Rendell Mans Up to Charter School Real Estate Swindle

A clip from the Philadelphia Inquirer on Gov. Rendell's courageous veto of education bill:

. . . .Charter schools are typically exempt from property taxes, although some districts have sought to tax them in recent years. The provision in question would have extended the exemption to their property owners, if the owners were nonprofits.

Rendell said it might spur for-profit landlords to convert to nonprofit foundations in order to exploit the tax break - and thus, in the end, prevent school districts from collecting needed revenue.

He also questioned whether such foundations would be "purely public charities" as required for an exemption under state law. And he said it would give them a break that churches, senior centers, and other nonprofits don't get. "It would give a small handful of nonprofits special access to tax breaks and encourage others to create new nonprofit corporate entities in order to game the system," he said.. . .

Read more: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/pa/20101023_Rendell_vetoes_education_bill_over_charter-school_tax_break.html#ixzz13DMdwyG6

Bloomberg's Criminal Hypocrisy

As Diane Ravitch documents in her book, the Bloomberg Machine used manipulated cut scores that they knew were phony to promote a fraudulent reform agenda based on control through testing and replacing public schools with corporate charters.  From 2006 through 2009, Bloomberg and Klein crowed about each year's conversion of the low scorers at Level 1 to the Levels 2 and 3, when they knew that the picture they were presenting to the public was the grossest of charades.  From Ravitch:

Why did the number of students at level 1 [the lowest scorers] plummet?  Becase the state lowered the bar and made it easier for students to reach level 2.  On the sixth-grade reading test in 2006,students needed to earn 41 percent of the points to attain level 2; by 2009 students in that grade needed only 17.9 percent.  In seventh-grade math, students needed to earn 36.2 percent of the points on the test to advance to level 2 in 2006, but by 2009, they needed to earn only 22 percent.  The standards to advance from level 1 to level 2 dropped so low that many students could get enough correct answers to pass to level 2 by randomly guessing (p. 79).

So in 2009 the Prince of Corporate Education eeked out another term as Mayor (after spending $100 million against a no-name candidate) based on campaign vow to improve schools, a vow that was kept only by cooking the accounting books.  Now one year later, with the primary objective of corporate ed reform newly focused on the replacement of professional teachers in the blown up urban schools with white female temporary missionaries from TFA and the alternative knock-offs, Bloomberg wants to publicly display the new downwardly-adjusted student gain scores with the teachers' names attached as a way to burn big F's into the foreheads of thousands of NYC teachers.

Never mind that the National Academy of Science, the vast majority of research scholars, and even the Rand Corporation have all explicitly warned against the use of value-added models for making high stakes decisions, whether involving students or teachers.  Even so, it took legal action this week by the teachers' union to stop the release of the scores. 

How did the New York Times present the news of this brazen malfeasance on Bloomberg's part?  Their headline focuses only on the union response, "Union Plans to Try to Block Release of Teacher Ratings," thus assuring the promulgation of the corporate script based on labeling and framing teachers as rejecting any kind of change.  The fact is, of course, that teachers are hungry for change after 25 years of the same antiquated and crippling miseducation that has been foisted onto the nation by the Chamber of Horror's Commerce's Business Roundtable. 

A clip from WaPo:

On Wednesday, New York City education officials announced plans to provide news organizations ratings on teachers that are derived from calculations on how much year-to-year progress their students make on standardized tests.

But on Thursday, a city education spokeswoman said, officials put that plan on hold for several weeks while a state court considers a teachers union petition to block the release.

At issue is disclosure of records that include the names of thousands of teachers.

"We think the public has a right to the information," city education spokeswoman Natalie Ravitz said. She said the ratings are used in tenure and other personnel decisions. . . .

KIPP Hired Sexual Abuser Fired by NYC Schools

From the NYPost:

. . . .Wayne Bartley, 46, a former science teacher at KIPP AMP Academy Middle School, held his illicit trysts with the 13-year-old girl, at the Paradise Motor Inn, a hot sheet motel in the Bronx, from March 2008 to May 2009, according to the Special Schools Investigator Richard Condon.

Bartley, who met his victim when he taught at IS 229 in the Bronx, also preyed on two other girls, investigators found.

