News & Politics

Gary Tischler • July 26, 2011

There’s no question that education reform is the biggest issue in the 2010 District of Columbia election campaign.

Mayor Adrian Fenty ran on a promise to reform the District’s woeful school system and won big time in 2006. Now, he’s backing his designated Chancellor Michelle Rhee in her every move, including her struggle to gain control over hiring and firing teachers. Rhee herself seems to have interjected herself into the campaign when she questioned challenger Chairman Vincent Gray’s commitment to education reform and whether he would support a activist reform chancellor like herself fully.

So it stands to reason, as rumors swirled last week, that when Rhee announced that she was dismissing 241 teachers, the majority of which had received poor or below-minimum performance evaluations under a new and controversial grading system, sooner or later the other shoe would drop.

After all, the 241 (and another 700 or more who are under the cloud of being judged “minimally effective”) teachers, coupled with the nearly 300 who were terminated after a controversial budget crisis last year, amount to over 10 percent of the D.C. teacher workforce. (Some of the 241 were fired for not being properly credentialed).

The firings, based on a new evaluation system called IMPACT, which included at least 50 percent value on test scores, comes about a month before schools are set to open and a little less than two months before the Sept. 14 primaries.

Yet, at this writing, political response has been muted. While the D.C. Teachers Union and its president have vowed to challenge the firings, which would seem to indicate they were surprised by the evaluations, and while there is considerable chat among bloggers, education professionals and the like about what the firings mean and the use of IMPACT, Gray so far has not taken a stand. He said only that he wanted to look further into the basis for the firings.

The firings, and the union protest, come after the District and the union had successfully negotiated a complicated contract agreement earlier this year, which included retroactive pay raises for the teachers but more control over firing by Rhee. An impending mass firing, or the use of IMPACT evaluation for this year appears not to have been mentioned at the time, although the union did object to the use of IMPACT in general.

Mayor Fenty and Rhee aggressively defended the firings as further steps forward in education reform. “Every child in the District of Columbia Public Schools has a right to an effective teacher, in every classroom, every school, every neighborhood, every ward of this city,” Rhee said. Fenty said the action puts the District one step closer to that goal.

Not explained was who would replace the fired teachers.

The issue now becomes who takes command of the education reform issue, an issue in which D.C., for better or worse, is now in the forefront of a national movement. With the firings, that issue has become central to any future debates in the election campaign.

Gary Tischler •

There is a new mental health problem out there. I call it The Real Housewives of Washington D.C. Stress Syndrome. It’s what can happen to you after watching just one episode of the much-anticipated, much-ballyhooed Bravo reality show which features not only the notorious Michaele Salahi and her husband Tareq but four other so-called D.C. women in proximity to power and status, which is all that counts in Washington, apparently.

I admit it: I watched the first episode. I don’t dare go further, because, well, God only knows what will happen. As it was, I dreamt about the episodes afterward, and they weren’t good dreams. After each commercial break I felt as if I were a runway model, needing to purge. This stuff will do things to you.

For the record, I am no longer quite so bothered about the Salahis. I see now why they wanted so desperately to appear on this show. Like needs like, and to them, the crowd on this show must have seemed like a vision of home. Problem is, the rest of the cast is not happy about being with them, as we found out, and no doubt will continue to find out. Lynda Erkiletian, founder of the T.H.E. Artist Agency, has already started a whispering campaign that Michaele is dangerously thin and an intervention might be required.

Why this show is called housewives of Washington, real or unreal, is beyond me. Much of it seems to be in Virginia, but then again, there was the 1.5 million ratings, big numbers for cable. Who knew there were that many people in McLean?

The Salahis almost feel like naifs in this group, which includes Stacie Scott Turner, a Sotheby’s realtor and the only black member of the housewives. Turner keeps looking agog at her racially insensitive friends, who say things like “I think hair salons should be integrated.” In fact, if you watch this show, you might get the impression that the most powerful people in Washington are not the president, politicians or lobbyists, but celebrity chefs and hair dressers.

Meanwhile, newly arrived Brit Catherine Ommanney (Cat for short, and appropriately so) is vying for the role of queen of mean and making her way in what she sees as the top social circles in Washington. Why anyone would talk to a woman who wrote a self-described “racy” tell-all memoir about living in London called “Inbox Full” is beyond me, but this a world full of “beyond me” moments.

