motherjones--2020-09-21--GreatSchools Wanted to Disrupt Online School Ratings. But Did It Make Neighborhood Segregation Worse

GreatSchools Wanted to Disrupt Online School Ratings. But Did It Make Neighborhood Segregation Worse?

Thalia Tringo , a real estate agent in the Boston area , faces a dilemma whenever a homebuyer asks her if the local schools are any good .
This can be a dicey topic because buyers ’ perceptions of schools are often closely associated with the racial makeup of their student bodies , which usually matches the racial makeup of their surrounding neighborhoods .
Tringo avoids answering specific questions about schools because of professional rules designed to prevent racial discrimination in housing .
So like many real estate agents , she plays it safe , telling clients to look up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ though she is wary of what they ’ re likely to find .
Among the first results on a cursory Google search is usually GreatSchools , a nonprofit site that ranks public schools nationwide and feeds that information to real estate sites such as Redfin , Zillow , and Realtor.com .
GreatSchools is easy to find , but its ratings correlate closely with students ’ racial or economic backgrounds .
“ The schools that get high marks and diverse schools tend to not be the same ones , ” Tringo says of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
She recalls going to an eighth grade graduation for a client ’ s kid at Winter Hill Community Innovation School in Somerville , just outside of Boston , and marveling at the friendly atmosphere among the middle schoolers and the diversity of the graduating class .
“ [ It ] was just amazing , ” she says .
“ But you wouldn ’ t get that from looking at rankings.
” Winter Hill has one of the most diverse student bodies in Somerville : Half of its students are Latino and 13 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rating of 4 on a scale of 1 to 10 , GreatSchools deems Winter Hill “ below average.
” Its students ’ poor test scores drag its rating down , despite evidence that they ’ re making as much academic progress as most students in Massachusetts .
Buyers looking for homes near highly rated schools might skip right over the Winter Hill neighborhood and look closer to one of Somerville ’ s other schools or in another town altogether .
There ’ s evidence that GreatSchools ’ ratings are exacerbating racial segregation , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the communities around them .
“ What makes GreatSchools popular is partly that they ’ re linked to real estate sites , which is partly what makes them dangerous , ” says Sean Reardon , an education professor at Stanford University who studies poverty and inequality .
“ They start to overtly link people ’ s residential choices to what seems to be a measure of school quality .
While that makes lots of sense if it ’ s a high-quality metric of school quality , if it ’ s more of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ then it runs the risk of creating incentives for more socioeconomic segregation.
” If you don ’ t have kids or haven ’ t been looking for a house recently , you may not have heard of GreatSchools , but its influence is profound .
Its ratings are incorporated into popular real estate websites , which pay GreatSchools to use its data .
It is supported by deep-pocketed philanthropies , especially ones with ties to the charter school movement .
GreatSchools says its site attracts 45 million people a year ; by comparison @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with children in the United States .
Due to the pandemic and the reenergized movement to fight for racial justice , the inequities between school districts have been thrown into sharp relief : Some can easily afford to implement distance learning while others lack the resources to effectively teach online .
Institutions of all sorts are being pushed to reexamine their roles in reinforcing systemic racial divides , and GreatSchools , which had already been reevaluating aspects of its school-rating metrics , appears to be doing the same .
“ Racial segregation and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ system and everyone involved has to do better to create more equitable outcomes for all students , GreatSchools included , ” CEO Jon Deane told me in an email .
But Deane added that he still believed GreatSchools can be an important tool for parents .
“ We feel strongly that it ’ s a parent ’ s civil right to have access to information about their schools.
” Bill Jackson got the idea for GreatSchools in the early 1990s , when San Francisco ’ s school superintendent wanted to know if a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dispatched the twentysomething Jackson , who had a few years of teaching experience and a public affairs fellowship , to investigate .
Jackson concluded that the rosy reports that principals were feeding back to the superintendent were mostly untrue .
“ This experience led me to believe that parents and the public—not to mention school administrators—needed more and better information about school quality , ” Jackson later recalled .
In 1998 , after working for a tech startup and a voter information website , Jackson launched GreatSchools .
The nonprofit expanded rapidly after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Left Behind four years later , requiring states to implement standardized testing and publish the results .
GreatSchools quickly went from evaluating schools in two Bay Area counties to becoming a de facto grading system for all public schools .
In 2011 , as it added an unprecedented number of schools to its database , it brought in $ 10.8 million .
( In 2018 , the most recent year for which data is available , its revenues were $ 7.3 million . )
GreatSchools now maintains more than 100,000 school profiles , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the country .
Its data , pulled from states and the federal government , includes test scores , teacher-to-student ratios , discipline rates , and students ’ racial backgrounds .
The site also includes user reviews from parents and community members , though their input doesn ’ t affect a school ’ s overall rating .
GreatSchools lets schools add information to their profiles , including schedules , uniform policies , and what kinds of classes and extracurricular activities they offer .
But any nuance is overwhelmed by the single score featured prominently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A rating of 1 to 4 indicates a school is “ below average ” ; 5 or 6 signals it is “ average ” ; and 7 to 10 means it is “ above average.
” Those scores are generated using complex formulas that rely heavily on standardized tests .
Yet education researchers and advocates worry about evaluating schools based on their test scores .
The tests , they say , measure surprisingly little of what students learn ; have debatable abilities to predict kids ’ future success ; and produce results so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ economic backgrounds that they are , essentially , demography in disguise .
Since 2017 , GreatSchools has tried to make its scores take into account whether students across demographic groups are falling behind their peers both within the same school and in the rest of their state .
In August , GreatSchools rolled out a major overhaul of its system in California and Michigan , which produced new ratings that give less weight to raw test scores and more importance to equity and year-to-year improvements on test scores .
GreatSchools plans to expand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ changes to GreatSchools ’ ratings would require states and the federal government to provide additional data for all schools in a consistent fashion .
The appeal of GreatSchools ratings , after all , is that they provide a uniform way to compare schools across the country .
For now , GreatSchools ’ heavy reliance on test scores—and other measures that are highly correlated with race , like graduation rates and Advanced Placement test performance—means homebuyers looking at its ratings don ’ t have to harbor any racial animus to steer clear of neighborhoods @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They just have to use GreatSchools ’ filters on real estate websites to skip over listings in areas with poorly rated schools .
Since homebuyers who can afford to move into areas with highly rated schools are largely white and Asian , the scores could reinforce the separation of neighborhoods along racial lines .
In 2018 , two business professors , Sharique Hasan of Duke University and Anuj Kumar of the University of Florida , published a study that examined what happened to neighborhoods in 19 states and Washington , DC , after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ took into account local real estate trends and recognized that homes near schools with better test scores were already priced higher before GreatSchools rated them .
When the researchers updated their findings this spring by adding seven more states , they found that the gap between average home prices near schools with better ratings increased by more than $ 16,300 after three years compared to those near average-rated schools .
And those areas close to highly rated schools attracted more white and Asian residents .
Near lower-rated schools , the gap in property @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over three years , and white and Asian residents left .
“ Broader access to information increased segregation because high-income families could more readily leverage school ratings to move to neighborhoods with better schools , ” Hasan and Kumar wrote .
“ In this case , knowledge was indeed power , but only for the powerful.
” While residential segregation can lead to school segregation , the inverse is also true .
A major reason for that is a 1974 Supreme Court ruling that school desegregation efforts can not stretch across district lines @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But even within districts , boundary lines that dictate which schools kids attend can skew neighborhood demographics .
For decades , parents have used the racial breakdown of schools as a proxy for assessing their quality .
Ann Owens , a sociology professor at the University of Southern California , found that households with children live in more segregated areas than those without children .
“ As long as neighborhoods are demarcated by school district boundaries limiting enrollment options , parents will take these boundaries into account when making residential choices , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she wrote .
Last year , journalists Matt Barnum and Gabrielle LaMarr LeMee of the education news site Chalkbeat concluded that GreatSchools ’ ratings “ effectively penalize ” schools serving higher proportions of low-income , Black , and Latino students .
The Chalkbeat writers noted that GreatSchools ’ own data showed that many of these schools were doing a good job helping students learn math and English .
Yet they still had a tough time getting above-average ratings on GreatSchools .
“ The result , ” the reporters wrote , “ is a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that is steering people toward whiter , more affluent schools.
” GreatSchools says its ratings are not the final word on schools ’ quality , but a starting point for parents to investigate further .
But despite requests from Kumar , it won ’ t provide data on how many users scroll past the top number to read more nuanced information .
Kumar says his study ’ s results fly in the face of hopes that equal access to information will promote equality , a premise that remains at the heart of GreatSchools @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their intentions are noble , ” he says .
“ But what we are seeing is , there are often unintended consequences.
” Even if all parents had the same access to information , he says , they do not all have the same ability to put that information to use .
Deane , GreatSchools ’ CEO , told me that the conclusions reached by Chalkbeat and Hasan and Kumar “ overlook , or at best minimize , ” the systemic racism that has “ steered our society for decades.
” “ It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ underlying issues and policies that segregate communities and create opportunity gaps , including school boundary designations , property taxes and the relationship to school funding , discipline and safety policies , among others , ” Deane wrote in an email .
“ If we are to address the fundamental inequalities that still exist in America ’ s schools , we must respect the right of all parents to access critical information about their schools .
This is GreatSchools ’ mission.
” GreatSchools management has been aware of these issues for years .
Jackson @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , says that as early as the mid-2000s , he and others at GreatSchools had worried that assigning school ratings could exacerbate residential segregation .
“ People are absolutely using [ GreatSchools ratings ] to find other people like them and to sort economically and sometimes racially , ” he says .
But he recalls that GreatSchools ’ management concluded that self-sorting wouldn ’ t go away even if GreatSchools did .
People would find the same information elsewhere , either from competitors or government websites .
It appears that internal conversations about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s board never formally discussed them , Jackson says .
Education writer Leanna Landsmann , who was on the board for 14 years and also served as the board chair , told me flatly , “ I don ’ t remember any discussions ever about GreatSchools resegregating neighborhoods .
Ever .
I would have remembered that .
I came out of the civil rights era.
” Eric Hanushek , a prominent education researcher at Stanford University and former GreatSchools board member , says he remembers conversations about what kinds of families would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how ratings could affect residential segregation .
( Several board members declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment . )
The way GreatSchools hopes people will use its rankings has shifted over the years .
In 2011 , the organization stated that “ informed school choice ” was one of its top missions .
At the time , Jackson told me , charter schools and school choice had bipartisan support , and President Barack Obama ’ s administration promoted them as well .
Now that charter schools have lost @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that they siphon resources from traditional schools and undermine teachers ’ unions—GreatSchools has shied away from explicitly endorsing them .
Nevertheless , GreatSchools ’ biggest donors read like a Who ’ s Who of the school choice movement : the Walton Family Foundation , the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation , Bloomberg Philanthropies , and Arnold Ventures .
When I asked representatives of these organizations whether they thought GreatSchools helped boost the case for charter schools , they did not answer directly .
“ We are longtime supporters of the organization , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Foundation ’ s K–12 education program director , “ because of our belief that knowledge is power , and the more clear , accessible information parents have about school options , the better.
” The Walton foundation has given GreatSchools more than $ 23 million since 2009 .
In 2011 , the foundation ’ s $ 4.8 million grant made up almost half of GreatSchools ’ revenue .
The Gates Foundation , which has given $ 9.7 million to GreatSchools ( most of it more than a decade ago ) , pointed out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ effort to track how high school graduates fare once they get to college .
“ Our investments in GreatSchools ’ rating systems , ” senior adviser Bill Tucker says , “ are grounded in our belief that parents deserve and value information about how their schools are performing.
” Along with representatives from tech and finance firms , people with private and charter school backgrounds still feature prominently on GreatSchools ’ board of directors .
Deane , who became CEO in early 2019 , has a long background in charter schools .
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gates Foundation and spent three years as the director of education for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative , which has funded charter school programs .
Earlier in his career , Deane worked as a math teacher and administrator in Bay Area charter schools .
But he says he sends his children to a public school in San Francisco ( it gets an 8 on GreatSchools ) .
The organization , Deane says , is “ agnostic ” about what kind of school parents send their children to .
“ Schools are not commodities that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” says Jack Schneider , an assistant professor of education at the University of Massachusetts , Lowell , who has become one of GreatSchools ’ fiercest critics .
( The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative has funded some of his research , too . )
In 2017 , he wrote a piece for the Washington Post castigating GreatSchools and the real estate websites that use its ratings .
His daughter ’ s school in Somerville , he noted , received a 6 from GreatSchools while schools in nearby towns scored much better .
“ These @ @ @ @ @ @ @ schools , ” he wrote .
“ But are they better than ours ?
There ’ s little evidence of that .
The main difference , it seems , is that they are whiter and more affluent.
” The Boston area is a great illustration of how an overreliance on test-based evaluations can profoundly disrupt communities , whether it results in the state shutting down “ underperforming ” schools that serve Black and Latino students , or wealthy residents driving up suburban real estate prices as they look for the “ right ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only one factor behind segregation in the Boston region .
White racial animosity is so ingrained in the area that Stony Brook University professor of Africana Studies Zebulon Miletsky calls it “ the Deep North.
” That hostility exploded in the mid-1970s , after federal Judge W. Arthur Garrity ordered about 17,000 Boston students to change schools in an effort to desegregate them .
White parents clashed with police in front of TV cameras as the integration plan was carried out .
The “ anti-busing ” protests had long-lasting effects : They weakened @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out the types of desegregation efforts Southern cities had gone through decades earlier , and they led to white flight from Boston to its suburbs .
The desegregation efforts ultimately did improve race relations in Boston , Miletsky says , but disputes about racial integration have flared up again .
In 2014 , Boston replaced the desegregation-era plan with one that prioritizes allowing children to go to nearby schools .
Because of these changes , researchers have found that students in predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods south of downtown now have fewer top-tier @ @ @ @ @ @ @ competition to get into those schools , are less likely to attend them , and have to travel farther to get to them .
The researchers pointed out that no students in the predominantly Black neighborhood of Mattapan lived within 1.5 miles of any of the district ’ s best-rated schools .
Not a single one .
Ruby Reyes , the director of the Boston Education Justice Alliance , says test scores , which GreatSchools relies on for its assessments , set off a chain reaction that schools struggle to recover from .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ has pushed lower-income residents out of their neighborhoods or the city completely .
At the same time , charter schools have poached students , particularly in predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods , further draining public schools short of funds .
The result is a “ culture of fear and scarcity ” in schools with low test scores .
“ It ’ s this vicious cycle of [ schools ] losing kids in enrollment and then their budgets get cut , and so services are lost , ” Reyes says .
“ Then test @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ‘ bad school , ’ and nobody wants to send their kids to bad schools.
” Residents ’ fears of sending kids to “ bad ” schools appear to be fueling “ a growing mismatch between the demographics of kids who attend Boston ’ s K–12 public schools and the city overall , ” the Boston Foundation reported in January .
“ The families who leave Boston when their kids approach kindergarten are predominantly middle and high income .
Today , almost 8 in 10 students remaining in Boston ’ s public schools @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are students of color.
” Ultimately , Schneider says , families just want an easy way to assess the true quality of schools , and the simplified score GreatSchools offers doesn ’ t give much insight .
“ It ’ s not GreatSchools ’ fault that the data wouldn ’ t answer that question for this family , ” he says .
“ But if their theory of change is we should provide good information to people so that they can make decisions about where to send their kids , then you ought @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that people need.
” “ Schools are not uniformly good or bad .
Schools have different strengths and weaknesses.
” To find a better answer , Schneider partnered with eight school districts in the state to create an alternative .
The Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Education Assessment ( MCIEA ) , which started in Somerville in 2016 , now includes a range of districts , including Boston , wealthy suburbs , and outlying towns .
It is developing its own evaluation system , for both schools and individual students , that is meant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rating systems don ’ t ask people what they actually want out of their schools , Schneider says .
So that ’ s where he started .
When he and other researchers talked to teachers , parents , administrators , local leaders , and students , they heard a list of concerns that aren ’ t reflected in GreatSchools ’ ratings or the data that governments collect .
For example , people said they wanted qualified teachers who connect with students and stick around long enough to be part of the community .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ kids to feel safe so they can concentrate on learning .
And they wanted a place where students could be well-rounded and engaged citizens .
One striking difference between Schneider ’ s school profiles and those of GreatSchools is that there ’ s no overall score for each school .
“ The fact that most states present [ an overall ] rating of schools is just absolutely evidence of malpractice , ” he says .
But how do you gauge that without relying on standardized tests ?
I saw the alternative in action @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Milford early this year before schools were closed .
The teacher broke her class into teams to assess the contents of four beakers containing clear liquid .
The students had all sorts of ideas for how to do the test , or the “ performance evaluation , ” as MCIEA calls it .
Some weighed the beakers to calculate the liquids ’ density and compared their results to values they found on the internet .
Several smelled the contents and noticed an odor suspiciously like vinegar .
Two teams were at the back @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over a burner .
If there was any salt residue once the liquid evaporated , one of the students explained , that would probably mean it was salt water .
Another kid asked for baking soda , presumably to see if it would foam up when poured in .
The students were devising their own experiments—and seemed to be thoroughly engaged even as they were being evaluated for their problem-solving and teamwork .
Teachers in several MCIEA districts told me about the projects they ’ d been able to create thanks to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ school social studies teacher in Attleboro described a project that explored the controversy over whether Harriet Tubman should replace Andrew Jackson on the $ 20 bill .
“ I can remember a kid ranting about the Specie Circular , ” the teacher told me excitedly .
Sally Eosefow , a former engineer who now teaches math , rattled off several challenges she presented to her students .
In one , precalculus students had to find a plane wreck on a map given just two angle measurements , which requires them to use sines @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chart their own pulse and blood pressure readings based on sinusoidal functions .
MCIEA ’ s long-term goal is to show that these methods produce more valuable results than the existing state exams , so that school districts could replace the tests completely .
Yet first both the state and federal education departments would have to agree that MCIEA ’ s methods could produce the same results as standardized tests .
Schneider says that would defeat the purpose , since he sees standardized tests as flawed to begin with .
The consortium is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ turn ” so it can replace standardized tests with its evaluation tools in the districts it works with .
If it succeeds , it could offer parents and educators a very different way of looking at school performance .
“ If we built better data systems that aligned with the things that people care about and that treated schools and communities fairly , ” Schneider says , “ maybe we would be able to unravel and unstitch this national narrative we have that good schools are a rare commodity that parents need to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t just send your kid to the neighborhood public school.
” GreatSchools ’ partners are showing signs of taking the problem of racial segregation and school ratings more seriously .
Redfin recently changed how it displays GreatSchools ratings .
Glenn Kelman , Redfin ’ s CEO , tells me that putting the ratings on home profiles has been a “ real point of contention here at the company.
” Kelman says his employees worry about the potential to encourage white flight and exacerbate residential segregation .
Plus , as a company that employs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worry about their running afoul of fair housing laws .
“ The challenge that GreatSchools and Redfin have is that the consumer does want a really simple answer , and we want to provide context , ” Kelman says .
“ People want to know which one is good and which one is bad .
When you try to say it ’ s more complicated than that , you sometimes lose your grip on their attention.
” Kelman says an intern confronted him two years ago about how reductive the GreatSchools ratings could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ providing more details on Redfin ’ s website .
GreatSchools , Kelman says , jumped at the opportunity .
Now users can click on a school listed on a house profile and see the different components of GreatSchools ’ ratings as well as residents ’ reviews of the school .
In its first year , the new feature didn ’ t lead to any changes in consumer behavior , according to Redfin .
( Only 10 to 15 percent of people who click on a home profile scroll down far enough to see @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the company says .
It could not provide data on how many users filtered their search results by school ratings , but said few people use the feature . )
Still , Kelman says he ’ s glad his site included the new information .
“ I think tech , more broadly than Redfin , is just waking up to the idea that websites matter , mobile applications matter .
We have to be careful about the information that we provide , ” he says .
“ Being in this seat a long @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ought to want to live , what kind of home they ought to want for environmental reasons or for reasons of social justice , I just feel like I ’ ve come up against the most deep-seated desires people have , ” Kelman tells me .
“ They call us when they just had their first baby and their world has narrowed to those two or three people—one or two parents and the child .
Trying to get them to think about the rest of an American city is hard.
” This story @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fellowship from Columbia University ’ s Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights .

