Cropp Shifts On Control Of Schools

Candidate Seeks Takeover If Standards Aren't Met

D.C. Council Chairman Linda W. Cropp said that if elected mayor, she would seek to take control of the city's failing public schools on a case-by-case basis, a shift from her position on the council, where she sought to maintain the school system's autonomy.

In a policy paper released by her campaign last week, Cropp (D) laid out a plan to ask the council and Congress for authority to allow the executive branch to take over public schools whose test scores are below federal standards five years in a row.

Cropp's plan did not include specifics about how the schools would be managed once her administration took them over or how many schools would be targeted. Eighty of the city's 147 schools have made no progress on the federal No Child Left Behind Act standards.

In an interview yesterday, Cropp said she has not talked to School Superintendent Clifford B. Janey about her proposal. But she remains supportive of his leadership.

"We've got to give him a chance to deal with [the schools] first," Cropp said. "But if, in fact, after everything he puts into it, we still have some schools broken, we've got to do something different."

Cropp, one of five major candidates running for the Democratic nomination to succeed Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D), is a former D.C. schoolteacher, guidance counselor and school board president. She has campaigned on her experience but has drawn criticism from competitors who point out that the schools have deteriorated during her 26 years in elected office.

Cropp voted against Williams's bid to seize control of the entire school system in 2004 and blocked his effort to appoint all members of the school board in 2001. She voted in favor of a compromise board, with five elected and four appointed members.

Lobbyist Michael A. Brown, one of Cropp's rivals for the mayor's office, said that he would not seek to take over the schools and charged that Cropp was being "inconsistent" on the issue. Another challenger, council member Vincent B. Orange Sr. (D-Ward 5), who has said he would seek a full takeover of the schools, said Cropp's plan is "naive" because it is perhaps more complicated to take over some of the schools than all of them.

"She has never had an educational agenda until now, because she's running for mayor," Orange said.

Some school system leaders and activists expressed caution about Cropp's proposal.

"She has been a friend of the schools and the independent authority schools exercise," said school board Vice President Carolyn N. Graham, an appointed school board member and former Williams administration Cabinet member who is running for board president. "And I'm certain that it would be a conversation we would have to have with her before any final decision is made about such a strategy."

Although she focused primarily on education, Cropp's position paper also touched more briefly on affordable housing, public safety, employment, health and family issues.