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21–591 PDF 2005

DECLARATION OF EDUCATION: TOWARD A CULTURE OF ACHIEVEMENT IN D.C. PUBLIC

SCHOOLS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MAY 20, 2005

Serial No. 109–30

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

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Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida

JON C. PORTER, Nevada

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

——— ———

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Staff Director

DAVID MARIN, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL BARNETT, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

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C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on May 20, 2005 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Bobb, Robert C., Deputy Mayor/city administrator, government of the

District of Columbia; Kathleen Patterson, chairperson, Committee on

Education, Libraries, and Recreation, Council of the District of Columbia; Clifford B. Janey, superintendent, District of Columbia public

schools; Charles Ramsey, chief of police, Metropolitan Police Department; and Brenda Donald Walker, director, Child and Family Services

Agency ............................................................................................................ 35

Bobb, Robert C. .......................................................................................... 35

Janey, Clifford B. ...................................................................................... 53

Patterson, Kathleen .................................................................................. 45

Ramsey, Charles H. ................................................................................... 67

Walker, Brenda Donald ............................................................................ 75

Kamras, Jason, national Teacher of the Year; Iris Toyer, chair, Parents

United for the District of Columbia Schools; and Carolyn Dallas, executive director, Youth Court ............................................................................ 100

Dallas, Carolyn .......................................................................................... 120

Kamras, Jason ........................................................................................... 100

Toyer, Iris ................................................................................................... 111

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Bobb, Robert C., Deputy Mayor/city administrator, government of the

District of Columbia, prepared statement of .............................................. 37

Boehner, Hon. John A., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Ohio, prepared statement of .................................................................... 7

Dallas, Carolyn, executive director, Youth Court, prepared statement of ... 122

Davis, Chairman Tom, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Virginia: .........................................................................................................

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 4

Prepared statement of Ms. Cafritz .......................................................... 23

Janey, Clifford B., superintendent, District of Columbia public schools,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 55

Kamras, Jason, national Teacher of the Year, prepared statement of ........ 104

Norton, Hon. Eleanor Holmes, a Representative in Congress from the

District of Columbia: .....................................................................................

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 20

Prepared statement of George Parker, president, Washington’s

Teachers Union ...................................................................................... 14

Patterson, Kathleen, chairperson, Committee on Education, Libraries,

and Recreation, Council of the District of Columbia, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 47

Ramsey, Charles, chief of police, Metropolitan Police Department, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 69

Toyer, Iris, chair, Parents United for the District of Columbia Schools,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 113

Walker, Brenda Donald, director, Child and Family Services Agency,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 77

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DECLARATION OF EDUCATION: TOWARD A

CULTURE OF ACHIEVEMENT IN D.C. PUBLIC

SCHOOLS

FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2005

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:27 a.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Tom Davis (chairman

of the committee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Davis of Virginia and Norton.

Staff present: David Marin, deputy staff director/communications

director; Rob White, press secretary; Drew Crockett, deputy director of communications; Victoria Proctor, senior professional staff

member; Shalley Kim, professional staff member; Teresa Austin,

chief clerk; Sarah D’Orsie, deputy clerk; Corinne Zaccagnini, chief

information officer; Rosalind Parker, minority council; Earley

Green, minority chief clerk; and Jean Gosa, minority assistant

clerk.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much. The committee will

come to order.

Welcome to today’s hearing on the District of Columbia’s public

school system.

At a time when so many things are going right in the Nation’s

Capital, DCPS continues to be plagued with management problems, declining enrollment, crumbling facilities, escalating violence

and substandard academic achievement.

We are here this morning to discuss how the renaissance occurring elsewhere in the District can be mirrored in its classrooms.

The fact is, the District’s improved health cannot be sustained

without a better public school system. The lack of performance improvement threatens future growth and stability. It leaves parents

and families with unenviable or unattainable choices: move out, try

to switch to charter schools with mixed records themselves, or win

the lottery for a scholarship to a private school through the D.C.

School Choice program, or succumb to the fact that their children

are going to have to succeed in spite of, rather than because of, the

educational climate around them.

The good news is, there is a new sheriff in town. The arrival of

Superintendent Clifford Janey offers an opportunity to begin anew.

Dr. Janey has recently unveiled an ambitious plan, a declaration

of education, aimed at raising academic achievement in every classroom, in every school. The committee did not invite him here today

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to lecture him or offer unsolicited pointers; we invited him to hear

more about his vision and ask him how we can help him succeed.

We all know what he is up against. According to the National Assessment of Education Progress, only 10 percent of fourth and

eighth graders are proficient in reading. Only 7 percent of fourth

graders and 6 percent of eighth graders. In 2003, the average D.C.

Scholastic Achievement Test score was 978, while the national average was 1026.

Seven of the 27 schools serving eighth graders offer no foreign

languages. Half of the schools have no vocational education teacher. One-third have no art teacher, and one-third have no music

teacher. Even John Phillip Sousa’s middle school has no band, and

no music courses.

DCPS also faces the challenges of instructing a high percentage

of disadvantaged students: 62 percent are eligible for free/reduced

lunch compared with the national average of 39.7 percent. Students

living in low-income families were six times more likely than their

peers in higher-income families to drop out of high school, according to a study completed by the National Center for Educational

Statistics. District officials have reported an alarming dropout rate

of 40 percent.

Almost half of all D.C. public schools have been classified as

being in need of improvement under requirements of the No Child

Left Behind Act. The classification is based on 2004 test scores in

math and reading. The number of schools identified as in need of

improvement increased from 15 in 2003 to 71 in 2004. Nearly 1,400

teachers are not properly credentialed. Some have not obtained a

license in the subject they are teaching or have expired licenses.

Another issue of concern is the high truancy rate. Last year,

DCPS reported that it had 20,845 chronic truants and a 23 percent

overall truancy rate. The District’s truancy rate far exceeds that of

Prince George’s County, 1.8 percent; Fairfax County, 0.6 percent;

and Montgomery County, 0.9 percent.

School principals have said that data largely reflects problems

with computer systems that keep track of students, poor recordkeeping and personnel problems. We hope to hear more about this

today from the various city agencies collaborating on this front.

And then there are the challenges of crime, dilapidated buildings

and ongoing labor negotiations.

Not all the news is bad. The number of D.C. high school graduates continuing on to college increased 28 percent between 1998

and 2003, due in large part to the D.C. TAG program, which levels

the playing field for D.C. high school graduates by allowing them

to attend State colleges and universities at in-state rates. But we

can do better.

For students to take full advantage of this program, all students

need to be prepared to attend a higher education institution. I grew

up in a single-parent home, believing from an early age that I was

going to graduate from high school and then go to college. That was

the standard set for me and my siblings and most of my friends,

but this is not the standard for too many students in DCPS. We

are letting these children down.

What Superintendent Janey’s arrival offers is a chance for stability, for perseverance, for optimism. We can all agree that DCPS is

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a broken system. Now we need to agree on a strategy to fix the

problem.

We have with us today many of the players who will determine

in large part whether this chapter succeeds or fails. I am eager to

learn more about how reform efforts are proceeding and how students, teachers, administrators, parents and elected officials can

support the plan. It is time to change the course.

[The prepared statement of Chairman Tom Davis follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Boehner, the chairman of the Education and the Workforce Committee, was planning to attend this

morning but was unable to make it, but his statement will be entered into the record.

[The prepared statement of Hon. John A. Boehner follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. I would now recognize the distinguished

ranking member, who shares our concerns, has worked I think diligently to improve the public schools in the District, Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I welcome today’s witnesses and say as well that

I appreciate that Chairman Davis was willing to postpone this

hearing until our new superintendent could get his bearings and

come to an understanding of how he wanted to proceed to meet the

many challenges facing the D.C. public schools, our children and

their families.

Superintendent Janey has been in office only since last August.

He released a strategic plan earlier this month after broad collaboration within the city. In March, Superintendent Janey announced

a standardized curriculum using the Massachusetts model, widely

regarded at least by many as the best in the Nation. New standards-based tests will be administered in spring 2006.

Because implementation of the recently announced strategic plan

and the standardized curriculum have not begun, we must regard

this hearing essentially as a status report, enabling Congress to

understand direction, approach and goals. It is also important that

today’s witnesses include not only school officials; we recognize that

many others in the city bear direct responsibility for the city’s children. I note, with regret, that there is no representative from the

Washington Teachers Union, which has recently been reorganized

out of receivership and held elections. My office and I should have

requested that a representative be added, particularly considering

the heavy responsibility teachers will bear for implementation of

the superintendent’s plan and the many issues transferred from

home and community to the classroom of urban schools today.

I ask unanimous consent that George Parker, the president of

the Washington’s Teachers Union, who I understand is a strong

supporter of the superintendent’s new curriculum, be allowed to

submit testimony for the record, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Parker follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Without objection.

Ms. NORTON. I regret that Chief Ramsey, Superintendent Janey

and other officials could find safety issues in our schools worsened

in a bill announced by two Texas senators and Virginia Senator

George Allen is enacted at this time. Superintendent Janey and

Chief Ramsey were prominent in our successful efforts to turn back

this same bill last year at a time when 16 children had been killed

by gunfire. We again need their help, the assistance of other public

officials, and the extraordinary work of the broadbased coalition of

citizens and businesses ranging from the Board of Trade to the parents of children killed by gunfire, whose exceptional efforts proved

critical last year.

The District alone must take responsibility for its schools and deserves to do so without interference from Congress and others who

cannot be held accountable. However, the District also bears State

costs not imposed on any other city school system.

The physical condition of many of the city’s schools have been a

source of special concern to residents in recent years. The District

now is moving to address these facilities with an understanding

that dilapidated schools have palpable effects on children, including

truancy and the denial of an environment conducive to learning.

However, perhaps the most intractable and troubling cost facing

the District is its total responsibility for special education without

the State assistance that other cities depend upon to meet this

growing need mandated by Congress. Members of Congress and

their Governors regularly complain that special education costs

have gotten so out of hand that States must have additional Federal help. It should be clear that the District’s unique responsibility

for special education has become increasingly untenable, with a

rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul effect on the overall school system. These are

two areas in which the Congress could be especially helpful to the

city.

I am a proud graduate of the public schools of this city. My late

mother was a D.C. public school teacher. My sister, who is president of Albany State University, is a graduate of Minor Teacher’s

College. I have known our schools from both sides. We cannot do

the job; they cannot do the job for our kids by themselves. These

are our children; we all have an obligation to define our role and

to do our part.

I thank today’s witnesses for their many efforts to improve the

lives of our children and of our city. Thank you very much, Mr.

Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Eleanor Holmes Norton follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much, Ms. Norton.

Now the Members will have 7 days to submit opening statements

for the record. We’re going to recognize our first panel. We have

Mr. Robert C. Bobb, who is the Deputy Mayor/City Administrator

for the government of the District of Columbia.

We have the Honorable Kathleen Patterson, a chairperson on the

Committee on Education, Libraries and Recreation from the D.C.

Council, who has worked tirelessly for better public education in

the city.

Kathy, welcome.

We have our new superintendent, Dr. Clifford Janey.

And we very much appreciate you being here, Mr. Janey.

Ms. Peggy Cooper Cafritz is ill this morning, but her statement

will be put into the record.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Cafritz follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. We have Charles Ramsey, the chief of police, and no stranger to this committee.

We appreciate your being here today, and we appreciate the job

you’re doing.

And Brenda Donald Walker, the director of Child and Family

Services Agency.

Thank you very much for being here.

It is our policy to swear everybody in before they testify, so if you

would just rise and raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Go ahead, Mr. Bobb. Thank you for being

with us.

STATEMENTS OF ROBERT C. BOBB, DEPUTY MAYOR/ CITY ADMINISTRATOR, GOVERNMENT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA; KATHLEEN PATTERSON, CHAIRPERSON, COMMITTEE

ON EDUCATION, LIBRARIES, AND RECREATION, COUNCIL OF

THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA; CLIFFORD B. JANEY, SUPERINTENDENT, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS;

CHARLES RAMSEY, CHIEF OF POLICE, METROPOLITAN POLICE DEPARTMENT; AND BRENDA DONALD WALKER, DIRECTOR, CHILD AND FAMILY SERVICES AGENCY

STATEMENT OF ROBERT C. BOBB

Mr. BOBB. Good morning, Chairman Davis, Ms. Norton, and

members of the Government Reform Committee. I am Robert C.

Bobb, city administrator for the District of Columbia, and I am

pleased to testify on behalf of Mayor Anthony A. Williams’ administration regarding our work with the District of Columbia public

schools and our support for public education.

I would like to thank you, Chairman Davis, on behalf of the

Mayor for the leadership, support and encouragement you have

provided our great city.

As you know, education is a major priority for the mayor and his

administration. In the District of Columbia, every child, regardless

of the school they attend, can and should have access to a highquality education in a healthy and safe environment.

City leaders are working collectively to ensure that the DCPS

students enter school ready to learn and leave with the skills necessary to be successful.

The Williams administration has two key objectives to overcome

the challenges facing DCPS. First, we provide the financial resources; and second, we provide the necessary non-academic supports to successfully implement Superintendent Dr. Clifford Janey’s

strategic plan. Importantly, this plan reflects the education goals

of the council, school board and citizens of the District of Columbia.

The fiscal 2006 proposal budget includes a total of $1 billion in

local funds to educate an estimated 80,000 students within the District of Columbia public schools and public charter schools. This

funding level represents an increase of $81.6 million, or 9 percent

of the 2005 budget. The fiscal 2006 budget is aligned with the superintendent’s core budget request of $775 million and provides an

additional $25 million to support strategic educational investments

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in academic and support services at both DCPS and charter schools

and funds 11 new charter schools.

In addressing the non-academic needs of students, such as nutritional, physical and mental health and other social services vital

for educational success, the Mayor plays a central role in aligning

district agencies to support low-performing schools, to provide

wraparound services to the neediest students.