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Thalia Tringo, a real estate agent in the Boston area, faces a dilemma whenever a homebuyer asks her if the local schools are any good. This can be a dicey topic because buyers’ perceptions of schools are often closely associated with the racial makeup of their student bodies, which usually matches the racial makeup of their surrounding neighborhoods. Tringo avoids answering specific questions about schools because of professional rules designed to prevent racial discrimination in housing. So like many real estate agents, she plays it safe, telling clients to look up the information on their own, even though she is wary of what they’re likely to find.
Among the first results on a cursory Google search is usually GreatSchools, a nonprofit site that ranks public schools nationwide and feeds that information to real estate sites such as Redfin, Zillow, and Realtor.com. GreatSchools is easy to find, but its ratings correlate closely with students’ racial or economic backgrounds. “The schools that get high marks and diverse schools tend to not be the same ones,” Tringo says of the exams GreatSchools uses to produce its score. She recalls going to an eighth grade graduation for a client’s kid at Winter Hill Community Innovation School in Somerville, just outside of Boston, and marveling at the friendly atmosphere among the middle schoolers and the diversity of the graduating class. “[It] was just amazing,” she says. “But you wouldn’t get that from looking at rankings.”
Winter Hill has one of the most diverse student bodies in Somerville: Half of its students are Latino and 13 percent are Black. Yet with a rating of 4 on a scale of 1 to 10, GreatSchools deems Winter Hill “below average.” Its students’ poor test scores drag its rating down, despite evidence that they’re making as much academic progress as most students in Massachusetts. Buyers looking for homes near highly rated schools might skip right over the Winter Hill neighborhood and look closer to one of Somerville’s other schools or in another town altogether.
There’s evidence that GreatSchools’ ratings are exacerbating racial segregation, not just within school systems but in the communities around them. “What makes GreatSchools popular is partly that they’re linked to real estate sites, which is partly what makes them dangerous,” says Sean Reardon, an education professor at Stanford University who studies poverty and inequality. “They start to overtly link people’s residential choices to what seems to be a measure of school quality. While that makes lots of sense if it’s a high-quality metric of school quality, if it’s more of a measure of socioeconomic composition of schools, then it runs the risk of creating incentives for more socioeconomic segregation.”
While residential segregation can lead to school segregation, the inverse is also true.
If you don’t have kids or haven’t been looking for a house recently, you may not have heard of GreatSchools, but its influence is profound. Its ratings are incorporated into popular real estate websites, which pay GreatSchools to use its data. It is supported by deep-pocketed philanthropies, especially ones with ties to the charter school movement. GreatSchools says its site attracts 45 million people a year; by comparison, there are about 40 million households with children in the United States.
Due to the pandemic and the reenergized movement to fight for racial justice, the inequities between school districts have been thrown into sharp relief: Some can easily afford to implement distance learning while others lack the resources to effectively teach online. Institutions of all sorts are being pushed to reexamine their roles in reinforcing systemic racial divides, and GreatSchools, which had already been reevaluating aspects of its school-rating metrics, appears to be doing the same. “Racial segregation and racist policies are woven into our education system and everyone involved has to do better to create more equitable outcomes for all students, GreatSchools included,” CEO Jon Deane told me in an email. But Deane added that he still believed GreatSchools can be an important tool for parents. “We feel strongly that it’s a parent’s civil right to have access to information about their schools.”
Bill Jackson got the idea for GreatSchools in the early 1990s, when San Francisco’s school superintendent wanted to know if a new restructuring program was working. He dispatched the twentysomething Jackson, who had a few years of teaching experience and a public affairs fellowship, to investigate. Jackson concluded that the rosy reports that principals were feeding back to the superintendent were mostly untrue. “This experience led me to believe that parents and the public—not to mention school administrators—needed more and better information about school quality,” Jackson later recalled.
In 1998, after working for a tech startup and a voter information website, Jackson launched GreatSchools. The nonprofit expanded rapidly after President George W. Bush signed No Child Left Behind four years later, requiring states to implement standardized testing and publish the results. GreatSchools quickly went from evaluating schools in two Bay Area counties to becoming a de facto grading system for all public schools. In 2011, as it added an unprecedented number of schools to its database, it brought in $10.8 million. (In 2018, the most recent year for which data is available, its revenues were $7.3 million.)
GreatSchools now maintains more than 100,000 school profiles, one for nearly every public school in the country. Its data, pulled from states and the federal government, includes test scores, teacher-to-student ratios, discipline rates, and students’ racial backgrounds. The site also includes user reviews from parents and community members, though their input doesn’t affect a school’s overall rating. GreatSchools lets schools add information to their profiles, including schedules, uniform policies, and what kinds of classes and extracurricular activities they offer.
But any nuance is overwhelmed by the single score featured prominently at the top of every profile. A rating of 1 to 4 indicates a school is “below average”; 5 or 6 signals it is “average”; and 7 to 10 means it is “above average.” Those scores are generated using complex formulas that rely heavily on standardized tests. Yet education researchers and advocates worry about evaluating schools based on their test scores. The tests, they say, measure surprisingly little of what students learn; have debatable abilities to predict kids’ future success; and produce results so highly correlated to students’ racial and economic backgrounds that they are, essentially, demography in disguise.
“Schools are not commodities that can be shopped for like cereal.”
Since 2017, GreatSchools has tried to make its scores take into account whether students across demographic groups are falling behind their peers both within the same school and in the rest of their state. In August, GreatSchools rolled out a major overhaul of its system in California and Michigan, which produced new ratings that give less weight to raw test scores and more importance to equity and year-to-year improvements on test scores. GreatSchools plans to expand that approach nationwide. (Three days after this story was published online, GreatSchools announced that it was implementing the new ratings across the country.)*
But any radical changes to GreatSchools’ ratings would require states and the federal government to provide additional data for all schools in a consistent fashion. The appeal of GreatSchools ratings, after all, is that they provide a uniform way to compare schools across the country.
For now, GreatSchools’ heavy reliance on test scores—and other measures that are highly correlated with race, like graduation rates and Advanced Placement test performance—means homebuyers looking at its ratings don’t have to harbor any racial animus to steer clear of neighborhoods with sizable Black or Latino populations. They just have to use GreatSchools’ filters on real estate websites to skip over listings in areas with poorly rated schools. Since homebuyers who can afford to move into areas with highly rated schools are largely white and Asian, the scores could reinforce the separation of neighborhoods along racial lines.
In 2018, two business professors, Sharique Hasan of Duke University and Anuj Kumar of the University of Florida, published a study that examined what happened to neighborhoods in 19 states and Washington, DC, after GreatSchools ratings were introduced. Their analysis took into account local real estate trends and recognized that homes near schools with better test scores were already priced higher before GreatSchools rated them. When the researchers updated their findings this spring by adding seven more states, they found that the gap between average home prices near schools with better ratings increased by more than $16,300 after three years compared to those near average-rated schools. And those areas close to highly rated schools attracted more white and Asian residents. Near lower-rated schools, the gap in property values also decreased by roughly $16,000 over three years, and white and Asian residents left. “Broader access to information increased segregation because high-income families could more readily leverage school ratings to move to neighborhoods with better schools,” Hasan and Kumar wrote. “In this case, knowledge was indeed power, but only for the powerful.”
While residential segregation can lead to school segregation, the inverse is also true. A major reason for that is a 1974 Supreme Court ruling that school desegregation efforts cannot stretch across district lines, except in the most egregious cases. But even within districts, boundary lines that dictate which schools kids attend can skew neighborhood demographics. For decades, parents have used the racial breakdown of schools as a proxy for assessing their quality. Ann Owens, a sociology professor at the University of Southern California, found that households with children live in more segregated areas than those without children. “As long as neighborhoods are demarcated by school district boundaries limiting enrollment options, parents will take these boundaries into account when making residential choices, which may contribute to segregation,” she wrote.
Last year, journalists Matt Barnum and Gabrielle LaMarr LeMee of the education news site Chalkbeat concluded that GreatSchools’ ratings “effectively penalize” schools serving higher proportions of low-income, Black, and Latino students. The Chalkbeat writers noted that GreatSchools’ own data showed that many of these schools were doing a good job helping students learn math and English. Yet they still had a tough time getting above-average ratings on GreatSchools. “The result,” the reporters wrote, “is a ubiquitous, privately run school ratings system that is steering people toward whiter, more affluent schools.”
GreatSchools says its ratings are not the final word on schools’ quality, but a starting point for parents to investigate further. But despite requests from Kumar, it won’t provide data on how many users scroll past the top number to read more nuanced information. Kumar says his study’s results fly in the face of hopes that equal access to information will promote equality, a premise that remains at the heart of GreatSchools’ mission. “I personally feel their intentions are noble,” he says. “But what we are seeing is, there are often unintended consequences.” Even if all parents had the same access to information, he says, they do not all have the same ability to put that information to use.
Deane, GreatSchools’ CEO, told me that the conclusions reached by Chalkbeat and Hasan and Kumar “overlook, or at best minimize,” the systemic racism that has “steered our society for decades.” “It’s very important to look at underlying issues and policies that segregate communities and create opportunity gaps, including school boundary designations, property taxes and the relationship to school funding, discipline and safety policies, among others,” Deane wrote in an email. “If we are to address the fundamental inequalities that still exist in America’s schools, we must respect the right of all parents to access critical information about their schools. This is GreatSchools’ mission.”
GreatSchools management has been aware of these issues for years. Jackson, who left the organization in 2016, says that as early as the mid-2000s, he and others at GreatSchools had worried that assigning school ratings could exacerbate residential segregation. “People are absolutely using [GreatSchools ratings] to find other people like them and to sort economically and sometimes racially,” he says. But he recalls that GreatSchools’ management concluded that self-sorting wouldn’t go away even if GreatSchools did. People would find the same information elsewhere, either from competitors or government websites.
No students in the predominantly Black neighborhood of Mattapan lived within 1.5 miles of any of the district’s best-rated schools. Not a single one.
It appears that internal conversations about these issues were limited. The group’s board never formally discussed them, Jackson says. Education writer Leanna Landsmann, who was on the board for 14 years and also served as the board chair, told me flatly, “I don’t remember any discussions ever about GreatSchools resegregating neighborhoods. Ever. I would have remembered that. I came out of the civil rights era.” Eric Hanushek, a prominent education researcher at Stanford University and former GreatSchools board member, says he remembers conversations about what kinds of families would use the site, but not about how ratings could affect residential segregation. (Several board members declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment.)
