Canceling School for COVID-19 Cheats California’s Kids

When This Epidemic Ends, Schools Should Make Up the 50 Days of Instruction Our Kids Are Missing Now

Not one day.

Our kids should not lose one day of school, not a single day of instruction, to the coronavirus.

Let me be clear: I’m not arguing against closing schools right now, in the midst of the pandemic. Flattening the curve of infections comes first.

But the coronavirus must not be an excuse for permanently losing critical days of actual instruction.

Here’s the principle we need: California must guarantee that our schools will make up every single day of instruction now being missed. Those days could be made up with …

How Cesarean Births Became a ‘Global Epidemic’

Reliance on New Obstetric Technology and Lawsuit-Averse Doctors Made Traditional Birth Seem More Risky Than C-Sections

Almost one in three births in the United States today is by cesarean section—a dramatic change from a century ago when physicians avoided the surgery whenever possible. Doctors remained so …

What the Gender Reveal Fad Says About Modern Pregnancy

A New Ritual Speaks to Anxieties Surrounding the Medicalization of Childbearing

My youngest daughter often asks me to tell her about the day when, pregnant with her, I was riding to work on the subway and wondering whether she would be …

When Pac-Man Started a National “Media Panic”

Video Games Revived a Perpetual Debate Over the Virtues and Vices of Technology for Kids

In the early 1980s, spurred by the incredible popularity of Atari, Space Invaders, and Pac-Man, everyone seemed to be talking about video games, if not obsessively playing them. A …