Teen Crime Changes In DC

D.C. teen crimes shift away from stealing cars but toward more violent offenses

By Allison Klein, Published: May 29

For teenagers who commit crimes in the District, stealing cars is out. Snatching smartphones directly from victims’ hands or breaking into their homes is in.

On average, juveniles were arrested for violent robberies or carjackings at least once a day last year, an almost 50 percent increase from 2007. During the same time, juvenile arrests for riding in stolen cars, a nonviolent crime, dropped by more than 60 percent.

The shift is one troubling indicator that the city’s youngest offenders are growing more aggressive and confrontational: Last year, teens made up 23 percent of all violent crime arrests, more than double the percentage in 2003.

“A number of years ago, car theft was off the scale. It was cool to get a car and joy ride,” said Daniel Okonkwo, executive director of DC Lawyers for Youth. “Now it’s an iPhone4, an iPod. Things you can’t afford when you don’t have money.”

Kip Patrick must have looked like he was a sure bet for having a smartphone in his pocket. He was wearing slacks and a button-down shirt as he walked alone near Ninth and U streets NW in the early morning of April 30 after finishing dinner and drinks.

As he walked by a group of youths, one of them suddenly shoved him, and he found himself rolling on the ground, scuffling with the guy.

“I got scraped up pretty good,” said Patrick, 38, who lives several blocks away.

When his BlackBerry Bold fell out of his pocket, someone in the group picked it up, and another youth pulled Patrick’s attacker off him. Then the whole group ran.

“I guess that’s D.C.,” said Patrick, who added that there had not been an arrest in the case. “But we can’t live in fear. If we do, D.C. isn’t a place anybody’s going to want to live.”

This year, juveniles account for 7 percent of overall arrests in the city — but about 45 percent of all arrests for robbery and carjacking, and 35 percent of burglary arrests, said D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier.

“They are overrepresented in those categories,” said Lanier, who started noticing the trend last year. “Everyone wants an iPhone.”

Teens have represented 6 to 8 percent of total arrests in the District for the past five years. What’s changing is their crime of choice.

Last year, 381 juveniles were arrested in robberies or carjackings, compared with 257 arrested in 2007. Police arrested 186 young people accused of riding in stolen cars last year, compared with 506 in 2007.

One of the main reasons for the shift is that anti-theft devices made it increasingly difficult to steal a car about the same time smartphones started becoming more prevalent.

“Stealing cars got too hot,” said a 21-year-old man who as a youth spent time in the former Oak Hill detention center. “You can grab a phone and go.” He spoke on the condition of anonymity, fearing reprisals at his job.

Snatching smartphones has a somewhat similar appeal to stealing a car: The thief can enjoy it for a while, make calls or access Facebook. Then he can sell it on the street for instant cash. On Craigslist, iPhones sell for about $250.

Teens are breaking into houses more than ever, according to police, contributing to a 14 percent jump in home break-ins across the city.

“Burglary is considered a property crime, but that’s a dangerous assumption,” Lanier said. “It’s a very serious crime. I don’t think the kids realize just how dangerous it is.”

Burglaries can quickly become violent encounters if a homeowner is unexpectedly in the house or a neighbor comes by to check on a strange noise.

Juveniles committing crimes have drawn particular attention in recent weeks: On Saturday, a 15-year-old was suspected of shooting a D.C. police officer several times in Northeast Washington. Last month, a 16-year-old was stabbed, allegedly by another teen, at the National Zoo. Several days before, two teens were shot midafternoon at a busy intersection on U Street, allegedly by other teens.

And five D.C. teens have escaped from secure detention facilities in recent months. One of them beat a guard and was on the run for two weeks.

One tangible way to cut down on juvenile crime, Lanier said, is to reduce truancy. If youths are in school, they’re not committing crimes, she said. She estimated that 80 percent of the city’s home break-ins by teens happen during school hours.

“Truancy is a gateway crime,” Lanier said. “It leads to gang activity, and it leads to crime. It is a huge, huge contributor to juvenile crime.”

During the first semester of the 2010-11 school year, about 3,700 students were considered truant. About 13 percent of the students in grades six through 12 were “chronically truant” that semester, meaning they had 15 or more unexcused absences. When police find youths who are not in class during the day, they take them to school.

Police officers based in schools, called school resource officers, are doing home visits for students who are “on the border of getting in trouble,” Lanier said.

This year, police have made nearly 300 home visits for truancy, she said.

The city has formed a truancy task force with eight agencies, including the police department, the courts, schools and youth services. The point is early intervention, said Paul Quander, deputy mayor for public safety and chief of staff for Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D).

“We don’t want to wait until that child is brought before a judge before we intervene,” Quander said. “Chances are, that child has a sibling or cousin in the same household who also needs help. We are trying to fish further downstream when they’re little minnows, before they become big fish in the criminal justice society.”

Lanier said that when police brass have their morning crime briefings, she can count on most of her commanders standing up and saying iPhones, iPods and iPads had been snatched from outdoor tabletops in the previous 24 hours.

