U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

53–115 PDF 2010

S. Hrg. 111–359 

D.C. PUBLIC SCHOOLS: TAKING STOCK OF 

EDUCATION REFORM 

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 ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

JULY 23, 2009 

Available via http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html 

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 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

ROLAND W. BURRIS, Illinois 

MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada 

LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina 

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah 

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 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

ROLAND W. BURRIS, Illinois 

MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina 

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah 

LISA M. POWELL, Chief Counsel and Acting Staff Director 

CHRISTINE S. KHIM, Counsel 

JENNIFER A. HEMINGWAY, Minority Staff Director 

THOMAS A. BISHOP, Minority Professional Staff Member 

BENJAMIN B. RHODESIDE, Chief Clerk 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

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

Senator Voinovich ............................................................................................. 2 

Senator Burris .................................................................................................. 14 

Senator Landrieu .............................................................................................. 14 

WITNESSES 

THURSDAY, JULY 23, 2009 

Michelle Rhee, Chancellor, D.C. Public Schools .................................................... 5 

Victor Reinoso, Deputy Mayor for Education, District of Columbia .................... 8 

Kerri L. Briggs, Ph.D., Acting State Superintendent of Education, District 

of Columbia ........................................................................................................... 10 

Cornelia M. Ashby, Director of Education, Workforce, and Income Security, 

U.S. Government Accountability Office .............................................................. 12 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Ashby, Cornelia M.: 

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

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 66 

Briggs, Kerri L., Ph.D.: 

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

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 58 

Reinoso, Victor: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 8 

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

Rhee, Michelle: 

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

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 41 

APPENDIX 

District of Columbia Public Schools, Important Steps Taken to Continue 

Reform Efforts, But Enhanced Planning Could Improve Implementation 

and Sustainability, June 2009, GAO Report GAO–09–619 .............................. 81 

Background .............................................................................................................. 131 

Questions and Responses to questions: 

Ms. Rhee ............................................................................................................ 139 

Ms. Briggs ......................................................................................................... 146 

Ms. Ashby .......................................................................................................... 148 

Get-backs from Ms. Briggs .............................................................................. 151 

(1) 

D.C. PUBLIC SCHOOLS: TAKING STOCK OF 

EDUCATION REFORM 

THURSDAY, JULY 23, 2009 

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 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Daniel K. Akaka, 

Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Akaka, Landrieu, Burris, Voinovich, and Ensign. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA 

Senator AKAKA. This hearing will come to order. Good afternoon 

and welcome. Thank you for joining us today as this Subcommittee 

continues our examination of reforms in the District of Columbia 

Public School (DCPS) system. 

As many of you know before being elected to Congress, I was in 

education, so I care deeply about providing high-quality education 

for all of our children. I also appreciate the challenges facing any 

educational system and the hard work it takes to initiate and monitor reforms. 

I know you all have been working hard for the past 2 years to 

implement far-reaching reforms in the D.C. school system. There is 

much left to do, but I understand that change does not happen 

overnight. I want to commend you very much on your efforts and 

achievements so far. In the first year of reforms, elementary and 

secondary school students in DCPS saw between an 8- and 11-point 

increase in their math and reading scores on the District’s annual 

Comprehensive Assessment System (CAS) exam. Recently released 

CAS scores for the 2008–2009 school year show continued improvements in math and reading scores for elementary and secondary 

schools in the District. 

I commend DCPS for working to bolster the quality of its workforce by investing in its teachers and principals. DCPS is offering 

coaching to new and struggling teachers and providing workshops 

and instruction for principals. Additionally, DCPS is instituting individual performance evaluations for DCPS employees at all levels. 

While these improvements are encouraging, problems persist. 

Despite widespread school restructuring efforts, the 2008–2009 

2 

CAS scores show a 4-percent decrease in the number of schools 

achieving adequate yearly progress (AYP) under the No Child Left 

Behind Act. D.C. also continues to find itself on the Department of 

Education’s high-risk list because of poor Federal grant management. 

Given the challenges and pressing need to reform the District’s 

schools, Senator Voinovich and I asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct a short-term and long-term review 

of D.C.’s education initiatives and to make recommendations for 

improvements. 

Last year, this Subcommittee held a hearing to examine the results of GAO’s short-term study. We learned about efforts to improve student achievement and DCPS’s physical infrastructure, as 

well as a number of other initiatives that were just beginning to 

take root. 

Today, we will hear the results of GAO’s long-term study, which 

focused on the District’s efforts to improve academic achievement, 

strengthen the quality of teachers and principals, develop longterm plans, and improve accountability and performance throughout DCPS. 

GAO has two primary recommendations for D.C. to ensure the 

effectiveness of education reforms and build upon past efforts. The 

first is to increase institutional and community stakeholder involvement in education policy planning. I agree that systematic 

stakeholder involvement is important; it adds valuable input for 

shaping the reforms and encourages community-wide commitment 

to progress. 

GAO’s second recommendation is to link individual performance 

evaluations to DCPS’s strategic goals and initiatives. This is recommended not only for teachers, but also for central office employees. 

Linking individual performance to DCPS’s goals will strengthen accountability and align employee performance with the agency’s 

mission. 

We are 2 years into the reform, and there is no less urgency to 

improve DCPS. Great strides have been made, but we have a long 

way yet to go. The 2009–2010 school year will soon get underway, 

and expectations of parents, teachers, the community, and, most 

importantly, the children are high. 

I hope today we can gain a better understanding of the progress 

made, the challenges ahead, and the steps D.C. is taking to overcome those challenges. 

I now turn to my good friend Senator Voinovich, who has many 

years of experience working on education issues, not only during 

his time in the Senate but also as Mayor of Cleveland and Governor of Ohio. 

Senator Voinovich, will you please go ahead with your statement? 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR VOINOVICH 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you, Senator Akaka. I want to thank 

you for holding this hearing and having an opportunity to evaluate 

the District’s education reform since 2007. I have a sincere interest 

in improving education in the District because of my belief that a 

3 

world-class education is the best way to help every citizen make 

the best use of his or her God-given talents. 

Chancellor Rhee, let me congratulate you on the progress that 

you have made. Senator Akaka said that the District students continue to improve their reading and math skills based on standardized tests, and I know it is not easy. I have been working with the 

Cleveland public school system since my days in the State legislature, and I will mention that later, but it is tough. 

I think most people are amazed that the District is one of our 

Nation’s most expensive urban school systems, although I think we 

know the cost of living is a little higher here than it is in other 

places in the country. And I think most of Congress was a little bit 

disappointed from GAO’s report that the District continues to be on 

the Department of Education’s high-risk list for its management of 

Federal education grants. And I understand that there is $148 million that was allocated in stimulus funds, and I would be interested 

in knowing what the District is going to do with that money and, 

if they are going to use it for capital improvements, how they intend to prioritize those and get it done. 

I am interested in it because when I was governor, we undertook 

a program to rebuild all of our schools in the States and really put 

in place an entity that worked with the school districts to make 

sure that the thing was done properly. And so far, it is a program 

that has worked out very well without any scandal about contracts 

or anything else. But if you are going to be doing that, I would be 

real interested in hearing from you about it. 

I have to say that I am troubled that Mayor Fenty declined the 

Subcommittee’s invitation to testify, although I know he is very 

busy. I think that prior to the reform, Mayor Fenty said, ‘‘We have 

a crisis on our hands, and I am asking today for that responsibility 

of education reform to be placed squarely on my shoulders.’’ And 

I had hoped that Mayor Fenty would be here today to testify. 

As Mayor of Cleveland, I was very proud of the fact that Cleveland received three All America City Awards within a 5-year period. It never happened before, and it never has happened since. 

But I emphasized over and over again that the city could not be 

an All America City until we had an All America school system. 

And as I mentioned, we are still not there yet. And it seems to me 

that the District ought to be a model for the rest of the Nation. It 

should be that shining city on the hill, and people should come to 

the District and be able to see some of those innovative things happening in America and be the model for the rest of the country. 

And we have got a long way to go. 

I would also like to mention the fact that—and Senator Akaka 

and I, I think, probably have a difference of opinion on this, but 

the scholarship program that we had here—and I know the President has recommended that you continue to fund it. But for the life 

of me, I cannot understand why that program can not continue for 

1,700 children, and it is half the cost of the District, and the money 

that the kids would be getting, the District gets, so they are making out on the deal. And the reason I say that to you, all of you, 

is that this program started in Ohio in about 1995. This whole nonpublic school program started in Ohio, and I was told by the teachers’ union that it was unconstitutional and so on and so forth. And 

4 

several years ago, the Supreme Court said that it was constitutional. The program can provide the kids an opportunity to get 

money to go to a non-public school. And today we have 5,600 kids 

in the school. 

And I have to tell you, if you go back, their dropout rate is—I 

mean, relatively no dropout rate. About 90 percent of them have 

gone on to college, and so many of them now that I meet, they say, 

Senator, without that program I do not know where I would be 

today. And certainly I would like to see that available to everyone, 

and so I am sure that you would like to see that. 

But I think that for the money put into it and the opportunity 

for those children and also the opportunity for some competitiveness is something that is very important. It is a benchmark. And 

I know it is not perfect, but I certainly would not want to snuff it 

out before it is given an opportunity to show what it can or cannot 

do. 

The other thing that Senator Akaka and I have done, and that 

I really feel proud of, the D.C. Tuition Assistance Grant (TAG) program. I do not know about you, but it is one of the things that I 

am most proud of since I have been in the Senate. And I do not 

think many people are aware of the fact that I think you have increased your college attendance in the District by over 50 percent 

as a result of the program because a lot of our youngsters here just 

did not have the opportunity to go on to college because of the financial situation. And then I think Don Graham coming up with 

the College Assistance Program—and I have been to just about 

every graduation, and it is really heart-warming to see the kids 

talk about the opportunities that they have and where they are 

going, and so on. It is inspirational. And I would hope that we can 

see that program continue and see improvements in the District. 

So I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling this hearing, 

and I am anxious to hear from our witnesses here today. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Voinovich. And 

now I would like to introduce our witnesses: Michelle Rhee, Chancellor of the D.C. Public Schools; Victor Reinoso, Deputy Mayor for 

Education; Kerri Briggs, Acting State Superintendent of Education, 

and Cornelia Ashby, Director of Education, Workforce, and Income 

Security at the Government Accountability Office. 

As you know, it is the custom of our Subcommittee to swear in 

witnesses. Therefore, I ask all of you to please rise and raise your 

right hand. Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are 

about to give the Subcommittee is the truth, the whole truth, and 

nothing but the truth, so help you, God? 

Ms. RHEE. I do. 

Mr. REINOSO. I do. 

Ms. BRIGGS. I do. 

Ms. ASHBY. I do. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Let it be noted for the record that 

the witnesses answered in the affirmative. 

Before we begin, I want to let you know that although your oral 

statement is limited to 5 minutes, your full written statements will 

be included in the record. 

Chancellor Rhee, will you please begin with your statement? 

5 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Rhee appears in the Appendix on page 41. 

TESTIMONY OF MICHELLE RHEE,1 CHANCELLOR, DISTRICT OF 

COLUMBIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

Ms. RHEE. Good afternoon, Chairman Akaka and Ranking Member Voinovich. I am honored to testify today about education reform in the District of Columbia Public Schools and the findings of 

the GAO report. 

In our Nation’s capital, our education system can and should be 

a source of national pride. We know from the significant progress 

students have made in the last 2 years in D.C.—and from the results from high-performing urban schools across the country—that 

in good schools children of all backgrounds and circumstances can 

gain the skills that will allow them positive and fulfilling life 

choices. Urban schools can send their children to college at rates 

that can compete with suburban schools. 

We also know how much work it will take to get there. Despite 

the progress of the past 2 years, the situation remains dire when 

less than half of our students can read, write, and do math at 

grade level. When Mayor Fenty gave me the privilege of reforming 

the school system to achieve this goal with him, we quickly discovered a few of the ways that schools were not supported to educate 

their students competitively. 

For example, in 2007 brand-new textbooks sat unopened in warehouses while students sat in history classes with books that ended 

with Nixon’s Presidency. The school system, owing money to teachers who had worked here years ago, at the same time was 

accidently mailing checks to former employees who had not worked 

here for years—even when the employees were regularly calling to 

correct the problem. While one DCPS school showed 9 percent of 

its students were on grade level in mathematics, a successful charter school only a few blocks away showed 91 percent of its students 

were on grade level. 

Parents responded, and between 1996 and 2007 the enrollment 

of the public school system dropped by about 40 percent as families 

without viable options in their neighborhood schools sought schools 

that would serve their children according to their rights and abilities. 

Because of the sheer size of the problem, many thought it would 

be near impossible to resuscitate DCPS, never mind take student 

achievement beyond the high expectations we have for children in 

our country’s top schools. However, after decades of poor achievement, under the leadership of Mayor Adrian Fenty we are applying 

the innovative solutions and common-sense practices that are beginning to turn the tide. 

