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Alec MacGillis Profile picture
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19 Dec, 5 tweets, 2 min read
What a fascinating and depressing @NoreenMalone tale about the school reopening fight in the 2nd-most-educated town in America, where not even the profusion of top-tier local public-health experts was able to prevent things from descending to a "shitshow."
slate.com/human-interest…
"When COVID came to Brookline, it didn’t pit virus-denying Trump supporters against pro-mask blue staters. It instead exposed and heightened the dysfunction and conflict in a place where everyone was theoretically on the same team."
The piece is so good on intra-liberal- bubble dynamics. This is the local union head:
Worth noting that the avg rent for a one-bedroom apartment in "working-class" Jamaica Plain is about $2,000.
My goodness.

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More from @AlecMacGillis

Alec MacGillis Profile picture
18 Dec
All these ethical debates over whom to vaccinate first are certainly invigorating, but what if I told you that the far more immediate challenge to deal with is not who gets it first, but that many nursing home CNAs--who are as frontline worker as it gets--are refusing to take it?
This piece touched on it, but it should be getting even more attention. This is where the real action is right now... nytimes.com/2020/12/16/bus…
Bottom line: we need a public-health campaign to put these workers, some of the most vulnerable and crucial of all, at ease.
Read 7 tweets
Alec MacGillis Profile picture
14 Dec
Your occasional political/economic geography quiz: what is the richest county in the US, based on the average income of its wealthiest one percent of residents? Answer in an hour or so. No Google!
Congratulations to tonight's winners! @theodoricmeyer @MLDarby @conncarroll @AidanReed45 @DarkTimes2020 @ZachLaub @JJAtkinson1776

The answer is Teton County, Wyoming. I discovered the fact in Ian Frazier's remarkable NYRB review of @J_Farrell's new book: nybooks.com/articles/2020/… Image
The piece includes quite a telling political plot twist on its final section...
Read 4 tweets
Alec MacGillis Profile picture
7 Dec
Another powerful as-told-to dispatch by @elisaslow, from the perspective of a disabled 64-year-old former newspaper delivery driver in an Ohio nursing home desperately waiting for a vaccine as the virus creeps ever closer down the hallway. washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/12…
And no, no relation to Bruce MacGillis, as far as I know.
"The first thing I do when I wake up is look down the hallway for the big plastic sheet. That’s what they use to block off the covid area. They sectioned off a whole wing before Thanksgiving. They blocked another hallway earlier this week. That plastic sheet keeps moving closer."
Read 5 tweets
Alec MacGillis Profile picture
7 Dec
"Between 2014-2019, CAP received at least $33 million in donations from firms in the financial sector, private foundations primarily funded by Wall Street & other investment firms, & current or former executives at financial firms such as Bain Capital..." washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/…
"In the same time period, CAP received between $4.9 million and $13 million from Silicon Valley companies and foundations, including Facebook and founder Mark Zuckerberg’s philanthropic organization...."
“CAP has been one of the most aggressive (think tanks) in courting corporate donors,” said Zephyr Teachout...Those donors, she said, “believe they can shape the worldview of the people whose voices are going to be heard and powerful with the next president."
Read 5 tweets
Alec MacGillis Profile picture
7 Dec
"Failure rates in math and English jumped as much as sixfold for some of the most vulnerable students in Maryland’s largest school system, according to data released as the pandemic’s toll becomes increasingly visible in schools across the country."
washingtonpost.com/local/educatio…
"In but one stark example, more than 36 percent of ninth-graders from low-income families failed the first marking period in English. That compares with fewer than 6 percent last year, when the same students took English in eighth grade."
"In Montgomery, a diverse system of more than 161,000 students, Black and Hispanic students from families at or near the poverty line were among the most severely affected groups, along with English language learners."
Read 5 tweets
Alec MacGillis Profile picture
29 Nov
I waited to read this @EricaLG in print. (Sunday front-page centerpiece!) It's so good, and heartbreaking. "Put your mask on, Pookie." nyti.ms/3lffttL
"In the 24 hours since in-person classes resumed, Mr. Pinkney was fielding inquiries from parents intrigued by what they were seeing in the classroom through their children’s computer screens at home...."
"...He was hoping to reserve an extra desk for a student who told him bluntly that he was done with 'that virtual stuff' but would return if the school reopened.

'I know he’s in the streets,' Mr. Pinkney said. 'If I don’t see him this week, I’m going to get him.'"
Read 5 tweets

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