I’ve been writing frequently here about the Race to the Top program, in which the Department of Education will reward a total of $4.3 billion to a few handpicked states — those who plan to focus on a reform agenda of teacher merit pay, charter school expansion, national curriculum standards, and test-based accountability. This week, […]
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.
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Real Numbers on Domestic and Sexual Violence.
I’ve noticed that every time I write about domestic violence — whether the topic is Rihanna or insurance companies classifying abuse as a pre-existing condition — “men’s rights” trolls come out of the woodwork to claim there is no proof women are more likely to be victimized by intimate partners than men. “Dana, why are […]
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Could the John Edwards Scandal Get Any Grosser?
The latest sordid details in the John Edwards saga are supplied today by Ben Smith: Edwards expected diet Cokes to be delivered into his hand, just by silently raising it. And way more weirdness: When John Edwards returned to North Carolina in the course of his long quest for the presidency, Andrew Young always met […]
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Did Someone Say “Opt-out?”
The Washington Post and New York Times are having a little spat today about “opting-out.” The Post ran a front-page story by Donna St. George proclaiming, “obsession with high-achieving professional mothers sidelining careers for family life is largely beside the point.” The Times‘ David Leonhardt jumped in to defend his colleague Lisa Belkin, author of […]
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What Makes TAP Different?
If you read TAPPED, you ought to be donating or subscribing to The American Prospect. There’s no such thing as a free lunch! But in case that’s not enough to move you, here are five more reasons to give to TAP: 1. We let our writers tweet. 2. We started the careers of Ezra Klein, […]
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Journalism’s Elitism Problem.
Journalism is a really fun job. Everyday, I get to research topics that interest me, call smart people, ask them to tell me about their ideas and beliefs, and then write up what I learn. Sure, it’s stressful: There’s constant deadline pressure, sort of like being a student during finals week … forever. And if […]
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The Real GOP Health Care Plan: Be Rich.
At TNR, Marin Cogan has a good, short profile of Alan Grayson, the freshman Democrat from Florida who announced on the House floor yesterday that the GOP’s health care plan is: “Don’t get sick. And if you do get sick, die quickly.” He even used flashcards. Grayson seems a little unhinged here, and that’s too […]
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When the Recession Ends, What Will Happen to Women Workers?
Note to The New York Times: The correct term for referring to the incorrect notion that this recession primarily affects men is “hecession,” not “mancession.” In any case, on the paper’s Economix blog today, Casey Mulligan of the University of Chicago writes that although women’s labor force participation has inched up to 49.9 percent since […]
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Quote of the Day: Chuck Grassley Edition.
As expected, the Senate Finance Committee just rejected the Rockefeller amendment to include a public option in its health reform bill. During the debate, Chuck Grassley said: The government is not a fair competitor. It’s a predator. The argument that the public option will kill the private insurance market is bunk: The public option would […]
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The Final Word on Roman Polanski.
Eugene Robinson: …there was certainly no artistic merit in the crime he acknowledged committing: During a photo shoot at the Los Angeles home of his friend and “Chinatown” star Jack Nicholson, Polanski plied a 13-year-old girl with champagne and drugs and had sex with her. That is grotesque. In general, I agree with the European […]
