Opinion

When Ward 5 Councilmember Zachary Parker, chair of the newly constituted Committee on Youth Affairs, conducts his performance oversight of the Office of the Ombudsperson for Children and the Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) this…

In a somewhat anticlimactic move, the DC Council unanimously voted earlier this week to expel Ward 8’s Trayon White Sr. from its membership, ending a nearly six-month saga that dragged on ad nauseam as legitimate concerns festered about…

Is there any unethical or corrupt DC official whom Frederick D. Cooke Jr. won’t defend? Does he not think residents have the right to demand an honest and responsible government? Is it acceptable that politicians continue to receive…

While well-meaning, a recently proposed DC Council bill to mandate training for public charter school boards fails to address the real problem in DC’s public schools: the city’s large, growing racial gap in student achievement. At-large…

On April 24, 2017, after months of fighting to prevent officials at the DC Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) from violating the city’s Foster Youth Amendment Act of 2012 and pushing them to publish the mandatory report about…

Raw emotions consumed me as I reflected on Mayor Muriel Bowser’s accounts of her meeting with President-elect Donald Trump and her failure to take on or even address the looming possibility of a federal takeover of DC’s Metropolitan Police…

Change takes time. This is the reality of improving literacy outcomes in Washington, DC — a reality that is both challenging and hopeful. As the city embarks on the implementation of DC’s Early Literacy Education Task Force…

Call it the “Saga of Trayon White Sr.” The DC Council has been considering since August how it should punish the Ward 8 legislator for his blatant violations of the legislature’s Code of Conduct and a variety of local laws. This…

Some DC government officials, private-sector education researchers and advocates with whom I spoke during the past week seemed unfazed by President-elect Donald Trump’s expressed desire to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education. During…

DC residents and their political leaders are understandably anxious about Donald Trump’s second presidential term. They are also disturbed by the fact that the Republican Party has gained control, albeit narrow, of the Senate and House.…

In a period of just four years, DC families have gone from unprecedented levels of economic security — thanks to pandemic aid programs — to a point where thousands are overwhelmed by unaffordable rents and food prices, with few options for…

Remarkable. That’s the word used frequently by DC residents and leaders with whom I spoke in recent weeks to describe Mary Levy, a public education activist who lived in Ward 2 and died of cancer this summer. Some, myself included, have…

As a senior reflecting on my time as a student in DC schools, I am particularly grateful for the experiences I’ve had after school. Out-of-school-time (OST) programs have opened so many doors for me — transforming my life, giving me…

That was the question I asked myself hours before the polls opened Nov. 5 for the general election. Vice President Kamala Harris was right: After having dealt with then-former President Donald Trump for eight years, I, like many Americans,…

District voters may be trying to decide whether to mark yes or no for Initiative 83, a general election ballot measure that could partially open political party primaries to non-members and install a candidate selection system known as…

When I was growing up in a five-generation household in New Orleans, the elders passed around wives’ tales, family lore, adages and ethics lessons as frequently as they did crawfish bisque or jambalaya. My grandmother often warned that,…

I saw her multiple times from the window of the Number 33 bus as we drove past Tenley Circle NW: an older white woman seated on the bench fronted by stacks of black containers, her luggage inside a large cart. It didn’t matter the weather…

On April 3, members of the DC Council took turns questioning Mayor Muriel Bowser about her proposed fiscal year 2025 budget, which she contextualized as an exercise in shared sacrifice. Most of the legislators dismissed that…

Washington, DC, has a violence problem. Earlier this year, federal crime statistics published by the FBI revealed that the nation’s big cities saw murder and violence plummet in 2023. Nationwide decreases were 13% and 6%,…

Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White Sr., who was recently indicted and arraigned on a federal felony charge that includes a claim that he accepted a $20,000 bribe in 2020 from the head of a nonprofit organization that had held a government…