All of the Above Podcast

This Week: Whew, it’s been a doozy of a week in American education. Today we do a bit of a news round up with analysis of the stories that resonated most for us.  We’ve got Linda McMahon out here dropping the ball on student loan repayment plan applications , with 96% going unprocessed, sometimes for over a year! Class warfare and attempts to gut higher ed are in full swing. Gov. Gavin Newsom show...

This Week: Everywhere you turn nowadays we are bombarded within AI.  From commercials to websites, to our smartphones, you can’t escape it. And neither can the nation’s college students. A bombshell piece in NY Magazine’s Intelligencer this week profiles the extent to which AI use to cheat is endemic in colleges, and the growing concerns around the ethics and potential harm to humans of AI use (al...

This Week: What would it look like if the people, who claim to care so much about the welfare of the nation’s schools and children, actually spent their (our) time, money, and resources on things that benefited the nation’s schools and children?  Well, it might look like talking about our first story today, a study from the Annenberg Institute about the surprising connections between HVAC systems...

This Week: DHS agents attempt to arrest kids from two Los Angeles elementary schools. The Trump admin unleashes demands that embody government overreach and 1st Amendment violations aimed at colleges, Harvard refuses to comply , costing at least $2.3B in funding for now. Faculty at the Big 10 schools lead an effort to create a NATO-like mutual defense compact to defend against the republican attac...

This Week: Since Jeff is out there somewhere doing super-duper-dope-principal-leader-man things, we thought it’d be worthwhile to re-post this interview we did in 2019 on KPFK’s Flip the Script with Vida Starr . It’s a bit of a throwback about who we are and why we started All of the Above in the first place. The interviewer, Chavonne Taylor, is a Los Angeles community champion who first appeared...

This Week: Tired of the wickedness coming from DC? Us too. And, we’re gonna keep you updated on the latest. Trump threatened states with stripping federal education funds if they don’t sign a letter within 10 days certifying they don’t do DEI. The Supreme Court, in all of its great wisdom, reversed a lower court’s injunction preventing the Trump admin from withholding hundreds of millions in fundi...

This Week: In the latest chapter of weaponizing the civil rights arm of the US Dept of Ed against the very marginalized groups whose rights it was created to protect, the Trump admin announced an investigation into CA’s SAFETY Act , claiming that the state may be violating FERPA by preventing districts from requiring educators to out LGBTQ+ and curious students to their families. And, in a dastard...

This Week: Well, they did it. Sort of. After telling us what the plan was like evil Bond villains, the White House released the latest in its abuses of executive power this week to, ostensibly, “Improve Educational Outcomes” by doing all it can to close the US Dept of Ed without technically closing it. It’s a textbook case of policy violence, with only a thin veil covering the efforts at privatiza...

This Week: It’s only been a week since we last spoke, and in that time the US Dept of Education is effectively ½ the size it was, and what’s left is being weaponized to target colleges and universities . Plus, an Idaho teacher makes headlines for resisting her district’s message to take down signs that say “ everyone is welcome here .” The district says the signs “don’t allow people to express dif...

REPOST - It was all good just a few summers ago! Folks of all backgrounds were marching, corporations were pledging, and America was, well… reckoning . Since the flurry of movement in support of racial justice in the summer of 2020, we have witnessed a severe backlash and regression that most recently has included the federal government attempting to make it illegal to even use the most basic voca...

This Week: The right wing onslaught continues. Since we last recorded, the federal government cut $400M in funding from Columbia University for allegedly failing to respond to “relentless antisemitism,” and the USDOE released its “End DEI” website , with the hopes of getting the public to report schools/educators doing DEI stuff and engaging in the mythology of reverse racism. Thankfully, there ar...

This Week: California got rid of affirmative action in higher ed back in the 90s with the notorious prop 209. But that isn’t stopping a new collection of bigots and Uncle Toms from suing the University of California in federal court for allegedly practicing affirmative action voodoo and still admitting “too many” Black and Brown students. Sigh. The entitlement, the hubris, the white supremacy, the...

