Gail Cornwall
@gailcornwall.com
Former teacher & lawyer who now works as a mother & writer. Bylines for the Atlantic, Nation, NYT, Good Housekeeping, Guardian, New York Mag, USA Today, & many more. Stories tackle education, psychology, parenting, etc.
Another clear-eyed look at the research from @mattbarnum.bsky.social: "Who should go to college? More students may benefit than we think." www.chalkbeat.org/2026/08/04/w...
The research on who benefits from college may surprise you
Studies in Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, and Texas point in the same direction: Four-year college often helps students with modest high school records.
chalkbeat.org
Take 2 minutes out of your day to really feel what AI has to do with the beauty of life, the LIFE of life, being found in clumsiness and “subtle imperfections.” shawnsmucker.substack.com/p/please-use...
Please Use AI
Be sure to use AI when making
shawnsmucker.substack.com
“[D]espite the evidence behind SRSD and similar approaches based on the science of writing, they haven’t made it into … classrooms.” @jackiemader.bsky.social for @hechingerreport.org & @denverpost.com hechingerreport.org/the-next-lit...
The next literacy challenge: Teaching students how to write
After years of neglect, writing skills are getting more attention in school
hechingerreport.org
Excellent points by @jessgrose.bsky.social that are totally supported by emerging research on midlife as less crisis, more reflective opportunity. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/22/o...
Opinion | ‘The Five-Star Weekend’ Makes Middle Age Look Magical
Lately, the media loves to humiliate women in their 40s and 50s; this show reveres them.
nytimes.com
You know that feeling in an ice cream shop or Swarovski, where there are just so many tantalizing wonders that your eyes dart around, unable to focus on any one thing? This article by @jonathanblitzer.bsky.social is like that, only for atrocities & moral repugnance. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Inside ICE’s Largest Detention Center
On a military base in West Texas, where the government has built a sprawling tent complex to hold thousands of immigrants, deprivation and dire conditions are part of the design.
newyorker.com
Pointing out that ICE is murdering people they’re not looking for clearly isn’t to say it would be right for them to murder the people they are looking for. It’s to highlight how they are bringing roving terror and arbitrarily death to the whole US population. There’s no containing their threat.
Science communication is hard. @dhruvkhullar.bsky.social makes it look easy in this incredibly readable, persuasive new article for @newyorker.com. What if modern healthmaxxers are tanking their wellness by chasing a wild goose? www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Something Is Very Wrong with Modern Longevity Science
A new book argues that many of the world’s oldest people aren’t so old after all.
newyorker.com
Start reading this article for the horrifying stats. Stay for the well-reasoned, well-argued doomsdayism of wise-beyond-her-years Rose Horowitch. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...
The End of Reading Is Here
Optimists once believed that universal literacy was inevitable. Now it seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history.
theatlantic.com
What an incredible profile in advocacy & care. @agawande.bsky.social's writing is uniquely crisp & moving. But he's shifted to podcast interviews & making a documentary, meeting the moment to save lives. Can you imagine putting aside your great strength like that? www.newyorker.com/news/the-new...
The Human Cost of DOGE’s War on U.S.A.I.D.
Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and the “public man-made death” that they’ve caused.
newyorker.com
Beautifully crafted, persuasive take on an incredibly important topic from @jiatolentino.bsky.social. www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
Our Plastic-Surgery Nightmare
As cosmetic procedures become both more invisible and more extreme, our connection to reality is fraying.
newyorker.com
Last year ICE said a man tried to murder a female ICE officer while she was trying to arrest him. They swore under oath he grabbed her by the neck and tried to choke her to death. He was even indicted for attempted murder. Problem is, it never happened! Bystander video unraveled the lie.
A Venezuelan man was accused of attempting to choke an ICE officer to death in Bellevue. Bystander video tells a different story
Gabriel Hurtado-Cariaco was referred to by DHS as a “criminal illegal alien” and a “known Tren de Aragua terrorist.” The agency said he “violently attacked an ICE agent” by slamming her head into the ...
nebraskapublicmedia.org
“this Administration is … bent on a maximalist campaign to close borders & expel as many migrants as possible, whether they are here legally or not. In this un-American endeavor, the … conservative majority is proving itself, once again, Trump’s willing accomplice.” www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...
The Supreme Court Enables Trump’s Cruel Immigration Agenda
Two new rulings revoke the temporary protected status of refugees from Haiti and Syria, and make it easier for the Administration to prevent migrants from claiming asylum and to expel lawful refugees.
newyorker.com
THANK YOU to @soljourno.bsky.social for spreading the word about Edgar, other college students experiencing homelessness, & the innovative programs designed to ease their burden, at least a little, right away. And kudos to my editors @theguardian.com & @hechingerreport.org! Links in the comments.
Another excellent, data-backed Ideas piece from Matt for @chalkbeat.org with practical implications for counselors, policymakers, parents, and anyone else involved in shaping the choices and futures of kids and adolescents, including students themselves.
