TRANSFORMING CITIES SERIES:

OPINION COMMENTARY:

Urban greenery can help create more resilient cities -- but only if residents are engaged in the process. Professor John Wilson, working at the intersection of sociology, environmental science and technology calls for an all-hands approach.

OPINION COMMENTARY:

Starting in 1909, and every 10 years until 1971, the White House convened delegates from across the country and put them to work on the most pressing problems facing the nation’s children and youth. Anthony Mohr discusses reviving the White House Conference on Children and Youth to address urgent issues that will impact the young.

Thomas Toch, the director of FutureEd, discusses federal COVID-recovery relief for K-12 education, how states and districts can and should use the funds to address the needs of students effectively and equitably, and bold policy initiatives to address some of education’s most pressing problems.

REPARATIONS SERIES:

It's important to appreciate slavery and the reparations debate, not merely in terms of the deprivation of African Americans, but the degree to which America has been enriched by the presence of Black people. As Harvard Kennedy School Professor Cornell William Brooks discusses, part of the problem today is that people do not know the stories of the people next to them. We should have real conversations about our history.

REPARATIONS SERIES:

On the 100th anniversary of the horrific Tulsa race massacre, Representative Regina Goodwin, a direct descendant of survivors who now represents the district in the Oklahoma legislature, offers a unique and particularly compelling case for reparations.

REPARATIONS SERIES:

No city alone has the ability or the capacity to right all the wrongs of the past. But Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza suggests that cities are leading the way across the country in tackling racial injustice and anti-Blackness, including through his city's truth-telling, reconciliation and municipal reparations process.

REPARATIONS SERIES:

Reparations are not new in this country. Forty years after stripping Japanese Americans of their homes, businesses, property and dignity, the U.S. government paid survivors $20,000 and issued a formal apology. Author Daniel James Brown explores what we can learn from the Japanese-American experience.

REPARATIONS SERIES:

OPINION COMMENTARY:

The dominant media system defines the truths of our society and has created and sustained an anti-Black narrative since 1619. While government reparations efforts unfold, business and philanthropy can help repair and transform our media system. Alicia Bell, Damaso Reyes, Joseph Torres and Collette Watson discuss the steps needed to bring about change.

The current challenges to voting rights, indeed to our democracy, are almost unprecedented in our lifetime. It is imperative for President Biden and Congress to focus on passing election reforms now since the new state laws and new redistricting actions evidence the need for fair guidance and legal limits. The author, Robert Berg, discusses the status of U.S. voting rights, what is being done to address these challenges and provides some suggestions on what we can do.

Bludgeoned on all sides, Haiti is hurtling towards failed state status. It‘s in U.S.’ national security interest to intervene and stop Haiti’s unraveling. The Hon. Vivian Lowery Derryck urges stakeholders to come together and use previously tested strategies to finally put Haiti on a path towards democracy and political and economic stability.

Addressing climate change effectively requires understanding factors other than CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions. Susan Farist Butler discusses how not enough attention has been given to other inter-related factors impacting global climate health: heat, water, and photosynthesis.

As we work to ensure a more just economic recovery, business leaders, policy leaders and philanthropists all have an important role to play. Paul Salem discusses how tested programs like Year Up plays a critical role in creating an integrated talent ecosystem for young people of color to succeed.

A conversation with historian, teacher and activist, Professor Timothy Patrick McCarthy, on the importance of embracing an honest reckoning with history, battling the culture wars in schools, and liberation dreaming in order to realize our best aspirations and intentions for public education.

California voters hold a high degree of power in the state’s recall process. Combined with the state’s other direct democracy tools (the initiative statute, the initiative constitutional amendment, and the referendum) the state electorate has power that approaches that of a state government branch.

A conversation with Mike Feuer, Los Angeles’ City Attorney and one of California’s leading lawyers and lawmakers. As Los Angeles' chief lawyer and prosecutor since July, 2013, he has brought an innovative, problem-solving focus that combines fair and effective prosecution with initiatives to improve public safety and the quality of life throughout the city.

A conversation with Andrea Jung, President and CEO of Grameen America and former Chairman and CEO of Avon Products, Inc., discussing the use of microfinancing to help small businesses in America.

Students spend upwards of thirty-five hours a week in a classroom and yet, they are rarely consulted when it comes to improving our schools. Andrew Brennen and Sanaa Kahloon discuss how this is changing as education stakeholders around the country tap into the power of student voice as a means both to bolster student achievement and to disrupt long-standing inequities.

OPINION COMMENTARY:

Bob Levey provides a personal perspective on how individual institutions and organizations must also wrestle with the complex problem of homelessness within their own communities.

THE FIRST 100 DAYS OF THE BIDEN-HARRIS ADMINISTRATION SERIES:

A conversation with John B. King, former Secretary of Education and President and CEO of The Education Trust, on the Biden/Harris administration's first 100 days in the education domain.

THE FIRST 100 DAYS OF THE BIDEN-HARRIS ADMINISTRATION SERIES:

A conversation with David Gergen, Professor of Public Service and co-founding Director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School, and former White House adviser to Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton.