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tuesday, march 30, 2010

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48, 9 a.m. 50, noon 47, 5 p.m. 45, 9 p.m.

Obituaries June Havoc, a.k.a. “Baby June,” was the sister of Gypsy Rose Lee but also a Broadway star in her own right. B7

Peeps Show 2010

We have a winner! The results of The Post’s Peeps Diorama Contest have been announced. To see the entries, go to

washingtonpost.com/local.

VIRGINIA

Team McDonnell

The governor will name 25 people to seek ways to shave hundreds of millions of dollars from the state budget and make government more user-friendly. B6

D.C., Md. struggle to boost Metro funding

VA. PROPOSES TO MEET ITS SHARE

Jurisdictions weigh budgets against service cuts

by Ann Scott Tyson

The District and Maryland will be hard-pressed to provide addi- tional funding to help Metro close a sizable budget gap and avoid deep service cuts, officials

Tax credit sought to aid private schools

Md. proposal targets challenges faced by some systems

by Michael Birnbaum

A long-sought measure that could channel millions of dollars in tax credits to struggling Catho- lic, Jewish and other private schools is making inroads in the Maryland House of Delegates for the first time. It would be a major shift of public money toward pri- vate education. Proponents say the bill, which has failed twice before, would give tax credits to businesses that donate money for private school scholarships and public after- school programs, help keep schools open and make it easier for low-income students to at- tend private schools. But opponents say it is a back- door school voucher program that would rob public schools of funding when budgets nation- wide are being slashed. The measure is a testament to the enduring clout of the Catholic Church in Maryland, analysts say — and politicians are being forced to walk a tightrope be- tween same-sex marriage, which Maryland now recognizes, and Catholic voters, many of whom oppose it. Gov. Martin O’Malley (D), who is facing a reelection fight in No- vember, has thrown his weight behind the proposal for the first time this year. The measure passed the Senate on St. Patrick’s Day and has picked up 75 spon- sors in the House of Delegates, where it died previously. The House Ways and Means Commit- tee plans to take up the bill on Thursday, although it is unlikely the legislation would emerge without amendments, said Del. Sheila E. Hixson (D-Montgom- ery), the committee’s chairwom- an.

Proponents say the Building

Opportunities for All Students and Teachers in Maryland Tax Credit, or BOAST, would blunt the pain of some recent struggles in Maryland Catholic schools. The Archdiocese of Baltimore an- nounced this month that it will shutter 13 of its 64 schools at the end of the school year — after closing four last year — and the Archdiocese of Washington, which runs schools in the District and its suburbs as well as in Southern Maryland, plans to close one school in Maryland and one in the District this year. The schools have been chal-

lenged by declining enrollment, shrinking congregations and the financial pressures of hiring lay teachers in place of nuns. “A treasure for the state of

Maryland is greatly challenged right now,” said Mary Ellen Rus- sell, executive director of the Maryland Catholic Conference, an advocacy organization that supports the bill. “This is not the silver bullet to save the Catholic schools, but it’s one piece of the puzzle.”

schools continued on B6

said Monday.

Virginia jurisdictions that help fund the transit agency have proposed budgets that would al- low them to meet their share of $74million sought from all re- gional jurisdictions in increased

funding for Metro. The agency’s budget proposes

that an additional $40 million in funding come from all local juris- dictions to help meet a $189 mil- lion gap in its $1.4 billion operat- ing budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1. Transit advocates are also calling on the localities to provide an additional $34 mil- lion that Metro proposed recoup- ing from service cuts. But with key budget decisions

expected next month, officials from the District and Maryland,

which would have to increase their funding by about $27 mil- lion and $30 million, respective- ly, remained tentative in suggest- ing that such money would be forthcoming. “We are not at this time com-

mitting to any additional fund- ing” for Metro, said Erin Henson, a spokeswoman for the Mary- land Department of Transporta- tion. Maryland will increase its subsidy to Metro in 2011 by about 4 percent, or $8.7million, to help cover the increase in the number

of people who use the MetroAc- cess service for the elderly and disabled. Maryland riders ac- count for about 65 percent of MetroAccess users. Paratransit costs are “growing faster than any other item in the budget,” said Peter Benjamin, chairman of Metro’s board of di- rectors. Overall, despite a large drop in

state revenue, Maryland’s contri- bution to Metro has grown

metro continued on B5

Zhou Bei, a 10th-grader from China, works in his Bullis School physics class with instructor Duruhan Badraslioglu.

U.S. prep schools push to recruit foreign students

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DC MD VA S

JOHN KELLY’S WASHINGTON

Cruising in a ‘bubble’

Yearning for a relaxing drive without people tailgating, horns being honked at you or not getting enough merge space? An attractive solution awaits, and readers share their stories. B2

District’s bag tax pulls in

by Tim Craig

The District’s 5-cent bag tax

generated about $150,000 during January to help clean up the Ana- costia River, even though resi- dents have dramatically scaled back their use of disposable bags, according a report city officials is- sued Monday. In its first assessment of how

the new law is working, the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue esti- mated that food and grocery es- tablishments gave out about 3million bags in January. Before the bag tax took effect Jan. 1, the Office of the Chief Financial Offi- cer had said that about 22.5mil- lion bags were being issued each month in 2009.

