Mark Santow
Newtown Tragedy, and the Wages of American Cruelty
I really don’t know what to say about the events in CT today, so close to where I grew up, at precisely the time my own children were in school. Tragic events like this are, in the end, inexplicable — but much like the 9/11 attacks, to simply describe what happened as a consequence of [...]
Gilding the Ghetto: George Romney Knew Better
Nationally, black and Hispanic/Latino public school students are now more segregated from whites than at any point in the last four decades. Most policymakers and activists on all sides accept the fact that our metropolitan areas are segregated by race as well as class, and work within its confines. In this age of greatly diminished expectations [...]
Solidarity, For Now? The Many Costs of Labor’s Decline
When I moved to RI in 2003 from Washington, I was rather stunned to hear many of my liberal friends repeat the media meme that organized labor was too powerful in the Ocean State [note: I will use the term 'liberal' rather than 'progressive,' because in my experience people on the left my age and [...]
The Passing of Robert L. Carter, and School Desegregation in the Metropolitan North
I was saddened to hear of the death of Judge Robert L. Carter yesterday, at the age of 94. The passing of this great generation of civil rights reformers (Fred Shuttlesworth and Derrick Bell are gone too) was of course inevitable — Dr. King would be in his 80s, if he were still with us. But studying [...]
Finland Finland Finland, the country where I quite want to teach
As it turns out, Monty Python was right: Finland isn’t just a great place for snack lunch in the hall… It really does have it all: social democracy, smoked fish, and a public school system that American reformers are beginning to notice. Too bad they are noticing the wrong thing. As many of you know, Finland is [...]
Penny-wise, (Rand) Paul foolish — or, why government often matters
It appears, at times, that American conservatives seem to even deny the possibility that government spending or regulation might actually save money — either save the government money (a secondary consideration) or save the country money (presumably, the primary goal). As I noted yesterday, there is now ample empirical evidence that environmental regulation (along with Medicaid) has decreased [...]
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