The Williams’ administration implemented various interagency

collaborations, such as the Transformation Schools Initiative,

school-based mental health services and school help program, and

while we are very pleased with DCPS recent successes, we fully acknowledge that we must work collaboratively to overcome existing

hurdles.

In the past, DCPS process as a result of opportunities for leverage investments were unrealized as evidenced by the lack of funds

budgeted for schools within various HOPE–6 projects. We are

working with the new administration under Dr. Clifford Janey to

jointly develop our capital budgets to align our priorities and planning. Through our city-wide capital planning committee, we will

ensure the most strategic investment of our resources.

Another hurdle is shifting enrollments between 2002 and 2004,

DCPS enrollment declined by nearly 6,000 students, while charter

schools enrollment increased by 4,000 over the same period. A significant issue facing charter schools is the ability to acquire educational appropriate facilities. Faced with few options, charter

schools use facilities allotment given to them by the city to lease

spaces in the private sector. Making DCPS schools available to

charter schools will help keep our public dollars invested in our

public facilities by rightsizing DCPS facilities inventory through

consolidation, disposition, co-location and partial demolition.

This administration applauds Dr. Janey for presenting a budget

that recognizes the need to spread resources more equitably across

all schools by scaling back on a scope of projects, capital projects,

where appropriate.

We understand that, by December 2005, Dr. Janey will have developed his master educational plan which will update the master

facilities plan, and the administration welcomes the opportunity to

work jointly with and in support of the superintendent. We firmly

believe that DCPS and the city share a common set of goals, and

we are committed to working collaboratively to best serve the children and residents of the District of Columbia.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bobb follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Councilman Patterson.

STATEMENT OF KATHLEEN PATTERSON

Ms. PATTERSON. Thank you. Chairman Davis, Congresswoman

Norton, thank you for the opportunity to testify.

I am Councilmember Kathy Patterson, and since January, I have

served as chair of the Council Committee on Education, Libraries

and Recreation. I have been a member of the Council since 1995

and sought the position as a public school parent and advocate.

The council’s priorities for D.C. public schools include improving

school facilities, seeking accountability for the expenditure of public

funds by D.C. public schools and directing resources to the local

schools. My priorities as chair of the committee include promoting

stable leadership, providing stable and adequate funding and using

oversight to promote steady progress on our school system’s reform

agenda that includes comprehensive new educational standards

and strengthening professional development.

Part of promoting stability includes advocating for a multi-year

budget for the school system, a subject that I will come back to. Another policy goal is promoting and funding universal pre-kindergarten in the District of Columbia. Unlike most school systems, we

already serve roughly half of the city’s 4-year-olds in D.C. public

schools. Given the extensive research on the importance of good

early childhood education, there is no question we should be serving all 4-year-olds, and moving from there to provide all 3-year-olds

with quality pre-K education.

My committee’s agenda often includes oversight of the public

charter school legislation, and I anticipate one or more hearings in

the fall. There are several specific issues to be addressed, including

the funding process and issues of financial liability when a charter

school closes. And I expect a range of other issues will surface during the course of testimony.

During my tenure on the Council, D.C. public schools have had

seven superintendents, seven in 11 years. There have also been

four different and distinct institutions in that time standing in the

shoes of the Board of Education. The Mayor and the Council have

gone through two long and contentious debates over whether there

will be a Board of Education in 2000 and again last year.

It is not possible to serve children well when the leadership

changes by the month. The best education reform plans in the

world—and those of Superintendents Franklin Smith and Arlene

Ackerman were sound—can’t succeed without time, perseverance,

buy-in from the political establishment and confidence on the part

of parents and staff.

What we have today in the public schools is a chance for that

stability. That’s one of the reasons I am more optimistic about the

future of the public schools than at any other time during my tenure on the Council. We settled the issue with the school system’s

governance structure.

The leadership of the city, Mayor Williams, Chairman Cropp and

my predecessor’s committee chair were invited by the Board to participate in a superintendent search last year, and they recruited

and hired Dr. Janey, from whom you will hear this morning. This

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is not his first superintendency, and that is significant. This is only

the second time in recent memory that D.C. public schools have

been led by someone who was not engaged in on-the-job training.

The Board itself is gaining new experience, with two new members

elected last year who bring both energy and patience to the task.

As Mr. Bobb noted, the Mayor added funding for the schools, as

did the Council in the budget debates we just concluded at the

Council. Even with those funding increases, school leadership has

identified additional spending needs, including raises that might

need negotiating and additional special education costs. And it is

my hope that, as committee chair, the Education Committee can be

of assistance to the superintendent and the Board as they revise

their 2006 operating budget to take into account both the additional funding and the additional spending needs.

The Office of the Chief Financial Officer is reviewing special education spending, focusing on private school tuition payments. I’m

hopeful that audit will provide options to better manage expenditures.

And the superintendent initiated a comprehensive finance study

by the Council of the Great City Schools to compliment the academic study released last year. I am hopeful that will also be helpful to the Board in reviewing the system’s expenditures.

The committee asked that we speak to facility needs, one of the

highest priorities for members of the Council. The budget just approved includes $147 million in capital funding for 2006, and the

Council approved an additional $12.2 million to cover debt service

for additional capital funding. That additional funding is designed

as a special revenue fund to promote public/private partnerships,

enhance in-house Special Ed capacity and facilitate co-location with

charter schools. We are still working on the details of that legislative language.

And that brings me to what I hope will be an agenda for this

committee, securing additional Federal support to meet the facility

needs of D.C. public schools. I hope to see the special revenue fund

we are creating become a repository for Federal support, including

funding based on Congresswoman Norton’s Fair Federal Compensation Act.

A parent-led coalition has, as you know, promoted a 100 percent

Federal funding to rebuild the District’s schools, and I have attached a summary of the PROP 100 proposal to my testimony.

The second agenda item I would urge the committee to consider,

mentioned earlier: Dr. Janey and President Cafritz have asked us

to consider a transitional multi-year budget for D.C. public schools.

This would require a change to the charter. I have introduced a

sense of the Council provision to this end. And while my colleagues

have not had an opportunity to weigh in on the issue, I’m hopeful

they will be supportive. I have scheduled a public hearing on June

23rd and hope to see a charter amendment acted on by the Congress by the end of this year, and I urge you to support and champion that proposal. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Patterson follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Dr. Janey, welcome. This is your first time before our committee,

and I’m happy to have you here.

STATEMENT OF CLIFFORD B. JANEY

Dr. JANEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Davis, as chairman of the

committee, and Ms. Norton, Congresswoman and a long time leader and supporter of Washington, DC, public schools and the District of Columbia.

My name, as it has been mentioned, is Clifford Janey, and I

serve as superintendent of schools and chief State school officer for

the District of Columbia. I welcome this opportunity to appear before you to talk about what we are doing to not only reverse the

current data points as outlined by Chairperson Davis but the perception as well of our schools. We are doing that with partners who

are working with us in the interest of education reform and also

strengthening the role of schools as anchors in our communities.

We know what children need to succeed in school. They need

good nutrition and physical education, consistent guidance, safety,

and access to enriching educational and cultural experiences that

will help them see and understand the global context of K–12 education.

Children need to be taught successfully at every level in school

before moving to the next grade level. The formula is basically the

same for all children, regardless of race, class and ethnicity. Variation, however, in performance occurs most frequently as a result

of differences in preparation of the student before entering school

or differences in preparation of teachers and administrative staff

while the student is in school.

Numerous studies have confirmed the relationship between successful schools and vital communities. In her 2003 report for the

Brookings Institute of Greater Washington, Alice Rivlin observed

that improving schools was a key condition for attracting a diversity of families who would make their homes in the District of Columbia, which is in turn an essential element of our city’s goal of

increasing our population by 100,000 residents by 2013.

Excellent schools bring other benefits to our city, they attract

and keep excellent teachers and principals who make their homes

in the District. They train our young people to move successfully

into college or the workplace and a well-trained workforce who attracts businesses to locate in the city. They serve as anchors in the

neighborhoods and raise property values. Building on the foundation and the momentum created by the D.C. Education Compact,

I recently introduced the first step to making the substantive and

sustainable changes that this system needs, a strategic plan for

change that I call the Declaration of Education.

There are three mutually supportive goals that frame this Declaration of Education. The first, as it should be, focuses on academics. That includes looking at our new standards and our new assessments which should be implemented next year. The second goal

focuses on management systems, areas such as procurement,

human resources and security facilities and technology. The third

goal is in the area of communication and collaboration.

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The overall philosophy of the plan places a high value on creating a culture of collaboration, the aim of which is to create a school

system that collaborates with all segments of the community, and

assuming respective roles and owning their fair share of responsibility and accountability for student success.

I agree with the recent Washington Post editorial that I alone

cannot bring youth from home to school ready to learn, keep them

engaged in class all day, and get them ready for college or a challenging career when they graduate from high school. In my own

words, education can no longer be everybody’s business and just my

job.

The DCEC is a significant partnership. That is, the D.C. Education Compact is a significant partnership created solely to support DCPS. This compact, which includes the Board of Education,

the Mayor, the Council members, parents, teachers, students, principals, union leaders, foundation community and business leaders,

is proving to be a tremendous reservoir of resources and support

for DCPS as we work through complex problems and simultaneously reach important milestones that will restore universal public confidence. This compact is an unprecedented coalition under

the major sponsorship of the Fannie Mae Foundation. And to date,

more than 1,000 stakeholders have participated in an intensively

focused and nonpartisan process. The core beliefs that guide the

DCEC can be summarized under three value propositions that underline the development and continuation of student success: a culture of achievement that accepts the belief that all children are capable of achieving a variety of success indicators notwithstanding

their starting point; a culture of excellence in which we rely upon

the highest academic standards and the best known business practices; and a culture of open engagement that values coordination,

collaboration and cooperation through communication.

With this testimony, I hope to jumpstart a conversation about

how we can do business better, looking at those three goals and

looking at how some of the partners who are here this morning will

continue to be engaged with District of Columbia’s public schools.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Janey follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Chief Ramsey, welcome.

STATEMENT OF CHARLES H. RAMSEY

Chief RAMSEY. Mr. Chairman, Congresswoman Norton, thank

you for the opportunity to present this testimony on the issue of

school safety, a topic of vital importance to the District of Columbia, to our young people and their families, indeed, to our entire

city and its future.

I have submitted a complete written statement to the committee,

and I will summarize the key points here. Today’s hearing comes

at a critically important time in the District’s ongoing efforts to enhance the safety of our public schools. Recent legislation transfers

management responsibility for school safety from the D.C. public

schools to the Metropolitan Police Department effective July 1st.

There has been a misconception out there that this transfer of

responsibility will mean that we will only have uniformed police officers protecting our schools. This is not the case. The District will

continue to use contract security personnel, along with MPD school

resource officers, to provide safety services to our schools.

What is changing is that MPD will oversee management of the

security contract and performance of the contract security personnel in the schools. The results, we believe, will be a better-trained,

higher-quality workforce, greater coordination among private security, MPD personnel and school staff, and, ultimately, safer schools

for our students, faculty, staff and parents.

The schools’ new security contract is a result of a cooperative effort among the MPD, DCPS and the D.C. Office of Contracting and

Procurement. The proposed new contract has been presented to the

D.C. Council for approval. What is noteworthy about the contract

is that it sets standards for the selection and training of school security personnel. It establishes integrity and performance standards for personnel, including regular drug testing of employees.

And it provides for strict and regular auditing of the contractor’s

performance in meeting the provisions of the contract. These are

critically important reforms that will go a long way toward improving the quality of security services in our schools.

Even before the legislation on school security was enacted, the

MPD took a number of steps to enhance school safety using the resources at our disposal. Chief among these was the assignment of

additional school resource officers, 99 officers and 14 supervisors

assigned to our middle, junior and senior high schools based on a

risk analysis conducted by the MPD. School resource officers and

their sergeants not only provide a uniformed police presence inside

the schools, they also facilitate critical coordination with the neighborhood patrol officers in the communities where schools are located. We know from the tragic shooting death of James Richardson inside Ballou Senior High School 15 months ago that crime

problems in our neighborhoods often end up in our schools, and

vice versa. The MPD is working to prevent this spillover effect by

fully integrating school safety into the broader strategy of community policing that we call Policing for Prevention.

SRO and neighborhood officers are in the same chain of command. They share information and resources about crime in the

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community, and they coordinate crime-fighting plans. And the principal and other school officials have access to the full range of police personnel to address crime and disorder issues affecting their

schools. We’re not compartmentalizing school safety, but rather integrating it into our broader community policing philosophy.

The committee asked that I provide data on the nature and extent of crime in our schools. Based on our data, there are at least

522 serious crimes reported on D.C. public school property during

calendar year 2004. That compares with an estimated 510 such

crimes in 2003, an increase of about 2 percent. The vast majority

of these crimes, about 73 percent in 2004, were property offenses,

such as thefts, auto theft and theft from auto. So far this year, the

number of crimes reported in D.C. public schools have declined 18

percent when compared to the same period in 2004. So we are encouraged that the numbers are moving in the right direction.

In the community at large, juvenile involvement in crime, both

as offenders and victims, remains a serious concern, although there

may be some encouraging trends emerging here as well. During

2004, there were 24 juveniles murdered in D.C.; that’s nearly double the number of juvenile homicide victims in 2003 when there

were 13. Of the 24, 5 were the victims of abuse and neglect. The

remaining 19, all except one, were the victims of gun violence. So

far this year, there have been 5 juvenile homicide victims, down

from 13 such victims at this time last year, and we’re hopeful that

last year’s spike in juvenile homicides was a 1-year aberration, not

a statistical trend.

During 2004, MPD officers arrested approximately 2,950 juveniles for a variety of crimes from homicide, robbery and weapons

violations, and various misdemeanor offenses. The 2004 arrest total

is approximately 15 percent higher than the 2003 total and almost

22 percent higher than the 2002 total. So far this year, we’ve made

just over 1,000 juvenile arrests.

