TheFightBack: Reporting from the streets of DC (@fightbackradio)

Alexandria’s Trail of Tears

admin — Wed, 16 May 2012 18:11:50 +0000

Edwin Pineda, 10, testfies before the Alexandria City Council

Listen to Edwin Pineda and others testify Download audio file (
2012-05-12-West-End-Testimonies.mp3)

This world was made by god for every human being, not only for the rich and other companies like JBG. – Edwin Pineda, age 10

“This is a watershed moment for the Council,” community activist Ernie Lehmann said in testimony before the Alexandria City Council. “Will they bow to the profit motive of the developers or to the needs of the people?”

Saturday, the Alexandria City Council voted 6-0, with one abstention, to approve a plan that demolishes 2,475 apartments in Alexandria’s diverse West End community in the Beauregard area. The now-approved Beauregard Small Area Plan allows JBG and four other developers to move forward with the construction of 12.4 million square feet of development, most of it upscale housing.

In addition to demonstrations, the all-day hearing in the packed Council chamber saw a woman return to testify not long after she taken out on a stretcher after fainting. The heated hearing also saw two developer representatives at times all but running what was ostensibly a public hearing of the Alexandria City Council.

Developer representatives Catharine Puskar and Kenneth Wire repeatedly and freely interjected themselves into Council proceedings as they saw fit, a privilege not afforded to those opposing the project, nor to those slated to be displaced by it, such as Veronica Calzada.

“If this plan is completed as it’s been designed, my family will no longer be able to continue living in the area,” said Calzada, a member of the Beauregard Tenant Association and Tenants and Workers United, a grassroots group based in Alexandria which has worked closely with West End residents.

Calzada’s son, Edwin Pineda, addressed the mayor and council. “I have the right to live in Alexandria City and be educated in Alexandria City. Please don’t take those rights away from me.” The ten-year-old continued, “This world was made by god for every human being, not only for the rich and other companies like JBG. This is our world that we must share with all classes of people and cultures.”

While the world may be filled with all classes of people, increasingly Alexandria is not, and the Beauregard Small Area Plan only accelerates that trend, explained Aunte Margie Obeng, a 19-year-old student at Penn State University who grew up in Alexandria. “Although this plan is intended to introduce a more fresh and inviting look to the neighborhood, it does not exercise empathy for the tenants who now occupy the 2,400 units that are to be destroyed,” Obeng told councilmembers.

“A city cannot function if all its workers are government middle manager or information technology specialists at some beltway bandit,” testified Katy Cannady, a longtime Alexandria resident. “We need the hotel workers, the landscapers [and] the food service workers every bit as much.”

The reason this issue was before the Alexandria City Council was because the developers, led by JBG, sought an extra 2.4 million square feet of development over and above what they could build by right. In exchange for being granted this extra density, the developers agreed to provide the city with $66 million for traffic measures, $11 million for a fire station, $12 million for other amenities, as well as provide 800 units of affordable housing for at least thirty years. Maybe.

“As a project manager in the federal government I have learned that there’s a big difference between requirements and recommendations,” testified Kathlyn Hoekstra, a West End resident for more than 20 years. “Simply put, one is enforceable and one is not.”

Hoekstra continued, “When I look at this plan I find the word ‘require’ or ‘requirement’ is used 159 times. But when you dig down further you find [it] appears mostly following the words ‘will’ or ‘may.’ These are not true requirements that enable me or anyone else to hold you or the developers accountable.”

“The city got a raw deal here,” community activist Sammi Moshenberg told councilmembers. “In exchange for guaranteed higher density for the developer, we got some promises that aren’t as ironclad, [nor are they] enough to meet the needs of those currently calling the neighborhood home,” said Moshenberg, who’s seeking to win a seat on the city council in the upcoming June 12 primary election.

At the completion of Moshenberg’s testimony, activists with Occupy DC and members of TWU joined with West End residents as they walked out of the Council chamber sporting orange shirts and chanting, “Yes We Can.”

Before the orange exodus, Carol James, a 31-year resident of Alexandria who lives two blocks from the site of the proposed development, said, “It’s not unrealistic at all to envision the Beauregard Small Area Plan as a future military-industrial-residential complex.”

Abutting the 430 acre West End property is the Pentagon’s new Mark Center building, a massive structure that will house the Department of Defense’s Washington Headquarters Service. As part of the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process, 6,400 defense worker jobs were relocated to Mark Center. A federal report found that the Pentagon used faulty data from a 2008 study to justify moving so many jobs to an already traffic-congested area lacking in transportation options.