He convinced another 13-year-old he met when he taught at IS 392 in Brooklyn to send nude photos of herself to his cell phone. He also gave cash to a third teen, one his KIPP AMP students in Brooklyn, and massaged her feet after paying for her pedicure.

The schools investigators turned over their findings to the Bronx and Brooklyn district attorneys.

Bartley, who earned $60,000 a year, worked at IS 229 from 2005 to 2008 then transferred IS 392 in Brooklyn. He was "discontinued" in July 2009, according to Department of Education spokeswoman Marge Feinberg.

But, he landed a science teacher position at KIPP during the 2009 to 2010 school year and was fired in June after administrators learned of the investigation.

Too bad they did not check with the City to see why he was let go. 

Philip Anschutz and Walden Media: What Kind of Agenda?

One of the key players in the distribution of Waiting for 'Superman' is Walden Media, a film company owned by Philip Anschutz.  Barbara Miner touches on him (and many other players) in her recent article, but I've yet to see anyone look at how Anschutz uses his family's foundation to push a conservative/libertarian agenda.

As I'll lay out below, the Anschutz Foundation, chaired and financed by Philip, is quite fond of some of the biggest players in conservative education advocacy: the Manhattan Institute, Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, Hoover Institution, and the American Enterprise Institute.  The foundation also gives to the Freedom Works Foundation, Washington Legal Foundation, and various other influential think tanks/organizations.  I won't really get into it here, but it's fair to say this foundation uses their philanthropic arm much the way the Koch brothers do: to further their own conservative agenda while creating a climate that is more friendly for their businesses.

Many left-leaning moviegoers will believe the film must be true: it's produced by that great curly-haired fellow who made 'An Inconvenient Truth.'  Never mind his misunderstanding of NAEP cut levels, his misrepresentation of tenure, and his refusal to provide even a slight bit of nuance about charter schools - the public comes away from this flick not even know what they don't know (yes, I've seen it).  And, as far as someone like Philip Anschutz is concerned, that's just fine and dandy - it fits right in with the school reform agenda pushed by the think tanks he funds.

Before reading the list below, do know this is not a full list of the foundation's donations - but it is a pretty good summary of the donations to free-market think tanks involved in education policy/reform (with a few other donations tossed in for extra spice).  You can see the full list of donations from the last three years here.  The foundation also supports Evangelical organizations (Young Life, National Prayer Committee, etc) and other religious groups; the rest of the donations go to community organizations that many people support (Mercy Corp, Boys and Girls clubs, hospitals, Susan G. Komen Foundation), but I'm focusing on the organizations that are explicitly trying to shape public policy.

Without further ado, here's the list of donations made by Anschutz's foundation:

2008:

$75,000 to Alliance for Choice in Education

$10,000 to AEI

$10,000 to American Spectator Foundation (Anschutz owns AS)

$15,000 to Americans for Prosperity

$100,000 to Association of American Educators Foundation

$75,000 to Cato Institute

$50,000 to Claremont Institue

$15,000 to Evergreen Freedom Foundation

$10,000 to Freedom Works Foundation

$100,000 to Heritage Foundation

$15,000 to Hoover Institution

$75,000 to Manhattan Institute

$10,000 to Mercatus Institute

$65,000 to Pacific Research Institute

$50,000 to Washington Legal Foundation

2007:

$100,000 to Alliance for Choice in Education

$10,000 to American Spectator Foundation

$15,000 to Americans for Prosperity

$45,000 to Cato Institute

$25,000 to Claremont Institute

$7,500 to Freedom Works Foundation

$175,000 to Heritage Foundation

$40,000 to Independence Institute

$10,000 to KIPP Sunshine Peak Academy

$50,000 to Manhattan Institute

$15,000 to Mountain States Legal Foundation

$15,000 to National Right to Work Legal Defense

$30,000 to Pacific Research Institute

$50,000 to the Washington Legal Foundation

2006:

$7,500 to AEI

$10,000 to American Spectator Foundation

$5,000 to Americans for Prosperity

$5,000 to Freedom Works

$50,000 to Independence Institute

$20,000 to National Right to Work Legal Defense

$20,000 to Pacific Research Institute

2005:

$10,000 to AEI

$5,000 to Americans for Prosperity

$25,000 to Clarement Institute

$50,000 to Manhattan Institute

$5,000 to Mercatus Center

$25,000 to Pacific Research Institute

$35,000 to the Washington Legal Foundation

2004:

