Posts by Ken Archer

Politicians often release estimates of jobs they created, and perhaps cynicism around such estimates explains the lack of credit given to One City One Hire for the hiring of 1,400 jobless residents.

The difference here is that the leader of One City One Hire, Director of Employment Services Lisa Mallory, actually knows who these 1,400 people are. She knows who they are because her staff personally introduced them to their current employers.

Understanding One City One Hire requires understanding that one of the biggest barriers to employment in DC has nothing to do with skills, criminal records or addiction issues. A major barrier to employment is the lack of trust by local employers in jobless residents, particularly those east of the Anacostia River.

While this barrier is not often mentioned by the local media, any job training provider can attest to its reality, and the discouraging effect it has on District residents who are otherwise job-ready.

Chris Hart-Wright, Executive Director of Strive DC which works with chronically unemployed District residents, says she spends much of her time seeking to build trust on the part of local employers in her clients. She says that all training providers are doing the same thing, and that they need the city to use its influence to play this role so they can focus on training and case management.

That's what One City One Hire is all about. Run by the Business Services Group within the Department of Employment Services (DOES), One City One Hire asks local employers if they will consider a small number of resumes pre-screened by DOES for their open positions.

Director Mallory has transferred DOES employees into the operation of working with employers to understand the requirements of particular positions and evaluating thousands of resumes of jobless DC residents to fill those positions.

Now, overcoming the trust gap between local employers and jobless DC residents is only one of several difficult steps that need to be taken to address chronic unemployment. But the success of Gray and Mallory in conquering this first barrier raises hopes that they will live up to their promises on other barriers to employment.

First, Mallory has committed to transforming the One-Stop Centers that are responsible for empowering jobless residents with access to training, transportation and child care benefits, and other resources needed to get a job. This is no small task, as these centers have historically been more like DMV centers in the 1990s.

It will require strong leadership in each One-Stop, implementation of a uniform assessment process so that employees are trained in uncovering and addressing barriers to employment, and tight coordination with agencies like DHS that can address barriers like transportation and child care.

If this transformation doesn't occur, then the body that oversees One-Stop funding, the Workforce Investment Council, could conceivably pull all funding from DOES and contract with a private agency to run One-Stops.

Second, Mallory has committed to providing data on jobless residents who enter One-Stop Centers that would provide the first ever profile of DC's jobless and their barriers to employment. Finally, Mallory has committed to holding training providers accountable to metrics of job placement.

These are significant challenges, but the success of Mallory and Gray in addressing the challenge of trust in jobless DC residents should give us cautious optimism they can be met.

Tackling chronic unemployment is not optional. It is essential to improving education outcomes of the 30% of District children living in poverty. It is essential to limiting gentrification and ensuring all residents benefit from the District's resurgence in recent years.

Gray deserves credit for his accomplishments thus far and greater interest in his vision for finishing the job on unemployment.

It doesn't take long to figure out that a key reason why parts of DC face high unemployment is due to lack of preparedness for DC-area jobs, not a lack of jobs. Dozens of job training providers have cropped up to address this need, and dozens of programs across 13 city agencies have been formed to help finance those training providers.

With so many chefs in the kitchen of workforce development, there is little coordination, oversight, or accountability. The DC Fiscal Policy Institute this week released a groundbreaking "resource map" that identifies all of these sources of workforce development funding across the city government, and the various non-profit training providers that receive this financing.

Councilmember Michael Brown, chair of the Workforce Development Committee of the DC Council, says that his committee staff only knew where 30% of DC job training dollars went when he took over the committee. After the past year, they know where 60% of the money goes.

The Workforce Intermediary position is intended to coordinate these training providers and funding streams with the needs of local businesses to optimize our workforce development investments. However, it's not hard to imagine this position becoming yet another layer of bureaucracy.

That's why the DC Council first charged a Workforce Intermediary Task Force to design the position. The report of the task force is due on January 15th.

If the Workforce Intermediary is to be a true change agent, reversing decades of deepening poverty in parts of our nation's capital, it is essential that measurable performance metrics be tied to the program, and to the agencies that support the Intermediary.

Three elements are critical to the creation of a successful Workforce Intermediary that is able to turn the corner on joblessness in DC.

1. Workforce Intermediary performance metrics

The Workforce Intermediary should be held accountable for the percentage of DC jobs that go to DC residents and for DC's unemployment rate. When employers are cutting jobs, more focus would be placed on the former metric, When employers are adding jobs, more focus would be placed on the latter metric.

