The Top 5: Education divide, babysitting, Ukraine, PostSecret.com
Welcome to the latest edition of the Top 5 articles we’ve read this week. Each week, we read dozens of articles in the hope we find essays and reporting that speak to big ideas, trends, future looks, and incredible human stories. We hope you enjoy our list, and do always let us know if you have a suggestion or a recommendation!
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The Top 5 articles for your week:
“America has legislated itself into competing red, blue versions of education” (WaPo)
Because Hannah Natanson, Lauren Tierney, and Clara Ence Morse tell us about a new Washington Post analysis that says:
Three-fourths of the nation’s school-aged students are now educated under state-level measures that either require more teaching on issues like race, racism, history, sex and gender, or which sharply limit or fully forbid such lessons…The restrictive laws alone affect almost half of all Americans aged 5 to 19. Since 2017, 38 states have adopted 114 such laws, rules or orders, The Post found. The majority of policies are restrictive in nature: 66 percent circumscribe or ban lessons and discussions on some of society’s most sensitive topics, while 34 percent require or expand them.
“Don’t Tell America The Babysitter’s Dead” (The Atlantic)
Because Faith Hill wants to know: are teens babysitting anymore? And why not?
“The Deepest Bias in Media? The Fear of Looking Old” (Freddie deBoer)
Because in one of his latest posts on Substack, writer Freddie deBoer talks about how new media attracts people who are deeply occupied with what and who is considered “young” and what it does to political sorting.
“Help Ukraine Hold the Line” (NYT)
Because the NYT Editorial Board gets serious about the US’s stalling on Ukraine aid.
Allowing Russia to impose its will on Ukraine would be a devastating blow to America’s credibility and leadership — fulfilling one of Mr. Putin’s long-term goals. That, in turn, would risk encouraging him to test waters further afield, whether in the Baltic States, in western Europe or to the south, and would signal to Xi Jinping that China, too, can throw its weight around.
“Dark Matter” (Hazlitt)
Because this profile from Meg Bernhard on Frank Warren, the founder of PostSecret.com, is a look inside a 20-year old project of the early internet that has turned into an interesting social experiment.
ICYMI on the podcast
The Morning Five: April 2, 2024
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