The Future of D.C. Public Schools
More than 70 percent of D.C. charter students are from low-income homes, compared with about 60 percent of students in traditional D.C. schools. And hidden behind the averages are individual charters that range from excellent to incompetent.One middle school, the KIPP DC: KEY Academy in Southeast, has the highest test scores of any middle school in the city and has recorded some of the largest gains in achievement by low-income students in the nation.
By Lori Montgomery and Jay Mathews
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, August 22, 2006; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/21/AR2006082101758_pf.html
Ten years after Congress imposed charter schools on a reluctant city, the District has emerged as one of the nation's most important laboratories for school choice and one of the first to confront a central tenet of free-market theory: Will traditional public schools improve with competition? Or will charters take over?
Both sides agree that the District is approaching a critical juncture. With public confidence in the schools at an all-time low, more than 17,000 public school students -- nearly one in four -- have rejected the traditional system in favor of 51 independently run, publicly funded charter schools. That share is one of the largest in the nation and is expected to rise when six more charter schools open their doors this fall.
As charters have proliferated, the number of students attending traditional schools has plummeted from 80,000 a decade ago to 58,000 last school year. Because tax dollars follow the student, charters now claim at least $140 million a year that might otherwise flow to neighborhood schools. That has led traditional schools to cut programs, lay off teachers and, for the first time in nearly a decade, close.
Powerful forces in the national debate are watching closely to see whether D.C. schools can win those students back.
posted by Whitney Tilson at 6:18 PM
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