Ramona Edelin: New DCPS head only half the story

If confirmed by the DC Council, the mayor’s pick for DC Public Schools chancellor will arrive in office after a turbulent period during which the traditional, city-run public school system was plagued by controversy surrounding inflated high-school graduation rates and preferential access for officials to bypass school waitlists. It was unsurprising, then, that nominee Lewis Ferebee set a cautious tone, declaring: “We’re obviously not at the point where we are ready to run a victory lap, but we do have a steady foundation that we can build upon.”

Ferebee’s balanced judgment is surely right — DCPS has had many achievements over the past decade, alongside recent challenges — but we shouldn’t let the focus on this important appointment as an opportunity for the school system to turn the page distract us from the bigger picture. DCPS accounts for only half of public education provided in the District. Nearly half of all public school students are educated at charter schools, which — like city-run schools — are taxpayer-funded and tuition-free. They operate independently of DCPS, however, and are free to develop their own educational programs while being held accountable for improved student performance.

A vibrant and thriving part of DC’s public education offering, charters were born out of the near-collapse of the traditional school system by the mid-1990s, when 47 percent of the District’s high school students dropped out or left the public schools before graduating, a fact highlighted in a 1996 report by the financial control board. Student academics and safety were also seriously neglected. From this low point, charters raised the bar, growing from just two small campuses into a sector that now serves 43,000 students, with a further 11,000 on waitlists to attend schools too full to accommodate them.

The reasons for charters’ popularity with District families are not hard to find. At DC charters, 73.4 percent of the high school students graduate within four years and 81 percent within five years — far above the rate that prevailed before their introduction, and also higher than the newly audited numbers for DCPS today. Moreover, DC parents and guardians can rely upon these numbers. The DC Public Charter School Board audits every graduating student’s transcript to protect the data’s integrity.

Beyond a higher share of students earning high school diplomas (a prerequisite for college acceptance), charter schools have also consistently raised student proficiency as measured by citywide standardized tests. This improvement has occurred while curricula have been enriched and after-school options extended. Charters’ autonomy has allowed them to offer specialized educational themes including law, public policy, bilingual immersion, classics and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) subjects.

Importantly, charters’ gains have been shared across the city, rather than confined to high-income zip codes. The rate for African-American charter students graduating high school within four years is almost identical to the charter average. And charter students in underserved wards 7 and 8 are twice as likely to meet state benchmarks for college and career readiness as their peers in the traditional system.

These public charter school achievements are especially important in terms of the city’s ongoing economic disparities, as charters educate a higher percentage of economically disadvantaged and minority students than the traditional system does.

Recognition of charters’ achievements by elected officials — the mayor, the council and State Board of Education members — would benefit the half of the District’s public school students educated in charter schools. That’s particularly important because the city significantly shortchanges these students.

DC officials must do better on multiple fronts — from their continued penchant for selling surplus school properties to private developers while charter schools struggle to acquire adequate space, to the persistent underfunding of facilities for charter students, with the District currently providing just $1 to charters for every $3 it spends on DCPS.

This inequity extends to local taxpayer funding for schools’ operational costs, where charter students also are underfunded year after year compared to friends, neighbors and siblings enrolled in DCPS. The DC Public Schools system receives between $72 million and $127 million a year in operating funds that public charter schools do not; this amounts to $2,150 per student received by DCPS students, but not their charter school peers.

Besides discriminating against some of the city’s most vulnerable students, these bad practices run contrary to District law. This provides that public school students at the same grade or level of special education should receive equivalent city funds for school operational costs. Separate DC legislation also requires surplus school buildings to be offered to charters for purchase or lease before developers can bid for them.

DC’s public charter schools are keen to work with the next DCPS chancellor to share best educational practices, thereby benefiting every District child. Meanwhile, the city would do well to step up to the plate by providing charters with the funding and facilities they deserve.

Ramona Edelin is executive director of the DC Association of Chartered Public Schools.