DC Folks did you vote for Bowser??

[Anonymous]

Yes. You must be in a weird Facebook bubble. My friends are all over the spectrum for DC voting and it’s not really polarized in that way. I can’t really imagine anyone posting on a DC election unless they were personally involved in a campaign.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH and I both voted for White but I was really on the fence and almost changed to Bowser last second. We are white and MC but live in a heavily gentrifying neighborhood with lots of UMC folks.

I don’t love Bowser and think she’s a pretty typical cynical, special-interest focused politician. But unlike White and many of his supporters, Bowser did actually seem to think that closing schools for an entire year, even after teachers had received priority vaccination and Covid rates were low, was a bad thing. Like Bowser at least seemed to get that closing schools for so long would have a horrible impact, especially on kids who are at high risk, and lead to increased hunger, drop out rates, and criminality among many DCPS students. And it did, and continues to have repercussions in the city, and most people seem not to care at all, which is very confusing to me. We’ve seen an increase in violent crime committed by teenagers and people argue about it but very few seem to remember “oh these kids were largely left to their own devices for months on end and many simply stopped going to school at all and this is an unsurprising outcome of that.” At least Bowser TRIED to get schools open again. I seriously cannot believe how little city progressives seem to care about this. You know what serves as a violence interruptor so fewer kids wind up in the criminal justice system? School! But whatever I guess.

Ultimately, though, Bowser failed to mobilize the DC constituencies that understood this, and failed to adequately convince teachers and reluctant parents (by making concessions on WTU demands and virtual options) and that’s on her. So I voted against her. But I’m not disappointed White lost, since he doesn’t seem to even see a problem with what happened.

I mostly feel like I live in some upside down world where we all make progressive sounds with our mouths but then support policies that are terrible for poor people and black people and families for… reasons.

You realize that White wanted to keep schools closed for LONGER? How did your vote make any sense?

[Anonymous]

I’m a registered independent who usually votes democrat. She would have had my vote if I voted in primaries. Crazy as it sounds, she’s closer to the center than the rest. And that’s what I’m looking for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH and I both voted for White but I was really on the fence and almost changed to Bowser last second. We are white and MC but live in a heavily gentrifying neighborhood with lots of UMC folks.

I don’t love Bowser and think she’s a pretty typical cynical, special-interest focused politician. But unlike White and many of his supporters, Bowser did actually seem to think that closing schools for an entire year, even after teachers had received priority vaccination and Covid rates were low, was a bad thing. Like Bowser at least seemed to get that closing schools for so long would have a horrible impact, especially on kids who are at high risk, and lead to increased hunger, drop out rates, and criminality among many DCPS students. And it did, and continues to have repercussions in the city, and most people seem not to care at all, which is very confusing to me. We’ve seen an increase in violent crime committed by teenagers and people argue about it but very few seem to remember “oh these kids were largely left to their own devices for months on end and many simply stopped going to school at all and this is an unsurprising outcome of that.” At least Bowser TRIED to get schools open again. I seriously cannot believe how little city progressives seem to care about this. You know what serves as a violence interruptor so fewer kids wind up in the criminal justice system? School! But whatever I guess.

Ultimately, though, Bowser failed to mobilize the DC constituencies that understood this, and failed to adequately convince teachers and reluctant parents (by making concessions on WTU demands and virtual options) and that’s on her. So I voted against her. But I’m not disappointed White lost, since he doesn’t seem to even see a problem with what happened.

I mostly feel like I live in some upside down world where we all make progressive sounds with our mouths but then support policies that are terrible for poor people and black people and families for… reasons.

You realize that White wanted to keep schools closed for LONGER? How did your vote make any sense?

+1. DP here but it sounds like pp believed the teacher union propaganda that they wanted to return to work sooner but Bowser just wouldn't negotiate. The truth is that they fought returning to work despite Bowser meeting more of the union demands to appease them (HVAC upgrades, required masking, requiring hand sanitizer, ask ask look forms completed and reviewed every day, and many other covid protocols that sadly and ironically ended up burning out teachers) than almost any other school district in the country.

Meanwhile Robert White and Janeese Lewis George introduced legislation that if enacted would have kept schools closed for almost half of this current 2021-2022 school year, yet many parents aren't connecting the dots. The union expends so many resources on professional PR to develop lies and propaganda because it works. The pp you're responding to is proof.

