Post-Election Hopes.

I went to bed last night around 10:00 p.m., confident that my home state of Pennsylvania would finally cleanse itself of Santorum. I woke up this morning to news that the House has moved mightily over to the Democrats and that even the Senate could possibly shift. What all this means to me of course is that I have new reasons to be disappointed in the middle-of-the-road timid Democrats. It'd be nice if some of them would have the courage of Bernie Sanders, the lone socialist -- he runs as an independent -- who after so many years in the House has now moved handily over to the Senate. The last Democratic Senator with such powerful ideals was the late, great Paul Wellstone.

But enough of the big races -- and speaking of racists, George Allen trailed Jimmy Webb by only a few thousand votes in the land that time forgot -- let's move on to local politics, where Ward One Councilmember Jim Graham easily defeated...a handful of write-ins, since no one went up against him. And Fenty...90% of the vote. My only disappointment was that the Republican candidate received more votes than the Statehood Green (6744 to 4554). I'm very interested to see how Fenty's move for control of the schools shapes up. I would hope he would let Dr. Janey continue to push academic reform, while at the same time wresting facilities management from the dysfunctional, corrupt, and downright negligent administration.

Duke Ellington School for the Arts, featured in the Post recently, is a fine example of what I'm talking about. Here we have a showcase school build around the performing arts and the students are practicing in hallways or have no access to some programs because DCPS facilities allowed the school to deteriorate and refuses to fix the problems in a timely manner. Likewise, Dunbar High School's athletic facilities have been recently featured in the Post, thanks to their deplorable and beyond third-world condition.

At no point should anyone get away with the following statement, made by DCPS spokesperson Patricia Alford-Williams:

"We are repairing them," D.C. schools spokeswoman Patricia Alford-Williams said of Duke Ellington's trouble spots, "but we have a master facilities plan to renovate all our schools, and there's an order in which we're going to get to each of the schools. We're obviously not going to get to them all at the same time."

Let them eat cake, indeed. There is no excuse at any time in any school for any student to have to wait for basic facilities like restrooms or facilities integral to instruction to be useable. If you don't have the staff in-house, you outsource it. It should be unacceptable and inexcusable to place children at risk in unsanitary and decrepit conditions. The most valuable lesson learned by students in those situations is that education is not important and that they do not matter. A master facilities plan should be for upgrades and reconfiguration; it should not be used as an excuse to deprive children of core facilities.

If Fenty can do anything to shake the complacency out of facilities management in DCPS, then that's a good thing.