You can get away with a lot when you’re writing about the country’s public schools. To say schools are in a crisis, or that the state of public education is on a precipitous decline, requires no substantiation. We simply all know by nowthat our schools are a mess. So it was no surprise to read […]

Read more

If you have a daughter, pay attention: more likely than not, she will work in the restaurant industry at some point in her life. Millions of young women in America find their first job waiting tables, living on the largesse of customers’ tips. So many young women start our work lives in an environment in […]

Read more

(Major R. Owens | Source: Getty via BET) I first learned how to break news from Major R. Owens, a canny yet noble fighter for economic and social justice who served 12 terms in Congress and died last week. My lesson came one Saturday morning in 1982, when Owens had won the Democratic primary election […]

Read more

(Source: Creative Commons) My grandson won the Lunch Bucket Award on his high school football team and his father’s reaction to it and mine surprised me. The Lunch Bucket Award is given to the player making the greatest contribution during practice in the week leading up to the Friday night game. My grandson is a third-string […]

Read more

(Shaun McCutcheon, right | Source: The Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser) Did you get sick of that barrage of attack ads during last year’s elections? Brace yourself: It could get worse. One deep-pocketed Alabama donor named Shaun McCutcheon, joined by the Republican National Committee, will soon ask the Supreme Court to let him put even more money […]

Read more