Privileging Charter Schools

Yesterday, the DC City Council did not move Councilmember Barry's "emergency legislation" to require that charter schools get to acquire deaccessioned DC Public School properties. (However, the legislation will be rewritten and reconsidered by the Council again, under the normal processes, with hearings.) I sent this to the Councilmembers earlier in the day:

Why the Emergency Legislation to favor charter schools for property disposition is a bad idea

I am writing to ask you to vote against Councilmember Barry's emergency legislation to give charter schools priority use privileges for deaccessioned school properties.

First, as you are likely aware, Senator Landrieu inserted a similar provision in a federal law in 2004, imposing a charter school use preference on deaccessioned DC school buildings. Given that this law is in force, it is unclear to me why a separate local law is necessary. (See this Washington Post article from November 2004 with regard to the Landrieu charter school rider.)

Second, in either case, being mandated by the federal government, or being imposed by the Council, mandating charter school preference for building use is antithetical to sound planning and civic engagement and participation in local civic and neighborhood affairs:

-- this trumps planning at either the neighborhood or the citywide level;
-- neighborhoods change over time and perhaps not every school building is best used as a school building going forward in terms of neighborhood, ward, and city-wide planning and land use objectives.

Certainly there are many examples throughout the city of deaccessioned school buildings used not as schools but as housing, office (Edmonds), for nonprofits (TransAfrica), etc.

There are many problems with the preference for charter schools in terms of city planning. One is that there is no planning, no consideration for optimal use of scare financial and physical resources. Charter schools are preferenced without regard to demand, without regard to the total student population that is extant in the city. This creates further additional pressures on DCPS which are tremendously costly and diminish the likelihood of success for a K-12 public education _system_ in the District of Columbia.

Just as DCPS has too many schools given demographics and has to resize, the charter school nonsystem should be forced to take into account total potential student population and limit growth accordingly. Providing preferences to charter schools without planning encourages charter school growth in a fashion that is disconnected from demand planning.

This is a mistake.

Third, the final problem with preferencing "public" charter schools for the acquisition of deaccessioned school buildings, and granted they raise their own monies too, is that the buildings aren't owned by the public, even though a goodly amount of the public monies that the schools receive are for property debt service and maintenance. It makes little sense to mandate sale of the precious public assets that these buildings and sites represent to the citizens of the District of Columbia.

Why aren't publicly-funded "public charter schools" assets that are owned by the Citizens of the District of Columbia, held in trust by the District of Columbia Government?

So even though CM Barry's bill is superfluous, since that law already exists, it is doubly sad because it too sanctions the idea that neighborhood planning and consideration of broader and optimal resource allocation with regard to public assets isn't necessary or important, and is another restriction on civic engagement and democratic participation within the city.