Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

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  • Portland Is Trying To Help People Return To Gentrified Areas. Austin Has Similar Plans.

    By giving housing preferences to local families, cities like Portland hope to stem gentrification and preserve the historic diversity of their communities. Portland’s “Right to Return” program aims to resettle families displaced by gentrification through an investment in affordable housing and by giving preference to those families who have a generational connection to the city. The program could inform similar efforts in cities like Austin, Texas.

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  • Seattle Is Changing Who Gets A Say At City Hall. Could Austin Learn A Thing Or Two?

    Getting renters involved in the conversation increases the diversity of voices and opinions in City Hall. In 2016, Seattle created a Renters’ Commission to provide a platform similar to traditional Home Owners’ Associations, where members can have an input and act as advocates for their communities. By having residents involved with the Renters’ Commission, Seattle hopes to rebalance power and involvement in local politics, from a model traditionally dominated disproportionately by homeowners, to one more representative of the city’s actual diversity.

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  • They started as an experiment in rural areas. Now, mobile preschools are rolling into metro Denver.

    Gus the Bus, Magic Bus, El Busesito, and other traveling classrooms are working to fill the persistent preschool gap in Colorado's childcare deserts. Most days the mobile preschools park near apartment complexes or mobile home parks and offer instruction to neighborhood children. In the coming years, providers hope to be able to use the same quality ratings as stationary schools and expand from rural areas into Denver and other urban centers throughout the state.

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  • More girls, African-Americans enroll in AP computer science. Why that matters.

    At a Boston high school, a targeted approach to attract a diverse student body to computer science courses is showing signs of success. By implementing a "computer science-heavy curriculum," and applying the technology to the student's own interests, the diversity of the school is now reflected in the diversity of those enrolled in the courses.

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  • The Jim Crow Jury System Falls in New Orleans

    An amendment passed in Louisiana does away with non-unanimous jury verdicts that have helped solidify racial discrimination in the criminal justice system since they were implemented in response to Reconstruction. Data shows black defendants were more likely to be convicted in the non-unanimous system and the votes of black jurors more likely to be silenced. Advocates said the amendment is a huge game changer against mass incarceration in Louisiana and racial discrimination.

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  • Make Voting Easy

    Voter turnout is higher where voting is made easy. Consider one innovation: vote-by mail. States that allowed mail-in ballots had an average of 10 percent more voting in the 2016 election than other states. More innovations include pre-registering young voters, automatically updating a voter’s address when they move, automatically registering citizens unless they opt out, and same-day voter registration.

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  • Seattle's radical plan to fight big money in politics

    Seattle tripled the number of people who contributed to local political campaigns by giving each resident $100 in “democracy vouchers” to contribute to the candidate of their choice. The concept was to counter the effect of big money in politics. Although the program was a widely popular idea, it ended up being expensive to run and only 3.3 percent of residents who received the vouchers actually used them.

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  • America's Other Family-Separation Crisis

    As incarceration rates of women in America continue to rise, Still She Rises, a project of the Bronx Defenders, uses a holistic approach to legal defense for incarcerated mothers in Tulsa, OK. Attorneys for the organization investigate injustices in cases and represent local, often impoverished, mothers, who face losing custody of their children in the face of the law.

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  • Spreading the Good News of Worker-Owned Businesses in D.C.

    When Juan Reid had a hard time finding a job after his release from prison, he finally founded a worker cooperative called Tightshift Laboring Cooperative. He wanted to create sustainable employment opportunities for himself and others coming out of prison. This is part of a larger trend of worker cooperatives in the Washington, D.C. area. The DC Employee Ownership Initiative and Coop DC are two groups helping businesses like Tightshift and others.

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  • A High School Education and College Degree All in One

    Founded in 2011, the Brooklyn-based P-Tech school allows high school students to earn a secondary and associate's degree upon graduation. Born out of a partnership with the New York City Department of Education, New York City College of Technology and IBM, the dual enrollment-program pairs students with mentors and matches students with paid IBM internships. The cross-sector model is being scaled up internationally.

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