Schools are not just “businesses”. While testing has its place, it is by no means a complete or accurate measure of the progress of children’s education. Here is a comment from the Washington Post website regarding the firing on July 23 (again) of 226 teachers by Ms. Rhee deemed “ineffective”, with a whopping 737 more teachers rated “minimally effective”. [More]

... [More]

... [More]

The District of Columbia Department of Health is now distributing Trojan condoms as well as Durex condoms, including the super-size Magnum variety. So one can conclude, according to the DC HIV/AIDS administration, that the problem is not that youth are having sex, but that they are not using condoms enough. However, there is no data to support this approach. No program anywhere in the world has ever succeeded in increasing the rate of condom use throughout the general population. Researcher Ed Green has done important work in this area . Condom distribution in the District increased from 600,0000 in 2007 to 3.2 million in 2009. Yet at the same time, the rate of HIV infection increased by 9.2 per cent. [More]

Mary Cheh and the other co-sponsors of a bill to mandate what food DC School youth will eat are taking the wrong approach to health. In tight economic times, Cheh proposes a $6 million per year bill that mandates that kids in DC Public Schools eat more health, locally grown food. While eating more fruits and veggies is a great idea, I don’t thing that it should cost tax payers 6 million dollars. Ms. Cheh’s bill tries to mandate solutions for problems that are not the core problems that DC youth face. Ms. Cheh and the rest of the city council, who all voted for this bill, are out of touch with the real needs of DC youth and families. [More]