KQED's Forum

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond announced last week that a draft version of the California high school ethnic studies curriculum, created in accordance with a 2016 state law, will be revised. The announcement came at the end of the draft's public comment period, and after the State Board of Education’s president, vice president and a board member called for changes to the draft. Critics argued the curriculum was anti-capitalist, jargony, and failed to mention anti-Semitism, among other issues. We'll discuss the draft curriculum and its potential impact on statewide education norms.

California police officers will have new restrictions on when they are able to use deadly force under a law signed by Governor Newsom this week. The legislation, which has been called one of the toughest standards in the country for when an officer can kill, is a response to the Sacramento police shooting of Stephon Clark last year, and other police shootings of unarmed black men. Families of victims of police shootings cheered the law, but some say it no longer goes far enough after amendments to the legislation were added in response to law enforcement opposition. Forum talks about what the new rules mean for police departments, and whether it will be effective in protecting police suspects from unwarranted lethal force.

Today the Trump administration announced that the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services will withdraw from the 1997 Flores Settlement Agreement and replace it with a new rule on Friday. Until now, the Flores Agreement has set the basic conditions and length of time migrant children and teens can be detained. The Trump administration believes this move will deter families from crossing the border, but advocates fear this new rule will lead to longer, more traumatic and riskier child detentions. Forum takes a closer look at what the end of the Flores Settlement Agreement means for migrants and the U.S.'s greater immigration policy.

The world's second-deadliest Ebola outbreak has claimed the lives of at least 1,900 people to date in war-torn Congo. Last month, the World Health Organization declared the nearly yearlong outbreak a "public health emergency of international concern." Dr. Paul Farmer, a co-founder of Partners in Health, joins us to talk about the Ebola crisis and his group's work providing free medical care in poor communities around the world.

When your child comes home from school, don't ask her how she did on her math test, rather ask if she learned anything interesting that day. Or if she got to spend time with her friends. That's one of the back-to-school tips from Challenge Success, a Stanford-based organization that helps families and schools to prioritize student well-being, resilience and ethics more than grades, test scores and performance. Forum talks with co-founder Denise Pope about tips for raising well-balanced kids who are engaged in their learning.

Generic drug companies in India and China have been cutting corners in their manufacturing and sending faulty drugs into the marketplace for years. That's according to investigative journalist Katherine Eban in her new book "Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom." In it, Eban details the rise of generic drugs as an affordable alternative to the expensive pharmaceutical industry, and some generic manufacturers' deliberate deception of the industry's quality oversight. Eban joins Forum to discuss her book and the safety concerns for consumers around the globe.

Financial analysts believe markets could be heading into a recession due to the emergence of a key recession indicator in the U.S. bond market last Wednesday. While consumer confidence remains high, turbulent stock markets and the U.S.'s protracted tariff war with China have raised concerns with investors. Forum takes a closer look at the state of the U.S. economy, and the likelihood of a global recession.

Women of color experience higher gender pay gaps than white women, according to the Institute for Women's Policy Research. Minda Harts, founder of the career education site The Memo, says advice books aimed at working women, such as Sheryl Sandberg’s "Lean In," fail to recognize the unique obstacles facing women of color. Tired of not seeing her experience reflected, she decided to write her own advice book, "The Memo: What Women of Color Need To Know to Secure a Seat at the Table." Hart joins Forum to share what she's learned about how women of color can survive and thrive in the workplace.

Extreme early risers — people who naturally and willingly wake up before 5:30 a.m. — may be more common than popularly imagined. That's according to a new study in the journal "Sleep," which found one in every 300 people surveyed were "extreme morning larks" and that the behavior is likely hereditary. Extreme early risers tend to go to sleep by 8:30 at night and many fill their early morning hours with exercise, work or bird watching. Forum talks with Dr. Louis J. Ptáček, co-author of the study and UCSF professor, about what early risers can teach us about how our genetics inform our sleep habits.

There has been a rising distrust between Google management and employees in the aftermath of the 2016 election according to Wired Magazine's cover story, “Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech.” Reporter Nitasha Tiku interviewed 47 current and former Google employees, and describes a changing culture within Google, wherein employees on both sides of the political spectrum feel disrespected by upper management's reactions to controversial posts in internal online forums. We'll talk with Tiku about Google's shift from a positive public perception, to increasing internal and external scrutiny.