JLG vs McDuffie on public schools

[Anonymous]

Ah I see why I don’t know her record I don’t have kids, I don’t rent and I am not poor. Those things are issues, but they are not MY issues.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:She hates charters with a passion and supports a plan their funding by $9k+ per child.

I think it’s true that JLG as a mayor will negatively impact charters. There is a constituency of Ward 4 and 5 parents plus WTU who believe that charters are now threatening the progress that DCPS has made. They are smart enough to mostly keep their opinions off this message board, but they want EOTP students who are peeling off for the “good” charters to be rerouted into Wells, Coolidge, etc. They’re probably right, but it’s too
soon to unwind the charter school system in DC. And I say this as a gung ho DCPS parent, “low standards” and all.

OK but you cite no evidence other than “I think.”

Just more garbage posting.

They are afraid he will lose. When people are worried they often take the low ground - fear-mongering and lying.

We do not have any stellar options but based on JLG’s track record in W4, she will be a better choice.

Her what now?

-NP and Ward 4 resident

Ha, sure you are girly pop.

Why don’t you provide a list of what she has done for Ward 4?

-another Ward 4 resident

Yeah I am in Ward 4 too and I don't know what this record is either.

I doubt you are or you live under a rock.




**Housing:** She led the fight to extend the eviction moratorium during the pandemic so people could stay housed while rental assistance caught up. She introduced the Green New Deal for Housing, proposing a publicly-owned mixed-income housing model that reinvests rent into deeper affordability — not private profit. She passed the Housing with Integrity Amendment Act, blocking landlords with five or more violations from getting new building permits. She pushed for more Department of Buildings inspectors to hold slumlords accountable. She introduced the Extreme Heat Eviction Protection Act, preventing evictions during dangerous heat waves. These aren’t press releases — they’re bills she wrote and fought for.

**Workers:** She ended the subminimum wage for restaurant workers — and held the line when the restaurant lobby pushed back with biased data. She created jobs pipelines for construction and retail workers. She expanded Paid Family Leave. These are real wins for working people in every ward.

**Food access:** She increased SNAP food assistance for families and seniors. Simple, impactful, done.

**Traffic and neighborhood safety:** She improved traffic safety infrastructure around schools and worked to expand the Safe Passage program for students. She partnered with the Office of Neighborhood Safety to create job training and transitional employment programs for at-risk youth in Wards 4 and 5.

**Police accountability:** After the killing of Karon Hylton-Brown in Brightwood Park, she fought alongside the community for accountability for the officers involved. She introduced legislation to investigate ties between MPD officers and hate groups. She has called for stronger oversight of MPD’s cooperation with federal law enforcement as the Trump administration has escalated pressure on DC.


She will actually stand up to the federal government

This is maybe the biggest issue of the moment for DC. The Trump administration has been aggressive about overriding DC’s home rule, deploying National Guard troops to our streets, and threatening the city’s budget. JLG has been the clearest and most consistent voice saying: we do not cooperate with that.

She’s committed to rescinding the MPD order that allows local police to work with ICE. She has called out the Bowser administration for not pushing back hard enough. She has a real plan — not just rhetoric — for protecting DC residents from federal overreach, including displaced federal workers who now need the city’s safety net.


Her campaign is funded by residents, not the lobby

She qualified for DC’s Fair Elections public financing program in four hours — raising the required $40,000 from over 1,000 DC residents. Compare that to Mayor Bowser, who took 14 days to hit the same threshold in 2022. When you look at who’s funding JLG versus who’s funding McDuffie, you’re looking at two very different visions of who a mayor serves once in office.


Yes, some of her proposals are ambitious - the 72,000 housing units goal has gotten pushback as unrealistic. That’s a fair debate. But ambition in a housing crisis isn’t a flaw. And her *actual record* in Ward 4 shows someone who doesn’t just set big goals — she does the grinding legislative work to move things forward.



DC is too expensive, too unequal, and right now too vulnerable to federal interference. JLG is the candidate who has spent five years showing up for residents — in Ward 4 and across the city — before she needed their votes.

This is all completely irrelevant to this thread. Maybe start another thread where you cut and paste the campaign's talking points.

This. It's so off-putting. If this is a JLG campaign staff or someone from WTU who thinks they are helping her, you're not. At least not in terms of convincing people on this thread that JLG will work to improve schools (both DCPS and charters) and will work to serve ALL stakeholders in the school system. Instead I'm getting the opposite impression -- that JLG will do what the teachers' union (not even individual teachers, who don't always agree with everything union leadership does or says) wants no matter how it impacts others. It's deeply problematic.

