Free Republic

The public schools in Washington, D.C., spent $29,349 per pupil in the 2010-2011 school year, according to the latest data from National Center for Education Statistics, but in 2013 fully 83 percent of the eighth graders in these schools were not "proficient" in reading and 81 percent were not "proficient" in math. These are the government schools in our nation's capital city -- where for decades politicians of both parties have obstreperously pushed for more federal involvement in education and more federal spending on education. Government has manifestly failed the families who must send their children to these schools, and...

In the Gilded Age, wrenching economic and technological change hardened life for the vast majority of Americans while an elite few prospered. Innovators like John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie and Cornelius Vanderbilt disrupted old industries, creating news ones, and cemented their fortunes via government-approved monopolies. The most pernicious of these were railroad trusts. In our times, wrenching economic and technological change hardens life for the vast majority of Americans while an elite few prosper. Innovators like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg disrupt old industries, create news ones and ….

Claiming that the District of Columbia's ObamaCare exchange is just too darn small in size to pay for itself, Mayor Vince Gray (D) is proposing the city council "approve legislation granting the District's exchange board broad new power to tax any health-related insurance product sold in the city -- regardless of whether it's offered on the exchange," Washington Post staffer Aaron Davis reported this morning.

A new federal scientific report says global warming is rapidly turning America the beautiful into America the stormy, sneezy and dangerous. And those shining seas? Rising and costly.

Thomas Sowell California --(Ammoland.com)- Dunbar High School in Washington is becoming a controversial issue again — and the controversy that is beginning to develop has implications for American education well beyond the District of Columbia.There has not been much controversy about Dunbar High School for a long time. Since sometime in the late 1950s, it has been just one more ghetto school with an abysmal academic record – and that has been too common to be controversial.What is different about the history of Dunbar is that, from its founding in 1870 as the first public high school in the country...

After NBA Commissioner Adam Silver banned Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling for life on Tuesday, the Oneida Nation promptly urged NFL owners to take disciplinary action against the Washington Redskins for promoting "bigotry."

A hot-button issue among educators appears to be “equitable access” to effective teachers, a buzzword at a recent event at the Center for American Progress (CAP). There was a brief introductory presentation of CAP’s research, in conjunction with the American Institutes of Research (AIR), on how to broaden minority student access to effective and high-quality teachers. AIR’s director of the Center on Great Teachers and Leaders, Angela Minnici, called for more data collection and plans on the state and district level. She pointed out that “Data is very important in this conversation” and said that “we’ve been talking about this...

Muriel Bowser won the District of Columbia’s Democratic mayoral primary Tuesday, defeating incumbent Vincent Gray in a race defined by a scandal involving Gray’s campaign four years ago. Bowser tapped into an electorate that tired of the allegations surrounding Gray. Five people who worked on the mayor’s 2010 campaign have pleaded guilty to felonies, and Bowser said the city needed a fresh start as the mayor faced potential criminal charges. Bowser, 41, is a D.C. councilmember and a protégé of former Mayor Adrian Fenty, whom Gray defeated in 2010. …

My recent post (my other car is a cdr) brought forth the best of the high-functioning geeks that inhabit this here space. Since the thread veered off (as they always tend to do) into general computer language humor, mostly dealing with Lisp, I got to thinking about RPN (Reverse Polish Notation) and the Hewlett-Packard calculators that were popular in my post-college days working in IT around 1971 or so.Are there other FReepers that still like RPN over infix notation for math? My trusty old H-P has long since departed (wish I still had it) but I've found RpCalc to be...

I want to spend some time talking about . . . a dangerous and growing inequality and lack of upward mobility that has jeopardized middle-class America’s basic bargain that if you work hard, you have a chance to get ahead. I believe this is the defining challenge of our time: making sure our economy works for every working American. That’s why I ran for president. It was the center of last year’s campaign. It drives everything I do in this office. – President Barack Obama, 12/04/13 President Obama has been consistently militant in pursuing a progressive domestic agenda during his...

For a few giddy moments, it seems I've dodged the torture awaiting commuters into Washington, D.C., most any weekday morning. As I merge onto Interstate 95 in Fredericksburg, Virginia, 50 miles from the Pentagon, the traffic around me glides along at the 65-mph speed limit. No brake lights illuminate the predawn dark. I set my cruise control. Perhaps, I dare to think, this won't be so bad. ......................................................... The route remains a quagmire, just the same. So now the state is embarking on another fix. With financing from private investors, Virginia is converting the HOV lanes south of Washington to...

