D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown has staked out middle school reform as his turf. Today he convened a "roundtable" style public hearing to learn more about what's going wrong in the middle grades -- 6, 7 and 8 -- and what can be done to turn them around.DC Action Executive Director HyeSook Chung testified that the middle grades are the...

I had a very unique opportunity during last week’s D.C. Council hearing on the “South Capitol Street Tragedy Memorial Act of 2011.” I sat next to Ms. Nardyne Jeffries, the mother of one of the young shooting victims whose tragic death inspired the bill. As she told her painful story, she was moved to tears, and so was I. Unfortunately...