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Laurene Powell Jobs’s $100 Million Mission to Disrupt American High School
Since 2001, about $15 billion has been spent by taxpayers and philanthropists trying to boost academic achievement in American public schools. These efforts have largely failed — especially in high school. For the average 17-year-old, reading and math scores have […]
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The New Sandy Hook Elementary Is Meant to Be a Fresh Start, But It Still Evokes Tragedy
Since December 14, 2012, Newtown, Connecticut, has had a prickly relationship with the press. So many camera trucks swamped the narrow, hilly roads in the hours after the mass shooting there — where 20 first-graders and six educators at Sandy […]
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The Last Days of “Miracle Boy”
The men are sweet when they talk to me, like boys eager to please the teacher. These are BMX riders — current and former, amateur and pro — mourning Dave Mirra, the Michael Jordan of their sport, who committed suicide […]
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From Zika to Trump: The Savvy Politics of Pope Francis
Pope Francis has had some week. Aboard the papal plane en route to Rome on Thursday, in response to a reporter’s question about the use of contraception to prevent the conception of children afflicted with deformities possibly linked to […]
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How Smart Do You Have to Be to Raise a Child
The state said a 19-year-old with an intellectual disability wasn’t equipped to look after her baby and whisked the newborn off to another family just after birth—a decision the mother was ready to fight. But how smart do you […]
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Is Pre-K Broken?
Photo: Julie Blackmon The best government-pre-K classrooms don’t resemble remedial education designed to bring impoverished 3-year-olds up to speed; they look like the progressive places most rich Americans have been sending their kids to for generations. It’s easy to see […]
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Pope Francis’s Revolution Has Left Out Women
Amid the hosannas and the traffic snarls that will accompany Pope Francis to America this week, amid all the gushing over the singular Argentine who has become, overnight, a moral voice for the entire world, a note of caution must […]
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Pope Francis’s Revolution Has Left Out Women
Amid the hosannas and the traffic snarls that will accompany Pope Francis to America this week, amid all the gushing over the singular Argentine who has become, overnight, a moral voice for the entire world, a note of caution must […]
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Slender Man is Watching
From top: Morgan Geyser being questioned by detective Tom Casey, and Anissa Weier by detective Michelle Trussoni, in the Waukesha police station, May 31, 2014. If 12-year-olds Anissa Weier and Morgan Geyser knew that the internet character they worshipped was […]
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Can Racism Be Stopped in the Third Grade?
The form arrived in an email attachment on the Friday after winter break.“What is your race?”it asked. And then, beneath that, a Census-style list: “African-American/Black,” “Asian/Pacific Islander,” “Latina/o,” “Multi-racial,” “White,” and “Not sure.” The email, signed by the principal of Fieldston Lower […]