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Author Michele Cohen Marill

  • Michele Cohen Marill

    Editorial Contributor

    An Atlanta native, she has been writing for Atlanta magazine since 1990. She gained a reputation for taking on in-depth stories and delving into some of Atlanta’s most sensitive issues: tree loss caused by urban sprawl, the crumbling child protection system, the impact of illegal immigration. In 1991, she won a National Headliner Award (second place for “consistently outstanding feature writing in a magazine”). Her article on resegregation of Atlanta’s schools was part of the “Legacy” issue commemorating the death of Martin Luther King Jr., which was a finalist for a 2009 National Magazine Award for single topic issue. She is a graduate of Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism and also has written for Redbook, Good Housekeeping, Parents, PINK, Georgia Trend, and other magazines. She lives in Decatur with her husband and two teenage daughters.

Fail

Posted on 1/1/2011 8:00:00 AM by Michele Cohen Marill
Given annually since 2000, the CRCT measures the “quality” of Georgia’s schools. It is a measure that has fundamentally altered what is taught in Georgia classrooms. To help their students pass the CRCT, teachers feel compelled to prep them with testing strategies and to focus—sometimes relentlessly—on the content most likely to be tested. That means an emphasis on concrete, multiple-choice tasks rather than creative teaching and critical thinking. Read More

Resegregation

Posted on 4/1/2008 11:36:00 AM by Michele Cohen Marill
Integration was supposed to level the playing field in public schools. Fifty years later, is new de facto resegregation so bad? Read More

The Innocents

Posted on 2/1/2006 9:00:00 AM by Michele Cohen Marill
The letters are desperate. They are filled with obvious lies, or sorrowful grievances, or unrestrained rage, or childlike hope. They are peppered with grammatical errors of the uneducated and the legalese of the jailhouse lawyer. Read More

The Last Dreamer

Posted on 8/1/2003 8:00:00 AM by Michele Cohen Marill
As John Lewis crests the Edmund Pettus Bridge, voices sweep around him and build into a crescendo. His head is bowed, prayerful. His eyes are damp. He is weary, but as he reaches the pinnacle of the bridge over the Alabama River and looks out to the other side, a burden lifts. He sees a very different world from March 7, 1965, when he was a slender and serious young man of 25 who helped lead a group of more than 600 marchers across the bridge toward Montgomery to demand the right to vote.  Read More