News Articles, 1995-1997
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Resounding Silence Greets D.C. School Crisis

Critics Say City's Elected Leaders Have Played Hooky Instead of Offering Answers

The District's elected officials have stood nearly mute in the face of a consuming crisis in the public schools for the last three weeks. As contractors hammer and parents scram ble, a wide range of city leaders and politicians say that Mayor Marion Barry, the D.C. Council and the Board of Education have left town, retreated into silence or cast blame at others.

It is as though, a D.C. financial control board member noted last week, the city's political elite is "one big dysfunctional family."

While D.C. Superior Court Judge Kaye K. Christian and school administrators wrangle over whether 18 dilapidated school buildings will be allowed to open Sept. 3, each elected body finds it own reasons for silence. Members of the D.C. Council acknowledge that they are weak on oversight and ever wary of their ambitious junior partners on the school board.

The school board is riven by internal rivalries and has taken a hands-off management approach. And Barry, who already has tried unsuccessfully to take direct control of the schools, has not implemented a plan to sell vacant school buildings that would raise money for capital repairs.

"I have been distressed at the silence of the mayor and the city council," noted D.C. financial control board Chairman Andrew F. Brimmer. "And the passivity of the school board is deeply troubling."

"We've all been talking about this," said Beverly Lofton, spokeswoman for School Superintendent Franklin L. Smith. "It's like we're out there swinging by ourselves."

Indeed, many senior city officials have been out of town or just passing through. In the week after Christian's Aug. 3 decision not to allow some schools to open when the school year begins, Barry met once with Smith and then went to the Republican National Convention in San Diego. He made brief public remarks on the crisis, issued a written statement after 6 p.m. Friday chiding Smith for "poor management," and will leave again this weekend to attend the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

Barry met again yesterday with Smith to hear what repairs have been made at the 18 school buildings. Barry called yesterday's session "a clearing of the air" and softened his criticism of Smith. Last week, he and his press secretary did not return a half-dozen calls from The Washington Post regarding the schools.

D.C. Council Chairman David A. Clarke (D) has been out of town and has issued no statements. Council member Hilda H.M. Mason (Statehood-At Large), chairwoman of the council's education committee, left town last week and is not due back until four days after tomorrow's hearing before Christian.

And at a recent meeting of the financial control board, a presentation by several school board members dissolved into an angry public bout of finger-pointing, as one faction on the strife-torn board blamed the other for the mess. The board met with Smith yesterday afternoon for a briefing similar to the one he gave Barry.

Today, Smith must submit papers to Christian detailing which schools he believes have been repaired; yesterday, he contended that all but four -- Brightwood, Wilkinson, Noyes and Whittier elementaries -- are ready to open and that Whittier will be ready before Labor Day. Christian plans to determine at tomorrow's hearing whether she agrees with Smith.

Several D.C. Council members said that regardless of the outcome, they doubt the council will address the school crisis.

"No, nothing's going on," said council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2). "Why isn't there outcry from the council? Maybe we've given up on the school board-Franklin Smith model."

Council member Harold Brazil (D-Ward 6) spoke of his weariness with the District's travails. "There's so much shellfire out there with bridges and water and schools," he said. "We're not coordinated right now."

Brazil suggested that he might call the Department of Public Works and ask it to pitch in with school repairs. "If they are fixing things of lesser immediacy, I could ask," he said. "But I sure wouldn't want to pull them off street repairs."

School officials credit council member Charlene Drew Jarvis (D-Ward 4) with offering to bring contractors to bear on seven schools threatened with closing in her ward. "All of us have a responsibility, and I would have liked to have seen an institutional response by the council," Jarvis said. "In its absence, I stepped into the breach in my ward."

Several council members spoke more candidly in private. They noted that the creation of the D.C. financial control board last year took away much of their political power, and they said that they see little political benefit in raising their heads while popular anger is aimed at the federally appointed panel.

"Failure is very much an orphan in the District," said Jamin Raskin, an American University law professor and student of the city's political culture. "We are missing a basic sense of political responsibility."

The school board, the council and the mayor all bear some responsibility for the school system's current state, critics say. The council has parceled out little money for building construction and maintenance to the school system, they say, handing it less than $6 million for repairs in the last two years. The average school in the District is now 60 years old, and most require new roofs and extensive electrical work, experts say.

The school board has fought bitterly over whether the management of some schools should be privatized -- a debate that has had strong racial overtones -- but paid little attention to the physical condition of buildings even after the 1994 crisis, when Christian blocked the opening of numerous D.C. public schools because of fire code violations.

And the council's calls for reform are faintly phrased. Several months back, advocates forwarded a proposal for a school construction authority -- modeled on an agency that has helped rebuild New York City's schools -- to the education committee. It has remained there.

Critics also have pointed words for Barry. Faced with a sharp drop in students, D.C. administrators have closed a number of schools since the 1970s. Three years ago, city officials agreed to sell that stock of vacant buildings and use the profits to underwrite a capital fund. But Barry has not proposed selling a single school.

City budget analysts note that at least four of those vacant schools occupy prime real estate and could fetch a combined price in the tens of millions of dollars. "It's criminal to sit on those buildings," said a prominent District budget analyst.

In their defense, D.C. Council members argue that the school system has proved a profligate partner. They say school officials often misspend or fritter away capital money on ill-conceived projects. Council member Kathy Patterson (D-Ward 3) charged that school administrators have spent just 7 percent of their limited capital funds on roof repairs.

But she acknowledged that this begs the question of council oversight. "Oversight is not something the council is comfortable with," Patterson said. "The school facilities are grossly mismanaged, and that's given a lot of people an excuse to not pay attention to anything beyond tomorrow."

The mayor has not been entirely confined to the sidelines. His city administrator, Michael C. Rogers, has lent workers and equipment to the schools. And he has said, "I instructed the city's office of corporation counsel to vigorously represent the board . . . before Judge Christian."

But Barry often has spoken of his desire to gain budgetary and administrative control of the school system -- council member Bill Lightfoot (I-At Large) introduced a mayoral control bill this year. Politicians say that gives the mayor little interest in propping up the school board.

No explanation of the latest crisis is complete without noting the peculiar political history and governmental structure of the District. Before the city was granted home rule in the 1970s, residents had only a single elected body: the school board. That invested the board with a political significance far in excess of its powers. Some current council members and Barry used the school board to launch their political careers.

So a natural tension arose as school board members ever vied for council seats. In the Sept. 10 Democratic primary, for instance, council member Kevin P. Chavous is being challenged by school board member Terry Hairston, both from Ward 7.

"Every council member thinks the school board is running for their seat," said board member Jay Silberman (At Large). "So better to make them look bad. There's no natural impetus to coalesce."

Said Brazil: "The school board always screams, `Mind your business,' and now they cry for help. I would say there is a high, high level of frustration with them."

In that atmosphere, some officials are openly talking of a solution for the schools' problems that they would not have to devise: a takeover by the control board or a court-appointed receiver.

"Maybe we need an all powerful schools czar, with complete and total authority to fix it up," council member Evans said. "It's terrible, but at this point in time, maybe some drama is needed."