Opinion

The $19.7 billion Fiscal Year 2024 Budget and Financial Plan submitted earlier this year by Mayor Muriel Bowser demonstrates her administration’s chaotic and shortsighted public policy development coupled with poor thinking around…

Anyone following local DC affairs will tell you this is a surprisingly tough budget year for the District. Just two months ago, the District’s independent chief financial officer lowered revenue projections by almost $400 million. Combined…

It’s fair to say that few DC elected officials or residents are happy with Mayor Muriel Bowser’s proposed budget for next year. DC Council Chair Phil Mendelson characterized the mayor’s proposal as containing “budget choices that set back…

Chances are that if you ask a policymaker to describe the District of Columbia's early childhood system, most will talk at length about the essentialness of child care. This is especially likely during a budget debate when there are…

It’s the height of budget oversight season in the District of Columbia, and while preparing to testify on behalf of incarcerated DC residents — the individuals served by the nonprofit I co-founded called More Than Our Crimes — I have found…

Perhaps it started as a joke, with Mayor Muriel Bowser telling at-large DC Council member Robert White that emergency legislation he was proposing to reduce an upcoming 8.9% hike for apartments in rent-controlled buildings in the District…

A partial answer to that question may come as soon as next week when Mayor Muriel Bowser and her team, including DC Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) Deputy Director Drew Hubbard, present a rescue plan to Black low-…

Over the past several weeks, the political and public policy rhetoric in the District has seemed like a five-alarm fire — the heat and damage impossible to escape. A large part of that reality is predicated on the fact that MAGA…

Half-jokingly, I asked earlier this week on my Twitter account whether the DC government needed a therapist, considering the stress it has been experiencing both externally — from MAGA Republicans intent on making the city their pawn in…

For thousands of DC’s adults, improving literacy skills can be an essential tool for completing education, getting and keeping a decent job, and staying out of poverty. Increasingly, however, digital literacy has become just as important…

Ward 3 State Board of Education member Eric Goulet publicly asked on Twitter whether DC Council Chair Phil Mendelson has become “unhinged.” Other civic and political leaders I spoke with wondered whether he is suffering a “midlife crisis”…

Even before Mayor Muriel Bowser submits her fiscal year 2024 budget proposal, a full-blown fight has kicked off over spending for public education in the District. This may seem like the annual skirmish between parents, teachers, school…

Both DC Mayor Muriel Bowser and a Republican-led coalition of House members oppose meaningful and data-backed changes to the District’s sentencing laws by challenging the DC Council’s Revised Criminal Code Act (RCAA) and its provision for…

Long before Stokely Carmichael (aka Kwame Ture) shouted the phrase “Black Power” in 1966; before James Brown, sans his famous processed pompadour, urged his audience in 1968 to “Say it loud: I’m Black and I’m proud”; before musician and…

The disjointed mishmash of architecturally inferior structures mostly resembles a collection of shanties rather than outdoor cafes. There are concrete barriers and bollards that further distort Adams Morgan’s 18th Street NW commercial…

DC Council Chair Phil Mendelson may have been right to persuade his colleagues to use the 2023 Budget Support Act to mandate a DC Public Schools (DCPS) boundary study — but not so much on his narrow perspective on its scope. The resulting…

At the core of opposition to the District of Columbia’s proposed new code of criminal laws — the subject of a mayoral veto overridden by the council, and more recently a resolution of disapproval passed by the House — is a commonly…

While the District has made some progress in addressing technology challenges for students at DC Public Schools (DCPS), more planning and investment is needed to ensure a functional, modern school system that is able to prepare our…

The house at 1304 Euclid St. NW has a long history as a low-cost refuge for people living on the margins of DC’s economy. Initially, it was one of a few houses connected to Mitch Snyder, a now-deceased popular local and national homeless…

For nearly 50 years, Duke Ellington School of the Arts has provided a world-class pre-professional arts education to thousands of DC Public Schools (DCPS) students through instruction by professional artists. This is key to fulfilling the…