[Anonymous]

You're gonna get a lot of "yes" responses here. Bowser carried Upper Caucasia by a 2-1 margin, more than anywhere else in the city. The purported reason? She opened the schools, and Ward 3 parents are sooo concerned with the learning loss in poorer wards. The real reason? Closed schools were an inconvenience to THEM.

Cut me a break.

[Anonymous]

Voted for her, I don't blame her for the crime, which is literally up in every area in the US, both urban and rural.

I wish she opened up schools earlier for my kids. I don't actually care about learning loss in other wards. If they don't want to send their kids to school, that is their problem.

[Anonymous]

No. I’m white and live in upper NW. I think she’s a terrible steward of public schools—not because of how long they were closed, which I saw as complicated and thought she actually did OK with, but because of how cynically she views her “accountability” role.

She doesn’t care about school conditions and creating a supportive learning environment; it’s much more important to her to score political points by showing how tough she can be with the teachers union. There’s going to be a huge exodus of teachers after this year, and I see no evidence that she cares or is preparing in any way. It’s depressing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're gonna get a lot of "yes" responses here. Bowser carried Upper Caucasia by a 2-1 margin, more than anywhere else in the city. The purported reason? She opened the schools, and Ward 3 parents are sooo concerned with the learning loss in poorer wards. The real reason? Closed schools were an inconvenience to THEM.

Cut me a break.

+1

PP @ 8:24 I can't believe you would use the word propaganda while spitting so much unfounded rheroric

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH and I both voted for White but I was really on the fence and almost changed to Bowser last second. We are white and MC but live in a heavily gentrifying neighborhood with lots of UMC folks.

I don’t love Bowser and think she’s a pretty typical cynical, special-interest focused politician. But unlike White and many of his supporters, Bowser did actually seem to think that closing schools for an entire year, even after teachers had received priority vaccination and Covid rates were low, was a bad thing. Like Bowser at least seemed to get that closing schools for so long would have a horrible impact, especially on kids who are at high risk, and lead to increased hunger, drop out rates, and criminality among many DCPS students. And it did, and continues to have repercussions in the city, and most people seem not to care at all, which is very confusing to me. We’ve seen an increase in violent crime committed by teenagers and people argue about it but very few seem to remember “oh these kids were largely left to their own devices for months on end and many simply stopped going to school at all and this is an unsurprising outcome of that.” At least Bowser TRIED to get schools open again. I seriously cannot believe how little city progressives seem to care about this. You know what serves as a violence interruptor so fewer kids wind up in the criminal justice system? School! But whatever I guess.

Ultimately, though, Bowser failed to mobilize the DC constituencies that understood this, and failed to adequately convince teachers and reluctant parents (by making concessions on WTU demands and virtual options) and that’s on her. So I voted against her. But I’m not disappointed White lost, since he doesn’t seem to even see a problem with what happened.

I mostly feel like I live in some upside down world where we all make progressive sounds with our mouths but then support policies that are terrible for poor people and black people and families for… reasons.

You realize that White wanted to keep schools closed for LONGER? How did your vote make any sense?

Yes, I'm aware. I was really torn. My vote for White was largely a vote for change -- I don't love the idea of Bowser in office for 12 years, and I don't actually trust her to DO much the next four years. I was really irritated with my choices. Schools was the major reason I wanted to vote for Bowser. I felt like White was a question mark. It sucked.

In the end, I felt 100% confident Bowser would win re-election, and I was positive Mendo would too. So I voted White/Palmer largely to send a message that they have become too complacent.

If White and Palmer had both one, I would have been okay with it. I think ultimately White would be more pragmatic than the way he ran (he was even walking back some of his more progressive statements in the last weeks of the campaign) and I think Palmer would wind up get pushed around by the much more experienced members of the council anyway.

It's irritating to have to choose between cynical careerists and pie-eyed idealists. I want pragmatic leadership. I felt that was Bowser and Mendo 4 years ago, I don't feel as much that way now.

I do think the people flipping out about Bowser and Mendo winning are hilarious. They honestly think that if we could just get more progressive people in office, we could fix all of DC's many problems. They either haven't lived in DC very long or are just dumb.

Anyway, I wish I'd had a Fenty-esque candidate to vote for, but I didn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Voted for her, I don't blame her for the crime, which is literally up in every area in the US, both urban and rural.

