Have You Heard

It’s time to junk the international assessment of 15-year-olds known as the PISA test says scholar Oren Pizmony-Levy. And Have You Heard announces big plans for 2020. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Please donate at Patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast

For more than a decade, Denver has been a model for a brand of school reform centered on closing low-performing schools, opening charter schools and rewarding teachers for boosting student test scores. But a diverse coalition of opponents says it’s time to put the brakes on that approach and showed its strength at the polls in November by “flipping” the Denver School Board. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Please donate at Patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast

Why do progressive parents so often act to preserve their own privilege even as they say they're committed to challenging inequality? We talk to Margaret Hagerman, author of White Kids: Growing Up with Privilege in a Racially Divided America. Recommended reading: White Kids: Growing Up with Privilege in a Racially Divided America The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast alive. Please donate at Patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast

The Democratic Party seems to be backing away from its decades-long embrace of charter schools. While pundits cite the influence of teachers unions within the party, our guest Jon Valant says more complicated forces are at play, starting with the unraveling of the unlikely liberal/conservative coalition that brought charters into being. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast alive. Please donate at Patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast

Central Harlem in the late 1960's was home to a radical, and little known, experiment in alternative education. Historian Barry Goldenberg, runner up in the Have You Heard Graduate Student Research Contest, tells us the story of Harlem Prep and why it is so relevant today.

We talk with Christopher Leonard, author of the new bestseller Kochland, about the Koch family's vision for public education. (Hint: it doesn't involve the word 'public'...)

Theater teacher Quinn Strassel has seen first hand the impact that Betsy DeVos has had on Michigan’s public schools. And so he decided to fight back—by writing a musical.

School can be a tough, even traumatic place for students and teachers alike. Four teachers tell Have You Heard what they're doing to change that.

We delve into a charter school scam so enormous, so audacious that it requires charts and graphs to explain. Special guest: Voice of San Diego’s Will Huntsberry.

Economist Marshall Steinbaum talks free college, human capital theory, educationism and why it’s time to disrupt the individualized logic of higher education.

What happens when charter schools with progressive missions encounter an education marketplace where test scores and competition reign supreme? Elise Castillo, the winner of the first-ever Have You Heard graduate student research contest, breaks it down for us.

Have You Heard heads to Michigan to learn about a lesser-known part of the state’s free market education experiment: inter-district school choice. More than 100,000 Michigan students attend school in a district other than where they live. The outflow of students has pushed urban districts to the brink and spawned a competition for enrollment among rural and suburban districts.

White residents are moving into city neighborhoods they’ve long stayed away from. They’re arrival is driving up housing costs and displacing the neighborhoods’ previous residents. But what does it mean for urban schools? Have You Heard talks to Yawu Miller, senior editor of Boston’s African American newspaper, the Bay State Banner.

All of those Democratic presidential candidates keep talking about education. But why? Have You Heard goes beyond the headlines to explore why public education may just turn out to be this (endless) campaign season's hottest button issue.

High-end for-profit private schools are a growing segment of the education ‘marketplace.’ Mike Levy, a long-time teacher at Avenues World School in NYC, takes us behind the scenes of a growing network of schools for the global .01% where $60,000 in tuition also buys a healthy dose of free-market ideology.

No excuses-style charter schools, known for rigid discipline and a college prep focus have seen explosive growth in urban areas over the past decade. But do parents really want strict discipline for their kids? Researchers Mira Debs and Joanne Golann talked to parents at two very different kinds of schools: urban no excuses charters and public Montessori and what they found will surprise you.

Deep spending cuts and ballooning class sizes are coming to Ontario. Have You Heard talks to parents, students and teachers in Toronto about what controversial changes proposed by the new conservative government will mean for a public education system success story. Hint: nothing good...

Arizona is home to some of the most outrageous charter school shenanigans in the country. Have You Heard talks to award-winning reporter Craig Harris of the Arizona Republic about why his state's charter experiment seems to have gone off the rails.

The Atlanta school cheating scandal saw 11 Black educators convicted of racketeering. Shani Robinson was one of them. She joins Have You Heard to talk about the untold story behind the longest criminal trial in Georgia history.

There's big money lining up to bring the portfolio model to a school district near you. But what is it exactly? Scholar Katrina Bulkley helps Have You Heard plumb the depths of portfolio management.