The headline could be straight from The Onion: "Janey finds widespread failure in D.C. schools." No kidding! If such perspicacity is all it takes, Gadfly should have put in for the superintendent's job himself. But we do like the noise that new D.C. superintendent Clifford Janey is making: privatization of non-instructional functions; high school graduation exams; replacing the city's lax academic standards with fine models from Massachusetts or California; greater openness to charter schools. Of course, talk is cheap in the D.C. school system and the community has been disappointed by many a previous superintendent's capacity to walk the walk. But the vigor Janey has brought to this job (including okaying the dismissal of several officials after Eastern High School screwed up students' class schedules, causing the school year to start one day late) is encouraging.
"Janey finds widespread failure in D.C. schools," by Sewall Chan, Washington Post, October 6, 2004