JLG vs McDuffie on public schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

I am actually worried that she is going to undermine charters somehow. I've never heard her say a positive word about them, while mcDuffie says charters need to be funded the same as DCPS because half the students attend charters. He clearly has no animosity towards charters but I think JLG actually does.

THIS worries me.

At this point in life I'm essentially a one-issue voter (in DC races), and that issue is education.

Second: how crappy our DCDPR parks and rec offerings are, but that's a distant second.

Since we're ranked choice voting: I'm happy to be convinced to list someone else as my top choice beside JLG (and I won't vote McDuffie on principle; longtime Ward 5-er here). Who do you suggest?

And I am a W4 voter who couldn't vote for JLG on principle! What are we to do?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:New poster here. As a charter school parent and DCPS parent looking for someone to vote for, I've been disappointed with Janeese Lewis George so far.

At the DC Council meeting yesterday, Councilmembers discussed funding for charter school students. Mayor Bowser's current budget short-changes charter school students by allocating a lot less money per student for charter students compared to DCPS students. I was disappointed that JLG did not speak up to advocate for fair funding for charter school students at the DC Council. That was literally the topic of discussion, and JLG stayed silent. CMs Mendelson, Pinto, Parker, Crawford, and Felder all spoke up in favor of fair funding for charter school students and said more money needs to be allocated to fill the funding equity gap than what the DC Council allocated yesterday.

Also, JLG and her office have not responded to constituents who have reached out to ask her to support equal funding for charter school students. My guess is that she is so concerned about what the WTU thinks that she is not fully considering the needs of charter school families -- even though charter school students make up almost half of all public school students in DC.

100 percent this. But in addition to supporting the WTU no matter what, I think in her heart she dislikes charters. Whenever she has to say the word you can feel it.

of course she herself is the product of Deal and SWW. She accessed the most elite possible DCPS education track herself and now has disdain for charters??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://capitalcommonsense.substack.com/p/im-a-dcps-parent-janeese-lewis-georges

"I'm a DCPS Parent. Here's Why Janeese Lewis George's Big Education Plan Worries Me."

"The problem is that, for seemingly well-meaning but misguided reasons, Lewis George is planning to dismantle successful education reforms that have helped the District achieve more than a decade of progress on math and reading. Above all, she has said she wants to “end” IMPACT, the pay-for-performance system in place since 2009 that rewards our best teachers with large bonuses while cutting loose our worst.

Lewis George has only offered a fuzzy outline of how she’d replace today’s system. But her public statements suggest we could wind up with a weaker alternative that puts less emphasis on concrete measures of student success."

Show me the data that shows IMPACT actually rewards the best teachers and actually gets rid of the worst. Teachers have said it does not. American University found that IMPACT had minor benefits.

[Anonymous]

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 am actually worried that she is going to undermine charters somehow. I've never heard her say a positive word about them, while mcDuffie says charters need to be funded the same as DCPS because half the students attend charters. He clearly has no animosity towards charters but I think JLG actually does.

THIS worries me.

At this point in life I'm essentially a one-issue voter (in DC races), and that issue is education.

Second: how crappy our DCDPR parks and rec offerings are, but that's a distant second.

Since we're ranked choice voting: I'm happy to be convinced to list someone else as my top choice beside JLG (and I won't vote McDuffie on principle; longtime Ward 5-er here). Who do you suggest?

And I am a W4 voter who couldn't vote for JLG on principle! What are we to do?

Honestly I'm about to leave the Mayoral race section blank and just vote for the rest of the openings.

I might protest vote GG but I'm not sure yet.

[Anonymous]

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 am actually worried that she is going to undermine charters somehow. I've never heard her say a positive word about them, while mcDuffie says charters need to be funded the same as DCPS because half the students attend charters. He clearly has no animosity towards charters but I think JLG actually does.

THIS worries me.

At this point in life I'm essentially a one-issue voter (in DC races), and that issue is education.

Second: how crappy our DCDPR parks and rec offerings are, but that's a distant second.

Since we're ranked choice voting: I'm happy to be convinced to list someone else as my top choice beside JLG (and I won't vote McDuffie on principle; longtime Ward 5-er here). Who do you suggest?

And I am a W4 voter who couldn't vote for JLG on principle! What are we to do?