For the second year in a row, DCPS students have posted significant gains on our annual standardized test, the DC CAS. Secondyear gains are more unusual than a first-year rise in scores, and 

we are pleased that in 2009 our principals and teachers brought 

gains across all grade levels and in both reading and math. 

Our elementary students made significant gains in math and 

reading this year, moving from 40-percent proficiency in math last 

year to 49 percent this year, and from 46 percent proficiency in 

reading to 49 percent this year—on top of the encouraging gains 

6 

achieved in year one. Our secondary students showed improvement 

as well this year, advancing from 39 to 41-percent proficiency in 

reading and 36 to 40-percent proficiency in math. 

I have heard from many who argue that economically disadvantaged students are not as capable of learning as students from 

more affluent families, and that it is only ‘‘realistic’’ to assume that 

neighborhoods dominated by poor and minority students will remain caught in the cycles of poverty we see now. I am happy to 

see that our students have an answer for that. 

In just 2 years in secondary math, students have narrowed the 

achievement gap that exists between white students and students 

of color by 20 percentage points, from 70 percent to 50 percent. The 

gap has narrowed across all grade levels and subject areas, and our 

students have made it clear that they intend to keep going. In fact, 

virtually every subgroup of students increased proficiency rates 

this year, including our students with special education needs, our 

English language learner (ELL) population, and our economically 

disadvantaged students. ELL students are outperforming the District as a whole in elementary reading, elementary math, and secondary math, with 20-percent gains in secondary reading over 2 

years. 

When we began this effort, when Mayor Fenty took over the 

schools, only one-third of our students were on grade level in reading and mathematics. Two years later, almost half of our students 

are on grade level in reading and math. Of course, the fact that 

only half our students are proficient is not a cause for celebration. 

But given where we once were, this is evidence of progress and a 

cause for hope. 

The GAO report released last month represents the conclusion of 

nearly 2 years of ongoing evaluation and analysis. Overall, we 

agreed with many of the major recommendations from the draft report, though we have not seen the final report. As we have shared 

with the GAO team, the Mayor will continue to make constant 

evaluation and stakeholder input central and integral components 

of ensuring accountability under the governance structure. 

We were somewhat perplexed, however, by the tone and specific 

conclusions of the GAO report, and we believe the report fell short 

of objectively conveying the context for the DCPS initiatives underway and of adequately capturing all of the progress that has been 

made to date. I would like to use my remaining time to explain 

some of the innovative reforms occurring at DCPS that have allowed us to make the gains we have seen in student achievement. 

The rise in academic achievement over the last 2 years is in 

large part the result of months of hard work and dedication from 

our teachers and principals, and we still have a long way to go. 

There is no way to get around it. Without high-quality teachers 

and principals at every DCPS school, the achievement gap will not 

close and performance will not rise. We must support a teaching 

corps that is focused on student achievement, and we must recognize and reward them when they accomplish the enormous gains 

we are asking them to reach with students. 

For many years, new teachers have struggled to ‘‘reinvent the 

wheel’’ of classroom management and planning without significant 

or sustained support from DCPS. But just as teachers are asked to 

7 

meet every individual child’s academic needs, professional development must support teachers at all ends of the spectrum on their 

way toward mastery. 

DCPS has established a higher commitment to professional development with a 400-percent increase in budgeted professional development resources for teachers. This has allowed us to hire 

teacher coaches to support reading and math instruction. The 

coaches work at the school level, getting to know teachers and their 

styles and practice to help new and struggling teachers advance 

their students’ academic growth. 

Building teacher capacity for excellence is the most important 

work of the past 2 years and the years to come. Nothing is more 

telling of this importance than the way students flock to our best 

teachers. In one of our high schools last year, a teacher was surprised to find students attending her class who were not on her 

roster. When she asked them why they were there, they said that 

they were learning from her, and that they wanted to attend her 

class whether or not they were getting credit for it. 

Schools also need strong principals to succeed. In a district facing 

a challenge of this size, we need the best school leaders we can 

find, and we must support those we have to achieve according to 

their highest potential. As part of our aggressive human capital 

strategy, DCPS recruited over 49 proven instructional leaders for 

the 2008–2009 school year to replace principals who were unable 

to increase student achievement. Our new principals went on to 

outperform the District on the DC CAS this year. One of the new 

principals, Dwan Jordon, assumed leadership last year of Sousa 

Middle School in Ward 7, one of the city’s highest poverty wards. 

In just 1 year, he galvanized his staff to move student achievement 

up 17 points in reading and 25 points in mathematics, allowing the 

school to meet AYP for the first time in Sousa’s history. 

When we hire or develop staff to achieve such results, our children cannot afford to lose them. To attract and retain highly effective staff we must dramatically change the way in which teachers 

and principals are compensated. Already, DCPS has provided incentives to teachers who helped their students realize school-wide 

gains of 20 percentage points or greater in both reading and math. 

And after the 2007–2008 school year, DCPS awarded cash bonuses 

to the staff at these seven schools. Teachers at these schools received an $8,000 cash award, sending a clear message that if they 

perform at the highest level, they will be recognized and rewarded. 

I have a lot more of the testimony, but I am going to just close 

here by saying that we do not have any illusions about the work 

that lies ahead of us. Right now in this city, a student’s race and 

income remains a determining factor in the number and quality of 

choices that students will have upon exiting the public school system. This is inexcusable, and it becomes more painfully acute to 

anyone who visits our schools, speaks with our students, and sees 

directly how capable and curious they are. 

We are working furiously to correct this injustice, and we have 

made significant progress over the past 2 years. The accomplishments we have shared with you, the most important of which belong to our students, we believe merit recognition in any measure 

or oversight of this rewarding work. 

8 

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

As we continue this forward movement with our school staff and 

students, we remain grateful for your support, and I am happy to 

answer any questions. 

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

Mr. Reinoso, will you please proceed with your statement? 

TESTIMONY OF VICTOR REINOSO,1 DEPUTY MAYOR FOR 

EDUCATION, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 

Mr. REINOSO. Good afternoon, Senator Akaka, Senator Voinovich, 

and Members of the Subcommittee. I am pleased to appear before 

you today to report on the continued progress made by the District 

of Columbia in implementing the Mayor’s public education reform 

initiatives. 

Over the past 2 years, the District has become a focal point for 

the national education reform community, and I believe what we 

are doing here and the progress we are making can and will serve 

as a model to other urban jurisdictions seeking to improve dramatically the public education opportunities available to children. 

My office, the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education (DME), 

was established to perform two main functions: First, to ensure 

that the education reform efforts of the District of Columbia Public 

Schools, the Office of the State Superintendent of Education 

(OSSE), the Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization 

(OPEFM), and the Ombudsman for Public Education are aligned in 

priorities and strategies; and, second, to marshal the District’s resources, public and private, education and non-education, to support education reform efforts and outcomes for all the District’s students. My office has made significant progress on these fronts, and 

I am happy to share some of that progress today. 

From the beginning, the Mayor has asked us to focus on implementation and accountability for results. In preparing to take over 

the school system, we noted numerous reports and plans that had 

been developed and subsequently piled up over the years and resolved to hold ourselves accountable for execution and results. My 

office’s role is to make sure we are all moving at the same pace, 

on the same page, and on the right track. We problem-solve where 

there are obstacles or issues, keep staff focused on the agenda, and 

develop the right strategy to address a given issue. 

Alignment of strategies comes in many forms, but almost always 

involves convening the right people around the table. Prior to the 

Mayor’s reform, this was the missing piece. City leaders would constantly hear the complaint from agencies that the school system 

was not at the table and, likewise, the school system would complain that they had little or no collaboration with other city agencies. 

Alignment of reform strategies became even more important as 

we separated State from local education functions and facilities and 

other education-related services from the school system. 

We have established several mechanisms for regular, agendadriven communication among the education agencies at leadership 

and staff levels. My office also leads working groups and conversaVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:09 Apr 19, 2010 Jkt 053115 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\53115.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
9 

tions around specific big-picture priority issues such as special education and school health. 

Similarly, at the program level, the DME has worked with both 

DCPS and the OSSE on developing strategies and policies for alternative education, discipline and attendance, and adult education 

programming. 

Finally, my office continues to work closely with DCPS, OPEFM, 

and city planning staff around school facilities planning, and the 

Mayor recently submitted to the council a revised Master Facilities 

Plan that will modernize every classroom over the next 5 years. 

Through these efforts, I am confident that the education strategies and policies of the District agencies are aligned. The June 

2009 draft GAO report came to the same conclusion after careful 

review. 

The other major focus of the DME over the past 2 years has been 

the initiatives associated with the Interagency Collaboration and 

Services Integration Commission (ICSIC). Identifying the needs of 

children and families inside and outside of the classroom and figuring out how to address them by creating innovation and coordinating existing efforts within other agencies is challenging and intense. However, early results are promising and demonstrate that 

we are on the right track. 

Part of our charge from the Public Education Reform Act is to 

develop and incubate innovative programs that address issues affecting social and emotional development of students, school climate and safety, and alcohol and substance abuse. We do this by 

researching and selecting evidence-based programs and initiatives 

and then piloting them carefully at the school level. At the end of 

the pilot period, the goal is to evaluate the effectiveness of the programs and then transition them to a home agency where they can 

be scaled up and implemented permanently. 

This past school year, we successfully implemented the DC Student Assessment and Resilience Team (START) multidisciplinary 

school mental health and intervention program. We hired seven social worker clinicians to serve students at six DCPS elementary 

schools and one middle school. We strongly believe in the DC 

START model and its comprehensive approach to early intervention. 

In addition to DC START, ICSIC has implemented four other 

evidence-based programs this year. Combined, we are serving over 

5,500 students at 50 schools. Adding in the other programs, we 

have trained over 300 DCPS, Metropolitan Police Department 

(MPD), and Department of Mental Health (DMH) staff working in 

schools over the past 8 months. My office works steadily on monitoring these programs and their implementation, reaching out to 

school-based staff to ensure that the programs are utilized effectively and have the maximum positive impact. 

We continue to work across agencies through ICSIC to improve 

outcomes related to health, student achievement, youth engagement, and transition to adulthood. The goal of all of these efforts 

is to provide a safer, more supportive learning environment for students so that they can take full advantage of the educational opportunities available to them. 

10 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Briggs appears in the Appendix on page 58. 

While I think the Subcommittee can agree that we have made 

substantial progress in only 2 years, no doubt we have much work 

left to be done. With this in mind, we endeavor to continue moving 

forward with an unwavering commitment to implementation and 

results. 

Again, thank you for the opportunity to discuss these issues. I 

look forward to your questions. 

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

will you please proceed with your statement? 

STATEMENT OF KERRI L. BRIGGS, PH.D.,1 ACTING STATE 

SUPERINTENDENT OF EDUCATION, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 

Ms. BRIGGS. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairman Akaka, Senator Voinovich, distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, Committee staff, and guests. I am Kerri Briggs, and I serve as the Acting State Superintendent of Education for the District of Columbia. 

It is my pleasure to be here this afternoon to discuss the role of 

the Office of the State Superintendent and the Mayor’s effort to reform education. 

It is truly a special time for education reform in the District. We 

have a mayor, a city council, a schools chancellor, charter school 

leaders, and a State Board of Education who are all dedicated to 

improving schools for our students. Thousands of dedicated teachers and other staff are joining as well and embracing a new culture 

of achievement. 

The Office of the State Superintendent of Education was created 

2 years ago to comply with Federal education law, and it is designated as a State education agency. This office was created to 

manage Federal funds so that DCPS and the 57 charter local education agencies (LEAs) could focus on working with schools. 

In my short time in serving in this role, I have identified certain 

challenges ahead of us, one of which is discussed in the report. In 

2006 and again last year, the U.S. Department of Education placed 

D.C. schools on high-risk status due to mismanagement of grants 

and failure to comply with Federal rules. 

After nearly 8 years with the U.S. Department of Education, I 

know the ins and outs of the system. I have seen firsthand how the 

relationship between Federal, State, and local agencies can have a 

profound impact on kids. I am confident the priorities we are setting at the State level will maximize the impact of the Chancellor’s 

reform efforts. 

That is why my colleagues and I have been working diligently to 

correct these problems. OSSE is working with the U.S. Department 

of Education to address our high-risk grantee status through the 

design and implementation of a comprehensive and strategic corrective action plan. Addressing these issues around our high-risk 

designation is OSSE’s top priority, and a dedicated team of analysts has been assembled and moved to my executive office to steward this reform effort. 

We are also set to distribute funds smartly to LEAs to advance 

the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) principles 

set forth by the U.S. Department of Education. Receiving Federal 

11 

stimulus funds and our high-risk grantee status are providing 

OSSE with a new opportunity to set standards around Federal 

grants management. We will also take advantage of the ARRA reporting requirements to gather and analyze data that will in turn 

inform future policy decisions. 