I wish she opened up schools earlier for my kids. I don't actually care about learning loss in other wards. If they don't want to send their kids to school, that is their problem.

I am the opposite. I was most bothered by the impact of closed school son high risk kids, but for self-interested reasons. I live on the Hill and crime is ridiculous right now and it is absolutely driven by kids, some as young as 12 and 13. Car jackings, armed robberies, property destruction and theft... it's a bunch of hooligan kids running around seeing what they can get away with and wanting to watch the world burn. I know two people who have had kids break into their garage/parking pad to hot wire their cars, only to vandalize them and dump them less than a mile away. It's a "victimless crime" in that their insurance pays for it and no one is injured, but stuff like that contributes to this sense of lawlessness and chaos. It's terrible.

And I absolutely think school closures played a major role in what we are seeing now. These kids had nowhere to go for a year. Even once they partially opened schools, I know for a fact that they had trouble getting a lot of these kids back in the classroom. Many never signed in for virtual school and had no really connection to school for the entire year, and some of them still don't. It's not just about "learning loss" for these kids -- they were behind well before the pandemic. It's about just kind of walking away from kids and families for an entire year and telling parents "figure it out." UMC parents did figure it out for the most part, and MC parents like me muddled through (sometimes a great personal cost -- I wound up having to go on unpaid leave for a time). But kids in unstable families who are already prone to truancy and dropping at, who are already at high risk of becoming part of the school to prison pipeline? They didn't have a chance and now they are out there making the city feel unlivable. And what will come of it? They'll get arrested, spend time in juvie, get released but now have a record, never really get back on track. The deck was stacked against them and then white liberals in this city decided the best possible thing was to close schools indefinitely. Idiots.

People talk about learning loss and the data is concerning, but what I want to see is what percentage of middle and high school kids outside of upper NW simply never returned to school. What percentage never logged in once for virtual learning. What are the truancy rates at these schools now? What about graduation rates post Covid compared to before?

[Anonymous]

Voted for Bowser after having worked for the DC Government in the prior term (but no longer do). While I may not always have agreed with the decisions being made, once there is a chosen path, shit gets done. [b] I had no confidence that would happen under Robert White- he's a very nice guy, but comes off as far too much of a "people-pleaser" to take the sort of decisive action that is needed in the role.

Also, shifting back from Mayoral Control of schools to an elected school board making operating decisions would be an unmitigated dumpster fire.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Voted for her, I don't blame her for the crime, which is literally up in every area in the US, both urban and rural.

I wish she opened up schools earlier for my kids. I don't actually care about learning loss in other wards. If they don't want to send their kids to school, that is their problem.

I am the opposite. I was most bothered by the impact of closed school son high risk kids, but for self-interested reasons. I live on the Hill and crime is ridiculous right now and it is absolutely driven by kids, some as young as 12 and 13. Car jackings, armed robberies, property destruction and theft... it's a bunch of hooligan kids running around seeing what they can get away with and wanting to watch the world burn. I know two people who have had kids break into their garage/parking pad to hot wire their cars, only to vandalize them and dump them less than a mile away. It's a "victimless crime" in that their insurance pays for it and no one is injured, but stuff like that contributes to this sense of lawlessness and chaos. It's terrible.

And I absolutely think school closures played a major role in what we are seeing now. These kids had nowhere to go for a year. Even once they partially opened schools, I know for a fact that they had trouble getting a lot of these kids back in the classroom. Many never signed in for virtual school and had no really connection to school for the entire year, and some of them still don't. It's not just about "learning loss" for these kids -- they were behind well before the pandemic. It's about just kind of walking away from kids and families for an entire year and telling parents "figure it out." UMC parents did figure it out for the most part, and MC parents like me muddled through (sometimes a great personal cost -- I wound up having to go on unpaid leave for a time). But kids in unstable families who are already prone to truancy and dropping at, who are already at high risk of becoming part of the school to prison pipeline? They didn't have a chance and now they are out there making the city feel unlivable. And what will come of it? They'll get arrested, spend time in juvie, get released but now have a record, never really get back on track. The deck was stacked against them and then white liberals in this city decided the best possible thing was to close schools indefinitely. Idiots.

People talk about learning loss and the data is concerning, but what I want to see is what percentage of middle and high school kids outside of upper NW simply never returned to school. What percentage never logged in once for virtual learning. What are the truancy rates at these schools now? What about graduation rates post Covid compared to before?

