America's poorest students need extra educational resources just to keep pace with their more privileged peers. Instead, they get less—and teachers, principals and unions get blamed for the outcome.

The history of race in America has been one of a series of "great compromises", from the Founding up to the election of Barack Obama. There are signs that the latest compromise is breaking down.

The recent release of a series of 1930s-era two-reelers reminds us how great Buster Keaton was even when he wasn't at this best. The Great Stone Face was no slapstick peddler, but a true harbinger of film comedy as an art form.

Two new books show us that racism is alive and all too well—not just in America, but in segregated cities around the world.

The HBO television series The Wire, which aired between 2002 and 2008, brought Americans face-to-face with the stubborn and disturbing reality of inner-city life.

The Newt Gingrich campaign amused the pols and pundits, but what it says about future primary contests isn't the least bit funny.

American politics today is far more volatile than in the past. That makes predicting what will happen in November a temptation for fools. Expect a massive failure to resist temptation.

The Congressional Black Caucus is no longer the flamboyant organization it was at its birth in the late 1960s, but it's still worth listening to.

Federal anti-poverty efforts have relied too heavily on solutions cooked up in academia and inside the Beltway. We already have plenty of proven programs—at the local level.

American society is neither post-racial nor stuck fast in a racist past, but fantasies of monolithic racial communities are distorting our national conversation on race and public policy.