Several witnesses at Saturday’s hearing commented on the lack of transparency surrounding the construction of the Mark Center building. Carol James said of the BRAC building, “It dominates Alexandria’s skyline [and] casts its shadow… over the trust in this room, over the facts in this proposal and over the implications of your decision today.”

As a result of the infusion of so many white-collar jobs into the area, the West End’s property value suddenly jumped, if not skyrocketed. West End residents soon saw their rents and utility bills do likewise, which residents said was part of JBG’s plan to get rid of them in order to make way for high-end housing.

In concluding his testimony, Ernie Lehmann pointed out that the development plan fits a troubling pattern. “Over the past years, Alexandria has lost thousands of units of affordable housing… Almost 40,000 people have had to move elsewhere. This could be called the Alexandria tenants’ trail of tears.”

Checking In With Occupy DC

admin — Thu, 10 May 2012 12:12:45 +0000

Listen to occupiers Rooj Alwazir, Jason McGaughey and Justin Rodriguez Download audio file (2012-05-03-Voice-of-Russia-OccupyDC.mp3)

“In a way I’m kind of happy the eviction happened,” said Rooj Alwazir, an organizer with Occupy DC, which was forcefully evicted from its K Street encampment at McPherson Square in February.

“Right now we’re shifting from just the encampment… to actually organizing with communities and learning how we can build people power,” Alwazir, 24, said last week on Voice of Russia’s Capitol Correspondent, guest-hosted by TheFightBack‘s Pete Tucker.

A member of Occupy Our Homes, an off-shoot of Occupy DC which focuses on home foreclosure defense, Alwazir discussed the case of Bertina Jones, a Prince George’s County homeowner who was slated to be evicted.

At a demonstration outside Freddie Mac’s downtown D.C. offices in February, Jones discussed the difficulties she faced in trying to reach the government-backed mortgage lending giant which held her mortgage. An hour after the protest, which was organized by Occupy Our Homes, a company spokesman said Freddie Mac was looking for a “positive resolution” to Jones’ case.

Occupiers Jason McGaughey and Justin Rodriguez also joined last week’s discussion on Occupy DC.

McGaughey, 26, hails from rural Illinois. He discussed how he came to get involved with the Occupy movement. “I heard about what was going on on Wall Street and I decided the best thing I could do would be to quit my job, move out of my apartment and come out and join the movement,” he said.

Back home McGaughey had been working with adults with disabilities. “Every year the budget would always get cut for their programs,” he said. “[I grew tired of] having to tell them in so many nice ways that their government doesn’t really care about them.”

Prior to the Occupy movement McGaughey had never been arrested, but has now been thrown in jail five times, including during a demonstration on the Brooklyn Bridge where 700 were swept up, leading to a class action lawsuit, which he’s a part of.

“[I'd] never been arrested before [Occupy Wall Street],” McGaughey said. “[I'd] never actually seen police brutality in person. Then I got to New York and within a couple days I was arrested and saw quite a few beatings. And [I've] seen a whole lot more since then.”

Rodriguez, 25, was with Occupy DC from its October 1 beginning. “Most of the people I know in Occupy are actually younger than me,” he said, pointing up the youthful character of the movement.

“For so long we’ve been seen as people who had to be taught what to do, people who weren’t able to do anything for ourselves. We have proven that to be wrong and proven that even though we have been systematically pushed to the side, now is our time to come out here and make a difference, not just for youth but for everybody.”

West End Resident Hector Pineda, Planning Commissioner Donna Fossum Debate Development and Displacement

admin — Wed, 09 May 2012 11:07:32 +0000

Present West End housing. Photo courtesy of JBG

Listen to West End resident Hector Pineda debate Alexandria Planning Commission’s Donna Fossum Download audio file (Pete_CapCorr_p1_Pineda_Fossum_West End_050312.mp3)

Interview by Pete Tucker, written report by Chris Lewis (@Chris_Lewis_)

Hold on to your houses.

In northern Virginia, some residents are trying to do just that. On May 12th, Alexandria’s City Council will vote on a plan put forth by five area real estate companies to redevelop the city’s Beauregard area in the West End, a pocket of Alexandria with a reputation for diversity and affordability. Some residents fear losing their homes—the plan, led by Maryland-based developer JBG , calls for demolishing 2,475 units of housing and replacing them with denser and pricier apartments.

