All of the Above Podcast

This Week: We begin discussing Manuel’s experience as a mentor teacher this year, and the importance of that role in a new teacher’s development. Then, a new study out of UCLA shows a sharp increase in out-of-school suspensions for CA’s most marginalized students -- homeless and foster youth, particularly those of color.  Why is this happening, and what would a better way look like in the richest...

This Week: Happy New Year to the AOTA family. Manuel and Jeff are back in the studio post winter break and doing a roundup of lots of headlines since we’ve last been with you.  We got the insanity coming out of Harvard with them chasing a Black, woman president out over racist nonsense. We got a new survey showing that teachers are feeling better about the profession and want to learn more about A...

This Week: It’s alphabet soup this week! The State of OK bans DEI in schools , using the 14th Amendment and made up ideas about promoting one race as superior to another, and pronoun mandates. And a new study out of Stanford says that our concerns about AI causing an increase in student cheating are not supported by their data, which shows student cheating as flat… at two in three saying they’ve e...

There is so much work to be done to create the type of joyous and just schools that our students deserve, and each day seems to bring yet another trauma or challenge to contend with. To help us unpack and find a path forward during these challenging times, we chat with Kass and Cornelius Minor, two titans of dope teaching who together lead the Minor Collective. We explore Kass’ new book Teaching F...

This Week: Oh Texas… sigh. Will we ever get good news about education coming out of the Lone Star State? Today is not that day. The TX Board of Ed approves new science textbooks , but only after clear modifications to the curriculum that include bending to the oil and gas industry’s propaganda around the uncertainty of climate change, and right wing Christian desires to have their version of creat...

This Week: By 2031 nearly 3 in 4 jobs will require some postsecondary education. What does this mean for public education? And a new law in CA makes it one of a handful of states requiring teachers to integrate media literacy into instruction to spot fake news. But with no money for training, and no additional resources for training, librarians and media specialists, and more, will this have the i...

The crisis is ongoing and our students are seeing the horrific videos of death and destruction in Gaza. To address this issue with care and provide some much needed perspective, we invited teacher extraordinaire and former AOTA Show guest Dr. Sawsan Jaber back on the show. The daughter of Palestinian refugees, Dr. Jaber is a National Board Certified teacher and one of the founders of the Arab Amer...

Being a school administrator has never been easy, but today’s education climate has made the work of many school leaders downright unsustainable. With ongoing narratives of so-called learning loss, a return to test-centered teaching, political shenanigans at local school boards, and the apparent deprioritizing of culturally responsive teaching and SEL, how can principals sustain themselves and do...

This Week: We got some great feedback from the audience after our last episode about Palestine, Israel, and the manufactured controversy around ethnic studies. In particular today we’re responding to comments from a Jewish member of the AOTA family who had some great questions for us. It’s a reminder that we may not always agree, but we can do so from a place of love and respect. And, something th...

This Week: As graphic images and stories of the march towards ethnic cleansing in Palestine and Israel saturate the largely one-sided American media landscape, we dig into the weaponization of accusations of antisemitism against the expansion of ethnic studies here in California . Whose stories get told in America’s schools, and whose don’t? How do we confront the strange bedfellows of right wing,...

Brooklyn’s in the house!! This week we talk to high school English teacher, NYU doctoral student, and NCTE diversity committee member LaMar Timmons-Long about how he cultivates a vibrant classroom experience that stands firmly in the intersection of justice and joy. How does one navigate the multitude of oppressive systems and bring justice-oriented pedagogy and practice to the classroom? And why...

This Week: As a federal government shutdown looms, we dig into the often overlooked potential impacts on the education landscape, from Head Start Programs to student loan repayments . Also, in a fascinating profile of “compromise” that stands in contrast to the total insanity of what’s happening in places like Florida, Virginia recently passed new Social Studies standards that provide a provocativ...

