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Current Issues Blog & More

 

The Close Up Current Issues Blog, updated weekly throughout the school year, helps teachers connect current events to their students and classrooms. We know that teaching the news can be time-consuming; by the time you find important issues and identify how to teach them, they are old news. That’s where our blog comes in: unpacking issues in the headlines by providing relevant context, links to classroom-ready news items, and suggested prompts for thoughtful discussion.

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President Donald J. Trump

Eliminate Illegal Immigration; Make Immigration Work for the Economy

Post | October 9, 2019

Immigration policy and enforcement continues to be a major area of conflict between Democrats and Republicans. Currently, Congress is considering many bills related to immigration, asylum, migrant detention, and family separation. This week, we will look at two proposals that Republicans are advancing; two weeks ago, we examined two bills that Democrats are advancing. Republicans […]


The Global Climate Strike

Post | September 25, 2019

To help students explore the climate change debate, please see our resource on climate change policy here. Over one million workers, students, and others engaged in the global climate strike on Friday, September 20, in an effort to call for more significant action to combat climate change.1 This was the third in a series of […]


Migrant Detention and Congressional Oversight

Post | September 16, 2019

Immigration policy and enforcement continues to be a major area of conflict between congressional Democrats and the executive branch. Currently, Congress is considering many bills related to immigration, asylum, migrant detention, and family separation. This week, we will look at two bills that Democrats are advancing; next week, we will look at two bills that […]


Reparations and the Demands of Justice

Post | August 27, 2019

In January 2019, Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) introduced H.R. 40: The Commission to Study and Develop Reparations Proposals for African Americans Act.1 Reparations for slavery, Jim Crow, and systematic segregation and racism in major U.S. institutions is not a new idea, but it has never gained the type of traction that it currently has. […]


Religious Freedom or the Right to Discriminate?

Post | August 22, 2019

On August 15, the Department of Labor published proposed changes that would expand federal contractors’ ability to claim a religious exemption to equal opportunity and anti-discrimination rules.1 The proposed rule change, as written, could allow employers with federal contracts to fire or refuse to hire LGBTQ employees, and could even be used to fire unmarried […]


The White House Washington DC

Democratic Candidate Highlights: Part 1—The Early Announcers

Post | June 5, 2019

The 2020 United States Presidential election is on Tuesday, November 3, and there are 20+ Democrats who have announced their campaign to run. As promised in our earlier post (found here), this post will be the first of several where we take a closer look at a few candidates—who they are and their stances are on […]


Vote Statehood 51

Should Washington, DC, Become a State?

Post | May 29, 2019

If you visit Washington, DC, one of the things you may notice is the license plates on local vehicles. While the inhabitants of the District of Columbia pay federal taxes, they do not have voting representation in Congress – just one delegate whose votes do not count. So since 2000, after approval by the Mayor […]


China Flag

Trade War: What Is It Good For?

Post | May 14, 2019

This past Friday, President Trump announced a new round of tariffs on $200 billion dollars’ worth of goods from China, increasing the rate from 10% to 25%. On Sunday, China announced retaliatory tariffs on $60 billion dollars’ worth of US goods increasing to a rate of 20-25%.1 The so-called ‘trade war’ between the US and […]


2020 Presidential Candidates

A Flood of Democratic Candidates

Post | April 30, 2019

The 2020 United States Presidential election is on Tuesday, November 3, 2020 (or 553 days from the publishing of this post) and already there are 21 Democrats who have formally begun their campaigns. Over the next several months, we will take a dive into who the candidates are and what they prioritize. In each candidacy […]


Political Cartoon

Should Public College Be Free?

Post | April 23, 2019

College has not only gotten expensive, but the cost becomes a burden for years. When graduating an undergraduate program, the average student leaves with over $37,000 in student loan debt. This is a $20,000 increase from 20 years ago. Over 70% of students today graduate with a significant amount of loans with an average of […]


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