Have You Heard

The claim that "your zip code shouldn't determine your education" is made by education experts of every stripe. And yet as Have You Heard guest Richard Rothstein, author of the Color of Law, explains here, our racially segregated zip codes were created by design, the result of federal housing policy. The legacy of those policies today is not just segregated schools but a stark racial wealth gap. A...

Bill Gates spent a fortune to remake high schools across the country into small learning communities. Michael Hobbes' Seattle alma mater was one of these, and he takes us deep into the story of his school. As Hobbes recounts, what happened at Hale High, and Gates' efforts to supersize the small schools experiment, is also a story of what education reform gets wrong - and why reformers make the sam...

Have You Heard talks to historian Harvey Kantor about how education came to be seen as THE fix for poverty. Hint: it all starts in the 1960’s with the advent of the Great Society programs. Fast forward to the present and our belief that education can reduce poverty and narrow the nation’s yawning inequality chasm is stronger than ever. And yet education, argues Kantor, is actually exacerbating inc...

In this episode, Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider discuss how test scores and other current metrics distort our picture of school quality, often fostering segregation in the process. What would a better set of measures include? Our intrepid hosts venture inside an urban elementary school to find out.

Jennifer Berkshire talks to Nancy MacLean, author of the best selling Democracy in Chains, about the Right's long crusade against what they call "government schools."

In this episode of Have You Heard, we hear from teachers who left their jobs - and wanted to tell the world why. They left "kicking and screaming" as Oklahoma Teacher of the Year Shawn Sheehan explains. These very public resignations are a form of activism, a way for teachers to articulate how and why teaching needs to change.

The push to "personalize" education is on, with more Silicon Valley disrupters jumping into the big money fray every week. But as Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider discuss with guest Bill Fitzgerald, the search for a technological cure for what ails our public schools goes way back. And by failing to heed the past, the new breed of disrupters--Mark Zuckerberg, Reed Hastings, et al--are poised...

How did school boards became the must-have accessory of wealthy donors? Scholar Rebecca Jacobsen walks us through who and what is behind this big money trend. And by "big," we mean REALLY BIG. The recent school board election in Los Angeles was the most expensive in history, totaling some $17 million, much of it via untraceable "dark money" donations.

Did you hear the one about how charter schools were the brainchild of Albert Shanker, the legendary teachers union head? Writer Rachel Cohen did, but when she began tracing the tale back to its origins, she found that the real "father" of charter schools looks a lot like their biggest fans today: market-oriented reformers who aren't crazy about public institutions or labor unions.

A big new study finds having just one Black teacher makes it far more likely that Black students will remain in school. But there’s a problem. The percentage of Black teachers, particularly in urban areas, has been sinking like a stone. Guest Terrenda White explains the role that education reform has played in reducing the number of Black teachers, and why recruiting Black students to be future te...

School marketing is a fast growing - and completely unregulated - byproduct of the education marketplace. Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire explore the world of "edvertising" with researcher Sarah Butler Jessen. To market, to market!

Tax credit scholarships are a complex, controversial way of sending taxpayer dollars to private religious schools, allowing wealthy donors and corporations to reap huge windfalls in the process. Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire explore the the origins of the wall between public money and private schools that these “neo vouchers” are intended to circumvent. They're joined by tax policy expert...

Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider talk to Tressie McMillan Cottom about the rise of for-profit colleges, and *risky* higher ed that saddles low-income students with debt and questionable credentials. And we discuss the growing push to make K-12 similarly risky. Cottom is the author of Lower Ed and her sharp, insightful take on why markets and schooling don't match is a must hear.

Have You Heard heads to Detroit to hear from parents about how they're faring in the city's "education marketplace." We listen in as they describe neighborhoods that have become school deserts, and the chaos of dealing with schools that suddenly close their doors.

Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider talk to Michelle Rhee about the use of student test scores to evaluate teachers, whether the policies she's pushed for have led to teacher shortages, and what's next for the education reform movement in these Trumpian times.

The idea that schools can be fixed by firing teachers has become a fixation. Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider look at where the idea comes from and hear from three Boston teachers whose schools are about to be turned upside down. As scholar Tina Trujillo explains, the turn-and-churn model of school reform reflects a larger erosion of the idea that public education is public good.

The conservative love affair with vouchers dates back decades, held in check only by a skeptical public. Now with the GOP running, well, just about everything, school vouchers are back, baby. Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider discuss the history of the voucher movement and its strange bedfellows, and mix it up with Travis Pillow, a voucher superfan.

When Maria Montessori developed a new teaching method for society’s “lost” children in the early 1900s, she had no idea it would become one of the go-to ways rich white parents educate their toddlers. But now, public urban Montessori schools are catching on in a big way and challenging some deeply held beliefs about how urban kids should be educated.

When Georgia voters go to the polls, they'll be deciding whether to create a statewide school district to take over troubled schools. But while the question is being sold as a way to help kids, the devil is in the details. Have you Heard heads to Atlanta to hear from voters and parents about why Amendment One has become the hot topic in Georgia politics.

Have You Heard heads west to visit a San Francisco high school where ninth grade social studies students are diving deep into a topic that concerns them directly: school lunch. They're part of a new ethnic studies curriculum that allows them to engage in their education in hopes that they’ll be more invested in school. And it's producing big results: the kind that have researchers salivating more...

Have You Heard heads to college campuses to talk to three current and former students. They "get" what researchers are just beginning to understand: that going to college isn't the silver bullet to solving poverty. By saddling students with debt and degrees that aren't worth that much - if they finish at all - college may even be making the problem worse.

Have You Heard revisits the school busing wars that rocked the country in the 1960s and '70s. We talk to historian Matt Delmont, who argues that just about everything you think you know about busing is wrong - and that understanding what REALLY happened is key to finally doing something about school segregation.

It's the first Have You Heard road trip! For this edition of the podcast, we're in Lawrence, Massachusetts, the poorest city in the state. What we found, though, was a community of students rich in ideas who feel empowered to rethink education and rebuild their city.

Have You Heard heads to Boston for a look at the controversial trend of kindergarten suspension. We go behind the data to bring you the story of a mother and a five-year-old boy who, in his first four months as a kindergartner, was suspended 16 times. Hard to imagine? His mother thinks so too as she struggles to understand how her bright, creative little boy could end up in so much trouble so quic...

Have You Heard heads to New Orleans, where there’s a rebellion brewing against the city’s decade-long experiment with urban education reform. We speak to the unlikely leader of the revolt to find out why residents of the Big Easy say that changes are being made “to them, not with them” and how this uprising could be heading to a city near you.