Fenty's Plan to Take Over Ailing System Is Finding Foes

By David Nakamura and V. Dion Haynes
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, November 12, 2006

D.C. Mayor-elect Adrian M. Fenty is moving briskly to convert his Election Day popularity into political support for taking over the District's failing public school system, but he faces potential challenges from other city leaders.

Robert C. Bobb, the former city administrator who will become president of the Board of Education, spoke out forcefully against a takeover last week. Vincent C. Gray (D), the incoming D.C. Council chairman, has reserved judgment until he hears more details. If Fenty (D) wins support in the District, his plan also would require approval from Congress and President Bush.

Fenty's bid to overhaul the system has become a focus of his administration even before he takes office Jan. 2. Knowing that success or failure will affect his reputation, Fenty is trying to avoid the political pitfalls that doomed an effort to take over the schools two years ago by his predecessor, Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D).

Fenty has assembled a team of education consultants to develop the takeover proposal. By the end of next month, he said, the group will deliver a detailed report about how the 58,000-student school system might improve if it were restructured so the school superintendent reports to the mayor's office instead of the nine-member school board.

Fixing the school system "is critical to the future of the city," Fenty said. "At the end of the day, as the highest elected leader [in the District], I have a responsibility to address the highest priority in the city. If you're looking at what is my plan to fix the schools, I envision a system with a lot of reform quickly. The takeover is not the endgame; it's a means to the endgame, which is improving the schools."

Parents, meanwhile, are nervous about whether a change of governance will accelerate reform or set back initial progress made by Clifford B. Janey, the seventh superintendent in the District in 15 years. Fenty has focused mostly on structural changes, saying little about improvements in the classroom or when changes would begin.

Education was a top issue cited by residents during the campaign. By improving schools, Fenty said, he would do more than answer parents' concerns. He hopes to resolve a growing divide among social classes by prompting middle-class families to reinvest in public education.

Kenneth K. Wong, a professor of education at Brown University, said mayors in cities such as New York, Chicago and Boston are taking a more hands-on approach to school reform. But, Wong cautioned, Fenty's bid for control will depend on how well he can convince the public that he will make good on his promises.

"The challenge is that local context is a big deal," Wong said. "In D.C., it was tried in the past a little bit, but the previous efforts were incomplete."

In 2004, the council rejected Williams's proposal to turn the school board into an advisory panel and to award him control of the schools. At the time, some members criticized Williams's aloof manner and doubted whether he would have the energy and drive to focus on school reform. Others said they were fundamentally opposed to eliminating the school board.

Fenty also wants to downgrade the board because he believes it has been bogged down in fractious politics that slow reform efforts, and he thinks he is better suited than Williams to win the support of the political leadership.

With his unprecedented sweep of 142 precincts during the mayoral primary, Fenty is banking on swaying colleagues with his clout and image as an energetic, engaged performer. And he is turning on the charm. He has begun lobbying council members and is scheduling a trip to take them with him to New York next month for a meeting with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (R) on that city's school model.

Ultimately, Fenty said, he believes the council will support him for one critical reason: His plan will give council members a strong hand in school oversight, including line-item control of the budget.

Gray has discussed the takeover with Fenty but has not endorsed it. Among the important considerations for Gray is which of the council's 13 members will oversee the education committee.

"I want to see a thoughtful approach on what takeover means," Gray said. "We have to talk about more than 'I'm in charge and you're not.' "

Fenty envisions creating a Department of Education overseen by a deputy mayor. The school superintendent would report to the deputy mayor, who in turn would report to Fenty.

The concept has not gone over well with school leaders. Last week, Bobb vowed to fight Fenty and said he would rally public support for the school board. Bobb, Williams's city administrator for three years, hailed his own school improvement plan, which focuses on early childhood development and boosting literacy.

Janey's future is uncertain. During the mayoral campaign, Fenty criticized Janey, who became superintendent in 2004, for moving too slowly, citing his 13-year plan to close some schools.

Fenty met with Janey at the superintendent's office last week to lay out the basic structure of his proposal. He said Janey would have more freedom to make decisions by answering to one boss instead of the fractious school board. Afterward, the two emerged smiling and talking about running a marathon together, according to people who were present.

"The system we're looking at would allow Janey to run like a gazelle," Fenty said.

In an interview, Janey said he does not support the elimination of an elected school board, lest the city descend into "civil war" over the loss of the public's right to vote for members.

But, Janey said, certain aspects of a mayoral takeover are "attractive." For example, he said, Fenty could help by improving the speed and ease by which other government agencies, such as the Health Department, provide services to the schools.

"We are interested in how reform advocacy by Mayor-elect Fenty could help coordinate the resources in the city that can be tied to the work we do," Janey said.

In other cities where mayors have wrested away control of schools, some of the loudest critics have been teachers and parents. In New York, for example, teachers say they have less creativity under a centralized system, and parents say they have diminished influence over local school decisions.

Fenty has not revealed specifics of how his plan would affect principals, teachers and parents. During a recent tour of Robert Brent Elementary on Third Street SE in Capitol Hill, Fenty assured parents that he would give successful schools more autonomy but vowed to reconstitute failing schools with new administrators and teachers.

Some D.C. residents, including Juanita Glover, 69, of the Woodridge neighborhood, whose grandchildren attend public schools, believe Fenty's aggressive approach would hold school employees accountable.

"There are a lot of problems with D.C. schools," Glover said after voting for Fenty on Election Day. "Mayoral control would be fine because he could oversee which people are not doing their jobs."

But other parents, including Gina Arlotto, 39, of Capitol Hill, who has three children, worry that Fenty's plan would set back initiatives begun by Janey, including $2 billion recently approved by the council for school modernization and plans to increase graduation rates.

A mayoral takeover could "add another layer of chaos, when we need continuity and stability," Arlotto said recently in the newly renovated library at Stuart-Hobson Middle School in Northeast Washington.

The Washington Teachers' Union remains undecided, according to President George Parker, who examined the New York model during a recent visit there with union counterparts.

The New York model "was a mixed bag," Parker said. "I came away feeling it wasn't all bad. But many sections were not working."

Fenty said he will be able to answer more specifics upon completion of the report, which will be overseen by James H. Shelton III, a program director in the education initiative at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation who turned down the job of interim superintendent of D.C. schools in 2004.

Shelton will be assisted by Victor Reinoso, a D.C. Board of Education member, and several consulting firms that specialize in areas such as curriculum, school maintenance and payroll. The consultants will be paid through private donations, Fenty said.

"Clearly, we need a new and different direction for our school system," said council member Kwame R. Brown (D-At Large), who has two children in the school system. "As it relates to the mayor-elect's plan to take over the schools, I don't know what it is."

Staff writer Nikita Stewart contributed to this report.