We’ve also substantially increased our enforcement of truancy

and curfew laws as part of our strategy to reduce juvenile victimization and offending. Over the past 17 months, we’ve picked up

more than 4,300 truants. Curfew violations increased from about

230 in 2003 to more than 1,200 in 2004.

My written statement outlines several examples of programs that

we’re involved in to work with young people. These are not simply

feel-good approaches but very concrete approaches to dealing with

the issue of juvenile crime.

Again, thank you for the opportunity to speak before the committee.

[The prepared statement of Chief Ramsey follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Ms. Walker, thanks for being with us.

STATEMENT OF BRENDA DONALD WALKER

Ms. WALKER. Thank you so much, Chairman Davis and Congressman Norton and staff.

I am Brenda Donald Walker, director of the D.C. Child and Family Services Agency [CFSA]. CFSA is the District’s child protective

agency responsible for abuse and neglected children.

The District of Columbia public schools are responsible for the

education of all school-age children in our care. Currently, about

1,100 children and teens involved with CFSA attend public school

in the District, and about 900 attend school out of the District, primarily in Maryland. DCPS is responsible for paying the tuition of

those students. About 40 percent of the students in our care are in

special education, and approximately 750 children receive ongoing

tutoring assistance.

Coming from varying degrees of abuse and neglect, many of our

children must overcome barriers to learning. For example, they

may suffer prenatal exposure to drugs, separation from family and

community, developmental delays, undiagnosed learning disabilities and past inconsistency in school attendance.

In advocating for our children, we are collaborating with Dr.

Clifford Janey and others at DCPS from our frontline social workers working directly with teachers to high-level collaboratively

tackling specific issues. One issue I would like to highlight is our

collaborative effort to combat chronic truancy. About a year ago, a

city-wide truancy task force was formed to grapple with chronic

truancy, which was defined as a child missing 10 or more days of

school, unexcused absences, within a 3-month period. This is relevant to our efforts at CFSA because unexcused absences from

school, especially with younger children, often indicate serious

issues at home that may constitute risks of abuse or neglect.

As a member of the task force, CFSA helped to devise a plan to

address truancy at the elementary school. When parents impede

children from attending school regularly, they can be found guilty

of educational neglect, which in and of itself is often a symptom of

other serious issues.

We entered into a memorandum of understanding with DCPS to

establish a standard protocol for elementary schools to follow in reporting chronic absences. And basically the protocol is that after a

child under the age of 12 has 10 or more unexcused absences in

3 months and the school has initiated appropriate interventions,

then the school will report the case to CFSA, and we will investigate. This collaborative effort has allowed CFSA to identify children at risk far earlier than in the past. In the first 4 months of

2004, before the MOU was in place, we substantiated 149 cases of

educational neglect. After the MOUs, for the same period of time,

we substantiated 236.

In delivering services to the families, we have partnered with the

community-based Healthy Families Thriving Communities Collaborative. And last summer, as a strategy of the task force, the CFSA

and the collaboratives contacted nearly 200 families whose children

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were chronically truant. As a result of this initiative, the truancy

among this population the subsequent school year was cut in half.

Looking forward, the District is now beginning to address truancy among middle school students. This population will prove far

more challenging, and CFSA’s role will diminish because the connection between abuse and neglect and truancy diminishes as students get older. Broader resources are needed to address this population, but we will continue to play a supportive role.

I also want to discuss briefly the educational needs of foster children. For some foster children, education may temporarily take a

backseat to the immediate needs of safety, overcoming trauma and

adjusting to a foster home. National data suggests that children in

foster care are at a disproportionately high risk of educational failure, as well as, I mentioned earlier, participation in special education. To support the educational needs of children in foster care,

we have two educational specialists on staff, and we are finalizing

an MOU to train foster parents with special education parents to

become surrogate parents so they can better advocate for their foster children.

Finally, as you know, CFSA receives Federal early intervention

funds designed to avoid bringing children into care. Among many

of the important services these funds support, we pay for transportation services to keep children in their home schools if they have

to be temporarily removed from their homes.

As everybody in this room knows, education is vital for all children, especially those in the child protection system, and we look

forward to continuing our work with DCPS, other District agencies

and the community to ensure consistent quality education for our

children. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Walker follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Well, thank you all very much for your

testimony. I think the problem here is institutional more than just

individuals. I think all of you have been working hard on the front

line—some of you for years—trying to improve the school system.

Let me start with a question, I’ll start with you, Mr. Bobb, but,

Ms. Patterson, Dr. Janey, may have a slant on it.

Two issues that have been raised for us is, one, giving the public

school system their own CFO gives them more flexibility. I think

the District CFO Ghandi is wonderful. I think he has been a huge

asset to the city. But for the city to have their own CFO, it gives

them more rapid response time. It gives the superintendent, I

think, some flexibility. And second, giving the school system a

multi-year budget, maybe a 3-year versus a 1-year, and I would

like to get a reaction, if I could, Mr. Bobb, from you, and Mrs. Patterson and Dr. Janey.

Mr. BOBB. Yes. Having served as a city manager in cities all

across this country, I would always like to have my own CFO and

my own budget people. And it doesn’t take away at all from the

good work that Dr. Gandhi is doing. And certainly, having had conversations with Dr. Janey and several superintendents and served

through the superintendent search process, it seems like every superintendent we interviewed felt strongly that they should have

their own CFO as well as their own budget office. And it is certainly something that the Mayor would consistently look at and

would be in support of in that regard.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Ms. Patterson.

Ms. PATTERSON. Thank you. From the standpoint of the Council,

it is very useful to have an independent CFO because, for any piece

of financial information that a Council member wants, we have not

one but two places to go for it, directly to the operating agency and/

or to the CFO, as necessary. So there is a certain practical utility.

I think the school system could have its own CFO or continue to

work with Dr. Ghandi’s shop. I don’t think that is as important as

a close and collaborative working relationship. So, quite frankly, I

could go either way on that issue.

I am very supportive of the multi-year budget. I think that

makes a lot of sense. I would like to be able to spend time discussing how money is spent instead of how many dollars there are.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Bobb, on the multi-year budget, do

you have any thoughts on that?

Mr. BOBB. Oh, yes, very definitely. I am in support of a multiyear budget. As a matter of fact, I had a brief conversation with

our chairman of City Council in that regard.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Dr. Janey, let’s get your reaction.

Dr. JANEY. Thank you, Mr. Davis.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I’ll tell you, my experience has been, when

you come into office and you’re new, you ask for everything up

front, because 6 months, 2 years later, it gets tough.

Dr. JANEY. We do it while the window is open.

I am supportive of both subjects you raise. The first one, with respect to having the CFO report to the superintendent of schools, I

think that’s an issue that has come to a time where that needs to

be done. And let me just cite a couple of reasons.

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First of all, all of the direct reports within an organization like

a school district should have a standard of communication and a

standard of accountability not only between that direct report and

the superintendent, but a standard of relationship and accountability among and between the direct reports, so the chief financial officer, the chief operating officer, the chief accountability officer all

need to work together and be held to a standard of accountability.

It doesn’t make much sense for a school district superintendent to

be responsible for all of the affairs when the authority is not there.

With respect to a multi-year budget, it was one of the questions

I raised during my interview last year. And Chairman Cropp, at

the time, I recall said she thought there would be some interest in

exploring the implementation of that subject. It would provide our

schools with an opportunity to plan over time. Programs wouldn’t

be 1 year; they could be at least 3 years in nature, but would afford

the school district’s senior staff to spend less time preparing budgets and anticipating fights with others. And we could be monitoring. We could be assisting in the development of the implementation of those budgets instead of just doing the preparation.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you, thank you very much.

Chief Ramsey, let me talk to you a bit. We’re going to have uniformed officers now doing the schools as opposed to contractors; is

that what I have understood?

Chief RAMSEY. No, we have both, sir. We have 99 Metropolitan

police officers that are serving as school resource officers, another

14 sergeants and three lieutenants assigned as well. But we also

have a contract security that is still a part of the security network

for the schools.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. And what was the limitation that Council

put on that, on—didn’t the Council put a limitation on going outside for your security contracts in the schools?

Chief RAMSEY. Well, a process is being followed now where a contract is about to be awarded, it is with the Council now for their

review, so that in the fall we will have a contract in place. We currently are operating on an extension of the old contract for the contract security.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. And how does that work, or does that

prejudice the awarding of the new contract to talk about that publicly?

Chief RAMSEY. Well, I’m not part of OCP, so I would probably be

very careful, but without getting into specifics, we have done what

we need to do at this point in time, it’s just a matter of it being

reviewed. There is a roundtable scheduled for Monday, this coming

Monday. It’s a joint roundtable, and Ms. Patterson and Mr.

Mendelson, who chairs judiciary, are having a roundtable to discuss various aspects of the contract that is before them.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Ms. Patterson, in the case of a capital program, the public school system is relying on authorizations of the

Council and the barring authority of the District government. Does

the Council hold oversight hearings on the implementation of the

school’s capital budget on a regular basis?

Ms. PATTERSON. Well, we certainly do in the course of doing both

our performance and budget hearings early in the year. In addition, I had an additional hearing on school facilities just right after

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the calendar year began because it is such a high priority. So yes,

the answer is, we will be having regular hearings on what is done

with those dollars.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. In 2 years, the school board is going to go

back to being entirely elective, is that my——

Ms. PATTERSON. That was a mistake in my written statement;

it’s 4 years. For the 2008 elections, it will be all elected, one for

each board, and the chairman and president elected city-wide.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. You think we’ll have a better experience

than last time? You were one of the shining examples, but we had

great difficulty, in my opinion, before in terms of a functioning

school aboard.

Ms. PATTERSON. I think the school board is getting stronger by

the day. I see a real interest in oversight, an interest in accountability, an interest in working closely with the superintendent as

well as with other officials in the city. So I’m optimistic there will

be that change, but we know that change is coming, and that certainly gives an opportunity for any of us who do care to seek and

recruit candidates to run in each of the eight wards.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Dr. Janey, how responsive has the Teachers Union been to your strategic plan?

Dr. JANEY. I think Mr. Parker has been demonstrating his commitment more and more to see a Teachers Union as being an enabler, as opposed to being resistant to change. He is one voice, however. He is just one voice, and he is new in his position. We have

developed a working relationship; he has developed, along with

other key staff members of my team, a very good working relationship. I think the jury is out in terms of the actual quality of the

reception of the entire teaching force with respect to the strategic

plan. I think that’s partly a function of just not having, to date, the

opportunity—as we plan to over the summer and the fall—to actually work with our teachers in developing, A, an understanding, B,

some ownership, and, C, some skillful knowledge in terms of how

it’s going to enable them to become better teachers.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Now, a lot of the teachers, as I understand it, that are currently in the system were never certified or

have their certification lapsed; is that correct?

Dr. JANEY. That is correct.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Is that a practical problem or is that a bureaucratic problem?

Dr. JANEY. It’s more the former, it’s a practical problem and an

education one; it has implications for service as well.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. What is our strategy on that?

Dr. JANEY. It is best understood in two parts; one, there are

teachers who have not updated their certification, and we believe

that there will be many who will be doing that as we have been

seeing that change over the last several weeks. I think the more

critical issue is in the area where we have no record at all of a

teacher not having fulfilled a certification requirement and, therefore, no license. We are reviewing that right now. It will probably

end up with an action on my part to dismiss a certain number of

teachers who do not have evidence of license. In my review, there

was a number of teachers, close to a couple hundred, who did not

have any record of license from 1990 and earlier.

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. How did that happen? This is before any

of your time. That is before your time Kathleen; wasn’t it?

Dr. JANEY. As I’m plowing into the data and looking at the numbers against how many years without certification, I can’t account

for what was certainly not done, but it would be clear to me that

these lapses, they just weren’t accidental.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Do you think there is a chance in some

cases for these teachers to get certification? In some cases, it’s an

opportunity maybe to get people out that maybe weren’t performing

and get new people in? Is it a combination of all these?

Dr. JANEY. It’s probably a combination, that’s fair, of all of the

above. But our strategic objective here is more than just trying to

be compliant with No Child Left Behind. We want to make sure

our staff is credentialed, and beyond being credentialed, they’re

really prepared to deliver on the new standards that we have just

adopted.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Getting new teachers in that are certified,

that are qualified, is that a problem? Or is there a surplus of good

teachers out there that we can attract in the marketplace?

Dr. JANEY. The challenge, Mr. Chairman, has to do more with attracting, recruiting and then retaining high-quality teachers. There

is a sufficient amount of interest in coming to work in Washington,

DC; that’s been evidenced over the last several years. Our challenge has been beginning our recruitment process earlier so that

we can be competitive with our neighboring districts. We made that

commitment this year, and we delivered on it. We have a pool right

now of some 400 teachers who have expressed interest in working

with us and becoming a part of the DCPS family, and we are having another interviewing session this coming Saturday, tomorrow.

So I’m encouraged. There are initiatives that we are working

with, special recruitment organizations that have partnered with

us to make sure that we are getting the best talent and particularly the best talent spread over where our demands are, demands

in special education as well as regular education.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. The follow-up to that is getting good

teachers is important. It can be tough, but you’re sorting that out.

Getting good principals is also very, very important.

What is the pool like of what are we doing to find them? Do you

think there will be many replacements? Can you give us any kind

of preview of what your——

Dr. JANEY. Last year we appointed 24 new principals. I’m sure

we will exceed that this year, this coming school year. I am not as

encouraged with respect to the depth of the pool in the area of the

principalship as I am with high-quality teachers.

I think we will be more deeply challenged to find the kind of talent and the kind of matches that we’ll need, particularly at the

high school level. But we started early. Again, we started early,

and our goal is to have, at least at the high school level, in the next

several weeks, appointments, so that we’ll take care of that particular issue and move throughout the organization in our junior

high schools, our middle schools and our elementary schools.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Do you give any thought at going out and

looking at retired principals? Because some of them retire at relatively young ages. They could still have several years ahead of

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them, could draw their retirement from another system and come

in. Is that a possibility?