$5,000 to AEI

$7,500 to Americans for Prosperity

$50,000 to Manhattan Institute

$10,000 to Mercatus Center

$10,000 to Pacific Research Institute

$25,000 to the Washington Legal Foundation

2003:

$10,000 to Alliance for Choice in Education

$15,000 to Heritage Foundation

$100,000 to Manhattan Institute

$15,000 to Mercatus Center

$15,000 to National Right to Work Legal Defense

2001:

$20,000 to Heritage Foundation

$10,000 to Pacific Research Institute

$10,000 to America's Future Foundation

$250,000 to Denver School of Science and Technology for capital grant

$25,000 to Free Congress Research and Education Foundation

$20,000 to Heritage Foundation

$5,000 to Independent Institute

$10,000 to Leadership Institute (training conservative leaders)

$10,000 to Mercatus Center

$5,000 to Pacific Research Institute

$10,000 to Young America's Foundation

2000:

AEI - $7,500

$10,000 to Heritage Foundation

$5,000 to Independent Institute

$40,000 to Mountain States Legal Foundation

$15,000 to National Right to Work Legal Defense

$7,500 to Pacific Research Institute

1998:

$10,000 to the Heritage Foundation

$3,000 to the Heritage Foundation to support a lecture series (Heritage 25: Lecture Series)

$5,000 to Independent Institute

$5,000 to Leadership Institute

$15,000 to Mountain States Legal Foundation

$20,000 to National Right to Work Legal Defense for "Operation Liberty Bell" to "alert thousands of Americans of their right to stop union officials from using compulsory dues to elect candidates and support causes that employees oppose."

$10,000 to Washington Legal Foundation

White Billionaire Boys' Club to Save Poor People of Color with Apartheid Schooling?

Email notice from Rethinking Schools:

In the article “Ultimate $uperpower: Supersized dollars drive Waiting for Superman agenda,” investigative journalist Barbara Miner looks at the money behind the movie, its promoters and those who will benefit from the movie.  She writes, “In education, as in so many other aspects of society, money is being used to squeeze out democracy.” After examining the role of hedge funds, foundations and other players, she asks, “Should the American people put their faith in a white billionaires boys club to lead the revolution on behalf of poor people of color?”

To view the article and/or to obtain a downloadable PDF go to:

http://www.notwaitingforsuperman.org/Articles/20101020-MinerUltimateSuperpower

For Chicago Parents, 1 School Library Won with 159 to Go

The Daley Dictatorship of public schools in Chicago resulted in the replacement, under the directorship of Vallas and then Duncan, of 60 public schools with over a hundred cheap apartheid corporate charters schools without libraries or other services that are offered regularly as a part of public education. Now 160 Chicago schools are without libraries.  But that will be 159 very soon now.

When Whittier Elementary School saw their plans for a school library threatened by Daley's wrecking ball, they took action with a sit-in to protect the property from destruction.  These parents have won, and their victory must inspire other communities to act to restore the crucial learning resources that the corporate goon squads have targeted as cost-saving measures in communities that corporate America has written off.

Story from Democracy Now, the only national media source willing to publicize this victory over the Oligarchy:

"Fairly Respected Writer" and the Grossest of Neo-Confederate Propaganda

In the right-wing revisionist history preferred by the Republican Tea Party nitwits (includes Virginia's Governor), the Civil War was not fought over slavery but about states rights.  Got it. You have to wonder which one of these fools chose a 4th grade history text written by Cub Scout den mother for Virginia school children that channels that Tea Party line by claiming that thousands of black soldiers fought under Stonewall Jackson to preserve the Confederacy.  Her former exploits into publishing include bestsellers like "Oh Yikes: History's Grossest Moments."  From WaPo:

By Kevin Sieff
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 20, 2010; 12:53 AM



A textbook distributed to Virginia fourth-graders says that thousands of African Americans fought for the South during the Civil War -- a claim rejected by most historians but often made by groups seeking to play down slavery's role as a cause of the conflict.

The passage appears in "Our Virginia: Past and Present," which was distributed in the state's public elementary schools for the first time last month. The author, Joy Masoff, who is not a trained historian but has written several books, said she found the information about black Confederate soldiers primarily through Internet research, which turned up work by members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Scholars are nearly unanimous in calling these accounts of black Confederate soldiers a misrepresentation of history. Virginia education officials, after being told by The Washington Post of the issues related to the textbook, said that the vetting of the book was flawed and that they will contact school districts across the state to caution them against teaching the passage.

