School Takeover Gaining Support

Council Majority Backs Premise Of Fenty's Plan

Mary M. Cheh and Jack Evans are among council members who, as Cheh said, "support the essence" of the mayor's takeover plan. (Doug Mills - Courtesy Of Mary-m. Cheh)

A majority of D.C. Council members said yesterday that they support the general tenets of Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's proposal to take direct control of the city's failing school system, although they are waiting to see full details of his plan.

Fenty (D) took office yesterday in a small ceremony and will hold his public inaugural today at the Washington Convention Center. But he is already moving to line up votes for his first major legislative initiative: to restructure the governance of the 58,000-student system.

Fenty has scheduled a news conference for 10 a.m. tomorrow at the John A. Wilson Building, where he will introduce legislation to reduce the authority of the Board of Education and require the schools superintendent to report directly to the mayor.

The elected school board would remain in control of such functions as standardized testing and teacher certification, but the board would have no say over management, budget or programmatic decisions, according to sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because the plan has not been released publicly.

Under Fenty's legislation, the council would gain line-item control of the school system's budget.

Yesterday, six council members -- David A. Catania (I-At Large), Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3), Harry "Tommy" Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5) and Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) -- said they support the general framework of Fenty's takeover plan, on which they have been briefed. They represent a majority of the 11 members currently sitting on the council and said they will appear with Fenty at tomorrow's news conference.

Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), a former school board member, said he also supports Fenty's concept, although he has not decided whether to attend the news conference. Vincent C. Gray (D), who was sworn in yesterday as council chairman, said he will appear at the event but will seek public input before taking a position on the takeover proposal.

The early support is encouraging for Fenty, but it does not guarantee legislative success in his restructuring effort. Gray said he will hold several public hearings before scheduling a vote. Several members said that although they support a takeover in theory, they might not endorse all the details of Fenty's proposal. Reducing the authority of the elected board probably will be a contentious issue in the debate.

Cheh said Fenty's legislation needs to be tweaked to get her full endorsement.

"I support the essence of his plan," she said.

If Fenty's proposal were to receive the necessary approvals, he would have unprecedented power as the city's chief executive to bring long-awaited improvements to an unwieldy school bureaucracy that has befuddled numerous superintendents, school board members and mayors. He would have vast authority to reshape such things as the governance structure and whether principals would be given power to hire and fire teachers.

"We need to change the [school governance] structure because the current structure does not work, has never worked and will never work," Evans said. "Everyone's in charge, and no one is in charge."