While we are cleaning up our business operations, we are also 

working on efforts to improve student achievement. My team is 

currently assessing our data systems and capabilities and will work 

aggressively to improve upon them to make data an effective tool 

at the school, District, and State level. The first step in that process is to develop and implement the Statewide Longitudinal Education Data (SLED) System. 

Once built, this database will enable the sharing of critical information that tracks student learning, spanning early child care, preschool, K–12, post-secondary, and adult-serving institutions. 

During this past year, the production of the Unique Student 

Identifier (USI), which included student demographic information, 

was released. The USI is the key lever for linking all student data 

together within the SLED System and with all other educational 

systems within OSSE. 

The State Superintendent’s Office also sets teacher quality criteria as required by the No Child Left Behind Act. As of October 

2006, OSSE changed its criteria to align with the Federal definition 

of ‘‘highly qualified teachers.’’ Under this definition, all teachers 

must have, at a minimum, a bachelor’s degree, State certification, 

and demonstrated subject area knowledge through a competency 

test, an evaluation, or completion of additional degrees. 

Accountability extends to more than our students, teachers, and 

schools. It also extends to our internal management performance. 

In an effort to create a culture of accountability, the ePerformance 

management system was launched in October 2008. It established 

clear expectations for all staff. 

ePerformance has been operational since January 2009, and 

OSSE is successfully moving through that implementation timeline. I am confident that the system is setting clear expectations for 

all employees, which is an important part of working towards 

achieving OSSE’s strategic objectives. 

The reforms that the District has put in place represent a oncein-a-lifetime opportunity to transform a previously broken school 

system. Likewise, our strategic plan will make the State Superintendent’s Office more nimble, more responsive, and more accountable to families and taxpayers. It means issuing clear and timely 

guidance to help educators access available resources. It means focusing energy and resources on the challenges identified in the 

OSSE strategic plan—that is, grants management, quality special 

education, and the need for a reliable data system to track student 

achievement. 

It also means collaborating with other States to develop rigorous, 

internationally benchmarked, common core standards to make sure 

that when D.C. students graduate from high school, they are prepared to succeed in college and to compete in the global marketplace. 

The good news is that we are seeing results. As the Chancellor 

noted, results are up across the board, both in DCPS and also in 

12 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Ashby appears in the Appendix on page 66. 

charter schools. But as you know, my agency does not always work 

directly with schools, but we can and must develop an effective and 

efficient State education agency to ensure that our talented educators are supported by this agency and not deterred. If we do a 

better job of allocating resources and human capital, they will have 

greater freedom to help our students improve. 

Thank you, and I look forward to answering your questions. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Ms. Briggs. Ms. Ashby, 

will you please proceed with your statement? 

TESTIMONY OF CORNELIA M. ASHBY,1 DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION, WORKFORCE, AND INCOME SECURITY, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Ms. ASHBY. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, I 

am pleased to be here today to discuss DCPS’s efforts to reform the 

District’s public schools. This afternoon, my remarks will focus on 

steps DCPS has taken to address student academic achievement, 

teacher and principal quality, strategic planning, and its accountability and performance. 

With respect to student academic achievement, following passage 

of the Public Education Reform Act, DCPS quickly implemented 

several initiatives, including supplemental instruction and practice 

to improve the basic skills and test scores of students struggling in 

reading and math; providing all schools with art, music, and physical education teachers, as well as supports such as social workers; 

restructuring schools that had not met academic goals for 6 consecutive years; and along with the State Superintendent’s Office, 

developing new ways to use data to monitor student and school 

performance. 

Based on lessons learned, DCPS is making changes as it continues these initiatives. For example, the Chancellor recently acknowledged that DCPS, in its effort to remedy the range of issues 

that plague the school system, may have launched too many initiatives at once, and some schools may not have had the capacity to 

implement them all. To support such schools, DCPS is considering 

allowing principals to determine which programs best suit their 

schools’ needs and capacity. In addition, rather than focusing on 

implementing initiatives, for the 2009–2010 school year, DCPS will 

focus on effective teaching by helping teachers understand what 

students are expected to learn, how to prepare lessons, and effective teaching methods. 

In attempting to strengthen teacher and principal quality, DCPS 

focused on a workforce replacement strategy, hiring, for the 2008– 

2009 school year, 566 teachers and 46 principals to replace about 

one-fifth of the teachers and one-third of the principals who had 

been on board during the 2007–2008 school year and had resigned, 

retired, or were terminated. 

However, DCPS officials told us that the 2007–2008 and 2008– 

2009 school system teacher evaluation process did not allow them 

to determine whether the teacher workforce improved in terms of 

impact on student achievement between these two school years. 

DCPS plans to revise its teacher evaluation process to assess teachVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:09 Apr 19, 2010 Jkt 053115 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\53115.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
13 

ers, in part, on their ability to improve students’ test scores over 

the course of a school year. 

In addition to the workforce replacement strategy, DCPS introduced new professional development initiatives, including hiring 

150 teacher coaches for the 2008–2009 school year to improve 

teacher skills in delivering reading and math instruction. 

The State Superintendent’s Office and DCPS each developed 5- 

year strategic plans and involved stakeholders in the process. However, while DCPS has increased efforts to involve stakeholders in 

strategic planning and key initiatives, DCPS has initiated some 

key initiatives with limited stakeholder involvement. For example, 

key stakeholders, including D.C. Council members and parent 

groups, told us they were not given the opportunity to provide 

input on DCPS’s initial proposals regarding school closures and 

consolidations; the establishment of schools that span pre-kindergarten to grade 8; or planning an early implementation of a new 

staffing model that placed art, music, and physical education teachers at schools and fundamentally changed the way funding is allocated to schools. 

DCPS has taken steps to improve its accountability and performance which include developing scorecards for central office departments to identify performance expectations and discussing progress 

with senior-level managers at weekly meetings with the Chancellor, and assessing central office employee performance twice a 

year. However, while according to DCPS officials, DCPS has taken 

steps to align central office departmental scorecards with 2009 annual performance goals, DCPS has not yet explicitly linked employee performance evaluations to its overall goals. DCPS officials 

told us they plan to do so this summer. 

The challenge of reforming the District’s public schools is 

daunting, and DCPS and other members of the Mayor’s education 

team have taken bold steps to improve the learning environment 

of the District’s students. In moving forward, in order to sustain 

the progress achieved over the past 2 years and effectively implement new reform initiatives, it is important that DCPS have planning processes that ensure timely communication with stakeholders, including stakeholders within the school system who are 

knowledgeable about such things as individual school needs and capacity constraints, and incorporation of their views in decisions, 

and that central office employees are held accountable for contributing to the achievement of DCPS’s goals. 

As the Chairman said in his opening statement, in our report— 

which is being released consecutively with this hearing—we make 

two recommendations that could improve the implementation and 

sustainability of reform efforts. We recommended that the Mayor 

direct DCPS to (1) establish planning processes that include mechanisms to evaluate its internal capacity and communicate information to stakeholders, and when appropriate, incorporate their 

views, and (2) link individual performance evaluations to the agency’s overall goals. 

In commenting on a draft of the report, the Deputy Mayor for 

Education, the Chancellor, and the State Superintendent said they 

agreed with the substance of our recommendations. 

14 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, this concludes 

my prepared statement. I would be happy to answer any questions. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Ms. Ashby, for your statement. 

And now we have other Members here that I will call on for any 

opening statements you may have. Let me call on Senator Burris. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BURRIS 

Senator BURRIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I did have an 

opening statement. I am sorry I had to duck out. I have another 

meeting. But I am deeply concerned about the structure, Mr. 

Chairman, and I will have a lot of questions about that when I do 

this opening statement. 

Charles Keating, a great American inventor, once said, ‘‘High 

achievement always takes place in a framework of high expectations.’’ High expectations have been placed on the D.C. Public 

School system, as they should be for every public school system 

across our Nation. Expectations are met with dedication, teamwork, and by adhering to a strategic plan that moves toward an 

end goal—in this case, responsible reform of the District’s public 

schools. 

Coming from Illinois, I understand the hardship involved in reforming and maintaining a high-quality public school system. The 

Chicago Public School system is the third largest school system in 

our country. It is evident that improvement does not solely rest on 

the shoulders of our teachers. School infrastructure, safe classrooms, and the involvement of the stakeholders like the local community and public officials are just some of the factors that contribute to the success of today’s youth. 

Our communities face unique challenges when it comes to public 

education. I attend this hearing today to examine the progress of 

the District schools under this new structure, but I also hope to 

gain insight on lessons learned along the way. 

Being a grandfather myself and having witnessed the importance 

that education has had on my children, I hold a special place in 

my heart for educational reform. The purpose of getting an education is not just to further oneself in the professional realm, but 

to instill a sense of intellectual curiosity in future generations. 

Senator Akaka, I know that, you being a former public school 

principal and teacher, this is an issue close to your heart. I am glad 

that I am here today to participate in this hearing. I do not know 

what your questions will be, but I do have some concerns about the 

structure, workings, and progress in these 2 years of reform. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you for your opening statement. Senator 

Ensign. 

Senator ENSIGN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will just wait until 

it is questioning time. Thank you, though. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Senator Landrieu. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANDRIEU 

Senator LANDRIEU. Mr. Chairman, I will also submit my opening 

statement for the record, and I am, unfortunately, going to have to 

slip out in just a few minutes. But I wanted to comment, let my 

15 

presence be a signal that I want to be very supportive of the reform 

efforts underway and to congratulate you all for what you have 

done thus far. And I look forward to working with the Chairman 

and the Members of this Subcommittee to continue to work with 

you in a strong partnership until we get the District of Columbia 

schools to become among the top in the Nation, just like we are 

working on many of our other districts around the country. And 

under the appropriate jurisdictional models that we have, I really 

think that it is possible. I think that there are some exciting experiments and initiatives underway that are showing a lot of promise, and I just think we have to continue to push forward. So I 

thank you all very much. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Landrieu follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANDRIEU 

Thank you, Chairman Akaka and Ranking Member Voinovich for convening this 

important hearing.Over 5 years ago, I worked together with my colleagues on both 

sides of the aisle to craft a fair, responsible and visionary approach to public school 

reform in the District of Columbia. It is critical that we review and assess how education reform has impacted student achievement in our Nation’s capital. 

DC Public Schools have long been in dire straits. It is tragic that children attending public schools in our Nation’s capital receive sub-par educations. The achievement gap is 70 percentage points between black and whites in the city’s high 

schools. Only 9 percent of D.C. high school students will graduate from a college 

within 5 years of leaving the city’s system. Only 8 percent of ninth-graders are proficient in math. Our children languish in schools that do not provide them with the 

education they need to thrive in life and become successful adults. In addition to 

losing generations of children unprepared for the workforce, we lose countless potential workers who could help maintain our global competitiveness. 

However, there are reasons to be hopeful. Chancellor Michelle Rhee has brought 

about dramatic reforms into the school system. It is clear from the testimonies of 

the witnesses here today that significant progress towards reform has been made; 

however, we still have a long road in front of us until reform is fully achieved. The 

latest GAO report has recommended the Mayor direct DCPS to involve stakeholders 

more during key decisions. As a matter of two school-aged kids, I know how crucial 

it is to keep parents involved in these discussions and listen to their input. The 

DCPS steady gains in reading and math at the elementary and secondary levels is 

both promising and a sign that we are getting closer to putting DC schools on the 

right path. Still, we must focus on how to keep improving these scores in the long 

run. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Landrieu. 

Chancellor Rhee, the GAO report indicates that DCPS may have 

undertaken too many initiatives at once. I understand you are 

using a new Teaching and Learning Framework to evaluate which 

initiatives should continue and are effective. 

Will you please describe this new framework and how you are 

implementing it? 

Ms. RHEE. Sure. I believe that what the GAO report was referring to was the fact that I communicated to teachers formally the 

fact that I knew that lots of them felt overwhelmed because we had 

a number of new initiatives over the last 2 years. Part of the challenge that we face is when you come into the lowest-performing 

school district in the country where things really are so dysfunctional and there is so much work to be done, we had a lot of enthusiasm for trying to tackle as many of those challenges as we could 

as quickly as we could. And a lot of this was in response to teachers and principals coming to us and saying, ‘‘We need more resources. We need more programs. We need more guidance around 

16 

high school civics classes or around Algebra I or reading interventions at the elementary level,’’ etc. 

And so as people were telling us what the needs were, we rolled 

out a lot of new initiatives. And, to hear it from the teacher vantage point, they would say, ‘‘We do not have any problem with the 

individual initiatives, but taken in a sum total, it is somewhat 

overwhelming to know that we are having to implement all of 

them.’’ 