The way GreatSchools hopes people will use its rankings has shifted over the years. In 2011, the organization stated that “informed school choice” was one of its top missions. At the time, Jackson told me, charter schools and school choice had bipartisan support, and President Barack Obama’s administration promoted them as well. Now that charter schools have lost favor among Democratic leaders—largely because of concerns that they siphon resources from traditional schools and undermine teachers’ unions—GreatSchools has shied away from explicitly endorsing them.
Nevertheless, GreatSchools’ biggest donors read like a Who’s Who of the school choice movement: the Walton Family Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and Arnold Ventures. When I asked representatives of these organizations whether they thought GreatSchools helped boost the case for charter schools, they did not answer directly. “We are longtime supporters of the organization,” says Marc Sternberg, the Walton Family Foundation’s K–12 education program director, “because of our belief that knowledge is power, and the more clear, accessible information parents have about school options, the better.”
The Walton foundation has given GreatSchools more than $23 million since 2009. In 2011, the foundation’s $4.8 million grant made up almost half of GreatSchools’ revenue. The Gates Foundation, which has given $9.7 million to GreatSchools (most of it more than a decade ago), pointed out that its most recent grant supported an effort to track how high school graduates fare once they get to college. “Our investments in GreatSchools’ rating systems,” senior adviser Bill Tucker says, “are grounded in our belief that parents deserve and value information about how their schools are performing.”
Along with representatives from tech and finance firms, people with private and charter school backgrounds still feature prominently on GreatSchools’ board of directors. Deane, who became CEO in early 2019, has a long background in charter schools. He briefly worked on school issues at the Gates Foundation and spent three years as the director of education for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which has funded charter school programs. Earlier in his career, Deane worked as a math teacher and administrator in Bay Area charter schools. But he says he sends his children to a public school in San Francisco (it gets an 8 on GreatSchools). The organization, Deane says, is “agnostic” about what kind of school parents send their children to.
“Schools are not commodities that can be shopped for like cereal,” says Jack Schneider, an assistant professor of education at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, who has become one of GreatSchools’ fiercest critics. (The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative has funded some of his research, too.) In 2017, he wrote a piece for the Washington Post castigating GreatSchools and the real estate websites that use its ratings. His daughter’s school in Somerville, he noted, received a 6 from GreatSchools while schools in nearby towns scored much better. “These towns, no doubt, have excellent schools,” he wrote. “But are they better than ours? There’s little evidence of that. The main difference, it seems, is that they are whiter and more affluent.”
The Boston area is a great illustration of how an overreliance on test-based evaluations can profoundly disrupt communities, whether it results in the state shutting down “underperforming” schools that serve Black and Latino students, or wealthy residents driving up suburban real estate prices as they look for the “right” school attendance zone.
School ratings are only one factor behind segregation in the Boston region. White racial animosity is so ingrained in the area that Stony Brook University professor of Africana Studies Zebulon Miletsky calls it “the Deep North.” That hostility exploded in the mid-1970s, after federal Judge W. Arthur Garrity ordered about 17,000 Boston students to change schools in an effort to desegregate them. White parents clashed with police in front of TV cameras as the integration plan was carried out. The “anti-busing” protests had long-lasting effects: They weakened the resolve of Northern politicians to carry out the types of desegregation efforts Southern cities had gone through decades earlier, and they led to white flight from Boston to its suburbs.
The desegregation efforts ultimately did improve race relations in Boston, Miletsky says, but disputes about racial integration have flared up again. In 2014, Boston replaced the desegregation-era plan with one that prioritizes allowing children to go to nearby schools. Because of these changes, researchers have found that students in predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods south of downtown now have fewer top-tier schools to choose from, face more competition to get into those schools, are less likely to attend them, and have to travel farther to get to them. The researchers pointed out that no students in the predominantly Black neighborhood of Mattapan lived within 1.5 miles of any of the district’s best-rated schools. Not a single one.
“Test scores go down and it becomes a ‘bad school,’ and nobody wants to send their kids to bad schools.”
Ruby Reyes, the director of the Boston Education Justice Alliance, says test scores, which GreatSchools relies on for its assessments, set off a chain reaction that schools struggle to recover from. The cycle is exacerbated by gentrification that has pushed lower-income residents out of their neighborhoods or the city completely. At the same time, charter schools have poached students, particularly in predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods, further draining public schools short of funds. The result is a “culture of fear and scarcity” in schools with low test scores. “It’s this vicious cycle of [schools] losing kids in enrollment and then their budgets get cut, and so services are lost,” Reyes says. “Then test scores go down and it becomes a ‘bad school,’ and nobody wants to send their kids to bad schools.”
Residents’ fears of sending kids to “bad” schools appear to be fueling “a growing mismatch between the demographics of kids who attend Boston’s K–12 public schools and the city overall,” the Boston Foundation reported in January. “The families who leave Boston when their kids approach kindergarten are predominantly middle and high income. Today, almost 8 in 10 students remaining in Boston’s public schools are low income…and almost 9 in 10 are students of color.”
Ultimately, Schneider says, families just want an easy way to assess the true quality of schools, and the simplified score GreatSchools offers doesn’t give much insight. “It’s not GreatSchools’ fault that the data wouldn’t answer that question for this family,” he says. “But if their theory of change is we should provide good information to people so that they can make decisions about where to send their kids, then you ought to ensure that you have the information that people need.” “Schools are not uniformly good or bad. Schools have different strengths and weaknesses.”
To find a better answer, Schneider partnered with eight school districts in the state to create an alternative. The Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Education Assessment (MCIEA), which started in Somerville in 2016, now includes a range of districts, including Boston, wealthy suburbs, and outlying towns. It is developing its own evaluation system, for both schools and individual students, that is meant to replace standardized testing.
Most school rating systems don’t ask people what they actually want out of their schools, Schneider says. So that’s where he started. When he and other researchers talked to teachers, parents, administrators, local leaders, and students, they heard a list of concerns that aren’t reflected in GreatSchools’ ratings or the data that governments collect. For example, people said they wanted qualified teachers who connect with students and stick around long enough to be part of the community. They wanted rigorous curricula. They expected kids to feel safe so they can concentrate on learning. And they wanted a place where students could be well-rounded and engaged citizens.
One striking difference between Schneider’s school profiles and those of GreatSchools is that there’s no overall score for each school. “The fact that most states present [an overall] rating of schools is just absolutely evidence of malpractice,” he says.
“Schools are not uniformly good or bad. Schools have different strengths and weaknesses.”
But how do you gauge that without relying on standardized tests? I saw the alternative in action in an eighth grade science classroom in Milford early this year before schools were closed. The teacher broke her class into teams to assess the contents of four beakers containing clear liquid. The students had all sorts of ideas for how to do the test, or the “performance evaluation,” as MCIEA calls it. Some weighed the beakers to calculate the liquids’ density and compared their results to values they found on the internet. Several smelled the contents and noticed an odor suspiciously like vinegar. Two teams were at the back of the room, boiling the liquids over a burner. If there was any salt residue once the liquid evaporated, one of the students explained, that would probably mean it was salt water. Another kid asked for baking soda, presumably to see if it would foam up when poured in.
The students were devising their own experiments—and seemed to be thoroughly engaged even as they were being evaluated for their problem-solving and teamwork. Teachers in several MCIEA districts told me about the projects they’d been able to create thanks to the freedom they were given. A high school social studies teacher in Attleboro described a project that explored the controversy over whether Harriet Tubman should replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. “I can remember a kid ranting about the Specie Circular,” the teacher told me excitedly. Sally Eosefow, a former engineer who now teaches math, rattled off several challenges she presented to her students. In one, precalculus students had to find a plane wreck on a map given just two angle measurements, which requires them to use sines and cosines. In another, kids chart their own pulse and blood pressure readings based on sinusoidal functions.
MCIEA’s long-term goal is to show that these methods produce more valuable results than the existing state exams, so that school districts could replace the tests completely. Yet first both the state and federal education departments would have to agree that MCIEA’s methods could produce the same results as standardized tests. Schneider says that would defeat the purpose, since he sees standardized tests as flawed to begin with. The consortium is “waiting for the political winds to turn” so it can replace standardized tests with its evaluation tools in the districts it works with.
If it succeeds, it could offer parents and educators a very different way of looking at school performance. “If we built better data systems that aligned with the things that people care about and that treated schools and communities fairly,” Schneider says, “maybe we would be able to unravel and unstitch this national narrative we have that good schools are a rare commodity that parents need to compete over and that you can’t just send your kid to the neighborhood public school.”
GreatSchools’ partners are showing signs of taking the problem of racial segregation and school ratings more seriously. Redfin recently changed how it displays GreatSchools ratings. Glenn Kelman, Redfin’s CEO, tells me that putting the ratings on home profiles has been a “real point of contention here at the company.”
Kelman says his employees worry about the potential to encourage white flight and exacerbate residential segregation. Plus, as a company that employs real estate agents, it has to worry about their running afoul of fair housing laws. “The challenge that GreatSchools and Redfin have is that the consumer does want a really simple answer, and we want to provide context,” Kelman says. “People want to know which one is good and which one is bad. When you try to say it’s more complicated than that, you sometimes lose your grip on their attention.”
Kelman says an intern confronted him two years ago about how reductive the GreatSchools ratings could be, so he contacted GreatSchools about providing more details on Redfin’s website. GreatSchools, Kelman says, jumped at the opportunity. Now users can click on a school listed on a house profile and see the different components of GreatSchools’ ratings as well as residents’ reviews of the school. In its first year, the new feature didn’t lead to any changes in consumer behavior, according to Redfin. (Only 10 to 15 percent of people who click on a home profile scroll down far enough to see school ratings in the first place, the company says. It could not provide data on how many users filtered their search results by school ratings, but said few people use the feature.)
Still, Kelman says he’s glad his site included the new information. “I think tech, more broadly than Redfin, is just waking up to the idea that websites matter, mobile applications matter. We have to be careful about the information that we provide,” he says.
“Being in this seat a long time and trying to influence where people ought to want to live, what kind of home they ought to want for environmental reasons or for reasons of social justice, I just feel like I’ve come up against the most deep-seated desires people have,” Kelman tells me. “They call us when they just had their first baby and their world has narrowed to those two or three people—one or two parents and the child. Trying to get them to think about the rest of an American city is hard.”
This story was published with the support of a fellowship from Columbia University’s Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights.


