What Happens When a Selective Public School Becomes Open to All?

Plus: a Russian journalist who stayed behind; the difficulty of being a perfect Asian American; and a so-so Batman movie. View in browser | Update your preferences Thursday, March 10, 2022 In today’s newsletter: • A Russian journalist who stayed behind • The difficulty of being a perfect Asian American • “The Batman”? Eh. What Happens When an Élite Public School Becomes Open to All? After the legendarily competitive Lowell High School dropped selective admissions, new challenges—and new opportunities—arose. Photograph by Devin Oktar Yalkin for The New Yorker “Often people are drawn to good-vs.-evil stories, but I seem to be more drawn toward good vs. good,” the writer Nathan Heller told me recently. “I see this as where many destabilizing problems in society first show up—the sidewalk cracks that will later turn into the Grand Canyon—and the sorts of challenges that require not just a righteous position but actual thought.” Heller’s immersive new story this week is about San Francisco’s famously rigorous Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the West, which dropped its selective-admissions policy and began using a randomized system to admit students in 2020. As Heller writes, “Parents cried out. Alumni threatened and launched lawsuits, and a few current students protested. Lowell, once a meritocratic beacon, had become something else: a bellwether for the uncertain future of selective public education.” In the course of seven months, Heller visited the school to see the conflicts and possibilities of the new policy for himself. “I tried to hear as many different perspectives as possible,” he said, “then I laid them out like iron filings and found the curves of the pattern that emerged.” The situation was a clear good-vs.-good conflict. “You have this shattered, schismatic landscape of diverse identities and good progressive intentions,” Heller said. “On paper, everyone holds the same principles, yet no one agrees. How do you bring that together around the tricky, tricky shared project of public education? In the past few years, I started thinking more seriously about problems of equality, which is one of those great American ideas that everyone reverently nods and murmurs about in the zoom-out, but that, as soon as you zoom in, turns out to be a mess of a million distinct notions, most totally at odds.” —Ian Crouch, newsletter editor Read the story Read more: Nathan Heller has also written about universal basic income, the philosopher Elizabeth Anderson, and campus conflicts at Oberlin College. From the News Desk Daily Comment The Growing Fear of a Wider War Between Russia and the West U.S. officials warn that tensions over Ukraine could trigger a once unthinkable conflict pitting Russia against NATO. By Robin Wright Daily Comment A Russian Journalist Who Stayed Behind As the war escalates, real reporting from within Putin’s circle has become nearly impossible. By David Remnick News Desk The Revolution Eats Itself in Nicaragua Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo have crushed civil society and thrown their former comrades in jail. What remains of the Sandinista ideal? By Alma Guillermoprieto Letter from the Southwest At Home with the Families Affected by Texas’s New Anti-Trans Orders After Governor Greg Abbott called medical care for trans children “child abuse,” their families began weighing their options. By Rachel Monroe Get the in-depth analysis and on-the-ground reporting you need to understand the war on Ukraine. Subscribe today » Editor’s Pick The New Yorker Interview Cornel West Sees a Spiritual Decay in the Culture A conversation with the prominent philosopher about democracy, disagreement, and how to stay upright in a fallen world. By Vinson Cunningham Culture Dept. Cultural Comment The Difficulty of Being a Perfect Asian American A book and a documentary examine how Asian Americans internalize the myth of the model minority. By Hua Hsu The Front Row “The Batman,” Reviewed: Eh, It’s Fine The movie’s solid dramatic architecture is essentially uninhabited, with Robert Pattinson supplying the only substance. By Richard Brody Fun & Games Dept. Daily Cartoon Thursday, March 10th By Jared Nangle Daily Shouts How Am I? But enough about me. By Ivan Ehlers Name Drop Play Today’s Quiz Can you guess the notable person in six clues or fewer? By Will Nediger Daily Shouts A Letter of Romantic Recommendation I hope that you can recognize Alan Worth as a special applicant. Dating him—like an earthquake—is impossible to forget. By Dennard Dayle 🍔 P.S. This week, McDonald’s joined scores of other corporations in suspending operations in Russia, in response to the ongoing invasion of Ukraine. The first McDonald’s opened in Moscow in 1990, to great fanfare, becoming an important cultural signifier of the last days of the Soviet Union. A few years earlier, in the U.S., the Golden Arches loomed large in the mind of a fourteen-year-old Gary Shteyngart, who had emigrated with his parents from Russia, lost his accent, and wanted little more than to eat all of his meals at McDonald’s. “The ketchup, red and decadent, embedded with little flecks of grated onion,” he writes. “The uplift of the pickle slices; the obliterating rush of fresh Coca-Cola; the soda tingle at the back of the throat signifying that the act was complete.” Today’s newsletter was written by Ian Crouch. Thanks for reading. Let us know your thoughts about today’s edition. Plus, browse more newsletters and invite a friend to sign up for The Daily. You’re receiving this e-mail because you signed up for The Daily from The New Yorker. Manage your preferences | View our Privacy Policy | Unsubscribe Copyright © Condé Nast 2022. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.