Future Hindsight

Jonathan Lamontagne is a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Tufts University School of Engineering. In his recent study, he finds that immediate global action is required for robust climate abatement. We discuss the narrow window that still remains for both a tolerable climate future and tolerable economic conditions.

Education Inequity

There is a college completion crisis and access crisis in America: black adults are only two thirds as likely to hold college degrees as whites, and the highest achieving students from the wealthiest families are three times as likely to enroll in a highly selective college as similar students from poor families.Low achievers from high income familieshave a higher chanceof graduating from college thanhighachieving students from low income families.

Community College

Community colleges provide real opportunities for upward mobility that elite colleges don't. They offer an affordable education, welcome students with open arms regardless of economic background, and are working on transfer agreements to top-notch schools, including to Ivy League universities. More than half of American students attend community colleges. Even with a sizable financial aid package, elite colleges are still very expensive to attend, and low-income families cannot afford to pay the difference. Tuition alone at elite colleges can cost $50,000 or more, whereas community college tuition in New York State costs $5,000 on average.

S.A.T.

The recent college admissions scandal fully exposed how far wealthy parents will go to ensure their children a spot in an elite college, including cheating on standardized tests. There is a strong correlation between high test scores and high-income families, as they can afford test tutoring to improve scores. The College Board just announced that it would include an adversity score going forward, which would level the playing field. While this might make sense in the near term, it does not address the larger issues with inadequate access to high quality education before college.

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Liz Willen, a longtime education reporter, has been proud to lead the award-winning staff of The Hechinger Report since 2011. Liz got her start in newspapers as feature editor of Northport High School's "The Rag," in Northport, New York and worked at an array of New England newspapers before covering New York City public schools for New York Newsday.

She's a graduate of Tufts University and Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a board member for the Spencer Education Fellowships at Columbia. Liz is a sought-after moderator at education conferences and events, has been an active New York City public school parent and recipient of the "Above and Beyond," award by the media company City & State for exemplary leadership. She was recently honored for commentary writing by the New York Press Club.

In the interview, Liz referenced the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, The Privileged Poor by Anthony Abraham Jack, and the documentary Personal Statement.

Follow Liz Willen on Twitter @L_Willen and The Hechinger Report @hechingerreport.

Liz Willen is the Editor in Chief of the Hechinger Report, an independent, nonprofit, and award-winning newsroom that covers inequality and innovation in education. We discuss who is attending and completing college, who is not, and why higher education must be more widely accessible to all Americans.

Social Determinants

Good health is the product of access to quality medical care and sound public health policy. Effective policies that improve health outcomes include the Earned Income Tax Credit, supportive housing, and access to good public education. Per capita spending on medical care and social services in America and in European countries is about the same, but the US spends much more on medical care, while Europe spends more on social services. Europeans have longer life expectancy and better health statistics than Americans.

Longevity and future medical innovations

Disparities exist in life expectancy just as it does in income. The top 20% live 11 years longer than the bottom 20%. Even in comparison to the median, the top 20% are expected to live 4 years longer. This disparity may become even larger with future advances in medical care, such as gene tweaking. They will likely be very expensive, and it's possible that they may therefore only be accessible to the rich. There will be moral and ethical trade-offs to consider whether health insurance should cover these treatments, who is covered and who is not, and whether they are worth the increase in medical care spending in lieu of investing in social determinants.

More Health

The hallmark of good population health is a world in which people are connected to their communities, have a chance to make good decisions about their health, and have the resources to do so. The perspective in the field of health economics is changing towards focusing on better health outcomes for the population, instead of primarily on providing medical care and how to pay for it. What is a better return on investment? Do healthier lives come from more investments in things like education, income, early childhood, social services, and preventive medicine? Or do they come from more investments in high-tech medical innovations?

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Dr. James Knickman is the Director of the Health Evaluation and Analytics Lab (HEAL), a joint initiative of the Health Policy and Management Program at NYU Wagner and Department of Population Health at NYU Langone. He is also a Senior Research Scientist at the NYU Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and a Clinical Professor in the Department of Population Health at NYU Langone.

Dr. Knickman was previously the president and CEO of the New York State Health Foundation, a position he held since May 2006. The Foundation focuses on high impact interventions to bring about measurable improvements in New York's health system. Prior to that appointment, he was Vice President for Research and Evaluation at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF).

He has published extensive research on issues related to the financing of health care and long-term care and improving services for frail elders, homeless families, and individuals with HIV. Dr. Knickman is the co-author of Jonas & Kovner's Health Care Delivery in the United States, a widely used textbook on health policy and management.

Follow James Knickman on Twitter @JimKnickman.

James Knickman is a health economist and the Director of the Health Evaluation and Analytics Lab, a joint initiative on health policy and population health at NYU. We discuss the necessary components that contribute to better health outcomes in populations and how we can achieve them going forward.

The price of freedom

Cash bail was initially conceived as a way to incentivize the accused to come to court at their appointed court dates. As the criminal legal system expanded during the tough-on-crime years, cash bail was set at amounts that low income people could not afford. Even though they had yet to be convicted of a crime, they were forced to go to jail because they could not afford bail. One way to get out is to plead guilty to a small offense so that they can go home, but that adds significant complications down the road.

The cost to our society

Our society pays a steep price from allowing the current cash bail system to continue as it is. American taxpayers spend 14 billion dollars each year to hold people in jail cells who have not been convicted of a crime. The collateral consequences are estimated to be as high as 140 billion dollars per year. Most disturbing is that only 2 percent of the Bail Project's clients actually receive a jail sentence. In fact, when people are fighting their cases from a position of freedom, judges and prosecutors are willing to engage in alternatives to incarceration as sentences.