I am genuinely curious if this theory is correct, or if there is a general "F the police, F white people" feeling on the part of these kids that combines with DC's almost non-existent criminal justice system, where kids just know they can get away with it and are mad. If the school closures did not coincide with the social justice movement, I would agree you're probably right. But when you have a lot of disaffected young men (in any country), you have a lot of crime.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Voted for Bowser after having worked for the DC Government in the prior term (but no longer do). While I may not always have agreed with the decisions being made, once there is a chosen path, shit gets done. I had no confidence that would happen under Robert White- he's a very nice guy, but comes off as far too much of a "people-pleaser" to take the sort of decisive action that is needed in the role.

Also,[b] shifting back from Mayoral Control of schools to an elected school board making operating decisions would be an unmitigated dumpster fire.

I agree with this. Especially since DC has such low voter turnout and people are often incredibly uninformed about races below the mayoral/council level. The people who want this change want it explicitly so that they can pack that board with people who serve their interests. NOT the interests of the city or of the entirety of school children in the city, but their specific interests. But even a lot of teachers don't want this because when it comes to something like union negotiations, it really is easier/better for the union to be negotiating directly with the mayor/chancellor (so the mayor) than with a committee. It just would not work.

I would like to see Ferebee replaced and I do wish we could overhaul Central Office. Which Bowser is not going to do. It's a bloated office that sucks up resources without offering much value, in a district that needs those resources elsewhere. But the idea that an elected school board would be able to get that done is ridiculous.

It would have been great to get an actual pragmatist to challenge Bowser. White was more of an idea than an actual leader. Same with Palmer. A lot of progressives in this city don't seem to understand how city government actually works -- most of it is not high minded policy making. Almost none of it is. You can set an agenda, but at the end of the day you need concrete plans and the willingness/ability to grease the city's wheels to make it happen. I had very limited interest in sitting around waiting for White to figure that out.

[Anonymous]

Voted for her, happily. School closures had major impacts on my family, in terms of education, mental health, and finances. She fought to open them. R. White seemed oddly interested in closing schools in 2022, which put him on the "ridiculous" portion of the school closure spectrum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Voted for Bowser after having worked for the DC Government in the prior term (but no longer do). While I may not always have agreed with the decisions being made, once there is a chosen path, shit gets done. I had no confidence that would happen under Robert White- he's a very nice guy, but comes off as far too much of a "people-pleaser" to take the sort of decisive action that is needed in the role.

Also,[b] shifting back from Mayoral Control of schools to an elected school board making operating decisions would be an unmitigated dumpster fire.

I agree with this. Especially since DC has such low voter turnout and people are often incredibly uninformed about races below the mayoral/council level. The people who want this change want it explicitly so that they can pack that board with people who serve their interests. NOT the interests of the city or of the entirety of school children in the city, but their specific interests. But even a lot of teachers don't want this because when it comes to something like union negotiations, it really is easier/better for the union to be negotiating directly with the mayor/chancellor (so the mayor) than with a committee. It just would not work.

I would like to see Ferebee replaced and I do wish we could overhaul Central Office. Which Bowser is not going to do. It's a bloated office that sucks up resources without offering much value, in a district that needs those resources elsewhere. But the idea that an elected school board would be able to get that done is ridiculous.

It would have been great to get an actual pragmatist to challenge Bowser. White was more of an idea than an actual leader. Same with Palmer. A lot of progressives in this city don't seem to understand how city government actually works -- most of it is not high minded policy making. Almost none of it is. You can set an agenda, but at the end of the day you need concrete plans and the willingness/ability to grease the city's wheels to make it happen. I had very limited interest in sitting around waiting for White to figure that out.

NP here: great post and you succinctly describe the reasons I voted for Bowser and Mendo. The city really is teetering on the edge right now - people still haven't returned to the office, downtown commercial businesses are closing, rents are up but lots of people still have not returned to DC permanently, DCPS is in a state of fluctuation and it seems like demand for seats has not rebounded to pre-COVID levels (based on all the offers we are getting for PK3 at the last minute).

While we are still working through COVID relief monies, this lack of return-to-normal is having big ramifications on the tax base in the medium term. Frankly, I didn't trust progressive newbies like White and Palmer to keep the ship steady at this critical juncture.