Dr. JANEY. It is. It is. And we would maintain a premium interest of making sure that there is quality evidenced in their background and the match is there.

And we would look, again, Mr. Chairman, at whether or not a

person who is currently retired in another district has the kind of

energy to continue over a period of time so it leads into a succession plan. So it is not just taking Cliff Janey from Fairfax County,

who has 2 more years of good playing time. It is looking at how

it positions us for the next generation of players coming in to work

with us.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. And finally, Chief Ramsey, let me just ask

you, how safe are the schools today?

Chief RAMSEY. I think that the schools are a lot safer than they

were last year. The city is overall—last year we had an 18 percent

reduction in crime in the city in general, and when you look so far

this year, we actually have an 18 percent drop in reported crimes

in the schools.

It needs a lot of work. A lot of the problems in our community

spill over into the schools and vice versa, and we have to be constantly aware of that. So we have to have very solid communication

between the schools and the officers that work on the streets so

they know if there is a problem, it may spill over; and then vice

versa, so that if we have a problem occur at night, that we can

alert that school that you might have some fallout the next day

from groups of kids that attend that school.

Those are the kinds of challenges that we face. But we are 100

percent committed to creating an environment where kids don’t

have to worry about their personal safety. They can focus on learning. And that is our one and only goal in trying to make the schools

better.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Do you use undercover officers in the

schools?

Chief RAMSEY. No. We have not done that.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. We did that in Virginia. And, in fact, in

one high school, we had an undercover officer, and he got elected

president of the student council. It is a true story. He was a State

police officer.

OK, but you haven’t seen to go in that direction at this point for

intel gathering and that kind of thing?

Chief RAMSEY. Well, one of the things that I have found is very

important as our officers, the school resource officers, who are especially trained do develop a lot of relationships with youngsters—

and every school has far more good kids that want to learn than

they have problem kids. They will come up to you and tell you

when something is wrong.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. It used to be a problem. Kids isolated.

And if you can do that and still find a way to educate them, kids

who want to learn can learn.

Chief RAMSEY. Yesterday was a good example where we got a—

it was a BB gun, but it looks like a real gun—from a student in

front of Eastern High School yesterday, but the information came

from another student that told us what was going on. So that is

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the kind of communication and relationships we need to build, the

trust with the youngsters that go to school.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Dr. Janey.

Dr. JANEY. Yes. I would just like to add a comment or two to

Chief Ramsey’s response. And I really appreciate the work that

they’re doing with us. That has been my experience, both in Boston

and in Rochester, working closely with social service agencies and

with the respective law enforcement agencies. But I would like to

point out a distinction that I think needs to be made here between

crime and behavior.

While the Chief has testified that we’re safer with respect to

crime, in some situations and in some schools we’re still challenged

by behavior. We have an expectation, to the greatest extent possible, that parents and family members are preparing their students for school. And it’s our job to make a difference once they’re

in school. And that preparation not only includes, in terms of early

childhood, some prereadiness skills in terms of reading and literacy, but as kids get older, it is also important to have schools and

homes work together on the preparation of our students with respect to their social behavior.

And that cannot be done just by teachers, support staff, administrators and social service collaborations. And we’re still challenged

in some situations where, while it is not a crime, behavior begins

to be distracting to teaching and learning. And I’m pushing hard

to make sure that kind of responsibility is shared as well.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Let me just say I think Ms. Patterson, in her remark, talked

about how they had 7 superintendents in 11 years, and without

continuity it is tough even with really good people.

Dr. Janey, you’re the team captain. You are the new sheriff in

town. This is your team. You’re going to have turf fights and everything else occasionally, but I think everybody here will chip in and

try to give you the tools you need, including the Congress, to get

your job done.

Everybody who sends their kid to public school thinks they are

an expert on the public schools, but this situation has gone on way

too long, without the appropriate corrective action. And part of it

is that people get frustrated. They get impatient, like you say.

I was impressed with your answer on retired principals and stuff,

that you need to build the team for the longer haul. This isn’t going

to get resolved in a year or two. And I will tell you, the last thing

you want is Congress trying to run a school system or a government or anything else.

We work well with the D.C. government, where now they are

running the largest surplus in the country, I think, of any city.

Crime is down, capital is being attracted, the real estate market is

going well.

We want to take those same principles of where we’ve all worked

together as a team, apply it to the school system, and you have

some good people around you, and if we all work together, I think

we have a shot at doing this.

But this has been a tough nut to crack historically, and I just applaud you for the efforts you’re making, and I appreciate the fact

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that you’ve chosen to come here, and we want to be as helpful as

we can.

So, Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I would like

to quickly get through a set of questions. While I appreciate this

report, entitled Juvenile Homicide in the District of Columbia, and

you’ve given us some of the statistics in your testimony, we have

counterintuitive trends in the District of Columbia, and perhaps in

the two most important areas.

Unemployment is going up and jobs are going up. Unless those

two come together—I congratulate the District of Columbia on

making jobs for the suburbs to, in fact, take. But the other

counterintuitive statistic is in your report. Total homicides decreasing in 2004 by 20 percent, violent crime by 14 percent; juvenile

homicides, and we are talking about 17 or younger, up sharply, and

most of that, according to your report, by gunfire, 24 children 17

or under compared to 13 in 2003.

I would just like to ask you and Dr. Janey to say for the record

or respond to the rationale that was offered for the introduction of

a bill to repeal D.C.’s gun laws by the Senators who appeared at

a press conference yesterday. They said that everybody is entitled

to have a gun in their homes to be used for self-defense.

What is your view of the consequences of guns in the homes in

the District of Columbia and their impact in the areas in which you

work? And here we’re particularly interested in the schools.

Chief RAMSEY. Ma’am, I’ll start off, if that is OK.

I’m totally opposed to any lessening of the gun laws as they currently exist in the District of Columbia. I think it comes at a very

curious time, when you look at the history of the District, 10 years

ago versus today, crime numbers are literally cut in half.

When you look at the amount of guns that we take off the street

now, when you look at the number of people, which is consistent

that 80 percent of our homicide victims are victims of gun violence,

and that has been consistent for years, and not just in the District

of Columbia, but other cities have a similar statistic as well, it just

doesn’t make any sense to me that we would try to put more guns

on the street.

Most of the time, when you have an incident involving a gun in

a household, it is an accident, a child finds a gun, what have you,

as opposed to actually protecting or defending your property with

the use of that firearm. Burglars that break into a home now have

a weapon that they can steal in addition to VCRs and DVD players

and that sort of thing that in turn are then used for criminal activity.

Younger and younger people are carrying very sophisticated

weapons. I mentioned earlier of the 24 juveniles that were killed

last year, 5 were the result of abuse and neglect, but of the remaining 19, all but 1 died as a result of gunshot wounds.

It is a horrible statistic, and I just don’t think we need to add

to that. So I’m personally opposed, and I stand ready to do whatever it takes and whatever you think is appropriate to stand alongside you to try to fight that back.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I don’t think that it is any business of

Congress to interfere with the city’s gun laws. And I think Ms.

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Norton knows my position on that. But in addition to that 18 juveniles were killed with guns last year?

Chief RAMSEY. Yes, sir.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. That is higher than the total murder rate

in Fairfax County, with over a million people, to give you a sense

of proportion. And you are just talking about youths with guns.

Chief RAMSEY. Just juveniles.

Ms. NORTON. I appreciate the chairman didn’t afford a hearing

for the bill that was introduced last year. The 18 kids who died

from gunfire last year died from gunfire that thugs somehow

brought into the city. They didn’t get those guns in their homes.

Of course, I wonder what a—if a kid would feel that he had hit the

jackpot if he found one in his home simply to take out into the

street.

Dr. Janey, you, of course, are new to the city. You and the Chief

were very helpful to me last year in coming to the Hill when I

asked you to so that you, who perhaps would be most credible on

this issue, were able to express yourselves.

Would you indicate what you think the effect of having a gun on

the—what you think would be the effect of having a change in our

laws so that people could keep guns in their homes?

Dr. JANEY. I don’t believe there should be a change in the law.

I say that for a couple of reasons; one, on a personal basis, growing

up in Boston, and I recall like it was yesterday, my experience

when I was a middle school principal, when there was this appeal

from those who lived and worked on the streets of Boston. There

was a saying, Chief, that you would rather be caught with it than

without it. And the ‘‘it’’ was a gun.

And I would oppose any change in the legislation, because I don’t

believe we should have universal access to guns. We should have

universal access to knowledge and human resources to make sure

our youth are making good decisions about their lives and for their

lives over time. So I would stand with you once again.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much. Just to have your expert

opinion on the record is important for us.

Ms. Patterson, I remember and understand, perhaps, that during

the recession that began in 2000, 2001, one of the first things to

go was capital funding for the schools. This year, what is this,

2005, there seems to be a very good effort on the part of the schools

to recharge the capital funding notion.

I remain perplexed, though, because the city has increasingly reported since those first couple of tough years surpluses and compared itself and said how well it was doing. But here we are in

2005, when in a real sense, as I hear constituents, they’re more

likely to complain about the crumbling state of the schools than

even about what they always complain about, which is how well

the children were doing in the schools.

So I didn’t understand why the council did not move earlier here.

And frankly, what my question is, is since the capital funding, a

whole plan that a whole bunch of people have participated in, and

since that was the first thing to go, almost the first thing to go,

I’m not sure I have confidence that whatever is going to happen

this time has any permanency.

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I would like you to respond to what was in the council’s mind to

wait until 2005, since it looked like it could have begun it earlier,

and what do you think the council should do this time to maintain

some presence of capital funding throughout so that you don’t have

schools like Wilson saying, hey, we want to be a charter school,

then we would have at least greater control over ourselves.

With the loss of students from the D.C. public schools, it looks

like the tardiness in dealing with capital funding plays a role in

that very transfer from one public school system to another.

Ms. PATTERSON. Thank you, Congresswoman Norton.

The city has, in fact, spent about $1 billion over the last decade

on D.C. public schools facilities, and the question that I get most

often from my colleagues is, ‘‘Where have the dollars gone?’’ Because a lot of the dollars have been spent ineffectively, and too

many dollars were way over the market in terms of per-square-foot

expenditures. That, keep in mind, was during the control board period of time when the Army Corps of Engineers basically ran the

D.C. schools capital program. I think that is changing today——

Ms. NORTON. I am aware of the large—I don’t really think it is

sufficient to talk about the billion dollars, because I agree with

that. And if you want to get into that, I agree with the way in

which the school system has been spending money, period. My

question is very specific.

I think there must have been something more at work when capital funding was jettisoned for reasons that I perfectly understand,

but despite all these outcries from the city, capital funding didn’t

come back into the budget in any kind of substantial way until this

year.

And the reason I ask that is by no means to engage in recriminations against the city, but since I saw the budget improving, I’m

really asking for an answer that tells me whether or not capital

funding is here to stay, whether there is any commitment, whether

there is any way to keep it from taking a dive the next time, or

taking the ultimate dive, disappearing, the next time there is a recession, which is sure to come at some point in any kind of economy—market economy.

Ms. PATTERSON. I think the commitment is there on the part of

myself, certainly, as the chair of the committee on the council, but

I can’t speak for the other 12 council members. I believe the commitment is there on the part of Mayor Williams to keep capital

funding.

Ms. NORTON. Is there a way to have some kind of capital fund

so that—I recognize things have to be funded. You have a fund, I

believe, for which I compliment you, on housing for—because of the

difficulty of finding housing, affordable housing. And I suppose

when the statistics are the 6,000 youngsters—you know, 6,000 lost

in D.C. public schools, 4,000 in the increase in the charter schools,

that at least is telling me something. And I’m not sure it is all

about capital funding.

But I’m looking for some notion that there would be some attention to capital funding that would say to parents who are thinking

of leaving the city, who are thinking of leaving the public school

system, that they at least have a fund so that every year they’re

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going to try to put a little bit into that fund. That is really what

I’m after.

Ms. PATTERSON. This fund that we have created in this year’s

budget cycle I hope will become that fund, because it is a special

fund with—again, it is only 12.2 for debt service this year that will

spring $135 million in additional capital. But my hope is that can

be managed sufficiently well that it can be funded—in the budget

it is funded for the subsequent years. But it is certainly my hope

that this is a sort of step by step. We add some money, it is well

spent; we add more money, it is even spent better. It is that kind

of a process.

And I think it is aided incredibly by the work that the Office of

the City Administrator is doing with technical assistance from

Brookings, from 21st Century School Fund, of trying to improve the

way the whole capital program for the whole city works with

schools being a big part of that. And so the springboard for getting

the dollars from the fund the council is creating is to do public-private partnerships and public-public partnerships. That is sort of

the way in the door to access that special money.

Ms. NORTON. This method of my madness here, the attention of

the Congress to charter schools has resulted in a revolving fund.

And I’m able to go back and ask the Congress to put money in that

revolving fund and to say it is for capital funding. I don’t have any

such way to get funding for the D.C. public school capital fund to

say, look, this is what they’re doing. If the District got a little help

to leverage what is in their fund the way you leverage capital funding, perhaps something comparable could be done here with public

schools as well.

Let me ask you, Mr. Bobb, a question. I’ve been very gratified at

the way you receive calls from me when somebody tries to come in

to speak to me about a District matter. You are aware that I have

an ironclad policy that if the matter involves the District of Columbia, you’ve got to go to the District of Columbia.

And to the extent that people are able to get in to see me on a

District issue, they have, in fact, inveighed to my staff and others

that they are very, very desperate. And then I let them come in,

I hear them out, and I tell them what I tell Members of Congress,

that I’m not an expert in D.C. matters at any level. So I will hear

you out, and then I will try to use what I hear you saying to refer

you to the right—to the appropriate party, just as I would appreciate the council, when a matter involving the Congress comes up,

I would appreciate more communication from the council before decisions are made on their own sometimes about matters that are

solely within the jurisdiction of the Congress of the United States.