A new system

A new system to ensure people appear at appointed court times must come from a perspective of humanity and respect. Over a decade's worth of data in the Bronx shows that effective court reminders do work. Further, the needs of the accused have to be addressed, such as transportation fare or emergency child care, especially for low income people. Most importantly, any new system must involve a presumption of innocence, and can no longer be a two-tier system that favors those who can afford to pay for the price of their freedom.

Find out more:

Robin Steinberg is the founder and CEO of The Bail Project, an unprecedented national effort to combat mass incarceration by transforming the pretrial system in the U.S.

Over a 35-year career as a public defender, Robin represented thousands of low-income people in over-policed neighborhoods and founded three high-impact organizations: The Bronx Defenders, The Bronx Freedom Fund, and Still She Rises. Robin is a frequent commentator on criminal justice issues and has contributed opinion pieces to The New York Times, The Marshall Project, and USA Today. Her publications have appeared in leading law and policy journals, including NYU Review of Law & Social Change, Yale Law & Policy Review, and Harvard Journal of African-American Public Policy, and she has contributed book chapters to How Can You Represent Those People? (Palgrave 2013) and Decarcerating America (The New Press 2018). Robin is a Gilbert Foundation Senior Fellow of the Criminal Justice Program at UCLA School of Law.

Follow The Bail Project on Twitter @bailproject.

Robin Steinberg is the founder and CEO of The Bail Project, an unprecedented national effort to combat mass incarceration by transforming the pretrial system in the U.S. We discuss how cash bail has been used to incarcerate millions of innocent people, what the collateral cost of this system is to our society, and how we should reconceive it.

The human rights of women

The health needs of half of our population – women – include maternal and reproductive health. Equal rights mean that women can access the health care they need. Until we take into account the capacity for pregnancy, women will never achieve equality. The very survival of our species depends on meeting these needs.

Fetal Personhood

Since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, anti-abortion activists have sought to establish fetuses, fertilized eggs, and embryos as separate entities with full constitutional rights. If they succeed, pregnant women lose their full rights under the Constitution. Arguments for the rights of the fetus have been used to force pregnant women to undergo caesarian surgery and apply existing criminal laws against pregnant women for child endangerment.

The legacy of slavery

The United States is a country that was founded in part on the principle that some people can own and control the bodies of others. This ideology is still affecting us today, and in this case extends to the state exerting control over the body of pregnant women: arresting them, taking their children away, subjecting them to surgery, or surveilling them for the period of their pregnancy.

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Lynn Paltrow is the Founder and Executive Director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women. She has worked on numerous cases challenging restrictions on the right to choose abortion as well cases opposing the prosecution and punishment of pregnant women seeking to continue their pregnancies to term. Ms. Paltrow has served as a senior staff attorney at the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project, as Director of Special Litigation at the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, and as Vice President for Public Affairs for Planned Parenthood of New York City. Ms. Paltrow is the recipient of the Justice Gerald Le Dain Award for Achievement in the Field of Law and the National Women's Health Network's Barbara Seaman Award for Activism in Women's Health. She is a frequent guest lecturer and writer for popular press, law reviews, and peer-reviewed journals.

The New York Times editorial piece that Mila mentions in the interview is accessible here: A Woman's Rights.

Follow National Advocates for Pregnant Women on Twitter @NAPW and Lynn Paltrow @LynnPaltrow.

Lynn Paltrow is the Founder and Executive Director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women. We take a deep dive into the consequences of recognizing fetal personhood for the human rights of women and how reproductive health is at the center of the fight for equal rights.

Gender equity in government

It's a disservice to our communities and our democracy when the voices of women are missing in government. Women have a right for government to reflect their needs. The actual, lived experiences and perspectives of women in leadership positions enrich and inform our budgets, public policy, and legislation in ways that would not be possible in their absence. A prime example is reproductive rights. When women are at the table, onerous legislation against reproductive rights is less likely.

Campaign Finance Program

An effective campaign finance program is critical for leveling the playing field for political candidates. It amplifies the voices of small donors and marginalized communities, encourages citizens from all walks of life to run for office, and reduces the possibility of corruption. The New York City Campaign Finance Board boasts a campaign finance program that matches each dollar that is donated with an $8 contribution from public funds.

Women Can Win

Women have a right to run and to be elected. The record number of women elected into Congress in the 2018 midterm election proves that women can win. Still, women are reluctant to jump into the fray, and have to be asked 5 to 6 times to run for office. Women candidates benefit from being mentored, gaining the skills and understanding about what it takes to run for office, and an effective campaign finance program.

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Melissa Mark-Viverito is a leading progressive voice in New York. She made history in 2005 when she was elected as the first Latina to represent Spanish Harlem/El Barrio in the New York City Council. In January 2014, she was unanimously elected to serve as New York City Council Speaker. Melissa championed women, immigrants, LGBTQ communities, and black and brown New Yorkers that were historically ignored by city government. She called for closing Rikers Island, demanded the city decriminalize low-level offenses, and fought for lawyers for all undocumented immigrants. Learn more about her public service record here.

Melissa is currently serving as the Interim President of Latino Victory and is Co-Founder of the 21 in '21 Initiative.

Follow Melissa Mark-Viverito on Twitter @MMViverito.