In Tackling Schools, Fenty Will Be Tested

Adrian Fenty may turn out to be the best thing to happen to Washington schools in a long time. Fenty, who will be elected mayor on Nov. 7, has said that improving the city's long-suffering schools will be his priority. And Fenty, 35 and famously brimming with energy, brings a sense of urgency well-suited to the need.

But the how's of a mayoral takeover, if Fenty moves in that direction, matter as much as the why's. The new mayor will have to calibrate precisely how much he wants to disrupt a system that has suffered not only from a lack of leadership but also from instability -- from a revolving door of superintendents and governing boards and an ever-changing catalogue of reform plans.

The arguments for takeover are well-rehearsed and seemingly irresistible. For years fuzzy lines of accountability have plagued the schools. The superintendent is hired and overseen by a board of education but depends on the city council, the mayor and even Congress for his budget.

And the system hasn't worked. Only 11 percent of fourth-graders read at or above the level of "proficient." Thousands of students have fled to charter, parochial or other schools. Fewer than one in 10 ninth-graders can expect to graduate from high school and college more or less on schedule. Every failing student could be considered an argument for reform.

But elbowing aside the school board, a majority of which is elected by District voters, would be a large and contentious step, not to be taken lightly. (In fact, voters will choose a new school board chair on the same day they elect Fenty.) Along the way, the mayor, council members and other city residents will face some important questions.

Fenty is about to assume a daunting management challenge even without reaching for more. Schoolchildren aren't the only vulnerable people the city has failed: Voters don't clamor in the same way on behalf of retarded citizens or foster children, but how they are treated ultimately defines a city's basic humaneness. Can Fenty equal his predecessor as a fiscal manager, better him in caring for the vulnerable and take on the schools?

And a related question: Is he confident that the city bureaucracy he will inherit can support him more ably in this than the school bureaucracy supports the superintendent?

Then there's the questions of how to structure a takeover. Will the school board disappear, become advisory or (maybe most sensibly) be limited to the policy functions of a state board of education? What role would a deputy mayor for education play between the superintendent and the mayor? Who will oversee charter schools, some of which are now supervised (badly) by the school board and others (better) by a separate charter school board? Will there be a channel for parental input? There are almost as many ways to seize control as there are mayors and governors who have tried it, and the details matter a lot.

The most fundamental question will be how revolutionary Fenty wants to be. For two years the D.C. public schools have been led by a superintendent, Clifford Janey, who in many ways comes across as Fenty's opposite: patient, deliberate, low-key.

But Janey says he is no less committed to rescuing the city's schools. And in a recent conversation, he argued that he has put the schools on the right track already.

"There's no need to start all over again," Janey said. "We've been aiming to build the foundation with deliberate speed."

In two years, Janey noted, he has put in place a set of academic standards. He has rebuilt a lot of the basics that get no attention until they fail: making sure that textbooks are purchased, paid for and distributed on time, or that children have their immunization shots before they start school. He has replaced 85 out of 147 principals. "Was that done slowly?" he asks.

Sources say that Fenty, hearing the litany of accomplishments, responded along the lines of: "Well, you've been busy." But the mayor-to-be isn't satisfied that such changes have been felt by students or have given hope to parents. Even Janey's fans, and there are many, fret that he built too little reform into his latest contract with teachers.

Janey is right that Washington's schools can't be fixed overnight. Fenty is right that "deliberate speed" and five-year plans-with-benchmarks aren't good enough for parents whose children are falling behind right now.

Is there a marriage waiting to happen, in which the mayor infuses his sense of urgency into the superintendent's measured reform plans? That may depend on the answer to the biggest question of all: Once Fenty gets hold of the schools, what does he intend to do with them?

fredhiatt@washpost.com