All of the Above Podcast

This Week: Amidst a culture of short attention spans, TikTok videos, 30 second sound bites, and 24 hour news cycles, it’s perhaps not surprising that the novel is going by the wayside in English classrooms across America. But the reality is a bit more complex than that. Pressure to raise standardized test scores, modern curriculum, and increasing use of computers and tablets to read rather than pr...

This Week: A fascinating new study of teacher strikes across America over the last two decades shows that strikes work to a) improve educator wages, b) improve working conditions like class sizes and support services, and c) increase overall education funding. And we’ve all heard it -- “I’m just not a math person” or “I can’t do math.” Our collective problem with poor math identity remains not onl...

This Week: It happened again. Another mass shooting at a school in America, this time in Winder, GA . Another young, disaffected, white, male carries out a rageful act of violence, killing 4 people and injuring several others. Despite being the only country in the world that lives like this, our elected officials continue to fail us all, and force America’s schools to live under a haze of home gro...

This Week: As Kamala picks a former teacher for VP in Coach Walz, there could be… could be, some signs that the right wing fever is breakin g in local school board elections in Florida. Maybe. Turns out an endorsement from Ronny D may not be all it’s cracked up to be. And, in hopeful news, some fascinating new federal data shows that America’s schools are, quite literally, the safest they have bee...

This Week: California’s governor wrote a letter to school leaders this week, urging urgent action on banning cell phones from the classroom. Citing ample data showing that increased use of cell phones leads to depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues, as well as data from the US Surgeon General’s 2023 report on the dangers of social media for youth, Newsome did not mince words, and aske...

This Week: New guidelines for Title IX implementation and enforcement went live on August first, at least for about half of the country . The US Dept of Education’s plan to undo some of the damage that Trump and noted AOTA show hater Betsy Devos did during their tenure has several important provisions that offer greater protection to LGBTQ students, and greater accountability on institutions of hi...

This Week: Sometimes research tells us something new. And sometimes it confirms what we already thought was true . That’s the case this week, as a new study from UCLA and Penn provides evidence of the “transformational” impact of a Los Angeles program that provided families in poverty with cash they can use to meet their needs. Benefits included housing stability, food stability, child engagement...

This Week: Two big headlines this week in The 74 and EdWeek about troubling new data showing problematic student behaviors, mental health concerns, and even threats or physical violence are plaguing our nation’s schools. Obviously this is a cause for concern, and perhaps not surprising given the challenging new realities schools and educators have faced coming out of the pandemic. But, is this dat...

This Week: The right wing Christian Nationalists have been hard at work on the integrity of the nation’s schools, coming straight for the most basic tenet of any democratic society -- separation of church and state. In Oklahoma , the state superintendent issues a decree that henceforth all grade 5-12 classrooms will “incorporate” the bible and the 10 commandments into the curriculum. And ominously...

This Week: It looks like there will be two new additions coming to the CA high school curriculum in the coming years.  The state legislature is close to passing a new bill which would mandate teaching about menstrual health , which is, shockingly, currently not part of the state’s comprehensive sexed curriculum.  And since nearly 80% of students say they learn more about frog’s bodies than their o...

This Week: As we conclude AAPI Heritage Month, today we dig into some new data from AP-NORC showing that a massive majority (71%) support the teaching of honest history about racism, slavery and segregation in our K-12 public schools. A similar super majority supports the teaching of AAPI culture and history in the US as well. This data flies in the face of some of the stereotypes and myths that w...

From the CRT hysteria to the current targeting of university DEI efforts, we’ve seen an escalating right wing attack on public education in this country. Often under the guise of “parental rights,” these attacks have targeted teachers, LGBTQ+ students, books, curriculum, SEL, and equity-mined programming. Dr. Heather Harding, the executive director of Campaign for our Shared Future, joins us this...

