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.

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.

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?

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.

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?

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.

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?

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.