Over the ten years of its existence FOCUS has been the prime mover behind D.C.’s hugely successful public charter school movement, which now enrolls approximately 30% of all public school students in D.C. Among our accomplishments:
- Helping to gain passage of D.C.’s charter school law, one of the strongest in the nation.
- Forming and coordinating the activities of the D.C. Public Charter School Coalition, a forum for political action and mutual support through which the District’s charter schools have achieved important goals and eliminated many barriers to their viability and independence.
- Negotiating agreements with the District administration that enabled charter schools to acquire some surplus school buildings.
- Successfully preparing charter school applicants and linking them with business, real estate, and other experts.
- Helping to solve many problems faced by individual charter schools, especially in the areas of local and federal funding and facilities financing.
- Working closely with the media to increase the public’s understanding of and support for the District’s charter schools.
- Writing and gaining passage of many significant amendments to the charter school law, including eliminating the law’s sunset provision; establishing a per-pupil charter school facilities allowance (which now stands at $3,000 per student); giving charter schools a right of first offer on all surplus school buildings; establishing an admissions preference for siblings of admitted students; making it easier for school system schools to convert to charter schools; and eliminating the requirement that charter schools obtain child care licensing in order to serve 3- and 4-year olds.
- Leading a successful three-year campaign to force the District to fully implement the funding provisions of the charter school law, which guarantee equal funding for charter school and school system students.
- Fending off attacks on the charter schools, including repeated attempts by the administration to underfund the charter school facilities allowance; an effort by the administration to undermine the financial independence of the charter schools; a proposed amendment to the D.C. Code that would have made it impossible for charter schools to obtain facilities financing; an attempt by the school board to throw a conversion charter school out of its building; and a proposed amendment that would have made conversion of school system schools much more difficult.
