Submitted by ssvenningsen on
DC Council passes charter law in attempt to avoid congressional actions
On April 17, 1995 the United States Congress put in place a financial control board to oversee the District government; shortly thereafter, Congress began taking its own look at ways to improve public education in the District, including charter schools, vouchers, and private management of public schools. Subcommittees in both the House and Senate held hearings on the issue and directed the District to pass school reform legislation or face Congressional action.
Soon thereafter DC Councilmembers Kathy Patterson (D-Ward 3) and Bill Lightfoot (I-At Large) introduced legislation in the Council to authorize the creation of charter schools.
In another attempt to head off Congressional action, a group comprising some DC school officials (including the superintendent and the president of the school board) and a variety of school advocacy groups (among them COPE and Parents United for the D.C. Public Schools) drafted its own school reform plan and sent it to Congress in June. The plan, which was publicly disavowed by school board members who were not included in its creation, advocated for public school vouchers, private management of some public schools, and other ideas, not including public charter schools. In spite of these local efforts, Congress continued to press ahead with its own attempt to solve the DC public school crisis. The effort was led by Congressman Steve Gunderson (R-Wis), who circulated draft legislation.
On October 23, four of the five members of the Education Committee of the DC Council voted to send the Patterson/Lightfoot charter school bill to the full Council. According to the Washington Post, the lone Committee opponent of the bill, Harry Thomas Sr. (D-Ward 5), objected that “We don’t need nobody to come in and run our schools,” but left before a vote was taken. Unlike the draft Congressional bill, under which charter schools would be independent of DCPS and could be chartered either by the Board of Education or a newly created chartering board, the Council legislation gave chartering authority solely to the Board of Education and also gave the superintendent some authority over the schools.