With the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind stalled, the New York Times reminds us today why Congress should push forward on reforming the law: Every single one of the 6,063 public schools serving poor children in California is at risk of being “restructured” in 2014, the year when students across the country are supposed […]
Dana Goldstein
Dana Goldstein, a former associate editor and writer at the Prospect, comes from a family of public-school educators. She received the Spencer Fellowship in Education Journalism, a Schwarz Fellowship at the New America Foundation, and a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellowship at the Nation Institute. Her journalism is regularly featured in Slate, The Atlantic, The Nation, The Daily Beast, and other publications, and she is a staff writer at the Marshall Project.
Posted inArticle
SO WHY ARE DEMOCRATS FUNDING ABSTINENCE ONLY?
According to the Los Angeles Times, House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey is willing to compromise on comprehensive sex-ed in the hope that “he can pick up some Republican support for much bigger health and social welfare programs that the White House wants to cut.” Apparently Obey also wants to steer clear of contentious “moral […]
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WILL UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRATION BECOME LIKE ABORTION?
In other words, freely available in some locales, begrudgingly tolerated in others, and practically impossible to find elsewhere? Here at TAP, we’ve reported on cities like New Haven, Conn., which are providing municipal I.D. cards to any resident who wants one, allowing undocumented immigrants to access crucial public services. Today the Washington Post highlights the […]
Posted inEducation in America
TO WHAT END EDUCATION REFORM?
I second Ezra‘s recommendation of Lawrence Mishel and Richard Rothstein‘s article today advising caution in evaluating claims that education reform can solve systemic economic problems. But I want to add a caveat. When I tell people I often write about education, they sometimes inform me that while they wish American schools were better, there’s little […]
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A COMMON MISCONCEPTION ABOUT OBESITY.
No, I don’t want to speculate, for the umpteenth time, on whether it’s a “contagious disease.” Rather, during a Bill Gates Q&A with Newsweek readers about global health, Gates wrote that his foundation won’t be focusing on what a reader termed “diseases of affluence,” including obesity. As a former obesity researcher, I must chime in […]
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PERMISSION SLIPS FOR GROWN-UPS.
What does it take to get an abortion in the UK? The signature of two physicians, Dr. Evan Harris — a Liberal Democratic MP — writes at Comment is Free. Not surprisingly, research shows that poor women are most harmed by the requirement, since they are least able to visit two separate doctors in a […]
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THE LATINO BROWN V. BOARD.
I’m in New York’s northern suburbs this week, reporting a story on a school district struggling to close its achievement gap and maintain integration as it experiences a record influx of Latino immigrants. So I was fascinated to see this Washington Post story on Mendez v. Westminster, a little known 1947 federal case that ruled […]
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AMERICA’S GREATEST YOUNG CARTOONIST.
Matt Bors, ladies and gentlemen. –Dana Goldstein
Posted inArticle
THE SUBURBANIZATION OF DIVERSITY?
Via Latoya Peterson‘s Racialicious essay on gentrification and the D.C. housing market, I found last month’s Associated Press piece on the white-ification of Washington, once 71 percent African American, now 57 percent African American. While it’s still possible to find rental bargains here inside the Beltway, this is not a buyer’s market. Even the dusty […]
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“WHITE MEN MATTER MOST.”
That’s “the most durable reality of American politics,” according to David Paul Kuhn writing in the Politico today. Kuhn argues — antithetically to Tom Schaller, who bid “So Long, White Boy” in Salon last month — that there can be no Democratic presidential victory without special attempts to woo white male swing voters by appealing […]