Maybe there is some kind of SEO benefit to spamming this thread with JLG talking points but I'm an actual undecided voter and this is really turning me off. I don't like McDuffie either, but maybe I'll vote for a third party candidate or just abstain from voting for mayor. I'm so unhappy with my options this year.

+1

It's like they don't want anyone to even talk about her record on education.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Cannot vote for any candidate endorsed by the WTU.

So you hate teachers then?

NP. I hate the WTU. I think they are crooked. They are a detriment to our kids' education. I also love teachers.

If you can't differentiate between teachers and the WTU then...you probably collect a paycheck from the WTU.

Teachers are the WTU. So yes you hate teachers.

The self delusion of some people is really astonishing. To claim you don’t hate teachers but hate the WTU is not only wild, but completely divorced from reality. WTU represents 90-95% of DCPS teachers, so if said person is claiming they hate WTU, they definitely hate public school teachers at the very least.

This 100 percent. When posters say they hate the union, they mean they want the right to treat teachers like their servants, hover over them like the Gestapo, interfere with their ability to do their jobs, judge them for being successful or failing at what they do notwithstanding that they themselves are no more qualified to judge then vice-versa, and fire them at will. They want the right to be adverse to teachers and not to work in tandem with that. And that means they hate teachers, and that the WTU is necessary to protect teachers from their haters.

Sorry, but Covid exposed a lot of teacher's unions - including WTU - for what they really are. This is all a lot of BS. And I support unions in general.

Oh please. The teacher's union exists to protect teachers, not students, and teachers didn't want to die. It's not that complicated.

You sound like Trump trying to re-write the history of Jan. 6.

I'm not saying that their fear was justified. Not in hindsight, at least. But lots of people lost their minds in the once-in-100-years pandemic. My real point was that the teachers' union looks out for teachers, not students, and that shouldn't be a surprise to you.

DP. It's not a surprise anymore but this is EXACTLY why many parents have decided to hate the WTU.

During the pandemic, the WTU advocated for teachers over the interests of kids and families. That's their right, but as a parent, I don't have like an organization that advocated for policies that actively hurt my kids. I can hate that organization if I want. And I do! See how that works.

You can't have it both ways. Why would I like or care about an organization that will happily throw my child under the bus?

This is why I can't support JLG. The conduct of WTU during the pandemic was nothing short of evil, and JLG bent over backwards to do WTU's bidding. We need a mayor who will stand up to them.

Exactly. The only reason any DC school reopened was because Bowser did eventually stand up to them. And countrywide, that's how it worked too in major urban centers.

I don't think that hating WTU is the same as "hating teachers" what ridiculousness is that. Not every teacher even agreed with what their union was doing at that time. The fact that others were stepping up as essential workers and teachers were not as per their union's direction will go down in history as shameful.

Also, the politics of unions are such that teachers have to join their union in order to access the pay rates they want and to negotiate. It does not mean they all agree uniformly with every decision made. It also means that we, the parents of schoolchildren, need to push back on this union and the mayor is the one to represent us in doing so.

Someone in this city has to represent the interests of kids and their parents. As we saw most vividly during the pandemic, that's not WTU, and if we have a mayor like JLG who backs WTU 1000 percent of the time, then parents and kids will have no say in anything.

+1

This is the biggest problem with JLG. I don't like Bowser but she was at least willing to sometimes say no to WTU.

This. And I don't enjoy praising Bowser but I also appreciated her position and rhetoric on juvenile violence and the curfew this spring. In part I think she's just enjoying being a lame duck who can speak more freely (not too freely, of course -- I'm sure she's keeping an eye on her future "consultant" options and will be careful not to offend anyone with deep pockets, Bowser's gonna Bowser).

This is a problem with both JLG and McDuffie -- they are both more ambitious than they are motivated by real policy motivations. Sure, JLG is the more progressive candidate, McDuffie more corporate/moderate. I suspect voters will mostly break along those lines. But as someone who just wants an effective mayor, there isn't really much daylight between them. They both pander, they both appear beholden to special interests. So it's just this question on the margins of who will be slightly better on specific issues. On education, it's actually a toss up for me. If McDuffie appointed an effective chancellor and was hands off, I could actually see that as being preferable to JLG who I expect to meddle but not always in a way that benefits students or families. Neither would be great, it's just like "which could be less bad?"

