Prometheus 6

And paying AP students is not the answer.

The issue here is neither the voucher program nor charter schools themselves. It is a Congress and other political leaders who have established two alternative systems that now run parallel to the D.C. school district without boosting its capacity to get better. If this arrangement created competitive pressures to improve, it would have worked in the students' favor. But there is little to suggest that is happening here or in other cities. Instead, D.C.'s educational system is more fractured than ever, with little common ground among boosters of either strategy.

Congressional intrusion goes beyond what kinds of schools students can attend -- whether charters or using vouchers at private schools -- to affect what programs students use inside classrooms themselves. In recent years, Congress has approved funds for a number of programs -- from literacy to anti-violence programs -- without always knowing whether they were the right fit for the school system. It also has trespassed into management areas by alternatively approving, then disapproving, caps on attorney fees charged by lawyers suing the District over services to students with disabilities, raising the costs of special education.

At this point, the school system has been overruled and overrun, picked clean, pulled and pushed, poked, prodded and experimented with until it was not clear where it was going or why. In the process, schools effectively lost or silenced the voices of parents and community members, people whose involvement is desperately needed to offset the constant churn of leadership and sustain the reforms.