‘Subtraction isn’t the way out of the Colorado River crisis’
Jim Madaffer at The Washington Post
The “Colorado River Compact of 1922 is designed to divide a fixed supply of water, but there’s a problem: the river no longer offers one,” says Jim Madaffer. The “21st century must create water for the region,” but the “existing policies — designed as they were for another era — don’t create anything,” so “commercialization of water innovation is the path to giving Lower Basin states and their residents stable and full water supplies.”
‘Black Americans are reviving an ancient Nigerian apprenticeship model to build wealth’
Ibe Imo at The Philadelphia Inquirer
There is a “growing, informal network” of apprentice programs using the Nigerian “Nwa Boy model’s core promise: a credentialed path from labor to ownership, built on relationships and trust rather than credit scores or venture capital,” says Ibe Imo. As “race-conscious funding efforts designed to level the playing field for African Americans are dismantled, that promise is drawing new attention from investors, workforce officials and Black entrepreneurs looking for an alternative route to generational wealth.”
‘Why Gov. Newsom should commute every death sentence in California before he leaves office’
Nadia Daar at the San Francisco Chronicle
“Shockingly, 25% of those on death row in the U.S. are sitting in California prisons,” and Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) “should seize a historic opportunity to move California closer to ending the death penalty by commuting all of the death sentences in the state,” says Nadia Daar. Newsom’s “promise to pause executions is only good until he leaves office in 2027.” What he “does next will determine whether California merely delayed executions or truly ended them.”
‘Colleges shouldn’t give up on letter grades’
The Dallas Morning News editorial board
Some “colleges are experimenting with ‘ungrading,’ where students agree to contractual terms for a particular letter grade or are evaluated in more qualitative ways,” says The Dallas Morning News editorial board. These “experiments show a genuine effort on the part of colleges to grapple with a broken grading system, but dropping letter grades altogether is not the answer.” A “transcript filled with broad pass marks can’t communicate whether a student produced exceptional work or just barely got by.”
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