If the JLG bots want to put down their talking points memos and actually engaged that question on its merits with a real dialogue, I'd be open to it. Every time you spam the thread with campaign nonsense, I get less interested in her as a candidate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:She hates charters with a passion and supports a plan their funding by $9k+ per child.

I think it’s true that JLG as a mayor will negatively impact charters. There is a constituency of Ward 4 and 5 parents plus WTU who believe that charters are now threatening the progress that DCPS has made. They are smart enough to mostly keep their opinions off this message board, but they want EOTP students who are peeling off for the “good” charters to be rerouted into Wells, Coolidge, etc. They’re probably right, but it’s too
soon to unwind the charter school system in DC. And I say this as a gung ho DCPS parent, “low standards” and all.

OK but you cite no evidence other than “I think.”

Just more garbage posting.

JLG is very clear that she does not like charters. It’s fair to say, “I don’t think she can do that much damage to them, and I overall prefer her/her policies to McDuffie and will therefore still vote for her.” Fine. Perfectly legit stance. But pretending that she’s not actually and actively hostile to charters is delulu.

I’m a single issue voter (education) and very much in favor of charters so I really want to run this down. I’m also relatively new to DC politics so forgive my ignorance… What’s the evidence for the view that she’s hostile to charters?

My advice is to vote Lewis George. Neither Kenyan nor Janeese is going to make any serious changes to the charter system, it’s not worth it. Even if either of them have ever voiced skepticism about charters, I think that just shows they have a working brain; even if you are very pro-charter, a thoughtful person can see the pros and cons of having a large chunk of students and funding going to charter schools. What’s much more likely to happen is a focus on DCPS — that is what the mayor has true control over. McDuffie has largely seemed disinterested in DCPS throughout his career. I think it’s time to breathe some new life into DCPS (especially around truancy and middle school issues), and so I don’t think it’s the right time to have an education indifferent mayor. Lewis George has been engaged in a thoughtful way and I think she will continue to do so. I also don’t think she will be beholden to the union, because mayors have a lot of control to do innovative things with DCPS with or without the union. I personally don’t love or hate the WTU. I think she will get along fairly well with them, and that could be an advantage for improving schools — it’s easier to get big ideas done if the union and school leaders aren’t at odds.

But she is beholden to the union and hasn't hidden the union or socialist democrat ties. She is considering for top education positions anti-charter, union forward, picks. I don't mind union supportive picks but those being considered by JLG are intensely anti-charter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She hates charters with a passion and supports a plan their funding by $9k+ per child.

I think it’s true that JLG as a mayor will negatively impact charters. There is a constituency of Ward 4 and 5 parents plus WTU who believe that charters are now threatening the progress that DCPS has made. They are smart enough to mostly keep their opinions off this message board, but they want EOTP students who are peeling off for the “good” charters to be rerouted into Wells, Coolidge, etc. They’re probably right, but it’s too
soon to unwind the charter school system in DC. And I say this as a gung ho DCPS parent, “low standards” and all.

OK but you cite no evidence other than “I think.”

Just more garbage posting.

They are afraid he will lose. When people are worried they often take the low ground - fear-mongering and lying.

We do not have any stellar options but based on JLG’s track record in W4, she will be a better choice.

Her what now?

-NP and Ward 4 resident

Ha, sure you are girly pop.

Why don’t you provide a list of what she has done for Ward 4?

-another Ward 4 resident

Yeah I am in Ward 4 too and I don't know what this record is either.

I doubt you are or you live under a rock.




**Housing:** She led the fight to extend the eviction moratorium during the pandemic so people could stay housed while rental assistance caught up. She introduced the Green New Deal for Housing, proposing a publicly-owned mixed-income housing model that reinvests rent into deeper affordability — not private profit. She passed the Housing with Integrity Amendment Act, blocking landlords with five or more violations from getting new building permits. She pushed for more Department of Buildings inspectors to hold slumlords accountable. She introduced the Extreme Heat Eviction Protection Act, preventing evictions during dangerous heat waves. These aren’t press releases — they’re bills she wrote and fought for.

**Workers:** She ended the subminimum wage for restaurant workers — and held the line when the restaurant lobby pushed back with biased data. She created jobs pipelines for construction and retail workers. She expanded Paid Family Leave. These are real wins for working people in every ward.

