the entire United States 

of America. 

[Laughter.] 

And we opened it up. We let in Pennsylvania. We let in New Jersey and Maryland and eventually Hawaii. For the most part, I 

think we are pleased with the way it has turned out. 

Mayor FENTY. For the record, we have got one more State to let 

in, Senator Carper. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator CARPER. Well, we are going to make sure that your Delegate has a chance to fully participate, and we are pleased to have 

been, Senator Akaka and I and Senator Lieberman and others 

were pleased to be able to have supported that. 

Mayor FENTY. Thank you very much. 

Senator CARPER. But we have been fortunate in Delaware—there 

are some things you don’t want to be first in, we have found out, 

but there are a lot of things it is fine to be first in. One of the 

things that we are first in, we had a governor named Pete DuPont 

who was the governor for 8 years back in the late 1970s, early 

1980s, and one of the things that Pete DuPont and his education 

advisor, a fellow named Ken Smith, identified was we had a lot of 

kids dropping out. They made it as far as the 12th grade. They 

dropped out in the 12th grade. I mean, normally you think if you 

get that close, you wouldn’t drop out. But these kids were dropping 

out in the 12th grade. 

They tried to figure out why, and it seemed like a lot of times, 

the kids who were dropping out were kids who didn’t really feel 

they were getting prepared for anything. They could not relate 

what was going on in their classroom with the rest of their lives. 

They didn’t feel a part of anything. They maybe weren’t on a sports 

team. They weren’t academically gifted. They just were kind of, 

maybe not misfits, but they just didn’t feel a part of their school 

and they just drifted away and dropped out. They weren’t doing 

well, so they quit. 

In a high school in Wilmington, Delaware, called Wilmington 

High School, Pete DuPont, with the advice of his education advisor, 

Ken Smith, created a program that they called Jobs for Delaware 

Graduates, and it is not really a job program as such but it was 

a program just for 12th grade and they took about 20 kids at Wilmington High School, which was only one of two high schools in 

the inner city in Wilmington, and they said, we are going to proVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:02 Jan 17, 2008 Jkt 037362 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\37362.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
33

vide for these kids the opportunity to have a combination mentorsocial worker-teacher, and they ended up calling the person a job 

specialist. The job of this person was to make these kids feel a part 

of something and to prepare them in a real practical way for the 

world of work and to stick with them through high school and for 

a year after that. 

And they started in this one high school in Delaware. Today, it 

is in virtually every high school in Delaware. It is not just a grade 

12 program with a year after that, but we start with kids in the 

ninth grade. We identify kids that are at high risk for dropping 

out. We look at their older brothers and sisters who didn’t make 

it through and get these kids involved early on, give them a sense 

of belonging and just a practical approach to why it’s important. 

Why is it relevant to learn math, reading, and social studies? Why 

are these things relevant in your life? Involve them for a year beyond high school. 

The program started off at one high school with 20 kids in Wilmington, Delaware. It is now not just in Delaware, but it is in 29 

or 30 other States. I think it is in the District of Columbia. We call 

it Jobs for America’s Graduates. George Voinovich and I, Mike 

Leavitt, some others served on the national board, Tom Vilsack, 

Governor of Iowa was the chair. I said Mike Leavitt. I should have 

said Tom Vilsack. But all of us have been involved at one time or 

other as governors, especially. 

But I would just commend to you, as you look at ways to reduce 

your dropout rate in the District of Columbia, that you take a look 

at Jobs for D.C. Graduates. I think they have about a 90, 94 percent success rate these days for kids who they bring into the program who actually go on and graduate and find themselves later 

on in jobs, post-secondary education and jobs in the military. 

As governor, I was always looking for things that work and to 

be able to replicate things that work in other States, steal good 

ideas. This is an idea that we are proud to have started and it has 

spread to a lot of places and it helped a whole lot of kids over the 

last 25 years or so. So I would commend it to your attention. 

The last thing I want to say, on a more personal note, Mayor 

Fenty, I love to run. I like to exercise. I try to work out every day. 

When I get to the finish line at races, I like to stand there and 

shake hands with everybody who comes across after me. 

Mayor FENTY. Right. 

Senator CARPER. And as a politician, it gives me a great incentive to try to run faster and stronger. 

Mayor FENTY. On that note, Senator, you are going to have to 

tell your son he is going to have to give me a rematch. 

Senator CARPER. Okay. 

Mayor FENTY. We had my staff do some research. It looks like 

I am a faster runner than him and we are about the same on the 

bike, but he is one heck of a swimmer. 

Senator CARPER. He can swim. He swims on his college swim 

team. 