Back for a second time! The illustriously dope Dr. Gholdy Muhammad comes back to All of the Above today to fill us in on all the wonderful things that she’s been up to since her first appearance a few years ago. Then, she serves up a lesson on the importance of joy in education! Gholdy breaks down her latest work, Unearthing Joy , and helps us explore what the concept of joy means and what role it...

This Week: An NYC principal threatens to punish students with suspension , cancellation of social activities, and more, if they follow dangerous social media accounts. The Instagram accounts contain bullying, threats against students, and other racist and humiliating messages specific to the school.  It raises big questions about the ethics and constitutionality of such a move, as well as the risk...

This Week: Last week we talked about the wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing nature of the CA Gov’s letter to school leaders with “guardrails” for Ethnic Studies curriculum. This week we discuss the UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Council’s clap back letter , and the raw truth it tells about the right wing, anti-Arab intrusion into ethnic studies.  Also, as conservative anti-trans policies expand across CA distric...

This Week: An elementary school in Florida puts all the Black kids in an assembly to talk about the problem with their data , start a competition to get test scores up, and win McDonalds. How could this go wrong? It’s a fitting example of what can happen when the pressure to close equity gaps in test scores meets race-neutral policies absent any historical context on how we got here in the first p...

This Week: The school year has begun in much of the country, and for the rest, the gears are turning on all that infamous beginning-of-year PD and meetings to launch the work. We dig into an article by Chalkbeat Chicago looking at the impact of principal autonomy on student achievement, and expand the convo to a broader look at the conditions for success - or lack thereof - in place for educators...

This Week : States across the country are banning the teaching of truthful history, and replacing it with the likes of the white supremacist, historical fantasy, propaganda videos we saw go viral this week from Prager U. These patently offensive videos feature a blue eyed Columbus excusing slavery as something to be seen as "no big deal," and a Santa Claus-ified Frederick Douglass extoll...

This Week: In just the last 8 days there have been so many utterly insane stories capturing the escalating right wing attacks on public education and the marginalized communities our nation’s schools serve, it’s hard to know where to begin this week. To start, here’s the 9 most egregious stories (and there’s more!) we mention in this week’s episode: Temecula school board adopts social studies curr...

Cultivating high-quality teachers of color doesn’t begin and end with recruitment. From revisiting credentialing practices to creating spaces for BIPOC teachers to pursue National Board Certification, the effort to diversify the teaching profession is complex and ongoing. This week we explore such efforts with Dr. Christopher Davis, a Teacher Representative on the California Commission on Teacher...

This Week : A study out of the UK suggests that the “best” way to teach might look differently from subject to subject. Shocker, we know. But the interesting part is that the results might be counterintuitive in this era of common core math, and more progressive pedagogy aimed at achieving college readiness for all. Also, this week the Biden administration announced plans to fix administrative fla...

The Ethnic Studies dopeness keeps on coming! In our latest look at the growth and implementation of K-12 Ethnic Studies, we explore a university-school partnership focused on preparing current classroom teachers for excellent high school Ethnic Studies implementation. We’re joined by Dr. Jason Kim-Seda, a researcher, instructor, and program designer for the College of Education at CSU Los Angeles...

From low compensation, rising costs of living, and the tragic reality of school shootings to book bans, critical race hysteria, and threats against “woke” teachers–this sure seems like a hell of a time to decide to enter the teaching profession. And yet, a whole new generation of teachers are spending this summer getting ready to start their credentialing programs or prepping for their first year...

Why am I doing this? Is this still right for me? Why am I not finding the same type of joy and meaning in my work that I once did? These are a few of the questions that many educators grapple with when experiencing burnout. In a profession that is especially grueling for justice-oriented folks, how do we sustain talented, dedicated, super-dope educators who are questioning whether they still have...

This Week: It’s Pride Month, and there’s some not good news coming out of the city of LA, where a group of hateful community members showed up to protest a Pride Month assembly at a local elementary school . And, we dig into a fascinating story from NPR on new teacher mentoring, rooted in rural Alaska, where a mentor takes 3 planes and a snowmobile to mentor new teachers in remote villages.  Manue...