A Candidate Who Aims to Build Faith in D.C. Schools
Charters, Special-Ed Would Be Scrutinized

By Theola Labbé
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 3, 2006

Laurent Ross lived every parent's nightmare nine years ago when his second son, David, a junior at Duke Ellington School of the Arts, was sick with a rare muscle cancer.

But David and his parents drew comfort from Davey Yarborough, the school's famed jazz teacher, who visited the young man at the hospital every night and once brought in the school's jazz orchestra to play a surprise concert. David, 17, earned his high school diploma before he died in July 1997. One year later, Ross and his wife accepted their son's diploma at graduation ceremonies.

"Davey Yarborough bolstered my faith in the school system. We were very lucky," said Ross, who is hoping to become the next president of the D.C. Board of Education. "But there are thousands of parents in D.C. who are not as lucky."

Ross said he is running to strengthen the city's traditional schools so more parents will choose that system instead of opting for private and public charter schools. His three oldest children graduated from the city's traditional schools, and his youngest, Machel, is a freshman at Benjamin Banneker Academic High School in Columbia Heights.

"My job as president of the school board would be to create a system where it wouldn't be such a tough decision anymore on whether to stay or leave," Ross said. "We need to give parents a good system; they deserve a good system."

Ross, 52, grew up near Philadelphia and came to the District to study international affairs at American University. He lives in Petworth with his wife, Mercedes.

At candidate forums, Ross often leaves his seat, giving audiences a view of his basketball height (6 feet 6 inches) along with his straightforward message on District education. He supports a moratorium on charter schools, closing charter schools that are failing academically and financially, and discontinuing a federal voucher program that allows D.C. parents with children in failing schools to send their children to private school at no cost.

"Charter schools is something that we didn't choose for ourselves," Ross told parents and education advocates at a Ward 5 education forum last month, in reference to the 1996 federal law that created charter schools in the District. Ross, who ran for an at-large D.C. Council seat as a Statehood/Green Party candidate in 2004, also does not mince words about Republicans on Capitol Hill, saying they have used D.C. schools as "a social laboratory of experimentation."

Ross said he also is focused on special-education reform. And he has proposed forming a corps of parents to help form and strengthen PTAs at every school.

He was a fellow at the Institute for Educational Leadership in 1985 and has a master's degree in information services from George Washington University.

His candidacy is gaining notice with parents who are concerned about the effect of the city's 55 charter schools on the traditional system. Public schools receive funding for each student enrolled, and charter schools account for about a quarter of D.C. students.

Lee Glazer, a Capitol Hill parent of three Watkins Elementary School students, is one voter swayed to support Ross because of his charter school stance. Glazer is also the co-founder of the Save Our Schools coalition, which includes about 400 students, teachers and parents who advocate for traditional public schools and support a moratorium on charter schools.

"For me, I think one of the reasons why I'm backing him is because he's got living, breathing children in the system," Glazer said. "He hasn't given up on the system -- he understands that it can work, and the problems that we're facing, but also the potential and the need for a real quality public school system."

Although Ross's platform resonates with some voters, contributions to his campaign have only trickled in. According to the latest campaign finance reports, Ross had raised a total of $4,035 in contributions as of Monday, a figure that lags behind the other candidates.

As a College Savings Program manager at Bethesda-based Calvert Asset Management Co., Ross talks with D.C. community groups and does other outreach to make residents aware of the D.C. College Savings Plan, an investment program for parents wanting to save for college while earning D.C. tax deductions. Before that, he was the first director of the District's Tuition Assistance Grant Program. Created by Congress in 1999, the program provides $17 million annually in college scholarships to D.C. residents.

Ross took over the program when it was just a start-up and there wasn't even any stationery, said Reggie Sanders, who worked under Ross as his marketing director. Sanders said he didn't have a good first impression of Ross, thinking that he came off as dry and gruff.

But as Sanders worked closely with Ross to build the program, Sanders said he found that he and his boss shared a passion for helping young people afford college. Sanders grew to greatly respect Ross's direct style. He said Ross spent late nights talking with parents across the city about the new scholarship program and helping them help their children apply. Sanders said Ross pushed to make sure that colleges received the District's scholarship payments on time.

"There's some people who will take a picture with a lot of kids and put it on a brochure -- that's not Laurent." Sanders said. "He actually does the work."

Sanders added that Ross, who is fluent in Spanish, had a knack for relating to everyone, no matter their background.

"The joke around the office," Sanders recalled, "and we said it to him -- was that he was the honorary African American in the office."

Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.