**Food access:** She increased SNAP food assistance for families and seniors. Simple, impactful, done.

**Traffic and neighborhood safety:** She improved traffic safety infrastructure around schools and worked to expand the Safe Passage program for students. She partnered with the Office of Neighborhood Safety to create job training and transitional employment programs for at-risk youth in Wards 4 and 5.

**Police accountability:** After the killing of Karon Hylton-Brown in Brightwood Park, she fought alongside the community for accountability for the officers involved. She introduced legislation to investigate ties between MPD officers and hate groups. She has called for stronger oversight of MPD’s cooperation with federal law enforcement as the Trump administration has escalated pressure on DC.


She will actually stand up to the federal government

This is maybe the biggest issue of the moment for DC. The Trump administration has been aggressive about overriding DC’s home rule, deploying National Guard troops to our streets, and threatening the city’s budget. JLG has been the clearest and most consistent voice saying: we do not cooperate with that.

She’s committed to rescinding the MPD order that allows local police to work with ICE. She has called out the Bowser administration for not pushing back hard enough. She has a real plan — not just rhetoric — for protecting DC residents from federal overreach, including displaced federal workers who now need the city’s safety net.


Her campaign is funded by residents, not the lobby

She qualified for DC’s Fair Elections public financing program in four hours — raising the required $40,000 from over 1,000 DC residents. Compare that to Mayor Bowser, who took 14 days to hit the same threshold in 2022. When you look at who’s funding JLG versus who’s funding McDuffie, you’re looking at two very different visions of who a mayor serves once in office.


Yes, some of her proposals are ambitious - the 72,000 housing units goal has gotten pushback as unrealistic. That’s a fair debate. But ambition in a housing crisis isn’t a flaw. And her *actual record* in Ward 4 shows someone who doesn’t just set big goals — she does the grinding legislative work to move things forward.



DC is too expensive, too unequal, and right now too vulnerable to federal interference. JLG is the candidate who has spent five years showing up for residents — in Ward 4 and across the city — before she needed their votes.

This is all completely irrelevant to this thread. Maybe start another thread where you cut and paste the campaign's talking points.

This. It's so off-putting. If this is a JLG campaign staff or someone from WTU who thinks they are helping her, you're not. At least not in terms of convincing people on this thread that JLG will work to improve schools (both DCPS and charters) and will work to serve ALL stakeholders in the school system. Instead I'm getting the opposite impression -- that JLG will do what the teachers' union (not even individual teachers, who don't always agree with everything union leadership does or says) wants no matter how it impacts others. It's deeply problematic.

Maybe there is some kind of SEO benefit to spamming this thread with JLG talking points but I'm an actual undecided voter and this is really turning me off. I don't like McDuffie either, but maybe I'll vote for a third party candidate or just abstain from voting for mayor. I'm so unhappy with my options this year.

I think it's JLG's campaign. This is how she is. She doesn't respond well to criticism or even questions about her decisions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ah I see why I don’t know her record I don’t have kids, I don’t rent and I am not poor. Those things are issues, but they are not MY issues.

I don't totally agree with this statement because I think better serving the district's poorest residents could, if done well, actually benefit everyone (we all deal with the negative externalities of poverty).

But it is amazing how JLG doesn't seem to get that most voters just want pragmatic solutions on the issues that touch their lives most directly: crime, schools (if you have kids, which a lot of voters do), traffic, and economic issues like taxes and development. Bread and butter. Like it's nice if you proposed something that made it marginally easier for low income families to access affordable housing. That's not nothing. But you want to be MAYOR. It's very much a "what have you done for ME lately" job, and JLG doesn't seem to get this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ah I see why I don’t know her record I don’t have kids, I don’t rent and I am not poor. Those things are issues, but they are not MY issues.

What a nasty human.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ah I see why I don’t know her record I don’t have kids, I don’t rent and I am not poor. Those things are issues, but they are not MY issues.

I don't totally agree with this statement because I think better serving the district's poorest residents could, if done well, actually benefit everyone (we all deal with the negative externalities of poverty).

But it is amazing how JLG doesn't seem to get that most voters just want pragmatic solutions on the issues that touch their lives most directly: crime, schools (if you have kids, which a lot of voters do), traffic, and economic issues like taxes and development. Bread and butter. Like it's nice if you proposed something that made it marginally easier for low income families to access affordable housing. That's not nothing. But you want to be MAYOR. It's very much a "what have you done for ME lately" job, and JLG doesn't seem to get this.

