On November 30, 2023, Education Policy Initiative Director Chelsea Coffin’s presentation to the “Every Day Counts!” was cited by the Washington Post: In dozens of interviews conducted by the D.C. Policy Center think tank, students, parents and teachers cited the need for time off for illnesses and mental health days amid rising…

On December 1, 2023, Education Policy Initiative Director Chelsea Coffin was cited by the Wasington Post: The patterns follow a brief drop-off in turnover during the first two years of the pandemic, when teacher retention across D.C. got as high as 81 percent. Chelsea Coffin, director of the Education Policy Initiative at…

Earlier this year, we published a chart of the week on how difficult it is to know what commercial offices are valued at because there are so few sales occurring. This matters greatly in D.C. because the city collects over $1.1 billion in tax revenue from commercial office buildings, and uncertainty about building values adds to fiscal risks and uncertainties.
We estimate possible impacts of continued decline in the commercial real estate market on the District’s fiscal health using three potential scenarios: one in which there is no new leasing, one in which cap rates increase, and one in which both scenarios occur.