motherjones--2020-09-20--“A Rock of Righteousness; and My Good, Good Friend”: SCOTUS Eulogizes Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a feminist icon , a tireless jurist , and a fearsome dissenter holding down the court ’ s liberal wing .
But for the other members of the country ’ s highest court , where Ginsburg spent 27 years , she was also a colleague and , to some , a treasured friend .
On Saturday , the Court released statements from its eight remaining members and former Justice Anthony Kennedy , reacting to Ginsburg ’ s death at age 87 from complications of metastatic pancreatic cancer .
Their tributes included the following @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Justices ’ statements here .
To me , as to countless others , Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a hero .
As an attorney , she led the fight to grant women equal rights under the law .
As a judge , she did justice every day–working to ensure that this country ’ s legal system lives up to its ideals and extends its rights and protections to those once excluded .
And in both roles , she held to–indeed , exceeded–the highest standards of legal craft .
Her work was as careful as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it was visionary .
It will endure for as long as Americans retain their commitment to law .
Ruth reached out to encourage and assist me in my career , as she did for so many others , long before I came to the Supreme Court .
And she guided and inspired me , on matters large and small , once I became her colleague .
I will miss her–her intellect , her generosity , her sly wit , her manifest integrity , and her endless capacity for work–for the rest of my @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to her beloved children and grandchildren .
May her memory be a blessing .
Louise and I have lost a cherished colleague and friend .
For forty years , Ruth served the American people as one of our most distinguished judges .
Her sacrifices for the country were many , but always performed with honor .
We are blessed by the happy memories that will remain , like traveling with Ruth to London where ( to her delight ) an uninformed guide kept calling her “ Ruthie , ” or all the opera @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , or her sweet tooth at lunch , or the touching stories of her remarkable life with Marty .
We will miss Ruth and our hearts go out to her family .
May she rest in peace .
My dear friend and colleague Ruth Bader Ginsburg was an American hero .
She spent her life fighting for the equality of all people , and she was a pathbreaking champion of women ’ s rights .
She served our Court and country with consummate dedication , tirelessness , and passion for justice .
She @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
I will miss Ruth greatly .
She welcomed me to the Court with a warmth I could not have expected , and I came to feel a special kinship with her .
She was someone whose wisdom , kindness , and unwavering support I could always rely on .
I will forever cherish the moments we shared .
I send my deepest condolences to her children , grandchildren , and great-grandchild .
I know how much she treasured and loved you .
She often said that leading a meaningful life means living @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s community , not for oneself .
Ruth lived a profoundly meaningful life , and the numerous ways in which she changed ours will never be forgotten .
And in its few poetic words , Stephen Breyer ’ s stirring tribute was unforgettable in its own way .
I heard of Ruth ’ s death while I was reciting the Mourner ’ s Kaddish at the Rosh Hashanah service .
I thought : The world is a better place for her having lived in it .