But she said she doesn’t blame victims for using electronics in public.

“I do it personally,” Lanier said. “But I’m usually in uniform, so that probably discourages them.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-teen-crimes-shift-away-from-stealing-cars-but-toward-more-violent-offenses/2011/05/24/AGkEWfEH_print.html

Ain't Over 'Til It's Over

By Lisa Gartner

Created May 24 2011 - 6:28pm

WTU president unsurprised as his predecessor teams up with Rhee

Upon hearing the news that former D.C. teachers' union head George Parker was teaming up with rival-of-record Michelle Rhee, Randi Weingarten texted, "REALLY?"

Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, mediated tense contract negotiations between Parker and then D.C. Schools Chancellor Rhee, who has essentially labeled teachers' unions Public Enemy No. 1.

Weingarten was taken aback, to say the least.

But Nathan Saunders, who defeated Parker in his re-election bid for the Washington Teachers' Union presidency, felt quite the opposite. "This isn’t surprising news to me and a lot of people who really understood what was going on," he told The Washington Examiner.

In 2008, Saunders sued Rhee and Parker, saying in the suit that he was "systematically punished and retaliated against" for speaking out on teachers' issues.

"I was the first to come out and say that Mr. Parker and Ms. Rhee were colluding and pushing for the teachers’ contract, and that’s fairly reflected in the court records," Saunders said.

Parker is "definitely being used as a political tool," Saunders charged, but that's not his concern.

"We have received a lot of inquiries from teachers who felt they were never represented properly by Mr. Parker because of the rumors of him [colluding] with Ms. Rhee," he said. They're questioning "whether Mr. Parker sold them out."

"This is the very beginning of something that we’re going to have to pay attention to."

http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/capital-land/2011/05/nathan-saunders-george-parker-teaming-rhee-wtu

Park Slope Brooklyn

Similarities between Park Slope, in Brooklyn, New York, and Columbia Heights, in Washington, DC, are interesting and very real....

'Degentrifying' Park Slope

Former Sloper Luc Sante Has a New Spin on Gentrification

By Lisa Amand | Email the author | May 4, 2011


No question: Park Slope is one of the most magnificent, architecturally and historically rich neighborhoods in the city.

But whether you blame it on the realtors, the residents who shelled out millions for roomy brownstones and limestones, or simply the natural ebb and flow of city life, our neighborhood has changed dramatically in the past few decades. Some people find the neighborhood's gentrification excessive and stifling; others adore the safety and quiet beauty of tree-lined streets, lush parks and turn-of-the-century houses.

So is there any hope of turning the clock back a few decades to more fertile days when artists could afford to live and create here? That question was posed to a group of livewire writers at a PEN World Voices Festival last week titled “Degentrify New York and Give Her Back to the World”.

Luc Sante, the author of "Low Life," who lived in Park Slope from 1992 to 2000, entertained the crowd with suggestions that ranged from holding 24-hour block parties and making lawyers wear clown suits to banning mirrors and giving bed bugs the vote.

Even if Sante's ideas of “pedestrians hugging each other when they pass on the street” or "keeping your door open when home" are too much to ask, everyone agreed that getting to know the folks who live around you can change the vibe of places like Park Slope.

"Talk to your neighbors while sitting on your stoop," said slam poet and professor Tracie Morris. "Hang out in front of your building for one hour a week. If a significant portion of people would do that, the dynamics would change radically."

Among more serious ideas on Sante's list of 50 ways to de-gentrify were rezoning the city so it is more favorable to manufacturing and agriculture, and outlawing plastic bags.

One strong message hard to refute; unplug those gadgets and listen to city sounds and conversation, get out of your comfort zone. Morris, who lives in Carroll Gardens, implored New Yorkers to “stop being so scared of people who look so scary.”

She sees neighborhoods losing their identities as “Park Slope slides into Prospect Heights,” and parents hide behind a shield of trying to “make it safe for our children” instead of making their kids street smart.

When Sante moved to the Slope in the '90s, Fifth Avenue was dramatically different. “It reminded me of Columbus Avenue in the ‘70s,” he said, wistfully, recalling an unpretentious, affordable mix of businesses, from pawnshops to no-frills Chinese eateries. “Now it’s lined with restaurants I can’t even afford.”

As far as empty storefronts, increasingly more common on Seventh Avenue, the audience wondered whether landlords would perhaps let them be used as performance spaces until they find tenants.

The flip side of that, of course, as Morris explained, is how realtors exploit the presence of artists in a neighborhood as a selling point, luring well-heeled customers to places because they're cool, hip and worth every inflated cent. Another tack to take might be raising the cap on rent-stabilized apartments above $2,000, so financially strapped Slopers aren't so easily replaced by those who can pay market rates.

Sloper Antonio Romani, 63, was among the vocal crowd of bloggers, interpretors and activists attending the panel. Romani, who has lived here with his wife, author Martha Cooley, for three years, revels in the safety of the Slope and has no desire to go back in time.

