Earlier this month, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) proposed a bill to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, or ESEA. The ESEA is seven years overdue for a reauthorization. The process presents an opportunity to improve U.S. school systems for communities of color. Unfortunately, Sen. [...]
I was a senior at Cornell University when I was arrested for heroin possession. As an addict — a condition that began during a deep depression — I was muddling my way through classes and doing many things I would come to regret, including selling [...]
On this 50th anniversary year of the Selma-to-Montgomery March and the Voting Rights Act it helped inspire, national attention is centered on the iconic images of “Bloody Sunday,” the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the interracial marchers, and President Lyndon Johnson [...]
I was sitting in a sweltering California courtroom, serving as an expert witness on an adult case, when out of the corner of my eye I saw a tiny girl, fully shackled, walking down the courtroom aisle beside me. I was [...]
In November of 2014, Achieve a Hart Research independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit education reform organization, asked 1,347 High School graduates, "Do you feel prepared for college and work?" Did you "Rise to the Challenge and get a good education?" Public high school graduates responded, there was [...]
Abstract Social and economic disadvantage – not only poverty, but a host of associated conditions – depresses student performance. Concentrating students with these disadvantages in racially and economically homogenous schools depresses it further. Schools that the most disadvantaged black children [...]
The fourth time a Poughkeepsie police officer told me that my Vassar College Faculty ID could make everything OK was three years ago. I was driving down Wilbur Avenue. When the white police officer, whose head was way too small for his neck, asked if [...]
CHICAGO NOVEMBER 31, 2014 — After holding their 53rd Session in Geneva, Switzerland earlier this month, during which the United States was under review, on Friday, November 28tth, the United Nations Committee Against Torture (UNCAT) issued a report titled The Concluding Observations. Leading up to [...]
In 1987, my living room could not have been more minimally furnished. A desk. A chair. A wall of books. Only a few items of visual interest sat on the mantel of my fake fireplace. Among them was — horrific image ahead — [...]
