Petar?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is Mary Cheh doing about education?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/dc-council-members-look-to-curtail-mayors-control-of-city-schools/2018/09/17/32492e5a-ba84-11e8-bdc0-90f81cc58c5d_story.html

Mary Cheh will introduce a bill tomorrow that would have the D.C. superintendent report to the state board instead of the mayor. Grosso is also introducing a bill that would make it harder for mayor to fire the superintendent.

This is leadership to get the proper oversight back in place. It is the proper role for a Councilmember and particularly one with senior status.

What is her reasoning for that? The state board of education doesn't impress me much. Neither are winners in my books, but sending it to a board is like sending to committee. I'd almost rather have it in one person's hands.

[Anonymous]

Because one person's hands has worked so well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because one person's hands has worked so well.

I've followed DC politics for over 25 years and read about the history. The city has gone back and forth several times between having one person in charge and having a school board in charge. Neither has worked particularly well. Anyone remember General Becton?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because one person's hands has worked so well.

I've followed DC politics for over 25 years and read about the history. The city has gone back and forth several times between having one person in charge and having a school board in charge. Neither has worked particularly well. Anyone remember General Becton?

Death by committee with lots of finger pointing? At least we can currently blame the Mayor!

[Anonymous]

At least a committee will have people who can actually ask questions and provide oversight.

The Mayoral process has been fraught with abuse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because one person's hands has worked so well.

I've followed DC politics for over 25 years and read about the history. The city has gone back and forth several times between having one person in charge and having a school board in charge. Neither has worked particularly well. Anyone remember General Becton?

The dynamic that goes back and forth is that when a school board is running the schools, people say nothing gets done because everything is too politicized, we need someone immune from political pressure to make the hard choices. When we have someone who has a free hand people complain that they're not responsive to what the public wants. We never seem to hit that sweet spot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because one person's hands has worked so well.

I've followed DC politics for over 25 years and read about the history. The city has gone back and forth several times between having one person in charge and having a school board in charge. Neither has worked particularly well. Anyone remember General Becton?

The dynamic that goes back and forth is that when a school board is running the schools, people say nothing gets done because everything is too politicized, we need someone immune from political pressure to make the hard choices. When we have someone who has a free hand people complain that they're not responsive to what the public wants. We never seem to hit that sweet spot.

I think this sums it up well. When I worked for DCPS, OSSE and HR didn't talk. HR hired us under one set of criteria, and OSSE vetted us under another. They seemed really behilden to NCLB and the Department of Ed at the time and had really strict, but sometimes coutner productive, criteria. They also had no appeal mechanism. I found them the worse of big bureaucracy. They would do things like smile sympathetically, but say their hands were tied. Frsutrating stuff. How are they chosen? And who do they actually represent? Seems like they would have a lot of stakeholders--students, teachers, parents, and educational law (that they create themselves?). I don't really get how they would function elegantly to field all of that.