Have You Heard

The culture wars found a new target in 2021: trans youth. More than 100 laws were proposed to restrict the rights of trans individuals, especially kids. In this episode of Have You Heard, we’re joined by teacher, trans activist and co-host of the Southern Queeries podcast Aubree Calvin. Aubree helps us understand the origins of the right’s war on trans youth, and why the restriction of their acces...

Black students who are taught by teachers who attended an Historically Black College or University or HBCU fare better than their peers. That’s what Lavar Edmonds found as he dug into a trove of data from North Carolina schools. More intriguing still: while students with Black teachers show the biggest gains, the effect also held with white teachers who graduated from HBCUs. Edmonds, the runner up...

Why are the same states that are rolling back democracy also intent on dismantling public education? We assembled an all-star cast to get some answers. Special guests: Derek Black, author of Schoolhouse Burning: Public Education and the Assault on American Democracy; and Noliwe Rooks, author of Cutting School: Privatization, Segregation, and the End of Public Education. The financial support of li...

If you know anything about higher education in prison, it's that these programs "pay off" for taxpayers in the form of tax savings and lower rates of recidivism. But the economic justification for college behind bars misses a far more profound value, says Patrick Conway, winner of the 2021 Have You Heard Graduate Student Research Contest. Conway's research raises essential and relevant questions -...

Five decades after Boston's bitter battles over busing helped stall the push for school desegregation, the issue is once again a policy priority in Massachusetts. What happened? Chalk it up to a generational shift, a racial reckoning, and a long-overdue acknowledgment that addressing the problem of Massachusetts’ increasingly segregated schools will also require tackling housing and transportation...

Suddenly education is THE hot topic. But where there’s heat, light doesn’t necessarily follow. Jennifer and Jack discuss what’s missing from the coverage of the backlash against Critical Race Theory, as well as some stories that should be getting more attention, including the Biden Administration’s missing education policy and the quiet collapse of Obama-era education reform. The financial support...

Community colleges get a bad rap. But recent graduates of Maryland’s Frederick Community College say that stigma is undeserved. These new and soon-to-be-teachers make a powerful case for learning - and teaching - close to home. Warning: this episode may upend preexisting notions about the relationship between education and place, not to mention how we define “smart.” Special guests: Professor Sara...

The public school culture wars are raging more intensely than at any time since the Reagan era. Fueled by intense political polarization and the continued fallout from pandemic school closures, the culture wars now threaten public education. Special guests: four teachers who are on the front lines of the battle over what gets taught. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast g...

Inefficient. Ineffective. Outdated. Outmoded. Unrepresentative. Sure, local school boards are deserving of all of these criticisms (and more), but they are also seedbeds of local democracy at a time when democracy is under attack. Special guests: school board member and scholar Rachel White, and school committee member Roberto Jimenez Rivera. Like this podcast? Consider leaving us a five star rati...

Two decades ago, the Free State Project announced an audacious plan to make New Hampshire a utopia for libertarians. Now one of their central goals - privatizing education - appears within reach. Have You Heard heads to the Granite State to explore New Hampshire’s shifting political terrain and why what began as a fringe political movement is no laughing matter. Guests: Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling, a...

The pandemic gave the education technology industry the opportunity to FINALLY deliver on the bold promises it has been making for decades. What happened instead was just another failure to disrupt, says MIT's Justin Reich. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Subscribe on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast or donate on PayPal: https://www.paypal....

Students from Boston tell Have You Heard what they've lost during this year of pandemic learning. Spoiler: what you'll hear bears little resemblance to the discussion of "learning loss" that's atop the agenda of policy makers right now. Special guest Boston teacher Neema Avashia helps us make sense of the gap between how students are feeling and how adults with power are talking. The financial sup...

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is creating a network of tuition-free Montessori-inspired preschools for low-income students. But his vision of schools that nurture the autonomy and creativity of kids is on a collision course with the Amazon workplaces Bezos has engineered for adults. Special guest: Mira Debs, author of Diverse Families, Desirable Schools: Public Montessori in the Era of School Choice....

The idea that more education is the way to help workers get ahead is a cherished American principle. In fact, this "human capital" view of education dates all the way back to another period of roaring inequality in the US: the Gilded Age. Historian Cristina Groeger joins us to discuss the origins of the "education fix," and why the idea of educating our way out of inequality has always been doomed...

The brutal pessimism of school rankings and ratings, starring Akil Bello, Senior Director of Advocacy and Advancement at FairTest. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Subscribe on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast or donate on PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/haveyouheardpodcast

Have You Heard wades into the pitched debate about reopening schools. We hear from an epidemiologist, then tour the land to talk to parents and teachers who are trying to navigate an impossibly complex situation. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Subscribe on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast or donate on PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/haveyouh...

What does the selection of Miguel Cardona for Secretary of Education portend for K-12 education? Kevin Welner, head of the National Education Policy Center, joins Jack and Jennifer to discuss how Cardona is likely to differ from Betsy DeVos - and Arne Duncan. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Subscribe on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast or d...

Rick Perstein, author of Reaganland, joins us to discuss why schools were at the very center of the 1970's culture war that ushered Ronald Reagan into office and powered a "right turn" in American politics. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Subscribe on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast or donate on PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/haveyouheardpo...

The pandemic pivot to online learning has amped up accusations that teachers are indoctrinating students, as parents “see” what their kids are being taught. We talk to teacher Christina Torres about why politics belongs in the classroom now more than ever. And historian Jon Zimmerman walks us through the long tradition of parents pushing back against classroom content - for good and ill. The finan...

Long before the Hoover Institution was casting doubt on masks, its ‘experts’ were undermining the case for investing in public education. Special guest Bruce Baker joins Have You Heard to shed light on what’s behind the claim that school funding doesn’t matter. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Subscribe on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast or...

Our book, A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door, is finally (almost) out. To celebrate its publication, and the 100th episode of Have You Heard, we asked an expert—a former lobbyist for a conservative free-market think tank—to read the book and tell us what we got right & wrong. His main takeaway: our predictions about the future aren't bleak enough. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this...

Have You Heard talks with legal scholar Derek Black about his new book Schoolhouse Burning: Public Education and the Assault on American Democracy. Despite the title (not to mention the charred pencil imagery) Black’s story of the centrality of public education to the country’s founding and its post-civil war recovery is inspiring and hopeful. Public education, argues Black, is as central to Ameri...

There is a vast gulf between the public education priorities of most voters and the favored policies of the very wealthy. Nowhere is that gap more visible than in Arizona, where support for public education has emerged as a central issue in 2020. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Subscribe on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast or donate on PayP...

A consensus between Republicans and centrist Democrats around charter schools has been at the very center of education policy for the past three decades. Guest David Menefee-Libey joins us to talk about the formation of the charter school “treaty,” why it unraveled and what happens next. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Subscribe on Patreon: https://www.patreon...

The achievement gap has driven education reform for the past twenty years. Guest David Stevens says it’s time to stop talking about the achievement gap and focus instead on the “headwinds” and “tailwinds” that hold some students back while pushing others along. With the pandemic exacerbating the inequality between students, Stevens’ alternative approach, what he calls the Academic Support Index, h...