So what we have done to try to differentiate a little from school 

to school and teacher to teacher is to roll out a new Teaching and 

Learning Framework—and that will happen this summer—that basically lays a foundation for what our expectations are when we 

walk into a classroom and we walk into a school, and to make 

those very clear so we have very clear rubrics that identify what 

we expect to see. 

Then on top of that, we will have a toolbox where we have District-approved programs, interventions, various initiatives around 

reading, math, early childhood, special education, etc. And schools 

can look at the toolbox in total, determine what the needs of their 

particular classrooms and schools are, and then utilize those programs as they feel they have the capacity to take them on. So we 

will provide a little bit more flexibility in that way to be able to 

differentiate from school to school. 

Senator AKAKA. I believe solid training and mentoring are crucial 

in molding successful teachers. I understand that you are using 

teacher coaches, as you mentioned, and have created a principals’ 

academy. 

Can you tell me more about these and other initiatives to train 

and mentor educators? 

Ms. RHEE. Sure. On the teacher side, there were two main initiatives that happened over the course of the last 2 years. The first 

is the instructional coaches. What we found when we came to the 

District was that professional development was happening to teachers in a very disjointed way. So they would go to workshops or 

trainings that were at various times on different subjects, but there 

was no cohesion or alignment to those professional development 

initiatives. 

Then the second thing that we got feedback on was that teachers 

felt that the trainings, themselves, were too separate or too distant 

from what was happening every day in their schools and their 

classrooms. So we invested a significant amount of money and resources in ensuring that we could hire at least one, and sometimes 

two instructional coaches for every school, and that was actually 

part of our comprehensive staffing model. 

So now we have a full-time person in every school whose job it 

is to actually go into classrooms, to observe teachers, people who 

know the children, the circumstances, who can build personal relationships with folks, so that the professional development that is 

happening is much more meaningful and it is job-embedded. 

The second component was that we are working towards a fulltime release mentor model for new teachers, so the standards of 

new teacher mentorship is that you have another teacher, either in 

the building or somewhere else, who gets paid, a small stipend to 

help that teacher on the side. And for a lot of our new teachers 

17 

that level of support just is not enough to acclimate them to the 

challenges of our schools. So what we have moved towards is a 

mentor model where we have full-time mentors who have a caseload of new teachers, and their job and responsibility, is to travel 

between the classrooms of those teachers and provide full-time 

mentoring to them. 

On the principal academy side as well, we have put a tremendous amount of resources into ensuring that on a very regular 

basis we are meeting with principals, pulling them together, and 

covering topics with them that they believe they need in order to 

build their skill base. 

Senator AKAKA. Chancellor, GAO indicated that the DCPS currently is using a core staffing model to increase student access to 

subjects like art and music. As a former music teacher, I believe 

these types of classes are valuable for young people. 

Please elaborate on how DCPS determines which subjects to offer 

and how many staff to assign to each school. 

Ms. RHEE. Sure. When I came into this job, one of the most surprising things that I heard, but also one of the most pervasive, was 

a feeling from people, from families in different parts of the city, 

that they did not understand why they were getting different resources than schools in other parts of the city. And a common refrain that I heard was, ‘‘We do not have an art teacher, a music 

teacher, or a physical education (PE) teacher. Why do the schools 

west of the park have all of those things?’’ 

And what we found was that it was not for a lack of resources 

per se, but that schools—at the individual school level, principals 

were making decisions about what kinds of teachers they were 

going to hire and where they were going to spend their money, and 

that those decisions were not consistent across the District. And 

what that resulted in was people, unfortunately, gaining a perspective where they began to think that art, music, and PE were extracurricular activities instead of what I believe they should be seen 

as, which is an integral part to any broad-based, robust curriculum. 

So what we did was to say that there was a core staffing model 

that every school, regardless of what part of the city it was in, how 

many children it was serving, all of those students deserved to 

have access to art, music, PE, to librarians, to full-time nurses. So 

that was an important part of what we were doing. 

We also added social workers and/or a counselor at every school, 

and we wanted to set that benchmark for what that comprehensive 

staffing model looked like overall. So that even though we could not 

necessarily ensure that the entire staffing model existed at every 

single school, we wanted to set the benchmark out and draw the 

line in the sand that said this is what we are striving towards. 

In terms of determining how many of each of those kinds of staff 

members are at every school, it is based on the number of pupils 

that are at that particular building. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Senator Voinovich. 

Senator VOINOVICH. In April, as I mentioned in my statement, I 

wrote to you and Mayor Fenty and the Administration regarding 

the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, and I was very pleased 

to receive a response from Secretary of Education Duncan. In fact, 

I got back to her, and she got back to me, and, unfortunately, neiVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:09 Apr 19, 2010 Jkt 053115 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 P:\DOCS\53115.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
18 

ther you nor Mayor Fenty responded. And, Mr. Reinoso, I would 

like you to let the Mayor know I want an answer to my letter. 

Since I have not received a response, I was hoping, Chancellor, 

that you might share with me your thoughts on the D.C. Opportunity Program in terms of supporting the District’s efforts to ensure each student has access to a quality education, and I would 

be interested in knowing how you feel about the recommendation 

that only those that are in it are going to be able to participate and 

you are going to shut off any other people from participating. 

Ms. RHEE. So my belief about vouchers I think probably is very 

different from most Democrats—I am a Democrat—here is the bottom line. I do not believe that vouchers are the answer to the problems in public education today. The bottom line is that the amount 

of the vouchers do not allow children access to some of the highestquality private schools that are in existence, and just by virtue of 

having a voucher, it does not guarantee you admission into a 

school. And so with those dynamics in place, it is not the answer 

to the problem. 

That said, I do think that given the situation that our families 

face today, vouchers can be an important part to the choice dynamic that I think is healthier here in Washington, DC, than almost any other city in the country. We have a tri-sector approach 

where we have a robust charter community, we have the Opportunity Scholarships Program, and then we have the reforms going 

on DCPS. 

I answer e-mails from hundreds and hundreds of families every 

year who come to me and say— we do exactly what we would want 

them to do as families. So they do the research and they say, ‘‘My 

neighborhood school is not up to snuff. I applied to all of these 

schools out of boundary. I was not awarded a seat in any of those 

schools.’’ And so they come to me and say, ‘‘Now what am I supposed to do?’’ 

I think that is a valid question because the bottom line is we 

have some high-performing schools in the district, but those schools 

do not have a lot of seats for out-of-boundary kids. 

I believe that in those circumstances we ought to be able to provide those families with some choices so that they can move out, 

or not have to place those children in those failing schools, and I 

believe that the Opportunity Scholarships Program and the continuation of the tri-sector approach is one way that can happen. 

In the long term, I am not sure what that solution is going to 

be, but at least for where we are now and given how far we have 

yet to go. I believe that the tri-sector approach continues to make 

sense. 

The Deputy Mayor, the Mayor, and I have consistently been 

vocal advocates of the fact that this tri-sector approach be maintained and continued into the future. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you. It is also troubling to me that 

because of contractual agreements, teachers who are not meeting 

basic expectations are being transferred to other schools instead of 

being removed from the school system. And I would be interested 

to know what is the rationale for transferring poor performers from 

one school to another. And how does the DCPS decide where those 

teachers are going to be placed? And the real question—and I think 

19 

it gets to the report that was done—is whether or not you have the 

kind of performance evaluations that should be linked to the school 

system’s goals. 

In other words, the problem is you are a good teacher, you are 

a bad teacher. How do you determine whether they are good or 

bad? And if you have objective standards and everybody kind of 

agrees that is the standard, you are much better off in terms of 

making a decision regarding that individual. But what bothers me 

is that now under the present system, if you think someone does 

not have it, you move them to someplace else. 

Ms. RHEE. That is right. 

Senator VOINOVICH. It seems to me that if they are not performing, there ought to be a provision that says we will help you, 

and if you are unable to be helped, you have to be terminated. 

Ms. RHEE. That is exactly right. You started your question by 

asking what sense does that make, and it doesn’t make any sense. 

And that is why we are working so diligently to change the teachers union contracts and the provisions within that, because the reality is that—and I will give you a concrete example. We were looking to reconstitute two of our lowest-performing high schools this 

year. ‘‘Reconstitution’’ means that all of the teachers have to reapply for their jobs, and then the new Administration can choose 

the teachers that they want, and the other ones are dispersed. 

This creates a situation, though, that is incredibly troublesome 

on many fronts because say there are about 100 teachers at each 

of these high schools, that means that there are potentially upwards of 200 teachers who, by the current teachers union contract 

that we have, we owe them a job. We have to place them before 

we can hire new teachers into the system. 

And so we leave the other 10 large comprehensive high schools 

in a situation where essentially any new teachers that they are 

going to hire, they are going to have to choose—these 200 displaced 

teachers are eventually going to get forced onto these 10 schools, 

some of them who are just hanging on by their fingernails, they are 

just one level above where these two lowest-performing ones are. 

And by having an influx of 15, 20 new teachers that they do not 

have any say over—these people are forced into their schools—can 

be incredibly detrimental to the school culture and to any progress 

that the school is making. 

We do not think that this is a system that is thinking about the 

best interests of student achievement at its core. We believe that 

it is a system that is detrimental to the culture of accountability 

that we are trying to establish. And that is why we are working 

so vigorously to try to change these provisions to ensure that a 

school has a right to choose the teachers actively and on the other 

side that teachers have a say in where they are going, and that we 

are not creating a system where poor performers are being shuffled 

throughout the system. 

Senator VOINOVICH. And you need the union to agree to that? 

Ms. RHEE. Yes. 

Senator VOINOVICH. What is the prospect of that happening? 

Ms. RHEE. Well, we are working on it. It varies by the day sometimes. We have made some very good progress over the last 2 

months. We have asked the Dean of the Howard Law School, Kurt 

20 

Schmoke, to serve as a mediator between the union and the District as it comes to those negotiations. His involvement has been 

absolutely critical. It has really taken us an incredibly long distance from where we were before he was involved. And he remains 

very hopeful that we will be able to come to resolution. 

I do not know at the end of the day whether that will occur, but 

we are hopeful, and both the union and the District have articulated on many occasions that our ideal on both sides would be that 

we would try to come to resolution on a new contract before the beginning of the next school year. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Mr. Chairman, if you do not mind, I would 

just like to say that when I was governor, in the area in Ohio 

where you lived, in Toledo, we were able to work an agreement 

that basically said that a teacher could ask for help, other teachers 

could ask for help for them, or the principal could ask for help. We 

provided additional money for master teachers, and I think that is 

what you are—in your testimony, you are trying to do that. And 

then they would be given an opportunity to shape up, and after 

that, if they did not, then they were gone. But that was the way 

we compromised it. Unfortunately, that program is no longer in existence. But it is the kind of thing you are trying to work something out with the teachers to try and make sure that the people 

that really are not—I mean, the teachers, I think most of them, are 

just as interested in having good teachers. If they have a bad 

teacher, they know it, and they should be able to say, ‘‘Hey, you 

need some help.’’ And a lot of teachers maybe know they are not 

that good. They ought to be able to come in and say, ‘‘I need help,’’ 

or the principal should be able to do that. And I think if they have 

been given an opportunity to go through that process, that is fair, 

and then if they cannot make it, then usually what happens is you 

get terminated. 

Ms. RHEE. That is right. As you noted, in my hometown of Toledo, Ohio, that is one of the districts that really piloted and sort 

of pioneered the Peer Assistance and Review Program. 

In our new evaluation model that we will be implementing this 

school year, we have taken a lot of the best components of that by 

having a peer master educator be a significant part of the evaluation and observation process for teachers, and that component has 

been extremely well received amongst our teaching force. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you, Senator Voinovich. Senator Burris. 

Senator BURRIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Will there be a second round on this? 

Senator AKAKA. Yes, there will be. 

Senator BURRIS. Because I have so many questions, and I want 

to deal with structure in this round and then education in the next 

round. I am looking at an organizational chart in reference to, 

Madam Chancellor, who you report to, and the Chancellor is reporting to the Mayor, and the Deputy Mayor for Education is reporting to the Mayor. Is that correct? 

Ms. RHEE. Yes. 

Senator BURRIS. And then there is a component called the State 

Board of Education. I would assume that in the legislation they 

created a State Board so that you all could be comparable to a 

State, so that you can get State funds or something? I am trying 

21 

to see this entity. How many students are in the D.C. Public School 

system? Two hundred thousand? What is the number? 

Ms. RHEE. There are about 47,000 students in the D.C. Public 

Schools in the traditional public schools. And then there are an additional between 27,000 and 30,000 in the charter schools. 

Mr. REINOSO. So a total of about 77,000 public school students 

in the city attending either DCPS or charter schools. 

Senator BURRIS. You have charter schools. 

Ms. RHEE. Yes. 

