Highlights

From charter schools to private academies, the District of Columbia offers parents a large degree of flexibility in terms of school choice. But despite the many options across the city, data from the Office of the State Superintendent of Education indicates that children attending school in DC prefer to attend District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) and charter schools close to home.

In the United States, more than 7 million children suffer from asthma. But in spite of the chronic and sometimes life-threatening nature of the disease, most of these kids lead active, healthy lives.

That’s not the case for some low-income families in Washington, DC. Asthma’s a big problem for the relatively small city, where the proportion of children suffering from the condition is one of the greatest in the nation.

Last year, I had the privilege of serving on the District of Columbia’s Tax Revision Commission, chaired by former mayor Tony Williams. On Monday, the Tax Policy Center will host a panel to discuss our broad-based effort to rework DC’s often unwieldy revenue system. To prepare, I looked more closely at how the personal income tax plan would affect different income, age, and family groups.

Public schools in DC have gained ground on national tests over the past 15 years, but much of that gain is due to the changing demographic composition of DC’s student body. Parents’ income and education are primary determinants of student performance, and as the income and education of DC residents has improved, so have incoming students’ scores.