Bethesda: There’s a chair in a netherspace in the kitchen where the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal grows. In the pile I came across a Post story about DC’s very young Mayor Fenty taking over the school system here. April Witt’s two-jump feature sketched the history of chaos in the schools administration Fenty plans to fix.

From the second jump:

In the wake of [a report that cried for reform] the school board fired Superintendent Andrew Jenkins. At an extraordinarily emotional board meeting, outraged Jenkins supporters hurled water pitchers, glasses and nameplates. One member, Erika Landberg, who was voting to oust Jenkins, was hit in the head. She needed stitches. The offices of some board members were trashed.

The story goes on to describe personnel records hidden inside of walls, schools that opened three weeks late, chokings, godfathers within the system, a lieutenant general superintendent who said that actual war was easier than working the schools. The point being, that’s how bad it can get when schools are seen as jobs systems and political stepping stones to other elected offices.**