The Workforce Intermediary will become a waste of money if it is simply a resource to job training providers and city agencies financing training providers to advise them on hiring needs of local employers.

If the Workforce Intermediary is held accountable for these metrics, then we would expect that he or she will contact local employers with prescreened resumes of DC residents for open positions. Currently, dozens of job training providers across DC have to form redundant relationships with employers, and this "hiring manager" role of the Workforce Intermediary would free training providers to train.

Not surprisingly, the Mayor, who is also held accountable for these metrics by voters at election time, is currently playing this "hiring manager" role in his One City One Hire campaign. If the Mayor is held accountable for these metrics, it makes sense that he would delegate to someone to improve them.

2. Job training provider performance metrics

Job training providers currently get access to DC government funding by getting on one of several lists of authorized training providers. No data on training outcomes is required to get on these lists or receive DC taxpayer money. This has to change, and Councilmember Michael Brown has said that it will change.

If job training providers had to demonstrate a placement rate for their clients, within 6 months and 2 years after training, they would be incentivized to work closely with the Workforce Intermediary who provides qualified resumes to local employers. After all, the Intermediary, as hiring manager for DC's unemployed trying to reduce the jobless rate, would be their lifeline to continued financing from the city.

If the Intermediary doesn't provide many resumes from their clients to employers, a natural conversation will ensue about the needs of local employers that the Intermediary doesn't believe are being met by the training provider.

3. One-Stop Center performance metrics

When DC residents want a job, they are supposed to go to a One-Stop Center. These centers, called DC Works! in the District, are federally mandated for states that receive federal workforce development dollars.

Sadly, the One-Stop Centers in DC are more like First Stop Centers, as they historically send jobless applicants to other offices depending on their needs. Or they send applicants to a computer to look at training providers on the Internet.

The current director of the DC One-Stop Centers, Hugh Bailey, acknowledges the reputation they have received and has pledged to turn them around in coming months. However, when asked what metrics the One-Stop Centers should be held accountable for, Bailey was hesitant to suggest any.

Each One-Stop Center should be held accountable to the same performance metrics as job training providers - placement rate of clients within both 6 months and 2 years of entering the One-Stop Center.

One-Stop Centers would aggressively case manage clients to improve their placement rates, and only send them to training providers with high placement rates. One-Stop Centers would naturally collaborate with the Intermediary to learn how to get more resumes of their clients placed in front of local employers.

These metrics will create a virtuous circle of coordination between the Intermediary, training providers and One-Stop Centers that will actually reduce unemployment and ensure the Intermediary places a useful, and not bureaucratic, role in workforce development.

Every mayor in DC history is known primarily for some singular goal—whether it was helping blacks enter the middle-class, improving our fiscal management, or reforming education. Mayor Gray clearly wants reducing unemployment to be his singular achievement. He can leave his mark on the city with a bold stroke of accountability as described above. Let's hope that he finds the political will to pull it off.

The confusion continued this month when Councilmember Alexander unexpectedly submitted legislation extending the school day. Alexander refiled a 2-page bill that Councilmember Cheh had submitted last year, even though she has not discussed extended school days with DCPS, with the teachers' union or with Councilmember Cheh.

The innovation that is perhaps most common in successful charter schools, according to a new research study, is an extended school day. On a comprehensive ranking of public charter schools by educational outcomes released by the DC Charter School Board, all of the top performing charter middle schools have school days longer than the 6.5 hour DCPS school day.

Charter school	Overall %	Ward	Grade level	School day length
DC Prep-Edgewood Campus	92.3%	5	4-8	8-9 hours
KIPP DC: KEY Academy	86.4%	7	4-8	7 hrs, 30 min 9 hrs
KIPP DC: WILL Academy	85.5%	2	5-8	7 hrs, 30 min 9 hrs
KIPP DC: AIM Academy	85.2%	8	5-8	7 hrs, 30 min 9 hrs
Achievement Prep	81.5%	8	4-8	8 hrs, 30 min

These schools consistently point to their extended school day as critical to their higher student outcomes. Achievement Prep explains the importance of extended school days:

Our school day is 2 hours longer than the traditional DC public school, while our school year is 15 days longer. This extended instructional time provides an opportunity for intensive focus around literacy and mathematics and additional opportunities for providing students with academic support.