As the Council prepares to vote debate has flared over the merits of the proposal. In a Sunday feature, the Washington Post reported: “The stakes are high not only because the plan would make over the neighborhood but also, some argue, because it would more broadly influence who can afford to live in this increasingly affluent inside-the-Beltway city.” Last week on Capital Correspondent, TheFightBack’s Pete Tucker hosted a discussion on the development plan.

“This plan, it’s a mess,” said Hector Pineda, a resident of the area and president of the Beauregard Tenants Association. If the plan passes in its present form, Pineda’s home is slated to be demolished.

According to Pineda, the project is proceeding without needed familiarity with the area’s current residents. “To many people, it’s not a plan unless it includes the survey that we need to have of this area,” Pineda said, referring to a demographic study of residents and their incomes that had been promised by the city.

Donna Fossum, a member of Alexandria’s Planning Commission, said that the redevelopment would maintain a similar amount of affordable housing.

“A lot of the planning that’s going on is an effort to preserve affordable housing,” she said. Until now, the area “was just affordable because the rents were cheap. And the owners have now discovered in many of those places that they can remodel them—they have to remodel them. And the rents are doubling. So in order to get some control over what’s going on out there, the plan is trying to get dedicated affordable housing.”

Rent in the West End has been rising steadily. Right now, there are 1,100 market-rate units that are considered affordable to a family making 60 percent of Washington DC’s Area Median Income (AMI). That equals about $60,000 per year. The proposed redevelopment would include 800 units fixed at this affordable rate.

Indeed, much of the controversy over the project stems from the question of what “affordable” means. “For who?” Pineda asked. “That’s my big concern: for who?”

He claimed that many families in Beauregard live on no more than $40,000 per year. Fossum replied that the 1,100 units currently deemed affordable are evaluated according to the 60 percent AMI measure.

Chances are good that City Council will approve the redevelopment. “[The owners] have rights to develop the land right now,” she said. The current plan calls for more density than is allowed by right and therefore the city has been able to wrangle some concessions on affordability. Critics like Pineda say it’s not enough.

But for Fossum, the proposal is about pragmatism. “If we don’t take this opportunity to freeze some affordable housing that’s dedicated there, we’re going to lose all of our wonderful friends and neighbors,” she said.

School’s Out? D.C. and NYC Teachers Talk School Closures

admin — Thu, 03 May 2012 14:07:50 +0000

Photo courtesy of studentunitypower.org

Listen to educators Candi Peterson, Nils DeVito and James Boutin Download audio file (Pete_CapCorr_p3_Peterson_DeVita_Boutin_School_Closures_050112.mp3)

Interview by Pete Tucker, written report by Chris Lewis (@Chris_Lewis_)

Washingtonians and New Yorkers, be warned. If the mayor has his way, your child’s walk to school next year could be a whole lot longer.

Earlier this year, Mayor Vincent Gray and Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson commissioned a report that recommended turning around or closing 38 public schools. Meanwhile, in New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is seeking to close 24 schools deemed to be underperforming.

“What’s so sad is that the community has had no say in it, and the teachers have no say in it,” said Nils DeVita, a teacher and union delegate in New York. DeVita spoke with Voice of Russia’s Capital Correspondent on Tuesday, in a show guest-hosted by TheFightBack’s Pete Tucker.

Critics levy similar charges here in DC. “Our concern is that these people have come in from Chicago, many of whom have not visited the schools they’ve recommended to close, and there have been no focus groups, no parental involvement,” said Candi Peterson, a social worker at Cardozo High School.

Perhaps a sign that the proposed school closures come with little community input: in Washington, DC, Gray and Henderson’s report recommended closing 26 schools in impoverished Wards 7 and 8, but none in affluent Wards 2 and 3. Peterson and DeVita slammed the study for making its recommendations exclusively from standardized test scores—at best an incomplete indicator of a school’s educational performance.

But policymakers argue that school closings are a fiscal necessity. “What we have is unsustainable,” Mayor Gray told Tucker at a press conference in April. “Every budget town hall meeting we’ve conducted, somebody stands up to talk about the ancillary services that they would like to see in schools. There’s no way to do that because the dollars just simply aren’t there.”

The District currently serves 77,000 students in 220 public or public charter buildings. “We’re going to have to consolidate the number of schools that we educate our children in,” Gray said.

