All of the Above Podcast

This Week: From the cradle of American racism, aka Great Britain, comes a story about schools getting their wrists slapped for having policies that ostracize and exclude Black students for wearing natural hairstyles.  Also, did you know about World Afro Day?  Well now you do :).  Manuel and Jeff also discuss the release of NAEP scores this week and the ongoing learning loss narrativ...

At a time of heightened attacks on curriculum and increased efforts to obscure and whitewash the past, our teaching of history and the social sciences is as important as ever. Perhaps no era in American history is as critical to understanding our present challenges as the Reconstruction Era, so how well of a job are our state history standards doing in teaching the truth about this time period? Th...

This Week: Equality California Institute released a new report card for the state this week detailing how districts who responded to their statewide survey are, and are not, instituting policies and systems that provide a healthy, humanizing school context for LGBTQ+ youth.  While the data shows the extent of some of the progress that has been made in recent decades, it is also quite sobering...

This Week: The LAUSD School Board approved a resolution recently aiming to have every school in the district have at least 30% green spce by 2035. For the nation’s second largest district, this is no small task, but in a city where school is regularly compromised by triple digit temps and asphalt play yards that can be dangerously hot, this could revolutionize the physical ground at schools, and b...

This Week: In a totally-normal-definitely-not-dystopian move, Texas officials approve a “1836 Project” pamphlet to be distributed at their DMVs to educate everyone about the history of how Texas became exceptional . In a separate but equally normal and not-dystopian story, several universities have been found to use a surveillance tool to monitor campus protests. Manuel and Jeff get into it and ta...

This Week: The learning loss hawks got some new red meat this week in the form of some fascinating comparative data from the NAEP , and LAUSD, the nation’s 2nd largest school system, releasing its state test scores from June .  The data is interesting, and we are precariously on the edge of seeing it misused and abused across the board. DOuble blocks and ELA and Math, rampant test prep, cuts...

This Week: Last week we took the under on the likelihood that there would be significant student loan relief coming from Joe Biden.  This week we admit we were wrong… sort of.  We discuss the latest policy from the White House . Also, you’ve probably heard that the Minneapolis Public Schools are firing white teachers because they’re white, in a shocking act of mass reverse racism. And th...

This Week: New survey data from the National Association of Secondary School Principals shows a potential looming exodus of school leaders from the nation’s schools, citing stress, threats, and inadequate resources to feel effective in the role. And, as the end of the pause on federal student loan payments draws closer, Manuel and Jeff debate how, or whether, the Biden administration will act in t...

Description This Week: We knew that the attacks on truthful teaching of history, on inclusive curriculum, and on discussion of so-called “controversial” topics would have a direct impact on the classroom, and now we’ve got the data to prove it. A new survey by the RAND Corporation shows that 1 in 4 teachers have been told to limit class talk on hot-button issues , even in cases where there are no...

For fifty years (and counting) Title IX has served as a pivotal tool in the pursuit of gender equity in education. Despite being among the most discussed pieces of federal legislation, there is still a lot of misunderstanding with regards to what Title IX is and how it works. In fact, some district administrators aren’t even aware that they are the Title IX Coordinator for their school district! T...

This Week: What do Florida, Arizona, and Texas have in common? Well in this case it’s unusual, if tragic, “solutions” to the national teacher shortage. In Florida, good old Ron Desantis and company have decided that veterans should be able to teach with no credentia l. In Arizona, Gov. Doug Ducey and friends have decided that military service is not necessary, and folks who are simply enrolled in...

This Week : All of the Above’s #1 hater, and America’s greatest nemesis of modern public education is back in the headlines this week, and we’re gonna talk about her.  You got it, captain guns-for-grizzlies herself, former Secretary of Education Betsy Devos said to a crowd in Florida that she thinks the department she was once head of should be abolished . As shocking as that might be, the re...

This Week : A wonderfully click-baity piece in EdSource explores new data revealing that nearly 1 in 5 California teachers are not fully credentialed . This is, on some level, undeniably an issue.  We expect our doctors to be board certified, our barbers to be licensed, our pilots to be licensed and trained, so what’s up with educators? But despite the shock value, there’s some important nuan...