DC Prep, the highest ranking charter middle school, lists "More time on task" first in the list of initiatives that distinguish their school. According to their web site, "DC Prep students spend approximately 25% more time in school than other DC public school students."

The DCPS school day is not only shorter than those of most successful charter middle schools. It is also shorter than those of every neighboring suburban school system, which consistently deliver higher test scores than DC public schools.

DC parents are right to expect that, given this evidence, someone would study this phenomenon and apply lessons learned to DCPS. Sadly, that appears to not be happening.

DCPS spokesperson Fred Lewis agrees that an "extended school day and extended school year can make a huge difference for children, especially those who are underperforming." Nonetheless, he doesn't see DCPS moving forward with this idea soon for the following reasons:

Before we move forward aggressively we're going to have to examine the implications, the financial implications associated with an extended school day, school year, and figure out with our union partners how we'd have to modify the contract in order to make that work....

In considering an extension of the school day and school year, several factors come into play, such as the overall cost of the proposal (utilities, salaries etc.) and scheduling (transportation for special education students and athletics, for example), as well as student safety (leaving later from school). Legislation would be required as would negotiation with the teachers union.

While the considerations raised by DCPS certainly need to be examined, the reality is that DCPS has not seriously begun examining any of them. Washington Teachers Union president Nathan Saunders says he has not been contacted by DCPS to discuss extended school days. Neither has DC Councilmember Mary Cheh, who proposed legislation a year ago extending the school day by 30 minutes to 7 hours.

The logistical and financial implications of extending the school day could be significantly curtailed with a pilot at a few schools. Last month, that's what Chicago announced it is doing with an extended school day pilot at 13 schools. When asked if Chancellor Kaya Henderson is considering extending the school day on a trial basis with a couple schools just like Chicago, DCPS Spokesperson Lewis had no comment.

Furthermore, Lewis' claim that "legislation would be required" is contested by the DC Council. David Zvenyach, General Counsel to the DC Council, says that the DC Code establishes the minimum school day, but not the maximum school day. When informed of this, Lewis defended the DCPS position that the State Board of Education "establishes through regulation the length of school day" with reference to §38-202 of the DC Code. Zvenyach contends that this section of the Code says no such thing.

What is most troubling about this confusion is that DCPS and the DC Council are not talking to resolve this issue, even though the DC Council has twice proposed legislation to extend the school day. Last year, Councilmember Cheh proposed legislation in order to start a conversation on extending the school day.

That conversation still seems to have not taken place. Earlier this month, Councilmember Alexander resubmitted Cheh's legislation, changing only the duration of the extension from 30 minutes to 60 minutes. Saunders says Alexander has not discussed her legislation with him, and Cheh spokesperson Kiara Pesante says Alexander has not discussed it with Cheh.

WTU President Saunders says he recognizes the evidence and agrees that DCPS should learn from successful charter schools. However, he contends that the fundamental lesson learned is not that the school day should be longer, but that there should be more instructional time or, using the same terminology as DC Prep, "more time on task."

Saunders points to sources of waste in a teachers' day that take teachers off of their primary task of instruction, and claims that DCPS can significantly increase time on task for significantly less money by eliminating these distractions. Chief amongst these, according to Saunders, are time spent doing data entry and time spent on disciplinary matters with students that administrators return to their classrooms over teachers' objections.

These seem like legitimate points for discussion, but that discussion isn't happening. As a result, Saunders called Alexander's legislation "the worst piece of legislation submitted by the Council all year." He contends that Alexander only offered her legislation "because she is running for reelection."

It's time for someone to show leadership in increasing the time on task of DCPS teachers. It's difficult to see why, for example, the new standalone middle school promised to Ward 5 parents can't incorporate the lessons learned from charter schools' extended school days. Sadly, little action is likely any time soon as long as DC officials continue to stall.

Update: KIPP DC has informed me that their school day is actually 9 hours, not 7.5 as originally reported. This has been corrected.

DCPS spokesperson Fred Lewis did not respond to multiple requests last week for information on a city-wide planning process for middle schools. The only existing middle school plan for the District is the Ward 5 Great Schools plan, which is defined by a political boundary and is not city-wide.

Former Chancellor Michelle Rhee reassigned Pope from principal of the successful Hardy Middle School in May 2010 despite the objections of parents, teachers and students. Rhee tasked Pope with creating the arts-focused magnet middle school that was to open in Fall 2011.

Pope is now principal of Savoy Elementary in southeast DC.

