DC CITY DESK. . .

THE CHARTER SCHOOLS OUR CHANCELLOR ADMIRES

2008-05-12T13:45:00.001-04:00

COSMO GARVIN, NEWS REVIEW, CA St. Hope Academy and the St. Hope Academy Foundation are nonprofits, so they have to file what is called a Form 990 every year with the IRS. Like most of the St. Hope entities, they’ve been mostly in the red for several years. In 2005, the academy managed a nearly $450,000 surplus. It was wiped out in 2006, owing $650,000 more than it took in from government grants and other sources.

In 2006, the most recent information available, the combined expenses for St. Hope Academy and the St. Hope Academy Foundation were $2,141,394. The combined deficit was $705,565. A little more long-division, and you find the deficit is about 33 percent. In other words, St. Hope’s budget was more than twice as whacked-out as the city’s.

St. Hope’s current executive director, Rick Maya, says it would be great to be back in the black, but that’s not as important as the organization’s mission. “It just costs more to get the desired results than what we’re currently funded at.”

DC SATURDAY

2008-05-10T22:19:00.000-04:00

NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND, ESPECIALLY THE CHANCELLOR'S

WELL, WELL, Michelle Rhee may not be all about excellence after all. She's fired Oyster-Adams principal Marta Guzman who, reports the Post, has 30 year's experience and runs hose dual language program that "has long made the Cleveland Park school among the city's most coveted, with high test scores and a national blue ribbon for academic achievement. Every year, parents from outside its attendance boundaries vie through a lottery for a handful of spaces to enroll their children." Two of Rhee's children go there. . .

BILL TURQUE, WASH POST Guzman's departure has stunned many Oyster-Adams parents who wonder why, in a city filled with under-performing public schools, Rhee would sack a principal who has presided for the past five years over one of its few success stories. The move has also heightened ethnic and class tensions within the school's diverse community. Eduardo Barada, co-chairman of the Oyster-Adams Community Council, the school's PTA, said Guzman was toppled by a cadre of dissatisfied and largely affluent Anglo parents with the ear of a woman who was both a fellow parent and the chancellor. "I believe there are some parents who want to control and dominate," he said. "They want to silence the Latinos there."

Claire Taylor. . . was one of a group of Oyster-Adams parents, both white and Latino, who dined with Rhee in November and aired complaints about Guzman. Among the issues raised with Rhee, who took notes, according to another attendee, were Guzman's alleged lack of organization, reluctance to delegate and sometimes-brusque style. . .

Maureen Diner, who has a fourth-grader at the school, said Rhee's silence is not seemly for a chancellor who came into office a year ago promising reform. "Anybody asked not to return deserves a process, at the very least a community meeting," Diner said. As for Rhee, "she talked about creating a culture of accountability. At the same time, she needs to be accountable for her own actions."

PORK BARREL UPDATE

STEVEN PEARLSTEIN, WASH POST [Radio One's] advertising sales slumped as bigger competitors had moved aggressively into Radio One's hip-hop and rhythm-and-blues formats, and listeners had begun to migrate from traditional radio. The company was struggling under the weight of a heavy debt load taken on to buy up stations, many at the height of the telecom bubble, and later to finance its initial forays into television and the Internet. Its stock price, which had peaked at $20 a share in spring 2004, was down around $7.

It's only been downhill from there. Last year, Radio One posted a net loss of $387 million after its sales fell even faster than those of the industry generally and it was forced to write down more than $400 million in the value of its radio licenses. Several of its top executives quit or were forced out, its credit rating was cut, and it was forced to sell off several stations to raise cash. Because of accounting errors, the company restated several years of earnings and has been caught up in the Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry into backdating of stock options. Yesterday, after announcing another quarterly loss of $18.3 million, Radio One's stock price closed at 86 cents. . .

This is also the story of a management team and a tightknit board of directors who have overreached in their strategy, underperformed in executing it and sometimes put their own interests ahead of those of their public shareholders.

The most egregious example is the new compensation packages recently awarded by the board to Hughes and her son, Alfred C. Liggins III, the chief executive. Under the agreements, Hughes, as chairman of the board with no clearly defined executive responsibilities, will receive an annual base salary of $750,000, along with a potential bonus of $250,000. That compares with a 2007 salary and bonus of $560,000.

Liggins, who in addition to his base salary of $575,370, last year earned a bonus of $468,720 for turning in the worst financial performance in company history. Going forward, the board has determined that Liggins is apparently so valuable and essential that his base salary has to be increased to $980,000, with a potential bonus of another $980,000.

WASH BUSINESS JOURNAL, JAN 2008 - The D.C. Council has approved a $23 million subsidy for the mixed-use Broadcast Center One development in the Shaw neighborhood, which will include new headquarters for Radio One Inc. The deal is slated to bring 103,000 square feet of office space, close to 25,000 square feet of retail, 180 rental apartments and a 195-spot underground parking garage, which will provide parking for the renovated Howard Theater on T Street. Radio One currently owns 54 stations, which primarily target African-American and urban listeners.

DC SHORTS

ARTOMATIC, the homegrown art extravaganza has opened with over seven hundred visual artists and three hundred performances, its one of the most celebrated arts events of the year. Artomatic 2008 will occupy ten floors of the Capitol Plaza I building, located at 1200 First Street (1st, M, and Patterson Streets), NE, next to Fur & Ibiza nightclubs. Just one block west of the New York Avenue Metro station. Hours are: Fridays & Saturdays: noon-2:00 a.m.; Sundays: noon-10:00 p.m.; Wednesdays and Thursdays: 5:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m.; Closed Mondays and Tuesdays. Artomatic's last day is June 15. A full schedule of events

ELISSA SILVERMAN WASHINGTON POST They have scared away patrons of restaurants, put fear into Sunday worshipers and given indigestion to dinner party guests. . . It's the District's hawk-eyed parking enforcement brigade, including city-owned tow trucks that prowl the streets during games. . . More than 200 people packed a room at Capitol Hill United Methodist Church to voice their opinions . . . Many said that the District was too vigilant, ticketing and towing cars that had no connection to baseball. Cars in violation receive a $30 ticket and a tow to the parking lot at the old D.C. General Hospital, Howland said. "I actually had two employees quit because of parking tickets," said Joyce N. Thomas, president and chief executive of the Center for Child Protection and Family Support, which aids abused children. . . Churchgoers also questioned the virtue of aggressive enforcement, which several said requires them to listen to sermons with an eye on their watches. "Is it being done to squeeze out the African American churches in this community?" said Cheryl Kelley, a Maryland resident who is a member of Ebenezer United Methodist Church at Fourth and D streets SE.