“They tell me that Park Slope was a mess,” he said. “Now you can walk around every hour of the day.” A former high school teacher and bookseller in Italy, Romani compares New York to Paris and sees the future as promising. Among the Brooklyn gems he enjoys, Prospect Park and Community Bookstore.

But whether or not it is possible for Park Slope to “de-gentrify,” Sante has his doubts.

“The trouble is there are awfully nice houses there," he said. "It’s a tough call.”

http://parkslope.patch.com/articles/degentrifying-park-slope

Diplo Plates and Me in The Crosswalk (Crosshairs?)

Ambassador Maria Isabel Salvador

2535 15^th St. NW

Washington, DC 20009

Ambassador Salvador,

I write you as a neighbor – for more than 20 years I have lived a few blocks from the Embassy – as a pedestrian and as a parent.

This morning someone who I presume works at the Embassy of Ecuador illegally drove their car in front of me as I crossed 15^th St. in the pedestrian crosswalk in front of the Embassy. I say I presume because the car, east bound on Euclid, crossed the eastbound crosswalk to enter into the driveway of the Embassy. The car then drove in the driveway to the metal gate and remotely opened the gate and drove through. The license plate was a diplomatic plate – I don’t know if it had a D or a S on it. I think the numbers were some zeros then 125. (00125, 0125).

When the car crossed into the crosswalk, I was already half way across the road. When I left the corner, the car was not at the intersection. As 15^th St is one way northbound, it is not usual to expect an eastbound car to being turning right – while it does not take a right turn to enter the Embassy’s driveway from eastbound Euclid, it does require crossing a crosswalk that would not be crossed by a car going straight (from the pedestrian’s point of view it as if it was a right turn). While the driver did not come within inches of hitting me, the car did come “closer than comfort”. Let alone that entering a crosswalk in a car when a pedestrian is in the crosswalk is illegal in Washington, DC.

I walk past the Embassy often – I was on my way home from walking with my daughter to her school. My children as well as many other parents’ children walk past the Embassy daily. Eastbound cars on Euclid crossing the crosswalk to get into the Embassy’s driveway are a safety concern to me. I hope that as part of the neighborhood, pedestrian safety around the Embassy would also be a concern of the Ambassador and staff of the Embassy of Ecuador.

DC: Lack Of Littering Consciousness

I have made littering complaints to the MPD only to be told that there is nothing they can do about it - makes no sense that littering laws are designed to be impossible to enforce. This will be somewhat of an improvement but I tend question how much - don't expect the trash on the streets to go away anytime soon.



Police step up littering enforcement

By ELIZABETH WIENER
Current Staff Writer
May 4, 2011

A pilot program to help police enforce the city’s antilitter laws took off cautiously in parts of wards 4 and 5 this week. If it works, officials say, the rest of the city will find police ticketing and fining litterbugs later this year.

The pilot, based on a 2008 law, authorizes the Metropolitan Police Department to require litterers to give proper identification so they can be issued a ticket carrying a $75 fine. Police can issue the tickets to those who toss cans, bottles, cigarette butts and other trash into public space and waterways. Previous law allowed drivers to be ticketed for littering, but the new law applies to passengers as well.

Police officers will have to witness the violation in order to write a ticket.

For the first month, police will issue only warnings; the actual fines will kick in on June 1. Offenders who do not give their correct name and address could be fined an additional $100 to $250 by the D.C. Superior Court.

At a press briefing last week, Mayor Vincent Gray noted that past city litter laws have lacked teeth because police couldn’t force offenders to identify themselves unless they were actually arrested. But, he said, littering is a serious enough problem that “we have to bring the force of law to bear. This program helps us to do that.”

A2008 report states that the District government was spending about $20 million a year picking up litter, and that littering and other quality-of-life offenses are often linked to neighborhoods in decline and more violent crime.

Police spokesperson Gwendolyn Crump said the Metropolitan Police Department’s 4th District, which covers most of Ward 4 and parts of Ward 5, was chosen for the pilot because littering is an “oft-mentioned concern” in the community. She said police need to test out new ticketing forms and a new adjudication process by the Office of Administrative Hearings for several months to see if future changes will be needed.

“We hope to implement training and launch citywide enforcement around mid to late fall, at the earliest,” Crump wrote in an email.

Meanwhile, the existing law, which allows police to cite motorists for littering, will continue to be enforced citywide. Police have always had the authority to stop cars and demand a driver’s license, and there’s already a $100 fine for drivers who litter from a vehicle.

Fourth District Cmdr. Kimberly Chisley-Missouri notified residents about the new anti-littering effort last week, winning a string of compliments and suggestions on neighborhood listservs.

“Excellent news,” wrote one resident. “I encourage 4D to be on the lookout for littering at and around the Autozone” on Georgia Avenue.

“Please give attention to the 7-Eleven Store” on 3rd Street, someone else wrote.

