Two Would-Be Supreme Court Justices and Me

How Do You Cope When Two of Your High School Newspaper Friends Show Up on the Short Lists for the Nation’s Highest Court?

The stakes of the presidential election are huge and global. The results may determine the future of public health, the republic, even the planet.

The stakes of the presidential election are also peculiar and personal, especially for me. The results may determine which of two old friends—my fellow editors on our high school newspaper—ends up being the next Californian on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Mine is a strange circumstance. I spent my high school years, 1988 through 1991, at Polytechnic, a small (my graduating class had just 85 students) and academically …

When COVID Came to Coalinga High, ‘School Just Ended in the Middle of the Sentence’ | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

When COVID Came to Coalinga High, ‘School Just Ended in the Middle of the Sentence’

Amid AP Classes and College Prep, the Senior Class President Added Caretaker and Teacher for Her Four Younger Siblings to Her Load

Before March 18, I was class president and a student in multiple Advanced Placement classes at my high school in a small town in California’s San Joaquin Valley. Since then, …

California’s Ever-Expanding High School Football Season Is Risky

As Evidence Mounts on the Danger of the Sport, Why Do We Keep Adding State Playoff Games?

How many state champions does California need?

There’s a new answer to this question: 13. That’s how many state football champions California will crown this weekend during five state bowl games …

When Peer Pressure Is a Good Thing

Meet the Strivers of the Coachella Valley High School Advanced Placement Club

In every classroom, there is a kind of tipping point when the unmotivated students either get pulled along by the high achievers, or the unmotivated students hold the high achievers …

Back to High School at Age 66

An Education Writer Returns to His Alma Mater to Find Things Have Changed-For the Better

This summer I moved back to my boyhood house in San Mateo, California, after 48 years living elsewhere, mostly on the east coast and in China. My California-born wife and …