But that doesn’t mean the process can’t be transparent, counters Peterson, who blogs at The Washington Teacher. “We’re not suggesting that schools shouldn’t be closed, but there should be a valid study done, and it should be a process in which the community, the parents and educators are involved along the way,” she said.

In DC, the political winds continue to blow towards more charter schooling. Indeed, IFF, the consulting firm that produced the report, has close ties to the charter school movement. Proponents of the schools—such as Bill Gates and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan—argue that their increased autonomy helps deliver better educational outcomes.

Peterson is not drinking the charter school Kool-aid. ‘This is really privatization of public education. I think we’re seeing it across the country,” she said.

May Day: Past and Present

admin — Wed, 02 May 2012 19:33:16 +0000

Listen to labor professor Bill Barry and organizer Tai Smith Download audio file (Pete_CapCorr_p1_Smith_Barry_May Day_050112.mp3)

“When people who are religious get in tough situations they go read the Bible. I go read labor history.” – Professor Bill Barry

“General Strike. No Work. No Shopping. Occupy Everywhere.”

That’s the call Occupy Wall Street put out for May Day, the first one since the Occupy movement touched off.

As tens of thousands took part in mostly peaceful demonstrations throughout the U.S., a hundred protesters gathered outside city hall in Alexandria, Virginia, and a couple hundred gathered at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, which had been the home of Occupy Baltimore for several months in the late fall and winter.

Shortly before he was scheduled to speak at the Baltimore rally, Bill Barry, director of labor studies at the Community College of Baltimore County, called into Voice of Russia’s Capitol Correspondent and laid out the history of May Day or International Workers Day.

It comes out of the “movement for a shorter work day, which is an issue that seems to have disappeared,” Barry told guest host Pete Tucker with TheFightBack.org. “We’re back in the 1870s and 80s [when] unions began to demonstrate for the 8-hour day.”

Calling in from the “Working People’s Rally” outside Alexandria’s city hall, Tai Smith, an organizer with Tenants and Workers United, decried a development project that could displace 10,000 residents, many of them Latino and African American.

Developer JBG is calling on the city to assist with its West End project which in its current form would demolish more than 2,000 units of affordable housing in order to make room for the construction of 12.4 million square feet of development, consisting mostly of luxury condos and luxury apartments.

The Alexandria city council appears to be supportive of the project and the issue is scheduled for a committee vote Thursday, and a vote by the full council may come as soon as May 12.

This gives “people in [the] community the sense that the city of Alexandria has absolutely no regard for the working class people,” said Smith. “It’s a tragedy… [T]hey’re not even taking a minimal consideration of the people who are still there.”

A Tale of Two Cities: D.C. and NYC Differ In Dealing with Walmart

admin — Wed, 02 May 2012 13:52:09 +0000

Listen to Walmart organizers Mike Wilson and Maritza Silva-Farrell Download audio file (Pete_CapCorr_p2_Wilson_Silva-Farrell_WalMart_050112.mp3)

Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, is attempting to enter urban markets, having already saturated many suburban and rural areas.

D.C. and New York City have dealt differently with the company’s attempts to open stores. In New York, city officials have held public hearings and issued substantive reports pointing up Walmart’s potentially harmful impact. But in D.C., officials have largely taken on the role of cheerleaders and Walmart is slated to build six stores in the nation’s capital, where presently it has none.

“Unfortunately here in D.C., our elected officials have been much more on the side of Walmart,” Respect DC organizer Mike Wilson told TheFightBack‘s Pete Tucker, who guest-hosted Capitol Correspondent‘s May Day special on Voice of Russia Radio which airs in D.C. and New York City.

Wilson questioned the cozy relationship between several D.C. officials and Walmart, as well as the company’s use of the powerful lobby firm Patton Boggs, which provides D.C. Councilmember Jack Evans with a $190,000 salary. “[This] raises additional concerns about what’s going on here in D.C.” said Wilson.

Walmart has faced a great deal of scrutiny of late in the wake of The New York Times‘ report that the company paid Mexican officials more than $24 million in bribes and then attempted to cover it up, a possible violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

“To be honest, I’m not really surprised,” Maritza Silva-Farrell said regarding the allegations against Walmart. Silva-Farrell has spent a couple years doing battle with the company as senior organizer for the Alliance for a Greater New York (ALIGN), a member of the Walmart Free NYC coalition, which has successfully kept the world’s largest retailer out of New York City.

