During the Democratic National Convention, some people repeated harmful narratives about crime, framing Chicago as a “combat zone.” Chicagoans don’t deny that gun violence is a real issue, but exaggerations can be dehumanizing – and they often ignore the people who are most affected by gun violence, as well as the efforts of locals working to solve this issue. Reset learn more about local efforts to reduce gun violence with Rita Oceguera, reporter for The Trace, Cedric Hawkins, strategic initiatives manager at Chicago CRED, LaQuay Boone, deputy head of programs with Chicago CRED and Dwayne Hunter, outreach supervisor for West Garfield Park for the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago.
For a full archive of Reset interviews, head over to wbez.org/reset.
Arguments over food prices are central to efforts to halt a 25 billion dollar grocery store merger. A rare and deadly mosquito borne illness has public parks in Massachusetts shut down at dusk. The Israel-Lebanon border is calm for now and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza continues.
Since the invasion of Ukraine, the West has deployed massive economic restrictions on Russian trade. So why is Russia’s economy growing? A survivor’s story from the forgotten conflict in Sudan (10:47). And Turkey tries to rid its streets of stray dogs (17:56).
In the summer of 2023, Staten Island erupted in protests over the opening of an emergency migrant shelter at a former Catholic school. As New York City grappled with an immigration crisis, some islanders insisted it wasn’t their problem.
In part one of this two-part series, Staten Island native Ravi Gupta explores the forgotten borough’s complex history that led to this moment, revealing larger truths about the American experience.
Leave us a voicemail with your thoughts on the show! 321-200-0570
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It’s that time of year again–reliably bumming out students and parents alike… it ’s back to school! But back to school is also a time to reflect on the state of education in this country… and it’s not all that great.
America is one of the richest countries in the world. But you wouldn’t know it if you looked at our education statistics. We’re 16th in science globally. In Math, we scored below the average and well below the scores of the top five countries, all of which were in Asia. And in 2018, we ranked an astonishing 125th in literacy among all countries according to the World Atlas.
As we tumble down the international tables, public schools around the country are getting rid of gifted and talented programs. They’re getting rid of standardized testing. All while trying to regain ground from COVID-related learning loss…
So how did we get here? Why have public schools deprioritized literacy and numeracy? What role have teachers’ unions played in advocating for public education in this country and also in holding kids back by protecting bad teachers? How is socioeconomic segregation hurting academic performance? And what kinds of books should really be taught in public schools?
Today, we're diving deep into these questions and more with three experts who bring diverse perspectives to this debate:
Richard Kahlenberg is Director of the American Identity Project and Director of Housing at the Progressive Policy Institute. His many books and essays have focused on addressing economic disparities in education. Maud Maron is co-founder of PLACE NYC, which advocates for improving the academic rigor and standards of K-12 public school curricula. She’s also the mother of four kids in New York City public schools. Erika Sanzi is a former educator and school dean in Rhode Island. She is Director of Outreach at Parents Defending Education, which aims to fight ideological indoctrination in the classroom.
We discuss the misallocation of resources in education, the promise and perils of school choice, and how we can fix our broken education system.
And if you like this conversation, good news! All week this week at The Free Press—as summer ends and kids return to class—we’re pausing our usual news coverage to talk about education. We’ve invited six writers to answer the question: What didn’t school teach you?
With elite colleges peddling courses on “Queering Video Games,” “Decolonial Black Feminist Magic,” and “What Is a Settler Text?,” there’s never been a better time to go back to the proverbial school of life.
To get those essays in your inbox every morning from today until Saturday, go to thefp.com and become a subscriber today.
Scholars often narrate the legal cases confirming LGBTQ+ rights as a huge success story. While it took 100 years to confirm the rights of Black Americans, it took far less time for courts to recognize marriage and adoption rights or workplace discrimination protections for queer people.
The legal and political success of LGBTQ+ advocates often depended upon presenting sexual and gender identities as innate – or “immutable” to fit legal categories. Conservatives who oppose LGBTQ+ equality often argue that sexual and gender identity is something that can be taught. They use the offensive language of “grooming” and contagious “gender ideology” that corrupts susceptible children.
In Born This Way: Science, Citizenship, and Inequality in the American LGBTQ+ Movement(U Chicago Press, 2023), Dr. Joanna Wuest unpacks how a biologically based understanding of gender and sexuality– based on arguments from the “natural sciences and mental health professions” – became central to American LGBTQ+ advocacy. Her book is both a “celebratory and cautionary” story about the costs of relying on science to win impressive victories for queer rights. The book interrogates the “LGBTQ+ rights movement, the scientific study of human difference, and the biopolitical character of citizenship that formed at the nexus of the two.” As LGBTQ+ advocates brought “science to bear on civil rights struggles,” they transformed American politics and the epistemology of identity politics more broadly.”
Dr. Joanna Wuest is an incoming Assistant Professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Stony Brook University and a sociolegal scholar specializing in sexual and gender minority rights, health, and political economy. Her book, Born This Way: Science, Citizenship, and Inequality in the American LGBTQ+ Movement, received an Honorable Mention for the Society for Social Studies of Science's 2024 Rachel Carson Prize and was featured on a recent episode of Radiolab.
The Japanese invasion of the Aleutian Islands during World War II changed Alaska, serving as justification for a large American military presence across the peninsula and advancing colonialism into the territory in the years before statehood.
In Alaska Native Resilience: Voices from World War II(U Washington Press, 2024), University of New Mexico historian Holly Guise uses a range of sources and methods, including oral history, to explain how Native people from several tribes across Alaska, experienced, resisted, and proved resiliant to, American colonialism in the mid-20th century. From forced relocation to outright warfare and sexual violence, the 1940s were a difficult decade for Alaska Natives, but through community building, activism, and even mundane forms of resistance and resiliance, Indigenous people across the region were able to, in Guise's words, engage in "equilibirum restoration" and maintain their links to each other, and to the land itself. Alaska Native Resilience forces readers to rethink what they know about World War II, and places a region often thought of as at the periphery of that war directly in the center of the story.
The Allied invasion of Normandy was one of the most complex military operations ever conducted. Thousands of ships and planes had to work in conjunction with tens of thousands of soldiers who had to do one of the most difficult things in warfare: an amphibious landing.
In addition to all of the planning that went into the invasion, there were many unknowns. The only way to learn was to practice some of the elements of the landing.
In April 1944, about six weeks before D-Day, the Allies conducted a practice exercise off the coast of England, and it turned into one of the biggest disasters of the war.
Learn more about Exercise Tiger and the disastrous rehearsal for D-Day on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
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Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz are campaigning this week in Georgia, one of the most crucial swing states in this year's presidential election. Before Harris replaced President Biden on the ticket, the state was looking like a lost cause for Democrats. But recent polls show it's now back in play. Democrats aren't dealing with a level playing field, though. Most recently, the state's Republican-controlled election board approved a new rule requiring counties to delay certification of votes if there are any discrepancies in the voting process. Democrats sued to block the change on Monday, saying it could lead to "mass disenfranchisement of eligible, registered Georgians." ProPublica reporter Doug Bock Clark breaks down what's happening in Georgia.
And in headlines: Special Counsel Jack Smith is asking a federal appeals court to revive former President Donald Trump's federal documents case, Trump is once again threatening to back out of the Sept. 10 presidential debate on ABC, and more than a million doses of the polio vaccine have arrived in Gaza.