WHAT HAS NOTHING DUFF EVER DONE FOR YOU?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She hates charters with a passion and supports a plan their funding by $9k+ per child.

I think it’s true that JLG as a mayor will negatively impact charters. There is a constituency of Ward 4 and 5 parents plus WTU who believe that charters are now threatening the progress that DCPS has made. They are smart enough to mostly keep their opinions off this message board, but they want EOTP students who are peeling off for the “good” charters to be rerouted into Wells, Coolidge, etc. They’re probably right, but it’s too
soon to unwind the charter school system in DC. And I say this as a gung ho DCPS parent, “low standards” and all.

OK but you cite no evidence other than “I think.”

Just more garbage posting.

They are afraid he will lose. When people are worried they often take the low ground - fear-mongering and lying.

We do not have any stellar options but based on JLG’s track record in W4, she will be a better choice.

Her what now?

-NP and Ward 4 resident

Ha, sure you are girly pop.

Why don’t you provide a list of what she has done for Ward 4?

-another Ward 4 resident

Yeah I am in Ward 4 too and I don't know what this record is either.

I doubt you are or you live under a rock.




**Housing:** She led the fight to extend the eviction moratorium during the pandemic so people could stay housed while rental assistance caught up. She introduced the Green New Deal for Housing, proposing a publicly-owned mixed-income housing model that reinvests rent into deeper affordability — not private profit. She passed the Housing with Integrity Amendment Act, blocking landlords with five or more violations from getting new building permits. She pushed for more Department of Buildings inspectors to hold slumlords accountable. She introduced the Extreme Heat Eviction Protection Act, preventing evictions during dangerous heat waves. These aren’t press releases — they’re bills she wrote and fought for.

**Workers:** She ended the subminimum wage for restaurant workers — and held the line when the restaurant lobby pushed back with biased data. She created jobs pipelines for construction and retail workers. She expanded Paid Family Leave. These are real wins for working people in every ward.

**Food access:** She increased SNAP food assistance for families and seniors. Simple, impactful, done.

**Traffic and neighborhood safety:** She improved traffic safety infrastructure around schools and worked to expand the Safe Passage program for students. She partnered with the Office of Neighborhood Safety to create job training and transitional employment programs for at-risk youth in Wards 4 and 5.

**Police accountability:** After the killing of Karon Hylton-Brown in Brightwood Park, she fought alongside the community for accountability for the officers involved. She introduced legislation to investigate ties between MPD officers and hate groups. She has called for stronger oversight of MPD’s cooperation with federal law enforcement as the Trump administration has escalated pressure on DC.


She will actually stand up to the federal government

This is maybe the biggest issue of the moment for DC. The Trump administration has been aggressive about overriding DC’s home rule, deploying National Guard troops to our streets, and threatening the city’s budget. JLG has been the clearest and most consistent voice saying: we do not cooperate with that.

She’s committed to rescinding the MPD order that allows local police to work with ICE. She has called out the Bowser administration for not pushing back hard enough. She has a real plan — not just rhetoric — for protecting DC residents from federal overreach, including displaced federal workers who now need the city’s safety net.


Her campaign is funded by residents, not the lobby

She qualified for DC’s Fair Elections public financing program in four hours — raising the required $40,000 from over 1,000 DC residents. Compare that to Mayor Bowser, who took 14 days to hit the same threshold in 2022. When you look at who’s funding JLG versus who’s funding McDuffie, you’re looking at two very different visions of who a mayor serves once in office.


Yes, some of her proposals are ambitious - the 72,000 housing units goal has gotten pushback as unrealistic. That’s a fair debate. But ambition in a housing crisis isn’t a flaw. And her *actual record* in Ward 4 shows someone who doesn’t just set big goals — she does the grinding legislative work to move things forward.



DC is too expensive, too unequal, and right now too vulnerable to federal interference. JLG is the candidate who has spent five years showing up for residents — in Ward 4 and across the city — before she needed their votes.

This is all completely irrelevant to this thread. Maybe start another thread where you cut and paste the campaign's talking points.

This. It's so off-putting. If this is a JLG campaign staff or someone from WTU who thinks they are helping her, you're not. At least not in terms of convincing people on this thread that JLG will work to improve schools (both DCPS and charters) and will work to serve ALL stakeholders in the school system. Instead I'm getting the opposite impression -- that JLG will do what the teachers' union (not even individual teachers, who don't always agree with everything union leadership does or says) wants no matter how it impacts others. It's deeply problematic.

Maybe there is some kind of SEO benefit to spamming this thread with JLG talking points but I'm an actual undecided voter and this is really turning me off. I don't like McDuffie either, but maybe I'll vote for a third party candidate or just abstain from voting for mayor. I'm so unhappy with my options this year.

I think it's JLG's campaign. This is how she is. She doesn't respond well to criticism or even questions about her decisions.

When you’re incentivized to treat any sort of criticism or attempt at rigor as a personal attack, you treat every criticism or attempt to analyze your position as a personal attack. It’s a whole class of adult who was raised and trained to react this way. It gets supercharged in college where for a period people could make identity appeals to get around standards. Thankfully things have changed.

She’s one of those people. Her staffers are those people. Generally they wash out of high powered jobs because eventually you DO have to defend something on the merits and they don’t have the tools. Politics…. Not so much. It will take a long time for these people to ease out of the system, but just know what’s going on when someone is needlessly aggressive to basic questions in an email (which she and her staffers are famous for when it comes to constituent services).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cannot vote for any candidate endorsed by the WTU.

So you hate teachers then?

NP. I hate the WTU. I think they are crooked. They are a detriment to our kids' education. I also love teachers.

If you can't differentiate between teachers and the WTU then...you probably collect a paycheck from the WTU.

Teachers are the WTU. So yes you hate teachers.

The self delusion of some people is really astonishing. To claim you don’t hate teachers but hate the WTU is not only wild, but completely divorced from reality. WTU represents 90-95% of DCPS teachers, so if said person is claiming they hate WTU, they definitely hate public school teachers at the very least.

This 100 percent. When posters say they hate the union, they mean they want the right to treat teachers like their servants, hover over them like the Gestapo, interfere with their ability to do their jobs, judge them for being successful or failing at what they do notwithstanding that they themselves are no more qualified to judge then vice-versa, and fire them at will. They want the right to be adverse to teachers and not to work in tandem with that. And that means they hate teachers, and that the WTU is necessary to protect teachers from their haters.

Sorry, but Covid exposed a lot of teacher's unions - including WTU - for what they really are. This is all a lot of BS. And I support unions in general.

Oh please. The teacher's union exists to protect teachers, not students, and teachers didn't want to die. It's not that complicated.

You sound like Trump trying to re-write the history of Jan. 6.

I'm not saying that their fear was justified. Not in hindsight, at least. But lots of people lost their minds in the once-in-100-years pandemic. My real point was that the teachers' union looks out for teachers, not students, and that shouldn't be a surprise to you.

DP. It's not a surprise anymore but this is EXACTLY why many parents have decided to hate the WTU.

During the pandemic, the WTU advocated for teachers over the interests of kids and families. That's their right, but as a parent, I don't have like an organization that advocated for policies that actively hurt my kids. I can hate that organization if I want. And I do! See how that works.

You can't have it both ways. Why would I like or care about an organization that will happily throw my child under the bus?

This is why I can't support JLG. The conduct of WTU during the pandemic was nothing short of evil, and JLG bent over backwards to do WTU's bidding. We need a mayor who will stand up to them.

Exactly. The only reason any DC school reopened was because Bowser did eventually stand up to them. And countrywide, that's how it worked too in major urban centers.

I don't think that hating WTU is the same as "hating teachers" what ridiculousness is that. Not every teacher even agreed with what their union was doing at that time. The fact that others were stepping up as essential workers and teachers were not as per their union's direction will go down in history as shameful.

Also, the politics of unions are such that teachers have to join their union in order to access the pay rates they want and to negotiate. It does not mean they all agree uniformly with every decision made. It also means that we, the parents of schoolchildren, need to push back on this union and the mayor is the one to represent us in doing so.

Someone in this city has to represent the interests of kids and their parents. As we saw most vividly during the pandemic, that's not WTU, and if we have a mayor like JLG who backs WTU 1000 percent of the time, then parents and kids will have no say in anything.

+1

This is the biggest problem with JLG. I don't like Bowser but she was at least willing to sometimes say no to WTU.

You hate teachers.

[Anonymous]

McDuffie took in more than twice as much in campaign donations from utility interests than any of his current council peers, and from 2018–2025 met with paid utility lobbyists five times more often than any other councilmember.