It does make you think about the end of civilization as we know it, as do many things today. Sometimes it seems as if the only American contributions to world popular culture in the 21st century have been zombie movies and reality shows, and often its hard to tell the differences between “28 Days Later” and “The Rachel Zoe Project.”

Michaele complains on this episode that people don’t think she and her husband are people of substance and insists that they are. She feels, after all, that if people hugged more, the world would be a better place, which is hard to argue with since it’s such a jaw dropper. And she has, after all, gone toe to toe with Whoopee Goldberg.

In the world of reality shows, you don’t have to pick on one person, there’s so much to choose from, and that doesn’t even include Billy Bush. What we have here is the physical manifestation of absolute weightlessness, if such a thing is possible.

Remember, this report was written while under the influences of TRHOWDC Syndrome. I cannot be held responsible for my words.

Jeff Malet •

I recently had a ringside seat to some of the best in political theater. (To be precise, I wasn’t actually “ringside” but in the center of the ring in the photographer’s pit, and my “seat” was the floor.) I am referring to the separate hearings this month on Capitol Hill between members of the Senate and prominent figures from Wall Street and the oil industry.

These hearings represented but another chapter in the century’s old tug-of-war between advocates of free markets against those pushing for stronger regulation. Earlier chapters were punctuated by the breaking up of the big corporate trusts by Teddy Roosevelt, and the establishment of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as a response to abuses that precipitated the Great Crash of 1929 (and the subsequent Depression). Both of these measures provided firm underpinnings for the long-term health and growth of our economy and society. Today, after an extended period of relaxed regulation and government oversight, another major reexamination is certainly in order.

The behavior of Goldman Sachs and BP was predictable. The officers of any corporation owe their allegiance first and foremost to their shareholders, and their goal is to maximize profits to those shareholders. Nothing implies that these corporate goals have to be consistent with the American public interest.

BP, of course, is primarily owned by foreign shareholders. But much of the American public would be surprised at the large degree to which foreign interests own shares in most major American-based corporations. And many do not appreciate that the oil BP will produce in deep water, for which it pays minimal royalties to our government, is destined for the international oil markets. The pollution that these wells produce, of course, stays right here in the USA.

Goldman Sachs derives much of its profit from its trading desk, where many believe it uses its market-making position to unfair advantage and to the detriment of its customers. Many of these activities, while creating profits for Goldman Sachs, provide questionable benefits to the overall economy.

It’s all about accountability and responsibility. An economy functions best when resources are optimally allocated, so costs to the environment must be born by the polluters. Unfortunately, ethical behavior on Wall Street often takes a back seat to the allure of big money. To quote James Madison, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” Some have argued that our fragile economy cannot tolerate further regulation, but the opposite is certainly true.

The author, a former mutual fund manager, contributes photographs to The Georgetowner and The Downtowner.
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Gary Tischler •

Ever feel that the times are even stranger than you imagined, full of confusion and peril?

In other words, you don’t know whether to laugh, cry or move to a cave?

Let’s take the recent 10-5 vote by the Texas Board of Education to do a little attitude readjustment when it comes to school textbooks. Apparently fearing that these books, which are often taken up by nationwide textbooks, have gotten way too liberal of late, they’ve trimmed, cut and added to have kids learn more in line with their way of thinking.

Some historical topics that were bandied about: Jefferson Davis’ inauguration speech — the one where he assumed the presidency of the Confederacy — should have equal standing with that of Abraham Lincoln’s. Or that capitalism should be referred to in books as free enterprise — a cause already espoused by most conservatives who see the very same free enterprise under attack from the Obama administration.

Wait, there’s a little bit more: the new textbooks will downgrade Thomas Jefferson’s standing as a philosophical founding father, will refer to the United States as a constitutional republic, not a democracy, suggest that the founding fathers actually did not believe in the separation of church and state, would refer to the slave trade as more of an economic, world transaction, elevate the historical significance of Newt Gingrich, Phyllis Schaffly, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association, and make a martyred hero out of Joe McCarthy.

