Cleaning Up in the Name of D.C.'s Schools

Not so with respect to chief of staff Lerum; special assistants Ouellette and Cain; policy analysts Lujan and Katz; and Pinckney-Hackett, the director of parent and community involvement.

I imagine they sing daily to Reinoso, in the words of Gladys Knight: "You're the best thing that ever happened to me."

Consider the following table:

	Before	Now
Eric Lerum	$85,000	$110,000
Bonnie Cain	$50,000	$92,700
Mark Ouellette	$92,500	$96,700
Claudia Lujan	$50,000	$63,388
Rebecca Katz	$52,500	$63,388
Jackie Pinckney-Hackett	$125 an hour	$95,000

Good for them.

Too bad the same can't be said for teachers in D.C. classrooms, police officers wearing bulletproof vests on the city's mean streets or social workers patching together broken families and abused children. Consider what one Nalle teacher noted on Thursday:

"This afternoon, our principal received word that a body was discovered on the grounds of Fletcher-Johnson Elementary near the path where our children walk to school. She made an announcement on the loudspeaker instructing the children to walk a different route home. Fletcher is within view of our playground and the body apparently sat there most of the day before it was discovered while our children played across the street."

kingc@washpost.com