Raise the education bar in D.C.

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

There is a new stream of red tape in D.C. education: the Office of Raising the Bar and Lowering the Standards.

I tried my best not to say the other shoe had dropped in the D.C. schools cheating scandal but it did.

The upside, perhaps, is there’s no Joe Louis Clark walking the halls of D.C. Public Schools headquarters with a baseball bat, (metaphorically) cracking the heads of bureaucrats for cheating youngsters of their diplomas.

Nor is there a “Lean on Me” stereotype in City Hall using a megaphone to warn all who do not put their best foot forward in teaching and learning — not either/or — to get to stepping.

Teaching is a tough and noble profession, and not all of the adults who currently hold such a position (or who have the power to hire and fire them) grasp as much.

Shoe No. 2 dropped when Chancellor Antwan Wilson announced Feb. 5 that Arthur Fields was his choice as chief integrity officer.

What will the CIO do?

Crack heads at central administration? Butt heads with top DCPS, school board and charter school authorities?

Work with the mayor and lawmakers to put an academic integrity policy in place — one that holds faculty and administrators accountable for teaching and learning?

Ding, ding, ding!

If the CIO does no such thing, then the position is a political hack, a placeholder who piles on red tape and drives up the costs of schooling — the last thing D.C. taxpayers need.

Mayor Muriel Bowser, herself still a student of D.C. education, said Thursday that beginning with the class of 2018, DCPS will be “conducting comprehensive reviews of student transcripts and ensuring that schools have support systems and aligned accountability systems to properly follow attendance, grading, and credit recovery policies this semester. This will inevitably lead to some tough conversations with our students and families.”

Good. That process should have begun in 2007, when control of DCPS was handed to City Hall.

What the mayor does not articulate is when and how will oversight and accountability be applied amid a cheating culture that allowed one-third of the city’s high school graduates to receive an unearned diploma in the first place.

How and where does that fit into the city’s strategic plan of action?

Look, school tardiness and absenteeism are not latter-day challenges, and some kids drop out because nobody is paying attention — including the attendance clerks who pay studious attention to the ledgers for federal impact and special-education funding purposes.

D.C. officials and school authorities pray for “snow days,” because a weatherman predicts an overnight dusting and warns motorists to go slow during the morning commute. Snowflakes all around.

In the meantime, nobody’s engaging parents, not even the D.C. Council, which has the authority to crack a whip on the administration anytime it chooses.

It is lawmakers, indeed, who should not fund the proposed chief integrity officer and tell the mayor that raising the bar for students and lowering the standards for teachers and faculty will not be tolerated.

Surely, the lawmakers understand the meaning of integrity.

• Deborah Simmons can be contacted at dsimmons@washingtontimes.com.