Mayor FENTY. That is not fair. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator CARPER. But I tell you, of all the elected officials that 

were participating that day——

34

Mayor FENTY. Yes, I was the first Mayor to finish. 

Senator CARPER [continuing]. You were far and away the first to 

come across. 

Mayor FENTY. Tell him to come do the Nation’s Triathalon September 29. 

Senator CARPER. Is that when it is? 

Mayor FENTY. Yes. It will be on my home court in the Potomac. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator CARPER. What I find is that the people that I participate 

with, and I am not a great runner or anything, but I love to run, 

but I find that people that I participate with appreciate the fact 

that an elected official has a spirit of competition and that is great. 

I salute you for your activities there and for the leadership that 

you are providing. 

Mayor FENTY. Thank you for your support of the city. We really 

appreciate it. 

Senator CARPER. It is an honor. Thank you. Thanks for joining 

us today. And Mr. Chairman, thank you for allowing me to participate in this hearing. I am sorry I got here so late. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Carper. 

Let me ask a few more questions, and these are going to be questions that are directly connected with the system. Ms. Rhee and 

Mr. Reinoso, I understand there is a hiring freeze on principals, 

but how many teaching and principal positions still need to be 

filled before the first day of school and how do you plan to fill those 

vacancies? 

Ms. RHEE. When I first came into the position, one of the first 

things that came to light was the fact that we had a tremendous 

number of principal vacancies in the system. At that time, it was 

about 19. As I looked at the pool of candidates that we had available for those positions and the processes that the HR Department 

had in place, I did not feel confident that we were going to place 

high-quality principals into those slots. Furthermore, there was not 

the community engagement and investment, involvement, in the 

principal selection process. 

So at that time, I made the decision to put the freeze on the hiring of permanent principals and I said that we would look at the 

pool and hire interim principals, but that those individuals would 

be told that we would be running an aggressive national campaign 

for the best principal talent, starting from this summer, that in the 

February time frame, we would be interviewing for principal positions in each of those interim positions, that the interim was welcome to throw their hat in the ring, but that we wanted the community and the school districts to see how those people compared 

to an incredibly strong pool that we were able to recruit nationwide. 

So that is why I made that decision. We have been making 

steady progress on filling the principal vacancies with these 

interims and we anticipate that within the next 2 or 3 weeks, all 

of those positions will be filled. 

On the teacher front, as of last week, we still had—well, overall, 

we are anticipating that we will fill about 440 teacher vacancies 

this year. About 220 of them were filled with teachers who are 

transferring throughout the system, as well as our two flagship 

35

pipeline programs, the D.C. Teaching Fellows and Teach for America. Of the remaining 220 positions, we just held a placement fair 

last week where we invited about 200 candidates and we anticipate 

that the vast majority of them will be placed into those slots. But 

we anticipate having very few teaching vacancies on the first day 

of school. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. I have questions on special education 

that I would like to ask Mr. Reinoso and the Mayor. Mr. Reinoso, 

in your testimony, you mentioned many initiatives to improve the 

delivery of educational services in the District. However, I noticed 

that you did not mention the area of special education, which 

DCPS continues to struggle with addressing. With a special education population of 18 percent, DCPS spent a reported $114 million in 2006 to private schools to educate 2,111 special education 

students. What are some of the reforms you see as needed to address this population? 

Mr. REINOSO. Thank you for the question. Special education reform is a critical priority for the administration, both at the State 

level and at the LEA level, with DCPS as the largest LEA. As you 

know, there are a number of court cases that involve special education in the District. Through the Mayor’s leadership, the Mayor’s 

Office has been coordinating since early on in the administration 

efforts to accelerate the meeting of targets set in consent decree for 

the Blackman Jones case and we will continue to evaluate that 

process and help ensure that it stays on track. 

One of the critical issues that has to be addressed in special education—you alluded to it earlier—is the issue of data, the ability 

to track the special education population, the ability to track the 

hearing officer decisions and ensure compliance with those decisions, which is a core piece of that case. We also have some Statelevel compliance issues that we are working on and State Superintendent Gist and her team are building the State-level capacity 

to address these State level special education issues. 

At the same time, as Chancellor Rhee mentioned, there is a very 

fair question about how many of those children have been tagged 

‘‘special education’’ but really have more basic learning issues that 

can be addressed within the school environment, and so, to that effect, I know the Chancellor is working on her systemwide professional development plan and we will be targeting this issue, among 

others, moving forward, because we have got to provide interventions for our students before they get labeled ‘‘special education.’’ 

We also have to create a culture of accountability in which principals at local schools view it as part of their core responsibility to 

address the needs of children who are special education students, 

also children who may be falling behind, but prior to reaching that 

designation. 