JOSHUA KUCERA took the whole trip from DC to NYC by local transit. Now you don't have to; you can read about it in City Paper. Clip: "The itinerary of "The Bus" is clearly designed for those for whom time is not money. We drove into the Villas at Whitehall ("A Senior Rental Community"), stopped at Union Hospital and at Foxridge Manor Apartments. We did a loop through one neighborhood where all the houses were identical aluminum-sided duplexes and the streets had names like "Road 1" and "Road 12"-and then came out exactly where we had entered 15 minutes earlier. I had to change buses; the transfer station was at the Acme grocery store in the Big Elk Shopping Center in Elkton. We also made a 10-minute stop at the Cecil County administration building, where we all had to get out of the bus and into another one with a new driver to continue the journey. . . It was, however, a bargain compared to Amtrak: I paid $11 for the MARC train, a total of $4.50 for two "The Bus" buses, $1.15 on the Delaware DART bus, $9 on SEPTA, and $12.50 on NJ Transit, for a total of $38.15.

BOXING UP WASHINGTON AND CALLING IT PROGRESS

2008-05-10T22:11:00.001-04:00

SAM SMITH - Despite the rampant nonsense and insults to the city's history, culture and people, puff pieces like Paul Schwartzman's article in the Post, "Looking Past the Capital City," are important to read for what they reveal about the intentions of the city's business leaders and their official enablers. For example, Deputy Mayor Neal Albert talks about trashing the city's historic height limit and turning Deanwood, Anacostia and Congress Heights into yet more places to store people - presumably mostly white - in boring big boxes built by developer buddies. Expect Fenty to move fast; he is clearly the biggest poodle of the development crowd this city has yet seen.

Schwartzman, whether from his own distorted imagination or because he has been sold a bill of goods, engages in a number of untrue and unfair characterizations of the city. He says DC was a symbol of dysfunction with neighborhoods long-forlorn. But now planners envision "a collection of vibrant neighborhoods knitted together by mass transit." Apparently they are going to revive such forlorn neighborhoods as Capitol Hill, Brookland, Hillcrest Heights, Dupont Circle and Cleveland Park by knitting them together with… well, how about a subway?

Among the goals are "vibrant neighborhoods, scenic riverfronts, pedestrian-jammed sidewalks, art museums, shopping and fine cuisine" which apparently the planners haven't noticed already exist.

What's going on here is the traditional hubris of colonizers: nothing ever happened until we got here. This, of course, is nonsense. We have had two and quarter centuries of interesting and important history. Visitors to this town have long been fascinated by the strength and variety of our neighborhoods. And the height limit has given the city a tranquil beauty and canopy of the sky that is hard to find anymore in an urban setting. The fact that the Post chooses not to report this doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

And what has the new crowd brought with its wonderful plans and heavily subsidized economic development?

Well, for one thing, 10,000 fewer jobs for DC residents than there were in 1984,nearly 25 years ago. In other words, for DC residents all those hundreds of millions of dollars spent on sports arenas, convention centers and stadiums have been largely wasted.

According to the DC Fiscal Policy Institute, wages have barely changed in 30 years for DC's lowest-wage workers. DC's rich-poor gap has widened over the past two decades. Poverty in the District is at the highest level in nearly a decade. Since with the late 1990s, some 27,000 more DC residents have fallen into poverty. African-American residents are five times more likely than white residents to be unemployed. This gap was greater in 2006 than in any year since 1985.

Employment among African-American adults has been falling since the late 1980s. The employment rate among black adults has even fallen during the city's recent economic boom. Some 51 percent African-American adults worked in 2006, compared with 62 percent in 1988. Employment among residents with a high school diploma is at the lowest level in nearly 30 years. Just 51 percent of DC residents at this education level are working. In the late 1980s, by contrast, nearly two-thirds of residents with a high school diploma were employed.

Further, from the Census we learn that this booming town has the second-highest poverty rate in the country.

As for the alleged influx of cultural creatives, we have yet to see anyone challenge the status, say, of Sam Gilliam, Charlie Byrd or George Pellicanos. The only thing really creative about the new DC crowd is what it imagines it contributes to the place.

Neil Albert is comes across as stunningly ignorant, calling DC "a long ways away from the mature cities like New York and Chicago. . . "We would not say the city has arrived." Perhaps if he would stop having lunch with developers, he might have time to read about DC's history and learn what it has to offer right now.

Mayor Williams' sidekick, Eric Price, is just as bad. He say, "When you go to London, you don't just go there because it's the seat of power, you go to walk on the Thames or take the Underground or go shopping" . . .

He said the same expectation should exist for Washington. "It's a place, a world-class city that you go to for all it offers," he said. "You go for the parks, the ballgames, the waterfronts." Has the guy ever actually looked around DC?

It's sad what this crowd is up to, but at least you have been warned.

DC WEDNESDAY

2008-05-07T21:00:00.000-04:00

MORE FOXES IN THE CHICKEN COOP

ADRIAN FENTY has named a member of the right wing American Enterprise Institute and an advocate of alternatives to public schools to be "watchdogs" over the DC school system, another indicator of how brazen is the Fenty-Rhee attack on public schools.

RALPH NADER, 2003 The American Enterprise Institute . . . is loaded with corporate money, full of rich fellowships for Washington, D.C. influence peddlers, masquerading as conservatives, who wallow in plush offices figuring out how to assure that big corporations rule the U.S. and the rest of the world.

During the past twenty-two years, the AEI, their nearby corporate patrons, their allied trade associations and corporate "think tanks" have, in effect, taken over the executive branch, the Congress and promoted the judgeships of right-wing corporate lawyers demanding another salary increase.. . . How does the AEI keep its corporate supremacists writing those big checks? How to avoid institutional ennui? Why, go after the liberal or progressive non-governmental associations. Describe them as a collage of Goliaths running an all-points wrecking machine over government and business. Open a theater of the absurd.

DC SHORTS

WE LIKED THE HEADLINE on the latest Post story about Rhee - "Rhee's Need to Hurry Runs Into Parents' Fear of Change" - because it was classic corporate spin: If you don't want to things our way, you're afraid of change. The fact that there are an infinite ways of changing never gets mentioned.

