The new Common Core State Standards dictate that non-fiction reading should make up 70 percent of a high school senior’s reading curriculum across all disciplines. And so far, 46 states have either adopted these new standards or will be adopting them by next year.

Who came up with these standards? How do they work? And how do parents and teachers feel about them?

Today, fewer than three in ten American teenagers are able to find summer jobs. These figures have fallen off particularly quickly since 2000, and the number of 16- to 19-year-olds at work is at its lowest since World War II. Older workers, immigrants, and young college grads are now taking the low-level work formerly filled by America’s teenagers, and economists have suggested that this change might be permanent.