Others lamented the time they have spent clearing away coffee cups, carryout trays and other trash from bus shelters, and they noted the “folks who tend to clean their cars out at/near a stop sign” on Blagden Avenue. They said the police should focus their efforts on such litterers.

Litter laws are widely applauded but have been hard to enforce. In 2008, a D.C. Council committee report noted that although police already had authority to issue tickets, they first had to “ascertain the identity of the person to whom the ticket is being issued,” and that offenders were simply refusing to give their names.

Then police officials suggested they be allowed to ticket litterers the same way they ticket jaywalkers, under a law that requires offenders to provide their true name and address under penalty of a fine. Neither law requires any offender to carry official IDs.

A bill passed by the council late that year explicitly requires individuals stopped for violating litter laws to provide police with their name and address. It also gives police authority to stop a car and cite a littering passenger. The law took effect in March 2009.

But nothing in the D.C. bureaucracy is simple. Crump explained that enforcement took another two years because amendments were needed to clarify that laws protecting the confidentiality of juvenile offenders did not apply to civil violations like littering. Otherwise, the Office of Administrative Hearings, which handles adjudication, would have had to establish “extensive confidentiality procedures” for juveniles caught in the act of dropping trash, she wrote.

Crump said the new anti-litter program will not distract police from other higher-priority public safety efforts. “MPD is not going to become the ‘littering police,’” she wrote. The Department of Public Works and the Mayor’s Office of the Clean City will continue to take the lead. But “police officers, with their round-the-clock presence, can be an important part of the routine enforcement.”







http://www.currentnewspapers.com/admin/uploadfiles/NW%2005.04.11%201.pdf

Newer things in my area - BloomBars

D.C.’s BloomBars: An offbeat space where art and community combine

By Rona Marech, Published: April 15

On a recent open mic night at BloomBars, comedian Tommy Taylor Jr. joked about the District turning into Butter Pecan City and his excessively cheerful neighbor’s overuse of the word “toodle-oo.” That was before singer-songwriter Courtney Dowe sang about vampire love and a spiky-haired poet yelled into the mic. Others took turns reading poetry, rapping, testing out new comic material and singing a cappella.

“BloomBars is such a great find,” Steve Epting, a 23-year-old, bushy-bearded musician, said before playing for the assembled crowd of about 35. Afterward, he added, “I’ve been in D.C. for a year, and I’ve written so much material. I attribute that in part to coming here.”

It was all classic BloomBars, a tiny, hard-to-categorize, strange brew of a venue that opened its doors in the District’s Columbia Heights neighborhood in 2008. The space — a two-story former print shop — hosts film screenings, art exhibitions, improv theater, freestyle hip-hop sessions, singer-songwriter showcases and sundry other performances as well as classes such as belly dancing, poetry, African drumming and meditation. The extreme range tends to draw a racially mixed, hipster, hip-hop, old-timer, you-name-it crowd from both around the corner and across the District.

It gets even more unconventional: BloomBars doesn’t serve alcohol, doesn’t charge a cover fee (though donations are welcome) and is largely run by a band of volunteers. Before performances, audience members are sometimes encouraged to hug strangers. There is no sign outside, just the painted message, “You Bloom We Bloom.”

The venture is the brainchild of John Chambers, 37, a charismatic, hug-positive do-gooder who dubbed himself chief executive gardener and somehow manages to be both earnest and cool. Chambers left a lucrative public relations career, mortgaged his life — as he put it — and has spent untold (and unpaid) hours realizing his vision: “To let art be a transformative thing that connects people and inspires them to participate in their communities and to have important conversations.”

He wanted a space open to everyone regardless of age, race or income. (Hence no alcohol, a policy that some friends say is financially ill-advised but that he’s stuck to because he thinks booze turns off some people and takes focus off the art.) He wanted to build bridges in his rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. He wanted to nurture artists.

“It’s not a theater, art gallery, studio, music venue. It’s all of those things, but more than that, it’s an environment created to support people’s growth,” he said.

The child of civil rights activists, Chambers always wanted to follow his parents’ path, he said one evening at BloomBars, while a documentary about a Kenyan village screened downstairs. “But I didn’t want to be poor all my life. I didn’t want to just be marching and banging my fist.” After graduating from Howard University, he went into communications, mostly working at firms that represented nonprofit groups, political candidates and progressive causes.

At some point, though, he began imagining a different trajectory. At first he had visions of big national fundraising arts events, but after a few test runs, he reconsidered. “Wait a sec,” he recounted thinking. “All we need is space.”

For ages, he’d been eyeing a 100-year-old building on 11th Street NW, around the corner from the rowhouse he’d owned since 1999. The block was the quintessential expression of neighborhood gentrification. New, foodie-drawing restaurants such as RedRocks and Room 11 were opening next to old-style bodegas and a wholesale bakery. Relations between white newcomers and longtime black residents were sometimes uneasy. But Chambers, who is gregarious to the extreme, had come to know people across the neighborhood over many years and saw the delicate politics as a surmountable challenge.

“My background has a lot to do with that,” he said. “Coming from an interracial marriage and being biracial, I’ve been able to straddle both worlds.”

