DIANE RAVITCH 02/18/13 By Diane Ravitch During Michelle Rhee’s book tour, the nation will hear a lot of claims about the dramatic changes she imposed on the D.C. schools, which qualifies her to export her ideas to the rest of the nation. What should other states and cities seek to […]
Income Inequality
N.J. Police Station Shooting: When Arrest goes Wrong, 3 Cops Shot, Gunman Killed
NEW JERSEY NEWSROOM 12/29/13 By Bob Holt The three police officers being shot in Gloucester Township on Friday only renews the debates about gun control. One of the questions has been whether the NRA is listening to the debates since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings. The four million member […]
Gunslinging in America
AL JAZEERA 12/23/12 By Michael Shank Now that the National Rifle Association is playing hard ball by suggesting today that we provide armed guards in every school across America at a cost of nearly $6bn, it is quite clear that this conversation has gotten completely out of hand. The idea […]
GOP, Follow Stevens’ Example
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER 11/28/12 By Michael Shank Will Pennsylvania ever produce another Republican leader on par with Thaddeus Stevens (“‘Lincoln’ lays bare messy reality of process,” Sunday)? Stevens’ adamant promotion of equality and opportunity contrasts starkly with the present state GOP. Whether it is the voter-ID law that would disproportionately impact […]
Education Disparities Persist in D.C.
BET 11/16/12 By Cord Jefferson The nation’s capital now has the worst racial achievement gaps in the country when it comes to educating children. A new op-ed in the Huffington Post dredges up a well known but important topic of conversation: the growing and increasingly entrenched disparities between whites and […]
Racism and Classism in the Heart of America’s Capital
AL JAZEERA 11/13/12 By Michael Shank Of the two rivers that cup our nation’s capital – the Potomac and the Anacostia – the latter of the two is, perhaps, the most apt reflection of where America is at socio-economically. The Anacostia River – the Anglicised namesake of which was first […]
We Must Revive the American Dream by Alleviating Poverty
US NEWS & WORLD REPORT 09/26/12 By Michael Shank David Francis is right to question “Is the American Dream Dead?” (09/25/12). By all accounts, it is. The question, then, is how to revive it. According to this month’s Census Bureau report, America witnessed a 1.5 percent decline in the real […]
In the Wake of the Shooting, Gun Control Debate Re-Emerges
NEWSY 07/20/12 By Matthew Picht and Anchor Jim Flink Debate about gun control has flared up once again after the mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado. Here’s Sky News. “This argument happens every time there is a shooting incident in America. The last significant argument about gun control was after the […]
With Income Inequality Comes Violence
US NEWS & WORLD REPORT 07/18/12 By Michael Shank David Rosnick is spot on in “Breaking Down the Causes of Income Inequality” (07/16/12), but what about the effects of income inequality? Our research at the Institute for Economics and Peace shows that America’s high income inequality — at its highest […]
UN Press Conference on Global Peace Index
UNITED NATIONS 06/14/12 The cost of the economic impact of violence on the world’s gross domestic product (GDP) in the last years was $9 trillion dollars, Michael Shank, Vice-President of the Institute for Economics and Peace, told correspondents today at Headquarters. Mr. Shank, who was addressing a press conference […]