After a brief hiatus (we know you missed us!), #TCFBest returns with an eclectic mix of policy issues from around the web. Tomorrow, March 30, Turkey will hold local elections, but many are instead expecting a battle royale between the two major parties. Mother Jones debunks the attempted debunking of poverty myths, which they initially debunked (read the article, it will make more sense), and Ms. Magazine opines for The Little Rock Nine: Redux.

Turkish Fault Line

Tomorrow’s local elections in Turkey will be voters’ first opportunity to respond to the ongoing political turbulence between the Erdoğan and the Gülen movement. The Bipartisan Policy Center released a new report with Ambassador Morton Abramowitz, TCF senior fellow and former U.S. ambassador to Turkey, which aims to explain the parties involved and the implications of the elections. In short: “Turkey is unlikely to be a strong ally for the United States,” because of its internal bickering. Read BPC’s report here.

Poverty Plays

Mother JonesErika Eichelberger published an article last week debunking common myths of poverty. Things like, “single moms” and “absentee dads” are to blame, or, people on welfare are “just lazy.” All debunked. Then, a friendly columnist from the National Review Online double-debunked, claiming single moms are a huge problem, and absentee dads cannot be pardoned. Round three: Eichelberger comes in with a third debunking, for the win. In essence, poverty is still a huge problem, and the parents are hardly to blame: “the number of households living in extreme poverty—on less than $2 a day—has shot up.” Check out the play-by-play at Mother Jones.

School of Inequality

In the 1950s, nine black high school students became the symbols of desegregation in America. They became known as “The Little Rock Nine.” Today, Ms. Magazine questions how far we’ve really come. Some leave-behinds: “school dropout rates are 7 percent for black students and 14 percent for Latino students,” “of the high schools with the highest black and Latino percentages, only 25 percent of them offered Algebra 2, a math course needed to pass the SAT,” and “black students…represent more than one-quarter of those students referred to law enforcement.” Getting the gist? Read more from Ms. Magazine.

Bonus read:

TCF fellow Stefanie DeLuca lands a write-up at The Atlantic Cities with her research on the Baltimore Housing Mobility Program, which helps poor families escape concentrated poverty in the inner city.