After years of decline, the city schools are making a slow comeback. Test scores improved. Schools opened on time this year for the first time in three years.
Critics say it's unfair to strip power from an elected body.
Some parents and principals say the superintendent has become too powerful. Many activists do not want Congress to interfere in their schools. If she could walk on water, Arlene Ackerman says, Washingtonians would say she couldn't swim. The capital city's newest school superintendent stepped into a culture of negativity when she took her job 10 months ago, after former U.S. Army Gen. Julius Becton, resigned. Becton had been under fire in three wars, but he couldn't cope with Washington's failed school system.