A blue ribbon advisory panel was created to guide the planning of the new school. Design and funding concerns delayed the new school's opening from 2011 to 2012, according to an October 2010 email from DCPS, but no more updates had been provided to parents.

When asked last week about the status of the new arts magnet middle school, DCPS Spokesperson Lewis had this to say:

We stopped the planning process for a proposed arts magnet middle school last school year with the appointment of Patrick Pope as principal of Savoy Elementary. This school year, faced with major questions to resolve around school closures and a city-wide demand for a comprehensive middle school plan, we are rethinking all of our options.

Lewis did not address follow-up questions about the status of any city-wide comprehensive middle school plan.

While District parents often feel comfortable sending their children to their neighborhood elementary school, they usually find their local middle school to be unacceptable. As a result, there is heavy competition amongst out-of-boundary families for lottery slots to two successful middle schools, Deal and Hardy.

Deal Middle School, in Tenleytown, has 83-89% reading and math proficiency scores, and is in high demand with 61% of its spots filled by in-boundary students. Hardy Middle School, just north of Georgetown, is an arts-focused middle school with 66-75% proficiency scores and only 13% in-boundary enrollment.

Most other public middle schools have proficiency scores below 50% and aging buildings. Deal and Hardy were each modernized in the past 5 years.

The lack of middle school options forces many parents to move to suburbs in Fairfax, Montgomery, Arlington and Prince George's Counties. Others who don't move often take their chances with the out-of-boundary lotteries for Deal and Hardy, or apply to charter middle schools such as Washington Latin.

When the district reassigned Pope from Hardy, out-of-boundary parents worried this move would reduce middle school options. Some think his removal was meant to bring in a principal who would better recruit in-boundary students into Hardy, thus further reducing middle school options for families out of the Hardy boundary of Palisades and Georgetown.

Rhee promised these parents that their options would in fact increase with the creation of a new arts magnet middle school led by Pope. The cancellation of this school, as a result, is particularly hard for parents to accept.

DCPS cites the need for a city-wide comprehensive middle school plan, and yet the only one that exists is the Ward 5 plan. After several months of meetings with Ward 5 parents, DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson announced last month a plan for 3 new middle schools in Ward 5.

However, Ward 5 is a political boundary that has no relation to school boundaries. Just as half of Ward 3 children feed into Ward 2's Hardy Middle School, and half of Ward 2 children feed into Shaw @ Garnet Patterson Middle School in Ward 1, so Ward 5 children feed into districts in neighboring wards and vice versa. The only reason to plan middle schools by ward is if a Councilmember demanded such a plan.

DCPS is correct that a city-wide, comprehensive middle school plan is what is needed. Parents were led to believe that such a plan existed and was the basis for tapping Pope to lead a new arts magnet middle school.

If a city-wide middle school plan is being created, DCPS should be more transparent about it as it has been with its Ward 5 school planning. If such a plan is not in the works, then it should become a top priority for DCPS. A comprehensive, city-wide middle school plan is the most effective way to retain District families who will otherwise move to the suburbs.

Who are the unemployed?

Tackling crisis-level unemployment is one of Mayor Gray's top priorities. Yet the DC government appears to have no profile of the unemployed in DC and their barriers to employment.

Even the number of unemployed by ward that DC provides each month is deeply flawed. Each month, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics samples DC residents and reports unemployment for DC. The DC Office of Labor Market Research then allocates that number to each ward based on out-of-date ratios from the last census. Ben Orr of Brookings has shown that the resulting numbers of jobless by ward are sometimes wildly inaccurate.

The government also has no data on the reasons why the jobless don't have a job. This lack of data creates a vacuum that is then filled with assumptions and stereotypes about the obstacles faced by jobless residents.

Advocates for cutting off Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) benefits after 5 years, as the corresponding federal program does, say that dependency on TANF is the cause of unemployment. Those who support tax incentives for developers say that lack of jobs is to blame. Smart growth advocates point to lack of affordable transit access to most jobs. Training providers say that the problem is a mismatch between workers' skills and available jobs.

Who is right? What policies should we invest in to address unemployment? We don't know because we lack basic data about the unemployed.

Investment in a survey of unemployed DC residents by a research company on an annual basis would cost a fraction of what these policies cost, and would help ensure we are actually targeting the true causes of unemployment.

Who are the training providers and are they effective?

