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 in the Have You Heard Graduate Student Research Contest, explains what he thinks is the “secret sauce” at HBCUs, and why his findings challenge some of the central assumptions of so-called “role-model effects” in education.

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#119 The Impact of HBCU-Trained Teachers on Black Student Achievement

GOP-dominated states have seen a blitz of legislation targeting trans students. What’s behind these attacks? While this anti-trans hysteria represents just the latest in a long-line of conservative “panics,” today’s furor also signifies an ominous development in the public school culture wars: an effort by the right to roll back the expansion of civil rights. Special guests: parent activist Robert Chevaleau and pediatric psychologist Natasha Poulopoulos.

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#144 The Attack on Trans Kids and the Rollback of Rights

For decades, the idea that education is the primary driver of economic opportunity has held sway. The education myth, as our guest Jon Shelton describes it, has attained the status of common sense, captivating politicians from left to right. But the overselling of education as the fix for economic inequality has been politically disastrous, not to mention bad for schools and teachers. Shelton argues that we desperately need a new way to talk about education, one that puts schools in a larger context of social democracy and economic security.

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#158 If We Want to Save Public Education, We’ve Got to Talk About It Differently

Decades before Moms for Liberty launched a crusade to liberate schools from “indoctrination,” the John Birch Society introduced similar rhetoric and tactics. Have You Heard is joined by historian Matthew Dallek, author of Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right. The ‘Birchers,’ he argues, sought to impose their vision of morality, Christianity and patriotism on public schools. And while the group would fade into obscurity, the Birchers’ vision and tactics inform the activism of today’s school culture warriors.

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#159 The John Birch Society was the Original Moms for Liberty

The power of plutocrats to shape and limit public debate is on the increase. That’s bad for K-12 education and for democracy, argues Nora Reikosky, the winner of the 2023 Have You Heard Graduate Student Research Contest. As a young “Googler,” Nora witnessed first hand the power of corporate philanthropy and its slick sales pitch, an experience that shapes her research into what she calls “pipeline philanthropy.” 

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#164 Plutocratic Philanthropists are Bad for Schools–and Democracy

Everybody loves to hate on school boards these days. But as education policy scholar Jonathan Collins reminds us, these beleaguered bodies are actually the most accessible entry points to democracy that we have. At a time when calls to make school oversight less democratic are coming from the right and education reformers, Collins makes an urgent case for using participatory local democracy to collectively solve our most pressing problems.

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#167 Public Education Needs More Democracy, Not Less

From huge voucher programs that shift funding to private schools that don’t have to accept kids with disabilities to a backlash against funding, special education and the students who rely on it are newly vulnerable. In this powerful episode we hear from parents and advocates in six states about their concerns. And we’re reminded that the nation’s commitment to educating kids with special needs has always been tenuous.

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#175 Special Education is Under Threat

From the end of federal COVID relief money to declining enrollment, school districts are in a world of hurt right now. But while the causes for the rising tide of red ink are complex, the recommendations from school finance experts are always the same: cut, fire and close. Our guest, school district finance whisperer David Backer, takes serious issue with these supposed solutions and wants to arm teachers and public school advocates with the tools and knowledge necessary to fight back. 

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#182 Cut, Fire, Close

Massachusetts voters will soon weigh in on whether to abandon the state’s de facto high school exit exam. That prospect has pitted elected officials and business leaders against teachers and their union, as well as a majority of voters, who’ve grown weary of schools’ focus on standardized testing. But the contentious debate also reflects a deep (and old) divide over the purpose of high school. We’re joined by education historian David Labaree who argues that high schools are not equipped (and never have been) to prepare students for the jobs of the future, and that policymakers and business leaders who insist on that goal have ended up dramatically narrowing the purpose of school.

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#186 What is High School For?

For decades the Republican mantra on public schools has been to make them ‘business like,’ driven by the belief that strong schools = a strong economy. No more. Today’s top priorities for the GOP are moving students into private religious schools and home schools, and infusing religion into public schools. How did such a dramatic shift occur? Political scientist Heath Brown, author of Homeschooling the Right, joins us to talk about the transformation of the Republican Party and its implications for education policy. 

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#189 What’s Driving the Republican Party’s Radical Shift on Education?

Our biggest political divide these days isn’t race or gender but education - and that division is only getting worse. We talk to the co-author of a new book that offers the single best explanation we’ve come across regarding the role that education is playing in fueling our bitter political battles. David Hopkins, author (with Matthew Grossmann) of Polarized by Degrees: How the Diploma Divide and the Culture War Transformed American Politics, helps us makes sense of a profound shift in American politics, how K-12 teachers and university faculty came to be seen as the enemy by so many on the right, and what we can do about it.