"Just because a book is approved doesn't mean the Department of Education endorses every sentence," said spokesman Charles Pyle. He also called the book's assertion about black Confederate soldiers "outside mainstream Civil War scholarship."

Masoff defended her work. "As controversial as it is, I stand by what I write," she said. "I am a fairly respected writer.". . . .

Sanity Will Not Be Restored Quietly

A couple of vets recently walked across the country as an act of protest against the Oligarchy that now owns Washington, DC.  With Oprah, Inc. now behind the March to Restore Sanity and with the big O, himself, scheduled on Comedy Central to pump the cause, it is important that the hundreds of thousands who show up on Oct, 30 show up sane, yes, but loudly making a point that resistance and more resistance will be required to reclaim the democracy, rather than sitting on the sofa with Oprah, smiling.

By David Swanson
Remarks at the Lincoln Memorial, October 20, 2010
http://democrats.com/we-the-plutocracy

It's an honor for me to help welcome Robin Monahan and Laird Monahan to this city, not because I can take any pride in this place, but because we can all take pride in what they've done and encourage others to do it.  Walking across the country, talking to people directly and through local media outlets and through the internet, and walking here to the seat of our misrepresentative government, is a model for us all.

Phoning in our concerns and expressing them in voting booths, or taking part in Rorschach Test rallies where the demands are so vague that no champions of corruption are in the least bit threatened -- those are all good things, but not sufficient.  Walking and talking, educating and organizing are needed too, and everybody can do a little bit of it even if they can't walk the full length of the country.

But what if they did?  What if we helped each other do it?  World War I veterans tried walking here and refusing to leave.  The military attacked its own veterans, but the result included free college educations following the next global fit of militaristic insanity.  In many nations around the world people have walked to the capitals and refused to leave when the corruption had not yet reached our current level.  Unjust governments and laws have been overturned without violence, but never without resistance.

It's an honor also for me to be supporting MoveToAmend and the Backbone Campaign.  We have to build a massive movement from the ground up, and we have to enjoy doing it -- lessons these organizations can teach.

Truckloads of money are being dumped into the upcoming elections, and people seem to be especially concerned that we don't know this time around where it's coming from.  The hell we don't.  It's coming from the same pluto-pentagon-corporatocracy it came from in lesser amounts last time, and being able to identify specific culprits last time didn't do us a damn bit of good.  People are also horrified because some of the groups funneling and laundering the money take in foreign money as well as American.  I hate to break it to my fellow Americans, I know what fun xenophobia can be, but the problem isn't the nationality of the money, the problem is quite simply the money which -- there can be very little doubt -- tends to come from people and businesses that have money to spare.  This marginalizes and even cancels out the interests of those who do not have any money to spare.  That's most people in this country and even more people outside of it.

There are people in this country who want jobs and who have noticed that, rather than hiring new employees, corporations are funding truly stupid and debasing political advertisements that make us all meaner and more ignorant.  And we, the owners of the airwaves, don't see a dime of the money spent, which all goes to other corporations to whom we have generously given our airwaves.  In an international study released last weak that ranked our nation near the bottom among wealthy nations in terms of enforcing the rule of law, we did score fairly well in the subcategory of not allowing the bribery of elected officials.  Why?  Because we don't call it bribery.  We call it human rights.  We call it the human right of corporate humans to freedom of speech for financial speech.

And the human right to bribery produces the same thing that produces it, in a vicious cycle: ever increasing wealth for the very wealthiest, and ever increasing unemployment, debt, foreclosures, and poverty for others.  Sure, our government still offers minimal assistance to those out of work.  But it does not put them to work in education, infrastructure, or green energy, as a majority of us want.  Our so-called representatives oppose the will of the majority on every issue.  We want Social Security left alone, though we wouldn't mind seeing those with large incomes pay in at the same rate as those with small.  They want to start dismantling the program.  We want the wars and the military defunded.  They want to fight wars without end, using the excuse of exporting by force our type of government, despite 86 percent of Americans believing our government is broken.  If the democracy we pretend to be spreading is broken, is there really a humanitarian side to our wars or are they sadistic through and through?

