Have You Heard

Business journalist Andrea Gabor steps into the Have You Heard studio to make the case that education reform has learned all of the wrong lessons from the business world. She argues that the market-based measures and carrot-and-stick incentives that rule in schools today are wildly out of sync with the nurturing culture that the best schools foster.

A blockbuster book on the meteoric rise and implosion of the Silicon Valley blood-testing startup Theranos is chock full of lessons for education and those who would seek to disrupt it. Writer John Warner and host Jennifer Berkshire discuss Bad Blood, and what it tells us about "bad ed tech" and "bad ed reform."

Sociologist Carla Shedd steps into the Have You Heard studio to talk about the complicated interplay between school choice, segregation and gentrification in an unequal city.

Have You Heard talks to Audrey Watters, journalist and expert in all things #edtech, about "teaching machines," and the long (and almost completely ignored) history of efforts to automate the teaching profession.

Nearly a decade has passed since Scott Walker took on teachers and other public employees in Wisconsin, virtually eliminating their right to engage in collective bargaining. So what's the state of the state today? Public education and the question of how to fund it has emerged as a potent political issue and is driving what could be a big shift in the state's political makeup.

What does the ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868 have to do with the wave of teacher walkouts sweeping the country today? More than you might think! Law professor Derek Black steps into the Have You Heard studio to talk about a forgotten history and why it's more relevant today than ever.

Have You Heard looks at what's behind state takeovers of school districts. As guest Domingo Morel explains, laws authorizing states to take over urban districts appeared as a direct response to Black power at the municipal level. Today, while takeovers come shrouded in the discourse of "achievement," the conservative logic behind them is unchanged: improving schools requires weakening the political power of the communities they are in.

Have You Heard discusses the rise of the "data boyz," the quantitative methodologists who increasingly determine what counts--and what doesn't--in education research. Special guest: UC Berkeley economist Jesse Rothstein.

Have You Heard talks to teachers in West Virginia (lots of them!) about the strike that shuttered schools in the Mountain State for nine days - and what they think teachers in other states can learn from their powerful example.

Student walkouts, strikes and protests have a long history of forcing real political change. We talk to historian Jon Zimmerman about what today's student protesters can learn from previous generations. And we hear from current students who are leading the protests against gun violence.

For working class students, "college" is defined as skills building and workforce development. But that's a narrow and ultimately limiting view of what higher education is for, guest Mike Rose tells us. The star of this episode: Maya Luna - a home health aide who went back to school in hopes of earning more money, and discovered that she is a star.

It's been one year since Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos squeaked into office via a tie-breaking vote courtesy of VP Mike Pence. Jack and Jennifer listened, read and watched their way through a year's worth of DeVos remarks - and lived to tell the tale. Their top takeaways: after 365 days of DeVos, she remains misunderstood and misunderestimated.

We talk to Rebecca Klein, education reporter for the Huffington Post, about her recent series on what students at voucher schools - private schools, overwhelmingly religious, that receive taxpayer dollars. Klein introduces us to three popular curricula used in the schools. As she explains, kids on the receiving end of these widely-used lessons are being schooled in an extreme religious and ideological worldview.

Education reform is often referred to as the "civil rights issue of our time." But what would have happened if "edupreneurs" (like Mark Zuckerberg, Wendy Kopp or Dave Levin) had used their money, influence, connections and access to solve the riddle of why we can't integrate schools? Have You Heard talks "segrenomics" with Noliwe Rooks, author of Cutting School: Privatization, Segregation, and the End of Public Education.

For decades, Republicans and Democrats alike have held out "college for all" as the key to social and economic mobility. Have You Heard talks to Joan Williams, author of White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness about the starkly different class-based attitudes towards college. On the one side: professional elites, who groom their kids for college from day 1. On the other: working class Americans, who often view college--not to mention "credentialed" elites--with suspicion.

Mihir Garud left a job as a stockbroker to teach personal finance at a Chicago charter school. He's also the treasurer of a union that now represents 25% of charter school teachers in the city. Garud, who sees unions as the "last brake" on a system of free market capitalism run amok, turns out to have a lot in common with the teachers in Chicago who organized the country's first just-for-teachers union back in 1897.

When questions produce quarrels, it can be easy to blame our current state of politics. But coping with contention is a learned skill—a skill that our schools have been actively avoiding for over a century. In this episode, we talk with historian Jon Zimmerman about the teaching of controversial issues: past, present, and future.

"Corporate education agenda" gets thrown around a lot - but what does it actually mean? Have You Heard talks to economist Gordon Lafer, who tracked the state-level legislation backed by the corporate lobbies, including the Chamber of Commerce and the American Legislative Exchange Council, in the wake of the Great Recession. Lafer paints a disturbing picture of the corporate vision for education, an agenda that remains deeply unpopular with voters. Perhaps the bleakest episode of Have You Heard so far!

Chicago shuttered some 50 schools in 2013. Since then, voter turnout and support for Democrats in the affected neighborhoods has plunged. What's the connection? Have You Heard talks to political scientist Sally Nuamah about the political fallout from the school closures--and what the debate about closing schools as a means of raising student achievement is missing.

Have You Heard listens in on the recent XQ Superschools extravaganza, the latest big money effort to "rethink" public education. We're joined by Megan Tompkins Stange, author of Policy Patrons: Philanthropy, Education Reform, and the Politics of Influence, who helps us see the world through the eyes of a billionaire school reformer