Mayor Anthony Williams 
Testimony to the City Council Committee on Education, Libraries, and Recreation on school governance reform
March 29, 2004

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PUBLIC ROUNDTABLE:
SCHOOL GOVERNANCE REFORM

Statement of
Anthony A. Williams, Mayor, District of Columbia

Committee on Education, Libraries and Recreation
Council of the District of Columbia
The Honorable Kevin P. Chavous, Chairman

Monday, March 29, 2004
John A. Wilson Building
6:00 p.m.

Good evening Chairman Chavous, members of the Committee and other councilmembers. I come before you today to testify in support of my proposal to reform the governance structure of the DC Public Schools. I will not spend much time explaining the details of the bill I have submitted, but rather I wish to discuss the merits of this approach and address some of the questions and concerns I have heard over the last few months, as I have met in each ward with parents, students, teachers and principals.

I have explored the issue of school governance since the beginning of my first term. My discussions with mayors, former and newly seated superintendents and others have confirmed that governance reform is part of a complex reform agenda. There is not only the politics of getting legislation passed, but there is also the challenge of implementation - change is hard. So why pursue the issue? Does governance matter enough?

By itself governance reform is not the answer. It is a means to an end. Governance arrangements establish the rules of the game. They determine who is responsible and accountable for what within a system. We all know that in the education system, the real work of learning takes place in the classroom - in the interaction between teacher and student. However, decisions by school leaders, superintendents, and policymakers can either help or hinder what goes on in the classroom. Without good governance, good schools are the exception, not the rule. Without a governance system that demands the best from all involved, the burden on principals and teachers to create positive learning environments is even more difficult.

There are documented benefits to enhanced mayoral accountability of public school systems. We see examples of progress in Chicago and Boston where mayors have taken on this challenge. The New York City reform is still too new to make any definitive assessment of outcomes, but early signs show progress there as well. But I do not come to my position on the need for this type of reform here in DC because it has worked for Chicago, Boston or other cities and counties. I strongly believe that there are benefits to centralized accountability and a strong cabinet-level Chancellor of Schools for this city at this time. 

Our ultimate focus should be on improving the quality of education in the District such that we are no longer among the last in the nation. Our children deserve the type of education befitting a city with the resources and potential that we see in other ways of life here. We must work together to ensure that students enter school ready to learn, perform at or above grade level in all subjects, and meet or exceed the national averages on standardized examinations. We must attract and retain highly qualified teachers, who demonstrate subject matter proficiency and high performance on professional exams. Likewise, principals must be highly skilled in instructional leadership and building management, and emphasize student achievement and accountability. Finally, parents must have a variety of quality educational settings (including traditional, charter, and non-public schools) that cater to the variety of students in our system. Clearly, the status quo has not fulfilled this goal.

While we should allow for autonomy and flexibility, no school should be without the basics tools necessary for achieving academic excellence. Whether schools are East of the River or West of the Park, they should have the requisite number of teachers in core subject areas (reading, math, science, etc.) They should also have libraries, access to technology and exposure to music and arts. Principals and parents should not have to go through the annual exercise of deciding whether to keep a librarian or an art teacher, or whether they can afford to lose a reading specialist.

There are many ways to get us to this point. I believe that the governance proposal I have submitted will fundamentally change, for the better, the way we do business. What would be different under my proposal?

If you approve my bill, I will be accountable for a number of short-term accomplishments. It is unbelievable that we have to actually strive to achieve some of these things, but such is the state of our public school system. Here is a sampling of what I know we can accomplish with a governance structure that has everybody rowing together:

1. Bathrooms doors, running water and toilet paper in every schools - It is unconscionable that after all the money we have invested in the schools and we continue to hear parents complain about schools not having working facilities and basic needs such as toilet paper. How can we expect our children to perform under these conditions?
2. An Education Summit, modeled after my administrations three successful Citizen Summits, to develop a citywide education reform agenda - The Council of Great City Schools Report found that the school system lacked a clear vision, and charged the Superintendent with developing one. I would argue that such an agenda must be developed not only by the Superintendent, the Board, the Mayor and the Council - it must be developed with widespread citizen input.
3. Require the Chancellor to have a performance contract - As with every other member of my cabinet, the Chancellor would have a performance contract that would be based on the education reform agenda and would clearly outline the expectations for the job. In addition to the Chancellor, all senior managers and principals would be held accountable, through individual performance plans, for achieving shared education goals.
4. Institute scorecards for all schools and the central office - A few years ago, I instituted agency scorecards as a way to ensure transparency and accountability for making government work. It has proved a useful tool and a good model for the school system. Moreover No Child Left Behind (NCLB) calls for the same type of transparency about our progress towards improving student achievement. Each school should have goals for academic advancement, facilities upgrades and parental participation among other factors.
5. Accelerate efforts to recruit highly qualified principals and ensure 10- 20 new principals are deployed at our most challenged schools - The school system has made some progress in this area, but we can expand these efforts and focus on schools that might have challenges in the areas of academics, discipline, school climate, and teacher and student morale.
6. Develop and implement comprehensive state standards for teaching and learning - To its credit the Board of Education has begun to explore this issue and is working on developing a comprehensive set of standards for DCPS that are aligned to student assessments. Building off of this work, I would accelerate the implementation of a rigorous set of standards for all students and teachers across the city
7. Complete and implement standardized curriculum aligned with assessment - Likewise, I would institute a standard curriculum for all schools which will create a road map for achieving state standards. This will ensure that no matter what quadrant or ward a student attended school s/he would be learning the same thing. This is not to say that schools cannot have special programs or classes, but there should not be so much individuality in the system that we cannot say with certainty what our children know and don't know. 
8. Develop and fund mandatory (i.e. tied to the contract) meaningful, and ongoing professional development opportunities. DC VOICE has championed a Supports for Quality Teaching Model which highlights the importance of professional development. I would task the Superintendent with developing a professional development program that provided real opportunities for teachers to fine-tune their craft, learning from each other as well as from the best minds in the field. Now, this will require additional resources and I will call upon my universities and business community to help with this initiative.
9. Immediately conduct an assessment of the DCPS capital improvement plan and ensure that all schools receive small capital improvements while we move toward full modernization of all schools - The District does not have the local capacity to sustain the DCPS Modernization Plan as it is currently proposed. That plan would put one or two "Cadillac" schools in each ward in the next ten to fifteen years, and leave the rest in close to their current condition. Thus the majority of children would remain in substandard schools. What I would propose, and what we are now working toward, is a more drastic "small capital" projects program at DCPS, funding necessary repairs to every school quicker, and without disparity, to ensure that every student is attending school in an adequate, comfortable and proper environment for learning. Moreover, I would accelerate the work we have already begun with the Facilities Coordination Task Force (?name) The goal of this Taskforce is to identify ways to make better use of public buildings (libraries, recreation centers and schools) and find opportunities for co-location, consolidation or other efficiencies.
10. Talk with our teachers' unions about instituting pay for performance. - This will be perhaps the biggest challenge, but it is a dialogue worth having. I am confident that under my proposed structure we can work with the unions to devise a contract that benefits teachers as employees but more importantly one that will support academic achievement.

I firmly believe members of the Board, the Council, and the Superintendent all want the best for our children. The problem is not a lack of motivation, the problem is a system that by its very nature causes us to spend too much time calibrating between branches of government and being worried about bureaucratic nuances and turf issues. Mr. Chair, we all have spent many years talking to, and sometimes at each other, but sadly that dialogue has been about disagreement over what is fact, instead of building a common vision. 

It is ironic that we would consider maintaining this current structure when over the years the Council has witnessed the challenges of getting the school system to follow though on numerous initiatives that have been in best interest of our students We have complained about capital projects that never get executed, or resorted to drafting legislation to demand the timely adoption of textbooks, transparent financial reporting, or co-location of charter schools in underutilized DCPS buildings. 

Indeed we have has some success in collaborating with the schools system. Most notably the transformation schools and wrap around services initiatives are good examples of what cross agency collaboration can bring about. In addition we have had some recent success in folding DCPS into the District's ASMP system. But think about how much time and resources we would have saved over the last three years if we did not have an independent school system building its own fiber optic network, and trying to create its own personnel, procurement and payroll systems. 

We must rationalize our current approach to education service delivery, give a Chancellor instructional and operational control of the schools, and centralize accountability such that those who provide the resources (the Mayor and Council) accountable for how those dollars are spent. I am willing to be held accountable and I am committed to providing the Chancellor the support needed to do his/her job.

When I first became Mayor I promised that we would make government work. Today through collaboration with the Council, our citizens are better served today then they were six years ago. We answer the phones, pick up the trash, and clean the streets. We must take this same no nonsense approach to fixing our education system.

The issue of governance over the schools must be addressed once and for all. The Education Collaborative that we recently announced is an only interim measure that will address the immediate and critical need to locate a person of exceptional skill to be our next superintendent. While I am committed to working with the collaborative in the short term, we must also definitively settle which governance model best supports long-term improvement of the DC public school system. 

I offer you my proposal as a viable solution. My proposal provides the most hope for our city to have a public education system second to none. This approach would create a system that would truly ensure that our children are. Quite frankly they cannot afford to wait one minute more while we figure this thing out.