DCentric

Good morning, DCentric readers! Enjoy some breakfast links:

Outrage Over Safety Issues at Hardy Middle School “The school’s popular principal, Patrick Pope, was replaced by former Chancellor Michelle Rhee. Parents say the school has never recovered and say three assistant principals and a new principal that juggles between two schools hasn’t worked. “Students are all in the hall, they’re not in class, they’re late. There are four administrators here,” said Gails Johnson. “At what point do you say, ‘It’s not working.’…The meeting was very contentious and principal Dana Nerenberg, at times, looked close to tears and had few answers.” (myfoxdc.com)

Local Haitian Priest Survived Quake A Year Ago “Father Aesene Jasmin, a Catholic priest in D.C., was in Haiti a year ago when the devastating earthquake struck killing at least 230,000 people and leaving at least a million survivors homeless, many of them now amputees. Father Jasim was visiting his native land and standing in a home just outside the capitol city of Port-au-Prince when the quake hit. A room in front of the priest and the kitchen behind him and others collapsed; but the group was left standing, uninjured and able to race out of the ruins screaming “Jesus help us,” said Father Jasmin.” (WUSA Washington, DC)

D.C. charter school laws earn ‘A’ “The new study reviewed 40 states and the District of Columbia on their charter-school laws, and graded them on the number of authorizers, schools allowed, fiscal equity and operations, including autonomy, teacher freedom and union influence. D.C. charter laws ranked No. 1 on all criteria, with two other jurisdictions — second-place Minnesota and third-place California — also earning an A. Minnesota was the first state to establish charter schools, doing so in 1991.” (Washington Times)

Closing The Achievement Gap With Baby Talk “But in the end, the finding that most struck people, Hart says, was not about the quality of the speech — how often rich versus poor parents asked questions or positively affirmed their children — but about the quantity. According to their research, the average child in a welfare home heard about 600 words an hour while a child in a professional home heard 2,100. “Children in professional families are talked to three times as much as the average child in a welfare family,” Hart says…It was no wonder that the underprivileged children they saw at their preschool could not catch up and often lagged behind once they went to school.” (NPR)

What a Georgia Avenue Walmart Would Look Like “Its main competitive advantage is cost, so income levels in the surrounding level aren’t as important. Transit is also not as much of a factor, since it doesn’t depend on foot traffic and customers tend to buy in bulk, which is difficult to handle on the metro…It’s possible that Walmart might consider downtown to be a desirable location for one of its “urban format” stores, but then they run into the problem of higher-income, better-educated residents who aren’t typically their target demographic. For all those reasons, upper Georgia Avenue is a perfect place for a Walmart, as far as Walmart is concerned.” (Washington City Paper)

Gohmert drafts bill to allow guns on House floor “It’d be a good thing for members of Congress who want to carry a weapon in the District,” he said. “I know friends that walk home from the Capitol. There’s no security for us,” he said, adding that the measure would deter people from attacking members. “There is some protection in having protection.” He said there were times during the health care debate last year that he felt afraid, including when a stranger approached him on the street and started screaming at him.” (politico.com)