BILL TURQUE, WASHINGTON POST The colored letters on the classroom bulletin board at Stevens Elementary spelled out "Welcome Chancellor Rhee." On this humid evening late last month, however, she was beginning to wear it out. Stevens, which opened in Foggy Bottom in 1868 to educate freed slaves, is one of 23 underenrolled D.C. schools Rhee intends to close, all but three by this summer. Its 236 students have been offered spots for the fall about a half-mile away at Francis Junior High, which will expand to pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. For the 40 or so parents who turned out, there was a thicket of unanswered questions: about safety, about which Stevens teachers would move to Francis, about a decision that smelled to some like a grab for the prime K Street NW real estate where Stevens sits, rather than a move that will benefit their children. . "How can you close a building you've never even been in?" asked Bernard Hackett, whose 5-year-old son attends Stevens. Rhee has toured numerous schools but, until the evening meeting last month, had never entered Stevens. . . Other issues have left Stevens parents anxious. They say they have had no input into the planned $5 million redesign of the Francis building to accommodate preschool and elementary students, including how the retrofitting will keep small children safe from harassment or worse by middle-schoolers. Those seeking other public schools for their children say the chancellor's office has been elusive and unresponsive. There also is frustration because, with less than six weeks left in the school year, parents do not know which Stevens teachers and staff members will move to Francis, a key component in their decision-making about the fall. "This is like the war in Iraq. Let's invade, but we have no plan for the occupation," said Florence Harmon, an advisory neighborhood commissioner in West End-Foggy Bottom.

FORMER CHIEF RAMSEY, who was in charge of the police abuse of demonstrators while in DC, is in trouble again in his new job in Philly. Reports ABC News: A half-dozen Philadelphia police officers kicked and beat three men pulled from a car during a traffic stop as a TV helicopter taped the confrontation. Aerial video captures Philly officers in a confrontation with shooting suspects. . . The tape shows about a dozen officers gathering around the vehicle. About a half-dozen officers hold two of the men on the ground. Both are kicked repeatedly, while one is seen being punched; one also appears to be struck with a baton. The third man is also kicked and ends up on the ground. ABC News

NOW THAT THE SMITHSONIAN REGENTS have voted not to go corporate on redeveloping the Arts & Industry Building, things are looking better for a latino museum on the Mall.

LA TIMES Four years ago, a museum celebrating the history and culture of Native Americans opened at the east end of the National Mall. Within a decade, one honoring the contributions of African Americans will be erected on the west end, near the Washington Monument. Yet Latinos, the nation's largest and fastest-growing minority, have no museum of their own in the nation's capital. But the National Museum of the American Latino came one step closer to reality Tuesday when the House, by a vote of 291 to 117, approved legislation that includes creation of a commission to study the feasibility of building such a facility.

There's no timeline for construction. Neither the museum's location nor the scope of its collection has been determined. . . . The National Coalition to Save Our Mall welcomes the Latino museum commission as long as it takes the time for careful analysis with public comment. The construction should be part of a rethinking about the grand plan of the mall, said Judy Scott Feldman, the coalition's president.

WE GOT A NOTE FROM Muriel Strand, one of the mayoral candidates in Sacramento along with Michelle Rhee's questionable pal Kevin Johnson whose St Hope charter school has turned out to be something less than a wonder. Writes Strand: "I would advise DC folks to look closely at his record before hiring him to run any schools. and I'm not talking about his sex life (or lack thereof) as much as his corporate record, the actual track record of his schools, and his actual development track record."

OVERHEARD BY EAVESDROP DC - "Dude, South America and South Africa are like totally the same thing". . . "No they're not. . . one has latinos and the other has African Americans". . . "Whatever, Jose"

DC EXAMINER A former judge who lost a $54 million lawsuit against a dry cleaners over a missing pair of pants is suing to get his job back and at least $1 million in damages. In the suit filed in federal court, Roy Pearson claims he was wrongfully dismissed for exposing corruption within the Office of Administrative Hearings, the department where he worked. In court documents, Pearson said he was protected as a whistle-blower and that the city used the fact that he was being "vilified in the media" to cut him out of his job

POLICE ADMIT SPY CAMS A FLOP IN BRITAIN

2008-05-06T13:40:00.000-04:00

GUARDIAN, UK Massive investment in CCTV cameras to prevent crime in the UK has failed to have a significant impact, despite billions of pounds spent on the new technology, a senior police officer piloting a new database has warned. Only 3% of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV images, despite the fact that Britain has more security cameras than any other country in Europe. . .

Use of CCTV images for court evidence has so far been very poor, according to Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville, the officer in charge of the Metropolitan police unit. "CCTV was originally seen as a preventative measure," Neville told the Security Document World Conference in London. "Billions of pounds has been spent on kit, but no thought has gone into how the police are going to use the images and how they will be used in court. It's been an utter fiasco: only 3% of crimes were solved by CCTV. There's no fear of CCTV. Why don't people fear it? [They think] the cameras are not working."

DC MONDAY

2008-05-05T21:21:00.002-04:00

TEACHING OUR CHILDREN TO BE DYSFUNCTIONAL

WASHINGTON BUSINESS JOURNAL Rhee wants nonprofits to take over a dozen of the city's most failing high schools. A new tax-exempt group, formed by former Fenty bullpen official Sarah Lasner, will receive donations from businesses eager to contribute to school reform. And Rhee wants businesses to pony up their human capital by adopting schools and helping students on Saturdays and in summer school with legions of off-hours tutors and mentors.

Many in the business community wonder why it has taken her so long to ask for their help. Foundations and corporations have complained for months that they can't get meetings with Rhee. In a meeting with members of The Philanthropy Roundtable on April 1, she repeated Fenty's blunt request that they contribute $75 million every year for the next five years - while adding that most of the money would probably go toward teachers' salary incentives. Some business leaders at the meeting bristled: Why should they be asked to pitch in for overhead when the system was wasting so much money? Shouldn't they be contributing like businesses usually do: building playgrounds, buying computers and painting hallways on the weekends?. . .

Rhee explains her approach to business and nonprofit involvement in D.C. schools. Her bottom line: If you're a business and you want to contribute, you will do what the school system needs, not necessarily what you want to do. And however you contribute, your business's role will be evaluated by a single criteria: Did it lead to an improvement in students' standardized test scores

CITY DESK - Rhee's approach to education is deeply anti-educational. To use standardized tests as the sole criteria of someone's achievement ignores matters such as wisdom, judgment, social factors and morality. If you educate kids in such a manner you basically end up with adults - not unlike Rhee and Fenty - able to absorb a large amount of data but often incapable of using it sensibly in a social situation. There is a name for this; it's called Asperger's Syndrome. The last thing we want to do is to train our children to be as socially dysfunctional as some of our leaders.

Let's say we have a standardized test on the city budget. Rhee and Fenty would probably pass it with flying colors. Now let's ask a different sort of question: given the data, what is the best amount of money we should spend on education as opposed to locking up minor drug offenders a thousand miles from home? There's no way you can standardize the answer because it is ultimately a matter of wisdom and morality.

Now let's ask another question. If we are spending too much on prisons, how do we convince people to do otherwise? Again, there is no way to standardize the answers.

