By Claire Allbright/Texas Tribune

Federal lawmakers on Wednesday released samples of 3,000 Facebook ads purchased by Russian operatives during the 2016 presidential campaign. The ads conveyed the wide range of influence Russian-linked groups tried to enact on Americans – but one set of ads in particular hit close to home here in Texas.
Last year, two Russian Facebook pages organized dueling rallies in front of the Islamic Da’wah Center of Houston, according to information released by U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican.
Heart of Texas, a Russian-controlled Facebook group that promoted Texas secession, leaned into an image of the state as a land of guns and barbecue and amassed hundreds of thousands of followers. One of their ads on Facebook announced a noon rally on May 21, 2016 to “Stop Islamification of Texas.”
A separate Russian-sponsored group, United Muslims of America, advertised a “Save Islamic Knowledge” rally for the same place and time.

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Posted on November 2, 2017

By Jackie Mader/The Hechinger Report

The kindergarten-readiness gap between low-income and high-income students has not closed in a generation, even though parents are more involved than ever in their children’s education and state-funded pre-K, nutrition programs, and prenatal care are more accessible now than in the late 1990s.
That is the major finding of a new report by the Economic Policy Institute, in which researchers Emma Garcia and Elaine Weiss analyzed kindergarten readiness data for socioeconomic groups in 1998 and 2010 to see if gaps in academic readiness have shrunk over time. The researchers found that large gaps for both reading and math performance between kindergarteners of high and low socioeconomic status were nearly the same in 1998 and 2010 even though there are more anti-poverty programs than ever before.

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Posted on November 1, 2017

By Dan Romer/The Conversation

A deficit in the development of the teenage brain has been blamed for teens’ behavior in recent years, but it may be time to lay the stereotype of the wild teenage brain to rest. Brain deficits don’t make teens do risky things; lack of experience and a drive to explore the world are the real factors.
As director of research at a public policy center that studies adolescent risk-taking, I study teenage brains and teenage behavior. Recently, my colleagues and I reviewed years of scientific literature about adolescent brain development and risky behavior.
We found that much of the risk behavior attributed to adolescents is not the result of an out-of-control brain. As it turns out, the evidence supports an alternative interpretation: Risky behavior is a normal part of development and reflects a biologically driven need for exploration – a process aimed at acquiring experience and preparing teens for the complex decisions they will need to make as adults.

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Posted on October 30, 2017

By Meredith Kolodner/The Hechinger Report

More than half of the country’s top public universities replaced low-income students with affluent ones over the past 14 years, according to a new report.
The study provides evidence to back up the sense in many communities that climbing into the middle class has become increasingly difficult for low-income families. It may also help explain some of the pervasive anger and feelings of being “left behind” that has shaped American politics since last year’s presidential election.

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Posted on October 26, 2017

By Todd Gitlin/BillMoyers.com

It’s old news that Donald Trump abuses reason, knowledge, decency and dark-skinned people. You can’t tear your eyes away. You can already write tomorrow’s story: Today the vicious, deranged freak-show star trashed Enemy A, picked a fight with Failed Insider B, invited unconstitutional action C, insulted population D, declared his intent to abrogate Agreement E or make war on Country F, and denied facts G through Z. Fill in the blanks.
If you are paying attention, each one of his assaults on decency, intelligence and knowledge will feel urgent, ridiculous or both. Each day he threatens grave damage to actual human beings and the rest of Planet Earth, and each day he demonstrates his incapacity to do anything but inflict more damage. But some readers and viewers have erected walls to protect themselves from appreciating the damage, while many others think that what he just said is just the sort of thing you’d expect him to say; or isn’t as bad as expected; or sounds like what he said last week, and so is, like it or not, normal.
Even some of our best journalists continue to scavenge the rubble of everyday politics looking for signs of normalcy and “presidentialness.”

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Posted on October 24, 2017

By The Illinois Public Interest Research Group

In 2016, 73 percent of Fortune 500 companies – including 34 headquartered in Illinois – maintained subsidiaries in offshore tax havens, according to Offshore Shell Games, by Illinois PIRG Education Fund and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
Collectively, multinationals reported booking $2.6 trillion offshore, with just 30 companies accounting for 68 percent of this total, and just four companies accounting for a quarter of the total.

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Posted on October 23, 2017

By Chuck Collins/Common Dreams

Kip Tom, the Leesburg Indiana farmer who appeared last week with President Trump complaining about the federal estate tax, cashed over $3.3 million in farm subsidy checks, including $2.6 million between 2004 and 2014, the most recent data available.
Kip Tom and Tom Farms is one of the biggest corn and soybean producers in Indiana and the 9th-largest farm subsidy recipient in Indiana.

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Posted on October 5, 2017

By Steve Rhodes

“The man who killed at least 59 people and injured more than 527 in Las Vegas is a terrorist,” Mary Mitchell writes for the Sun-Times.
Is he?
I don’t think so.
A terrorist is someone who uses violence to create fear in advance of a cause.
So far we don’t know what motivated Stephen Paddock to unload a hail of automatic gunfire on hundreds of people attending an open-air concert in Las Vegas. He may have just lost his mind.

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Posted on October 3, 2017

By Jason Rieger

Lincoln Square neighbors will rally Sunday to denounce the latest incident of hate speech graffiti and fight back against the rising specter of white nationalism, both in our country and in our backyard.
Following the rally, over 4,000 “Hate Has No Home Here” and “Black Lives Matter” signs will be distributed throughout the neighborhood, drowning out the hateful rhetoric with messages of inclusiveness.

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Posted on September 30, 2017

By Steve Balkin and Phil Hultquist

Panel discussion at Roosevelt University in Chicago, 425 South Wabash, Room 418, Monday October 2, from 4 to 6 p.m. This event is free and open to the public.
In the spirit of “Think Globally and Act Locally,” this panel will help people understand the causes of the genocide policies of Myanmar (formerly Burma) directed at the Rohingya, a Moslem minority; what the United States and UN are doing to change this trajectory; advocacy to protect and assist the Rohingya, and programs to help Chicago Rohingya refugees improve their adjustment to America.

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Posted on September 29, 2017