The Current
Op-ed: D.C.’s school building scandal penalizes children
By Robert Cane
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
As E.L. Haynes Public Charter School, one of the highest-performing public schools in the city, gets ready to move into a school building that was recently closed by the city's school system, D.C. residents may not realize that many other high-performing public schools in the city, serving children from some of D.C.’s most vulnerable neighborhoods, are being denied similarly empty school buildings.
Student enrollment at D.C. public charter schools, which are open to all D.C.-resident students and are tuition-free, has grown rapidly since the first two public charter schools matriculated 160 students in 1996. Today, there are 99 campuses. These new-style public schools have higher shares of African-American and economically disadvantaged students -- defined by the Department of Education as eligible for free or reduced-price school lunch -- than the city-run public schools. And they are ahead of the curve in reducing the student achievement gap -- closing D.C.’s gap between black and white students by 25 percent in three years.
Economically disadvantaged children have fared well in the public charter schools, which have been free to shape their own education programs. Innovations include longer school days, weeks and years; more intimate learning environments; increased contact between teachers and parents; and data collection to track what each student has learned at multiple points throughout the school year.
Students in D.C. middle and high schools with a majority of economically disadvantaged students are nearly twice as likely to be proficient in reading and math in charter schools as their peers in the city-run schools. D.C. charters also have created safe schools for children in troubled neighborhoods. The academic and character instruction offered by District public charter schools is helping children arrive at adulthood properly equipped for life.
High school graduation rates at D.C. charters are a full 24 percentage points higher than the city’s regular public high schools -- and even 8 percentage points higher than the U.S. national average. Fully 85 percent of high school graduates from D.C. public charter schools are accepted into college, and many successful charters have 100 percent of their graduating class earning college places, opening doors in adult life that otherwise would be closed.
But amid their successes, D.C.’s public charter schools have a huge problem: finding suitable school buildings in which to impart the quality academic and character instruction they offer. Charters do not begin their life with a public school building. They grow incrementally, one grade level at a time, and they must find their own space. Many are located in unsuitable warehouse and retail space or church annexes and basements, often lacking essentials such as playgrounds, playing fields, auditoriums and gymnasiums. Many charters have taken out expensive loans to convert these unpromising spaces into child-friendly school environments.
D.C. law says that the District government must offer school buildings that D.C. Public Schools no longer needs for educational purposes to charter schools to buy or lease before developers are allowed to bid for them. But almost always, the city government either does not invite charters to bid for buildings or it invites offers but does not seriously consider them. Instead, the city offers surplus school buildings to commercial real estate developers, who can make more lucrative offers.
There is no shortage of these schools: Enrollment in the city-run schools has declined for decades. Twenty-six schools have been closed by the city, and more closures are on the way.
Many of these school buildings -- frequently large, imposing structures -- lie derelict, blighting the underserved communities in which they are located and attracting crime. Others have disgracefully been sold to developers to become luxury condominiums or health clubs. Thus the city not only deprives needy children of school buildings (charters have half the square footage per student as city-run schools), but also keeps thousands of children on waiting lists for schools that can’t accommodate them. For instance, high-performing Capital City Public Charter School -- which President Barack Obama recently visited and praised as “an example of how all our schools should be” -- has nearly 30 applicants for every available place.
Simple fairness requires that the underserved children whom D.C.’s public charter schools predominantly serve get school buildings before developers can.
Robert Cane is executive director of Friends of Choice in Urban Schools, which promotes school reform in D.C. via the development of high-quality public charter schools.