Weekend Reads: Solutions to Paying for College, Evaluating DC Youth Programs, Demographics in the South, and More

New this week

Watch: Michelle Obama talks #GirlsEdu at Brookings. In an event Friday afternoon at Brookings, 
Michelle Obama delivered a 15-minute keynote address
on how the world can find community-based solutions to improve girls’ education. 

The South remains a black-white region. Brookings’s chief demographer 
Bill Frey explains
that while many states in the U.S. have rapidly growing Hispanic and Asian populations, the South continues to look the same as it has for decades: primarily black and white.

Unpredictable work hours make it harder for low-income Americans to advance. Richard Reeves takes a look at new data that show the prevalence of irregular work hours for low-income Americans, and the troubling long-term effects.

A discussion on the problems and solutions of paying for college. 
Listen to experts from the Brookings Brown Center
have a short conversation about their recent research on issues surrounding paying for higher ed and their proposed solutions.

What we learned from an evaluation of youth programs in D.C. 
A new study from Martha Ross and Mala B. Thakur
looks at the recent findings of a 2013 self-assessment of a cohort of youth programs in Washington D.C.

Computer science courses for every student by 2020. Bill Galston takes a look at Obama’s announcement of 
a new computer science education initiative
and challenges the President to take on an even more ambitious goal next year.

What our experts are reading

It’s worth looking at Bloomberg Business Week’s quite cool list of 85 “most disruptive” ideas of last 85 years. (@MarkMuro1)

Great history of Reddit. (@DavidSteven)

Forget about Putin for a while and take a look at something—and someone—completely different in Russia. (@StrobeTalbott)

America’s Shame: What’s in the Senate Torture Report? Good overview by John Cassidy in the New Yorker. (@ShadiHamid)

In case you missed it, Greg Sargent on why the Democrats need to worry about what’s happening to them at the state level. (@EJDionne)