Archive: D.C. Schools
Program That Was Focus of Series Is Terminated
D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee has cut off funding to a teacher training organization that has been paid millions of dollars by the school system, citing questions raised by the city's inspector general and effectively halting the nonprofit operation. The Post had explored possible problems at the Teachers Institute...
By The Editors | June 10, 2008; 11:42 AM ET | Comments (0)
By the Numbers: D.C. Schools
A new report on DC. public schools underscores the lack of racial diversity in the system, finding that more than 200 of the 234 public and charter schools are more than 90 percent African American or Hispanic. Seven of the schools are majority white. The report, by researchers at the...
By The Editors | April 25, 2008; 11:51 AM ET | Comments (1)
Update on Student Funds
A former D.C. school business manager who raided donations to a chess club for emotionally disturbed students has been ordered to pay $30,000 in restitution and spend 25 days behind bars, court records show. The Post published a story in November detailing dozens of instances in which D.C. public school...
By The Editors | April 17, 2008; 05:36 PM ET | Comments (0)
Sticker Shock
One of the challenges to fixing the D.C. public school system is that every solution has to overcome sticker shock. Because of falling enrollment and other reasons, schools chancellor Michelle Rhee plans to shutter 23 schools. She estimates that the school system will save $23 million this year in operating...
By The Editors | February 29, 2008; 12:21 PM ET | Comments (0)
Landrieu Opens Files on Schools Earmark
A $2 million earmark for the D.C. schools from Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) has become an issue in her campaign for re-election after an ethics watchdog group called for federal and congressional investigations, reports The Post's James V. Grimaldi. As reported in The Post's investigative series about the D.C. school...
By The Editors | January 22, 2008; 03:00 PM ET | Comments (3)
Sen. Landrieu Defends Herself
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) has attacked The Post's story about how she pushed a campaign contributor's reading program that was adopted by the D.C. schools, telling New Orleans's WWL-TV on Sunday that "the Post is off-base in their accusations and innuendos." Landrieu, who declined requests for an inteview with...
By The Editors | January 7, 2008; 02:33 AM ET | Comments (16)
The Price of Neglect
The last installment for 2007 in The Post's investigation of the D.C. schools highlights one example of how school officials have wasted previous infusions of money. The $80 million in brand new boilers that were installed in 50 school buildings in recent years were not properly maintained, and many of...
By The Editors | December 31, 2007; 12:15 PM ET | Comments (3)
$2.9 Million Mystery
With no formal contract and without the approval of the chief academic officer, D.C. school officials approved $2.9 million in a single day in 2005 for a newly created non-profit to train teachers in reading and writing instruction. The money was authorized on the basis of a pair of one-page...
By The Editors | December 21, 2007; 09:37 AM ET | Comments (0)
A Gift to D.C. Schools -- With Strings Attached
Today's article on how Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) forced a campaign contributor's reading program into the D.C. schools is the first in a two-day report about the chaotic ways in which pupils in the nation's capital get their curricula. Many educators believe this fractured system of classroom instruction is one...
By The Editors | December 20, 2007; 08:44 AM ET | Comments (0)
Follow-up: School Employee Charged
A technology manager for District of Columbia schools who stuck schoolchildren with his tabs for thousands of dollars worth of lavish restaurant meals, nightclub jaunts and visits to a strip club has been charged with filing fraudulent expense reimbursement requests. Emerson Crawley was the subject of an article last month...
By The Editors | December 12, 2007; 09:21 AM ET | Comments (0)
Update in Schools Theft
The former business manager of a District school for emotionally disturbed elementary students pleaded guilty Wednesday to defrauding the school's chess club. Sandy Jones, 40, told U.S. District Judge Richard W. Roberts that she had raided the club's account repeatedly for her own benefit: writing unauthorized checks to herself, using...
By The Editors | November 28, 2007; 05:33 PM ET | Comments (1)
Followup: The Missing Chess Money
Among the examples in our recent investigation of thefts from student funds in the D.C. public schools was the more than $50,000 taken from charitable donations to the student chess club at the Moten school. It was a 2003 column by The Post's Marc Fisher that prompted the donations....
By The Editors | November 13, 2007; 03:18 PM ET | Comments (0)
