Schools Race Highlights City's Gaps

He wants the system to establish a high-performing academic senior high school in District 4. He also wants other senior highs to offer vocational educational programs and at least two foreign languages.

"This is a two-year term," said Lockridge, 56. "It takes 18 months to learn the job. I already understand the issues."

Jackie Pinckney-Hackett's slogan is: Give District 4 students what's right, not what's left.

Pinckney-Hackett, a longtime advocate for disabled students, wants to reduce the system's soaring special education costs by holding principals more accountable for following federal laws requiring schools to ensure that student evaluations and education plans are done on time. Because the special education offerings in D.C. schools are so poor, the system is often ordered by hearing officers to send the students to costly private schools that can accommodate their needs.

If principals don't comply with the law, "get rid of them," said Pinckney-Hackett, 40. "We can't have principals who want to educate just some of the students -- the easy ones."

Jacque Patterson said he has little confidence in the District 4 schools, which is why he enrolled his daughter in Thurgood Marshall Public Charter School in Southeast. And he's hardly alone, he said. "We're losing parents incredibly fast," said Patterson, 41, an advisory neighborhood commissioner in Ward 8 and a former policy analyst for the city.

He also proposes to use vacant school buildings to provide high-quality early-childhood and after-school programs and to work with charter and private schools on strategies to improve the traditional public schools.

Cardell Shelton, 76, a community activist and carpenter, wants the schools to offer job skills -- including crane operating, furniture refinishing and welding -- to students not going to college. "Why don't we retool our education system by giving students a survival skill?" he asked. "This will allow them to take care of their families and for [society] to curtail crime."

Jimmy Johnson, who conducts background checks for lawyers, wants the system to hire an independent auditor to scrutinize spending. "We have one of the biggest budgets, and we have to find out where the money is going," said Johnson, 61. "After that, we'll have to reprioritize."

Money going into wasteful programs, Johnson said, can be redirected into improving student performance.

Despite the campaign speeches, Philip Pannell, treasurer of the PTA at Ballou Senior High in Southeast, says the candidates avoid one key issue: apathetic parents.

Parents west of the park fight for better resources and programs -- and get them, said Pannell, who also is president of the Ward 8 Democrats. But in District 4, he added, it's hard to get parents to even show up for a parent-teacher conference or a PTA meeting.

The candidates' campaigns are "almost inside baseball," Pannell said. "They're talking a lot of bureaucratic-speak."