Throughout my career, I have been focused on improving government so that it provides vital services to all residents.  I have a proven track record as a city administrator that is focused on results, on outcomes, and on increasing accountability.  I have worked in many cities, including some large jurisdictions with looming challenges.  The one issue that I have always watched from the sidelines, and cared about deeply, is public education.  I know how important education is, particularly for underserved populations, to open doorways of opportunity.  I know this from personal experience.  I was the first in my family to obtain a degree – and I have been blessed with a plethora of opportunities in my lifetime.  I want to focus all of my talents and energy on the challenge of improving our schools so that the children of our community can move into adulthood with the doors of opportunity wide open to them.

I believe that we have made great strides in the Williams Administration to improve government services – and readily admit that there is a lot of hard work ahead, and I am prepared to provide any support I can to those efforts.  For example, the low literacy rate in the District of Columbia is of great concern to me – over 37% of our residents read at a 3rd grade level.  And I know that reaching our children early to prepare them for learning is the key.  Mayor Williams has worked hard to improve our adult literacy rates but we can still do more.  There are over 120 organizations in DC that focus on teaching children and adults to be more literate.  As President of the School Board, I want to bring to bear those resources and work with the Superintendent, the Mayor, and other leaders to make sure that every child entering the school system is on track – and that they stay on track.  Early childhood education is a critical piece of this puzzle.  We know that the critical childhood development years are before the child enters the formal school system.  And in the District we have put in place a mandate that all DC residents will have access to early childhood education, but we have not been able to fulfill that commitment.  That is not acceptable.

I want to now focus all of my skills – as a collaborator, as an expert in transforming government, and as a leader, to focus on this single most important challenge facing the District of Columbia – our schools.  Let me be clear.  This is not a platform for me to run for Mayor.  This is not the first step in a quest to be superintendent of the schools.  This is a continued commitment to the people of the District to apply my strengths to the crisis facing the City – improving our educational system.

If elected I will:

• be relentless in getting the Board to make the tough policy decisions that have to be made for us to strengthen our schools.

• bring a sense of urgency to the Board’s deliberations.  We are in a crisis – with high drop out rates and children that exit the system, even after graduation, without the requisite skills to be successful.  We need to apply drastic, but well thought out measures.  We need to produce!

• provide focus and support to the Superintendent.  It is not the Board’s role to micromanage the Superintendent.  The Board has to focus on policy – on the strategic vision for the schools.  The Board has to provide the Superintendent with support and critical resources – not just financial, but intellectual and political.

• conduct a review of the Board’s staffing and enhance the professional staff so that it has the internal capacity to maintain adequate programmatic and financial oversight.  We need to analyze policy.  We cannot contemplate programmatic changes without a thorough understanding of budget implications.

• increase the Board’s level of accountability by leading and providing the kind of oversight that the Council has done for the last several years.

• demand and nurture a culture of follow-through on all commitments.