Colleges and universities are now places where elites are cultivated. They are to fit nicely into the oligarchical system. Working class students are saddled with outrageous debt while the morale of underpaid professors is low. In the 20th century, university

The post American Universities Used to Be the Envy of the World. Not Any More. appeared first on KDA Keeping Democracy Alive Podcast & Radio Show.

There’s a mountain of electoral gold which, for the first time, is being mined: graduates of regional public universities. Many of them men. Colleges with “state” in their name. Our guest Washington Monthly editor in chief Paul Glastris talks about

The post Tim Walz’s Unique Appeal to Young Men’s Masculinity appeared first on KDA Keeping Democracy Alive Podcast & Radio Show.

Today’s guest is Dr. Rachelle Winkle-Wagner, author of the new book The Chosen We. She’s a professor of Educational Leadership and Policy a U.Wisconsin-Madison. Over a period of ten years she interviewed 105 Black women from five selected cities about

The post How Liberation is Only Found In Community appeared first on KDA Keeping Democracy Alive Podcast & Radio Show.

If you have cared about equality in education in recent decades, you know of the work of America’s foremost advocate for public schools Jonathan Kozol. In schools named after Martin Luther King Jr, he sees a new punitive autocratic pedagogic

The post The Irony of Racism in Decrepit MLK Urban Schools appeared first on KDA Keeping Democracy Alive Podcast & Radio Show.

It’s so much easier to break things than to build them. The right wing group Moms for Liberty claimed that “Parental rights do not stop at the classroom door,” but their real goal was to destroy public education. On this

The post The Rise and Stunning Fall of “Moms for Liberty” appeared first on KDA Keeping Democracy Alive Podcast & Radio Show.

In the Scopes Trial of 1925, William Jennings Bryan spoke against teaching evolution, saying “I have all the information I need to live and die by.” Today’s intense fight against teaching Critical Race Theory is more of the same. To

The post Critical Race Theory: Scopes Trial Redux? appeared first on KDA Keeping Democracy Alive Podcast & Radio Show.

Is command and control from the top down bureaucrats the best method for teaching kids? How about critical thinking skills? Much of the best results of public education come from democratizing schools, welcoming input from those who best know what

The post Is Education Quantifiable? appeared first on KDA Keeping Democracy Alive Podcast & Radio Show.

The pressure to prevent active curiosity is a curious thing in a democracy. Our guests today are authors Perry Zurin and Dani Bassett whose new book is Curious Minds, The Power of Connection. As they say, acquiring information is insufficient,

The post Why Do They Fear Curiosity? appeared first on KDA Keeping Democracy Alive Podcast & Radio Show.

As another school year kicks off, skepticism about quantifying is appropriate. That measure is command and control from the top down bureaucrats. But much of the best results of public education can’t be seen but come from democratizing schools, welcoming

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It’s almost time for the start of schools. Of course all parents want to protect their children from inappropriate material. But when “parental rights” mean teachers are forbidden from mentioning homosexuality or racism because that means teachers are “grooming” kids

The post As Schools Open Again: The Moms for Liberty Nightmare appeared first on KDA Keeping Democracy Alive Podcast & Radio Show.