Yet the success of our society is based on education young people to be able to answer such questions and thousands of others that won't fit in the blank on the test sheet.

There is nothing wrong with tests when they are used with the sort of wisdom, judgment and conscience that standardized tests can't teach you. If we want our children to have the latter traits, then we must educate them and not reduce learning to the primitive logic of slot machine.

RHEE-ALITY CHECK

CANDI PETERSON On Saturday, May 3, Mr. Jesus Aguirre from the Office of the Chancellor told some local DC public school restructuring teams in a citywide meeting that DCPS elementary school counselor positions will not be funded in DCPS elementary schools that do not have a minimum of six hundred students. . .

As if this weren't enough, DCPS literacy and math coach teachers were advised last Friday that they too will have to reapply for their newly reclassified jobs under new position titles, Literacy Professional Developer and Mathematics Professional Developer, at the DCPS teacher transfer fair next Saturday. . .

Like their mentor, Chancellor Joel Klein of New York public schools, it appears that Mayor Fenty and Chancellor Rhee believe that the way to reform public education is by firing the bottom half of public school employees. As Randi Weingarten, President of United Federation of Teachers, reported about Chancellor Joel Klein's similar tactics, "And if you can't fire them, make their lives miserable." Instead of proposing creative solutions that would reform our public schools, Chancellor Rhee and Mayor Fenty continue down their path of destruction of our educational landscape which is counterproductive, destroys employee morale, wastes valuable talent, tarnishes future teacher recruitment efforts, and lacks a long-term educational strategic plan. After all, what competent, certified and experienced employees will be attracted to work in a system that regularly devalues and disrespects teachers, and fails to retain their existing pool of talented and certified educators?

RHEE BUDDY UPDATE

SACRAMENTO BEE Saturday's Sacramento mayoral debate trotted along cordially enough until the very end, when the hopefuls were asked what question they'd pose to the two candidates who didn't show up. The focus inside the downtown Sacramento debate hall immediately shifted to an empty brown leather chair at the end of the dais.

Kevin Johnson, the former-NBA-star-turned-Oak Park-developer-turned-mayoral-candidate, declined an invitation to the event, the campaign's first televised forum. (Long-shot insurance broker Richard Jones also was a no-show.)

"Whose side is he on?" asked candidate Muriel Strand, referring to Johnson.

"Why isn't he willing to talk to the people?" chimed in incumbent mayor Heather Fargo.

"I don't care if he's out raising more money or at a college reunion . . . " said bounty hunter Leonard Padilla from underneath his trademark cowboy hat. "You show up."

Johnson instead spent Saturday in Washington, D.C., laying out his case for opening a St. HOPE charter school in the nation's capital. He passed on last week's debate at Fremont Presbyterian Church, too, and has pulled out of three other debates at the last moment.

Christy Setzer, a Johnson spokeswoman, issued a brief statement saying Johnson has "found that the most meaningful interactions happen through a two-way conversation with residents." She said Johnson's campaign team has spread his message by knocking on the doors of 10,000 voters and calling another 20,000.

Just short of 84,000 city residents voted in the 2004 mayoral election.. . .

Padilla deemed the transfer of Sacramento High into a charter high school run by Johnson's St. HOPE "a horrendous mistake," especially in light of allegations that Johnson inappropriately touched a student. Sacramento police investigated and found no basis for the allegations.

Padilla called upon City Councilman Rob Fong - a St. HOPE supporter when he served on the Sacramento City Unified school board - to lead a blue-ribbon panel dedicated to revoking the school's charter. "Obviously, something has been wrong (at Sac High) for a very long time," Padilla said.

RECOVERED HISTORY

JENNIFER MEDINA, NY TIMES, NOV 2007 - New York City's eighth graders have made no significant progress in reading and math since Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg took control of the city schools, according to federal test scores released yesterday, in contrast with the largely steady gains that have been recorded on state tests. The national scores also showed little narrowing of the achievement gap between white students and their black and Hispanic counterparts.

The results for New York and 10 other large urban districts on the federal tests, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, paint a generally stagnant picture for the city, although there are gains in fourth-grade math. On measure after measure, the scores showed "no significant change" between 2005, when the test was previously administered, and 2007. . .

New York City's federal scores showed that while fourth-grade reading results have improved over the past five years, the most significant jump came in 2002, before Mr. Bloomberg took control. . .

In contrast with New York City, federal scores in Atlanta and Washington [before the Fenty coup - Ed] rose significantly across all grade levels and subjects since 2005.

LAUREL ROSENHALL, SACRAMENTO BEE, NOV 12, 2007 - The Sacramento City Unified school board is reviewing one of its most politically charged decisions: whether it made the right call in 2003 in giving the city's namesake high school to a nonprofit group run by a retired basketball star.

Kevin Johnson's St. HOPE Corp. has asked permission to run Sacramento High as a charter school for another five years. The board will decide by the end of December whether to renew the charter, which allows St. HOPE to run the school free from many of the regulations governing traditional public schools.

The charter school's success has become a matter of great debate. Some of the teachers who bought into Johnson's vision of giving disadvantaged kids a private school-style education for free left after a couple of years. They say St. HOPE hasn't lived up to its promise.

Some students who tried the school have pulled out, and Sacramento Charter High School has not attracted the nearly 2,000 students it was intended to serve. But the roughly 1,100 students there now say it's a place where they feel safe, cared for and academically challenged. . .

Over the past four years, as the portion of Sac High graduates going to college has gone up, SAT scores have gone down. On California's standardized tests, Sacramento High students are improving, but so are all students in the state. So even though the percentage of kids proficient in math and English has risen, Sacramento High scores remain in the bottom 20 percent statewide the same ranking the school has had since 2002, when it still was run by Sacramento City Unified.

When Sacramento High reopened in the fall of 2003 as an independent charter school, St. HOPE made many changes intended to improve that shoddy performance. It made the school day longer, hired nonunion teachers who were available to students around the clock, and paid for kids to go on college tours. . .

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has given Sac High more than $4 million. While test scores aren't where the foundation would like them to be, spokeswoman Carol Rava Treat said, "we feel confident in their commitment" to getting disadvantaged kids into college. . .

Among Sac High's class of 2007 the first to graduate under four years of St. HOPE leadership the school reported that 70 percent of graduates went on to a four-year college. But a closer look shows that the class of 2007 which started with 505 freshmen, according to state data shrank by 48 percent over four years. Only 262 graduated. . .

Critics say St. HOPE allows only well-behaved students to stay at the charter school, leaving problem kids to fill Sacramento's neighborhood schools.

