Education On The Line

Secretary of Education Linda McMahon is currently traveling to all 50 states with its History Rocks! campaign.  It's a year-long effort to promote President Trump's vision of"patriotic education, backed by a coalition of 40 conservative and right wing organizations, including the  Heritage Foundation, Hillsdale College, and Turning Point USA. Not a single organization representing a...

Empty classrooms can bankrupt a school district faster than almost anyone wants to admit. When enrollment falls, funding falls with it, and suddenly a district built for 20,000 students is trying to survive with half that number while still paying for staff, services, and aging buildings. That’s the reality driving one of the biggest public education challenges in the country right now: declining...

Enrollment is falling in many schools across the nation, and the ripple effects are showing up everywhere: budget deficits, program cuts, labor tension, and the gut-wrenching necessity in many districts to close schools. We look at the reality many leaders face right now: what do you do when the problem is not temporary and the student population may not stabilize for decades? We’re joined by Juli...

Here’s a question that Democratic governors across the country will have to wrestle with in the months ahead: should they opt into President Trump’s upcoming federal tax credit scholarship program, or hold the line against what will be the first federally funded private school voucher scheme? Because of the sweeping nature of the plan, this is a follow up to an earlier episode of Education on the...

School districts across California and the nation are caught in a financial vise.  Enrollments are falling, federal COVID relief funds have been depleted, and costs keep rising. Meanwhile, growing numbers of teacher's can't even  afford to live in the districts  where they work. That’s especially the case in high cost states like California where teachers and other staff are walking off...

The Supreme Court's landmark 1982 Plyler v. Doe decision established that every child in America has the right to a public education, regardless of immigration status. For 43 years, that ruling has kept schoolhouse doors open to undocumented children. Now it's under serious attack.    In this episode of Education on the Line, Louis Freedberg talks with two guests on the front lines of pr...

The sweeping federal tax credit scholarship program which President Trump was able to shoehorn into his so-called "One Big Beautiful Bill" will go into effect in less than a year. It has the potential to divert billions of federal tax dollars to private and religious school tuition, with negligible oversight and accountability.  Right now the Trump Administration is drawing up a blueprin...

What happens when frenetic policymaking by the Trump Administration collides with the guardrails of courts, campuses, and public opinion? We sit down with leading conservative commentator Frederick Hess, director of education policy at the American Enterprise Institute, and long-time higher education expert Stephen Brint, professor of sociology and public policy at the University of California at...

During the first year of President Trump's latest term in the White House, much of his admiinistration's focus been national in scope, especially on its  push to dismantle or eradicate entirely the U.S. Dept. of Education. What, however, is happening at the local level?  In this episode, we look at the extent to which political pressures on local school districts have continued, and, mor...

Cut staff at the U.S. Education Dept. in half, and send programs they were overseeing to multiple other departments -- what could that  possibly go wrong for students and schools?  To examine what is at stake, veteran education journalist Louis Freedberg sits down with Skye Perryman, President and CEO of Democracy Forward, and Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, bot...

Educators are barraged with a range of test scores from K-12 schools that are often confusing and seem to conflict with each other.   Some show students improving. Others show the opposite.   Listen to Linda Darling-Hammond and Pedro Noguera, two of the nation's premier education scholars and advocates, make the case for why we need tests --- not as weapons to label and stigmatize students an...

In the episode of Education on the Line, we examine how the Trump administration has used the shutdown to try to eviscerate key agencies in the U.S. Dept of Education that oversee enforcement and the integrity of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA.  IDEA Is the landmark civil rights legislation that grants nearly 8 million children and young adults with disabilities the right...

The Trump administration is so far using TItle IX as the principal weapon to attack public schools:  principally against school districts with gender-neutral bathrooms.  But  its use of civil rights laws could soon expand to using Title VI laws and regulations to go after schools on race-related matters.  That's the view of education and civil rights expert R. Shep Melnick, professor of Ameri...

Bathrooms have emerged as the principal battleground in efforts by the Trump administration to cut federal support of public schools. based on its attacks on "gender ideology."  The Denver Public Schools , for example, face a potential $100 million or more funding cut over its gender-neutral bathroom policies. Five Virginia school districts face similar threats. In conversation with vete...

The battle over diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education has reached a critical tipping point. What began as targeted attacks on elite institutions has evolved into an existential threat affecting colleges and universities of every type across America. When University of Virginia President James Ryan was forced to resign at the end of June in the face of pressure from the Trump adminis...

Educational leaders across the country are navigating a storm of uncertainty as the Trump administration unleashes a barrage of executive orders targeting public schools. What began with a minimal education focus during the Presidential campaign has morphed into a centerpiece of the Trump administration's agenda.  In this conversation with noted education scholar and advocate Pedro Noguera, w...

School districts around the nation are struggling to fend off threats from the Trump administration on multiple fronts.  In addition to trying to protect students whose families may face a threat of deportation, they also face a looming April 24 deadline to certify that they have eliminated all so-called diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and numerous other programs Trump says violate a 2...

Higher education in America stands at a critical juncture as unprecedented political attacks threaten to erode academic freedom, and upend longstanding relationships between the federal government and both private and public colleges and universities. In this urgent and timely conversation, hosted by Lande Ajose, former Skidmore College President Jamie Studley brings her perspective as a college a...

What could be the impact of a torrent of Trump Administration initiatives targeting higher education, and how should education leaders and students respond?  In this episode, we focus on the potential  fallout of dismantling the the U.S. Department of Education, the far-reaching efforts to banish diversity, equity and inclusion programs in both K-12 and higher education, and what might we expect w...

Even as public schools enter a period of extreme uncertainty, there are exciting developments underway to rethink the school day and to develop new ways to measure what students are learning. Listening to a stimulating conversation about new directions in education  with Timothy Knowles, president of the Carnege Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching , and Laura Slover, managing director of Sk...

Listen to this important discussion on rethinking the basic structure of the school day to enhance learning and make schools more rewarding for  students whose learning styles don't necessarily match the century-old division of learning into hourly periods, multiple times a day, five days a week.  Working with school districts and charter schools, Big Picture Learning is implementing  an exci...

In this episode of Sparking Equity, host Lande Ajose explores the critical role higher education can play in addressing the climate crisis while advancing equity. Joined by Eloy Ortiz Oakley, President and CEO of the College Futures Foundation, and Jamie Marisotis, President and CEO of the Lumina Foundation, this thought-provoking discussion delves into actionable strategies for colleges and unive...

The November 5th elections are expected to have an impact on almost every aspect of government and public policy, including education. In this episode, hosts Pedro Noguera and Louis Freedberg take a deeper dive into what promises  President-elect Trump and the GOP have made regarding both pre K through 12 education and post secondary education.  Our guests are conservative scholar and analyst Fred...

The youngest voters in the U.S. have historically turned out in lower numbers than any other age group.   And unfortunately analyses of the Nov. 5 elections suggest  that they  turned out in lower numbers than in the 2020 elections.  One reason that many educators point to i that traditional civics and American government classes typically fail to engage young people in the democratic process.  Th...

One of the most formidable challenges in education is how to reverse the disproportionately low representation of Black and Latino students in STEM courses and careers.  Remarkably, Compton Unified in Los Angeles County, a district that two decades ago was  under state control, is showing how that can be done. In this podcast, the second in a two-part series, our host, renowned educator and schola...