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Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a feminist icon, a tireless jurist, and a fearsome dissenter holding down the court’s liberal wing. But for the other members of the country’s highest court, where Ginsburg spent 27 years, she was also a colleague and, to some, a treasured friend. On Saturday, the Court released statements from its eight remaining members and former Justice Anthony Kennedy, reacting to Ginsburg’s death at age 87 from complications of metastatic pancreatic cancer.
Their tributes included the following memorials. You can read all the Justices’ statements here.
Elena Kagan reflected on a role model and mentor:
To me, as to countless others, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a hero. As an attorney, she led the fight to grant women equal rights under the law. As a judge, she did justice every day–working to ensure that this country’s legal system lives up to its ideals and extends its rights and protections to those once excluded. And in both roles, she held to–indeed, exceeded–the highest standards of legal craft. Her work was as careful as it was creative, as disciplined as it was visionary. It will endure for as long as Americans retain their commitment to law. Ruth reached out to encourage and assist me in my career, as she did for so many others, long before I came to the Supreme Court. And she guided and inspired me, on matters large and small, once I became her colleague. I will miss her–her intellect, her generosity, her sly wit, her manifest integrity, and her endless capacity for work–for the rest of my life. I give my deepest condolences to her beloved children and grandchildren. May her memory be a blessing.
Neil Gorsuch shared a few personal memories:
Louise and I have lost a cherished colleague and friend. For forty years, Ruth served the American people as one of our most distinguished judges. Her sacrifices for the country were many, but always performed with honor. We are blessed by the happy memories that will remain, like traveling with Ruth to London where (to her delight) an uninformed guide kept calling her “Ruthie,” or all the opera she tried so valiantly to teach me, or her sweet tooth at lunch, or the touching stories of her remarkable life with Marty. We will miss Ruth and our hearts go out to her family. May she rest in peace.
Sonia Sotomayor honored a pathbreaking champion of gender equality:
My dear friend and colleague Ruth Bader Ginsburg was an American hero. She spent her life fighting for the equality of all people, and she was a pathbreaking champion of women’s rights. She served our Court and country with consummate dedication, tirelessness, and passion for justice. She has left a legacy few could rival. I will miss Ruth greatly. She welcomed me to the Court with a warmth I could not have expected, and I came to feel a special kinship with her. She was someone whose wisdom, kindness, and unwavering support I could always rely on. I will forever cherish the moments we shared. I send my deepest condolences to her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchild. I know how much she treasured and loved you. She often said that leading a meaningful life means living for one’s family and one’s community, not for oneself. Ruth lived a profoundly meaningful life, and the numerous ways in which she changed ours will never be forgotten.
And in its few poetic words, Stephen Breyer’s stirring tribute was unforgettable in its own way.