It’s one thing to add things and subtract things, to move this one up and this one out. But it’s quite another to rewrite history altogether, with little basis in fact. To put, for instance, Lincoln and Davis on an equal footing is to misunderstand the Civil War altogether. To downgrade Thomas Jefferson to the point of near invisibility is to skew the founding of our country wildly.

And yet, the vote and the ideas behind this could reflect the political white noise that’s heard all around the country these days, a lot of it stemming from a populist rage that’s sick of politics as usual and afraid of big government all at the same time. There’s genuine anger here, but also irrational fear of what lies ahead.

It’s true, of course, that before the advent of Reagan, a certain revisionist tone crept into national history and social studies textbooks. But talking about and studying the plight of Native Americans as they faced the America’s westward push, or studying slavery or the Civil Rights movement, or labor movements or women’s fight for equality were issues that were not about ideology, but about invisible or neglected historical facts. It may be a fact that there were Communist spies in the United States, but McCarthy’s ruthless and self-serving use of his committee’s investigative powers was decidedly unheroic, and created a country-wide atmosphere of fear.

Many of our early settlers here came to escape religious persecution than proceeded often to persecute their co-religionists, including Catholics. There was a good reason that the idea of separation of church and state made up part of the thinking of founding fathers.

The Texas school board members who voted for the textbook changes don’t just want to fill gaps or add missing information. They want to rewrite history or expunge parts of it. Instead of burning books, they want to turn them into conservative fairy tales.

Gary Tischler •

Dennis Hopper
Dennis Hopper, the iconoclastic Hollywood actor who died of prostate cancer last week at the age of 74, was famous for his groundbreaking, very un-mainstream ’60s movie “Easy Rider,” which he both directed and starred in.

One or two things you can say: Hopper’s life was no easy ride, nor was he easy to work, live or fall in love with. Any number of mainstream Hollywood directors, ex-wives, shrinks and, no doubt, some drug dealers could attest to that.

Yet Hopper was a flaming original, a balls-out rebel, whose work as an actor, and certainly as the director of “Easy Rider,” will outlive him and last.

James Dean, the actor Hopper emulated and admired the most, would have been 79 now, had he not flamed out in a fatal Porsche-at-100-miles-an-hour crash at 24, after completing “Giant,” the last of only three major films, thus assuring him of not living the life of Dennis Hopper.

Hopper appeared with Dean in small parts in “Giant” and “Rebel Without a Cause.” The latter, directed by another edgy sort, Nicholas Ray, was practically a nuthouse full of unconventional, rebellious and troubled young actors, sort of like a busload of Lindsay Lohans. There was the mercurial Sal Mineo, who played the suicidal outsider Plato, there was hep-cat Nick Adams, there was Natalie Wood, young and gorgeous, who became a big star but never quite grew up and died in a drowning accident in her 40s.

And there was Hopper, who played a gang kid, who outlived them all. (Who would’ve thunk that one?) Not that he didn’t come close to running his life over a cliff several times. He acted in Westerns and became friends with John Wayne, who at one point saved his career.

Still, always plagued by drug addiction, he was skidding down again when he and Peter Fonda, a troubled son of his famous father Henry and sister to Jane, got up enough money (half a million) and made “Easy Rider,” about a couple of low-life drug dealers on a journey through America in the counter-culture ’60s. Fonda played a cat named Captain America, Hopper a guy named Billy (as in the Kid). They get gunned down by rednecks at the end, but not before roaring across small town America and New Orleans in their own rolling thunder, hooking up with a drunken, young lawyer played by Jack Nicholson and drugging out to acid and acid music.

It was a huge hit, and it made Hollywood feel stupid for doing stuff like “Doctor Doolittle.” Hopper had a gift, it was plain to see, and he encouraged other young directors like Spielberg, Coppola and Scorsese. He made a legendary movie called “The Last Movie,” which almost turned out to be prophecy, a Western in Peru in which the hero (Hopper) ends up crucified. This kind of hubris and spend-thrifting gets punished, and eventually, he landed in an asylum, skipping rehab altogether.

From then on, he was legend: he played psychos, creeps, drunks (“Speed,” “Blue Velvet” and “Hoosiers”) with elan and honesty, and revived his career yet again. His looney, whispery, dangerous voice became a little like unnerving muzak, his face got craggy and he became a beloved icon.