Most of us could never run for office if we wanted to, unless we knelt before the moneyed interests.  Most of us, when we look at the choices in the polling booth, have to vote the evil of two lessers.  And of course we should do so, but we also need to follow the Monahan example.  Not only is their healthcare plan -- walking -- far more effective than any considered in this town, but they have pointed us in the direction of what is most needed: education and organizing around fundamental principles of the rule of law, which is rapidly being supplanted by the law of rulers.

We can't vote most congress members out no matter how unpopular their actions.  We can't compel them to subpoena or impeach when called for, or to refrain when not called for.  We can't enforce or even know what laws have been created through Office of Legal Counsel memos or presidential decrees.  We can't know who has been pardoned for what when the president provides immunity or the Congress provides bailouts.  We've lost habeas corpus and due process.  We've handed the legislature over to the filibuster rule.  Should we be surprised when Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito declares that,

"ordinary people stubbornly hold on to some old-fashioned beliefs and one of these is the idea that the Constitution means something, statutes mean something, and the role of the judge is to interpret and apply the law as written."

We ordinary people will apparently have to amend the Constitution to say that it means what it says, to say that only people are people, to say that only speech is speech, and even to say that "habeas corpus shall not be suspended" means "habeas corpus shall not be suspended."  This could be endless.  Because of that task and because of what we're up against in Washington, we may have to do this purely through the states and a new convention.

But whether we amend the Constitution in one way or the other, or rewrite it from scratch, or just bring some honesty to how it is read as currently written, in any case we will need an activist movement across the country to force this change.

Television comedians, good ones but still comedians, are planning to hold a rally here soon to restore sanity, by which they seem to mean quiet down anybody with a raised voice or an insistence on significant and urgent change.  The Monahan brothers' website has a post invoking their predecessor, Paul Revere.  Imagine if he'd done his job quietly.  I want to restore sanity by restoring some fundamental ideas, the ideas the Monahan brothers have crossed the country for.  We all need to climb up on rooftops and shout: Corporations are not people!  Money is not speech!  Plutocracy is not a government of, by, and for the people!
--
David Swanson is the author of "Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union"
http://davidswanson.org
http://warisacrime.org
http://facebook.com/pages/David-Swanson/297768373319
http://twitter.com/davidcnswanson
http://youtube.com/afterdowningstreet

Ravitch Review of WfS Breaks Long Silence on NAEP's Fanciful Cut Points

The entire review is well worth the reading, but the clip below is central, especially since it breaks Ravitch's long silence regarding the incredibly unrealistic NAEP cut scores that she helped to establish in the early 90s, along with Chester Finn and others who subsequently used the unrealistic cut scores to demonize public education. 

As Richard Rothstein points out in Grading Schools . . . (pp. 59-65), the National Academy of Sciences, no less, had grave reservations about the NAEP cut points in 1991, but Ravitch and her standardista friends kept pushing the unrealistic goals.  As Bracey subsequently pointed out repeatedly to little effect, if the children in other countries who are cleaning our clocks test-wise were to take the NAEP, they would not be proficient, either.  This point was never made, however, by the enemies of public education who used the fantasy proficiency levels to destroy confidence in the public schools.

Perhaps Diane's next book will deal with her role in the destruction of confidence in public schools that she now decries.

From her WfS review:

. . . .The movie asserts a central thesis in today’s school reform discussion: the idea that teachers are the most important factor determining student achievement. But this proposition is false. Hanushek has released studies showing that teacher quality accounts for about 7.5–10 percent of student test score gains. Several other high-quality analyses echo this finding, and while estimates vary a bit, there is a relative consensus: teachers statistically account for around 10–20 percent of achievement outcomes. Teachers are the most important factor within schools.

But the same body of research shows that nonschool factors matter even more than teachers. According to University of Washington economist Dan Goldhaber, about 60 percent of achievement is explained by nonschool factors, such as family income. So while teachers are the most important factor within schools, their effects pale in comparison with those of students’ backgrounds, families, and other factors beyond the control of schools and teachers. Teachers can have a profound effect on students, but it would be foolish to believe that teachers alone can undo the damage caused by poverty and its associated burdens.

