Photo by Bart Everson on Flickr.

What’s the one thing we need to do to make the District’s public schools great? There is no one thing. We need to do many things, all important and many interconnected. But there are three things on which we should focus, starting now.

I’ve spent the past five years learning everything I could about education in the District, first as a funder of education-reform efforts, then as a volunteer tutor in a DC Public Schools (DCPS) high school and, recently, as a blogger and journalist. I’ve listened to everyone from high-level policy-makers to teachers and students—two groups that generally don’t get consulted enough.

There’s no doubt that the District has made great strides in education over the past decade. Many of our charter schools are getting terrific results. And many DCPS schools have made tremendous progress.

But there’s still a lot of room for improvement, particularly at the high school level. Proficiency rates in most DCPS high schools are abysmal, and the DC graduation rate is an anemic 64 percent. It’s still unclear whether recent gains made at the elementary and middle school levels will persist through high school or vanish into the ether.

Continue reading my latest op-ed in the Washington Post.