Congress May Become Involved in D.C. Schools Control Issue

District of Columbia officials were warned Friday that unless they agree who should run the city’s schools, members of Congress may get involved.

“Many of them are not going to hesitate to take control,” Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) said at a meeting of a House panel that oversees the District of Columbia.

Davis, who is chairman of the panel, represents a district immediately across the Potomac River from the district.

He told city officials they could not return control of the schools to a board of education that he described as “basically dysfunctional for 30 years.”

Since June 1995, the schools have been run by the District of Columbia Financial Reform and Management Assistance Authority. The presidentially appointed, five-member panel was created by Congress to help guide the district government out of rampant financial problems that threatened to bankrupt the city.

Although the financial control board could relinquish control of the schools to locally elected officials in June, the transfer of power could be delayed “until the end of the calendar year,” said control board chairwoman Alice Rivlin.

Establishing a workable system could require one or more referendums by district voters, Rivlin said.

Mayor Anthony A. Williams proposed this month that he be given authority to appoint a superintendent to run the city’s 146 public schools. He also sought the power to replace the 11-member elected school board with an appointed panel.

The D.C. Council has approved legislation granting the mayor the power to appoint the school superintendent, but rejected his appointed panel plan, choosing to reduce the elected school board to seven members.

“You still have blurred responsibility,” said Williams, adding that while the arrangement would make the superintendent accountable to him, policies adopted by the elected board would still affect nearly 71,000 students.

While the mayor contends that Boston, Chicago, Cleveland and Detroit have been able to improve public schools under mayoral leadership, members of the Council remained skeptical.

Council Chairwoman Linda Cropp disputed Williams’ assertion, claiming that data do not support such improvement.