In 2008, he purchased the building for $340,000.

At first, events were sporadic. Chambers was reluctant to commit, so he kept working and fitted BloomBars in around the edges. “There was always an element of doubt, wondering if the idea is too far out,” he said. Then in summer 2009, he left his job to make BloomBars his full-time work.

Now BloomBars holds classes and performances almost every day. With assistance, Chambers built bathrooms, exposed unexposed brick and installed new lights. The building’s south side sports a colorful mural depicting life in a Brazilian favela, or slum, and a red velvet curtain frames the stage. On warm evenings, volunteers throw open the front doors, and sometimes people pull up their own chairs to watch from the sidewalk.

A signature Chambers Big Idea is the artist-in-residence program he founded to support gifted, under-the-radar performers. He can’t pay artists, but he gives them space to perform plus administrative assistance, and in return, they participate in the BloomBars program. The artists are mostly local, but Chambers managed to persuade Jabulani Tsambo, a South African hip-hop star also known as HHP or Jabba, to accept a two-week residency. He bought the plane ticket and put Jabba up in his home. After a symposium on HIV/AIDS, a workshop with teenagers and various performances and jam sessions, Jabba was so inspired, he paid for six artists he met — including four BloomBars residents — to travel to South Africa. Later, several of the D.C. musicians returned to Africa to form the house band on Jabba’s popular late-night-style television show.

“That was a trip, to become superstars overnight,” said Jabari Exum, a hip-hop artist and West African percussionist.

Such unpredictable happenings, coupled with Chambers’s contagious energy, have attracted an intensely devoted corps of volunteers. “Knowing that he’s doing so much for the community, he’s one of those guys you just can’t say no to,” said Richmond Sparks, a neighbor who is the University of Maryland’s director of bands. Sparks got roped into working on the sound booth, a miniature balcony ensconced in half a boat. Other volunteers do everything from writing the weekly newsletter to procuring popcorn makers for movie nights.

Brenda Estrella has a prototypical BloomBars story. Drained from her uninspiring corporate job, she was thinking about leaving the District for good when went to BloomBars one night during a Haiti fundraiser. “It was love at first sight,” she said. “I don’t want to be dramatic, but finding BloomBars made me think maybe this is a place where I can establish some roots.”

She started going regularly, quit her job and soul-searched her way to a position as BloomBars administration and operations director. She’s happily getting by for now on savings and a deal with Chambers — in exchange for her labor, she’s living in his house for free.

Not everything has fallen into place so easily. BloomBars almost met an untimely death this fall, when a $20,000 bill — largely for real estate taxes Chambers has been disputing — came due. The city threatened to seize the place. Chambers held fundraisers and otherwise begged and borrowed and, in a last-minute scramble, secured the money.

Chambers said he doesn’t expect another such scare, but the money part of the enterprise is still a bit sketchy. Audience donations can be paltry, and Chambers is still living off savings and rent from tenants who share his roomy rowhouse. But, ever the optimist, he has funding plans that include adding a tea bar and retail space, selling compilation albums and developing BloomTV. He is working on a deal with a cable channel to air videos of performances and other content — think “ ‘Real World’ meets a grass-roots conscience,” he said. He also imagines that the artists BloomBars cultivates will make it big and give back down the road.

It’s not that crazy: Carolyn Malachi, a former resident, enthusiastically saluted BloomBars at a performance she gave there shortly after her song “Orion” was nominated for a Grammy.

“BloomBars gave me the opportunity to do a lot. Made me believe in my own creativity,” she said in a mini-speech captured in a YouTube clip. “This is what is happening in your community,” she goes on, pointing to the little stage she’s on. “I definitely have the BloomBars family to thank for this song. . . . Spread the word.”

Marech is a freelance writer.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/dcs-bloombars-an-offbeat-space-where-art-and-community-combine/2011/04/04/AFOcqijD_story.html

http://www.rheefirst.com/

Better Test Scores Do Not Neccesarily Mean Smarter Kids

No evidence mayoral control led to D.C. schools' better test scores, report says

By Bill Turque
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 4, 2011; 10:55 PM

Rising standardized test scores, often cited by D.C. officials as evidence of an improving school system, are of limited value in determining whether students are actually learning more, according to the first major independent study of D.C. school reform.

That conclusion, part of a report issued Friday by the National Research Council, is likely to drive new debate about the testing-centered culture of D.C. schools and other systems across the country. While the testing data contain encouraging signs, the widely quoted averages of citywide performance say little about the quality of teaching and learning.

"Looking at test scores should be only a first step - not an endpoint - in considering questions about student achievement, or even more broadly, about student learning," the study said.

The council is the research arm of the National Academies, and its report is the first in a series of evaluations required by the 2007 law that placed the city's long-troubled public schools under mayoral control. Researchers said that while the city has made "a good faith effort" to implement the Public Education Reform Amendment Act, it is premature to draw sweeping conclusions about its effect on student achievement.

The District became a national staging area for urban school reform under then-Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D), who appointed Michelle A. Rhee as the city schools' first chancellor hours after taking control of the system. She resigned in October, after more than three years on the job, and was succeeded on an interim basis by her deputy, Kaya Henderson.

Fenty and Henderson could not be reached for comment. Rhee declined to comment.

Reading and math scores on the District's two main tests, the annual D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System (D.C. CAS) and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), have shown what the report describes as "modest improvement" under Rhee and her predecessor, former superintendent Clifford Janey, although elementary-grade scores fell in 2010.

But researchers said the city must develop a more sophisticated capacity to track individual students who shift from traditional public schools to public charter schools, or in some cases drop out of the system entirely. The city also needs a firmer grasp on rapidly changing neighborhood demographics and their impact on academics. "In the meantime, naive aggregate comparison of test scores among race-ethnic groups in the District should be interpreted critically and cautiously," the study said.

The study received an enthusiastic greeting from critics, who say heavy emphasis on testing has narrowed curricula and warped classroom creativity.

"This report is a shot over the bow of politicians seeking to reform education in this incredibly narrow way," said Mary Lord, a member of the D.C. State Board of Education and mother of a junior at Wilson High School.

Former deputy mayor for education Victor Reinoso, who served under Fenty, agreed that better data are needed and that the city is committed to expanding the base of available information. But he added that test scores remain important "consumer or market indicators" for parents who have to make immediate decisions about where to enroll their children.

"I appreciate that the folks involved in this research are academics and they are going to want to see more and more proof," he said. "I just think that what we have to do is balance the need for the quest for perfection in data analysis with the practical reality that the schools are responsible for educating thousands of kids every day. So we can't sit back and wait for an answer."

In 2009, after months of political squabbling and stalemate, Fenty and then-D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D), who is now the mayor, settled on the National Research Council as the independent evaluator for the school system under mayoral control.

The committee assembled by the research council includes a number of prominent scholars and practitioners, including University of California at Berkeley law school dean Christopher Edley Jr., University of Wisconsin sociologist Robert M. Hauser, former Long Beach and San Diego school superintendent Carl A. Cohn and Jon Fullerton, head of Harvard University's Center for Education Policy and Research.

The focus of this initial study is a series of suggestions on how the city might develop a system evaluating its schools. It said such an effort should be continuous, involve local stakeholders and dig more deeply into data surrounding the question of whether children in all parts of the city are realizing benefits from the schools' overhaul. The inquiry should also be independent of school and city leaders.

One method the study suggested was a partnership with a university or other outside institution. As an example, it cited the Baltimore Education Research Consortium, a partnership between the Baltimore school system and researchers at Johns Hopkins University and Morgan State University.

As it stands, the District's gathering and handling of data about schools remain fragmented and incomplete. The study found that the District (along with other big-city school systems) collected significant amounts of information never made public, including promotion rates, student and parent perspectives on instruction, and measures of professional culture.

The data points more likely to land in public view, researchers said, "served to highlight the positive achievements of the district."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/04/AR2011030402414.html

If Democrats are friends like this.........

Gov. Scott Walker can thank Michelle Rhee for making teachers unions the enemy

Richard D. Kahlenberg
Sunday, February 27, 2011; B03

Education writer explains how the former D.C. schools chief helped stoke anti-union fires

A half-century ago, Wisconsin became the first state in the nation to pass legislation allowing collective bargaining for public employees, including educators. At the time, teachers across the country, who make up a significant share of public employees, were often underpaid and mistreated by autocratic administrators. In the fight for greater dignity, union leaders such as Albert Shanker in New York City linked teacher unionization to the fledgling civil rights movement.

Today, Wisconsin is again at the forefront of a union battle - this time in Republican Gov. Scott Walker's effort to cut his state's budget deficit in part by curtailing collective bargaining for teachers and other public employees. How did it become okay, once more, to vilify public-sector workers, especially the ones who are educating and caring for our children?

On the most obvious level, teachers unions are taking a pounding because Republicans have gained power in recent state elections, and the GOP has a strong partisan interest in undermining public-employee unions, which provide troops and treasure to the Democratic Party. In Wisconsin, Walker's campaign to restrict the collective bargaining rights of teachers and other groups to the issue of wages is transparently partisan. Exempt from his plan are two unions that supported him politically: those representing police and firefighters.

But Walker's argument - that greedy teachers are putting their own interests over the interests of the public - resonates in part because in recent years, many Democrats have made that argument as well.

Exhibit A is former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee. Under Democratic mayor Adrian Fenty, she repeatedly clashed with the Washington Teachers' Union, which she said put the interests of adults over those of children. "Cooperation, collaboration, and consensus-building are way overrated," Rhee said at the Aspen Institute's education summit in 2008. She told journalist John Merrow it is imperative that teachers-union bargaining rights exclude issues such as devising a fair teacher-evaluation system.