Walmart’s inability to enter the Big Apple is noteworthy in light of the money it has thrown around. The Times reported, “[I]ts foundation has given more than $13 million to [New York] nonprofits since 2007.”

But in D.C., Walmart has taken its giving to another level. The Washington Post reported that Walmart’s foundation gave more than $2 million to D.C. nonprofits in 2010. More recently, Walmart provided D.C. with $3 million for job training. But the company’s biggest D.C. payout, $25 million, was for the controversial 2010 teachers’ contract which weakened tenure and attempted to ensconce the anti-union Michelle Rhee as D.C. Schools Chancellor.

Despite this tremendous outlay of money, Walmart has faced significant opposition in D.C., albeit not from city officials. Walmart initially said four of its six D.C. stores would open by late 2012, but now says just one of its stores will open before 2014. The delay was caused by “resistance from activists and opponents,” noted the Post.

“I think [this is] a clear indicator that they don’t have the support here in D.C. that they claim to,” said Wilson.

* Union City, the newsletter for the AFL-CIO of the Washington DC Metro Council, linked to this piece.

Pete Guest Hosts Capitol Correspondent Next Week

admin — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 12:07:39 +0000

Listen to Pete and The Urban Revival‘s Kentry Kinard on Capitol Correspondent with host Carmen Russell-Sluchansky Download audio file (Pete-Voice-of-Russia-2012-04-24.mp3)

Tuesday on Voice of Russia’s Capitol Correspondent, which airs in DC (1390 AM) and New York (1430 AM), Pete discussed the differences between how the Big Apple and the nation’s capital have dealt with two issues: Walmart’s attempts to move in, and taxicab policy. Both of these issues will be explored further next week on Capitol Correspondent when Pete fills in for host Carmen Russell-Sluchansky on May 1 and 3.

Also joining the program was Kentry Kinard, a senior at Howard University and editor of The Urban Revival, who discussed the impact gentrification has had on D.C., his native city.

Next week, Capitol Correspondent will take a closer look at gentrification, as well as find out what Occupy DC has been up to.

D.C. Taxi Fares Just Got Significantly Higher… Or Maybe Not

admin — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 04:28:34 +0000

Pete discusses taxicab issues with Bruce DePuyt (video at bottom).

As of Saturday, D.C. taxicabs – at least some of them – are charging $2.16 per mile, a significant $0.66 increase from the previous rate of $1.50 per mile, one of the lowest rates in the country. Whether the cost of a ride will dramatically increase, however, is unclear due to the elimination of extra fees and surcharges which make up a significant source of driver revenue.

Drivers, who are considering legal options to overturn the fare adjustment, are particularly concerned about the removal of the $1.50 extra passenger fee. While this fee’s removal hurts drivers, it’s a boon for the hospitality industry whose patrons will benefit from what amounts to an untold number of free rides.

The power the hospitality industry has over the taxicab industry is unmistakable and can be seen in the composition of the D.C. Taxicab Commission. Of the DCTC’s four commissioners (there are supposed to be nine), two are from the hospitality industry (restaurateur Paul Cohn and Bart Lasner with Loews Hotels), while none are from the taxicab industry, even though the law requires that there be three.

Due to the illegality of the commission, as well as taxi chair Ron Linton’s interference with the questionable study that led to the fare increase, The Small Business Association of DC Taxicab Drivers (SBA), which represents 3,000 independent cabbies, has called on its members not to rush recalibrating their meters as SBA considers its legal options.

Drivers have until the end of May to switch their meters before taxi inspectors start issuing tickets. Until then, District riders may be charged either the old or new rates. How many cabs are presently charging the higher rate remains unclear, and TheFightBack‘s call to DCTC asking for a breakdown has yet to be returned.

* One additional point: Vans, which make up a small fraction of the taxis on the road, will continue to charge the extra passenger fee (now $1, not $1.50) on the first three additional passengers.

Monday, Pete joined NewsChannel 8′s NewsTalk with Bruce DePuyt to discuss the fare adjustment and other taxicab issues. (Clip begins at 27:13)

A Discussion on U.S. Presidential Elections, Foreign Policy and Media Coverage

admin — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 13:10:04 +0000

Pete appeared on Deadline with host Carey Campbell in February. Fellow guests included Martin Sieff, chief analyst for The Globalist, and Green Party presidential candidate Rhett Smith.