And some teachers who joined Sac High when it became a charter school have left disillusioned and bitter. They thought they were signing up for a revolution in public education, several former teachers said. Instead they found erratic leadership, classrooms without enough desks or books, and frequent 12-hour work days.

"It was intensely mismanaged from Day One," said Barbara Modlin, who quit after 2 1/2 years teaching English. "I felt like the doors were opened and the teachers were pushed (into the classroom) and the doors were closed. We were given no support."

When enrollment dropped, former teachers said, St. HOPE asked teachers to recruit middle-schoolers as they walked home from school.

"It was demeaning. I'm a professional educator and I'm supposed to stand on a street corner and recruit kids?" said Mara Harvey, who taught history at the charter school for two years.

DC SCENES

RADAR One might expect D.C.'s top players to have cooled their libidos-still roiling from the Larry Craig embarrassment and the release of high-class "D.C. Madam" Deborah Palfrey's little black book-but it turns out that Washington's K Street is randier than ever.

Home to many of the country's top lobbying firms, the fabled PR power corridor is also the hub of a $250 million-a-year sex industry that provides Beltway bigwigs with "rub and tugs" at full-service massage parlors. Feds shuttered five such storefronts in August 2006, but they were soon back in business. On a recent Tuesday, we visited one such establishment-the 14K Spa at 1413 K Street-to scope out the scene.

Located in the basement of a 15-story building, 14K sits beneath the D.C. headquarters of Teach for America and an outpost of the Better Business Bureau. A steady stream of besuited white dudes entered the premises, with a surge during lunch hour. One multitasking lawyer spent 42 minutes inside before proceeding directly to a Cosi.

"It's a mostly professional crowd that comes here during the day," reports Georgette, a secretary who has worked in the building for seven years. Carlos, a lobbyist on a smoke break, told us that a fair share of referrals come from the Washington Post's sports pages, where many of the parlors advertise.

At 2 p.m., we descended a street-level staircase that led to an opaque glass door. We were buzzed into a small reception area with a few chairs and copies of Sports Illustrated, Us Weekly, and the New Republic on hand for waiting customers. An amicable elderly Korean woman named Kim introduced us to Coco, a 23-year-old Korean-Hawaiian with fake C-cups. Coco led us to a private room, collected $60, and asked us to strip and don a towel. "We get many type of guy from around here," Coco told us, administering the worst back rub we've ever received-a good indication that shiatsu isn't her specialty. After 30 minutes, she demanded another hundred clams, using a series of obscene hand gestures to indicate the additional services available.

We thanked Coco and bolted; the look of confusion on her face suggested this does not happen often. Back aboveground, Carlos was enjoying another smoke. "You know, there are enough whores a few blocks away in the White House," he said. "I don't need to see more on my lunch hour."

DC SHORTS

DAVID NAKAMURA AND NIKITA STEWART WASHINGTON POST - Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's $5.7 billion spending proposal sprawls over six thick books that are so heavy they were delivered to the D.C. Council on a cart. But when council members delved into the volumes, they said they were shocked at the little information they contained. Gone were the narrative descriptions that former mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) used to lay out in detail. In their place were tables of numbers showing shifts in spending - with little explanation. "This is the most opaque budget I've ever seen. . . . The information is scant. It's difficult," council Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D) said at a public hearing last week. "I've begun to lose faith in [the administration's] ability to provide us information. . . . Every committee has struggled to make informed decisions.". . . Fenty, several members said, has refused to send administration officials to oversight hearings, has asked the council to approve emergency legislation retroactively to support his actions and has misrepresented key initiatives to win public support. Making matters worse, they said, is the mayor's determination to punish those who criticize or cross him - for example, by not inviting them to news conferences in their wards. More stark was his recent refusal to distribute tickets for a city-controlled luxury suite at Washington Nationals' games to four rivals on the council. . .

GARY IMHOFF, DC WATCH Fenty and Rhee have fired or are in the process of firing public school central office employees, principals, counselors, and teachers, and they are engaged in a concentrated effort to bust the teachers union. What Fenty and Rhee know is that Fenty's core supporters, childless yuppies and new, short-term Washingtonians, don't like public school employees, even classroom teachers. They don't feel any connection to the schools, and they're happy to see school employees and union members hurt, even if school children aren't helped. Fenty has fought taxicab drivers over the meter issue. Meters won't benefit riders, of course; cab rides won't be any cheaper, and riders' fears of being cheated under the zone system were exaggerated. . . Again, what keeps Fenty popular is not the questionable benefits of this "reform," but the fact that cab drivers oppose it and that enough people dislike cab drivers as a group to make it a politically popular move to hurt drivers.

WASH POST The Washington Post Co. reported a 39 percent decline in first-quarter profit yesterday, as the company was hit by a large one-time charge at Newsweek magazine and the continued slump in its newspaper division. . . The troubled newspaper division, led by The Post, reported $1.2 million in operating income for the quarter, down 92 percent from the first quarter last year. The division's revenue was $206.1 million, down 6 percent from $219.2 million last year. Print ad revenue dropped 11 percent, to $111.6 million from $125.1 million, caused largely by the continued decline in classified advertising.

WASH POST They lie awake for hours, squeezing their eyes shut, putting pillows over their heads and trying to close the louvered blinds tighter. They rearrange their rooms - even their homes - and spend hundreds of dollars on room-darkening shades. Some furtively climb ladders to coat the bright streetlights outside their homes with a cloud of black spray paint, hoping to eclipse the glare. One woman said the fancy new street lamps outside her apartment window are so bright that a recent dinner guest donned sunglasses before tucking into his pasta. As neighborhoods across the District get lighting upgrades, residents increasingly are crying foul.. . When giant glass globes and decorative lampposts first graced the cobblestone streets of yesteryear, the light source was a small gas flame. Today, white-hot 150-watt bulbs burn in the similarly styled light fixtures. The high-pressure sodium lights found throughout most of the city are the most energy-efficient, cost-effective and long-lasting product, LeBlanc said. But inside the old-time glass globes, their light spills beyond the sidewalk, up to the sky - and into the bedroom.

RICHARD LAYMAN, URBAN PLACES & SPACES The Washington Business Journal reports that the current chief executive of the Washington Convention Center, Reba Pittman Walker, is stepping down and is likely to be replaced by someone close to Mayor Fenty. According to the WBJ article: "Multiple sources cited friction between Walker and Mayor Adrian Fenty's recent appointees to the authority's board as a reason for her departure. One source close to the matter said Walker 'just didn't seem to click with the board'" Board member and former Fenty aide Gregory O'Dell is considered a likely candidate to replace Walker. O'Dell is CEO of the D.C. Sports & Entertainment Commission and oversaw the completion of the Washington Nationals' stadium for the mayor's office. . . Perry, a government affairs executive at Pepco Holdings Inc., confirmed that O'Dell was a candidate to replace Walker in an acting capacity. She said the board would not conduct a national search and will have an acting replacement in place by May 30." . . . This is a $450 million asset - owned by the District of Columbia and its citizens - We deserve professional management of this facility. A national search is in order.