motherjones--2020-09-20--A Massive Trove of Newly Leaked Documents Shows How Big Banks Help Criminals Move Dirty Money

On Sunday , BuzzFeed News published an investigative report showing how some of the world ’ s most powerful banks were aware of—but failed to stop—suspicious transactions totaling more than $ 2 trillion .
Banks profited from these transactions , “ facilitating the work of terrorists , kleptocrats , and drug kingpins , ” BuzzFeed writes , and the US government , though aware , rarely intervened .
The investigation was based on a leak of more than 2,100 documents dubbed the “ FinCEN Files ” that BuzzFeed shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists .
FinCEN stands for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an agency at the Treasury Department .
Banks flag suspicious transactions made in US dollars to the agency , but most are not investigated ; meanwhile , just by filing a report , a bank “ all but immunizes itself and its executives from criminal prosecution , ” BuzzFeed writes .
A trove of those reports , from transactions between 1999 and 2017 , make up the FinCEN Files .
Journalists digging into the documents found that they documented transactions facilitating suspected Russian and Taliban money launderers , a Ponzi scheme , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that were previously fined for failing to stop the flow of dirty money—including JPMorgan , HSBC , Standard Chartered Bank , Deutsche Bank , and Bank of New York Mellon—continued the same behavior , and continued to profit from it .
Read the investigations here and here .

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On Sunday, BuzzFeed News published an investigative report showing how some of the world’s most powerful banks were aware of—but failed to stop—suspicious transactions totaling more than $2 trillion. Banks profited from these transactions, “facilitating the work of terrorists, kleptocrats, and drug kingpins,” BuzzFeed writes, and the US government, though aware, rarely intervened.
The investigation was based on a leak of more than 2,100 documents dubbed the “FinCEN Files” that BuzzFeed shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. FinCEN stands for the US Financial Crimes Investigation Network, an agency at the Treasury Department. Banks flag suspicious transactions made in US dollars to the agency, but most are not investigated; meanwhile, just by filing a report, a bank “all but immunizes itself and its executives from criminal prosecution,” BuzzFeed writes.
A trove of those reports, from transactions between 1999 and 2017, make up the FinCEN Files. Journalists digging into the documents found that they documented transactions facilitating suspected Russian and Taliban money launderers, a Ponzi scheme, and corrupt politicians. Meanwhile, even banks that were previously fined for failing to stop the flow of dirty money—including JPMorgan, HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank, Deutsche Bank, and Bank of New York Mellon—continued the same behavior, and continued to profit from it.
Read the investigations here and here.


motherjones--2020-09-20--Tom Cotton Went on Fox News to Make the Case for a Quick Supreme Court Nomination. It Went Poorly.

Four years ago , after the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia , Republican senator after Republican senator made floor speeches , issued press releases , and went live on air to argue that in an election year , the American people deserved a chance to weigh in on the next Supreme Court nominee by first choosing their next president .
Now those chickens are coming home to roost .
On Fox News Sunday , host Chris Wallace grilled Sen. Tom Cotton after the Arkansas Republican said the Senate “ will move forward without delay ” to confirm President @ @ @ @ @ @ @ may be announced as soon as next week .
Mid-interview , Wallace played back a 2016 clip of Cotton defending the Senate for refusing to consider President Barack Obama ’ s nominee to replace Scalia , Merrick Garland .
“ Why would we cut off the national debate about this next justice ?
” Cotton asked in the clip .
“ Why would we squelch the voice of the people ?
Why would we deny the voters a chance to weigh in on the makeup of the Supreme Court ?
” “ If @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before the election , why is it okay now , six weeks before the election ?
” Wallace asked .
In response , Cotton argued that election results in 2018 gave Senate Republicans a “ mandate ” to do , well , whatever the hell they want : “ In 2014 , the American people elected a Republican majority of the Senate to put the brakes on President Obama ’ s judicial nominations , ” he said .
“ In 2018 , we had a referendum on this question—just a month before the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on Justice Kavanaugh .
There could not have been a clearer mandate , because the American people didn ’ t just elect Republicans , they expanded our majority .
They defeated four Democratic senators who voted against Justice Kavanaugh .
They reelected the one Democratic senator who did vote for Justice Kavanaugh.
” Then Cotton went a step further , claiming that it was a matter of “ constitutional duty ” to both block Garland in 2016 and confirm a Trump nominee now : “ We have a clear mandate to perform our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Senate majority will do now .
That ’ s what we did back in 2016 , as well.
” “ You don ’ t see any hypocrisy between that position then and this position now ?
” Wallace asked .
“ The Senate majority is performing a constitutional duty , ” Cotton repeated , “ and fulfilling the mandate the voters gave us in 2016 and especially in 2018.
” It remains to be seen whether accusations of hypocrisy will have any measurable effect on Senate Republicans ’ actions now .
Sen. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Senate should wait for the election winner to pick Ginsburg ’ s replacement ; on Sunday , Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she would not vote to confirm a nominee before Election Day .
Since Ginsburg ’ s death Thursday night , Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been urging other fence-sitters to “ keep their powder dry ” and offering justifications —and potential talking points—for why the situation with Ginsburg ’ s seat is actually , really , not at all like situation with Garland .
For those keeping score , though , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Murphy ’ s long ( but not comprehensive ) list of GOP senators who , like Cotton , said a Supreme Court nominee shouldn ’ t be confirmed in an election year .

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Four years ago, after the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Republican senator after Republican senator made floor speeches, issued press releases, and went live on air to argue that in an election year, the American people deserved a chance to weigh in on the next Supreme Court nominee by first choosing their next president.
Now those chickens are coming home to roost.
On Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace grilled Sen. Tom Cotton after the Arkansas Republican said the Senate “will move forward without delay” to confirm President Donald Trump’s nominee, who may be announced as soon as next week. Mid-interview, Wallace played back a 2016 clip of Cotton defending the Senate for refusing to consider President Barack Obama’s nominee to replace Scalia, Merrick Garland. “Why would we cut off the national debate about this next justice?” Cotton asked in the clip. “Why would we squelch the voice of the people? Why would we deny the voters a chance to weigh in on the makeup of the Supreme Court?”
“If it was wrong then, nine months before the election, why is it okay now, six weeks before the election?” Wallace asked.
In response, Cotton argued that election results in 2018 gave Senate Republicans a “mandate” to do, well, whatever the hell they want: “In 2014, the American people elected a Republican majority of the Senate to put the brakes on President Obama’s judicial nominations,” he said. “In 2018, we had a referendum on this question—just a month before the 2018 midterms, we had the vote on Justice Kavanaugh. There could not have been a clearer mandate, because the American people didn’t just elect Republicans, they expanded our majority. They defeated four Democratic senators who voted against Justice Kavanaugh. They reelected the one Democratic senator who did vote for Justice Kavanaugh.”
Then Cotton went a step further, claiming that it was a matter of “constitutional duty” to both block Garland in 2016 and confirm a Trump nominee now: “We have a clear mandate to perform our constitutional duty. That’s what the Senate majority will do now. That’s what we did back in 2016, as well.”
“You don’t see any hypocrisy between that position then and this position now?” Wallace asked.
“The Senate majority is performing a constitutional duty,” Cotton repeated, “and fulfilling the mandate the voters gave us in 2016 and especially in 2018.”
It remains to be seen whether accusations of hypocrisy will have any measurable effect on Senate Republicans’ actions now. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said yesterday the Senate should wait for the election winner to pick Ginsburg’s replacement; on Sunday, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she would not vote to confirm a nominee before Election Day. Since Ginsburg’s death Thursday night, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been urging other fence-sitters to “keep their powder dry” and offering justifications —and potential talking points—for why the situation with Ginsburg’s seat is actually, really, not at all like situation with Garland.
For those keeping score, though, be sure to read my colleague Tim Murphy’s long (but not comprehensive) list of GOP senators who, like Cotton, said a Supreme Court nominee shouldn’t be confirmed in an election year.


motherjones--2020-09-20--Lisa Murkowski Just Announced She Won’t Vote to Confirm a Supreme Court Nominee Before Election Day

Sen. Lisa Murkowski ( R-Alaska ) , known for defecting from her party to vote against the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018 , bucked Republicans again to announce Sunday that she would not support the Senate holding confirmation hearings for the next Supreme Court justice until after the election .
“ For weeks , I have stated that I would not support taking up a potential Supreme Court vacancy this close to the election , ” Murkowski said in a statement .
“ Sadly , what was then a hypothetical is now our reality , but my position @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not support taking up a nomination eight months before the 2016 election to fill the vacancy created by the passing of Justice Scalia .
We are now even closer to the 2020 election—less than two months out—and I believe the same standard must apply , ” she added .
On Friday , very shortly before Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’ s death , Murkowksi had said in an interview that if a Supreme Court vacancy were , hypothetically , to come up , she would not vote to confirm a nominee before Election @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to an election , and that the people needed to decide , ” Murkowski said on Friday .
Murkowski ’ s Sunday statement aligns with her prior ones .
But she did not spell out as clearly as Sen. Susan Collins ( R-Maine ) did yesterday whether she believes the Senate should confirm President Donald Trump ’ s nominee in a lame duck session if he were to lose the election .
However , she appears aligned with Collins , who yesterday said the president elected in November should appoint the next Supreme @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Murkowski and Collins , Democrats need two more Republican defections to stop the Senate from confirming Trump ’ s nominee to the Supreme Court before the election .