Great news: Cardinal Donald Wuerl, archbishop of Washington, addressed those gathered at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception for the Rite of Election and Call to Continuing Conversion today that they came together to bear witness to “the desire of so many here to complete their journey that brings them into the Church, and by doing so to publically embrace the cross as the pathway not only to eternal life but to a richer and fuller experience of life now.”This Easter, 1,306 adults, teens and children will be baptized or confirmed as Catholics in the Archdiocese...

"9/11 plotter released in Syria prisoner exchange" SNIPPET: "The al-Qaeda recruiter reputed to have assembled the so-called Hamburg Cell, which planned and largely carried out the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, has been set free in a prisoner exchange between rebel and regime forces in Syria. Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham has secured the release of 9/11 plotter and alleged al-Qaeda core member Mohammed Haydar Zammar, adding to concerns about the composition of the Islamic Front. A naturalized German citizen of Syrian origin, Mohammed Haydar Zammar left Germany shortly after the attacks and traveled to Morocco, where he was reportedly...

Consuming marijuana in a private home will no longer be a criminal offense in the nation’s capital under a measure that passed the D.C. Council on Tuesday and that instantly escalated a simmering national debate over loosening marijuana laws. Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) intends to sign the measure, a spokesman said, putting District drug law in conflict with federal law. The signed measure will go to Congress, which has veto authority over D.C. laws but has organized to override only three times since 1979. National advocates for marijuana legalization celebrated the 10 to 1 vote by the D.C. Council,...

Washington, D.C. may have the highest number of certified green buildings in the country, but research by Environmental Policy Alliance suggests it might not be doing much good.The free-market group analyzed the first round of energy usage data released by city officials Friday and found that large, privately-owned buildings that received the green energy certification Leadership in Energy Design (LEED) actually use more energy than buildings that didn’t receive this green stamp of approval.LEED is the brainchild of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), a private environmental group.

Christian Scientists have won their long, twilight struggle against brutalism -- so says a wrecking ball at the corner of 16th and I streets in Washington, D.C. For what seemed like an eternity, members of the Third Church of Christ, Scientist fought with architecture historians and city bureaucrats over the right to tear down their own church. Churchgoers never liked their 1971 classic brutalist structure -- an architectural style that is well, brutal -- and have even suggested it has something to do with their dwindling numbers.

Warning: This article contains numerous spoilers. While it’s by no means family friendly programming, the second season of “House of Cards,” the Kevin Spacey-starring Netflix original, is a stunningly right wing piece of entertainment. Part of this may be accidental. Shows with a cynical bent, like Tina Fey’s “30 Rock,” have sounded conservative at times. Still, House of Cards’ jaundiced take on Washington is unique in the special scorn it displays for Beltway Democrats.

Feeling chipper about the economy? Think the future looks so bright, you gotta wear shades? Chances are, you’re either stuck in a 1980s time warp or … you live in Washington, DC. Gallup published its polling on economic confidence by state, and the only “state” to have a positive rating is the one where all the cash is going. Instapundit refers to this as a “Hunger Games update,” and it’s difficult to dispute that characterization: Although scores on Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index improved in most U.S. states in 2013, the index remained negative in all 50. Only the District of...

Gallup’s latest economic findings are seemingly straight out of the dystopian novel “The Hunger Games.” That is to say, every state in the nation boasted a negative economic index score; only the District of Columbia -- the capital city -- is seemingly prospering. Surprise: The pollsters posit some interesting takeaways for us to consider: (1) the disparity between the most economically confident state (Massachusetts) and the least economically confident state (West Virginia) is 43 percentage points. (This excludes the District of Columbia, of course, which is not a state).That’s an enormous gap, and one that doesn’t appear to be shrinking,...

WILC Drops Spanish Tunes For English Talk - 2/3 - Last week, DCRTV tipped you about a format change today at WILC. Now, Tom Taylor Now has more about AM 900 dropping Spanish adult contemporary "Romantica 900" for talk. ZGS Communications owns the Laurel, Maryland-licensed WILC, but DCRTV says "Wallis Communications will be running'" the new talk format that includes Glenn Beck from Premiere, live from 9 AM to noon. He's followed by "Dr. K," Ken Constantine's "Capitol Hill Show" in afternoon drive, and WestwoodOne's Dennis Miller. No morning show yet. The site says you can expect "some old Wolfman...