WAITING FOR THE CROWD TO ROAR.. . .

2008-05-05T13:44:00.003-04:00

JEFF PASSAN, YAHOO SPORTS Since packing Nationals Park on Opening Day and watching Ryan Zimmerman christen it with a game-ending home run, fans have been curiously absent. On Sunday, the Nationals' announced paid attendance was 30,564, just above the 41,222-seat stadium's average of 29,686 that ranks in the bottom half of baseball.

"Our attendance has been terrific," [Stan] Kasten said. "Whether people are sitting in those seats or not, more and more are coming in."

Kasten is either an optimist, a great façade builder or a man with a plan he doesn't want to share - or, perhaps, all three. Because his public stance on the new stadium falling short of anticipated attendance is surprisingly calm, even when small pieces of evidence stack into one worrisome situation.

The Nationals' season-ticket base, though up from 15,000 last season to 18,000, remains significantly short of the 22,500 sold during their first season in 2005 after moving from Montreal. They're almost guaranteed to finish with the worst attendance in all numbers - total, average and percentage - for a new stadium since Cincinnati opened Great American Ball Park in 2003. In Washington's low point, the second game in Nationals Park actually had worse attendance than the second game at decrepit RFK Stadium last year.

"Sounds like you're a lot more concerned about this than me," Kasten said.

Perhaps so, though Kasten can't ignore the games on television where it looks as though the Nationals are playing to a crowd of ushers. The President seats, positioned behind home plate, go for more than $300 apiece, and they're selling like underwear at a nudist colony. Every pitch, the view is the same: hitter, catcher, umpire and about 25 of their unoccupied blue friends. . .

Part of Washington's allure, when Major League Baseball planned the move from Montreal, involved the potential fan base. Smart, fanatical and, best of all, with loads of disposable income.

Then Jack Abramoff tried to buy off all of Washington. New lobbying laws soon followed, and now the maximum gift given to a lawmaker cannot exceed $50. Which means all the Presidential tickets - $325 for single-game ones, $335 on Saturday and $400 for the front row, all more than the best seat at Yankee Stadium, which goes for $250 - that should have gone from lobbyist to Congressman to hard-working staffer no longer exist, and the market won't get any hotter unless the Nationals do, too.

"That's a factor," Kasten said. "The economy is a factor. Where we are in our development cycle in our team is a factor. I don't think (we're going to lower ticket prices). Not really. It's not something we're anticipating.

"It's clear to me that when we turn the corner as a team, they'll come.". . .

RECESSION PUNCHES HOLES IN CATANIA'S HEALTH PLAN

2008-05-04T11:09:00.000-04:00

NY TIMES - The economic slowdown has swelled the ranks of people without health insurance. But now it is also threatening millions of people who have insurance but find that the coverage is too limited or that they cannot afford their own share of medical costs. . .

Many of the 158 million people covered by employer health insurance are struggling to meet medical expenses that are much higher than they used to be - often because of some combination of higher premiums, less extensive coverage, and bigger out-of-pocket deductibles and co-payments.

With medical costs soaring, the coverage many people have may not adequately protect them from the financial shock of an emergency room visit or a major surgery. For some, even routine doctor visits might now take a back seat to basic expenses like food and gasoline. . .

Already, many doctors say, the soft economy is making some insured people hesitant to get care they need, reluctant to spend a $50 co-payment for an office visit. Parents "are waiting longer to bring in their children," said Dr. Richard Lander, a pediatrician in Livingston, N.J. "They say, 'The kid isn't that sick; her temperature is only 102.'". . .

Since the recession of 2001, the employee's average cost of an annual health care premium for family coverage has nearly doubled - to $3,300, up from $1,800 - while incomes have come nowhere close to keeping up. Factor in other out-of-pocket medical costs, and the portion of the average American household's income that goes toward health care has risen about 12 percent, according to the consulting and accounting firm Deloitte, and is now approaching one-fifth of the average household's spending.

In a recent survey by Deloitte's health research center, only 7 percent of people said they felt financially prepared for their future health care needs. . .

More companies may see themselves as having little choice but to require employees to pay even more of their health expenses, said Ted Nussbaum, a benefits consultant at the firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide. And when a weak economy undermines job security, he said, workers may simply have to accept reduced benefits. . .

DC SATURDAY

2008-05-03T11:58:00.003-04:00

RHEE BACKS RIGHTWING ATTACK ON PUBLIC EDUCATION

LOOSE LIPS, CITY PAPER Mayor Adrian M. Fenty might be a Barack Obama supporter, but his hand-picked education czar is opting for a different approach, at least when it comes to improving schools. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, in comments at a gathering of the Korean-American Coalition's D.C. chapter, endorsed the education plan of Arizona Republican John McCain "far and away" over those of either Obama or Hillary Clinton.

Rhee, in a speech at Tony Cheng's Restaurant in Chinatown, referred to herself as a "card-carrying Democrat" (LL forgot to ask to see the card), yet endorsed McCain's approach based on his willingness to reauthorize the controversial "No Child Left Behind" legislation. Both Clinton and Obama have been highly critical of the law and its effects. "I think they're pandering, quite frankly, to the teachers' unions and other folks," she said.

In comments after the speech, Rhee . . . called herself as a "huge proponent" of the federal law and said she was "incredibly disappointed" with the lack of Democratic support . . . though she did say she had a "laundry list" of things she would change with the statute.

AT THIS RATE, DC BLACKS WILL BE IN MINORITY BY 20014

WASH POST The latest census figures confirm that pattern, with non-Hispanic blacks accounting for 54 percent of the District's population in 2007, compared with 60 percent in 2000. Meanwhile, the number of non-Hispanic whites increased from 28 to 33 percent in that period, while the Hispanic and non-Hispanic Asian population remained at 8 and 3 percent, respectively.

