Repairing Decades of Racist School Reforms - YES! Magazine Solutions Journalism

Oct 13, 2023

In 1983, an educational commission that was formed under President Ronald Reagan released a 35-page report called . This report laid the groundwork for decades of reforms, many of which remain in place today.

In a new book, Bettina Love, Ph.D., lays out how 鈥渁 thirty-five-page educational report manufactured an educational crisis of catastrophic proportions that destroyed generations of Black families鈥濃€攁 crisis that combined the educational industry with the prison industry. To remedy the harm, Love calls for the implementation of 鈥渆ducational reparations.鈥�

Love, who is the William F. Russell Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, spoke with YES! Racial Justice Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on YES Presents: Rising Up With Sonali about her new book .

Sonali Kolhatkar joined YES! in summer 2021, building on a long and decorated career in broadcast and print journalism. She is an award-winning multimedia journalist, and host and creator of聽YES! Presents: Rising Up with Sonali, a nationally syndicated television and radio program airing on Free Speech TV and dozens of independent and community radio stations. She is also Senior Correspondent with the Independent 无码视频 Institute鈥檚 Economy for All project where she writes a weekly column. She is the author of聽Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice聽(2023) and聽Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence聽(2005). Her forthcoming book is called聽Talking About Abolition聽(Seven Stories Press, 2025). Sonali is co-director of the nonprofit group, Afghan Women鈥檚 Mission which she helped to co-found in 2000. She has a Master鈥檚 in Astronomy from the University of Hawai鈥檌, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. Sonali reflects on 鈥淢y Journey From Astrophysicist to Radio Host鈥� in her 2014聽聽of the same name.