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Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), known for defecting from her party to vote against the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, bucked Republicans again to announce Sunday that she would not support the Senate holding confirmation hearings for the next Supreme Court justice until after the election.
“For weeks, I have stated that I would not support taking up a potential Supreme Court vacancy this close to the election,” Murkowski said in a statement. “Sadly, what was then a hypothetical is now our reality, but my position has not changed.”
“I did not support taking up a nomination eight months before the 2016 election to fill the vacancy created by the passing of Justice Scalia. We are now even closer to the 2020 election—less than two months out—and I believe the same standard must apply,” she added.
On Friday, very shortly before Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, Murkowksi had said in an interview that if a Supreme Court vacancy were, hypothetically, to come up, she would not vote to confirm a nominee before Election Day. “That was too close to an election, and that the people needed to decide,” Murkowski said on Friday.
Murkowski’s Sunday statement aligns with her prior ones. But she did not spell out as clearly as Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) did yesterday whether she believes the Senate should confirm President Donald Trump’s nominee in a lame duck session if he were to lose the election. However, she appears aligned with Collins, who yesterday said the president elected in November should appoint the next Supreme Court justice.
Following the announcements from Murkowski and Collins, Democrats need two more Republican defections to stop the Senate from confirming Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court before the election.


motherjones--2020-09-20--Pelosi Refuses to Rule Out Impeachment to Delay Supreme Court Confirmation

This weekend , President Donald Trump vowed to fill Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’ s Supreme Court seat by nominating a woman as soon as “ next week.
” But in a Sunday morning appearance on ABC News ’ This Week , House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wouldn ’ t rule out any options—including impeachment—to run out the clock on seating Ginsburg ’ s replacement .
“ We have our options , ” Pelosi told George Stephanopoulos when he asked her about speculation that the House could impeach Trump or Attorney General William Barr to delay the Supreme Court confirmation process @ @ @ @ @ @ @ quiver that I ’ m not about to discuss right now.
” Pelosi said she was uninterested in using the threat of a government shutdown to stall the confirmation .
But everything else , it appears , is on the table : “ We take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States .
We have a responsibility to meet the needs of the American people , ” she told Stephanopoulos with a smile .
“ Protecting our democracy requires us to use every arrow in our quiver.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if she would consider expanding the number of justices on the court next term , if Democrats were to win the Senate .
“ We should be very calm , we should be inspired by Ruth Bader Ginsberg , ” she said .
“ She was brilliant , and she was strategic , and she was successful .
”

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This weekend, President Donald Trump vowed to fill Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seat by nominating a woman as soon as “next week.” But in a Sunday morning appearance on ABC News’ This Week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wouldn’t rule out any options—including impeachment—to run out the clock on seating Ginsburg’s replacement.
“We have our options,” Pelosi told George Stephanopoulos when he asked her about speculation that the House could impeach Trump or Attorney General William Barr to delay the Supreme Court confirmation process. “We have arrows in our quiver that I’m not about to discuss right now.”
Pelosi said she was uninterested in using the threat of a government shutdown to stall the confirmation. But everything else, it appears, is on the table: “We take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. We have a responsibility to meet the needs of the American people,” she told Stephanopoulos with a smile. “Protecting our democracy requires us to use every arrow in our quiver.”
Pelosi also did not answer when asked if she would consider expanding the number of justices on the court next term, if Democrats were to win the Senate. “We should be very calm, we should be inspired by Ruth Bader Ginsberg,” she said. “She was brilliant, and she was strategic, and she was successful.”


motherjones--2020-09-22--Confronting 200,000 Deaths: Mother Jones Readers Share Who and What They’ve Lost

More than 200,000 people in America have now died from COVID-19 , according to numbers compiled by Johns Hopkins University .
The figure on its own can feel hard to fathom .
As the nation grieves yet another devastating milestone , we asked you , our readers : Who or what are you mourning ?
What have you lost , and how are you coping ?
We were inundated with responses ranging from those grieving the loss of a loved one to readers mourning more intangible concepts like independence , social connection , and the loss of American leadership in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ read a selection of our reader contributions , edited for length and clarity , which demonstrate the breadth and depth of suffering Americans have endured over the last seven months .
I lost the ability to share the first glimpse of our baby with my husband , the first ultrasounds , and first heartbeat .
We found out we were pregnant just before lockdowns started .
I ’ ve attended every important appointment alone and am coming to terms with giving birth in a mask .
Brenda Rooks , 80 Retired Bear , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Along with my elderly friends , I have been cooped up for six months , and scared to death that we will get this virus .
We are in mourning that we can ’ t have normal relationships with family and friends .
We miss the kisses and hugs from our children , grandkids , and great grandkids , and our family visits , picnics , and dinners .
I miss going to Planet Fitness three days a week , which kept me strong , flexible , and healthy .
I miss going @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , companionship , and my weekly “ White Russians.
” My husband does our shopping and I have my two Labradoodles and pet parrots that help fill my days .
But life is not the same .
I grieve for all the lives that are lost , all due to an incompetent president who has caused all of this , has no compassion , and puts us in danger .
I ’ m mad , angry , and cuss a lot .
But don ’ t worry about me , I ’ ll @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but still full of “ piss and vinegar ” and can mix me up a “ drinky poo ” now and then if I start feeling depressed .
I am mourning the loss of my previous self .
My doctor said I may have suffered from a hypoxic brain injury from my oxygen levels falling due to my COVID infection .
I did several weeks of speech and cognitive therapy .
Little deficits felt large because my career relies on my intellect and memory , and I have deficits in both .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ better now .
But it feels like I will never be me again and I ’ m constantly reminded of who I used to be .
My intellectually challenged 60-something sister lives in a wonderful group home just a few miles from me .
I ’ m her only family close enough to regularly see her .
The home went into strict lockdown .
Since March , I ’ ve only been able to drop off food or a trifle , if only to let her know I ’ m out here .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ some coffee and the staff member asked me to wait by my car .
A few seconds later my sister appeared in the door .
This was the first time I had seen her in six months .
I still had to stay six feet away .
Couldn ’ t lower my mask .
Couldn ’ t hug her .
But I got to see her smiling .
My brother-in-law died back in July from complications of coronavirus and two other cousins on the Navajo nation were deathly sick .
The occupant of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ understand how dangerous it is to pretend there isn ’ t a health crisis going on all around him .
I am 68 years old and had just started a job in order to supplement my income .
It was not easy to come by a job that wouldn ’ t bore me completely to death .
On the second day I had to tell them I couldn ’ t risk public exposure in light of the pandemic .
So , I ’ m mourning my loss of income that I never got @ @ @ @ @ @ @ being completely at ease when my grandsons visit on weekends .
They are just two and four .
For the first few months of the pandemic , I didn ’ t have them come , but it was too hard on my son , who lives with me , not to see them , and , it was hard on the boys .
I worry each week about exposure .
My dear sweet mother died after being hospitalized with COVID-19 for 37 days .
The hospital basically said there was nothing else they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to her nursing home—where she contracted it—and after a week she tested negative for COVID twice .
We rejoiced !
But four days later she died .
It pains me to write this , but her story should be told .
Her cause of death was not listed as COVID-19 because she was COVID-negative when she passed away , but we know that her body was weakened to the point of death .
Shortly after the pandemic began , the assisted living facility where my wife , Sue , is located wisely shut @ @ @ @ @ @ @ alone and unable to see her .
She is experiencing Alzheimers and I knew she would forget who I was without some contact .
They allowed me to stand outside and visit through a glass door .
As restrictions lifted , I was able to take her for rides in the car , but there was no stopping for a bite to eat .
To keep myself mentally healthy , I picked up a book I had begun to write before her approach to this horrible illness .
The writing gave me an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ began a healing process .
The book , Creeks , became a finished work and is now in publication .
Tomorrow is Sue ’ s birthday and I plan to visit with her on the front porch of the facility ( masked ) .
I bought her one of the things she loves : a box of chocolates .
As an individual who has a compromised immune system , I have lost the freedom to live my daily life without constant fear .
Although I am young , and my friends have continued @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been stuck at home .
The invites used to come in and I would solemnly reply , “ No , I still can ’ t be around crowds ” , but now the invites have stopped altogether .
I mourn the loss of normalcy , the loss of social activity and friends , and I mourn the loss of America ’ s leadership status in the world .
In May , my mother-in-law Pauline Martin Gillis passed away .
Although she didn ’ t die of COVID , as a single senior confined @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , we could only watch from a distance as she steadily declined .
We were fortunate in that a week before she died that all her children and grandchildren came to town .
My husband moved mom from her nursing home to a beautiful hospice where he and one of his sisters could stay in the room around the clock and the rest of the family could see her through a big picture window and talk to her on the phone .
She would have celebrated her 93rd birthday on May 28 .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ with heart disease and chronic lung problems , was moved into assisted living just one week before the nation virtually shut down due to the pandemic .
A social butterfly who loved trivia , my dad really suffered from being quarantined with his wife , whose dementia was rapidly advancing .
My dad was a long-time resident of Florida and wrote and lectured about Florida history , particularly in regard to the state ’ s Jewish past .
Dad had been a reporter for the St. Petersburg Times ( now the Tampa Bay @ @ @ @ @ @ @ became their Washington correspondent in the early 60s .
He passed away suddenly due to complications from heart disease on August 31 , a few weeks shy of his 93rd birthday .
I am a teacher and a mother of three kids : 17 , 14 , and nine .
Personally , I am mourning the loss of my own children ’ s happiness and intellectual growth as I see their mental health deteriorate before my eyes .
Our middle daughter is showing signs of depression and I ’ ve had to take @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her the help she needs .
I have been a teacher for 20 years and have never felt so demoralized .
When COVID lockdowns hit , I lost my job , my apartment , and my lover ( we lived in separate households , so getting together became dangerous ) .
But what really broke my heart was the loss of my ability to follow my calling .
I had spent the decade prior to COVID learning how to write and perform comedy .
As 2019 turned to 2020 , I successfully transitioned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ As someone who floundered my way through young adulthood , finding and being good at my passionate calling was an answer to decades of heavenward pleas .
I am mourning the loss of direction , the loss of purpose , the loss of community and connection , of intellectual stimulation .
I ’ m mourning the loss of the healing that a good belly laugh , well delivered , brings to a group of strangers .
I was finally being paid to do what I love .
Now what ?