It was all good just a few summers ago! Folks of all backgrounds were marching, corporations were pledging, and America was, well… reckoning . Since the flurry of movement in support of racial justice in the summer of 2020, we have witnessed a severe backlash and regression that most recently has included the federal government attempting to make it illegal to even use the most basic vocabulary of...

This Week: The nation’s report card is out , and the results are… meh. Manuel and Jeff get into it briefly before diving more deeply into the latest attacks on public education coming from DC and state governments. The administration handed down three executive orders this week that, if allowed to stand, would have disastrous impacts on the nation’s schools, and in particular on our most marginali...

This Week: In just the first few days in office, the Trump administration has used the powers of executive orders to enact hateful and violent policies intended to cause harm to marginalized people of all sorts, and enshrine white supremacy in the nation’s system of public schooling.  From their Orwellian press releases , to eliminating DEI offices, to placing individuals identified as having DEI...

This Week: As we celebrate MLK Jr. weekend, we thought it would be apt to have a special re-release of our recent discussion with Jesse Hagopian about his new book, Teach Truth: The Struggle for Antiracist Education . Nearly half of our nation’s public school children are subject to laws that forbid honest education about the history of racism in this country. Two-thirds of US teachers report self...

This Week: Everyone has seen the news of the devastating fires that have hit the LA area. Today Manuel shares the perspective of an educator at the front lines, working in the high school that has served the Altadena community for generations. Jeff adds perspective from schools and communities affected by the smoke and ash in Los Angeles, and together we process the meaning of this week’s tragic e...

This Week: We're back for 2025 and we know talking about politics can be a bit, exhausting now. But, all hope is not lost! There’s good news at the state level in CA with new protections for LGBTQ+ students and the educators who support them , improvements to the history curriculum to teach a more honest history of colonialism and segregation, and more! Plus, out of the great state of Arkansas, a...

Nearly half of our nation’s public school children are subject to laws that forbid honest education about the history of racism in this country. Two-thirds of US teachers report self-censoring discussions on race, gender, identity, and sexuality in their classrooms. How did we get here, and how can we collaboratively fight for the truth to be taught in our schools? Educator and activist Jesse Hago...

This Week: A fascinating story about what’s happening to higher ed in rural America out of the Hechinger Report reveals that across the country options for rural students are shrinking dramatically, with campuses closing, and dozens of majors and key programs being cut. Enrollment is down, but advocates say the cuts are going beyond the needed adjustments and are leaving rural students -- many of...

This Week: We’re tired of talking about right wing nonsense… but they got the former head of the WWE ready to be in charge of the nation’s education system, so we gotta talk about it a little. And, a fascinating story out of NYC about students getting cartoons and screen time instead of outdoor recess . Parents are, rightfully, concerned.  Why does recess matter? Why isn’t the quality of recess hi...

This Week: Oklahoma State Supt Ryan Walters makes a truly dystopian video that he “mandated” all schools show to the students announcing the creation of a new Department of Religious Freedom and Patriotism. Trump continues plotting and scheming for his assault on public education with a new-ish 10 point plan , complete with support for book bans, attacks on teacher tenure, teaching white supremaci...

This Week: It was a rough week y'all. You know it. We know it. The forces of hate and oppression are out here. Trump is going to get rid of the US Dept of Education, vouchers will be had for all, and wokeness will be outlawed forever. Not so fast.  While undoubtedly we took a hit this week, the odds of an impending end to the Dept of Education are not particularly high .  And we saw big wins on ed...

This Week: Despite the right-wing hysteria that would have you believe wokeness and DEI are undermining the quality of America’s colleges, it turns out that it’s unqualified r ich kids who are buying their way into schools like USC , sneaking in the back door as so-called walk-on athletes. And, a powerful new study from GPSN and the Center for Diversity in Leadership shows that Black and Brown edu...

Encampments raided, college presidents sacked, student loan forgiveness struck down, DEI programs abolished, and free speech battles raging–what in the world is going on across our nation’s college campuses? With so many hot button issues impacting higher education today, how should students, families, and folks in the K-12 space navigate discussions and decisions about going to college? This week...