THOSE LIVING NEAR STADIUM HURT BY NEW PARKING RULES

VOICE OF THE HILL Neighbors on the 100 block of E Street SE said the regulations meant to stem Nationals Park traffic prevent them from hosting dinner parties, book clubs and children's birthday parties, since guests from other areas are not permitted to park on their streets long enough for such events. . . Neighborhood commissioner

Ken Jarboe pointed out that parking throughout the neighborhood was already problematic even before the new baseball stadium was constructed. Commissioner David Garrison agreed and said that many neighbors had not realized that the new policy entailed more than the stadium. Jan Schoonmaker, who lives on E Street SE, called the new rules "an exercise in social engineering" and a "great imposition on our way of life" because the rules will make it difficult for guests to drive over. Other neighbors echoed his complaints. One said the regulations disrupt "the fabric of our social life." Mark Menard, a co-owner and manager of several bars around the Hill, said he thinks enforcement of new rules every day of the year, not just on game days, is "a little excessive." He also criticized the new time limits and "market-based" prices for parking meters. "The prices are ridiculous," he said.

Southwest residents have similar complaints about life south of the freeway. At a recent Southwest advisory neighborhood commission meeting, residents and commissioners said the parking plan has worked well but that regulations need not extend beyond game days.

AN EIGHTY YEAR OLD SOLUTION TO THE LINCOLN THEATRE'S REVENUE PROBLEM

MIKE LICHT, NOTIONS CAPITAL The solution for the Lincoln Theatre's revenue problem was solved some time ago - in 1927. That is when new owner Abe Lichtman, employer of most of DC's African American theater managers, put a public ballroom underground, under and behind the theater. This provided the Lincoln with a steady second income stream. This hall, the "Lincoln Colonnade," was arguably more important to Washington's African American community than the theater proper, and most of the stars said to have "packed the theater's 1,200 seats" actually played for dancers in the Colonnade.

Saxophonist George Botts grew up in Washington. He told W. Royal Stokes: "I've read in the paper where people talk about the groups that played at the Lincoln Theater. It wasn't at the Lincoln theater, it was the Lincoln Colonnade, which is underneath the Lincoln Theater! It was a beautiful dance hall that was under the Lincoln, where all those people, Charlie Parker and all them, came, and they had dances in there every weekend. . . And sometimes they would have Ellington's band or someone like that playing there."

Great photos at the site of the post

YOU MEAN EVERYONE DOESN'T HAVE TWO BLACKBERRIES?

WASH POST - Fenty [called for jury duty] became a diversion for the potential jurors. Rick Erdtmann, 63, of Southwest praised him for running marathons. Mark Davis, a construction worker from Northeast, approached to complain that he was having trouble getting hired. "Send us your resume," Fenty told him. "We'll take care of it." But Davis was stumped. "We usually don't do resumes for construction jobs. We just show up at the site," he said after returning to his seat. "And he told me to e-mail him, but I don't do e-mail. I just do construction."

DC SHORTS

DC EXAMINER EDITORIAL Despite being required by law to hold a series of public hearings before presenting the final school budget proposal to the District Council for approval, the March 20th deadline came and went this year with no such plan being made available. It's been at least 20 years since that last happened. Instead of obeying the law, the mayor's office wants to repeal it. Council members should refuse to go along. The law requiring the public discussion of the school budget was put on the books as a result of a 1987 initiative supported by 85 percent of the voters. District voters clearly not only wanted a say in budget decisions affecting their children, they demanded it at the ballot box. Instead of repealing this voter-approved provision, the council should be exercising its oversight role and demanding compliance by Fenty and Rhee.

WUSA - A local elementary school principal spent her last day of the school year suspending dozens of students. That led some of those students to retaliate. Egg shells and an empty carton lay on the ground where Webb Elementary School principal Donna Edwards car was once parked. "They got mad and started throwing eggs" says 10 year old Donte McFadden. He says the principal was egged by a group of students who had just been suspended on her last day of school. Citing medical reasons, Edwards is leaving for the year. Donte says he didn't take part but he was among the dozens of students as many as 45, who were called out on the loud speaker and told to come to the principal's office. In his class alone, 14 students were suspended. According to a letter that went home to mom, Donte was suspended for 5 days for being disrespectful, fighting and walking out of class earlier this week. . . And after the students got their suspension notices, Donte's older brother witnessed an ugly sight. "I saw a whole bunch of people ripping up the letters and throwing it in the principal's face" he says.

HOW TO GET A POLICE CHIEF TO BACK OFF SNEAKY, ILLEGAL SEARCHES

2008-05-01T16:17:00.000-04:00

ACTIVISM: HOW TO GET A POLICE CHIEF TO BACK OFF SNEAKY, ILLEGAL SEARCHES

DC's police chief Kathy Lanier came up with a plan to get people to allow officers to search their homes for any object by granting them immunity only from the city' gun law. The local ACLU, led by Johnny Barnes, got on the case with a door to door information campaign that soon turned into a neighborhood march. With this sort of protest, Chief Lanier soon backed off of her sneaky search scheme.

NO HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL PLAYER LEFT BEHIND

2008-05-01T10:46:00.002-04:00

All teams must make the state playoffs and all must win the championship.

If a team does not win the championship, it will be on probation until they are the champions, and coaches will be held accountable. If after two years they have not won the championship their basketballs and equipment will be taken away until they do win the championship.

All players will be expected to have the same basketball skills at the same time, even if they do not have the same conditions or opportunities to practice on their own. No exceptions will be made for lack of interest in basketball, a desire to perform athletically, or genetic abilities or disabilities of themselves or their parents.

All students will play basketball at a proficient level

Talented players will be asked to workout on their own, without instruction. This is because the coaches will be using all their instructional time with the athletes who aren't interested in basketball, have limited athletic ability or whose parents don't like basketball.

Games will be played year round, but statistics will only be kept in the 4th, 8th, and 11th games.

If parents do not like this new law, they are encouraged to vote for vouchers and support private schools that can screen out the non-athletes and prevent their children from having to go to school with bad basketball players.

- Author unknown

DC WEDNESDAY

2008-04-30T15:43:00.001-04:00

DC SHORTS

DESPITE a Sacramento Bee story reporting that her guest is under federal investigation, Michelle Rhee still plans to have Kevin Johnson of St. HOPE - a private charter operation - meet with parents at Eastern High, one of those schools Rhee plans to outsource. You can read the sorry details here.