So as the Chancellor moves forward on the development of her 

leadership institute, I am certain that the issues around special 

education accountability will play a critical role in developing the 

new principal accountability model that we will have as the State—

at the LEA level and likewise we hope to create an incentive mechanism for the LEAs. Currently, as you know, there is a huge 

amount of money that is spent on special education and that 

spending is provided outside of the local education funding lines in 

36

our budget. We hope to help align the incentives of the LEA with 

the State obligation for special education by providing a mechanism whereby some of the savings from reducing the number of 

placements in special education will be reinvested in the local 

schools, again, so that there is an alignment of incentives in dealing with these issues. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. A quick question to the Mayor. 

WAMU, Mr. Chairman, recently reported that a number of special 

education teachers have claimed that they did not receive the bonuses they were promised. I have also heard reports of other teachers not getting paid. What systems are you putting in place to ensure that all teachers are paid appropriately for their work, and 

also, what are you doing to ensure all hiring and retention tools are 

being used accurately and effectively? 

Mayor FENTY. Well, first, on the report from WAMU, the Chancellor has informed me that the money for that has been released. 

Second, we have addressed some of the issues about trying to 

make sure that payments get through to teachers. That is one of 

the reasons why it is so critical for us to have a personnel system 

that is completely automated rather than the antiquated one that 

we have right now. It is a wonder anyone gets paid on time, the 

way we are doing it just completely manually, and we have made 

enormous progress on that just since June 12. 

The Chancellor, I think, is as much of an expert on exactly what 

needs to be done to recruit, train, and retain teachers. We will give 

her the resources necessary to do so. 

Just on the general issue of special education, we think that the 

early childhood education is critical. We think that more technology 

so that we can better comply with the Individuals with Disabilities 

in Education Act is critical. We think that inclusion is critical. But 

this issue of teachers and special education is also linked. 

There was a very pointed article in the Washington Post over a 

year ago which showed that we were being penny-wise and poundfoolish as we cut teachers. Many of them were special education 

teachers. We would immediately make ourselves out of compliance 

with Federal law, which then meant that instead of paying a teacher’s salary, which could be anywhere between $40,000 and $70,000, 

we ended up paying to send one kid into a private school, which 

by itself is $40,000 to $70,000. So we think that strengthening the 

classroom, having qualified teachers, inclusion models, are ways of 

actually preventing us from getting out of compliance with the special education laws and also saving us revenue in the long term. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much. I have one more question 

for Ms. Rhee. I understand that there are a number of contracted 

organizations supplementing DCPS to meet the needs of the student population. In implementing your reform efforts, are you planning to hire additional outside contractors? If so, what services 

would they provide and how do you plan to make those contracts 

transparent? 

Ms. RHEE. I think right now is a critical time for the District because, to be frank, we do not have the capacity that we will ultimately need within the District to be able to meet the needs of all 

children. So I do think that it is strategic and prudent of us to 

think about how we can gain some capacity by working with some 

37

outside providers on a number of different things, for example, the 

professional development of teachers. We have a number of outside 

organizations who have a longstanding history of working here 

with us in Washington, DC, who have provided great professional 

development services to our teachers. 

The most critical thing to me right now as I am looking from a 

systemic perspective is, one, that our providers be able to provide 

at scale so that we don’t have a fragmented system where there are 

too many providers, but that we have a small number of providers 

who can provide across the District; and that, two, they have a 

track record of proven results for increasing student achievement 

in those schools. 

I am looking to ensure that we are instituting performance guarantees in all of the contracts that we have from here on out, whether it be for things like food service or professional development. It 

is important that we are holding our vendors accountable for ensuring specific outcomes and that if they are not meeting those 

measures, that we end those contracts and find providers who are 

able to do that. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much for that. Mr. Mayor, I am 

impressed. 

Mayor FENTY. Thank you. 

Senator AKAKA. Let me say that we sit at the edge of meaningful 

reforms and you are the team that is charged with delivering the 

promise of hope to the District, and that is huge. I am still concerned that there are insufficient benchmarks and a lack of clear 

details. I know you are all dedicated to succeeding and I intend to 

remain focused on this issue and do all I can to help. The start of 

the school year is around the corner and I hope that by then, we 

will see significantly more progress. I am hopeful that the reforms 

you seek will improve DCPS. 

The hearing record of this Subcommittee will remain open for 2 

weeks for Members to submit any additional statements they may 

have or any questions they may want to have answered. 

So at this point, I want to thank all of the witnesses for being 

here, for your valuable responses. I want to tell you that, from 

what you have delivered today, I am excited to see what is going 

to be happening and we will be certainly following you on that. 

Mayor FENTY. Thank you. 

Senator AKAKA. This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:50 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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