Since resigning as chancellor last year, Rhee has launched a new organization, StudentsFirst, with the express goal of raising $1 billion to counter teachers unions. Her approach remains confrontational. In a profound sense, Democrats like Michelle Rhee have paved the way for Scott Walker.

But Rhee couldn't have done it alone. Then-candidate Barack Obama endorsed Rhee in a 2008 debate as a "wonderful new superintendent" and later applauded the firing of every single unionized teacher at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island. (The teachers were later rehired.) Rhee's agenda also received a big boost from liberal movie director Davis Guggenheim, whose film, "Waiting for 'Superman,' " implies that teachers unions are to blame for the failures of urban education and that non-unionized charter schools are the solution. The movie includes no acknowledgment that the things teachers want for themselves - more resources devoted to education, smaller class sizes, policies that allow them to keep order in the classroom - are also good for kids.

Today, Obama has appropriately labeled Walker's proposal an "assault on unions." And to its credit, the U.S. Education Department recently held a conference in Denver highlighting progressive agreements between unions and management in cities such as Baltimore and New Haven, Conn. But overall, one official told me, teachers unions feel unfairly criticized by the president.

Of course, some teachers unions brought this on themselves. Too often, union leaders protect incompetent teachers and make it difficult to pay outstanding educators more. But the bipartisan attack on unions as a central impediment to improved education is off the mark. America's largely non-unionized education sectors - charter schools and schools in the South - are hardly shining examples of success.

The debate in Wisconsin could give teachers unions a fresh chance. A USA Today-Gallup poll finds that, by 61 to 33 percent, Americans oppose ending collective bargaining for public employees. Teachers should use this moment to articulate a powerful reform agenda. American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten has made a good start by suggesting that all educational issues should be on the table (with the exception of private-school vouchers). The AFT has also endorsed a promising way to get rid of bad teachers: peer-review programs in which excellent teachers work with struggling ones to improve performance, but in many instances end up recommending termination of employment. Some school districts use similar systems. Under these programs, teacher firings have increased, but in a way that many teachers accept as fair. On Thursday, Weingarten further proposed accelerating the timetable for teacher terminations.

Wisconsin and many other states are facing dire budget crises, and unions need to be smart about advocating strategies that keep fiscal concerns in mind. That means moving beyond traditional efforts to pour more money into high-poverty schools. Magnet schools, which give low-income students a chance to be educated in a middle-class environment, are an especially promising investment. But this kind of engagement in education policy involves moving in a direction opposite of the one advocated by Rhee, Walker and others.

As the teachers union founder Al Shanker noted years ago, restricting bargaining to the issue of wages is a clever trap in which critics can suggest that teachers care only about money. Bargaining should be broadened, not constrained, to give teachers a voice on a range of important educational questions, from merit pay to curriculum. This could help improve the battered image of teachers unions. But, more important, it could help students.

Richard D. Kahlenberg is a senior fellow at the Century Foundation and the author of "Tough Liberal: Albert Shanker and the Battles Over Schools, Unions, Race, and Democracy."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/25/AR2011022506611.html

Walking, Biking, Driving In DC

Regardless of fault, these statistic are not good - and I suspect the statistics do not reflect many unreported incidents. DC awareness campaigns have a ways to go..... and blaming drivers won't solve it.

Campaign to protect pedestrians, cyclists as number of crashes in the District rises

By Allison Klein, Published: March 30

About three times every day in the District, someone walking on a city street gets hit by a vehicle and an ambulance races to the scene. This year, four of those people have died.

Last year, the number of walkers and cyclists hit in Washington increased by almost 25 percent compared with the previous year.

“Even at a slow speed, when you get hit by a car, it is violent and jarring,” said Neha Bhatt, a cyclist who needed months to recover after she was hit by a sport-utility vehicle last year on Benning Road NE.

Some of the region’s law enforcement and political figures gathered Tuesday outside a police station on New York Avenue NW to warn people that walkers and bikers are getting hit — and often. In fact, six pedestrians were struck that very day across the city.

As part of the kickoff of the spring Street Smart campaign, which includes new ads featuring giant feet smashing cars, officials also warned that pedestrians, bikers and drivers who don’t obey traffic laws will be targeted and ticketed by police.

Across the Washington region, which includes Northern Virginia and suburban Maryland, 83 pedestrians and cyclists were killed on the road last year. That was up 9 percent from 2009.

Bhatt, 37, was almost one of them. It was actually the second time she has been hit on her commute from her home in Southeast Washington to her job downtown. Last summer’s crash happened when the SUV didn’t see her as it pulled out of a gas station.

“I was thrown from the sidewalk into oncoming traffic on Benning Road,” said Bhatt, who ended up getting 17 X-rays and a CT scan that day. “It was frighteningly obvious how lucky I was.”

But Bhatt still bikes to work. “I am unwilling to give it up,” she said.

Last year, there were 436 bike vs. vehicle crashes in the District that were serious enough for police to respond to the accident, according to city data.

Part of the reason for the increase in people being hit might be that there has been a 68 percent jump in cyclists in the city over the past three years, officials said.