MARK SEGRAVES, WTOP RADIO One thing Mayor Adrian Fenty's administration is good at, and getting better at, is controlling the media. Take the headlines from Wednesday's papers. The day after Fenty announced that taxi cabs would have until June 1, an additional 31 days, to comply with new regulations requiring time and distance meters be installed, the Washington Post ran a headline on the front page of the Metro section reading, "Cabbies told to install meters by May 1." Across town at The Washington Times the headline was "Cab firms race to install meters." The Times first sentence says that the "law mandating the devices takes effect next week." Both papers go on to point out the reality of the situation, which is the city won't actually enforce the new regulations until June 1. So May 1 is a false deadline. And the papers weren't the only ones to "take the bait," as NBC 4's Tom Sherwood characterized it. . . So where did so many news organizations get the idea that Fenty was sticking to his guns on his May 1 mandate? Perhaps it was the press release Fenty's crack communications staff put out with the headline of, "District to enforce May 1 deadline for taxi meter system conversion.". . . Fenty had been under pressure from the drivers and the taxi cab commission to delay meters for several months. The District's new mayor isn't given to compromise, so he wasn't eager to change his deadline. . . Fenty has not had a true press conference since being sworn in. His predecessor, Tony Williams, had a weekly press conference, where reporters could sit with him as a group for an hour or more, and ask as many questions on as many topics as was our pleasure. Fenty has daily press events, where he breezes in and breezes out. He reads from some prepared talking points and takes a few questions, and that's it. . . Fenty is never in one place for more than 30 minutes. So reporters take what they can get, and for the press, that's dangerous.

PASSINGS: SYKE DYKE

BEN SISARIO, NY TIMES Robert Reed, who played keyboards in Trouble Funk, one of the definitive groups of go-go music - a raucous, high-intensity dance style that flourished in the 1970s and early '80s - died in Arlington, Va. He was 50 . . . The cause was pancreatic cancer, said his brother Taylor, who played trumpet in the band.

Go-go grew out of the dance clubs of Washington in the 1970s, when live bands competed with disco D.J.'s for gigs and dancers' attention. As pioneered by Chuck Brown, the bands kept a taut, midtempo beat for marathon sets and threaded steady rhythms through the breaks between songs, so that dancers never had a chance to sit down.

Influenced by Sly Stone, the Ohio Players and other leading funk bands of the era, Trouble Funk had a playful, futuristic style that brought go-go closer to the rap sound . . . Mr. Reed, whose stage name was Syke Dyke, toyed with his keyboards to create flashy electronic noises that could resemble science-fiction sound effects. Tony Fisher, Mr. Reed's childhood friend who was called Big Tony, played bass and acted as the "talker," sing-speaking repetitive, call-and-response phrases to whip up both band ("Hey, fellas, do you want to take time out to get close to the ladies?") and crowd ("Get on up!").

Early on Trouble Funk was adopted by tastemaking D.J.'s like Afrika Bambaataa, who played its records alongside rap and electronic tracks. The group worked with '80s rap stars like Kurtis Blow, and certain Trouble Funk songs have become among the most sampled sounds in hip-hop history, used by LL Cool J, the Beastie Boys, Boogie Down Productions and Will Smith, among many others.

Trouble Funk's first album, "Drop the Bomb," was issued in 1982 on Sugar Hill Records, the New York label that dominated early hip-hop. Along with other groups like E.U. and Rare Essence, Trouble Funk outlasted disco, and for a time in the '80s, go-go was poised to become a mainstream hit. The group toured the globe and was signed to Island Records, home of Bob Marley and U2.

TROUSER PRESS Trouble Funk belongs to Washington DC's go-go scene. Go-go is a throwback to percussive, endless-groove funk that sacrifices structure, production and slickness for loose feeling and community involvement. The bands - basically fluid rhythm sections with a few added frills - do their thing while the musicians and audience yell a whole lot of nonsense (like "Let's get small, y'all" or "Drop the bomb!") The funk is solidly Southern, with a strong James Brown flavor and tons of sloppy percussion. In no other North American music does the cowbell play such a major role.

Chuck Brown, father of go-go, developed it from drum breakdowns which he used in clubs to link Top 40 covers. Not surprisingly, he found people were grooving more on these bridges than the songs. Go-go has grown concurrently (though not as popularly) with hip-hop, and offers a spirited group alternative to beatbox isolationism

VIDEO

DC TUESDAY

2008-04-29T17:12:00.001-04:00

DC SHORTS

CITY PAPER Nathan A. Saunders, general vice president of the Washington Teachers' Union, filed suit in federal court against leaders of his union and city administrators, alleging that he was "systematically punished and retaliated against" for speaking out on labor issues. The lawsuit is the most explosive manifestation to date of a feud that had simmered quietly in the past year. WTU President George Parker and Saunders were both elected in 2005 at the top of the first slate to be chosen since the 2002 Barbara Bullock scandal sent the WTU into receivership. With mayoral takeover of the D.C. Public Schools and the selection of Michelle Rhee as chancellor, friction grew between the two labor leaders, as Parker showed a willingness to work with Fenty and Rhee on possible contract reforms. Saunders, during that time, has stuck to a tough line on protecting teachers' contractual rights. . . In his complaint, Saunders alleges that at a December meeting of the WTU executive board, a member attempted to pass a resolution allowing only Parker to speak for the organization; the motion failed, according to the complaint. Despite that, Parker issued a memo on "Media Policy & Guidelines" outlining that the only official WTU position can come through the union's communications staff. Saunders' suit also tells of a phone call that he overheard between Parker and Squires where they discuss ways to silence him by tampering with DCPS personnel records.

WASH POST The District's spring Household Hazardous Waste and E-Cycling collection turned 16th Street NW into a parking lot most of yesterday. Cars were idling for hours as people waited to drop off paint, solvents, batteries and old electronic goods at the Carter Barron Amphitheatre parking lot. Some people eventually ditched their cars and carried cans of paint, gasoline, even TVs, walking for blocks to the site, part of Rock Creek Park, where they still faced long waits. One put a 26-inch television into a baby stroller and wheeled it in. And some just gave up. The inconvenient truth: The D.C. government wasn't prepared for the demand to get rid of junk in an environmentally safe way. With people more aware of the need to save the planet, having a twice-a-year drop-off day no longer cuts it.

Overheard at the National Mall reflecting pool as a daughter points to a Canadian goose: : "Look Mom! Wildlife!" - Eavesdrop DC

Sign at the Friendship Heights Metro station: "Hi, I'm Dan Tangherlini, the new Metro interim general manager" along with instructions for how to reach him

WASHINGTON POST FINALLY FEELS SLIGHTLY SORRY FOR THE CAB DRIVERS IT HELPED SCREW

READER COMMENTS

- Fenty is out to kill public education because he doesn't have the nerve or knowledge to fix the system. Of course, the schools have problems and will have problems but if he were serious about fixing the schools, he would not be moving towards a quasi-private school system. The poor will lose out here; those with money, will bolt the city. However, people have to realize, the city is changing. There will be less and less need for all of these schools as young singles move in, and families trickle out when they realize, the city is not for them. DC is becoming Paris; a city of motor scooters, and bikes, and condos. Paris is a beautiful city but it is not for families; DC wants the same. Fenty is leading the way for the city too; he will likely get recalled soon if he keeps it up. - Bumpyjonas