The District has no data on the effectiveness of training providers across the city. In fact, the director of one training provider recently told me that the Department of Employment Services (DOES) actually has no comprehensive list of training providers at all.

The training providers, known as Workforce Development Organizations, provide a range of services from soft skills training and hard skills training to case management of jobless clients. What percentage of their clients get a job? More importantly, what percentage of their clients are still employed a year or two later? No one knows.

The DC Department of Employment Services (DOES) should require such reporting by recipients of government funding. This data could presumably be verified using payroll tax data.

Of course, no one knows the extent to which we should even invest in job training because we have no definitive profile of the obstacles to employment faced by jobless residents.

What development projects have received incentives, and have they been worth it?

The CFO's office does not track economic impact of development projects that receive incentives. In fact, there appears to be no comprehensive list in existence of companies that have received tax incentives for development projects over the past 5-10 years.

The District has provided billions of dollars in tax abatements and TIF financing to developers over the past decade. The rationale of proponents is that these investments bring a return to the District in the form of corporate property taxes, sales taxes and jobs for DC residents. If proponents of what some call corporate welfare are so sure that these returns are real, then why not track and report them to bolster their case?

All this data should exist in the Office of Tax and Revenue's (OTR) integrated tax system. OTR says that sales taxes cannot be tracked by address when retailers have multiple DC locations. However, recipients of incentives could simply be required to report such data by address as a condition of receiving incentives.

Hotels under construction currently in the District are receiving over $500 million of tax incentives in total. While some are questioning whether we will really see that money in higher tax revenues, the reality is we will never know.

It's difficult to solve problems when you don't know their causes or whether previous attempted solutions worked. When such information is lacking, then dogma and stereotyping supplants reasonable, data-driven policy discussions.

It was clear to us early that Greig (pronounced "Greg") could win. The demographic shift in Ward 2 since 2000 has been tremendous, and Evans has not really tried to connect with the new young residents to understand their concerns. Neither did Evans' last opponent, Cary Silverman. Evans beat Cary Silverman in 2008 and a ragtag collection of opponents in 2000 by only 1,500 out of a total of 5,000 votes.

The response of voters to Greig's door-to-door canvassing was overwhelmingly positive. Greig's message of retaining young families by improving school options, parks and transit while applying her consulting expertise to re-engineer DC agencies instantly resonated with these voters on doorsteps across the ward.

While he's raised way more so far ($233,000) than he had at the same point in the 2008 campaign ($160,824), he's raised much less from Ward 2 individuals so far ($36,200) than he had at the same point in the 2008 campaign ($55,931). Where's the money coming from then? For starters, one developer in Maryland gave Evans $6,000 ($500 from each of his separately incorporated properties) while Clyde's Restaurant gave him $3,500 ($500 from each separately incorporated restaurant location).

While Greig was going door-to-door connecting with voters, Evans pursued a very different campaign strategy. He hired a private investigator.

We found this out when Greig received a phone call from a journalist asking about a list of 40 fundraising targets inadvertently included in the first filing of her exploratory committee by a volunteer. Greig explained the context and the journalist decided the story wasn't newsworthy. We called the Office of Campaign Finance, who told us that a private investigator had requested the file.

The next day another journalist contacted us about the embarrassing file, Greig explained the context, and the journalist didn't run the story. It was clear that Jack Evans' full-time campaign staff was shopping the file they had received from their private investigator to different journalists.

Meanwhile, Greig received a call at her home by someone she met at a campaign event telling her that Evans' staff knows about her husband's divorce, and the problematic timing of his divorce vis-a-vis their wedding in November of last year. Obviously few people knew such personal details of her family's life.

Finally, Evans' staff found a journalist to run the story and release the file of fundraising targets. Particularly embarrassing in the file was the volunteer's note that one of the targets was a gay colleague of Greig's at McKinsey.

No mention was made about Greig's testimony earlier in the week to the DC Council on the alarming rise in hate crimes in the District. In fact, few journalists covered the hate crimes hearing at all. The minutiae of campaign missteps was more important than the rash of violence this summer against members of the transgender community.

Last week, I walked to Greig's house during all this drama, talking on my cell about the campaign to a colleague while I walked, and noticed a man walking close behind me smoking a cigar. When I stopped in front of Greig's house, he stopped. He then kept walking and then turned around to pace up and down her block about a dozen times. Greig's husband arrived later pushing Ella in a stroller, talking to friend on the phone. We told him about the investigator pacing the block and he came inside.

