Politics
Biddle: Ethics, education, and affordable housing for all
I am running for the DC Council at-large because I love this city. After growing up in Columbia Heights, I left the District to attend college and work in urban education, in New York and Atlanta, as a classroom teacher and administrator.
Sekou Biddle and family. Photo from Sekou Biddle.
I came back because I believe all students who go to school in the District should have the same opportunities that I did when I graduated from Wilson Senior High School.
While I am one of the lucky folks who has the pleasure of being able to say I grew up here, I know that being born here is not a prerequisite for being invested in the long term success of our nation's capital. It is out of the love and investment in our community that the current frustration with the state of the District government is born.
I know I am not alone when I say I am embarrassed and frustrated by the current state of politics, or more accurately, the current crop of elected officials. I am in this race because I believe that strong leadership, connected to the citizens, can create pride and faith in our local government. But more importantly, I believe that we need strong leadership to address the challenges that face our city and its residents.
Regardless of ward, age, race or income what I hear from people is that we can do better as a city and a government. The conversations I'm having at community meetings, on front stoops, in the grocery store or at my boys' soccer games are the same ones that my parents were having 20 or 30 years ago about this city.
I am running because I am determined that my children won't have the same conversations 20 years from now.
Ethics
Continued ethics reform is a necessary part of moving our city forward. After the ethics bill passed in December it was clear that not enough had been done to remove conflicts of interest and potential for abuse. We must ban corporate contributions to prevent owners of multiple interests from skirting donation limits. All campaign contributions need stronger disclosure requirements particularly from individuals with contracts with the DC Government. If we really want to end pay to play we need to end constituent service funds as well.
Until we pass comprehensive ethics reform, we will be distracted from the other pressing issues facing the District. Issues such as education, affordable housing, public safety, and job creation are the keys to success in people's lives day to day.
This cycle of paying lip service to reform, improvements, and good government has to stop. We need to stop electing politicians who treat every vote like a zero-sum game assuming that we have to pit neighborhoods, income brackets, races, and native Washingtonian status against one another.
We have to start electing leaders who will work for all residents of the District and not their corporate backers hiding behind LLCs. We need proactive leaders who will both listen to the community and work to create a vision of where this city should be.
Education
We cannot lose momentum on education reform. The achievement gap between rich and poor, white and minority students, persists despite overall improvements in test scores. Where you live in this city unfortunately still often dictates the quality of education your child will receive. Education continues to be a major economic issue for the District. Good jobs and good schools go hand in hand.
The high rates of unemployment will not go down until we start to adequately prepare our children for the workforce through solid reading and math skills. Lack of literacy and employable skills continues to be a major impediment to many of our adult residents gaining meaningful employment. Too often we pour money into job training programs without evidence of success. Too many of our residents and neighborhoods are still burdened with chronic unemployment.
Affordable housing
We must ensure affordable housing is available to those who need it in the District. I regularly meet long time residents who face the very real prospect of moving out of the city. This is not just an issue that faces low-income residents, but also retirees and families whose property taxes on family homes have suddenly increased beyond their means.
The District's population is growing as more people realize what a wonderful place it is to live, and we should make sure that people of all income levels who want to live here can. To make this happen we must make investments in affordable housing, mixed-use communities, and enforce and support inclusionary zoning. This is essential to increasing our tax base as well.
I am running for DC Council at-large because these improvements and more will not happen until we have leaders who are focused on finding and implementing solutions for the challenges we face. I am committed to being one of those leaders.
I know improving our city will take more than just one elected official. I hope you join me on April 3 on this road back to electing a new, more responsive, government. Together, we can do better.
Learn more at www.sekoubiddle.org
Communicate at info@sekoubiddle.org and 202-213-9029
Follow me on Twitter @biddle2012 and @sekoubiddle
Like me on Facebook
Sekou Biddle is an at-large candidate for the DC Council. The views in this article are his and do not necessarily represent those of Greater Greater Washington. We invite all candidates running for the DC Council to share their views with our community, but reserve the right to edit posts to fit our content and format rules. If you are a candidate and would like to submit an article, please contact elections@ggwash.org.
Comments
@ggwash
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Heard your parents put in work in Mississippi during the Civil Rights movement...?
by DC Voter on Feb 13, 2012 4:46 pm
by Ward 1 Guy on Feb 13, 2012 5:36 pm
How should we keep longtime residents in their homes as property taxes rise? Through further adjustment to the homestead exemption, perhaps? What about renters?
I went to his site and it raises more questions than it provided answers. I know the tendency to avoid the concrete by politicians running for office, but quite frankly, people need to know what they are actually voting for (I hear my mother yelling at me for ending a sentence with a preposition).
full disclosure: I ran against Mr. Biddle last year. While I found him to be a good-hearted individual, I had a hard time nailing down his policy commitments outside of education, even after listening to him speak in over a dozen forums.
by Alan Page on Feb 13, 2012 6:18 pm
I agree with you that it is fundamentally unjust that there is such a gap in educational opportunity based on one's neighborhood, and such a gap in educational result based on one's race. I also agree with you that literacy and numeracy should be prioritized over after-the-fact job training. Unfortunately, I also agree with "Ward 1 Guy", in requesting more substance.
If you want my vote, please explain what, if anything, you propose the city should do about education. What policies would address the location and race gaps? How costly are they? Would they pass?
What policies would prevent the need for later job training? Would you support mandatory prekindergarten? What about summer programs, or a longer school year?
