WTOP has a copy of a letter the D.C. Council sent to President-Elect Obama, urging him to place the District's "Taxation Without Representation" license plates on his presidential limousine. No big shock that the Council would push for the pro-D.C. voting rights symbol, but is it somewhat surprising that both Mayor Adrian Fenty and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton have said they will not press the issue with Obama? Probably not. Fenty and Norton want to......

Cue the “Hurricane Rhee” jokes. Here’s the latest being floated by Mayor Adrian Fenty and D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee: ask the federal government to declare the D.C. public schools in a “state of emergency.” If approved, the step would give Fenty and Rhee unprecedented authority to rebuild the school system, which is the lowest-performing the nation, similar to what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina destroyed the system there. This restructuring would likely......

While other school districts like Fairfax County and states like Massachusetts are in the midst of slashing schools budgets and cutting funding for education initiatives, D.C. seems to have found ways to avoid such measures, at least for a while. As we mentioned in the Morning Roundup, yesterday Mayor Adrian Fenty and D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee asked the Council to approve a relocation of $100 million from the approximately $750 million schools budget. According......

We're not even done with this election cycle, and already we have to look forward to the next one. Over the weekend D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty filed the necessary paperwork to run for re-election in 2010. Here's Fenty's statement, via D.C. Wire:"The time has come to engage the residents of the District of Columbia about the future of the city and the leadership that will represent them moving forward," Fenty began. "We are proud of......

Some notable finger pointing over the past week: a list showing 90 unfilled teacher vacancies surfaced, prompting complaints of a teacher shortage caused by Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s firing 270 teachers this summer; the long-awaited schools modernization plan was criticized by the D.C. council as incomplete and lacking community input; and a Washington Teachers Union information session about the quagmired teachers’ contract negotiations descended into name-calling and shouting matches. Perhaps Post columnist Jay Mathews had the......

Saveur delves into the topic of what the presidential candidates and other D.C. figures eat for breakfast. The majority of the interviewees listed the expected - oatmeal, cereal, toast, eggs, or coffee. For instance, Mayor Adrian Fenty eats a typical runner's breakfast - oatmeal, bananas, and tea with honey. Also notable from the list: Barack Obama eats four to six eggs every morning (that's a lot of eggs!); House Speaker Nancy Pelosi eats chocolate ice......

Hoping to head off an effort by Congress that would gut the District's new gun regulations completely, Mayor Adrian Fenty announced yesterday that he was proposing a number of changes to mollify pro-gun activists unhappy with the current restrictions. In a press release, Fenty detailed the changes he was seeking to the emergency regulations imposed after the Supreme Court found the District's handgun ban to be unconstitutional in June. The changes would include allowing residents......

One of the largest financial sinkholes for the D.C. government is that the city pays for approximately one quarter of its 9,400 special education (SPED) students to attend private school, to the tune of more than $200 million. Why the expense? Because the city’s public and public charter schools have thus far proved incapable of addressing those students’ learning needs. It’s a situation that doesn’t seemed to have improved over the past two years, according......

D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton read the District of Columbia's nominating votes into the record in Mayor Adrian Fenty's absence. Drama during the roll call! As head of the D.C. delegation, Mayor Adrian Fenty was supposed to be the one to read the District's vote into the record at the Democratic National Convention -- but Fenty didn't turn up until at least 10 minutes after D.C. was called upon to cast its votes. D.C.......

Some D.C. politicians say they're miffed by what they perceive as a snub against the District of Columbia by Sen. Hillary Clinton during her marquee speech at the Democratic National Convention Tuesday night. "I will always be grateful to everyone from all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the territories, who joined our campaign on behalf of all those people left out and left behind by the Bush Administration," Clinton said during her nationally televised address.......

Voting rights activists and members of the D.C. delegation to the Democratic National Convention held a small rally in front of the U.S. Mint in Denver this morning, but the Mint's location on the edge of downtown made for a not particularly visible event among the throng of other convention-related activities going on here. Rather few pedestrians passed by to receive the wooden nickels that voting rights advocacy group DC Vote had planned to give......

Speaking at an A-list (among education reformers at least) event in Denver on Sunday, Mayor Adrian Fenty let loose some choice words for the teachers’ unions that have been balking at D.C. public schools chancellor Michelle Rhee’s proposed contract, which centers on merit-based, rather than seniority-based, pay for teachers. When asked by News Hour reporter John Merrow about the union’s opposition, Fenty responded, “The American Federation of Teachers, which I don't think does anything for......

August is a mixed blessing – summer school is over and the afternoons are long, but teachers and students alike are aware that the first day of school is only a few weeks away. August should be a time for relaxation and preparation, but tempers have been running high for such a normally lazy month. The Washington Teachers’ Union and D.C. public schools are still locked in a stalemate over contract negotiations, the Mayor’s office......

This week marks the beginning of a series of meetings between teachers and officials from The Washington Teachers’ Union meant to clarify the much-discussed performance pay plan at the center of the ongoing teachers’ contract negotiations. D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee has said that initial coverage of the proposal included some incorrect details, and promised to speak with union members during a Q&A at each meeting, telling the Post she plans to offer, "some solace......

Last week, we told you about D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s controversial new merit pay plan for teachers, as well as the impressive jump in DCPS test scores, both of which continued to provoke opinion throughout the weekend. Rhee’s compensation plan, under which teachers could choose to waive seniority and tenure in order to earn significantly higher pay tied to their performance, attracted the attention of both The Economist, which liked the idea, and The......

