D.C. Council members are challenging Mayor Muriel Bowser’s control of schools. Council Member David Grosso is going to introduce a bill that would make the Office of State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) an independent agency outside of the mayor’s office.
Currently, OSSE oversees federal funding, enrollment, and education standards for D.C. Public Schools. The bill will also extend the term of the superintendent from four years to six, allowing the superintendent to be fired only with just cause. At the moment, the mayor can hire and fire the superintendent at will.
Under the new legislation, the OSSE can hire all of its personnel without waiting for the mayor’s office to fill certain positions.
“What we are trying to do is remove politics from education policy as much as we can while still supporting the mayoral control of [D.C. public school’s] work. We are trying to give another objective agency the power it needs when it comes to oversight of all these critical and important areas,” said Grosso.
Members of the DC Council are challenging Mayor Muriel Bowser's control of schools. Read more here https://t.co/cjPOKyPQgT
— Connect_ED (@Connect__Ed) September 20, 2018
The legislation is not supported by the Representatives from the mayor’s office.
“The students of the District of Columbia can ill afford misguided education legislation that moves our city backwards more than a decade and undermines the hard work of our teachers, administrators and staff,” Interim Deputy Mayor for Education Ahnna Smith said in a statement.
“We need to be working collaboratively in the best interest of our students, and ensuring that the Office of the State Superintendent of Education and our schools have the resources they need to make every day count.”
The previous chancellor and former deputy mayor of education resigned eight months ago in the aftermath of a probe into graduation rates and reports that the chancellor had circumvented the school lottery system to transfer his daughter between schools.