DC Schools Still Have Problems

Of course, DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee is not a miracle worker, but she, Mayor Adrian Fenty and school facilities chief Allen Lew have set themselves a one year deadline for avoiding the mistakes of this and years past.

In terms of great snark in a major paper, this lead paragraph by Nikita Stewart in the Washington Post should be an instant classic:

One month before school starts, District officials said yesterday that half of D.C. public schools do not have all their required textbooks and half of the school buildings will not have any air conditioning on the first day of school -- conditions as traditional in the city as back-to-school shopping for a new box of crayons.(emphasis added)

That is just great and completely summarizes the annual problems DC schools face when opening for students.

With about three weeks until school starts, textbook deliveries are incorrect and/or incomplete. Many schools have no air conditioning, and for anyone who has ever been to DC in August and September will tell you, air conditioning is practically a must have.

Fenty, Rhee and Lew gave an overview of academic programs and construction scheduled in the coming months and of the obstacles that they have discovered since the mayor took control of public schools in June.

"The chancellor and I are completely disgusted by what we find," Fenty said during the news conference about the state of city schools.

As part of the update on school readiness, Rhee said 290 teacher slots have been filled out of 475 vacancies. Rhee also said she has frozen the hiring of nonessential employees as a cost-saving measure. "No hires will be made at central office without my explicit approval," she said.

The missing textbooks are attributable to a broken ordering system, Rhee said. For example, French textbooks were sent to M.M. Washington Career High School, which does not offer French.

Under school system policy, principals are responsible for ordering textbooks for their schools. Rhee cited poor inventory control at schools and the central office.

When I read passages like that, it makes me wonder, many corporations have such accurate inventory control systems that they know not only how many of one item they but their actual physical location in the world. These examples simply highlight how far behind the times the DC schools are. Rhee, who has promised to focus on hiring high quality teachers and principals will either need a truly gifted business manager for the schools or a great deal of luck to avoid these inventory and ordering snafus.

DC schools are in trouble, of this we have known for sometime. But recognition of troubles and finding solutions are two different things. For example, Allen Lew has discovered that the problem with the DC schools' air conditioning is not the availability of air conditioning units, but of sufficient power infrastructure to support those units. Lew will not only have to make sure that the air conditioners work next year, he is going to have to completely re-wire the schools--a major project in itself.

Fenty, Rhee and Lew will have to be dropping some serious cash to achieve the goal they have set. The question obviously is whether or not the DC citizenry will be patient enough for the next year to allow them to do their job or will the price tag, which will high, be enought to creat problems. The DC City Council, not particular fans of Fenty and Rhee, will likely keep them on a short financial leash. Lew, who is widely respected, may get some more wiggle room for his financial needs. But the Council will probably do a great deal to gum up the works, if for no other reason than a desire to see Fenty and Rhee fail in order to get the "see, I told you it wouldn't work" moment. Which of course, is sad since the ultimate losers in such a scenario are not Fenty and Rhee, but DC kids.