The Georgetown Dish reports that a graphic test about sex was administered to 7th grade youth at Hardy Middle School. As I have recently reported, Michelle Rhee kicked out the popular ULTRA Teen Choice abstinence centered HIV and pregnancy prevention program, which was being provided at no charge to several DC public schools. Instead, she has now paid Metro Teen Aids at least $95,000 to bring in graphic programs that do not promote abstinence but rather promote accepting all kinds of sexual behavior (gay, straight, transgender, etc) and using condoms. Unfortunately, programs like this do not increase the rate of consistent condom use, and they undermine the values that the great majority of parents want to communicate to their children: The Georgetown dish article says: [More]

Tuesday’s murder of Jamal Coates and the spate of murders and gun crimes over the last six months draws attention to the need to make illegal gun possession by a felon a crime that will bring a mandatory sentence. The Virginia Exile program provides a good model for DC to follow.

The Virginia program imposes the following penalties (from http://www.suffolk.va.us/cwatty/vaxylp.html)

Just like our slogan states, "It's Simple�You Do the Math!" Under Exile legislation, anyone faces a mandatory minimum sentence of five (5) years in a Virginia prison who: [More]

While there are no simple solutions to stop violence, such as the multiple murders that were committed in southwest Washington last Tuesday, we can take concrete steps to create an environment that will make it less likely to happen. One important factor is to find out why youth in the juvenile detention system that have repeated offenses are not properly detained to prevent recurrences of violent behavior. [More]

Many DC home owners have seen property taxes increased as much as 220% (more than doubled) between the Sept 2009 bill and the March 2010 bill. This is due to the Fiscal Year 2010 budget Support Emergancy Act of 2009 (Bill # B18-0409; change to section 47-864), which all Council members voted for on 7/31/2009. ... [More]