This Week: The Shenandoah County Schools have gone completely off the white supremacist ledge this week, as the school board voted 5 to 1 to reinstate -- yes you heard that right -- reinstate the names of confederate warmongers on two of their schools that were renamed early in the period of the racial reckoning following the murder of George Floyd. The school board made this vote despite majority...

It seems like everywhere we turn right now there are bold statements being made about AI in education. Some claim it must be embraced and that it will take our profession to new heights of learning and achievement. Others claim it’s undermining the most basic elements of ethics and academic integrity. To help us unpack the promise, dangers, and unknowns of AI, we sit down with Priten Shah, the CEO...

This Week: As student activism comes to life on college campuses across the nation and around the world in protest of institutional complicity in the genocide and apartheid in Palestine, colleges crack down with violent police responses, suspensions, and even cancellation of graduation ceremonies at USC . Meanwhile, the youth are definitely leading the way. And, Manuel and Jeff discuss the age old...

This Week: This week has been a doozy in education. The University of Southern California chose its valedictorian , a hijab wearing south Asian woman who minors in resistance to genocide, and then took away her right to speak because she opposes Israeli genocide… or because of “security concerns.” Then, notorious FL governor Ron Desantis (and his buddy Manny Diaz, state Education Commissioner) unv...

There’s no shortage of ideas in education where the concept looks one way and the actual reality looks…different. This is especially true when it comes to professional learning communities (PLCs), a popular school reform effort that many schools claim to have in place yet few actually execute with fidelity. What are folks getting wrong? And why is it so hard to change practice, even when people ca...

This Week: The interwebs were all ablaze with discussion about the news from AERA that two scholars’ research has shown that Black students, particularly boys from low income backgrounds, are less likely to be enrolled in special education services if they have Black teachers. Big surprise, right? Also, Chicago Public Schools reverses its decade-long decision to have per pupil funding for schools...

This Week: Finally, we get some data from a new study out of North Carolina showing the many benefits for students who read “disturbing” banned books. It’s about time! The data shows kids are more empathetic, happier, and lead to read better, among other benefits.  And, the learning loss hawks have reached new levels of wild predictions. A new paper from Stanford claims that pandemic disrupted lea...

This Week: We begin with what can only be described as a hit piece that came out this week in the NY Post that cited Manuel as a great purveyor of the neo marxist conspiracy that is CRT, which is, apparently, destroying all of the fabric of America and along with it, all of western civilization. You should read it. It’s as crazy as it sounds. We also explore a fascinating piece in LA School Report...

This Week: We begin with a moment of reflection on the children of Palestine , particularly in Gaza, where American weapons are being used to steal the childhood of a generation of children. Then, we catch up with a Texas judge’s ruling that a Houston area school district did not discriminate by suspending a Black boy for wearing his natural hair. Then we talk about troubling new Rand Corp. data s...

This Week: New data from NJ and MA shows that teachers who entered the profession through alternative certification programs, particularly following shortages in recent years, show similar gains in test scores and similar performance in teacher evaluations to their peers who were trained in traditional teacher prep programs. But, are we surprised? Also, surprise surprise, kids do better when teach...

This Week: Jeff’s alma mater, the Big Green, hit the headlines twice this week with big news about the NLRB recognizing their men’s basketball team as employees -- the first ruling of its kind that may pave the way for seismic change in college athletes nationally. Dartmouth emailed its alumni this week to notify them that they’re tossing aside the pandemic test-optional policy and r eturning to r...

This Week: A massive legal settlement coming as the result of litigation that began back in 2020 commits the state of CA to spending $2 billion on addressing learning loss among its most marginalized student populations ( LA Times , CalMatters , Ed Source ). Citing evidence that the state did not do enough to address digital redlining, lack of instructional time during the height of the pandemic,...

This Week: New federal data shows that our nation’s schools have seen a modest decline in the presence of police , for now at least. In the aftermath of the 2020 uprisings and the movement to defund the police a number of school systems partially defunded, or cut school based police. But, fewer took that step than you might think, and with the ongoing crisis of school shootings and the increase of...