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#190 Degrees of Separation

Vouchers are not conservative. That’s what we heard again and again when we talked to Texans who consider themselves Republicans but oppose their party’s top education priority. We hear from rural Texans who are taking the attacks on their local schools very personally, and business minded Republicans who fear the consequences of privatizing education for workforce development. But the real lesson in this episode is political. The big money push to expand school vouchers, and expel voucher opponents, is spurring rising discontent within the ranks of the Republican party, including among some of Trump’s staunchest supporters.

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#191 These Conservative Texans Oppose School Vouchers

It’s common knowledge that every student has a learning style: visual, auditory or kinesthetic. But what if those classifications are not just inaccurate but dangerous? That’s the argument made by education historian Tom Fallace in his provocative new book, You Are Not a Kinesthetic Learner: The Troubled History of the Learning Style Idea. As Fallace documents, not only is the research behind learning styles flimsy, but the classifications end up lumping together whole racial and ethnic groups as kinesthetic learners.

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#192 There’s No Such Thing as a Kinesthetic Learner

Organizing in defense of public education at the local level has never been more vital. And yet in an era when even the most local elections are now nationalized, electing pro-public education candidates can be a heavy lift. In this episode, we hear from a group of parents in Souderton, Pennsylvania who have been slowly ‘moving the needle,’ making incremental gains in each election cycle. They’re hoping that 2025 will finally be the charm when it comes to convincing local voters to make the school board nonpartisan again.

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#193 All Politics is Local

Like just about everyone these days, our own Jack Schneider is troubled–make that frightened–by our political landscape. But however deep our divides may be, there’s one issue that can, if not bring us together, allow for at least a conversation. The dismantling of the public education system would be so obviously bad for all of us that maybe, just maybe, a shout from the other side of the partisan divide might actually be heard. In this Letter to a Trump Voter, Jack reminds us of all the important areas of aggreement Americans actually share when it comes to their public schools. "Maybe if we can agree to protect public education we can find other things to agree on."

Music for the episode provided by the brilliant Francisco Rafart.

Song list:
- Caminito del Turia
- Always with you
- Andes Haze
- Magic Concepts

Links to music:
Spotify https://open.spotify.com/artist/3EIxblOsWLuH54ZRWDuw1m
Website https://rafartmusic.com/albums

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#194 Letter to a Trump Voter

We’re headed to Vermont where public schools are confronting a ‘perfect storm’ of challenges. Costs are rising in this largely rural state even as the student population is declining, fueling a taxpayer revolt. Meanwhile, thanks to a recent SCOTUS ruling, a tradition of funding private schools with public funds means that Vermont must now pay for religious education. Enter the state’s Republican governor with a bold plan to do education in Vermont completely differently. Will public education in the Green Mountain State survive? And how long before schools in your state face a similar precipice?

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#195 Public Education is on the Precipice

The vision of the future on offer from Donald Trump looks a lot like the past, when men were men, women stayed home, and just about everyone was less educated. To get a glimpse of what that future might look like we head to Indiana, one of the great ‘human capital anti-success stories of the 21st century,’ according to our guest, economist Michael Hicks. Hicks makes the case that Indiana has pursued a series of disastrous policy choices over the past decade, including slashing spending on K-12 schools and higher education, expanding school choice (while cutting school spending), and preparing kids for the jobs of the past.

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#197 Taking America Back (to a Less Educated Past)

We’re headed to California, where high school students will soon be required to complete an ethnic studies course in order to graduate. The policy has set off the predictable culture war response, with critics charging that ethnic studies is indoctrination, activism, DEI, CRT, etc. But lost in the fog of backlash are the impressive results that ethnic studies has shown for students who struggle in school, including boosting attendance, GPA, and engagement. So what’s the problem? It turns out that ethnic studies’ inherent activism is precisely why the course is so effective, and why it’s such a target these days.

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#198 Ethnic Studies ‘Works.’ Does That Even Matter Anymore?

It’s the 200th episode of Have You Heard and we’ve assembled an all-star lineup to help us make sense of what the AI ‘revolution’ in education is really about. Audrey Watters, Ben Riley and John Warner view the over-heated claims being made about AI’s potential with extreme skepticism, reminding us of the long history of the ed tech sales pitch, and the dangers of a world in which tech titans have the money, power and influence to reshape education along reactionary lines.  