Matt Barnum@mattbarnum.bsky.social · last mo.New: Are there truly many, well-paid jobs available for those without a four-year degree? That's the emerging narrative; I looked at the data. Tl:dr: This graph that breaks down occupation by annual wages and the share of workers who hold a four-year degree. www.chalkbeat.org/2026/06/23/s...
A brilliant, nuanced, and well-informed corrective from @sbkaufman.bsky.social: “the NY Mag piece is scientifically thin,” he writes, defending the validity of giftedness while arguing for opening the pedagogical gates to all manifestations of it. www.beautifulminds-newsletter.com/p/giftedness...
Giftedness Isn’t a Lie. It’s Just Much Broader Than We Realize.
A response to “The Mirage of the Gifted Child” (New York magazine)
beautifulminds-newsletter.com
“This committee talks all the time about ‘decisions should be made at the local level,’ but I guess that's only if they like the decisions that you make at the local level,” @ericameltzer.bsky.social quoting Rep. Jahana Hayes, a former teacher, for @chalkbeat.org. www.chalkbeat.org/2026/06/10/s...
‘I’m very disturbed by that question’: Capitol Hill hearing with superintendents leans into culture war
Since the start of the second Trump administration, Republican officials have zeroed in on school districts that they believe are violating federal law and parents’ rights. On Wednesday, members of Co...
chalkbeat.org
Something is going right on college campuses, David Brooks argues. He examines new programs aiming to give students a better moral foundation.
Something Is Going Right at Universities
There’s a ton of good stuff happening on campus these days, if you’re only willing to see it.
bit.ly
Killer lede from @laurapappano.bsky.social for @hechingerreport.org & @slate.com: “The most exciting thing about Lindel Fields, Oklahoma’s superintendent of public instruction, is how boring he is.”
Laura Pappano@laurapappano.bsky.social · 2mo agoAfter Ryan Walters, Lindel Fields has brought a far different vibe to @okdoe.bsky.social “If you wouldn’t say it to your neighbor’s sixth grader, don’t say it, right?” Can it survive the June primary? @hechingerreport.org hechingerreport.org/can-oklahoma...
"This is what we’re getting wrong about the manosphere.... It’s a broad spectrum & young men are not simply in or out …. Reactive & punitive responses alone aren’t enough .... [C]ompassionate accountability is where long-term, preventative change will happen." 1/2 womensagenda.com.au/latest/i-spe...
I spent two years inside the manosphere. Here’s what most people still get wrong
The manosphere is not a binary thing. It’s not one ideology. It’s a broad spectrum and young men are not simply in or out of it.
womensagenda.com.au
Recommended read for Gen X and Millennial parents! Explains a lot. www.usatoday.com/story/life/h...
Gen Z pout, 'influencer voice' and the horror of 'looking cringe’
Young people are constantly editing themselves online, trimming anything that might come off as embarrassing. It's shaping behavior offline, too.
usatoday.com
Introducing major Senate-House legislation later today to fix this. Stay tuned.
How Private Equity Destroyed Youth Sports
YouTube video by More Perfect Union
youtube.com
"[A]s the number & visibility of unhoused families continue to climb, a handful of school districts are [using] parking lots as a way to shelter homeless students & their families." @nealmorton.bsky.social on a better-than-nothing solution for @hechingerreport.org hechingerreport.org/school-parki...
A lifeline or ‘dystopian’?: Schools open parking lots for homeless students and families
As family homelessness hits record highs, a few school districts are beginning to offer parking lots as safe sites for students and their families to sleep at night. Some families prefer the option ov...
hechingerreport.org
"The Student Success Coach Learning Network is a cost-effective strategy for reducing ... academic disengagement," says Pedro Noguera of @uscrossier.bsky.social for @edsource.org: "Students ... begin gaining confidence because someone ... recognizes their potential." edsource.org/2026/funding...
COMMENTARY: California must step up to protect programs that engage and support students
California should continue funding the Student Success Coach Learning Network in the 2026-27 state budget, which reaches out to support students who are in danger of disengaging from school.
edsource.org
New: Since DOGE cut the statistical arm of the Education Department, basic facts about American schools are no longer readily available. Some of these data points can be found elsewhere but are now harder to track down. Others simply don't exist anymore. www.chalkbeat.org/2026/05/07/e...
“[T]he Voting Rights Act of 1965—a landmark statute that was intended to insure racially equal electoral opportunity—has been read out of existence” as SCOTUS “usurped the work of Congress, & effectively vetoed…democratic ideals.” @JeannieSGersen for @newyorker.com www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...
How the Supreme Court demolished the Voting Rights Act
For two decades, the conservative Justices worked to eliminate a bulwark of the civil-rights era.
newyorker.com
“Hamilton is one of several other Christian clergy running as Democrats for Congress in 2026 …. Hamilton says the reason … is because they see a discrepancy between their faith and what’s happening in Washington.” @kathrynpost.bsky.social for @rns.org 1/2 religionnews.com/2026/05/01/k...
Kansas last sent a Democrat to the Senate in 1932. A megachurch pastor aims to change that.
(RNS) — Rev. Adam Hamilton, co-founder of the largest United Methodist church in the country, explains why he is running for Senate and believes he can win.
religionnews.com