He was in the midst of the television series “Crash,” playing a Hollywood type with his usual rough irony, when he contracted prostate cancer. True to form, even in the middle of dying, Hopper was also in the middle of a nasty divorce battle from the woman who will be forever known only as the last Mrs. Hopper.

But you haven’t seen the last of Hopper. Get a bunch of his best (and worst) films for a weekend, and please include “Apocolypse Now” and a John Wayne Western. Afterward, you’ll feel enlightened, hung over, in a daze, a little fuzzy. Afterward, have a boilermaker for Dennis the Menace.

‘LITTLE BENNY’ Harley
Go-go is pure Washington, D.C. music.

You better know that, because if you don’t know that, you don’t know nothing.

Ask former Mayor Anthony Williams, who, being from out of town, and wearing a bow tie, appeared not to be steeped in the lore and legend of D.C.’s go-go music and musicians, and was roundly dissed for it by those who were.

Now, the D.C. go-go scene lost one of its most vital and influential members with the death of Anthony Harley, 46, who was famously known by his nickname “Little Benny” as a trumpet player and singer.

Harley was a member of Rare Essence, one of the top go-go bands. If Chuck Brown is generally considered the god-father of the funk that is go-go, and endless rhythmic jamming style that keeps old hearts young, then Little Benny is the guy that deserves to stand alongside him, because he kept the music when Brown, now in his 70s, went on tour. In fact, Little Benny had played with Brown right before he died.

Harley was one of those classic D.C. musicians (like Buck Hill) who did other things to live, even working in electronics. He came out of Ballou High School and had a father who had a singing group, Frank Harley and the Bell Chords.

Most of all, he was a D.C. man, playing D.C.’s music all the time. You can listen to go-go on a CD all you want, but you won’t get the rare essence of go-go unless you’re there. For that, there’s only memory.

Georgetowner •

Say what you will about his communication skills. Criticize his attitude all you want. But Adrian Fenty is getting things done in Washington.

We are prouder of our city today than we have been in a long time. The bus system is running more efficiently than ever. There has been development from Southeast Waterfront and Anacostia to the upper Northwest. Crime rates are down, park development is up, bicycle accommodation is being taken into effect for the first time, job growth is up despite the worst nationwide financial deficit in almost a century, and the list goes on.

As far as education is concerned, to quote the Washington City Paper, “When it comes to reforming a failed school system, you either go monomaniacal or go home. It’s naïve to think that you can do it while simultaneously making nice with the old guard.” Though Michelle Rhee might not be the most popular woman among council members, her and Fenty’s combined ambition to raise DCPS above the low standards the city once accepted will improve the future lives of children and in turn ensure the quality of our city in the coming decades.

Fenty is bringing real change to Washington, and his passion for the city is made clear in the difficult decisions he continually makes without hesitation. We are in a good place. Cutting him off now would be a tremendous mistake. As the old adage goes: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

We urge the city to go out and vote in the mayoral primary tomorrow. The city needs our voice now more than ever. Get to the voting booths and be heard. Go to www.dcboee.us to find out where to vote.

Jillian Rogers •

Beer? Check. Hotdog? Check. Strasburg jersey? Check. After roaming M Street speaking with eager and angry baseball aficionados about Stephen Strasburg’s debut tonight, I have come to a conclusion: Nationals fans are psyched, Nationals bashers are scared.

“I wish him the best of luck. He may put up the numbers, but there’s no way they will win,” said a devoted Oakland Athletics fan.

Dodgers fan Daryn Towle doesn’t believe he will live up to the hype. “It requires experience to do well in the majors. [Strasburg] just doesn’t have it.”

Well, my good ol’ Nationals fans beg to differ. With a 100 mph fastball, Georgetown locals have hope in their hero and are waiting to see if this could potentially be a winning season.

“I can’t wait to see him pitch. I know he’s a rookie, but I can just see him throwing those strikes and getting a perfect game,” said fan Bryan Pike. “It’s a gut feeling.”

As tourists and Pirates fans pour into the city to watch this potentially history-making game, Georgetown local Calvin Smallwood says, “It’s great people are coming out to support our nation’s pastime for once!”

T-minus-3 hours until Strasburg takes the mound and I can guarantee that residents of Georgetown, as well as ESPN junkies worldwide, will have their eyes focused on our hometown tonight.