When standardized test scores make of break a school, there’s a huge incentive to kick out the low-scoring kids. The illegal shunting of poor performers from public school to GED programs has become so common that it has earned the nickname “pushout.” Debbie Nathan follows three Texas teenagers who were pushed out and examines the toll this exclusion has taken on their lives.  

[Photo credit: Biologycorner, Creative Commons.]

Latinos account for 41% of New York City’s construction workforce, but an astonishing 74% of construction workers who fell to their deaths between 2003 and 2011 were classified as “Latino and/or immigrant” by investigators, Erica Pearson reports for the New York Daily News. Why is this work disproportionately deadly for Latinos? Experts believe that Latino construction workers, particularly recent immigrants, are more likely to work for non-union companies, including day labor firms, which are more likely to skimp on safety equipment and training. Unscrupulous employers profit from the knowledge that undocumented workers are less likely to complain about all kinds of abuses, from lax safety procedures to wage theft. 

[Photo credit: Vonderauvisuals, Creative Commons.]

Thanks to an ecclectic public awareness campaign, shark’s fin soup consumption in China has gone from a status symbol to a faux pas, and endangered shark species are getting a new lease on life: 

Thanks to a former NBA star, a coalition of Chinese business leaders, celebrities and students, and some unlikely investigative journalism, eating shark fin soup is no longer fashionable here. But what really tipped the balance was a government campaign against extravagance that has seen the soup banned from official banquets.

“People said it was impossible to change China, but the evidence we are now getting says consumption of shark fin soup in China is down by 50 to 70 percent in the last two years,” said Peter Knights, executive director of WildAid, a San Francisco-based group that has promoted awareness about the shark trade. The drop is also reflected in government and industry statistics. [WaPo]

Before the public awareness campaign, the average shark fin consumer didn’t even know that the unctuous broth known as “fish wing soup” was made from shark, let alone that shark fishermen routinely butchered their prey alive and tossed the mutilated animals back into the sea to die. When he learned the truth, Jim Zhang, became an anti-shark’s fin activist, and eventually changed careers to become a full-time environmentalist.

Once the word got out, the anti-shark’s fin backlash was swift and severe. Shark’s fin’s image was further tarnished by its association with official corruption. Lavish banquets featuring shark’s fin soup because a symbol of rampant expense account abuse by bureaucrats. The price of shark’s fin is dropping and some restaurants that specialize in the dish have closed du to lack of demand. 

[Photo Credit: SimonQ, Creative Commons.]

Sidney-winner Susan Greene reports on Robert Knott a Native America inmate who was posthumously reunited with his tribe after committing suicide in supermax prison. Knott had been struggling for years with untreated mental illness, a condition that was surely exacerbated by years of solitary confinment. 

[Photo credit: Detail of a pow wow dancer from the Ho-Chunk Nation, Robert Knott’s tribe of origin.]