That kind of reciprocity would be very much appreciated.

For 15 years that is the way I’ve approached every single notion

involving the District of Columbia. And it’s helped me, by the way,

if I may say so, to keep Members from doing things they would otherwise have done.

I raise this question because you are aware of the people from

mental health that came here, and you personally dealt with those

people. I am beginning to receive systematic calls from people who

tell me they have not been paid. Some of them are very troubling.

D.C. General Hospital—sorry. What is the name of it? Greater

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Southeast, a hospital that we—the only hospital east of the river,

has a demonstration. Some people, not the woman who heads the

hospital, call in to my office.

Whitman Walker in the paper just this week. Here are the sickest people in the District of Columbia. At least part of the problem,

they say they haven’t been paid by the District of Columbia.

I sense a systemic problem just from calls to my office and from

what I read in the paper. We know that a lot in the District of Columbia has been fixed. In fact, I’ve spent a lot of time in the Congress congratulating the council and the Mayor for all you have

done in the city. But I can’t understand whether or not this one

problem, part of the reason D.C. General was brought down in the

first place, was that people couldn’t keep track of how much money

was going where.

What is the problem with the financial system here? What is the

problem with the financial system in the D.C. public schools that

meant that for 2 years running apparently nobody caught the fact

that the raises for teachers, which have been there for as long as

there’s been a school system, were somehow not figured into what

the school budget had to be? Perhaps the chairman’s question on

CFO, I don’t know, may come from the fact that there is a CFO

from the CFO’s office sitting right in the school system, and yet for

not 1 year, but 2 years, a very obvious cost, was not reflected in

the school system budget. Could you talk about that? But then talk

about whether or not we still have a systemic financial system in

the District of Columbia.

Mr. BOBB. Yes, I can. We have worked very hard to correct some

of the billing issues, particularly in the Department of Mental

Health, with the number of agencies that have come to your office

and you referred them to me. And I’ve actually gone out to a number of those agencies to see their problems firsthand.

Ms. NORTON. You certainly have.

Mr. BOBB. And so those issues——

Ms. NORTON. And that is a poor way to use your time. But you

have been wonderfully responsive on this score.

Mr. BOBB. Thank you very much. But Deputy Mayor Albertson

and I were working through the issues on the mental health side

in terms of billings in some of the mental health community-based

organizations based on the fact that we have a new—I don’t want

to just blame the problem on the fact that we have a new financial

system in place, but we have to fix those problems, and they’re

being addressed. With respect to the issues——

Ms. NORTON. There is a new financial system for the entire government?

Mr. BOBB. Mental health. Just in the mental health system, yes.

But with respect to the issues of the billings for some of the HIV,

Whitman Walker and others, we have some procedural problems

and issues that were put in place during the control board era we

were in. When an agency submits a bill, we, in fact, have to do an

audit on the front end, and that has been some delays.

Ms. NORTON. For each and every bill?

Mr. BOBB. Each and every bill. And those policies, Deputy Mayor

Albertson and I are working with the Department of Public Health,

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and we are going to be changing some of those procedural policies

in terms of how agencies are paid.

And then finally, in the case of Whitman Walker, for example,

they—as a result of their self-reporting, they actually reported that

they owe the District $2 million. And so we’re working through

some of those issues.

And we will have a report——

Ms. NORTON. So they found money they owed before you all

found. What was the difficulty at Whitman Walker? Goodness, I’m

glad they are so honest.

Mr. BOBB. They actually owe us. But the fact of the matter is you

would think that, however, since we are auditing these bills each

time we get them, that those problems would be addressed early

on. And so Deputy Mayor Albertson, Dr. Payne, the new director

of public health, are working through those issues, and we will

have a report to the Mayor next week.

Ms. NORTON. You don’t think that is a citywide problem here,

and that it is just agency by agency, and maybe I’m just getting

the ones that are raising the problem.

Mr. BOBB. If you go back historically, it has been a huge problem

in the District, but over the years the District has worked really

hard to address the issues of nonpayment and slow payment of its

vendors. And I think, you know, we have made huge progress in

that regard.

Now, with respect to the other issue and the budget and teachers’ salaries, I would have to defer that question to Dr. Janey.

Ms. NORTON. What about the 2 years without perhaps Dr. Janey,

perhaps Ms. Patterson, by the raises somehow not being factored

in even though they take place on an annual basis?

Whichever of you can——

Ms. PATTERSON. What became an issue this year were step increases. That is one issue, step increases already in the contract

that weren’t really taken account of. But by law the school system

right now is funded by the per-pupil funding formula. And the answer that I have gotten from the financial people is we provide all

the data to provide all the funding formula information, and therefore, we don’t do what-are-your-underlying-cost assessment, because the funding formula generates the dollars that go into the

Mayor’s budget.

The step increase issue, as I understand it, arose because the

board of education approved a 3 percent increase in funds going to

local schools which—where they cover local schools’ salaries, but

the average teachers’ salaries were rising at 4.7 percent. And obviously, you can’t cover 4.7 percent with 3 percent, so the schools

were looking at reducing staff. And that is the issue that we’re

working on.

Ms. NORTON. Did anybody know that or catch that? The reason

I ask is because it is not a new cost. It is the one cost you would

expect would be step increases to be factored in.

Ms. PATTERSON. Right. And when we went back and looked at

the——

Ms. NORTON. And the reason I ask it again is because, you know,

over here, even when we do something right, like we have a big

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thing, we have a debriefing to say how could we have done it better?

Now, if we do something where there has been a problem, the

only way to make sure that the problem is gone is not to say, you

know, they did it wrong. Why did they do it wrong? What would

it take to make sure that it does not take place again? Would the

CFO, the school system CFO, have to be given more responsibility?

You say they tell you what—they don’t look at the final, the final

numbers, they just tell you, all of these numbers must be included?

Well, who looks at the final ones? Who checks them? I’m trying to

find out whether or not the problem is cured.

Ms. PATTERSON. I think Dr. Janey can probably speak to this,

but as I understand it, the cure on this particular issue is a reevaluation of the weighted student formula, the dollars that go to

local schools. And Dr. Janey has his financial people looking at that

issue.

Dr. JANEY. Thank you. I want to first commend Council Member

Patterson for her being a very quick study on this issue.

When I brought it to the council, I believe, the first week in

April, and brought it before the board of education as well, I

found—and it was my observation—that there wasn’t sufficient attention being paid to the fine detail or to the fine print. And their

pupil funding formula in how it accounts for cost of living changes

was not staying up with the step increases. And so, for example,

teachers on average, were entitled to a step increase between 4 and

9 percent, and the formula was only at 3 percent. So you’ve got a

shortage there.

So again, part of the solution is a reevaluation of the formula,

but part of the solution is administrative, that you have to do the

fine detail work and be transparent in your work in presenting

that information.

Ms. NORTON. Who would do that, what office?

Dr. JANEY. The CFO’s office. Both CFOs’ offices.

Ms. NORTON. So you’re working with the CFOs so that they understand?

Dr. JANEY. Dr. Gandhi and the school district CFO would have

responsibility.

Ms. NORTON. A third year in a row would be very unfortunate.

And I understand there are difficulties in—the difficulties presented, but it is only numbers, and that is the one thing I think

we can do.

Could I ask about foster children? I am working here—I know

the chairman will help me on a misstep. At the time of the Revitalization Act critical to bringing the District out of insolvency, the

formula was apparently changed—the formula was changed from

50/50, some ridiculous number that would have still kept us bankrupt, to 70/30. But the health care of foster children is not in the

same budget, Medicaid budget, as the formula, and therefore, apparently, that percentage was never changed.

This is really for Ms. Walker. Is it your understanding that still

the greater part of health care for foster children is being paid by

the District of Columbia different from the way in which children

in Medicaid are, in fact——

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Ms. WALKER. Thank you for bringing that up, Congresswoman

Norton. If I could explain a little bit, it’s very complicated.

The Revitalization Act that you mentioned did adjust the Medicaid reimbursement rate, the local share, that was 50/50, and the

adjustment was made to 70/30, 70 Federal, 30 percent local. The

corresponding fix for title 4(e), which is not for health care—Medicaid primarily pays for health care of children in foster care; 4(e)

under Social Security Act pays for most of our case management

services, our direct services to children. Every other State has the

same match rate for 4(e) as Medicaid.

We did not get the fix. It is in a different title. So that adjustment was not made. So 4(e) match rate is still at 50/50. And we

have been having conversations, and we really appreciate your

staff’s participation over the last couple of years, with Members of

both sides to talk about having—adjusting that rate so that it’s equitable with all other States, and we believe that there is support

to do that. We’re looking for the legislative vehicle and the complicated processes that we have to go through to get that match

rate increased. But that would make it equitable. Every other State

has exactly the same match rate, and we are still burdened with

having a much reduced rate that affects the Federal dollars that

go on behalf of foster children.

Ms. NORTON. That is clearly a mistake, you know. It is not like

people asking for an increase. I’m concerned, the Mayor is sufficiently concerned, about the number of children who must be taken

out of their home. And I congratulate him for the notion that

grandparents should have a special stipend, grandparents who are

not adopting, in order to encourage grandparents, as opposed to

nonrelatives in foster homes.

A lot of us would like to see that money go into that very good

initiative on the part of the District of Columbia, so we will continue to work on that. I just want to make sure how that was happening.

Ms. WALKER. Thank you.

Ms. NORTON. Let me ask about the other end of the scale. We

always talk about—with good reason—about the children who are

not doing as well as they should. I wonder about children—I would

like to ask about advanced placement and other such programs.

When I was in the District public schools, they were ruthlessly

tracked. That is something that I am not recommending. But they

were tracked so that you knew exactly who was in the first track,

who was in the second track, third track, all the way down to the

bottom track.

Now, the interesting thing is huge numbers of children nevertheless went to college, because it was a different kind of city, with

aspirational parents, even when they didn’t have college educations

themselves. But the tracks pretty much guaranteed that some students would be focused on—maybe in the way advanced placement

does today.

What high schools have advanced placement in the District of

Columbia? What does it take to get advanced placement, particularly if you live in a neighborhood and don’t go to one of the special

high schools? What are the special high schools? Banneker, School

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Without Walls. Are there any others? Duke Ellington. Is all of it

piled up in those schools?

Dr. JANEY. Congresswoman Norton, all of our high schools do

have advanced placement courses. In this declaration of independence, we are expanding that opportunity so there will be a minimal

threshold of existing courses at each of our high schools at least

forward.

On the second question, what does it take? It fundamentally

takes a real good teacher who has been trained to teach advanced

placement to make that——

Ms. NORTON. Is it possible that students in one school, for example—I don’t expect any time soon to have advanced placement

courses equally everywhere in the District of Columbia. Perhaps

where there is no call, less call for advanced placement, would it

be possible for students to travel to a school to take advanced

placement in something that was not particularly offered in that

child’s own high school, for example?

Dr. JANEY. Yes. Yes. It makes a lot of sense, because some

schools have had lots of experience with advanced placement, will

have a lot of exams as well for the courses. And when you have

a school that really specializes in that, as Banneker is, and it was

listed in Newsweek’s top 100 high schools again a couple of weeks

ago—it is not reasonable to think that every school is going to have

an AP course in ancient history or African art or—I’m making that

up. But it is within some context.

So while we’re having a floor that creates universal access for

courses, and we are increasing the number of students taking

courses, I think the real key here is who takes the exams and who

earns at least a three or more on the examinations. And that is

where our effort is going to be concentrated, making sure that

there is a relationship between the number of students who take

the course, and making sure they’re taking the exam, and the preparation is, therefore, success in the exam. That is how you really

move the needle.

Ms. NORTON. And, of course, building excellence, yes, in the

teachers. And I would just encourage you to look for innovative

ways to make these courses available across the system. And it

looks like that is what you’re doing.

I’m going to quickly try to get through these. I was troubled by

what you said about the principal pool, because the prevailing wisdom is that you’ve got to have a good principal in order for everything else to fall into line. And I notice that, while we have a teacher of the year who is going to be testifying on the next panel, and

you are drawing, of course, teachers from this wonderful program,

Teach for America, as much as I would like to see teachers promoted from within to be principals, it does look like there is a difficulty—if much depends upon their success, and if the pool isn’t

what you would like it to be, is there any way to increase your

pool.

You testified that you increased entry level pay for new teachers.

Is pay a problem? What is the reason that—is there a problem that

confined you to the existing pool? Is there a larger pool that is

available to you as well? Is there training needed for principals, or

teachers who strive to be principals? Is such training offered?

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Dr. JANEY. Yes, there is training that is provided. More training

and development, I believe, is needed.

I think it is an open question as to whether our principals are

competitive with our regional counterparts. That is not the case

with our teachers. Our teachers are now competitive in salary with

our regional counterparts at school districts.

Ms. NORTON. But not the principals’ salaries?

Dr. JANEY. No. The principals, I believe, are not as competitive

as our teachers are. And I think we’re going to have to be really

in a situation to double, triple our efforts to get the kind of depth

in pool and quality within that depth in pool for principal selection

over the next several months.

This is not a new issue, and it is not unique to the District of

Columbia. It is a national challenge that school districts, whether

they’re urban, suburban, or rural, face. And it is going to require

a major effort that is coordinated between pre-K to 12, higher ed,

and the corporate community to see this over a period of time, because we can’t resolve it with a 1-year double dosage of energy, and

then next year we’re faced with these attrition rates that continue.

So we need a multiyear plan on this issue.

Ms. NORTON. You know, some of us who are simple-minded and

don’t know anything about education come up with solutions like

we ought to be paying teachers more who go into the most troubled

schools. We ought to be paying principals more who are going into

the most troubled schools. But what do we know?

Let me ask you about special education. That didn’t come up

much, but that is the wail one hears from the District of Columbia

so often. Have we finally gotten those costs, including the cost of

transportation, under control?

