D.C. presumptive Mayor Gray should keep Bedford team at Dunbar, Coolidge highs
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As prospective mayor Vincent C. Gray's education advisers begin to discuss changes in the way Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee ran the D.C. schools, it should quickly become apparent that they should keep their hands off one of Rhee's smartest moves -- handing management of Coolidge and Dunbar high schools to a sharp team of educators from New York.
Lost in all the primary election skirmishing over teacher dismissals and conflicting test score data was this encouraging statistic: Under the Friends of Bedford group, in just its first year here, the portion of students testing proficient or advanced in reading went from 38 to 53.6 percent at Coolidge and from 18.2 to 31.9 percent at Dunbar. No other high school in the city came close to making such gains in a subject in which improvement here has been rare.
The three Bedford partners I discussed this with at their office at Dunbar are a wily bunch. Their leader, George Leonard, has known his partners, Niaka (pronounced Na-KEE-ya) Gaston and Bevon
