D.C. Schools May Specialize

Janey Proposal Is Effort to Boost Student Achievement

D.C. School Superintendent Clifford B. Janey yesterday proposed converting five of the city's public high schools into specialty schools by the fall of 2008 as part of a broad plan to boost student achievement at all grade levels.

Janey's "master education plan" also calls for an expansion of preschool and pre-kindergarten classes, more language immersion programs in middle schools and more math and science courses in high schools. Starting in the fall of 2007, he would replace the school system's current hodgepodge of grade configurations with a standard structure for all elementary and secondary schools.

The 120-page document, which Janey has been working on for a year, is aimed at introducing more rigor, organization and accountability to the beleaguered 58,394-student system, in which 80 of 147 schools are on a federal watch list because of weak test scores.

At a news conference yesterday, Janey acknowledged that several of his predecessors also announced plans for ambitious reforms, only to see the initiatives founder because of administrative turnover and apathy.

"We've had numerous plans in Washington, D.C., to resuscitate, resurrect and reform the school district," he said. "The intention of this plan is to fundamentally outlast the winds of change." He said his blueprint should be viewed as a road map that tells parents, teachers and students "where we are, where we need to go and where we will go."

Janey, who took over as superintendent in September 2004, said the package will cost $83 million in fiscal 2007 and more than $90 million annually in each of the following two years. The school board is to vote on the plan at its March meeting.

School Board President Peggy Cooper Cafritz last night gave the proposals a strong endorsement. "The board is anxious to pass all the policies necessary to support the plan," she said. "We are so ready to put these changes into the school system. It's very exciting."

Under the proposed grade configuration, most children would attend elementary school from pre-kindergarten through grade 5 and middle school for grades 6 through 8. All students would go to high school for grades 9 through 12. A few schools that cover pre-kindergarten through grade 8 would be allowed to retain that structure.

The plan would change the makeup of most schools in the system. For example, the city's nine public junior high schools, which cover grades 7 through 9, would be converted to middle schools.

The current assortment of grade patterns is "a setup for failure," Janey said. Although senior high schools are designed to enroll grades 9 through 12, students graduating from junior highs lose a valuable year of experience by entering those schools in the 10th grade, he said.

Janey said he targeted under-performing high schools for his plan to offer more specialized courses of study. Under his proposal, Eastern Senior High School in Northeast would become the District of Columbia Latin School, focusing on studies in the humanities and foreign languages and modeled on the elite Boston Latin School, which Janey attended.

Spingarn, in Northeast, would become a boarding school for students interested in construction trades; Cardozo, in Northwest, a "trans-tech" school for the study of transportation and aeronautics; Ballou, in Southeast, a media and communications school; and Anacostia, in Southeast, a health and medical sciences school.