Not gonna lie–-the political, environmental, and economic outlook right now is rather bleak. More than ever we need to ensure that our students have quality, humanizing spaces within which to learn and grow. But what does it actually mean to have humanizing schools and classrooms, and how can we shape a human-centric school system amid the wave of anti-human bills seeking to ban books, ban curricu...

This Week: In what can only be understood as a horrid week in the history of American jurisprudence, the Supreme Court hands down two rulings that stand to do expansive harm to America’s children and school communities. In Carson v. Mankin the court decided that there is no longer a separation of church and state, and clears the way for public funds to be sent to religious schools . And in Dobbs.v...

This Week: 40 years ago this week, the US Supreme Court handed down one of the most important immigrant rights decisions in its history in Plyler v. Doe. In a 5-4 decision the Court ruled, in a way that only an American court can, that undocumented immigrant children were in fact “persons” and that the Texas law effectively barring them from a free public education served no compelling state inter...

This Week: It seems obviously simple. Give kids universal access to free pre-k and we will see positive outcomes. But some fascinating new data from NYC , paired up with data from the state of Tennessee, shows us a more complex picture. Why are the effects of pre-k so uneven, and is bad pre-k actually worse than no pre-k at all? Manuel and Jeff discuss. Oh, and Jeff rants momentarily on the traves...

This Week: Manuel and Jeff reflect on the tragedy at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX and how to process the continued incidents of mass shootings in America. We blast the distinguished gentleman from Texas, Ted Cruz, on his insane ideas for one hardened entrance at every school, and discuss the renewed efforts to arm teachers . Also, an EdSource article with a clickbait title causes us to ass...

This Week: All of the Above is coming to your live, on the road from Jeff’s hometown of St. Paul, MN, at Education Evolving’s Student Centered Learning for Equity Conference !  In this first-of-its-kind event we dig into two fascinating stories, chosen by the audience. First, we talk about a favorite topic of ours, teaching hard history, but through the lens of lessons we can learn from...

This Week: You’ve seen the crazy headlines - white folks up in arms over the “demonic” work of CRT in schools, a white mom suing her school district because her biracial child now sees himself as oppressed because of antiracist curriculum, and ongoing threats to school board members and their families. It’s rough out there for our schools! Particularly (but not exclusively) in the broad swaths of...

We’ve heard the rhetoric for years that educator diversity is important not only for students of color, but also for white students. This week we take a look at ongoing efforts to diversify our profession--paying particular attention to Jeff’s old stomping grounds of Minnesota! Minnesota may not immediately come to mind as a place where interesting work around this issue is happening, but our supe...

This Week: the whole nation is abuzz with the news that the Supreme Court is planning to overturn Roe v. Wade , as it should be. But this is just step one. Manuel and Jeff discuss the ramifications of the Court paving the way for a cascading set of oppressive rulings removing constitutionally protected rights for marginalized groups including undocumented youth , LGBTQ youth , women and girls , st...

The double-whammy of teaching amid a pandemic and being publicly slandered for alleged “indoctrination” and “grooming” has made this an especially tough school year for educators across the country. We could all use a reminder of the importance and promise of education, and who better to ground us than the phenomenally dope 2021 National Teacher of the Year, Juliana Urtubey!! Juliana is just the t...

This Week: Manuel and Jeff keep tabs on the right wing effort to turn America’s public schools into an Orwell novel, with discussion of some truly astounding stories.  First, the state of Mississippi declares April as Confederate Heritage Month , which they’ve done for the last 30 years, btw. Second, the Florida Dept of Education rejects nearly half of the math textbooks presented for approva...

The way folks are out here talking about “CRT,” you’d think it was the actual, literal devil.  Well, we found one of the most unique individuals in all of American education to talk to us about the real Critical Race Theory.  We’re joined by the one person teaching a law school course on CRT in the state of Mississippi– professor Yvette Butler of the University of Mississippi School of L...