Candidates Weigh In on System's Future
Amid Questions of Takeover, Rivals Debate Special Ed, Charter Programs

By V. Dion Haynes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Eight D.C. Board of Education candidates faced off last night at a community forum on school reform, charter schools, the federally funded voucher program and other issues challenging an already troubled school system.

The forum, sponsored by DC VOICE and several other school reform organizations, is among a series of community meetings held almost daily across the city to draw attention to the Nov. 7 school board contests.

This year, five of the nine seats on the board are up for grabs. Fifteen candidates are running for three seats -- five for president, five for a District 4 seat (Wards 7 and 8) and five for District 3 (Wards 4 and 5). The next mayor will replace two appointed board members whose terms expire in December.

But the probable mayor, Democratic nominee Adrian M. Fenty, wants to take over the school system and possibly turn the board into an entirely appointed one.

So despite all the competition for the three elected seats, the question looming over last night's forum was: Will this be the last school board election?

"I'm a firm believer in public education," said school board Vice President Carolyn N. Graham, a candidate for board president. "I'm running on the public's right to control public education."

Timothy Jenkins, a former interim president of the University of the District of Columbia who also is running for president, agreed, saying an appointed board would hurt the city's schools.

"We've already had three reorganizations and six superintendents," he said. "The key thing we need is consistency."

The other candidates largely agreed that the school board should remain independent, favored offering more vocational education, and supported Superintendent Clifford B. Janey's rigorous new academic standards and his plan to renovate more than 100 schools.

But they differed on the board's role in an increasingly competitive educational landscape in which public charter schools and a federally funded voucher program are drawing away thousands of students. Janey has called for a moratorium on new charter schools.

Laurent Ross, a candidate for president, said he favors ending the voucher experiment and halting the opening of public charter schools. "The only reason we have charter schools is because the Republican-controlled Congress thinks of [D.C. students] as laboratory rats," Ross said.

But Robert C. Bobb, who recently resigned as city administrator and also is seeking the board's presidency, said he does not support a moratorium. "What I am in favor of is being very aggressive to make the D.C. public schools the system of choice," he said.

During the second panel presentation at the Town Hall Education, Arts and Recreation Campus in Southeast Washington, the District 4 candidates weighed in on charter schools and discussed ideas for correcting what they perceive as a funding imbalance for schools east of the Anacostia River.

Jacque Patterson, an advisory neighborhood commissioner in Ward 8, supports charter schools, saying his 15-year-old daughter attends Thurgood Marshall Academy charter school in Southeast.

Jackie Pinckney-Hackett, a special education advocate, agreed. Because traditional public schools are so bad, Pinckney-Hackett said, "I support education by any means necessary."

But William Lockridge, the incumbent, and Jimmy Johnson, who conducts background checks for lawyers, said charter schools detract from traditional public schools. "We need to get the [traditional] public schools back on track," Johnson said.

The candidates were asked what they would do to bring more resources to schools in Wards 7 and 8, where children are more likely to have special education problems and live with poverty and violence.

Several said the effort should start with reducing special education costs.

Lockridge said the system should improve the schools so that 2,000 special education students currently being sent to private schools can return.

"Those special education dollars can go back into the classroom" for all students, he said.