DCentric

Good morning, DCentric readers! Hooray for Friday! Let’s celebrate with some links:

The District’s civil rights problem Mike DeBonis calls Randall Terry, the infamous antiabortion crusader, to ask if the recent arrests of city leaders including our Mayor could inspire a legitimate movement? Short answer: no. Terry says that D.C. needs incendiary images, gripping rhetoric and martyrs, whether alive or dead. We have the the rhetoric. That’s it. And that is why: “While city leaders have treated District autonomy and voting rights as a moral struggle on par with the movements for civil rights, women’s suffrage or abolition, it has been difficult for the average American to relate to the city’s sacrifices.” (The Washington Post)

Report: Domestic problems, safety concerns lead to truancy “The closing of some area schools has led to longer, more complicated commutes for the 20,000 who use Metro to get to school…Students now cross paths with rivals, leading to theft, violence and hostility, so they often choose to skip school rather than deal with the unsafe daily transit. Schools have staggered their start and end times to combat the problem, but students continue to have problems in commuting safely, if they are able to afford to the commute at all.” (Washington Examiner )

Throwing D.C. Under the Bus D.C. is a guinea pig, it’s the only city where private school is paid for by Congress: “This “market” approach to education has rendered it nearly impossible for a critical mass of motivated parents to focus their efforts around improving a single system. To wit: My oldest child entered kindergarten six years ago. In that time, our local neighborhood school has closed or been moved three times. We have not moved; we have watched the District’s public school system being yanked out from beneath us…Most infuriating as a parent: These are policies, paid for with our tax dollars, over which we have no control or influence.” (The Root)

Questions About Graduation Rate at Anacostia Senior High School “First Lady Michelle Obama was the keynote speaker at last year’s Anacostia Senior High School graduation. She congratulated the students after learning that 90 percent of them were headed to college…Documents obtained by FOX 5 show that a month away from the June 2010 graduation, only 22 seniors were ready and another 100 could potentially graduate but would have to make up work.” (myfoxdc.com)

Wheelchair-bound Funeral mourner stabbed at Southeast church The victim’s wounds are so severe that homicide investigators are in charge of the case, even though he is still alive: “A man in a wheelchair was seriously wounded Thursday in a stabbing outside a Southeast Washington church shortly after the funeral of a homicide victim, police said…Authorities have long said that most slayings in the city are retaliatory killings. It is not unusual for lethal violence to erupt outside churches before, during or after victims’ funerals.” (The Washington Post)