Senator BURRIS. And you have this structure with a State Board 

of Education which reports—on my chart I am looking at, the State 

Superintendent has some contact with the Chancellor. And then, 

otherwise, the State Superintendent of Education comes under the 

Deputy Mayor. It looks like to me you do report somewhat to the 

State Board of Education. And, by the way, I do not see D.C. being 

a State. I cannot understand this because to me we have 50 States. 

I did not know we had 51, Mr. Chairman, but now I see we view 

the District of Columbia as a State when it wants to be, as a city 

when it wants to be, as a county when it needs to be, and it has 

all these jurisdictions that are very confusing, this bureaucracy to 

deal with 47,000 students in your public school system. 

And so what is your background, Deputy Mayor? Are you an educator? 

Mr. REINOSO. I was a former member of the school board. 

Senator BURRIS. You were a member of the school board. The 

local school board, which no longer exists. 

Mr. REINOSO. Correct. 

Senator BURRIS. Now there is a State Board, which I thought the 

Superintendent reports to the State Board. 

Mr. REINOSO. If I may, I will try to provide some context, which 

hopefully will clear up some of the confusion. One of the reasons 

that the District was placed on high-risk status by the U.S. Department of Education, had to do with commingling of State and local 

education responsibilities, which, by Federal law, are to be separate. And so the State structure that exists in the District, while 

it is true we aspire to that status, it addresses a necessary component of Federal legislation requiring that Federal dollars flow 

through and be monitored and be granted out by the State Department of Education, and that those decisions be separated from any 

local school district so as to avoid conflicts of interest in reporting 

and/or in the doling out of those Federal grant dollars. 

And so that is a key reason why you see a separate State structure. It also is why the reporting structure is different so that the 

oversight on a day-to-day basis of the State responsibilities is separate from DCPS. And so that is why the Chancellor reports directly 

through the Mayor and why the State office reports through me, 

to create some distance between the reporting structure and not to 

have the same person overseeing the two entities on a day-to-day 

basis. 

The State Superintendent is appointed by the Mayor, serves for 

a term position, does not report to the State Board, but works—— 

Senator BURRIS. The State Superintendent does not report to the 

State Board. The State Superintendent reports to the Mayor. 

Mr. REINOSO. Yes. 

22 

Senator BURRIS. And the Deputy Mayor—— 

Mr. REINOSO. To the Deputy Mayor, rather. To me. 

Senator BURRIS. And who do you report to? 

Mr. REINOSO. I report to the Mayor. I mean, ultimately there is 

only so many places a reporting structure can end up. 

Senator BURRIS. I know the system was designed before I got 

here, but I am just trying to get an understanding, because given 

my knowledge of this process and procedures, I just see an administrative boondoggle here. I want to know where you all are going 

to be 2 or 3 or 4 years from now trying to be a State. I understand 

what you are trying to do, because most States have a State Board 

of Education where there is a State Superintendent of Education. 

I assume that is what the structure was seeking to do. 

Mr. REINOSO. Yes, and—— 

Senator BURRIS. That is done by the Governor. 

Mr. REINOSO. Right. 

Senator BURRIS. And then you get into your local school district 

or your municipalities, and you take the big district like Chicago, 

for example, when our legislature then gave the responsibility to 

the Mayor of Chicago, that was done out of political motivations. 

And based on that, the Mayor now hires a CEO, and we have 

400,000 students in the Chicago Public School District—400,000, 

and its bureaucracy is not as cumbersome as this here. 

So I am just hoping that you all can get through as to who has 

what responsibility in this regard. 

Mr. REINOSO. I appreciate that, given the small number of students and the small geographic footprint of the city, that it seems 

like a number of entities. But if you layer in the Illinois State into 

that, you would find a similar structure. 

Senator BURRIS. A similar structure for 2 million students not for 

40,000. 

Mr. REINOSO. I appreciate that, and, again, we are very much focused on meeting the Federal requirements for the separation of 

the State and of the LEA. I am sure that the Chairman of the Subcommittee, from his own experience—Hawaii is another place 

where there are some similarities in terms of the local and State 

functions having been in one place. And the struggle of separating 

those out has been for us a challenge, but we have made a tremendous amount of progress, and keeping that separation. And so as 

a result, keeping the kind of structure that at the typical city level 

seems redundant is a necessity, in fact, mandated by the Federal 

laws on the separation of—— 

Senator BURRIS. I understand it is mandated by statute, but I 

am also going to empathize or sympathize with you all that have 

to try to work under this bureaucracy. I mean, I am not criticizing. 

Mr. REINOSO. I understand. 

Senator BURRIS. As a newcomer to this, I am just assessing it 

and pointing it out, and I want to be on record as saying I hope 

that you all can survive through this on such a smaller scale, but 

to try to make yourself comparable to one of the 50 States is what 

is creating the problem. And then the limited number of students— 

we want this to get down to the classroom. I am looking at all this 

bureaucracy that is going to be here, and where we want to be getting is in those classrooms with those students, with educational, 

23 

tools and guidelines so that those kids will not end up in prison, 

jail, or as liabilities to society. 

And so I just hope that this structure—I do not know. I have 

some questions for GAO as they assess this. I hope that GAO stays 

on top of especially the bureaucracy and the interaction between 

the Chancellor, the Mayor, Deputy Mayor, all in one little kit and 

caboodle. You are trying to put all of that structure into—we will 

just say 70,000 students, which to me is—— 

My time is up, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you, Senator Burris. We will have a second round. 

Senator BURRIS. Thank you. 

Senator AKAKA. Senator Ensign. 

Senator ENSIGN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

If we change Federal law, to follow up on this question, could you 

do without the bureaucracy that you are talking about? 

Ms. RHEE. I think part of the issue that exists is because close 

to a third of the school-aged children in this city are enrolled in 

charter schools, there has to be an entity outside of DCPS that can 

oversee the Federal dollars that flow to all of the LEAs. So even 

though there is only one official school district, there are more than 

50 LEAs because so many of these individual charter schools are 

their own LEAs. 

Senator ENSIGN. Just to simplify it, though, is there a change in 

Federal law that needs to be had so you could streamline the bureaucracy? Could you do with less bureaucracy if we changed the 

Federal rules? 

Ms. RHEE. We could always deal with less bureaucracy. Less bureaucracy is a good thing. But I do think that there has to be an 

entity that oversees both the District’s and the other 50 LEAs. 

Senator ENSIGN. There may be some way we can work together 

or something. If there is a change in Federal law that needs to happen for you to be able to do with less bureaucracy, we should work 

on trying to do that. 

I found it very interesting when you are talking about not being 

able to fire bad teachers. We have a wonderful place in Las Vegas 

called West Prep. It was called West Junior High School. One hundred percent of the students are low-income students; I think 98 

percent of them are minorities. It was considered the worst school 

in Las Vegas—actually, the worst school in the entire State of Nevada several years ago, and a real reform-minded educator took it 

over, hired a young principal, and the young principal said, ‘‘OK. 

I will take it over, but I want to be able to choose the teachers,’’ 

similar to what you just talked about. Out of the 65 teachers, he 

kept 13. 

You walk in there today, and, by the way, they have school uniforms. They extended the school day by an hour a day. He wants 

to take it, instead of it just being a junior high, he has expanded 

it out, eventually wants it to be a K–12 school because he does not 

want the kids ruined before they get to him or ruined after they 

leave him. 

I went into the chemistry class when I was out there, a young 

African American girl in a chemistry lab, and I said to her—she 

was there before the changes were made. And I said, ‘‘What is the 

24 

difference, the main difference between now and before?’’ And she 

said, ‘‘Oh, it is very simple. We actually get to learn now.’’ I mean, 

that is such a sad statement, but I think indicative of a lot of our 

failing schools today. 

The good news, after the changes that were made, is the energy 

in these teachers. You walk in this school, and you have just never 

seen energy—I do not care, private school, public school, wherever 

I have been. 

So 3 years ago, West Prep was given freedom to operate within 

the regular public school system. Three years ago, only 17 percent 

of the kids performed at grade level at math. Today, 97 percent of 

juniors are proficient in reading, 73 percent in math, and 64 percent in science. That is what can happen when people put kids 

first. You mentioned that in your statement, and that is really to 

me what it is all about. 

The D.C. Scholarship Program, I agree with you, I do not think 

that vouchers are a silver bullet and are going to solve all of our 

educational problems. I do believe that they are one of the answers, 

just like I believe charter schools are one of the answers, because 

I believe competition actually works to improve things. 

But, also, this idea of teacher tenure in elementary and high 

school is the most—excuse my language—asinine thing that I have 

just ever heard of. Tenure was put in for college professors so they 

would not be fired because of political beliefs. So after they were 

there, they had kind of earned their stripes, they could not be fired 

for political beliefs. That was the original reason for tenure, and 

now to do it in my home State, I do not know. How long is it before 

they basically get this contract? Is it 1 year or 2 years here? 

Ms. RHEE. Before they have tenure? It is 2 years. 

Senator ENSIGN. Two years. 

Ms. RHEE. Yes. 

Senator ENSIGN. First of all, at colleges, it is a lot longer than 

that. In my State it is 1 year. And it is just ridiculous that we talk 

to any high school kid today or their parent and ask them, ‘‘Did 

you have any bad teachers along the way?’’ Well, it does not take 

that many bad teachers to ruin a kid’s education, and we really 

have to put people on the line, and parents have to get involved 

and take our schools back for our kids. That really is—because education is the future for our kids. If we want our kids competing in 

the 21st Century—and they are not today competing the way that 

they should, especially in the areas of science and math, they are 

not competing in the 21st Century. 

I think that you all have some great ideas, and I followed some 

of the things that you all are doing, and I want to applaud you for 

it and just continue to encourage you to get out there and speak, 

and get parents involved, and take our schools back away from the 

special interests and put them back where they belong, and that 

is, for the kids. 

I am going to continue to fight up here with Senator Lieberman, 

Senator Voinovich, and others that believe in, at least, the Opportunity Scholarship Program and giving you more flexibility, and if 

there are other things that can free you from some of the bureaucratic rules that it would allow you more freedom to change the 

schools and put the kids first, please come to us and please tell us, 

25 

because we want to work with you because it really is just about 

the kids and their future. And that is all we want to do. 

I really did not have a question because you answered actually— 

from some of these other people, you already answered some of my 

questions, but I want to get some of those statements on the 

record. So I thank all of you for what you are doing, and let us continue to work to put the kids first. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Ensign. 

Chancellor Rhee, do you have a further response to Senator Ensign? 

Ms. RHEE. Well, just that your sentiments are exactly what we 

are trying to push for in the city, and one of the, I think, belief 

structures that exist right now, not just in D.C. Public Schools, but 

in public school systems across the country, is this belief that once 

you have tenure, you have a job for life. And in order to terminate 

a teacher, you have to show that person has done some incredible 

malfeasance. And that is because jobs are considered a right. I 

think we have to change that paradigm so that we begin to think 

not just do no harm, but that you actually have to show positive 

progress with your kids to have the privilege of being able to teach 

them. So we have to move the mind-set to it is a privilege to teach 

kids, away from you have a right to a job. And that is going to be 

a long road and it is going to be a hard-fought road to try to change 

and see that mind-set shift. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much. 

My question is to Deputy Mayor Reinoso. I believe that a strategic plan is a necessary map to guide D.C. educational reforms. I 

understand that one of the office’s functions is to align the strategic 

plans of other D.C. agencies with D.C. education reform goals. 

However, GAO indicated you could not produce a written strategic 

plan documenting your role in achieving this alignment. 

Do you believe that such documentation is important? Do you 

plan to produce a written plan? 

Mr. REINOSO. Thank you for the question, Senator. As I mentioned in my statement, our emphasis has been on accountability 

for results and less on collecting plans, which is something that the 

city was quite successful in doing for many decades, a series of reform plans but no implementation and follow-through in that effort. And so our focus has been to ensure that those on the ground 

doing the heavy lifting, the DCPS and the State Superintendent 

Office, as well as the Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization, that they all develop detailed plans, engage the community in those plans, and then be held accountable for achieving the 

outcomes that they have laid out as their aspirations in those 

plans. And in that process, we have sat ensuring that all of those 

plans are consistent. 

I will say that while I have certainly heard the repeated concerns 

of folks who are looking for a simple, singular document that lays 

out guideposts that can help someone quickly take a look at the big 

picture without having to delve down into the details of the individual plans, and we will be, over this next year, working to put 

together some kind of a document that summarizes at a high level 

the direction that we are driving towards as a city and including 

26 

in that some of the interagency work that we have been engaged 

in in support of the schools. 

I want, though, to continue to caution folks from overemphasizing the importance of those plans. I myself come from the private sector. I have a MBA and have helped launch a number of organizations, businesses, and nonprofits, as well as help turn 

around underperforming businesses. And what is most important is 

really the execution plans and not these high-level strategic plans. 

And, in fact, there is research that suggests that companies that 

spend too much time refining high-level strategic plans at the expense of measuring and holding managers accountable for actual 

implementation perform less well than entrepreneurial businesses 

that may not have these slick, glossy strategic plans. 

