Opinion

Gun violence. Rising rents. Wildfire smoke. If your only perspective of DC over the past year came straight from the headlines, you might wonder: What crisis is next? Amid rising concerns around public safety, many voices have clamored for…

Many people — myself included — supported the DC Council’s recent move toward filing a lawsuit against Mayor Muriel Bowser for her unwillingness to follow the Fiscal Year 2024 Budget Support Act, which mandated that a portion of any…

Before the pandemic, DC’s public education system was on the upswing. Gains were made on both local and national metrics. The District was widely hailed as the fastest-improving state and urban system in the country. Our progress and…

DC Mayor Muriel Bowser stood in a room inside the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Harman Hall across the street from the Capital One Arena, which could be seen just behind her right shoulder. Former DC Mayor Anthony A. Williams stood to her…

I thought my son was doing fine. He was getting A’s on his assignments, and his teacher said he was doing great. It wasn’t until we saw his NAEP score that we learned he wasn’t reading at his grade level — we had missed years of…

As families across the District come together to share the bounty of holiday meals, a starkly different scene unfolds behind the walls of DC’s jails. Controversy about how to address recent spikes in crime shouldn’t blind us to a…

When the DC Board of Elections unexpectedly announced last week that it was levying “civil fines” of up to $500 against six individuals for violating election laws in 2020 because they registered in multiple jurisdictions and voted twice,…

Muriel Bowser is only the second person in DC’s modern history of political quasi-independence to be thrice elected as mayor. The other was Marion Barry. His third term was disastrous, misdirected by the increasingly prominent role of…

In a city teeming with opportunities and potential for progress, it is disheartening to note that a significant percentage of public-school students here in DC remain designated as “at risk” in 2023. The fact is that it’s an outdated and…

When the federal government enacted the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1975, this landmark legislation was premised on what was then a radical idea: that all students, including students with disabilities, are…

As I listened to the women — most of them African American, some single mothers, all relatively young — tell their emotion-laden stories last week at a DC Council roundtable, I kept recalling that first line of one of Langston Hughes’ most…

The DC Council this week unanimously approved the appointment of Pamela Smith as the new chief of the Metropolitan Police Department. That vote came despite glaring experiential deficiencies. Still, Mayor Muriel Bowser was pleased. “I…

Near the end of the 19th century, Robert Terrell and his wife Mary Church went to purchase a home in LeDroit Park, then a predominantly white residential haven in racially segregated DC. Many of the houses carried covenants that prohibited…

In 2021, when a citywide group of citizens saw the proverbial golden opportunity for a mixed-use retail and affordable housing development at the former Marriott Wardman Park Hotel near the National Zoo, they gathered their resources and…

I’m a longtime DC music venue and bar owner, but my primary job is being a mother. Ever since my daughters were very young, I have been frank with them about the potential dangers of alcohol, while modeling responsible behavior in our…

It’s hard not to be seduced by at-large DC Councilmember Robert White’s concept of a “whole government response” to the indisputable public safety crisis in the nation’s capital, underscored by near-daily reports of multiple shootings,…

The former Intelsat headquarters, located at 4000 Connecticut Ave. NW, just one block from a Metrorail stop, offers a rare opportunity for the District to acquire a massive property that can serve all Washingtonians. The…

When Linda Leaks first got word that she would be inducted into the Cooperative Hall of Fame this week, she told me: “I did what Harriet Tubman did when she crossed the border into freedom. I myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.” …

While some communities fight over book banning or whether enslaved people benefited from their own enslavement, DC leaders have been hard at work developing and adopting new, inclusive K-12 social studies standards for all DC students. …

Sometimes it’s difficult for me to tamp down my cynicism about the District government and local politicians, especially as it relates to their constant assertions about acting in the interest of vulnerable DC residents. That all seems…