Blog

Rosa Atkins grew up in a small town in southern Virginia during the civil rights era. She recalls being a young student during those years, and how important her teachers' composure was. "When I think about the horrors of that time," says Atkins, now the superintendent of Charlottesville City Schools, "I remember the smiles of my teachers, their kind words, and how much that reassured me." Atkins has had to call on those memories to prepare for the new school year, which began on Wednesday...

In parts of New Orleans, Michael Ricks is a legendary educator—known for his full girth and even fuller heart. Most people just call him “Big Mike.” For years, Mike’s formal title was academic and behavioral interventionist, although in practice he serves as a combination between disciplinarian, social worker, and friend. [For more of this story, written by Sarah Carr and Mallory Falk, go to https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/08/the-student-who-broke-my-heart/538551/]

In August 2007, Michael Vick pleaded guilty to the case that jettisoned him from celebrity into notoriety. The Atlantic Falcons quarterback’s dogfighting ring had been exposed in such graphic and shocking detail that his coterie of star defense attorneys panicked, then folded. The person who dug up this hard evidence against Vick—by literally exhuming the bodies of dead fighting dogs and proving they’d been hanged—was Melinda Merck. An ace at forensics, Merck has helped crack cases involving...