And so we are trying to bring and maintain that focus on the implementation, but I have heard the repeated requests for some kind 

of document that can serve as a guidepost, and we will be working 

on such a document over the coming year. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Ms. Briggs, I understand that you 

need good data to evaluate the effect of initiatives. Thus, the Statewide Longitudinal Education Data system is important to the District’s goals of accountability, transparency, and data-driven decisionmaking. I also understand that the development of the SLED 

system is behind schedule. 

Why is this key project delayed and when is it expected to be 

completed? 

Ms. BRIGGS. Thank you for that question, Chairman. It is actually an important tool, for it is the repository for student achievement data that spans not only DCPS but the 90-something charter 

schools we have in the city as well. And so it is a good source of 

information as our students do not land in DCPS and maybe stay 

their entire career, they shift back and forth or start in a charter 

and end up in DCPS and move around. So this will be a really informative tool for us to make sure that we know how well students 

are progressing throughout the city. 

You are right, it is behind schedule. Some of the original scheduling plans I would say were overly aggressive, and so we are kind 

of looking at the plans that were put in place and trying to reformulate those to make sure the next plan that comes out for it, we 

can hit those targets, execute well. 

That said, we have done—some aspects of the SLED System are 

already up and running, and that would be kind of the foundation 

piece of it, which is the Uniform Student Identifier. So being able 

to say which student is which student is a really key piece of that, 

and that part has been launched, and we are working through 

making sure that data are good and clean and accurate. 

So I cannot give you a date yet, but we are working on it. 

Senator AKAKA. Mr. Reinoso, I understand that your office uses 

pilot programs to test solutions to problems affecting education results. How are you documenting successes and challenges with 

these pilot programs? And what accountability measures have you 

established? 

Mr. REINOSO. So with regard to the pilot programs, we have contracted for an independent evaluator that is doing annual reviews 

of the implementation of those programs, and so that is how we 

27 

have this independent external evaluation that is happening. The 

first evaluation, which only captured a partial year, was positive in 

its assessment of our progress, but we will continue to look to that 

external evaluation for an independent assessment of the impact of 

these programs. 

In addition, of course, we will do our own calculations in terms 

of what impact or effect we can measure resulting from these programs as we work with agencies to determine whether or not to 

continue these as pilots. 

In any kind of investment like this, some projects succeed and 

others fail. We want to be hard-nosed about admitting which 

projects have failed and pull funding from those projects. We do not 

expect to find success in every investment we make, but we do 

think that on the whole it will allow us to gain momentum in some 

areas that otherwise we would be unable to gain. And so that is 

that piece. 

Within the greater context of my office, I should say first that I 

have a very small office in terms of total staff, and then within my 

office directly each analyst focuses on a cluster of issues, and they 

prepare through the ePerformance plan, which Ms. Briggs alluded 

to in her testimony, annual targets, and those targets then roll up 

to our targets as an office on the whole. 

Each year we review those targets as part of the budget-making 

process and remove metrics that may no longer be relevant, replace 

them with other metrics as we make progress against certain 

issues so that we are constantly refreshing those metrics for the office and ensuring that in turn the individual staff’s performance 

plans are aligned with those new metrics. And so that is part of 

the new fiscal year, so this coming fiscal year we will have a new 

set of metrics as well as refreshed individual staff level performance plans that align with those metrics. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much. Senator Voinovich. 

Senator VOINOVICH. The District’s dropout rate is less than 50 

percent, and it is a tragedy in the country that 50 percent of the 

kids in the urban districts are dropping out of school. 

We have talked about teachers and what you are trying to do 

there, if I heard your testimony right. How many principals have 

you changed since 2007? 

Ms. RHEE. In the last school year, we changed about 49 of the 

principals in the District. This year, though we do not have a final 

count, it will probably be somewhere between 22 and 28. 

Senator VOINOVICH. How many schools do you have? 

Ms. RHEE. We have 123 schools. 

Senator VOINOVICH. So you have really done some changing. I 

know when we talked several years ago about how to help the District, and the private sector. Have you increased the pay for the 

principals so that you could attract better people? Or how has that 

worked? 

Ms. RHEE. We are currently negotiating a new contract with the 

principals union, and what we are hoping at this point we can include is, obviously, a significant salary bump, but also a significant 

pay-for-performance structure as well. 

Senator VOINOVICH. So you have more flexibility with the principals union than you do with the other union? 

28 

Ms. RHEE. We will come to a resolution on the contract with the 

principals union in a much—— 

Senator VOINOVICH. But you have been able to move people 

around, which is—— 

Ms. RHEE. Yes. 

Senator VOINOVICH. But you have had to move them from other 

places. In other words, you moved them to some other school. 

Ms. RHEE. No. 

Senator VOINOVICH. What happened to them? Did they go back 

in the classroom or something? 

Ms. RHEE. The principals are on a different contract, and if we 

find a principal is not meeting expectations, then we can remove 

them from the District. Some of our principals, have retreat rights 

and that sort of thing. But we have been successful, I think, in ensuring that for those principals who are not meeting expectations, 

they are not being moved to other schools in that position. 

Senator VOINOVICH. What happens to them? 

Ms. RHEE. I think it depends. The vast majority of them have left 

the school district. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Next, parents. I know that the College Access Program (CAP) program has got counselors in the schools. Tell 

us a little bit about CAP and the Gates Foundation and how they 

are helping in terms of this dropout rate, because the real issue 

here is the intervention early enough to identify where the kid is 

and spend time with the parent or whoever is taking care of it. Can 

you tell us a little bit about what are you doing with these private 

sector dollars to help deal with the dropout rate? Or are those dollars spent on something else? 

Ms. RHEE. Sure. So I will give you a little context on this, but 

I do want to sort of point out the fact that this initiative was well 

underway by the time I got here, so it is something that the community had for a long time seen as a significant need. 

One of the statistics that was driving that reform effort was the 

fact that they found that of the ninth graders who begin high 

school in D.C. public schools, only 9 percent of them graduate from 

college within 5 years. And I think that across the city, overall, 

there was just this huge outcry, saying, ‘‘What is happening to our 

kids? Why aren’t more of them heading towards college? What are 

the barriers? And then how do we collectively as a city commit to 

significantly changing that circumstance?’’ 

To that end, a number of things happened. The D.C. TAG program is certainly one that provides more affordable college tuition 

to D.C. residents. There are several scholarship programs. 

Senator VOINOVICH. The D.C. CAP is $2,500 for eligible kids? Is 

that it, over and above TAG? 

Ms. RHEE. So there are several different programs. There is the 

D.C. CAP program. There are also other scholarship programs that 

provide up to $2,500 per year for a student’s tuition. So there are 

actually multiple opportunities for D.C. public school kids to be 

able to access additional dollars. That was one piece of it, and the 

Gates Foundation was a big supporter of making sure that those 

scholarship dollars were there so that finances were not the prohibiting factor for our kids going to school. 

Another component—— 

29 

Senator VOINOVICH. They have allocated, what, $125 million over 

10 years? 

Ms. RHEE. Over $100 million, correct. 

The other component of the program, though, that they saw was 

necessary was not just to provide scholarships once students were 

able to gain entrance into college, but good college counseling so 

that children understood beginning from their freshman year what 

were the necessary steps that would have to be taken in order to 

gain entry into a 4-year college. So part of the D.C. CAP program 

actually puts college counselors in every single one of our high 

schools who work individually with children and families to make 

sure that all the proper tests are taken, that the applications are 

filled out, that the financial aid forms are submitted, and then people get training in that over the course of their 4-year career in our 

high schools. 

Senator VOINOVICH. And that has had a real effect? In other 

words, the parents have been brought in and they talk about it, 

and so that the youngster has an opportunity to know that if they 

do well in school and stay in school that they can go on to college 

if they work hard. 

Ms. RHEE. Absolutely. I think if you go out to any of our high 

schools and talk to the students, they will all tell you that they 

know exactly who the D.C. CAP counselor is, that those people are 

incredibly proactive in terms of, getting them out of the hallway, 

bringing them into their offices, and making sure that they are 

very much staying on top of everything that they need to do to be 

able to put themselves in a position where they could apply to and 

be accepted into a 4-year college. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I think many recall the Washington Post investigative report on the infrastructure of the District schools. 

What plans are in place to make the improvements? And how is 

the $148 million in stimulus money going to be utilized as part of 

this whole program? And, by the way, does the $148 million go to 

the Superintendent and then you divvy it up? Why don’t you tell 

me about that. 

Ms. RHEE. So you mentioned earlier the initiative that Ohio took 

on. I was living in Toledo at the time, and I can attest to the fact 

that when the State made that commitment, it really set a precedent across, citizens everywhere saying, OK, we know now that we 

are prioritizing education in a different way by the State taking the 

lead on this. And I think that the Mayor has worked with the council to ensure that the same kind of initiative is being taken through 

our Master Facility Plan. 

We inherited a Master Facility Plan that had the modernization 

and renovations of all of the District schools spread out over an extraordinarily long period of time, and so there were some schools 

that were not going to be able to be modernized until, 14, 15, 16 

years out. 

What the Mayor did, I think very smartly, in creating the new 

governance legislation was to create the Office of Public Education 

Facility Management and to hire somebody who is a facilities guy 

to lead that department. It has been absolutely astonishing. I think 

if you ask any resident of D.C. to quantify it, qualitatively tell you 

the difference in the momentum that has been seen over the last 

30 

2 years in overhauling the infrastructure and the facilities in the 

District, it has been significant. 

What Alan Lew has done is to collapse the plan into a 5-year 

plan because what we do not want to do is have families waiting 

forever to see their schools modernized. So over a 5-year period, we 

will ensure that every school in the District is modernized and renovated to meet our quality standards, and that modernization and 

renovation will start with what we call Phase I modernization, 

which is making sure that the classroom in every single school, 

which is where the children spend the vast majority of their time, 

are brought up to code, where we do not have to worry about air 

conditioning and heating issues and that sort of thing. And he has 

made a tremendous amount of progress. I will let the State Superintendent talk a little bit about the stimulus funds. 

Ms. BRIGGS. So the three main pieces—there are a number of 

programs that come through the stimulus, but the three big ones 

are—there is the Title I formula and then the Individuals With 

Disabilities Act (IDEA) Part B for special education. Both of those 

are formula grants that we have received at the State agency and 

have distributed the preliminary allocations to not only DCPS but 

our other 57 charter school districts. And so they have the initial 

sort of numbers that they will get for that. 

And then with the State fiscal fund, we are the fiscal agent for 

this program, which is essentially under the governor. Our Mayor 

gets to distribute. Most of those funds are going to also be going 

to schools through the elementary—variously through the student 

funding formula or through the Title I formula. 

The Office of the State Superintendent is going to be having a 

summit essentially later in the summer 

Senator VOINOVICH. Let me just ask you this because I am running out of time, and I will try to make it quicker. The $148 million, that is money for shovel-ready improvements in the classroom 

and you are folding it in on top of this master plan that Mr. Lew 

is doing? How is that working? 

Ms. BRIGGS. These funds are actually not for capital improvements. They are going to be—I think most districts will probably 

choose to use them for instructional and capacity-building efforts. 

That said, they do have that option—the charter schools do, anyway, and I do not think DCPS is going to be using—— 

Senator VOINOVICH. OK. So the 140 is not for infrastructure. It 

is for other programs that the district will decide on what they 

want to do with it. 

Ms. BRIGGS. Yes, and some of them could choose to use them 

that way, but I do not think we know that yet. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Senator Akaka, thank you. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Voinovich. Senator Burris. 

Senator BURRIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Rhee, do you 

have a contract or do you serve at the Mayor’s pleasure? 

Ms. RHEE. I serve at the pleasure of the Mayor. 

Senator BURRIS. OK. So you do not have a contract. 

Ms. RHEE. Well, I do have a contract, but in the contract it says 

that I serve at the pleasure of the Mayor. 

31 

Senator BURRIS. OK. That is interesting. And who has the responsibility of certifying teachers in the District? 

Ms. RHEE. Teacher certification happens through the Office of 

the State Superintendent of Education. 

Senator BURRIS. That is you, Ms. Briggs? 

Ms. BRIGGS. Yes. But that effort only applies to the DCPS teachers. Charter school teachers do not have to have the certification 

in the same way that the DCPS teachers do. 

Senator BURRIS. Charter teachers are not certified—who certified 

charter teachers? 

Ms. BRIGGS. They are not required to be certified in the same 

way that—— 

Senator BURRIS. Same way? How are they certified? 

Ms. BRIGGS. They do not have to have a State certification. 

Senator BURRIS. Well, thank you. That was easy to say. They do 

not have a State—can you say that? They are not certified. 

Ms. BRIGGS. I am sure some of them are, but they are not required to be certified. 

Senator BURRIS. They are not required to be certified. OK. Now, 

who does a principal of a school report to? 

