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Mayor's program promotes charters
New schools to be neighborhoods' community centers

(Published June 14, 2004)

By KATHRYN SINZINGER
Staff Writer

The Williams administration is preparing to launch a $25 million federally funded program to create charter school-based neighborhood centers, with a timeline that avoids public engagement until after the program’s first award recipients are selected.

Aides to the mayor told The Common Denominator that an internal working group of Williams administration officials has been developing the program along with charter school advocates and U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., the ranking minority member of the Senate Appropriations D.C. subcommittee.

The mayor’s office presented what mayoral spokeswoman Sharon Gang termed a "final report" on the so-called City Build initiative to the House and Senate appropriations committees on June 8 and expects to begin soliciting applications from existing charter schools this week.

Landrieu, who supports publicly funded charter schools as an alternative to traditional public schools, inserted funding for the five-year federal pilot project into the appropriations bill passed by Congress earlier this year that also created the nation’s first federally funded school voucher program in the District. The $5 million earmarked for the City Build project in fiscal 2004 is part of the $13 million for charter schools that was included in the voucher legislation, which created a program that uses federal tax dollars to pay tuition for as many as 2,000 D.C. children to attend private schools.

The report submitted to Congress last week by Mayor Anthony A. Williams describes City Build as "a joint economic development and education project that aims to meet facilities needs for Public Charter Schools with a particular focus on strengthening and stabilizing strategic neighborhoods as part of a larger economic development focus."

The report said the program’s focus "stretches beyond excellence in academics" by creating "a city-wide school that becomes the heart of the surrounding community."

Among financing options for the program, noted in the report, are creation of a nonprofit "facilities corporation" that could use the $5 million annual federal appropriation for City Build as debt service for the issuance of a $50 million bond. The report also suggests the creation of a "revolving credit enhancement fund."

D.C. City Councilman Kevin P. Chavous, D-Ward 7, who chairs the council’s committee with oversight of public and charter schools, said he has not been briefed since the City Build initiative’s focus broadened beyond being a "building fund" program to help public charter schools.

Chavous said he supports the federal money being used to create a program that would issue bonds to help charter schools finance building acquisitions and construction. He also said he thinks the city should look into the possibility of issuing bonds to help the D.C. Public Schools obtain the money needed to expedite its facilities upgrading plan.

Mayoral aides said the City Build program will target 12 "emerging" neighborhoods that were named in an April 2003 Brookings Institution report prepared by Alice M. Rivlin, former chairman of the financial control board that Congress created to take over control of the D.C. government from 1995 to 2000. The report, entitled "Revitalizing Washington’s Neighborhoods: A Vision Takes Shape," says the 12 neighborhoods "under-perform based on their market potential, though usually with moderately positive indicators."

Targeted neighborhoods named in the report are Bellevue, Columbia Heights, Congress Heights, Pennsylvania Avenue SE/Fairlawn, Georgia Avenue/Petworth, Historic Anacostia, Ivy City/Trinidad, Minnesota/Benning, H Street, Near Southeast/Navy Yard, Shaw/Howard University/Le Droit Park and Takoma.

A congressional conference report that accompanied the federal funding bill recommended "that the Mayor hold a public meeting to consult with advocacy groups and community leaders on the location of the five City Build pilot schools" for the program’s first funding year. No such public meeting has been held, and mayoral aides said such a meeting is not planned before the awarding of the program’s first grants.

The project’s timeline says city officials plan to meet with advisory neighborhood commissioners, city council members and "other community leaders" this month to discuss potential grant awards. Awards are scheduled to be made in July, with "community engagement and public announcement" in July appearing last on the schedule.

Copyright 2004, The Common Denominator