Among the issues discussed and debated were the presidential elections; U.S. foreign policy and the aggressive posture towards Syria and Iran, as well as the continuation of the war on Afghanistan, the longest in U.S. history; and the shortcomings of the U.S. media.

DC Officials Insist On Improving Schools By Closing Them

admin — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 12:50:44 +0000

Listen to TheFightBack question Mayor Gray and Chancellor Henderson: Download audio file (2012-04-18-Gray-Henderson-School-Closures.mp3)

“We are going to have to consolidate the number of schools that we educate our children in,” Mayor Vincent Gray said Wednesday at a press conference introducing D.C.’s new five year education plan. Gray said the D.C. Public Schools (DCPS) system is presently “unsustainable” and some schools must be closed in order to provide the “ancillary services [District residents] would like to see in schools.”

Gray echoed the findings of a DCPS-commissioned study conducted by The Illinois Facilities Fund (IFF) which called for either turning around 38 schools or closing them, potentially converting them into charter schools.

The study was funded by a $100,000 grant from The Walton Foundation, i.e. Walmart, which is looking to bring six stores to D.C. and is known to promote charter schools, not traditional public schools (or their unions). In addition to the Walmart connection, education experts and activists also question the objectivity of IFF, which is a real estate consulting firm that has lent out more than $57 million to charters.

School officials, of course, knew about IFF going in, yet they selected the firm anyway, and in a less than transparent process. De’Shawn Wright, D.C.’s deputy mayor for education, chose IFF without putting the contract up for competitive bidding, which he didn’t have to do since the Walton Foundation was footing the bill, not taxpayers.

It’s not surprising Wright was able to secure private funding for the study since he’s accustomed to rubbing shoulders with the One Percent. Before coming to D.C., Wright worked behind the scenes to help secure a $100 million matching grant to Newark’s school system from Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg. In 2008, with assistance from the Walton and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations, among other major donors, Wright helped found the Newark Charter School Fund, which in its first two years paid out more to consultants and administrators like himself than it gave to schools.

As the District announced it would be commissioning the IFF study, Wright offered his thoughts, which were remarkably similar to the conclusions the study would go on to reach. “Let’s be completely candid here… we have to right-size the [school system],” he said. “If that ruffles a few feathers, then so be it.”

D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson seemed to be reading from a similar playbook as she stood alongside Gray at Wednesday’s press conference, although she offered a gentler tone. “I don’t want us to think about this just in terms of school closings,” she said in response to TheFightBack’s question. “I really want us to think about this in terms of right-sizing.”

Henderson has spent several years trying to “right-size” D.C. public schools. As Michelle Rhee’s Number Two, Henderson helped her predecessor close 23 public schools, mostly in D.C.’s less affluent communities. At the same time, Rhee/Henderson increased funding for public schools in wealthy upper northwest, as well as for charters, which now educate 40 percent of D.C.’s students, compared to only 5 or 6 percent nationally.

Henderson also played a key role in Rhee’s campaign against DCPS teachers which culminated in a controversial contract funded with $64.5 million in private money, including $25 million from the Walton Foundation, which severely undermined teacher protections and tenure. (The union president who inked the deal, George Parker, went on to work for StudentsFirst, Rhee’s organization which seeks to push her anti-teacher agenda nationwide, or at least in states where right-wing governors will take her in.)

Throughout the Rhee/Henderson reign, the public has been told, particularly by the conflicted Washington Post, that school reform is working, as evidenced by improving test scores. It turns out, however, these test gains may be the result of widespread cheating, as test erasure mark irregularities appear to indicate. D.C. Inspector General Charles Willoughby says he’s looking into the situation, but it’s unclear how carefully.

What is clear is that the Rhee/Henderson agenda continues apace. Ironically, now Gray is leading the charge despite the fact that he came into office in no small part because of his opposition to these very policies.

The further irony is that D.C. officials are big promoters of “neighborhood schools”; at least in wealthier parts of the city. Officials, of course, aren’t likely to plainly state this. Instead, they label schools in less affluent areas “underperforming,” which then provides the needed justification for closing them.

In a starkly divided city, schools could be a great equalizer. With the continuation of the Rhee/Henderson reign, however, D.C.’s achievement gap, already among the nation’s worst, may become even wider.

* This piece is cross-posted at The Urban Revival.