A nonprofit that filed an ethics complaint against JLG had a board member connected to a firm that McDuffie’s campaign paid $20,000 for “research services” the week before the complaint was filed and McDuffie’s campaign didn’t respond to questions about the payment.


In 2019, McDuffie was a crucial vote in favor of awarding a $215 million no-bid contract to lottery operator Intralot.  The problem: a document obtained by the Washington Post through a FOIA request showed McDuffie’s cousin listed as chief executive of a subcontracting company that stood to receive $3 million from the deal. 

It gets messier. McDuffie’s cousin Keith McDuffie was linked to a lottery subcontractor who had also organized a fundraiser for him… before the ink on the contract was dry.  And McDuffie had originally opposed the no-bid shortcut but changed his vote the same day he received a prized committee assignment from Council Chairman Mendelson, leading colleagues to label it back-room dealmaking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:McDuffie took in more than twice as much in campaign donations from utility interests than any of his current council peers, and from 2018–2025 met with paid utility lobbyists five times more often than any other councilmember.

A nonprofit that filed an ethics complaint against JLG had a board member connected to a firm that McDuffie’s campaign paid $20,000 for “research services” the week before the complaint was filed and McDuffie’s campaign didn’t respond to questions about the payment.


In 2019, McDuffie was a crucial vote in favor of awarding a $215 million no-bid contract to lottery operator Intralot.  The problem: a document obtained by the Washington Post through a FOIA request showed McDuffie’s cousin listed as chief executive of a subcontracting company that stood to receive $3 million from the deal. 

It gets messier. McDuffie’s cousin Keith McDuffie was linked to a lottery subcontractor who had also organized a fundraiser for him… before the ink on the contract was dry.  And McDuffie had originally opposed the no-bid shortcut but changed his vote the same day he received a prized committee assignment from Council Chairman Mendelson, leading colleagues to label it back-room dealmaking.

I don’t think this is a staffer but it’s deeply stupid to copy pasta irrelevant McDuffie facts to hide real critiques of JLG.

I say this as someone who finds much of McDuffie’s personal corruption grotesque

[Anonymous]

The business establishment isn’t backing him because they like Duff’s smile.
DC’s entire business and real estate lobby has consolidated behind McDuffie.
Opportunity DC, a super PAC backed by real estate executives and large donors, spent heavily to elect him to the at-large seat in 2022, unseating the progressive incumbent Elissa Silverman.

These groups don’t back candidates out of civic spirit. They back candidates they believe will govern in their interest. When the chain restaurants lobby, the real estate lobby, and the business establishment all line up behind the same person, the reasonable question is: who is he going to govern for?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1. She fought to put a librarian in every DCPS school.
2. She passed the Safe Routes to School Act
3. She introduced the Work Order Integrity Act
4. She championed conflict resolution education in every school
5. She secured $18 million for Whittier Elementary School
When Whittier Elementary in Ward 4 needed renovations, she secured $18 million in the FY25 budget for a temporary learning space so students wouldn’t be displaced without support. She also introduced the Swing Space Transportation Support Act, requiring DCPS to provide transportation to students relocated to swing spaces - because it’s not enough to find a temporary building if kids can’t get there.
6. She fought alongside WTU for teacher pay and fair contracts - THIS IS WHY WE (TEACHERS) endorse her. NOT because she will be a puppet, she will be a LEADER.
7. She supports equity in funding for both charters and dcps. What she doesn’t support is opening more (lobby-backed) charters in W7/8.

Duffle on the other hand hasn’t done anything at all. His words are all talk - the truth is he will add to the corruption of DC.

Does she support all teachers? Seems like she strongly supports union teachers but they are probably less than 50%. This is worrisome to me.

[Anonymous]

Mayor Bowser has “always supported” Kenyan McDuffie, she told Axios, stopping just short of a formal endorsement only because she says she’s “stepping off the political stage.”

Opportunity DC, which backed Bowser for years and helped elect McDuffie in 2022, has continued spending in this race cycle.
Bowser’s approval rating fell below 50% for the first time during her tenure. Her legacy is defined by DC’s affordability crisis, chronic absenteeism in schools, an underfunded social safety net, and a cozy relationship with the city’s real estate and business class.

You can scream all you want that it’s taking away from talking about JLG. In that case state that you don’t support McDuffie explicitly because it just makes it look like you are desperately trying to discredit her and distract. very Trump.