And how should the city use charter school or merit pay? What stance should it take on consolidating schools? How should it do to attract and retain top-quality teachers?
What about testing? How should DC interact with the federal education policies?
Most generally, how do you create a school system that will allow the upper-middle class (black or white) to want to keep its kids in DCPS all the way through 12th grade? And how do you do that simultaneously with creating a system that provides at-least-adequate results for everyone in the city?
I know GGW isn't the perfect forum for an education discussion, so feel free to link us to another site where you elaborate on your ideas.
Thanks,
Bill
by Bill on Feb 13, 2012 6:26 pm
1. Which ideas? Will you pay the teachers at Eastern more than the teachers at School without Walls? If not that, then what?
2. "All community stakeholders" is too broad. You don't possibly mean that. You mean, at most, parents, teachers, school administrators, other politicians, and some business interests. Is there someone else you will consult? (Every robbery victim and every taxpayer and everyone whose life is improved by a pleasant interaction with a DC-educated person is a stakeholder in that system.)
3. Why IMPACT evaluation?
by Bill on Feb 13, 2012 6:35 pm
What needs to change is that we need to instill upper middle class education and career values, followed closely by habits, in our underclass population. Some of that will have to be punitive (no school sports until the grades and test scores rise), some will be costly (2.5 squares a day for all students, 8-10 hour school days), some will make education activists quake (quicker expulsion to alternative education schools for teenagers who cannot self control), some will require a massive relook at what we're trying to achieve (Making STEM *the* education system, instead of a bolt-on to the traditional failing liberal arts program).
This and only this will increase the positive education outcome for most underprivileged students.
by eb on Feb 14, 2012 8:52 am
by MLD on Feb 14, 2012 9:01 am
by goldfish on Feb 14, 2012 9:06 am
Because the distribution of rated great teachers is already pretty even throughout the city
I'm not sure if the Examiner's finding on this is as cut and dry as you suggest. The article also states that The five worst effective-teacher-to-student ratios are all in Ward 8. Johnson Middle has one effective teacher for every 28 students But then it concludes that overall, good teachers are evenly dispersed.
I don't believe that banning sports participation until grades rise is a "upper" middle value any more than it is a "lower" middle class value or just lower class. I don't have enough information but I've never read that the ability to NOT expel students is an issue in DCPS. In fact, what I constantly read are stories in which officials are trying to prevent that from happening altogether since expulsions aren't particularly helpful to the student. It just reminds me (eerily) of my time growing up where black boys were eagerly placed in special education classes where we learned alongside students with physical and mental impairments.
So I disagree that this and only this will have a positive education impact.
by HogWash on Feb 14, 2012 9:48 am
by Ward 1 Guy on Feb 14, 2012 10:02 am
Education
We need to differentiate, that is we must provide a more customized experience for children and communities. Given the dramatic differences in the income and educational attainment of families in the District we still fundamentally provide the same unit of school to all students. This is completely illogical. We need to face the hard truth that many of our children need more school and we need to give it to them.
Align resources that support school success. Public libraries, parks and recreation and number of nonprofits serve many of our children, but we are not coordinating those efforts to get the most bang for our buck. As a result our uncoordinated systems of support cost more and accomplish less. If we were more intentional about how we integrate the various child-serving agencies we may find that we can indeed afford a longer school day or year.
Improve access to effective of early childhood programs. Many students come to school developmentally behind and they never catch up. In particular we need to support improving access to high quality programs for low-income families. We can do this by expanding successful models and programs in the District and attracting skilled teachers to the field.
Obviously if we are going to give students more we will need to provide teachers with the resources (including time and training) to effectively deliver more and better instruction. And where more time is needed we will need to compensate teachers appropriately.
Affordable Housing
I value the diversity that our city has and believe that it is a strength. In order to preserve income diversity we should utilize policy levers (our tax code could adjust homestead exemptions, or caps on assessments) to keep the cost of housing within reason for residents. We have valued many businesses enough to give tax abatements to them to attract them; we could do this for homeowners and for apartment owners in exchange for passing along the savings to tenants. Additionally the use of inclusionary zoning can also provide for increased stock of affordable rental units. Furthermore our Tax Revision Commission should be developing recommendations about our overall tax policy. We need to consider the way income, sales and property tax impact all residents. If we can adjust the tax code to support attracting business we can certainly do the same for residents.
Obviously this is not the best forum to address all questions in detail, but feel free to reach out via email for more.
Sekou
by Sekou Biddle on Feb 14, 2012 3:43 pm
This means the Deputy Mayor is not doing his job, right?
Improve access to effective of early childhood programs. Many students come to school developmentally behind and they never catch up
This sounds like either a call for more money (DC already provides free preK-4 and sometimes PreK-3, unlike MD and VA) or something else.
In particular we need to support improving access to high quality programs for low-income families. We can do this by expanding successful models and programs in the District and attracting skilled teachers to the field.
Ok, but how?
we will need to provide teachers with the resources (including time and training) to effectively deliver more and better instruction. And where more time is needed we will need to compensate teachers appropriately.
Is training cost effective? Don't we already provide a ton of it? Does the Council even have any say on the amount or type of training that DCPS or charter schools provide for their teachers? That sounds like micro-management.
Not much mention here of education policies like those Kwame Brown is proposing or of funding equity between DCPS and charters. These are the issues that will face the Council, not teacher training.
by Ward 1 Guy on Feb 20, 2012 4:18 pm
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