But you’ll vote for someone who has proven to be corrupt? Some principles!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://capitalcommonsense.substack.com/p/im-a-dcps-parent-janeese-lewis-georges

"I'm a DCPS Parent. Here's Why Janeese Lewis George's Big Education Plan Worries Me."

"The problem is that, for seemingly well-meaning but misguided reasons, Lewis George is planning to dismantle successful education reforms that have helped the District achieve more than a decade of progress on math and reading. Above all, she has said she wants to “end” IMPACT, the pay-for-performance system in place since 2009 that rewards our best teachers with large bonuses while cutting loose our worst.

Lewis George has only offered a fuzzy outline of how she’d replace today’s system. But her public statements suggest we could wind up with a weaker alternative that puts less emphasis on concrete measures of student success."

My guess is that the author is in the room with us.

Just like anyone who cares about education in DC should be able to see the pros and cons of charters, they should also be able to see the pros and cons of IMPACT. It is completely possible we have extracted all the gains we are going to achieve, as an education system, from IMPACT and now it is time to think about doing something different. At some point, IMAPCT itself becomes too much the focus of educators — from central office to the classroom — and we need to refocus on what is happening with our kids and how much they are learning.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm having a really hard time with this election, I have serious reservations about both of these candidates.

We are a family that put our kids in both DCPS and charter, and want robust, challenging classes and well-supported teachers.

Let's start a thread -- i would love to hear from people about their experiences with JLG and McDuffie on schools.

McDuffie is disqualified from being considered because BOTH of his kids were/are at GDS. So not just any private school but the most exclusive, expensive school in the area.

This. I am stuck on the GDS thing. How do you trust someone to lead DCPS that has abandoned our schools? Also how does a council member and a CSOSA employee pay for two kids to go to GDS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm having a really hard time with this election, I have serious reservations about both of these candidates.

We are a family that put our kids in both DCPS and charter, and want robust, challenging classes and well-supported teachers.

Let's start a thread -- i would love to hear from people about their experiences with JLG and McDuffie on schools.

McDuffie is disqualified from being considered because BOTH of his kids were/are at GDS. So not just any private school but the most exclusive, expensive school in the area.

This. I am stuck on the GDS thing. How do you trust someone to lead DCPS that has abandoned our schools? Also how does a council member and a CSOSA employee pay for two kids to go to GDS?

Don't you have friends who send their kids to private school? I don't actually see a problem with this. If anything, it means he acknowledges that the current public school system is lacking somehow and maybe will be motivated to make it better.

EVeryone should go read JLG's WTU questionnaire, which is linked in the thread. She wants to "ease creditialing" for teachers in order to bring on more immigrant and Black male teachers -- those are her words. And drop IMPACT. that means she does not want to focus on teacher quality at all, but on teacher demographics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://capitalcommonsense.substack.com/p/im-a-dcps-parent-janeese-lewis-georges

"I'm a DCPS Parent. Here's Why Janeese Lewis George's Big Education Plan Worries Me."

"The problem is that, for seemingly well-meaning but misguided reasons, Lewis George is planning to dismantle successful education reforms that have helped the District achieve more than a decade of progress on math and reading. Above all, she has said she wants to “end” IMPACT, the pay-for-performance system in place since 2009 that rewards our best teachers with large bonuses while cutting loose our worst.

Lewis George has only offered a fuzzy outline of how she’d replace today’s system. But her public statements suggest we could wind up with a weaker alternative that puts less emphasis on concrete measures of student success."

My guess is that the author is in the room with us.

Just like anyone who cares about education in DC should be able to see the pros and cons of charters, they should also be able to see the pros and cons of IMPACT. It is completely possible we have extracted all the gains we are going to achieve, as an education system, from IMPACT and now it is time to think about doing something different. At some point, IMAPCT itself becomes too much the focus of educators — from central office to the classroom — and we need to refocus on what is happening with our kids and how much they are learning.

No, I shared the article but didn't write it. And my kids are in a charter school, so this doesn't directly affect us.

I'm familiar with the criticisms of IMPACT, which are also discussed in the article, but "It is completely possible we have extracted all the gains we are going to achieve, as an education system, from IMPACT" doesn't make any sense. Schools are continually hiring new teachers, and ensuring teacher quality is an ongoing job. If IMPACT worked well in the past, that's an argument for keeping it in the future. And if you don't like it, then the question is, what's a better approach? There are lots of great teachers in DCPS, but there are many who need help, and some who should never be in a classroom.