And that's just the intimidation from Evans' private investigator. Chair Anita Bonds of the DC Democratic Party, for example, refused to return our repeated phone calls and emails requesting to purchase enhanced voter data that the party resells to candidates. At the end of all of this, Greig considered her wonderful husband of one year, her beautiful new daughter, and decided that it wasn't worth it. I can't say I blame her.

Should she have expected these hardball tactics? Probably. But ask yourself this. How many other talented young individuals in DC have made the same decision to avoid politics? DC residents complain all the time about our councilmembers. But we can't complain about our representatives while defending the process that keeps better people from running.

It's a shame that Ward 2 voters now have no choice when it comes to their councilmember. I'm not discouraged, though. Every day it seems more and more District residents are fed up with politics as usual. I'm hoping to hear from others in Ward 2 who want a more inclusive government, and are more interested in digging through budgets than through an insurgent candidate's trash.

The District owns three Skoda-Inekon 12-Trio streetcars, currently parked at Metro's Greenbelt yard. They were built by a joint venture between Skoda and Inekon, another Czech streetcar manufacturer. The joint venture dissolved around the time DC's streetcars were being constructed, and the 15T is the latest model introduced by Skoda while Inekon has not produced any subsequent models. Riga, Latvia has also purchased the Skoda 15T streetcars.

Any vehicle powered by an on-board internal combustion engine generates more noise than one powered by electricity, be it from a battery or from an overhead or underground wire. Modern streetcars are even quieter than the trolleys that were commonplace in the early and mid 20th century.

Buses are the source of DC residents' particularly frequent traffic noise complaints. As streetcars being operation in DC and replacing buses on the busiest routes, the benefit to the quality of our daily lives and the enjoyability of our urban spaces will be significant. Newer streetcar models will further boost the mode's advantage.

Now if only there were a way to push emergency vehicles speedily through traffic without sirens...

This job migration is almost certain to continue given Georgetown neighbors' recent success in blocking GU's plans to expand the main campus. Mayor Vincent Gray seems very aware of the problem this creates for the District, given that the Education and Health Care job sector is the District's, and the nation's, fastest-growing.

That's why he voiced concerns at a Jobs Summit about the limitations sometimes placed on employees and students to address town-gown conflicts. "I need to understand more about what these [university] jobs would be and reasons for those caps," Gray said. "Historically, there have been tensions between the universities and the neighborhoods in which they reside."

Some growth advocates criticize neighbors for opposing growth on campus without equivalent on-campus housing, and will undoubtedly do so in the comments to this article. The reality is that town-gown disputes are not new and are not going away, so we must learn how to address the concerns of neighbors without losing education jobs. Mayor Gray and other city leaders can and must do just that.

Earlier this year, in response to community opposition to its Campus Plan, GU committed to relocate "1,000 School of Continuing Students students to an off-campus location by Dec. 31, 2013." While one would assume that those SCS students will also go to the Clarendon campus, GU says it is "exploring potential transit-oriented locations elsewhere in the District." What can the District do to compete for those jobs?

To entice GU to build a satellite campus in DC, the District should offer to extend the H Street/Benning Road streetcar line onto GU's campus by a certain date. Specifically, the line would proceed without overhead wires on dedicated transit lanes along Pennsylvania Avenue and M Street, past Wisconsin Avenue and the Car Barn, joining mixed traffic at the Key Bridge intersection where it would reconnect to overhead wires and enter campus on the Canal Road entrance. The route would terminate in the parking lot outside McDonough Arena at the current Georgetown University Transportation Shuttle (GUTS) bus stops.

The streetcar line was initially anticipated to run along K Street in Georgetown. Recently departed DDOT Deputy Director Scott Kubly told the Georgetown BID, however, that he would prefer M Street in order to increase ridership. The M Street route, terminating on campus, would be a real win-win-win for every part of the city.

Improving DC residents' access to District jobs: 72% of DC jobs go to non-DC residents, and given the location of GU and GUH (DC's 6th largest employer) near the Key Bridge the percentage on campus is likely that or higher. A Streetcar onto campus would economically integrate the city, connecting residents around the city and particularly in Northeast with nearly 10,000 jobs on GU and GUH's campus. The much-expected future site of the GU Hospital on North Kehoe field would be a brief walk to a streetcar station in the McDonough Arena parking lot.

