Rowan McGarry-Williams (PO ’21) It is comforting to think of progress as linear and inevitable, with the present a constant process of improvement over the past. However, the truth of history is that it is full of contingencies and reversals, fits and starts. In the United States, the clearest example of history’s impartiality towards progress is that of Reconstruction’s demise in the late 1800s...
By Rowan McGarry-Williams (PO’ 21) For many Americans, the relationship between home and school seems simple enough: they live in a neighborhood and they go to their neighborhood’s public school. But this simplicity belies an entire, constructed network of policy decisions. For example: how does one define a neighborhood, or a school zone? Why do neighborhoods look the way they do? How did...
Rowan McGarry-Williams (PO ’21) The integration of American public schools, once at the center of education reform, today tends to be overshadowed by debates over charter schools, accountability, and funding. Despite extensive research on the widespread benefits of integration, our schools are more racially and economically segregated now than they have been in decades, with grave...
By Rowan McGarry-Williams (PO ’21) Since the 2016 election, California has positioned itself as a site of resistance against the Trump administration. Trump’s recent revocation of California’s authority to set strict auto emissions standards is only the latest escalation in a lengthy conflict, as state Attorney General Xavier Becerra has filed over 50 lawsuits against the administration...
