Another post on education? C'mon...

Every now and then I have to remember that reading Marc Fisher's column can be a mixed bag. In general, he usually finds the points that other people either overlook or choose to ignore. However, sometimes he draws some pretty slap-dash conclusions. Today he wrote about Janey's school closures. The print edition uses the headline, "Janey Flies Flag of Surrender." The online edition uses the less inflammatory "This Is No Time to Be Timid." In both cases, Fisher's argument remains the same: DCPS is losing ground to charter schools and these closures are a surrender to that reality; moreover, Fisher argues, Janey's failure to fire teachers or principals from the closed schools and his stated desire to see that no closed schools turn into condominiums shows timidity (i.e. an unwillingness to make the most money off the closings).

I agree with Fisher that DCPS has done almost nothing to stem the flow of students out of their schools and into charter schools. The charter school movement is strong in DC not only because of our colonial status as experimental laboratory for every goofy idea Congress or a thinktank wants to throw our way, but also because DCPS has consistently shown negligence toward their facilities and students.

However, Fisher somehow thinks that selling off school property to rapacious developers would somehow benefit the students:

Alas, yesterday's announcement heralded the most timid possible approach. "No condominiums," Janey promised. He wants to use the schools he's closing for city offices and social services -- worthy ideals, to be sure, but nothing that would give kids a substantially better education.

I hate to break it to him, but some developer building a 300 unit condo complex doesn't teach my kid anything. Nor will the money from the sale actually provide more than a drop in the bucket to my kid's school, after the bonuses paid out to central administration staff, the graft to the connected lawyers and shady land-swap specialists, etc. His teacher will probably be given an extra box of chalk. Fisher should know better than to think that any windfall will ever get spent in actual instructional improvements.

Like Fisher, I'm confused by Janey's largesse:

Janey went out of his way to say that the principals of the shuttered schools will remain principals, no teachers will lose their jobs and even the building staff will stay on the payroll.

In a way, of course, Janey can argue that these teachers were teaching students; it's the space that wasn't being fully used. Since the same number of students are still in the system, just shuffled around, they still need the same number of teachers. However, it's harder to argue that they still need the same number of principals (will the combined schools have two principals?) and even wackier to argue that the building staff will still have jobs. What really confuses me about this pronouncement, though, is that while Janey is assuring that employees at closed facilities will maintain their positions, he's forcing remaining schools, such as my son's, to fire classroom teachers and combine grade levels because his budget cuts haven't provided enough funding to keep all our teachers.

Such capriciousness appears to be an almost wilful attempt to drive more students out of the traditional public schools and into the charter system.