If you’re not already familiar with the way teachers in D.C. get paid, it basically works like this – the longer you teach, the more you make. DCPS teachers are compensated on a seniority-based scale (pdf), something that was designed to encourage retention, but unfortunately also means that teachers are paid for their loyalty, not their performance. D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee has often said that she wants the District to have “the most highly......

The kid who fell asleep and was left alone for hours on a bus operated by D.C. Public Schools may have stolen the show in school bus coverage last week, but the real story is a bizarre new proposal from the Federal Transit Authority that would prevent the District from using Metrobus to get kids to school, a long-standing practice that transports about 20,000 kids a day during the school year. The Examiner reports that......

It’s been a bizarre week in D.C. education, as ostriches rallied on 14th St. and seemingly everyone from Katie Couric to Al Sharpton had their eye on the District’s schools. Thursday was the last day of classes for DCPS students, and while Mayor Adrian Fenty and Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee commemorated the one year anniversary of the schools takeover at a press conference at Langdon Elementary, a smaller gathering at the corner of 14th and......

Critics and watchdogs, in the best cases, help keep leaders honest and organizations accountable. The D.C. government has a number of them, particularly when it comes to the public schools. But sometimes rhetoric can overshadow reason, even if there is a legitimate point to be made, as was the case last week in a letter from the usual suspects to Council Chair Vincent Gray opposing nominations for researchers to conduct an independent evaluation of the......

A Post editorial today notes that the most effective action Mayor Adrian Fenty has taken since assuming control of the D.C. public schools a little less than a year ago was to bring schools chancellor Michelle Rhee on board, remarking, “Michelle A. Rhee has done more in months to reshape the system than her predecessors did in years.” However, the editorial also cautions that it will be some time before any true achievement growth takes......

This week, Newsweek and Jay Mathews (both of the Washington Post) released their annual Challenge Index of top U.S. public high schools, which ranks schools based on the number of AP or IB tests given divided by the number of graduating seniors. People like lists, and the Challenge Index always gets a lot of attention despite being heavily criticized for inaccuracy and irrelevance. For example, the highest-ranking District school, Bell Multicultural High School, comes in......

This morning at Coolidge Senior High School, Mayor Adrian Fenty and Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee announced reform plans for the 27 DCPS schools that require restructuring under No Child Left Behind (NCLB) for failing to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for five years in a row. As we’ve mentioned before, the five restructuring options offered under NCLB include: reopening the school as a public charter, replacing all or most school staff relevant to AYP failure,......

UPDATE 12:42 p.m.: The Council has voted unanimously to reject the Mayor's proposal, maintaining the existing requirements concerning the release of DCPS budget information and hearings. Today, the D.C. Council is scheduled to cast its first votes on Mayor Fenty's proposed fiscal 2009 budget, including $773 million for the District’s schools. However, one proposal in particular by Mayor Fenty has been garnering the attention of parent and community groups around D.C. – the motion to......

As we reported yesterday, Bicycling magazine has bestowed the District with the title of "Most Improved Bicycling City." (Take that, Minneapolis and San Jose!) Beyond the soon-to-come bike sharing program and the (hopefully) increasing amount of bike lanes, the magazine also mentioned the number of elected officials that are avid cyclists. And who are they? We list the most important. Adrian Fenty: Fine, I might not run this city, but I sure as hell beat......

The Washington Teachers Union (WTU) has been getting a lot of attention lately, much of it a result of the growing rift between WTU president George Parker and vice-president Nathan Saunders. First, there was the ruckus when Saunders, who has long-accused Parker for being “too cozy” with D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, vocally encouraged teachers to reject Rhee’s new program providing transition bonuses for up to 700 teachers at schools slated for closing or re-structuring.......

It seems that the Post and the Times aren’t the only ones with early retirement plans in the works. Today at 3 p.m., Mayor Adrian Fenty and D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee will announce new Teacher Transition Award Opportunities, meant to provide aging teachers with long service to the district opportunities to retire early with full benefits. Officials from the Washington Teachers Union held a meeting last week to discuss the expected announcement. According to......

Mayor Adrian Fenty has long been a health-nut, and his family has long owned local sports store Fleet Feet on Columbia Road NW. But if you mix the two, what do you get? A pack of angry Republicans. Today we received a press release from the D.C. Republican Committee decrying Fenty's choice of apparel in a new ad to promote the District. The ad, part of a new $2 million branding campaign launched by the......

Last week, Mayor Fenty and Chancellor Rhee offered up their FY 2009 schools budget, which at $773 million, is about $23 million less than the current year’s budget. However, because of savings from the scheduled closures of under-enrolled campuses and recent mass firings from the DCPS central office (about $44 million) ,as well as the shifting of special education responsibilities to the Office of the State Superintendent ($231 million), the budget actually increases the amount......

Federal officials using the District as a testing ground on which to push their preferred domestic programs is nothing new, particularly when it comes to the city’s public schools (ahem, Sen. Landrieu). True to form, nestled deep within President Bush’s 2009 budget proposal is a $5 million increase for a school voucher initiative called the DC Opportunity Scholarship program (OSP). Currently, around 1,900 low-income students receive scholarships up to $7,500 to attend area private schools......

Good morning, Washington. Supporters of Gov. Mike Huckabee and Sen. Barack Obama are riding high off their caucus victories in Iowa last night, but locally, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty continues to suffer some bumps in the road after one year in office. Just weeks after the resignation of Attorney General Linda Singer, Fenty's former deputy chief of staff, Neil Richardson, has also resigned. Richardson, who was a key Fenty aide during his mayoral campaign, had......