Ms. RHEE. The principals of our schools report to the instructional superintendents. We have six instructional superintendents 

in the District. 

Senator BURRIS. And they report to you? 

Ms. RHEE. The instructional superintendents report to the Chief 

Academic Officer. 

Senator BURRIS. And who has to sign off on the firing of a teacher? 

Ms. RHEE. When a teacher is terminated, there are multiple parties that are involved: The principal, the instructional superintendent, and also central office human resources (HR) staff. 

Senator BURRIS. So the instructional superintendent is also responsible for the curriculum for the students? Who is responsible 

for the curriculum that goes into the classroom? 

Ms. RHEE. The Teaching and Learning Department is the department that oversees approving certain curricula standards, pacing 

guides, etc., to ensure that those are being executed at the school 

level. 

Senator BURRIS. And do you all have in your classrooms anything classified as a teacher’s aide or is it just a teacher in the 

classroom? 

Ms. RHEE. We do have paraprofessionals, yes. 

Senator BURRIS. Paraprofessionals. And what are their responsibilities? 

Ms. RHEE. It depends. A large number of our paraprofessionals 

are dedicated aides who are assigned to help our special education 

students. The other place where we have a large number of paraprofessionals is in our early grades, in our pre-K and K classrooms. 

Senator BURRIS. And you are in the process now of negotiating 

your union contract, I understand—— 

Ms. RHEE. With the teachers? 

Senator BURRIS. Yes, with the teachers. 

Ms. RHEE. Yes. 

32 

Senator BURRIS. That my former law school dean, Kurt Schmoke, 

is in the process of mediating this? 

Ms. RHEE. Yes, he is. 

Senator BURRIS. Well, you all have a great mediator. 

Ms. RHEE. Yes, we do. 

Senator BURRIS. I do not know how the problem is going to come 

out, but that is certainly a great dean of my law school. 

Now, under this new structure, D.C. Public School system has 

been placed under for 2 years now—right? You got it together. 

Ms. RHEE. Right. 

Senator BURRIS. How does the new structure enable the D.C. 

Public Schools to make improvements that have been done so far? 

What improvements can you say that you have been able to do in 

a very short process so far, improvements in your system? And how 

accurate was the GAO report in assessing the progress made by 

the schools so far? How accurate was that report? 

Ms. RHEE. So it is interesting. In your earlier round of questioning, you were saying there is so much bureaucracy, and though 

I completely understand that point of view, I would say that there 

is less bureaucracy now than there used to be. 

Senator BURRIS. There is less under this system—— 

Ms. RHEE. That is right. 

Senator BURRIS [continuing]. Than there was under the old system? 

Ms. RHEE. Yes. 

Senator BURRIS. OK, which means that is the reason why it was 

really a mess. 

Ms. RHEE. Well, we still certainly have our challenges and will 

continue to look at how we can streamline structure. We do believe 

that we are in a much better position now and that there is less 

bureaucracy now. And because I am able to report directly to the 

Mayor—and the Mayor meets with the education-related principals, so the three of us and Director Lew, who oversees the Public 

Education Facilities and Modernization Department, we are very 

much aligned in what we do. And so this structure allows us to 

move in a much more aggressive and agile way, I think, than the 

District was able to do—— 

Senator BURRIS. So how accurate was the GAO report? 

Ms. RHEE. In terms of the accuracy of the GAO report, I certainly 

think that on some measures they were absolutely correct in outlining some of the significant accomplishments we have made, and 

also identifying some of the things that we should continue to work 

on. 

We just today had access to the final report, so I have not been 

able to look at that. But in looking at some of the documents that 

I see, I do think that there are some inaccuracies in the report. 

And my understanding is that we will have the chance to respond 

to the report and that we will have our response go on record. And 

so I think it will be important for us to clarify some of those things. 

Senator BURRIS. And so what are some of the initiatives now 

that you are looking at that you would like to tell us in a very 

short period of time that you plan to try to implement to improve 

that situation? What are some of your initiatives that you have on 

the drawing board that you hope to initiate? 

33 

Ms. RHEE. Some of them we have talked about, such as the instructional coaches. I would say another—— 

Senator BURRIS. That is what I want to get back to. You mean 

instructional coaches for teachers. 

Ms. RHEE. Correct. We have instructional coaches, full-time instructional coaches in every single building whose responsibility it 

is to professionally develop the teachers in that building. 

Senator BURRIS. OK. That goes back to my question about the 

qualifications of teachers and who certifies teachers. So you are 

hiring teachers that once you hire them, they are going to have to 

be taught how to teach. Is that what you are saying? 

Ms. RHEE. No, but any professional, regardless of what career 

you are in, just because you are in that role does not mean you 

cannot grow your skills and your knowledge. Every professional 

wants to continue to improve as they are in their role, and that is 

the same expectation that we have of teachers. The minute they 

walk in the classroom, though you may be certified, you have a 

continuous cycle of improvement and professional development that 

you want to go through. And so we have instructional coaches at 

every school to ensure that particularly focused on new and struggling teachers, that we can continue to build their skills and knowledge base. 

Senator BURRIS. Mr. Chairman, I see my time is up. I do not 

know whether or not there is going to be a third round. Well, let 

me ask this last question. 

Now, if I brought all of today’s witnesses back to this table 2 

years from now, how would the assessment differ from what we are 

hearing today? 

Ms. RHEE. Well, I believe that 2 years from now we will be able 

to show even increased results that are building on the first 2 

years that we have seen. And I think the reform efforts and the 

initiatives will have gone deeper into the system. So over the first 

2 years, we would focus a lot on the systemic issues and the operational issues that we are stopping schools from getting the resources that they needed to be effective. And I think that what you 

will see over the next 2 years is that those reforms are much more 

at the classroom level with our new Teaching and Learning Framework, with the new teacher evaluation tool, with the new academic 

interventions that we are putting in place for struggling students. 

Senator BURRIS. I would hope that you would say you hope to see 

that the students have highly improved. 

Ms. RHEE. That is what I started with saying, that you would see 

significant—— 

Senator BURRIS. Well, I did not hear that. We want to see that 

the students come out of the public schools in the District of Columbia 2 years from now are highly improved based on the teachers that you have hired and this bureaucracy that has been created. Is that what you want to see 2 years from now? 

Ms. RHEE. Absolutely. 

Senator BURRIS. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Burris. 

I have a question for Ms. Ashby. Your report emphasized the importance of strategic plans and linking them to performance. As 

34 

you heard, I asked the Deputy Mayor about strategic planning. Do 

you agree with Mr. Reinoso’s response about strategic plans? 

Ms. ASHBY. Well, things have certainly come a long ways since 

I last testified before this Subcommittee in March 2008. Now there 

is what we will call a statewide plan—recognizing that the District 

of Columbia is not a State, but there is a districtwide strategic 

plan, and it does have various components, but you do have to 

work a bit to figure out just what it is. But it does exist. 

The point we made in the report with regard to alignment has 

to do with the fact that we were told that the DCPS and the State 

Superintendent’s plans are aligned, and we asked for documentation to support that, and that is the documentation we did not get. 

In your response, Mr. Reinoso, however, although you have a 

strategic plan, I am hearing some of the same rhetoric I did hear 

in March 2008 that downplays the importance of strategic planning, and the belief that if you have a plan, it just sits on the shelf, 

or if you have a plan, you are not doing other things, and that 

what we are doing is just talking about a plan for the sake of having a plan. And as I said in March 2008, that is not the case. A 

plan is a useful tool if used properly; if developed and used properly. 

For example, it is a tool for communicating with stakeholders, 

and we made that point in our current report, as we did almost 18 

months ago, that it is important to have stakeholders involved 

early in making key decisions and in developing key initiatives. 

One way of doing that is having the overall plan available so 

that people who are interested in knowing what is going to happen, 

know what is coming up. You need outreach to the community. But 

you also need to have structures in place that ensure you are going 

to incorporate stakeholders. Regardless of time constraints or whatever else, you have things in place, structures in place that make 

sure you do certain things. 

And I will bring this around to the comment—not directly answering your question, Mr. Chairman, but there have been a couple 

of references stating that there are inaccuracies or tone problems 

in our report. Within GAO, we have many structures that ensure 

that our reports are balanced, that they are objective, that they are 

based on data. I am proud to say that I stand behind this report 

and every report I have been involved in at GAO. 

In order to be balanced, there is going to be some negative along 

with the positive. We think that a lot of things have been accomplished. We think that there have been improvements in the D.C. 

public schools. We know there is a lot to be done, as has been recognized here. But there are also areas where there were some false 

steps. And I think if you look overall at our recommendations about 

stakeholders, strategic planning, you will see that they are linked. 

Some of the false steps came about because the constituents involved were not asked to provide input early on, and then later on 

down the road, things did not go well, and then their views might 

have been taken into consideration. 

So in terms of our work—and you know this, Mr. Chairman, that 

generally I do not need to defend our work, but since I have not 

said anything, I have not been asked anything today, and there 

35 

have been a couple of comments about our report, I thought I needed to say that. 

It is real important that stakeholders be involved, that there be 

strategic plans, there be a road map, and that the various tools be 

implemented. Thank you. 

Senator AKAKA. Well, thank you very much for that. I was also 

interested in knowing whether you had any recommendations 

about what DCPS can do to make it easier for all stakeholders to 

evaluate the District’s progress on education reform. 

Ms. ASHBY. Well, in terms of evaluating progress, it is going to 

take time. There have been improvements in standardized test 

scores, as has been discussed here. But it is difficult to link certainly any particular initiative or any group of initiatives to that 

improvement. That is not to say that some of those initiatives have 

not been somewhat responsible for some of the improvement. So 

that part is difficult. But you have to have transparency and openness. Those elements are part of accountability. You cannot be accountable if people do not know what you are doing or what you 

are supposed to be doing. So that is one way that the constituents 

in the District of Columbia can be more assured that things are 

going right and the best things are being done and progress is 

being made. 

Senator AKAKA. Well, thank you very much for your responses. 

I have a final question for our District witnesses on the panel. 

We are not far from the start of the 2009–2010 school year. We are 

looking forward to that, especially because so many things have 

happened in the past 2 years. Without question, you have made 

progress, but we know that there are so many other difficult issues 

that we need to deal with here. What are your top three priorities 

as we move forward in this whole effort? Chancellor Rhee, would 

you please begin? 

Ms. RHEE. Sure. The first priority that the District has is a successful rollout of the new Teaching and Learning Framework, as I 

mentioned before. This framework will be introduced this summer. 

The teachers will be trained on it ongoing through the course of 

this year, and we think it will have a substantial impact overall 

in terms of our student achievement levels. 

The second priority is the implementation, the effective implementation of our new teacher evaluation model. It is something 

that teachers have long been clamoring for the improvement of, 

and I think we have made some significant modifications that are 

going to improve that greatly. 

The third, I would say, is the focus on building our school portfolio so that we have programs and initiatives happening in our 

public school buildings, which are on par with things that are compelling in private and charter schools across the city. And we are 

doing that through increases in dual language immersion programs 

and arts integration programs and STEM programs, which is 

science, technology, engineering, and math. So we are excited about 

that, and a move more towards some of our higher-performing 

schools, having increased autonomy which would mirror the autonomy that some of our charter schools have. 

I also want to make a final statement. Some of the questions 

that I got today from Senators focused a lot on poor-performing 

36 

teachers, and I certainly wanted to address those questions, but I 

would be remiss if I did not talk about the thousands of teachers 

in the District who are doing heroic work for our children every 

day. And I think that it is important not to paint a picture where 

we do not believe that incredibly hard work is happening. Our 

teachers have worked unbelievably hard over the last 2 years. The 

gains that we have seen with students would not have been possible without their dedication and commitment. Many of them are 

working in circumstances that are incredibly challenging and difficult with a lack of resources for many of them. Lots of them serve 

as the only positive adult role model that some of our children see 

every day. And so I want to make sure that we recognize those 

teachers and the work that they do as well. 

Senator AKAKA. Mr. Reinoso. 

Mr. REINOSO. Thank you, Senator. Obviously, our overarching 

goal is continued improvement in student achievement. From 

where I sit, there are some key levers that we hope to make 

progress on in the coming year. We would like to see even better, 

tighter coordination between the agencies that support youth and 

families around education issues. 

One of the measures there will be the successful completion of 

some of our pilot programs and the assumption of those responsibilities moving forward through new home agencies. 

The State office reports through me, and the highest priority 

there is that we continue reform efforts so that we can be removed 

from our high-risk designation. 

Then the other education agency that reports through me is the 

facilities, and we hope to see that we stay on track and, where possible, exceed our expectations for modernizing classrooms so that 

we stay on pace and can provide the kind of quality learning environments that we need in order to educate our children and provide the best opportunities for our teachers to achieve all that they 

are capable of. 