Creating GU jobs in DC: A streetcar terminating on GU's campus would provide door-to-door service to and from any satellite campus on the eastern half of the route. This will stem the flow of jobs from DC's top employer to Virginia. Furthermore, GU would face fewer constraints in the growth of its main campus because the congestion created by employees of and visitors to GU and GUH would be addressed. This route would eliminate the need for the controversial GUTS Shuttle to Dupont Circle, as it would include stops at Metro stations on several lines including Farragut North.

Improving Georgetown retail: Georgetown business leaders have experienced much angst lately about losing status to retail districts on 14th Street, U Street and H Street. Bringing streetcars along M Street on dedicated lanes would be a bold move to raise the strip's profile and cachet.

Historic preservation of Georgetown: Streetcars historically ran along M Street to the Car Barn. Any argument that a wireless streetcar on M Street somehow detracts from Georgetown's historic character would clearly be impossible to make. Furthermore, there would be no need for overhead wires as long as there are dedicated lanes.

Kubly explained to the Georgetown BID that the limits of current wireless technology are not in terms of distance, but in terms of time. Thus, a dedicated streetcar lane, meaning that streetcars won't waste valuable time (and thus electricity) sitting in traffic, significantly adds to the distance that a wireless streetcar can travel.

Reducing traffic and parking congestion in Georgetown: A couple years ago DDOT paid for a consultant to do a Transportation Study in Georgetown. One of the interesting findings was that congestion on M Street is at the intersections, and not in between them. Traffic analysis showed that the outside lanes were not used to capacity during rush hour, so the creation of transit only lanes should be able to shift traffic over one lane with minimal increase in congestion.

Even assuming no mode shift as a result of streetcars, then, dedicated transit lanes on M Street would likely result in little to no increase in congestion. Of course, there would be an expected mode shift not only to streetcars, but also to the bus lines that traverse M Street (which are the most-used Metrobus lines in the entire region).

The current fiscal environment makes it difficult to justify an investment in streetcar technology if it is merely viewed as a toy for the new, wealthier urbanites. But design it instead to improve access to jobs for DC residents, and sell it as such, and the project makes sense in just about any budget environment. In fact, few investments would result in as reliable and measurable an increase in jobs for DC residents as dramatically improving access to the largest employer in the city in return for that employer's expansion within the city.

Does the political will exist to do what makes so much sense?

On Wednesday, the Post reported the latest jobless numbers from July: 5.9% of the region-wide workforce lacks a job, a rate that is "well below the national rate of 9.1 percent". This represented an increase, according to the article, from the June rate of 5.8% due to a "steep decline" in the public sector which is "facing turmoil."

A similar report appeared about June unemployment. Joblessness in Ward 8 continued its increased from 16.9% in June 2008 to 28.2% in June 2011.

And the turmoil doesn't end there. Black teenage unemployment nationally is 40% according to the Labor Department, and is no doubt that or higher in the District, whose overall teen jobless rate is the highest in the nation at a whopping 50.1%. The jobless spike along with the housing crisis has destroyed black wealth, which has fallen from 1/7 that of whites in 1995 to 1/11 in 2004 and 1/19 in 2009 according to the Pew Research Center.

Unfortunately, the Post article on these statistics gave little attention to the issue of black unemployment. The only articles discussing the issue in the Post have mentioned it in the context of how it may affect President Obama's chances at re-election.

A Post blogger on media issues, Erik Wemple, who previously covered the District at TBD.com and the City Paper, posted recently on "How to measure the coverage of black issues." Wemple concludes:

Who's right? Has the coverage dipped or increased? Alas, even with Internet search engines and news archiving services, ascertaining volume trends over such a large coverage area is an undertaking fraught with practical and methodological problems.

Mayor Gray and President Obama will both announce new measures today to address unemployment. Leaders and journalists should ask the questions: What are the causes of the spike in crisis-level unemployment in DC? Do the proposals of the Mayor and the President to reduce joblessness address those causes? Why has the Council passed over 300 pieces of legislation this year and nothing on unemployment?

Do jobless citizens east of the Anacostia River need to riot, like in London, for us to see them? Or will the rest of the city finally notice the tragedy happening in slow motion before us and start debating its causes and solutions?

It's faster than driving—only 70 minutes from Union Station or 45 minutes from the Rockville station, which is right next to the Rockville Red Line stop. And best of all: toddlers love big trains.