Either of you may answer.

Dr. JANEY. I’ll take the lead here.

One of the ways—first of all, let me just give you some context.

Overall, our percentage of students who have a disability, the overall percentage, 18, 19 percent, as high as it is, almost one-fifth of

the children enrolled in the District of Columbia, DCPS, are students with a disability. That is not out of line with other urban districts, Boston being one.

No. 2, what is out of line is the proportion of our students for

whom we pay tuition and pay exorbitant transportation costs who

are being served outside of the District. The number, however, isn’t

increasing, and one of the ways by which we’ve been doing that is

by adding seats each year in the school district. We plan to add 700

new seats next year. We added 600 new seats this year; 75 percent

of those 600 seats are filled.

So we’re trying to bring back more students, but we don’t control

the cost of their tuition outside of the placement within the District

of Columbia. So it is a pretty complex issue, and while we have

heard the impact of this with respect to transportation costs, and

we would quickly like to blame the transportation administrator,

part of his challenge originates with us. I mean, if he is transporting students, and we could service them here, and there is an

agreement through the individual education plan process that we

could service them here, then that relieves the burden on the

transportation costs.

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But I would like to point out as well that we are collaborating

with the council of the great city schools. Ms. Patterson has been

part of that dialog for them to come in, and they will be coming

in from June 5th through June 8th to review the system and the

infrastructure of how routing is done for students with disabilities,

and Mr. Gilmore is onboard, and we should have some findings on

that issue that may relieve some costs. And we should have some

findings in terms of the overall picture with respect to purchasing

buses and the like. So we are going to have a full picture on this.

Ms. NORTON. Ms. Patterson, I was concerned that as the costs

went up, the school system had no recourse except to just look at

the cards on the table and switch to special education if necessary.

This is a very important mandate.

Do you believe that what Superintendent Janey is doing may, in

fact, get us into some kind of balance here?

Ms. PATTERSON. I think so. I think that adding seats is something we have been aware of. It has been ongoing over the last several years. I think that is a positive development.

I also think, it is my understanding from Dr. Janey, that he and

Mr. Gilmore are working together on a joint exit strategy, if you

will, to bring that function back in house. But that does include—

along with where the function resides, it also includes how to bring

those costs down; how to go from I think it is 600 individual routes,

how to bring that back down, because the costs, as he noted, are

exorbitant.

Dr. JANEY. May I point out again the responsibility that resides

within the school district itself? And this is separate from actual

placement. And, as you know, we’re under a number of consent decrees.

But much more fundamentally at the school level, we know that

there are 20 schools that have been responsible for 30 percent of

the referrals. But the good news is there are 14 schools that have

had no referrals. And finding out what is being done right and

what is not being done right will allow us to address it on the very

front end, as opposed to bringing students back or making some

modifications or making some adjustments once students have

been already classified.

There are students and there are situations of which I’m sure

you’re aware where the problem is a function of really reading. And

the preparation to teach reading to struggling readers is an enormous one, and if we are not prepared to do that, we may act by

default, and a student may then be assigned to a classification in

special education.

Ms. NORTON. And that, of course, would be a human tragedy, unforgivable, a human tragedy. But it happens, apparently, all across

the United States.

Mr. Chairman, I only have a couple more questions. If I may just

get those done. One has to do with something that was slipped into

our appropriation quite inappropriately, and with my good friends

who chair the committee believing that the District has signed off

on them, it had to do with charter schools. Two of them caused

such calamity that we were able to move quickly on those.

And the other, the third one, this is really for Ms. Patterson. We

were told as far as the committee was concerned it’s in the D.C.

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code, and where they have no problem with the committee changing it, what was—I won’t even get into how complicated it was—

had to do with the leave policy. The charter schools did something

that is the most verboten thing to do in the District of Columbia,

go around the city council and come up here and speak to somebody on one of the committees, and ask for some kind of change

in the leave policy between charter schools and the D.C. public

schools. That was so bollixed up that very few people, it seems to

me, in the universe understood it. We got that crossed out.

Then there was another where charter schools would get double

discount credit on the sale of—if they bought a public school. We

wiped that out easily.

Then there was one about the right of first refusal.

All of these were of great concern to the city, because it has to

do not with schools, it has to do with the assets of the District of

Columbia. We didn’t get to that one. This all happened during the

lame-duck session, and we had to fix what we could fix in the omnibus. But that had to do with the right of first refusal going essentially to charter schools where the council wouldn’t have anything

to say about it, the Mayor wouldn’t have anything to say about it.

Even within those there were permutations.

My understanding, from our committee, and from what we have

learned from the District of Columbia, is because this change was

in the city council, the city council could change it. And the committee itself was incensed, on both sides, to know that the council

and the Mayor had not given permission to do this.

I’m asking you what the status of this one issue is, right of first

refusal, because I do want you to know that if you change it to

what the city wants, it is my judgment, based on what the appropriators said to me on both sides, that they had respected home

rule, and they would have no difficulty with the District changing

it. That would save me having to put something in a bill to change

it. So I needed to know what your disposition is on that.

Ms. PATTERSON. It is my understanding that we have not yet

changed that. I believe there have been conversations between the

Mayor’s office and the council on that point. But one of the things

that I hoped to do this fall in the course of oversight on the charter

law itself is surface any other extant issues that we probably need

to address now that we have had the charter law in place for 7 or

8 years. But there has been no change yet. Thank you.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, just as long as you take care

of it.

Mr. Chairman, I just have one more question. It has to do with

the dropout rate. I think you, Mr. Chairman, mentioned truancy.

Everybody was concerned about headlines of truancy in the District. When I inquired about it, and inquired of our committees, I

found that there is no uniform way to judge truancy. So these figures about 1.8 in Prince George’s versus something else in the District of Columbia—I am going to try to get on to the education authorization or its appropriation something that, even given these

differences, that have to be there because these are matters of such

local concern—there would be some way to compare school districts. Because these comparisons—when I found out, for example,

that Prince George’s and D.C. and Montgomery and Fairfax regard

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different kinds of days and different kinds of excuses as truancy,

I don’t see how we can do No Child Left Behind without finding

some way to at least know what—have some kind of language even

given the fact that each district must be able to have its own truancy policy.

I’m concerned about whether No Child Left Behind will leave us

with a larger dropout rate than we have. I have my own commission on black men and boys, feminist though I am. I am so concerned that while the dropout rates are serious for everybody, I

don’t know where the boys are in our country and in the District

of Columbia.

As we understand, there is a shortfall of about $34 million in No

Child Left Behind. I want to know whether or not that is going to

be reflected at some point when graduation rates kick in, and you

have to pass whatever tests you describe in order to graduate from

high school. How are you going to keep the combination of our own,

our already high dropout rate and the mandate from No Child Left

Behind, resulting in greater dropout rates? What are you doing to

keep these children in school?

Dr. JANEY. I will begin the discussion, or at least the response

to the answer.

The very first thing I think we have to do is identify the breaks

in service over pre-K to 12th. When we see the evidence of students

being prepared to drop out, so to speak, that is, they have—they’re

over age, they have been retained in grade, there are social circumstances outside of school. They’re very poor readers. That is

probably one of the most common threads among all dropouts, that

they are very poor readers, if they are readers at all.

We have to identify where that is occurring before it—is 9th

grade or 10th grade where the bulk of the students who drop out,

that is where it occurs at those two junctures. So if we’re doing it

early enough, there are interventions that are successful. There are

some that we know that are successful within the academic community, and I think there are interventions outside in terms of the

wraparound service providers. But I think the key thing is identifying early enough prior to someone making a decision to separate

from a district and drop out, getting those triggers in line so that

we’re not behind the curve, we’re in front of it, and we are able to

do something 2 or 3, 4 years out.

The second big thing, I think, is being able to make good on what

is in this strategic education plan, and that is to get beyond State

certification and get a cohort of teachers who are nationally board

certified. If we do that, we are going to really be able to deploy

those best teachers and those best situations where we can really

arrest the symptoms of the dropout and actually get to teaching

those students and providing the support services they need, as

well as their families need.

So I think we’re poised to make a difference. And I would say the

last point would be we will be having discussions with the board

of education about altering the time by which a student is allowed

to graduate from high school. If we took a survey right now, we

would find out both in our charter schools, Fairfax County and

DCPS, that students are prepared to graduate—some of them are

prepared to graduate in 3 years, the target still being 4 years. But

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others may need a 5th year, only because when they started ninth

grade, they were behind already. Instead of them being keen to

drop out, if you extended the year and held quality constant, we

would be giving students an opportunity to make up that time

within a reasonable period of time, meaning 5 years. That is not

unreasonable for a student to finish, as long as they’re finishing

with a diploma that means something.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much. Let me thank this

panel. We have asked you a lot of questions, but this is very, very

important. And again, we look forward to working with all of you

and calling all of us to cooperate together to make this work.

We will declare a 2-minute recess before we get our next panel

up.

[Recess.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. We are here with our second panel. I appreciate your patience. We have Mr. Jason Kamras, the national

teacher of the year, from District of Columbia public schools. We

have Ms. Iris Toyer, chair of Parents United for the District of Columbia Schools; and Ms. Carolyn Dallas, executive director of

Youth Court.

It is our policy that we swear you in before you testify, so if you

just rise with me and raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Jason, we will start with you. You bring

great honor to the city and to the region, and we’re very, very

pleased. Is this your first time before a congressional committee?

Mr. KAMRAS. It is. Yes.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Then you have to push the button in front

of you. Now how does it sound?

Mr. KAMRAS. Much better.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you for being with us, and congratulations on a very well-deserved reward. And you have got a

couple of students with you?

Mr. KAMRAS. I do. I’ll have them introduce themselves if they

want to stand up.

Ms. WATKINS. Hello. My name is Ta-Sha Watkins. I’m a ninthgrader at Banneker Senior High School.

Mr. JETER. My name is Marco Jeter. I’m a ninth-grader. I go to

Cesar Chavez Public Charter School for Public Policy.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you for being with us. I know

you’re eager to get back to class, so we’ll try to move this along.

Go ahead.

STATEMENTS OF JASON KAMRAS, NATIONAL TEACHER OF

THE YEAR; IRIS TOYER, CHAIR, PARENTS UNITED FOR THE

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SCHOOLS; AND CAROLYN DALLAS,

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, YOUTH COURT

STATEMENT OF JASON KAMRAS

Mr. KAMRAS. Good morning, Chairman Davis. I would like to

first thank you for the opportunity to speak before this committee

this morning.

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And, Congresswoman Norton, let me also thank you for your extraordinary kindness that you have shown me personally, and for

your tireless advocacy on behalf of the District’s children.

Let me begin by saying that I’m extraordinarily proud to be a

District of Columbia public school teacher. My colleagues in the

District are incredibly dedicated and inspiring professionals who

share their creativity, their intellect, and love with children of all

ages, and they do so each and every day.

There is simply no group of people I would be prouder to represent.

I would also like to take this opportunity to share with the committee how honored I am to have the opportunity to work with the

children of the District of Columbia. And as you just met Ta-Sha

and Marco, they’re examples of the finest in our school system.

I have the distinct pleasure of working with these two amazing

young adults as their seventh and eighth math teacher, and they

also participated in a digital photography program that I direct at

Sousa. Like all of my students, they are incredibly bright, creative,

caring, and inspiring. They’re the District of Columbia public

schools.

Although they could not be here, I would also like to recognize

Ta-Sha’s mother, Ms. Johnson, and Marco’s mother, Ms. Jeter. Like

every parent I have encountered in my 8 years in the classroom,

they are deeply and passionately committed to the success of their

children. We have collaborated as educational partners, and I look

forward to continuing our work for many years to come.

I have been asked by this committee to comment on the factors

that led me to teach in the District, but in the interest of brevity,

let me just focus on one of these factors, a program called Teach

for America.

Founded by Wendy Kopp nearly 15 years ago, Teach for America

is a national organization dedicated to eliminating inequity in our

public schools. Specifically, the program recruits, trains, and supports highly motivated college graduates to teach rural and underserved urban and public school districts and become lifelong leaders in the effort to close the achievement gap.

Teach for America’s focus on equity and its rigorous training and

its support immediately attracted me. I applied in the fall of 1996,

and I was accepted into the program and assigned to the Washington, DC, region. I was hired as a sixth grade mathematics teacher

at John Phillips Sousa Middle School in southeast Washington.

Save for 1 year, when I was at the Harvard School of Education,

I have been at Sousa ever since.

Like many urban schools, Sousa faces a number of socioeconomic

challenges, but these challenges do not define the school. For me,

Sousa is Marco, Ta-Sha, and the hundreds of other extraordinary

children who enter its doors each morning. They are why I love my

job, and why I am so proud to be a teacher here in the District.

Despite the challenges that Sousa faces, my students are achieving. As evidence of this, let me share with you the results of the

mathematic initiative that I recently developed and implemented

at my school. Through this initiative, we doubled the amount of instructional time allocated for math instruction. We redesigned our

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curriculum to emphasize a real-world context for all concepts, and

we greatly expanded the use of technology in the classroom.

When I piloted this new program with my colleagues, the percentage of students going below basic, indicating little or no mastery of subject matter on our district standardized assessment, fell

from approximately 80 percent to 40 percent in just 1 year. This

was the largest drop in the below basic percentage that the school

had ever seen, and I am now working to expand this program to

the entire school.

In our effort to replicate and expand our success and in an effort

to answer this committee’s request for insights into how we can ensure high levels of achievement for all District children, I have reflected a great deal on our program. I have identified five key factors that I believe are most critical to our success. The first is the

quality and dedication of the teachers involved in the program’s implementation.

We created much of our own course material, strategically designed our lesson plans, and worked 14-hour days, tutoring before

and after school and on weekends. We were and we continue to be

absolutely driven. If we are to reach new heights in the District,

we as teachers must be relentless in our pursuit of excellence.