Senator VOINOVICH [presiding]. Senator Akaka has to go to the 

floor, so I am going to ask a few more questions and give Senator 

Burris a chance to ask some, and then we will wrap it up. 

One of the things that many of the most up-to-date school systems are doing is the use of technology, and computers. What are 

you doing to make sure that the students are computer literate? 

And are you using technology to help a teacher educate children? 

I know when I was governor, we wired every classroom in the State 

for voice, video, and data, and realized that if the kids are not computer literate, they are gone. 

What are you doing in that regard and where do you stand? 

Ms. RHEE. One of the best examples of having the Deputy Mayor’s office coordinating amongst agencies has benefited the District 

of Columbia public schools. The Deputy Mayor’s office has ensured 

that what we call the Office of the Chief Technology Officer 

(OCTO), of the city, has taken a significant role in ensuring that 

we are technologically up-to-date in our schools. We have actually 

outsourced our technology, in essence, to OCTO, and they have 

done everything from ensuring that schools are wired, that we are 

ordering the appropriate materials so that we have computers in 

every classroom. We had a significant rollout of computers last 

37 

year to ensure that every teacher had access to a computer, and 

now we are actually doing that for computer labs in classrooms 

across the District. 

Senator VOINOVICH. What are you doing for the teachers? 

Ms. RHEE. There are a few things that we are doing for teachers. 

First of all, we are trying to enable them to make their jobs easier 

in some ways through technology, which means that some of the 

things that teachers used to have to do by hand in terms of attendance and grades and that sort of thing, we are putting those things 

online. 

We also have had a number of courses for teachers to ensure that 

they can become more technologically savvy and computer literate 

so that they can work to ensure that they are integrating technology within their teaching repertoire. 

We have a number of teachers right now who are piloting the use 

of smart boards in their classrooms, and that has been a pretty significant effort in a number of our schools. 

You asked about how we are doing, how we are using technology 

to increase student learning as well. One of the major efforts that 

we have taken on is ensuring that for our children, our high school 

children who were not on track to graduate, that we had aggressive 

credit recovery options for them, so that even if they have not received the credits that they need so far, that they can actually still 

graduate on time, and much of that is being done through online 

courses. 

Senator VOINOVICH. So you are on your way with that. 

Ms. RHEE. We are on our way. We are still not anywhere close 

to where we need to be. Because so many of our facilities are not 

up to par in terms of their electrical systems and that sort of thing, 

we are not able to bring the technological resources into every one 

of our schools that we would like. But as Director Lew moves 

through the Master Facility Plan over the next 5 years, the technology component is a significant part of that. 

Senator VOINOVICH. One of these days I would like to come out 

and visit a couple of your schools. I have not done that yet. 

Ms. RHEE. We would love to have you come out. 

Senator VOINOVICH. The issue of the cost per pupil education, 

$15,000, and there are always a lot of comments about it is the 

most expensive and ranked very low at the bottom, second from the 

bottom. Have you published a reason why your costs are so much 

higher than some other places? 

Ms. RHEE. Well, it certainly is true that if you look at our overall 

costs across the city in terms of public education and the number 

of students that we have, we rank up there in terms of per pupil 

expenditures. I think a number of things drive that. 

One of the reasons that is pretty widely known is the problems 

that we faced in special education. We spend more than $75 million 

a year on the transportation of a few thousand special education 

children in the system. We spend over $150 million a year on tuition to non-public placements for special education students because we cannot serve them well within the traditional public 

schools. 

So a lot of these are some of the factors that drive up our cost. 

38 

Senator VOINOVICH. In other words, these are special things that 

you have got costs, but relatively speaking, I would think that a 

lot of other districts, urban districts, would have the same problems. 

Ms. RHEE. Well, I would say that our problems are out of whack, 

and that is part of the issue. In most high-functioning districts, 

only 2 percent of the special education population actually go to 

non-public placements. For us, it is a much more significant number. We have more due process hearings in the District of Columbia 

than in all of the other States combined, so that gives you a 

sense—— 

Senator VOINOVICH. Why is that? 

Ms. RHEE. I will be honest in saying that historically it has been 

the complete and utter dysfunction of the District’s Special Education Department, and so we are in the midst of fixing that. I will 

say that over the past year we have made much more significant 

progress than the District has ever seen before. We inherited a 

backlog of several thousand overdue hearing officer decisions. We 

have brought that down almost to the single digits over the course 

of the past year, and we have many fewer complaints and hearing 

officer decisions being rendered over the last year than the District 

has seen in a long time. 

So we are heading in the right direction, but we still cannot say 

that we believe every dollar that is being spent in the District on 

public education is being utilized in the most efficient way. I think 

we have a plan for how we are going to make sure over time that 

happens. But we still have a number of places in which we can 

point very specifically to inefficiencies and to expenditures that are 

not serving the overall good of the kids. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I would suggest just for the record, because 

it constantly comes up, that you put something out and get it to 

the Members of Congress and say, this is what it is and here is 

why, it is where it is, and we are trying to work on some of these 

things, because the impression is that, it is just, well, that is the 

way it is, it is Washington. And I think that would be very helpful 

to you. 

The other thing is that it was reported that the charter schools— it was on my birthday. They missed a $103 million payment due 

to its 60 charter schools. That was in the Washington Post. Is that 

an indication that you have got problems with your financial management system? Or what caused that? 

Mr. REINOSO. The issue there was that because the budget was 

out—not balanced due to that we are in the middle of resubmitting 

a budget aligned with the latest revenue projections, the city was 

unable to draw down all of the funds immediately. And so a request went out initially in coordination with the Public Charter 

Board to do $57 million of the $100-plus million at once, and that 

money has gone out and allocated per the Charter Board’s decisions first to the weakest, those in the most precarious financial 

situation. 

We did submit a request to draw down the additional funds, and 

that will be out to the schools shortly. So all of the funding will 

be in place, again, a little bit behind schedule, but in time to avert 

any kind of crisis for their management. 

39 

Senator VOINOVICH. Well, I am sure that some of the people that 

were relying on the check maybe had a little crisis. But the bottom 

line is that you are saying to me that it is not the system, it was 

a question of the dollars were not there, and that is what delayed 

the—— 

Mr. REINOSO. It was a question of whether the city could move 

forward with an allocation without a balanced budget in place, and 

because we were caught in the middle of having submitted a budget that was balanced, but then having received from the Office of 

the Chief Financial Officer figures that suggested that the city’s 

budget was no longer in balance, and then given that situation, 

could the city or should the city do the payment all at once or in 

two tranches. And so we have now put everyone in place to move 

out the entire funding to the schools. 

Senator VOINOVICH. My concern was it is that, not a screw-up in 

the—— 

Mr. REINOSO. No. That is right. 

Senator VOINOVICH [continuing]. Financial system. 

Mr. REINOSO. No. 

Senator VOINOVICH. One of the areas that I am very concerned 

about—and, again, it gets back to my days when I was governor— 

is early childhood education, and I would be interested in knowing 

what is the District doing in that regard. And are you using any 

of your Title I money for early childhood education, or is it all 

going from K–12? 

Ms. BRIGGS. One of the initiatives that the city has undergoing 

that is actually pretty exciting is the pre-K effort, and it funds not 

only pre-K classrooms in DCPS but also in charter schools and in 

community-based organizations. Last year, I believe there were 

around 23, 24 classrooms that were supported in this way, and we 

are hoping to expand that in the next year moving forward. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Does the District provide—and I should 

know this, and I do not—full-day kindergarten? 

Mr. REINOSO. Yes. 

Ms. RHEE. Yes, we do. 

Senator VOINOVICH. And how about pre-school? What percentage 

of the kids have an opportunity for pre-school? 

Ms. BRIGGS. I do not know that number offhand, but we have 

done a capacity audit and also a quality assessment of our pre-K 

programs, I do not know. We can get that for you. 

Senator VOINOVICH. How about Head Start? Where are you in 

terms of your Head Start program? And is the District spending 

any money on Head Start, or is it all Federal money? 

Ms. BRIGGS. We spend mostly Federal money—it is not—— 

Mr. REINOSO. There is a local match. 

Ms. BRIGGS. There is a local match. Both Federal and local 

money on Head Start. 

Senator VOINOVICH. How many students do you have in the 

Head Start program? 

Ms. BRIGGS. I do not know that number off the top of my head. 

We can get it for you. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I would like to know what the percentage is. 

Ms. BRIGGS. Sure. 

40 

1The get-backs from Ms. Briggs appears in the Appendix on page 151. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I think one of the areas that we really are 

failing in—and the Title I money, are you using any of that Title 

I money for pre-school? 

Ms. BRIGGS. Schools can use their Title I money to support preK and early childhood efforts. 

Senator VOINOVICH. OK. I would like a report on what you are 

doing in terms of early childhood, where you stand in terms of your 

Head Start program. 

Ms. BRIGGS. Yes.1

[The information follows:] 

Senator VOINOVICH. As I say, Ms. Rhee, I tell some of the superintendents that by the time the kids get to Title I, it is too late for 

them. While I was Chairman of the National Governors Association, we had a big effort on early childhood education, and the word 

was getting out if the kids do not get that kind of support early 

in life. 

Ms. RHEE. It is. 

Senator VOINOVICH. And I would say to the superintendents, you 

can use Title I money for pre-school. They said, Well, I got to have 

the money from Title I because that is the way I help subsidize the 

other money that I have in the system, and that is what we are 

using it for. 

Ms. RHEE. We have significantly increased the number of pre-K 

seats that are available to families for this coming school year, and 

I will also add that we are using some of our IDEA additional dollars towards an early childhood assessment center that will be put 

in place to be able to identify children at 2 and 3 years old who 

have special needs so that we can begin services early and that 

they are not waiting until they come into kindergarten to get those, 

so that we can ensure that they are as ready for school as possible. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Well, that is going to be interesting because 

I know when the stimulus package came along, I did not vote for 

it, but I did feel that we did have a Federal responsibility in IDEA. 

We have increased it dramatically since I have been in the Senate, 

since 1999, but it is still inadequate. And I think it is real important now that we have increased it, they all get together with others and say, you got it up here, do not cut it back on us because 

I think that is something that is legitimate. It has been an unfunded mandate and something that you can argue and say that 

you definitely—it is a Federal responsibility and one that we 

should meet. 

Ms. RHEE. Absolutely. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I just want to thank you all for being here 

today, and on orders of the Chairman, the meeting is adjourned. 

Mr. REINOSO. Thank you. 

Senator VOINOVICH. And, by the way, the record will be open for 

a week so you may be getting additional questions from me, Senator Akaka, and maybe from some other Members of this Subcommittee. 

[Whereupon, at 4:55 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

(41) 

A P P E N D I X 


53115.001
42 


53115.002
43 


53115.003
44 


53115.004
45 


53115.005
46 


53115.006
47 


53115.007
48 


53115.008
49 


53115.009
50 


53115.010
51 


53115.011
52 


53115.012
53 


53115.013
54 


53115.014
55 


53115.015
56 


53115.016
57 


53115.017
58 


53115.018
59 


53115.019
60 


53115.020
61 


53115.021
62 


53115.022
63 


53115.023
64 


53115.024
65 


53115.025
66 


53115.026
67 


53115.027
68 


53115.028
69 


53115.029
70 


53115.030
71 


53115.031
72 


53115.032
73 


53115.033
74 


53115.034
75 


53115.035
76 


53115.036
77 


53115.037
78 


53115.038
79 


53115.039
80 


53115.040
81 


53115.041
82 


53115.042
83 


53115.043
84 


53115.044
85 


53115.045
86 


53115.046
87 


53115.047
88 


53115.048
89 


53115.049
90 


53115.050
91 


53115.051
92 


53115.052
93 


53115.053
94 


53115.054
95 


53115.055
96 


53115.056
97 


53115.057
98 


53115.058
99 


53115.059
100 


53115.060
101 


53115.061
102 


53115.062
103 


53115.063
104 


53115.064
105 


53115.065
106 


53115.066
107 


53115.067
108 


53115.068
109 


53115.069
110 


53115.070
111 


53115.071
112 


53115.072
113 


53115.073
114 


53115.074
115 


53115.075
116 


53115.076
117 


53115.077
118 


53115.078
119 


53115.079
120 


53115.080
121 


53115.081
122 


53115.082
123 


53115.083
124 


53115.084
125 


53115.085
126 


53115.086
127 


53115.087
128 


53115.088
129 


53115.089
130 


53115.090
131 


53115.091
132 


53115.092
133 


53115.093
134 


53115.094
135 


53115.095
136 


53115.096
137 


53115.097
138 


53115.098
139 


53115.099
140 


53115.100
141 


53115.101
142 


53115.102
143 


53115.103
144 


53115.104
145 


53115.105
146 


53115.106
147 


53115.107
148 


53115.108
149 


53115.109
150 


53115.110
151 


53115.111
152 

Æ 


53115.112