Guggenheim skirts the issue of poverty by showing only families that are intact and dedicated to helping their children succeed. One of the children he follows is raised by a doting grandmother; two have single mothers who are relentless in seeking better education for them; two of them live with a mother and father. Nothing is said about children whose families are not available, for whatever reason, to support them, or about children who are homeless, or children with special needs. Nor is there any reference to the many charter schools that enroll disproportionately small numbers of children who are English-language learners or have disabilities.

The film never acknowledges that charter schools were created mainly at the instigation of Albert Shanker, the president of the American Federation of Teachers from 1974 to 1997. Shanker had the idea in 1988 that a group of public school teachers would ask their colleagues for permission to create a small school that would focus on the neediest students, those who had dropped out and those who were disengaged from school and likely to drop out. He sold the idea as a way to open schools that would collaborate with public schools and help motivate disengaged students. In 1993, Shanker turned against the charter school idea when he realized that for-profit organizations saw it as a business opportunity and were advancing an agenda of school privatization. Michelle Rhee gained her teaching experience in Baltimore as an employee of Education Alternatives, Inc., one of the first of the for-profit operations.
Today, charter schools are promoted not as ways to collaborate with public schools but as competitors that will force them to get better or go out of business. In fact, they have become the force for privatization that Shanker feared.

Because of the high-stakes testing regime created by President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation, charter schools compete to get higher test scores than regular public schools and thus have an incentive to avoid students who might pull down their scores. Under NCLB, low-performing schools may be closed, while high-performing ones may get bonuses. Some charter schools “counsel out” or expel students just before state testing day. Some have high attrition rates, especially among lower-performing students.

Perhaps the greatest distortion in this film is its misrepresentation of data about student academic performance. The film claims that 70 percent of eighth-grade students cannot read at grade level. This is flatly wrong. Guggenheim here relies on numbers drawn from the federally sponsored National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). I served as a member of the governing board for the national tests for seven years, and I know how misleading Guggenheim’s figures are. NAEP doesn’t measure performance in terms of grade-level achievement. The highest level of performance, “advanced,” is equivalent to an A+, representing the highest possible academic performance. The next level, “proficient,” is equivalent to an A or a very strong B. The next level is “basic,” which probably translates into a C grade. The film assumes that any student below proficient is “below grade level.” But it would be far more fitting to worry about students who are “below basic,” who are 25 percent of the national sample, not 70 percent.. . .

No Child Left Unfed

No Child Left Unfed

Sent to the Washington Post, October 19, 2010

There is overwhelming evidence that poverty is indeed the problem in education: Studies show that middle-class American children attending well-funded schools are among the highest achievers in the world. The best way to raise school achievement is to protect children from the disadvantages of poverty, through health care, nutrition, and access to books.

The D.C. schools dinner program (October 19) is a strong step in this direction: "Food insecurity" is related to lower reading ability, slower language development, behavior problems, and missing school. Improving nutrition and preventing childhood hunger will raise test scores; "rigorous standards" and more testing will not.

Susan Ohanian has recommended this slogan: No child left unfed.

Stephen Krashen

Sources:

Berliner, D. 2006. Our impoverished view of research. Teachers College Review 108 (6): 949-995.

Coles, G. 2008/2009. Hunger, academic success, and the hard bigotry of indifference. Rethinking Schools 23, 2.

D.C. schools dinner program aims to fight childhood hunger

By Bill Turque
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 19, 2010; 1:13 AM

D.C. public schools have started serving an early dinner to an estimated 10,000 students, many of whom are now receiving three meals a day from the system as it expand efforts to curb childhood hunger and poor nutritition.

Free and reduced-price breakfast and lunch long have been staples in most urban school systems. But the District is going a step further in 99 of its 123 schools and reaching nearly a quarter of its total enrollment. Montgomery and Prince George's Country also offer a third meal of the day in some schools but not on the scale undertaken in the city.

The program, which will cost the school system about $5.7 million this year, comes at a time of heightened concern about childhood poverty in the city. Census data show that the poverty rate among African American children is 43 percent, up from 31 percent in 2007 and significantly higher than national rates.

Officials describe the dinner initiative as having three goals: hedging against childhood hunger, reducing alarming rates of obesity and drawing more students to after-school programs, where extra academic help is available. It is also part of a broader effort, mandated by recent D.C. Council legislation, to upgrade the quality and nutritional value of school food with fresh, locally grown ingredients.

