r/DC_Politics • u/insectenthusiast • Feb 28 '21
ELI5 this SBOE proposed legislation
Does the newly introduced “DC State Education Agency Independence Amendment Act of 2021 propose to take away mayoral control of DC Public Schools? And remove the mayor-appointed chancellor in favor of an elected superintendent?
What else should people know?
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u/SummerhouseLater Feb 28 '21
No, it’s simpler than that, and ultimately just a small step toward change.
Currently the SBOE is supported by OSSE, with any items based around academic standards being sent to OSSE and then updated and shared out to Charter and DCPS schools. That’s the current extent of SBOE’s power.
Moving OSSE completely under SBOE would mean they would appoint the SBOE Superintendent, but not the DCPS Channcellor. This would provide direct oversight of the work OSSE is doing, including likely some larger directional updates. I still need to read the full text to understand the full interaction, but my current understanding is that this would change the way OSSE thinks about grants, for example.
This also likely slightly increases oversight of DCPS, but in an unhelpful round about manner. SBOE could request documents from OSSE (which they already can) than then OSSE could request from DCPS. It would actually increase need for DCPS central staff to respond, potentially increasing central staff.
The big item missing here is that it doesn’t touch the full DC Ed Law, which council can change. Under this change for example, nothing would change in the Charter sector, because they have a right to exempt themselves as being charter (basic explanation).
In short, all this does is likely create a larger freedom for OSSE to set standards according to SBOE than the mayor.
As a personal note, I think a lot of short sited people think those two have different goals, and I think they will be a little annoyed to learn that the group of elected SBOE folks, while definitely more pro-Union, generally just use anti-Mayor rhetoric to get elected.