#200 Don’t Buy the AI Hype

Local democracy has never been more essential, so why does it so often disappoint us? Jack convenes an all-star cast to discuss the promise vs the reality of school boards as democratic institutions. Special guests Rachel White, Derek Gottlieb, Kathleen Knight Abowitz and Johann Neem make the case that, love them or hate them, school boards remain one of the last places where Americans can come together as neighbors as part of a community. Bonus: we meet one of the longest-serving school board members in the land.

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#201 Use It Or Lose It

We meet eight former prison inmates who are now attending college on campus at Boston College. These students in the BC Prison Education Program reflect on the transition from incarceration to college, what they make of their traditional undergrad peers, and the power of the liberal arts. As debates rage over the purpose of higher education and who it’s for, this episode reminds us of what learning for learning’s sake can still sound like.

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#202 College Inside, College Outside

Public schools are facing mounting money woes, and feeling the pinch of hostile policies coming from the state and federal government. But despite this bleak forecast, there are also pockets of possibility. School finance ‘whisperer’ David Backer returns to Have You Heard to help us understand the current landscape, and to make the case for healthy school finance vs the ‘toxic’ brand that currently rules. David’s brand of policy-focused organizing, a vision that’s been delivering some surprising wins, offers some desperately needed inspiration.

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#203 Power in Numbers

Ohio’s billion dollar plus religious school voucher program is blatantly unconstitutional. So ruled a state judge this summer, putting political leaders and their increasing hostility towards public education  on a collision course with Ohio’s constitution and the schools that are a backbone of this state. We talk to policy experts and school district leaders about the ruling, learn about the Northwest Ordinance (thanks Jack!), and hear from Ohioans who are equal parts terrified and hopeful about the future of both public education and democracy in this state.

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#204 Collision Course

Forget all that talk about education as the great equalizer. Public schools and inequality are joined at the hip. But must it be that way? We talk to the authors of a recent book called Schooled and Sorted, an eye-opening investigation into the ways sorting within schools translates into inequality in the larger world, and how to change that. And we head to Portland, Oregon for a close-up look at the most destructive sort of sorting in action, and meet some parents who are trying to do something about it. 

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#205 Schools as Sorting Machines

Race science, with its noxious claims that ‘biology is destiny,’ comes roaring back during periods of social change. That’s the conclusion of a new book by historian Quinn Slobodian, tracing today’s obsessive focus on IQ back to the social tumult of the 1970’s and the revolt against ‘political correctness’ in the 1990’s. Regardless of the time period, the argument for race science is remarkably consistent: since destiny is baked into the genetic pie, what’s the point of costly public policy interventions, public education chief among them?  

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#206 Race Science is Back. It Never Went Away.

Have You Heard heads to Florida, where education policy is increasingly being determined by wealthy donors. We meet a billionaire who has been putting big bucks behind a very particular vision for the state’s education future. And we learn, yet again, that even the best laid plans have a way of going awry. Corporate influence exposer Jason Garcia and public education advocate Sue Woltanski take us on a tour of the Florida swamp, while Jack provides some answers to a question that many Floridians are asking these days: whatever happened to local control? 

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HY#207 Under the Influence

Forty plus years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that denying immigrant students access to public education would impose a lifetime of hardship on them. Today, that landmark decision remains on the books despite the Trump Administration’s harsh crackdown on immigrants. We start the episode in Chicago, where schools and students have been caught up in Operation Midway Blitz. Then we revisit the Plyler decision, why it matters, and why state level efforts to roll back its protections are so dangerous.

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#208 ‘A Lifetime of Hardship’

The MAGA vision for public education isn’t just to dismantle it. Key parts of the coalition also want to reshape schools along religious and political lines. In this episode we hear from two experts about MAGA’s education project. Kevin Kumashiro tells us about the growing influence of Christian Nationalism, while Laura Fields, author of the new book Furious Minds, introduces us to the intellectuals of the ‘new right,’ for whom taking back America also entails taking back K-12 schools.

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#209 Make Education Great Again

The claim that "your zip code shouldn't determine your education" is made by education experts of every stripe. And yet as Have You Heard guest Richard Rothstein, author of the Color of Law, explains here, our racially segregated zip codes were created by design, the result of federal housing policy. The legacy of those policies today is not just segregated schools but a stark racial wealth gap. And the solution to the problem isn't choosing schools, argues Rothstein, but integrating neighborhoods.

#26 Divided by Design: Race, Neighborhoods, Wealth and Schools

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.

#41 Getting Fundamental: Do Americans Have a Right to Public Education?

Occasionally funny and periodically informative, Have You Heard features journalist Jennifer Berkshire and scholar Jack Schneider as they explore the age-old quest to finally fix the nation's public schools, one policy issue at a time.

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