Until this year, most after-school fare was a snack of juice and a muffin or bagel. But for children who spend up to 10 1/2 hours at school - from early care at 8 a.m. to the end of after-care at 6:30, it wasn't enough. Officials started hearing from principals and teachers that not only were many kids hungry for the last few hours of a long day, some of them weren't eating much at home.

"We knew that a lot of kids were only eating at school," said Jeff Mills, director of food services for D.C. schools. And in some cases, "they were taking food home to feed their families," said Alexandra Ashbrook, director of D.C. Hunger Solutions, a group that works to improve nutrition and health for low-income residents.

The District piloted the program at a few schools last year before launching it full scale this fall. The city joins 13 states that serve after-school supper through the federal Child and Adult Care Food Program, which reimburses D.C. $2.92 for each meal.

Kids say the supper is a huge upgrade over the skimpy snacks.

"The chicken salad is good here," said Adam Shepard, 10, a fourth-grader at Thomas Elementary in the Kenilworth-Parkside community of Ward 7. "And the fruit has more flavor."

Kavon Wilson, a fourth-grader at Houston Elementary in Ward 7's Deanwood neighborhood, looked over his turkey, ham and Swiss chef salad and found something not typically offered during meals at home.

"Broccoli," said Kavon as he pulled a piece from the salad and held it between his thumb and index finger. He ate the salad and a banana, a piece of fresh fruit that teachers say is rarely consumed by children in his Northeast Washington neighborhood, and so finished his third meal at school that day.

A Gallup poll conducted for the Food Research Action Center, a nonprofit group that works to widen access to healthy food in schools, found that at least once between 2008 and 2009, 40 percent of D.C. households with children did not have enough money to buy food.

Crecynthia Hall-Cooper, president of PTA at Thomas Elementary, said that she makes an effort to expose her daughter, Christina, 8, to different kinds of produce at home, but many children at the school do not eat many vegetables.

"Most of the fruits they know. They're good with that. But some of them have never seen cauliflower or squash. It's less financial than they have just never been introduced to it," said Hall-Cooper.

Houston Elementary, where 90 percent of the 250 children meet income guidelines for free and reduced-price lunches, is an area of the city that the research group says suffers from poor access to healthy, affordable food.

"A lot of these kids have never seen a pear or held a plum," said David Strong, culinary director for Fresh Start, the catering arm of DC Central Kitchen, which prepares from-scratch meals at seven public schools as part of the District's food overhaul. Stong recalled a back-to-school night last month at Kelly Miller Middle School, also in Northeast Washington, when he asked an audience of parents if they'd had a piece of fresh fruit in the past two weeks.

"Maybe two or three people raised their hands," Strong said.

A 2009 study by the D.C. Health Departmnent concluded that 43 percent of students enrolled in public schools were overweight or obese, one of the highest rates in the nation. It was part of the impetus for the D.C. Council's passage earlier this year of the Healthy Schools Act, which mandated that school menus include low-calorie and low-fat meals.

Menus have been revamped completely. Gone are mystery meat, congealed pizza and vegetables steamed to the consistency of soggy tissues.

Mills' dinner offerings instead feature soy-ginger noodles with sweet-and-sour chicken and vegetables, chicken ceasar wraps and southwest corn, bean and cheddar salad. Every meal also comes with milk and some sort of fresh fruit from a farm in the region.

None of which means that if you serve it, they will eat it. Pizza on flat bread crust with fresh mozzarella and tomato sauce is a favorite. The three-bean salad, not so much.

"I don't eat salad. It makes me sick," said D'Andre, a Houston second-grader, who left his chef salad unopened in its clear plastic container and instead tucked into a bag of Doritos, washed down with a hefty pouch of Kool Aid Jammers Grape juice.

Emanuel Gross, a fourth-grader at Thomas Elementary, passed up his roast beef wrap last week for a bag of Doritos. He said he expected to have a "TV dinner" when he got home. Another student said she was having lasagna that she liked to sprinkle with sugar.

Strong said that getting teachers to buy into the idea of healthy foods also has been a challenge.

"These kids are getting wonderful from-scratch cooking, and then they go back to their homeroom and it smells like a quarter-pounder with cheese, where teachers are walking up and down the hall with their big Wendy's cups," Strong said. "Now we're a little bit past that."

turqueb@washpost.com