200,000 people in America have now died from COVID-19, according to numbers compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The figure on its own can feel hard to fathom. As the nation grieves yet another devastating milestone, we asked you, our readers: Who or what are you mourning? What have you lost, and how are you coping?
We were inundated with responses ranging from those grieving the loss of a loved one to readers mourning more intangible concepts like independence, social connection, and the loss of American leadership in the world. Below, you can read a selection of our reader contributions, edited for length and clarity, which demonstrate the breadth and depth of suffering Americans have endured over the last seven months.
Natalie, 32
Marketing
Boulder, Colorado
I lost the ability to share the first glimpse of our baby with my husband, the first ultrasounds, and first heartbeat. We found out we were pregnant just before lockdowns started. I’ve attended every important appointment alone and am coming to terms with giving birth in a mask.
Brenda Rooks, 80
Retired
Bear, Delaware
I am 80 years old. Along with my elderly friends, I have been cooped up for six months, and scared to death that we will get this virus. We are in mourning that we can’t have normal relationships with family and friends. We miss the kisses and hugs from our children, grandkids, and great grandkids, and our family visits, picnics, and dinners. I miss going to Planet Fitness three days a week, which kept me strong, flexible, and healthy. I miss going to VFW, for weekly shuffleboard tournaments, companionship, and my weekly “White Russians.” My husband does our shopping and I have my two Labradoodles and pet parrots that help fill my days. But life is not the same. I grieve for all the lives that are lost, all due to an incompetent president who has caused all of this, has no compassion, and puts us in danger. I’m mad, angry, and cuss a lot. But don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. I might be 80, but still full of “piss and vinegar” and can mix me up a “drinky poo” now and then if I start feeling depressed.
Tara Ghormley, 38
Veterinarian
Agoura Hills, California
I am mourning the loss of my previous self. My doctor said I may have suffered from a hypoxic brain injury from my oxygen levels falling due to my COVID infection. I did several weeks of speech and cognitive therapy. Little deficits felt large because my career relies on my intellect and memory, and I have deficits in both. I’m probably about 70 percent better now. But it feels like I will never be me again and I’m constantly reminded of who I used to be.
“I grieve for all the lives that are lost, all due to an incompetent president.” “I’m mad, angry, and cuss a lot.”
Joe Roberts, 61
Operations analyst
Hartford, Connecticut
My intellectually challenged 60-something sister lives in a wonderful group home just a few miles from me. I’m her only family close enough to regularly see her. The home went into strict lockdown. Since March, I’ve only been able to drop off food or a trifle, if only to let her know I’m out here. Two weeks ago, I dropped off some coffee and the staff member asked me to wait by my car. A few seconds later my sister appeared in the door. This was the first time I had seen her in six months. I still had to stay six feet away. Couldn’t lower my mask. Couldn’t hug her. But I got to see her smiling.
Dr. Jerry Cronin, 57
Education administrator
Gallup, New Mexico
My brother-in-law died back in July from complications of coronavirus and two other cousins on the Navajo nation were deathly sick. The occupant of the White House just doesn’t understand how dangerous it is to pretend there isn’t a health crisis going on all around him.
Caroni Lombard, 68
Retired
Wichita, Kansas
I am 68 years old and had just started a job in order to supplement my income. It was not easy to come by a job that wouldn’t bore me completely to death. On the second day I had to tell them I couldn’t risk public exposure in light of the pandemic. So, I’m mourning my loss of income that I never got to earn. I am mourning not being completely at ease when my grandsons visit on weekends. They are just two and four. For the first few months of the pandemic, I didn’t have them come, but it was too hard on my son, who lives with me, not to see them, and, it was hard on the boys. I worry each week about exposure.
Jeanine Davis, 54
Retired
Philadelphia , Pennsylvania
My dear sweet mother died after being hospitalized with COVID-19 for 37 days. The hospital basically said there was nothing else they could do for her so she returned to her nursing home—where she contracted it—and after a week she tested negative for COVID twice. We rejoiced! But four days later she died. It pains me to write this, but her story should be told. Her cause of death was not listed as COVID-19 because she was COVID-negative when she passed away, but we know that her body was weakened to the point of death.
John W. Burney, 83
Retired, author
Hot Springs, Arizona
Shortly after the pandemic began, the assisted living facility where my wife, Sue, is located wisely shut its doors. It meant I was alone and unable to see her. She is experiencing Alzheimers and I knew she would forget who I was without some contact. They allowed me to stand outside and visit through a glass door. As restrictions lifted, I was able to take her for rides in the car, but there was no stopping for a bite to eat.
To keep myself mentally healthy, I picked up a book I had begun to write before her approach to this horrible illness. The writing gave me an escape. The regimen of stacking paragraphs began a healing process. The book, Creeks, became a finished work and is now in publication.
Tomorrow is Sue’s birthday and I plan to visit with her on the front porch of the facility (masked). I bought her one of the things she loves: a box of chocolates.
Cameron Lopez, 30
Media manager
Washington, DC
As an individual who has a compromised immune system, I have lost the freedom to live my daily life without constant fear. Although I am young, and my friends have continued to party and travel, I have been stuck at home. The invites used to come in and I would solemnly reply, “No, I still can’t be around crowds”, but now the invites have stopped altogether. I mourn the loss of normalcy, the loss of social activity and friends, and I mourn the loss of America’s leadership status in the world.
“The invites used to come in and I would solemnly reply, ‘No, I still can’t be around crowds’.” “Now, the invites have stopped altogether.”
Jennifer Gillis, 69
Retired librarian
Pittsboro, North Carolina
In May, my mother-in-law Pauline Martin Gillis passed away. Although she didn’t die of COVID, as a single senior confined to her room in a nursing home, we could only watch from a distance as she steadily declined. We were fortunate in that a week before she died that all her children and grandchildren came to town. My husband moved mom from her nursing home to a beautiful hospice where he and one of his sisters could stay in the room around the clock and the rest of the family could see her through a big picture window and talk to her on the phone. She would have celebrated her 93rd birthday on May 28.
My dad, Jerald Blizin, afflicted with heart disease and chronic lung problems, was moved into assisted living just one week before the nation virtually shut down due to the pandemic. A social butterfly who loved trivia, my dad really suffered from being quarantined with his wife, whose dementia was rapidly advancing. My dad was a long-time resident of Florida and wrote and lectured about Florida history, particularly in regard to the state’s Jewish past. Dad had been a reporter for the St. Petersburg Times (now the Tampa Bay Times) beginning in 1948, and became their Washington correspondent in the early 60s. He passed away suddenly due to complications from heart disease on August 31, a few weeks shy of his 93rd birthday.
Jessica, 43
Teacher
Santa Cruz, California
I am a teacher and a mother of three kids: 17, 14, and nine. Personally, I am mourning the loss of my own children’s happiness and intellectual growth as I see their mental health deteriorate before my eyes. Our middle daughter is showing signs of depression and I’ve had to take a short leave from work to get her the help she needs. I have been a teacher for 20 years and have never felt so demoralized.
Jenny Brown, 50
Unemployed comedian and dog groomer
Port Townsend, Washington
When COVID lockdowns hit, I lost my job, my apartment, and my lover (we lived in separate households, so getting together became dangerous). But what really broke my heart was the loss of my ability to follow my calling. I had spent the decade prior to COVID learning how to write and perform comedy. As 2019 turned to 2020, I successfully transitioned from amateur comic to paid semi-professional. As someone who floundered my way through young adulthood, finding and being good at my passionate calling was an answer to decades of heavenward pleas. I am mourning the loss of direction, the loss of purpose, the loss of community and connection, of intellectual stimulation. I’m mourning the loss of the healing that a good belly laugh, well delivered, brings to a group of strangers. I was finally being paid to do what I love. Now what?