We must also ensure that we have a steady pipeline of first-rate

educators entering the school system. We can achieve this by recruiting aggressively, by continuing to streamline our hiring practices, and by offering financial incentives to make it feasible for

educators to live in the metropolitan Washington region. In addition, we must redouble our efforts to retain high-quality educators.

To do so, we must ensure that working conditions continue to improve, and we must make certain that our teachers have the opportunity to participate in robust, sustained, and job-embedded professional development.

The second factor that was critical to our success was effective

school leadership. My principal was immediately receptive to my

ideas about revamping the math curriculum, and was extraordinarily supportive during the implementation process. He did not

feel the need to dictate; rather, he trusted me to be an instructional

innovator. This freedom combined with support was integral to our

success. Effective school management empowers a faculty to overcome so many of the challenges it may face. We must ensure that

the District redoubles its efforts to attract and retain dynamic

school leaders who love instruction, who manage collaboratively,

and who are distinctive problem solvers.

The third factor that was critical to our success was outreach to

parents and guardians. We made a concerted and sustained effort

to involve our children’s families every step of the way. As a result,

we were able to develop a collaborative educational environment

that enveloped our students 24 hours a day. As our school system

moves forward, we must do more to support and engage parents

and guardians who are, after all, the front line of education.

The fourth factor was an increase in technology resources. In

specific, through grant writing I was able to acquire a minicomputer lab, an LCD projector, a document projector, and digital

cameras. These technologies revolutionized my teaching. They allowed me to more effectively meet individual learning needs, and

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significantly increase student motivation and engagement. As a

system, we must make greater investments in the structural technology and in the training necessary for its effective use. I guarantee that such investments will result in dramatic achievement

gains.

The fifth and most important factor is less tangible. It was an

unyielding belief that each and every child had the capacity to

achieve at the highest levels, combined with the expectation that

they would do so. I simply cannot overstate how important this was

and continues to be to my success in the classroom. When we as

adults set the highest of standards for our children, we send a message that we care deeply about them. Students inevitably rise to

the occasion. I can attest to this personally. I have had countless

former students tell me how much they appreciated the high bar

that I set for them in the seventh and eighth grades. They tell me

how that motivated them to achieve, and how they are now in advanced math classes because they have outperformed their peers.

As a city, we must be united in believing, without question, in

our children’s inherent capacity for greatness, and we must continue to set the highest of expectations for them. Excellent teachers, effective school leaders, sustained parent/teacher collaborations, increased instructional technology, and high expectations will

result in greater achievement, even in so-called disadvantaged districts; I can attest to this personally. We owe it to our children to

provide these elements at each and every school.

Let me close by saying once more how proud I am to be a public

school teacher in the District of Columbia. I believe deeply in our

system, and I will continue to work tirelessly on its behalf. Its

greatness lies within its students, extraordinary young people like

Ta-Sha and Marco. Let us continue to be undaunted in our pursuit

of excellence so that all students in the District will have the opportunity to pursue their teams.

Thank you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kamras follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Ms. Toyer, thanks for being with us.

STATEMENT OF IRIS TOYER

Ms. TOYER. Good afternoon, Chairman Davis, and especially to

Ms. Norton. I am Iris Toyer, chairperson of Parents United for the

D.C. public schools, and, like Ms. Norton, a graduate of the school

system.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I’m also a graduate of the D.C. public

school system.

Ms. TOYER. Congratulations. As a local organization, I will tell

you that Parents United is unparalleled in our understanding of

the school budget, and that is where we focus much of our work.

And because I was asked to come today as a representative of parents, I put these questions that were given to me to our mailing

list of parents, and so I hope that my responses honors the responses that I received.

I will tell you that much of the good work that Dr. Janey has

done working with parents, working with the other advocate organizations, has not necessarily trickled down to the entire parent

population, and so much of the response is based on what parents

are still feeling today. It does not take into account the standards,

the teacher development, and all of the other good work that we

know is going on.

Our impression is that DCPS is a system in recovery that is attempting to make a comeback from years of being mangled by

elected and appointed officials at every level of government, suffering from disputes over governance, constant changes in leadership,

vouchers, the proliferation of charter schools, and underfunding of

the operational and capital budgets.

We know that there are many dedicated employees such as Jason

that are daily, along with parents, struggling to make our schools

better. I would say that what we want to point out is that the Control Board put in place its Board of Trustees, and unfortunately we

found when they departed in 2001, that not much had changed. As

a matter of fact, there was a lack of financial and reporting systems created by decisions made under the Control Board that has

continued to cost the city millions of dollars. There was a dismantling of human resource systems and a gross underfunding of

schools’ needs, especially in facilities and maintenance repair.

Frankly, the level of dysfunction in the wake of the Control Board

was startling, and we’re still dealing with it today.

On the question on what low-performance schools need to improve, I would say that I think that low-performance schools need

what high-performance schools need: We want talented, welltrained teachers and principals who have high expectations for

every child, support from the central administration, and a level of

resources that accurately reflect the cost of educating low-income

students. Parents United would frankly like to see some help from

the city, the system, the Federal Government, in getting those

1,400 teachers certified. I can tell you that 4 years ago the board

went through a process where they terminated hundreds of teachers who had not become certified within the prescribed amount of

time. Time has once again come due, and here we are again talking

about eliminating teachers. Something clearly has to be done in

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that area, and we think stipends or tuition assistance would help

tremendously.

I want to again acknowledge that Dr. Janey has put in place academic standards that will be implemented this fall. And I think

that the system needs to take advantage of that so that parents

leave in June with high expectations for our schools come September, teachers that will be trained over the summer. We all need to

know about the good things that are happening.

DCPS needs to inspire its staff, parents and students. We have

pockets of success that were talked about earlier. Mr. Kamras is

one of them that I cite in my testimony because, frankly, lots of

parents feel unconnected to their schools and not welcome.

On the bright side, Dr. Janey has talked about establishing parent centers not only in low-income neighborhoods but across the

city, so those will be points of contact for every parent and community member who wants to interact with our schools. And, of

course, there is the good work of the D.C. Ed Compact.

Finally, I want to talk about, just briefly, the capital plan and

the budget. The question was, was it realistic and fiscally responsible? And I think the question has several underlying issues.

First, the master facilities plan was created at a time when there

were more students in our schools; subsequently, it needs to be revised to reflect the current enrollment, with an eye toward future

needs. Having made the point, however, the capital budget is in no

way sufficient to support a major capital program. I think the

greater question, frankly, is does the plan support the educational

needs of our system; and that is what needs to drive the facilities

plan, not that we are just building buildings. We can do that day

in and day out, but if what is going on in those buildings does not

improve the quality of education, then we are no better off.

Frankly, there was discussion earlier about the Army Corps, and

parents who have children in those beautiful buildings will tell you

that the work was substandard, incomplete, not done according to

schedule and at extreme cost overruns. And frankly, we can’t hold

that contractor accountable for the work done or not done.

The decision to use the Army Corps, again, was the consequences

of the Control Board. The one school that the system is managing,

the project frankly is on schedule and on budget at last check. We

know that Dr. Janey is just in place, and we are concerned that

their ability, frankly, to manage a massive construction program at

this point in time is limited. We look for, with the Council’s help

and the Mayor’s help, greater things to come out of the proposals

that have been put forward in terms of school construction, because

our buildings are literally falling down around our children’s ears.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Toyer follows:]

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Chariman TOM DAVIS. Ms. Dallas.

STATEMENT OF CAROLYN DALLAS

Ms. DALLAS. Yes. Thank you for inviting me to speak today. My

name is Carolyn Dallas. I am the executive director of the Time

Dollar Youth Court program. I have been asked to speak about the

Youth Court program, and also our relationship with the DCPS.

First of all, very briefly, the Youth Court program is a program

designed for kids that get in trouble with the law. They’re firsttime nonviolent offenders, and they have the option of being diverted to Youth Court for 10 weeks to participate in our program.

They have various sentencings they can get; they can get jury duty,

community service, peer tutoring, college prep, youth development,

an essay, or even an apology that they may have to do.

We basically, over the last year, we’ve had about 600 referrals;

400 of those referrals have come from the Police Department. Our

third highest list of cases is really truancy. About a year ago we

started working with Dr. Diane Powell at the Student Intervention

Center to put in a truancy piece with the Youth Court. Basically

what happens is that the youth that gets sentenced to Youth Court

also gets sentenced to peer tutoring. And the peer tutoring works

where we work with one of the Fletcher Johnson schools. Our kids

go there twice a week and they tutor young people. What this does

for our kids is it really helps them build their self-esteem and gives

them a feeling that they’re doing something that’s important and

valuable, and at the same time the tutee receives instruction, they

receive additional support that they may not be getting in school,

and they also feel that they have an older brother or an older sister

that is sort of helping them out.

By the same token, another component of the program is the college prep program. A lot of the kids that come before Youth Court

that are sentenced have no idea of what’s going on in their lives

in terms of completing school. We work with them twice a week

down at the MLK Library, and there we start to begin to talk to

them about, what are you interested in, are you aware that you can

go to college, do you understand financial aid? And so what happens there is that, you know, students begin to feel I can succeed

at something, I can achieve something.

I like to think of Youth Court as a program that gives students

an opportunity to achieve in a different environment. And so we

have been working with DCPS around this, and I think when I

look at the challenges that are ahead of us, especially for DCPS

and Youth Court, is that a lot of the kids that come to Youth Court

talk about safety in schools, they talk about not being motivated,

they talk about possibly being labeled and not really performing

very well.

I think we have to provide an environment where kids want to

go to school and stay in school. There has to be various things

there that kids can do that make them feel good about being in

school and want them to attend. By the same token, we have to

involve the youth as solutions, too. They can’t be seen as a problem; we need to invite them in to figure out how do we solve some

of the problems that’s going on.

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And then third, I think for me, if the Youth Court could work

more closely with DCPS and become advocates for some of the kids

that are coming through our system, I think this would be very

helpful.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Dallas follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Well, thank you all for your testimony.

You give a different perspective than the insiders who have been

up here trying to work at it for a long time.

Mr. Kamras, let me start with you. How many of your Princeton

classmates are teaching in public schools today? What percent?

Mr. KAMRAS. Honestly, I don’t know.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Pretty small, isn’t it?

Mr. KAMRAS. I would imagine so.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Well, we appreciate the dedication and the

academic rigors that you had to go through to graduate and try to

bring those standards back to public school systems; because it is

really expectations, and once systems have low expectations, they

meet them, they try to meet those expectations.

I think in many ways what you’re doing is you’re changing the

world a person or a few kids at a time, which is probably the more

successful way to do it. We have all these broad programs and we

found out that at the end of the day it comes down to targeting a

neighborhood or a family or something like that; you can be more

successful than doing it on a very broad basis. And I think your

efforts are what has brought you Teacher of the Year, and I appreciate it very much.

Mr. KAMRAS. Thank you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. What has been your observation—if you

could ask what we could do from our level to help the school system the most, what would it be? Just say one or two things from

a Federal perspective. Remember, the city is spending more per

student than we are in any other areas around the capital. I mean,

money is always—don’t just say money; what else is it?

Mr. KAMRAS. Well, aside from the expectations piece which—that

you just mentioned, I think it’s all about people, to be perfectly

honest. It’s about recruiting and retaining really excellent teachers

and school leaders as well. I think having excellent people in

schools can make up for so many other deficits, be they resource

deficits or facilities deficits. By having people who are incredibly

well trained, who are undaunted about what they’re doing, they

find a way to achieve. And so I think we need to focus more on

bringing people—new teachers into the system as older teachers

are retiring, and doing everything we can to retain those teachers,

at the same time, school leaders, as the previous panel spoke

about. Having an effective school leader who manages well and

who is efficient and who is always looking to problem solve makes

an extraordinary difference; it changes everything that happens in

a school building. And again, it can make up for not having as

much money as perhaps you need to have. Again, which isn’t to

suggest that I wouldn’t want to continue to advocate for those resources, but having effective leadership and people in the building,

teachers and others who are committed to a common purpose

makes an extraordinary difference.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I had a lady who spent her year between

high school and college to work on my campaign in 1994. She graduated from Yale and came back to the city to teach. And after a

year teaching in the system she was just burnt out and frustrated.

You weren’t. But a lot of good people are. They come here with the

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best motives, they want to move ahead. What do we do to keep

those people motivated?

Mr. KAMRAS. Well, we need to support them. We need to make

sure there is real sustained professional development once they get

into the system, not half a day every 3 months on the hot topic of

the month.

We need to make sure that working conditions are what they

need to be, and that’s partly a facilities issue, but it’s also partly

just making sure that things run efficiently, that people are paid

on time, that teachers feel involved in the policymaking that affects

their work.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. You have people not paid on time at

times?

Mr. KAMRAS. It has occurred. Also we want to aggregate people

who are high performing so that you develop a nucleus, a critical

mass in a school so that there is a shared sense of possibility.

When you put a person who has very high expectations and set

them out in an island where perhaps expectations aren’t as high,

that can be very challenging and can make one lose their focus. So

by continuing to aggregate people and linking them up with great

school leaders, I think you’re going to find that a lot more people

will stay in the school system.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Ms. Toyer, let me ask you. Your group has

been very involved in the D.C. public facilities battles through lawsuits and certainly advice to this committee and everything else. It

would be my vision that as we look at the General Services Administration and surplus Federal property in the city, and look at ways

we can get some of that property off the Federal rolls onto D.C. tax

rolls, that you do the same with schools. And in some cases you

may want to swap an old school that’s in a commercially viable

place. You maybe make that a commercial center and return it to

the tax rolls and build a new school somewhere elsewhere where

we can get—where the land won’t cost anything and we can take

some of the profits on the property to build new schools and so on.

Is that approach reasonable?

It seems to me the number of new schools being built in this city

are very few, the average age of these schools is much, much older,

and you have a maintenance cost that is much higher in the city

than you have in suburban areas and all that. Any thoughts on

that?