We like to take the Amtrak line which leaves Union Station at 4:05 pm and arrives in Harpers Ferry at 5:16 pm—perfect timing for napping toddlers. The second time we did this trip, the conductor even remembered my son's name and gave him high-five, as well as a kid's book. My little guy was in paradise. Make sure to walk to the lounge car which has floor-to-ceiling windows for great sightseeing on your trip.

If you need to leave later in the day, the MARC train leaves Union Station at 4:55, 5:40, and 7:15pm. It costs less too, but isn't as fun.

Where to stay: You have two choices for accommodations with kids that don't require a car, the Town's Inn and the KOA Campground. We've stayed in both, and which one you stay in depends on whether you plan to spend most of your trip in town or at the campground.

The Town's Inn is the only hotel in downtown Harpers Ferry. You can walk there from the train station in 2 minutes. Best of all, it's in the middle of everything you will want to do.

The KOA Campground is a mile from the train station. You can either walk there or take a National Park Service bus. The walk is a pleasant one through Harpers Ferry and the next-door town of Bolivar, except for one crossing of a 6-lane expressway at an intersection with no walk signal. Most of the walk is part of the Appalachian Trail, so you'll see hikers. I walked to the campground, with my supplies in a big backpack and my little guy in a stroller.

Or you can take the NPS bus, which runs between downtown and the NPS Visitors' Center every 10 minutes. The NPS Visitors' Center is a pleasant 10 minute walk from the KOA Campground. The primary purpose of the bus is to shuttle visitors who drive from a vast parking lot at the Visitors' Center to downtown, which is great because this keeps cars out of downtown Harpers Ferry.

What to do downtown: There are basically 2 fun things for kids to do downtown. They can play in the Shenandoah River, and watch NPS reenactments of 19th century Harpers Ferry. Both are within a 5 minute walk. And pedestrians essentially rule the road, as there are few cars in downtown, so you can feel safe with your kids running around free.

The Shenandoah is a 3 minute walk from downtown. My 2-year-old built sandcastles on the banks of the Shenandoah while throwing rocks in the river for hours. And about every hour, a freight train goes by about 100 feet from the river which leaves the toddlers' mouths hanging open.

For the older kids, the NPS puts on a great show of reenactments throughout the day. Kids can write articles for an old-time newspaper, then churn butter and talk to a Union solder all before lunchtime. Older kids also love the ghost tours which depart from downtown most evenings.

Keep in mind that the downtown restaurants don't currently serve breakfast, as they make most of their money off of day trippers. Fortunately, the Town's Inn sells breakfast food and has refrigerators and microwaves. Also, the Country Cafe serves a fantastic breakfast, and is a 2/3 mile walk from downtown and 3 blocks from the fabulous Bolivar Public Playground.

What to do at the KOA campground: The Harpers Ferry KOA is a kids' paradise. A regular pool and kiddie pool, super pillow for jumping, playground, arcade and mini-golf make the day fly by.

And you don't have to bring a bunch of food to cook, because there are free pancakes on weekends for breakfast and a fully-stocked convenience store on site.

For the parents, a coffee shop and wine store has daily wine tastings on the campground. Anytime you want to go back into town, the NPS bus stop at the Visitors' Center is a 10 minute walk away.

Getting back: The only real challenge to visiting Harpers Ferry without a car is taking the Amtrak train back to DC. The train is supposed to stop in Harper's Ferry 7 days per week at 10:55am, stopping next at Rockville at 11:40am and Union Station at 12:40pm. But it's always late—2 hours late on my first trip and 4 hours late on my second.

The Amtrak trip to Harpers Ferry is generally on time, because the Capitol Limited route is beginning its Union Station to Chicago journey. Coming back to DC, though, it can have been delayed by Norfolk Southern (between Chicago and Pittsburgh) or CSX (between Pittsburgh and Washington). Fortunately, Amtrak has a great mobile site and iPhone app which provide real-time status updates so you can enjoy downtown while waiting for the train.

If you're returning on a weekday and are willing to leave early, MARC is also an option. Trains leave at 5:51am and 6:56am.

Know any other car-free family trip destinations? Mention them in the comments.

Correction: The original version of this article spelled the name of the town incorrectly as "Harper's Ferry" in some places. The correct name has no apostrophe.

Update: The article mentions the lack of breakfast options downtown. The owner of the Town's Inn contacted us with the good news that a shuttered downtown restaurant, the Town's Pub and Eatery, has reopened with service from breakfast through dinner. I haven't tried it, but initial online reviews are positive.