The District has the highest number of pedestrians in the region, and the most hit by cars. Last year, ambulances responded to 1,299 calls for pedestrians struck, according to data from the D.C. fire department.

Also last year, 16 people — two-thirds of those who died in traffic accidents — were on a bike or on foot.

“I can’t get used to these numbers,” said D.C. Assistant Police Chief Alfred Durham. “I can’t accept them.”

Last year, about 216 pedestrians were hit per 100,000 population in the District, according to data from the Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department. In Baltimore, about 169 per 100,000 were hit, fire officials say. In Philadelphia, the rate was about 120, according to police.

In Montgomery County, the rate was about 45. In Prince George’s, it was about 90, according to data the counties provided.

People are more likely to be hit in downtown areas because so many walkers and bikers are packed into a small space. But they have more chance of dying when they are hit outside the city because cars are often moving faster.

In Washington, the crashes occur most often when vehicles are turning at an intersection while pedestrians have a “walk” signal.

“Pedestrians confidently stride in the crosswalk with the right of way and the cars don’t see them,” said Karina Ricks, an associate director at the D.C. Department of Transportation. “There’s not much reaction time for either party.”

Because the streets are so busy, and intersections often are backed up with cars, there isn’t time to allow walkers to have the right of way while cars are stopped, officials said.

But they are starting to time lights so pedestrians have a few seconds to cross while the cars are stopped, allowing them to make their way into the crosswalk and become more visible to turning cars.

Of the city’s 1,600 intersections, about 60 have such lights.

The majority of the intersections where pedestrian crashes occurred between 2008 and last year are in Northwest.

But the single intersection where the most pedestrians were hit — 13 — is Howard Road and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE, according to a report from the D.C. Department of Transportation. One of the people struck at that intersection was killed.

The next most dangerous crossing was New York Avenue and North Capitol Street, where 12 walkers were injured, followed by the intersections at H and North Capitol streets NW, and Seventh and H streets NW, where 11 people were injured.

Next was 14th and U streets NW, where 10 people were hurt, followed by 12th Street and Massachusetts Avenue NW, which had nine injuries.

On Tuesday, police released the name of a man in a wheelchair who was killed in a hit-and-run in the 5000 block of Benning Road SE two weeks ago as he crossed in a crosswalk. Police are still looking for the car that struck Gary Green, 55, of Southeast on March 12.

Bhatt said she thinks of her two crashes every morning when she gets on her bike.

“As a survivor, I call for everyone who moves to please look out for each other,” she said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-starts-campaign-to-protect-pedestrians-cyclists-as-number-of-crashes-rises/2011/03/29/AF9GH83B_story.html

No Surprises Here As Rhee Back Pedals

Rhee is amazing... lots of hot air and collateral damage. And no shame.

Rhee now concedes students’ test answers may have been erased

By Bill Turque, Published: March 31

Former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle A. Rhee backed away Wednesday from her vehement criticism of a USA Today story on concerns about standardized tests during her tenure, acknowledging that some cheating may have occurred.In an interview with Washington Post education columnist Jay Mathews, Rhee said that some of her initial comments were “stupid.”

“You have got to have really strong test-security protocols at the district level and at the state level,” said Rhee, who contacted Mathews. “The vast majority of people will not cheat, but there will be exceptions here and there.”

Rhee, who was chancellor from 2007 to 2010, said the school system should ensure that after students complete D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System tests, answer sheets are not left in school offices where they may be vulnerable to tampering.

The issue emerged Monday when USA Today reported unusually high rates of erasures on answer sheets in more than 100 D.C. public schools from 2008 to 2010. At some schools, wrong answers were replaced by correct ones at rates too high to be random, according to statisticians consulted by the paper.

Rhee said in a statement Monday evening that USA Today was in league with “enemies of school reform” who believe that D.C. scores could not improve without teachers or students cheating. She said USA Today’s report was “an insult to the dedicated teachers and school children who worked hard to improve their academic achievement levels.”

Rhee has become a major national figure in education reform since her resignation last October. Her stature rests largely on her work in the District, where city and federal test scores rose during her tenure.

Earlier this year, Rhee faced criticism for claiming in 2007 on her resume that as a teacher in the early 1990s her students at Harlem Park Elementary School in Baltimore made significant gains on standardized tests. The record neither supports nor debunks such a claim.

Acting Chancellor Kaya Henderson, Rhee’s former deputy, announced Tuesday that she had referred questions about testing security in D.C. public schools to D.C. Inspector General Charles Willoughby. But she also expressed complete confidence in the findings of Caveon, a contractor the District hired to investigate erasures on the 2009 and 2010 citywide tests.

“DCPS has established procedures to ensure testing integrity and to flag any concerns,” Henderson said Tuesday.

Rhee described Caveon as “the best alternative we had at that time.”

Henderson did not return an e-mail message seeking comment Wednesday afternoon.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/rhee-acknowledges-possible-cheating-on-school-tests/2011/03/30/AFBKaI5B_story.html