Ms. TOYER. Well, you know, we only have a few schools that sit

on highly valued property in our downtown area.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Well, it wouldn’t have to be downtown, it

could be——

Ms. TOYER. But those that are—that come to mind easily on Capitol Hill and primarily in Georgetown are neighborhood schools.

And Washington, if nothing else, values its neighborhood schools.

The schools that, frankly, are less populated are in communities

where there are—where, you know, the value of the land isn’t as

high.

You know, we recognize we have too much space and not enough

children, but the education program has to drive the use of those

facilities, as Dr. Janey has talked about; for example, using school

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buildings for—a school building for the parent centers. He has also

talked about moving out of the North Capitol office space.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. How about colocating schools with other

public service areas? It could be a——

Ms. TOYER. And that is a consideration. The Council is going to

hold hearings on colocation. I think that one of the—a requirement

in the proposal that Chairman Cropp put forward that the board

take action to look at colocation, we want to be very careful about

what we talk about putting in buildings with schools, I mean——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Of course, of course.

Ms. TOYER. And we want the school communities to have a great

deal of say——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. You do. But something’s got to give here,

you can’t just do the same old, same old, the way things are. But

I understand. As long as we’re willing to discuss it and move forward. Everybody loves their neighborhood school, but right now we

have a surplus of space. And I tell you, I can walk in a school and

tell you how that school is performing by the way it looks. It can

be old, but a school that takes pride in itself, it’s spic and span;

you can get a feel right now for the standards that school has set

by physically how it is looking, not how old it is, but is it cleaned

up, is there trash in the halls? It is incredible what you see in some

of these areas.

We’re going to have to take a look at moving some areas, rebuilding some areas over the long term in the city anyway. Some of

these schools are just literally falling down and the maintenance

costs are high.

Ms. TOYER. Well, we would like them to look at it like an economic development strategy. As the Mayor talks about bringing

new residents into the city, we want him to bring new families into

the city. And what I can tell you is that of the almost 10 new

schools that have been built, every single one of them is at capacity

and, frankly, bursting at the seams already. And these are many

families who had not previously had their children in D.C. public

schools. But they see these fabulous buildings, and it is a draw.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I’ve got thousands of my constituents who

would love to live in the city. And that’s where their life is, that’s

where their job is, so that’s where they orient. But the school system, once they start having kids, the school systems have been discouraging from moving out. Now if we can turn that around, then

you can get the complete renaissance. And we’re hopeful, we certainly aren’t giving up here. We’ve done the D.C. Tag, a lot of

things that we think would help. We’ve done the real estate benefits for the city to help its economy grow. So we’re not giving up

from our perspective; there is only so much we can do institutionally on that. But we appreciate all your help on that, and the same

with Ms. Dallas, but my time has expired.

Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And

particularly for the generosity for the panel that really needed to

be on the hot seat, because they have the responsibility for the

schools. I really have only a few questions for this panel, which I

think has done a remarkable job in each of their respective

spheres.

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I do appreciate, Mr. Kamras, that you brought your students,

and the clear devotion you show to them and to this city. When I

first heard of your award, I wasn’t able to reach you, but I went

to the floor of the House to speak simply on what it meant to the

District to have you recognized. And a message is sent about others

in our public school, the very fact that you were chosen to come

here, that you have been chosen, that the addition in the newspaper about what you did, the extra mile you go, was some indication, it seems to me, of others like you in the D.C. public school

system. We certainly hope you will never consider going any other

place——

Mr. KAMRAS. Don’t worry.

Ms. NORTON. I know you’re from New York——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. He’s from Sacramento, isn’t he?

Ms. NORTON. I thought you were from New York. Where are you

from?

Mr. KAMRAS. I was born in New York, grew up in Sacramento.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. We’re both right. But he’s a D.C. guy now.

Mr. KAMRAS. Yes, yes.

Ms. NORTON. I know that you came out of college here on the

east coast of Princeton to D.C., maybe you learned a little bit more

about the city then. I would be interested in knowing—I know

Teachers for America brought you here—whether you had any

choice of the city you were to come to, what you think—does D.C.

have its full complement of Teach for America teachers? And what

has been the response of the other teachers and the young people,

who are not involved precisely in your subject matter, to what you

have done in—I suppose it is math and science; is it contagious in

the school, or are you one guy doing an excellent job? Is everybody

else kind of saying wow?

Mr. KAMRAS. Well, first of all, thank you for your very kind comments. And also I want to thank you formally for speaking at the

ceremony from the District in celebration of Teacher of the Year.

I do appreciate that so very much.

Why D.C.? Participants in the Teach for America program do

have some control over where they go, and D.C. was one of the cities that I was most interested in working in, one, because I knew

that it did need teachers, and also, I had visited the city when I

was younger with my family and developed a deep love for the city.

Its neighborhoods are some of the most wonderful I have ever seen,

and its rich diversity and fascinating history really attracted me to

the city. And I also have had something of a love for policy, so it

was a natural fit for me as well.

Your second question was about Teach for America and does it

have its full complement. I believe we could expand the program

in the city to bring more teachers to the District; so I think there

is a lot of room for growth there, as well as investment, both from

the Federal Government and from the local government in supporting the program as they bring and support new teachers into the

District.

And third, what has been the response? It has been incredibly

positive. And I’m so proud that I have been able to take some lessons that I learned from this math initiative and then begin to expand them to the rest of the school. And so I have been able to put

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together a team of people at the school who are working to really

implement these ideas school-wide. And we still have much work

to do, no doubt, but I’m confident that now that we’re on the same

page, things will really begin to turn around.

Ms. NORTON. It will be interesting to know when the new curriculum comes, whether you—who you are doing jobs with and

whether there is some flexibility, given your success, when the new

curriculum comes. I will be most interested to hear that.

Let me go on to Ms. Toyer. Parents United is basically the only

watchdog for the system. Otherwise we’re dependent upon government officials themselves. And you have often uncovered incredible

evidence that we would have had no other way to get to. You’re

more than a watchdog, of course, you are heavily involved in technical issues that are very inside baseball, except when it comes out

in the wash, which means in the way in which children respond or

children develop—if I could mix my metaphors between the Washington baseball.

The chairman mentioned schools that may be on land and perhaps taking that land, using it for other purposes. And of course,

you know, that might make some sense once you get into these

land issues involving schools. I’m glad I’m on the Hill and not in

the District. I do know that some—there are, of course, places other

than downtown that people want to go. Those would be just the

schools that are filled up. Everybody better understand how it

works here.

One thing parents know how to do is to transfer their students

from schools deep in the most troubled parts of the District to other

parts of the District. So it would be interesting and a difficult thing

for people who are not in the school system—I’m talking about residents of the District of Columbia to understand—is that these

schools that have better reputations, often not in their neighborhood, look like they’re favored in the number of students—in the

number of teachers and the resources, but that’s because people

have voted with their feet. And the notion of that transfer policy

being as liberal as it has been for decades is one of the most important things that the District has.

So, you know, if you’re anywhere close to wherever there is valuable property, there is likely to be a school—whether we’re talking

Capitol Hill—I mean, I know about the schools on Capitol Hill.

That’s where I live. Some of them would be there. You mentioned

Georgetown. Yet, those are the schools that district residents, regardless of where they live, prefer. I don’t envy this notion this superintendent is going to have to face, what to do about schools with

two kids in them while other schools are filled up. And it is always

a huge, huge fight.

Let me ask you, though, about something that is very worrisome,

this whole notion of parental involvement, you all, Parents United.

Now parental involvement means for many folks that somehow

parents are sitting in school and come to school and so forth, and

it really would be very good to have happen. I must say that for

most middle-class families, for example, that’s really not what it

means, it means that the parent is so attached to the child and

what a child does in school that while the teacher might not see

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the parent on any kind of frequent basis, the parent is involved

with the child at home so that is reflected in the school.

When we get to truly disadvantaged children, we believe we’ve

got to have some contact, some direct contact. Over and over again,

we hear that PTAs are thinly populated with parents, and that the

parents are just not there for the children, and that therefore the

teachers have to pick it all up. Would you give us some insight on

whether or not there are some special kinds of outreach to parents

that would help to reinforce at home what beleaguered, absolutely

besieged teachers often are trying—and sometimes succeeding—to

do—at school?

I mean, this goes for you, too, Mr. Kamras. I mean, you have

been fortunate, you haven’t even been in the whole school yet. Wait

until you get to the whole school. And assume that the transfer

rate occurs. I’m interested in how we can reach parents without repeating the mantra over and over again, parental involvement, parental involvement; how do you make it happen?

Ms. TOYER. Well, I think it’s important to define what we call parental involvement. I know if a child comes to school ready to

learn, and is respectful and does what he is supposed to do and

knows that, you know, they’re not going to be disruptive or whatever, that is a result to me of parental involvement. So it doesn’t

mean that every parent, as you have indicated, is going to be in

the classroom or even in the building. They may not meet that

teacher the entire year, but if that teacher sees that he brings—

his or her homework is prepared in class, that’s a result of parental

involvement.

I had a conversation recently with a very close friend of mine

who went to a session at Gallaudet that the charter school people

did. She teaches in a charter school, and she said they had this

whole session on parent involvement. And the conversation that we

had is that, you know, when you think about PTA, it is a very middle-class concept; people who go to church every Sunday or, you

know, have some connection with that, who have been in Girl

Scouts or some kind of community-based organization like that,

membership organization, are natural joiners. If you have not had

that experience over your life and you now have children and people are saying oh, you need to come to school, join the PTA, that

has absolutely—it doesn’t resound with you, it has no resonance.

And so I can think of a number of schools around the community,

around the city, that have done very well with parent involvement

because they have offered programs in the school for parents who

don’t necessarily feel welcome, that don’t feel that they necessarily

have something to offer in the classroom.

One of the teachers told me she learned a lesson. She invited a

parent to come in, and she said oh, you can help me with one of

my reading groups, and the parent seemed kind of put off—and it

was a fourth-grade class, so you would think that person would be

able to do that. She said, in talking with her family member she

discovered that one of her uncles could not read. And so to make

that—to assume and make requests of people that they have a certain level of skill was offputting. Rather than that, she just asked

the parent come in and sit down, help me. Just watch the children,

help me keep order. And it was a comfort level that she was able

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to reach with that parent that enabled the parent to feel like she

was making a valuable concept.

Some schools have social workers. There is an organization

here—and the name right now escapes me—it’s the Telling Stories

Project, and it is about bringing parents in, and the mantra is that

everybody has a story to tell. So they invite parents in to focus on

their own experiences. They find that their experience is like others. And they use that as a mechanism to get parents involved in

the local school. They do a quilt based on their stories, I mean,

there are lots of ways to do it that are not expensive that really

need to be proliferated across the city, because we need parents,

and clearly our schools can’t do it without us.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much for that. I must say—and

how can I forget his name, he was a good friend at Yale, the child

great expert in early childhood development in raising the scores

of the lowest performing children, all of whom came from public

housing in New Haven found that putting programs that address

the parents’ need only in the school had the effect of drawing to

the school and then to the child. In other words, here is some poor

parent, a poor parent, attracting the parent to the school for the

first time; that bait gets taken and somehow crosses over.

Final question, Ms. Dallas. I do want to compliment you on what

you are doing. That kind of innovation, that early intervention,

that kind of innovation is what everybody talks about, and we see

so few examples of. In your Youth Court, where you catch somebody when they’ve got a small drug offense or a truancy and they

go before their peers, this is very, very promising to hear of.

I’d like simply an answer to this question. One, I’d like to know

where the funding comes from. Who funds you? And I’d like to

know what have been the rates of success? That is to say, are there

recidivism rates? How long have you been in existence? So that we

know how the program works and indeed whether it works.

Ms. DALLAS. First of all, we are a 501-C(3) organization, and like

most nonprofits we scramble for our money. We have some foundation funds. We have some Department of Mental Health alternative

pathway funds. We have some funds from the Mayor’s Office of

Public Safety. And pretty much I’ve been with the Youth Court for

about 21⁄2 years. I think in the past they’ve had some DOJ money.

We’re trying to get some DOJ money right now.

But for me, just to speak very briefly about this, I think this program is so important that I wish that it could be a line item in

somebody’s budget because it is a preventative—I see it very much

as a preventative intervention piece that we need to buildup and

work with as they come in so that we can get them looking at their

lives, their decisionmaking process and all of that.

Our success rates. Our success rates, recidivism, we’ve been

tracking recidivism for the last year, and we’re finding that 6

months out of Youth Court, the recidivism is around 11 percent.

And then when they get to about a year of not being in Youth

Court, it sort of jumps up to about 17 percent, which I’m told that,

based on the study that was done, is still a better recidivism rate

than—I think it was 30 percent that was quoted for kids that were

going right into the juvenile justice system. But what we’re finding

is that—because parents were saying can you keep them in Youth

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Court because it gives them something to do? Our group of kids

don’t have a lot of things to do, so we’re finding if we can keep

them preoccupied and involved in things, that reduces that chance

of recidivism.

The other thing that we do basically, these are kids that when

you mentioned about reading, you know, some of them come, they

can’t read. They now get a leadership roll in that they’re able to

be a jury foreperson. You know, we encourage them around a lot

of different things in Youth Court. So we see some good successes,

especially anecdotally, about kids who we see the self-esteem

turned around and starting to feel like they’re worthy and they are

worth something and they want to go on to something different.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much. I see that we have learned

the lesson of early intervention. We may not have learned the lesson of follow-through so that the students feel supported once they

go forward.

Thank you very much, Ms. Dallas.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I want to thank all of you very much. This

is very helpful to us as we continue our deliberations and try to

work with the appropriate bodies in the District to improve the system. But all of you are making a difference, and we appreciate it.

The hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 1:05 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

[NOTE.—The District of Columbia Public Schools May 2005 Strategic Plan entitled, ‘‘Declaration of Education: Keeping Our Promise to the District’s Children,’’ and additional information submitted for the hearing record may be found in committee files.]

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