Articles by Ron Brandt

Most adults — especially those who have little contact with today’s adolescents — will be shocked and upset by Patricia Hersch’s portraits of eight teenagers growing up in Reston, Virginia. Yes, kids have always rebelled, taken risks, and done stupid things, but these young people don’t just make little mistakes; they use drugs, get drunk, have sex, steal from local stores, and regularly lie to their parents. Not all of them do all these things, but most do enough to make the reader ask how this can be happening. Reston is a planned community inhabited by the well-to-do and well-educated, and these boys and girls are not delinquents but typical kids.

Ron Brandt is former Assistant Executive Director at The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development and an award-winning journalist. He worked with the Initiative in ... Read on