The Quiet Dismantling of Texas Public Schools, with Dan Dawer

Texas has taken over more school districts than any other state in the country, and a majority of those takeovers have happened in the last ten years under Governor Greg Abbott and Education Commissioner Mike Morath. The official story is accountability. The real story, according to this week's guest, is the construction of an entirely new model for public education in Texas, one designed to be cheaper, more regimented, and built on a workforce of uncertified, inexperienced teachers reading from scripted curriculum.

Marc sits down with Dan Dawer, a former classroom teacher of 11 years and a PhD candidate at the University of Texas at Austin, whose dissertation research has put him on the ground inside the Houston ISD takeover for nearly four years. Dan has interviewed close to 140 stakeholders across the district and has emerged with one of the most comprehensive views of what state takeovers actually do to communities, students, and teachers.

This conversation covers:

. Why the research overwhelmingly shows takeovers do not improve student outcomes, and which communities they disproportionately target

If you care about public education, your property taxes, your kids' classrooms, or the long-term direction of this state, this is the conversation. Dan brings the data. We dig into what it actually means.

Recommended reading from this episode: Takeover: Race, Education, and Democracy in America by Domingo Morel.

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Award-winning filmmaker, activist, and founder of Women Rising, Sara Hirsh Bordo joins the Dream Job Podcast to discuss her debut book Autoimmunity and the Good Girls — a groundbreaking exploration of how women raised to self-silence and caretake are disproportionately likely to develop autoimmune disease, and how reclaiming your own voice may be the most powerful medicine of all.

EPISODE NOTES

Sara Hirsh Bordo has spent her career building stages for other people's stories — directing award-winning documentaries, founding the women's empowerment production company Women Rising, and being named an Architect of Change by Maria Shriver. But while she was busy lifting up everyone else, her own body was sending a message she couldn't ignore.

In this conversation, Marc and Sara — friends since their days as undergrads at TCU — go deep on her debut book, Autoimmunity and the Good Girls: How Permission to Put Ourselves First Has the Power to Keep Us Well, published by HarperOne/HarperCollins.

Topics covered in this episode:

Timestamps:

About Sara Hirsh Bordo: Sara is a 20-time award-winning filmmaker and Founder/CEO of Women Rising. Her documentary debut, A Brave Heart: The Lizzie Velasquez Story, won the Audience Award at SXSW and qualified for the Academy Award. She has directed campaigns for Toyota and ESPN, consulted on the Wonder Woman franchise for Warner Bros., and produced the first TEDxAustinWomen — the most-viewed TEDxWomen event in the world that year. A percentage of her author proceeds are being donated to the Society for Women's Health Research.

Autoimmunity and the Good Girls is available wherever books are sold, including Amazon, and the audiobook — read by Sara herself — is available on Audible.

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What happens when we hand seventh graders "a hundred million people and a hundred million choices"?

Chris McKenna spent 12 years in business risk consulting at Ernst & Young before a call to youth ministry put him face-to-face with the rise of the smartphone in kids' lives. What he saw there led him to launch Protect Young Eyes, now one of the most respected voices in the fight for online child safety.

In this conversation, Chris and I get into why he thinks "parental controls" is a destructive phrase, how to talk to other parents about screens without sounding judgmental (hint: think peanut allergy), what the recent Meta and social media court wins really mean, why the Australia law is being framed exactly the way Big Tech wants it framed, and what it'll take for screen-time legislation to have its seatbelt-law moment.

Chris's new book, Five Habits of the Tech-Ready Family: Raising Wise Kids in a Wild Digital World, comes out June 16 and is available for pre-order now.

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If you've ever sat in the bleachers and wondered when youth sports got so intense, this episode is for you. Meet Jonathan Carone, creator of Healthy Sports Parents (100K+ on Instagram), and hear a candid conversation about what's gone wrong - and what we can do about it.

We discuss the "self-love and self-glory" forces driving parent behavior on the sidelines, why "winning is everything" coaching is still the default even when we know better, the private-equity gold rush turning kids into revenue streams, the scholarship myth, and the difference between development and competition for kids under 12. Jonathan also shares the John Wooden quote that reframed how he thinks about success, why he calls himself part of "the youth sports resistance," and the one piece of advice every sports parent needs to hear: let your kid lead.

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From a church play to the longest-running Genie on Broadway, Major Attaway's journey has taken him from Forth Worth, Texas to Broadway in New York City, and beyond. Major talks about the exact moment at a performance of the Lion King that made him tell his mom, "I'm doing this" - no question mark. He opens up about learning his craft, learning patience, and learning to make it in a business that's notoriously tricky. And he shares the complicated experience of being one of the only Black performers in the rooms he grew up in, and why everything people like about him, he learned in Texas.

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Episode 2.05

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Episode 2.04:

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Episode 2.03:

TCU's Sonny Dykes grew up the son of a coaching legend, but forged his own path through high school classrooms, scraping by in a dorm room at Navarro Junior College and the ups and downs that would make anyone question their path. In this episode, Coach Dykes opens up about the circuitous route that led him to one of college football's most coveted jobs - including what Mike Leach taught him about forging your own path, why he and his wife made a decision at Louisiana Tech that transcended football, and how leading the Horned Frogs to the College Football Playoff's National Championship Game only made him hungry for more. Honest, self-aware, and filled with lessons beyond the gridiron - this one is for anyone who's ever wondered if the long way around was worth it.

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Episode 2.02:

It feels like Kevin Frazier has done it all — ESPN SportsCenter, Entertainment Tonight host, and much, much more. He's easily one of the smoothest broadcasters around - and one of the most versatile. But behind the Emmy-winner's polished delivery is a guy who grew up charting offenses on his dad's basketball bench, raced out of TV shoots to catch his son's playoff games, and still credits the grind for helping him work his way up a very tall TV ladder.

In our conversation, Kevin talks about what separates broadcasters and storytellers, how grateful he is for the many pinch-me moments in his career, and why family is the foundation of it all.

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Episode 2.01:

Rep. Jasmine Crockett isn't one to back down from a fight.

She called out a witness in a congressional hearing for not understanding how witnesses work. She's running for U.S. Senate in a state where no Democrat has won statewide since the 1990s. And she wakes up some mornings and asks herself, "Girl, what were you thinking?"

That's Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett - Texas representative, civil rights attorney, and one of the most unfiltered voices in American politics right now. In this conversation, we skip the policy talking points and go deeper: how a math-and-science kid from Dallas ended up in Congress, what her preacher-teacher dad and federal government mom built in her, why she describes running for office as a necessary evil — emphasis on both words — and what she actually believes it'll take to flip a Senate seat in Texas. Win or lose, one thing came through clearly in this conversation: Jasmine Crockett is on the move.

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