The D.C. Council's Strange Idea of School Progress

MINUTES AFTER the D.C. Council passed a budget last week, council Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D) issued a statement hailing the effort as getting "school reform back on track." It is a rather incredible -- not to mention perverse -- assertion, considering that what the council did was to withhold critical school funds, second-guess the schools chancellor and undermine mayoral control. If council members don't reconsider these misguided decisions, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty should try to overrule them.

The council gave unanimous approval to a 2010 budget that has troubling implications for the District's fledging efforts at education reform. It would enlarge the role of the elected State Board of Education at the mayor's expense, gut the office of deputy mayor for education and freeze $27.5 million in public school funds because of the council's belief that officials are overestimating the number of students who will enroll this fall.

That last issue concerns projections of 73,263 students in city and charter schools, an increase of 3,076. Most of the increase is projected for the charter schools, and Mr. Gray, not unreasonably, wonders whether it will come at the expense of traditional city public schools. After all, that has been the historical trend -- traditional schools losing students to the charters. But Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee makes a compelling case that public school enrollment will stay flat. Unlike in previous years, the schools worked with researchers from the Urban Institute, the Brookings Institution and the 21st Century School Fund to analyze enrollment and develop projections. She said that the exodus of students has slowed and that investments such as adding pre-kindergarten seats will attract students.

It is disturbing, then, that the council, acting on little more than a hunch, made a last-minute decision to withhold millions of dollars. Ms. Rhee is now faced with having to cut individual school budgets that were developed in painstaking collaboration with the public. A $27.5 million reduction is equivalent to 338 teachers, and it will be interesting to see what happens to council members' phones when schools in their wards start getting word of new budgets reflecting fewer teachers and other resources. The council's suggestion that the money would become available in October when enrollment is better known is impractical. Anti-deficiency laws bar Ms. Rhee from hiring people unless their entire salaries are available. And, as the chancellor wrote to Mr. Gray, "beginning to recruit and hire staff almost six weeks into the school year is of limited value to students who have been in class since August." In a separate letter, Ms. Rhee was equally blunt in asking the council to back off on tinkering with a school governance structure it enacted just two years ago.

Key to that landmark legislation was giving the mayor clear responsibility and accountability for running the schools. If the council persists in blurring that line by substituting its judgment for that of Mr. Fenty and Ms. Rhee, then -- come August -- the public will know whom to blame if children end up in schools that don't have enough teachers, books or supplies.