Council member Tommy Wells

(D-Ward 6), sponsor of the bag tax bill, said the new figures show that city residents are adapting to the law far more quickly than he or other city officials had expec- ted. “While it’s difficult to project the annual results based on just the first month’s experience, the report shows that residents are making great strides in reducing disposable bag use,” Wells said. The tax, one of the first of its kind in the nation, is designed to change consumer behavior and limit pollution in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Under regula- tions created by the D.C. Depart- ment of the Environment, ba- keries, delicatessens, grocery stores, drugstores, convenience stores, department stores and any other “business that sells food items” must charge the tax on paper or plastic bags. A Washington Post poll con-

PHOTOS BY SARAH L. VOISIN/THE WASHINGTON POST

Dixi Wu of Kunming, China, practices violin after classes at Bullis, whose headmaster recruited her during a trip to China.

Parents eager to send teens abroad for coveted American diplomas

by Michael Alison Chandler

W

At the public assistance office in Anacostia, the lines used to be a few people deep. Last year, they began stretching to the back of the room. Now they go out the door, almost to the parking lot, under the District’s famous giant chair.

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“I just never have seen it this

way before,” said Swinton, a 34-year-old mother of four who has been on and off public assistance for years. The numbers

hen Dixi Wu finished middle school in Kunming, China, last year, she had a hard decision to make. The skilled violinist and top-ranked student tested into

one of the most competitive high schools in her province. Yet Bullis School in suburban Maryland, faced with falling applications during the depressed economy, also wanted her.

“I’m only 15,” she said. “To go all the way to the other half of the world, I was scared.” Easing her decision was a personal inter-

view with Bullis’s headmaster, Tom Farquhar, who on his first tour of China met with doz- ens of students and addressed crowds of par- ents interested in giving their children a run- ning start toward a prized American college diploma. Universities and some boarding schools long have drawn heavily from overseas, but aggressive international efforts are becoming more common for other U.S. prep schools ea- ger to recruit from among rising numbers of East Asian students capable of paying full

fare. More private schools are posting ads in foreign newspapers, redesigning their Web sites in multiple languages and taking part in recruiting fairs, where they promise to pro- vide language training and the right mix of course work and extracurricular activities to enhance college applications. After meeting with Farquhar, Dixi chose Bullis. Now she is reading Kurt Vonnegut in her English class, studying debate and politi- cal cartoons in history, and running track for the Bullis Bulldogs. The cost to her parents, both telecommunications executives, is close to $40,000 a year for tuition and living ex- penses.

At a time when many “Made in the USA”

products struggle in the global marketplace, American diplomas are more coveted than ever. More than 650,000 international stu- dents were enrolled in U.S. colleges and uni- versities in 2009, fueling a nearly $18 billion international education industry. Federal government data show that 35,000 foreign students attend primary or secondary schools in the United States, not including one-year cultural exchange programs or short-term

foreign continued on B4

First-time enrollment:

132 143 157 173 200

’04-’05 ’05-’06 ’06-’07 ’07-’08 ’08-’09

3.3% 3.2% 3.3% 3.5% 3.7%

International enrollment as a percentage of total higher education enrollment

SOURCE: Institute of International Education THE WASHINGTON POST

Distant learning

Parents in China and other East Asian nations are increasingly sending children overseas for a Western education.

International students enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities

By school year, in thousands 565 583 624

565 672

ducted in January found that res- idents were almost evenly split on whether they supported the tax, with 46 percent supporting it and 49 percent opposed to it. Support for the bag tax was high- est in Northwest Washington, where about six in 10 residents supported it. District officials had estimated

that the tax would generate $10million over the next four years for environmental initia- tives. The money will go to the newly

created Anacostia River Cleanup Fund, which will spend it on vari- ous projects. But in January, the tax generat- ed only $149,432, suggesting that it might fall short of revenue pro- jections.

According to Wells, large re- tailers have reported that dispos- able bag usage has dropped by more than half since the tax took effect. “I’m thrilled with these re-

sults,” Wells said. “Not only are we reducing the number of dis- posable bags entering our envi- ronment, but we also have new resources flowing in to help with the cleanup of the Anacostia Riv- er.”

craigt@washpost.com

eki Swinton doesn’t need the statistics. She can see it in the lines.

Coalition aims to help D.C.’s poor go from surviving to thriving

PETULA DVORAK

back up what Swinton is seeing. One in five District residents lives in poverty, according to a study released last week by the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute. You can see it across the city,

and not just at welfare offices. Look around. There are more panhandlers downtown and more folks using food stamps at grocery stores and farmers markets. Worst of all, you can see it in the overcrowding at D.C. General’s family shelter. At one point this winter at the former hospital in Southeast Washington, 200 families were crammed into a space meant for no more than 135, and mothers and children were sleeping on cots in the hallways. The District’s poverty rate was

18.9 percent last year, up from 16.9 percent in 2008, according to the report. And current poverty indicators —

unemployment, homelessness, use of food stamps — are higher than last year’s. The city has about 106,500 residents (up 11,000 in a year) living at or below the poverty rate, which last year was considered as an annual income of $21,800 for a family of four. Poverty is the city’s most pernicious problem, and it’s going to take a heck of a lot more

$150,000

Dramatically fewer disposable sacks were given out in first month

to defeat it than a $15,000 pamphlet written by Marion Barry’s ex-girlfriend. This is not the deep-rooted,

generational and tragic poverty you see in cities across the United States. What we see here are families that survive but don’t thrive. They are vulnerable to any gust of wind that might knock them down — an illness, a slow week at work, a missed paycheck, a lost job. The recession has been a

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