IMPACT was good 20 years ago when it replaced an evaluation system that was not only not being used but was also ineffective in helping struggling teachers and getting bad teachers out.

Now, IMPACT itself is more the focus than what is actually working for kids. We have very good teachers in DCPS despite IMPACT not because of it. Even the architect of IMPACT did not take it with him when he moved school systems. For the sake of continuously improving our public schools, it is time to turn the page on IMPACT and figure out how to reach more kids.

[Anonymous]

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.

I am a W4 resident and cannot support her because for almost every issue you mention, I can think of a direct contradiction in my neighborhood where she has not solved a problem. Directly related to education, LAMB and John Lewis are right next to each other. There is a terrible intersection around the school that is dangerous for kids to cross. She had a few walkthroughs with DDOT, but two years later, not a single thing has been done to improve this intersection. It is the small things in our Ward that she has not dealt with. That's why to me it doesn't matter what her positions are, she just isn't going to do a thing to address them.

[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:

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).

I am PP who has numerous recent responses, including the one about JL and LAMB. You might be on the same neighborhood list serve that I am on because this is how she responds to criticisms and questions on our list serve. She is defensive, condescending and tries to put the blame on other agencies. It might be a problem that other agencies need to solve, but her response should be let me help push these agencies along rather than throwing up her hands because other agencies should solve it. If she is mayor, she will have to make sure these agencies solve the problems and I don't think that she will.

[Anonymous]

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.

I am a W4 resident and cannot support her because for almost every issue you mention, I can think of a direct contradiction in my neighborhood where she has not solved a problem. Directly related to education, LAMB and John Lewis are right next to each other. There is a terrible intersection around the school that is dangerous for kids to cross. She had a few walkthroughs with DDOT, but two years later, not a single thing has been done to improve this intersection. It is the small things in our Ward that she has not dealt with. That's why to me it doesn't matter what her positions are, she just isn't going to do a thing to address them.

.

Building on this, no one I know has had a positive interaction with her in terms of constituent services. In fact, if they bother to respond at all, they come off unhinged basically all the time no matter who is writing and what the issue is (like obviously the Harriets wildest dream person is a lunatic on public safety, so the response there won’t be good, but it’s also stuff like getting trash bins put back in place and questions about the pool).

Honestly, her lack of policy positions, her membership in DSA, and her elevation of some real crazies don’t bother me, it’s a DC election and you need to win ward 8.

The problem is the campaign is thin (partially because McDuffie is at best ambivalent about running a campaign) and all I have to go on is her record as a councilmember and how she runs the ward, and the evidence there is pretty dire!

[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:

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).

I am PP who has numerous recent responses, including the one about JL and LAMB. You might be on the same neighborhood list serve that I am on because this is how she responds to criticisms and questions on our list serve. She is defensive, condescending and tries to put the blame on other agencies. It might be a problem that other agencies need to solve, but her response should be let me help push these agencies along rather than throwing up her hands because other agencies should solve it. If she is mayor, she will have to make sure these agencies solve the problems and I don't think that she will.

McDuffie was pretty good as a ward 5 member in getting services to people who talked to his constituent services folks. That being said, it was pure retail politics.

[Anonymous]

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 am actually worried that she is going to undermine charters somehow. I've never heard her say a positive word about them, while mcDuffie says charters need to be funded the same as DCPS because half the students attend charters. He clearly has no animosity towards charters but I think JLG actually does.

THIS worries me.

At this point in life I'm essentially a one-issue voter (in DC races), and that issue is education.

Second: how crappy our DCDPR parks and rec offerings are, but that's a distant second.

Since we're ranked choice voting: I'm happy to be convinced to list someone else as my top choice beside JLG (and I won't vote McDuffie on principle; longtime Ward 5-er here). Who do you suggest?

And I am a W4 voter who couldn't vote for JLG on principle! What are we to do?

But you’ll vote for someone who has proven to be corrupt? Some principles!

Corrupt but competent beats pure but inept 6 days a week and twice on Sundays.

Not sure McDuffie is competent though.

[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 am so troubled that a lot of people on this thread seem to not understand ranked choice voting. There is no “protest vote,” you should NOT abstain, and it doesn’t matter if Rini (or whoever) has “no chance.” Rank up to five candidates in your true order of preference (though perhaps throw in one or the other of JLG vs KM so you use your voice if it does come down to them).

Also there are no “third party” candidates on your Democratic Party primary ballot.