FreshEd

The World Bank hasn’t always made loans to education. Post-World War II, the Bank focused mainly on infrastructure. Even when it did start lending to education in the 1960s, it used the idea of manpower planning, the process of estimating the number of people with specific skills required for completing a project. Only in the 1970s did the World Bank begin to think of education in terms of rates of return: the cost-benefit calculation that uses expected future earning from one’s educational attainment.

The introduction of rates of return inside the World Bank was no easy process. The internal fights by larger-than-life personalities were the stuff legends are made from. Yet, these disputes often go unnoticed, hidden behind glossy reports and confidence.

Today Stephen Heyneman takes us back in time when he introduced rates of return to the World Bank. He discusses how he used them to his advantage and how he ultimately lost his job because of them.

Stephen Heyneman is Professor Emeritus of international education policy at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University. He served the World Bank for 22 years between 1976 and 1998.

Climate change and its effects aren’t some future possibilities waiting to happen unless we take action today. No. The effect of climate change is already occurring. Today. Right now. Around the world, people have been displaced, fell ill, or died because of the globe’s changing climate. These effects are uneven: Some countries and classes of people are more affected by global warming than others. Still, the United Nations estimates that catastrophic consequences from climate change are only a decade away. That’s the year 2029. [Editor's note: The IPCC report is from 2018 and gave a 12-year prediction, so it should read 2030, not 2029.]

What is the role of education policy in an era of detrimental climate change?

My guest today is Marcia McKenzie, a professor in the Department of Educational Foundations at the University of Saskatchewan and director of the Sustainability Education Research Institute. She recently has been awarded a grant to research UN policy programs in relation to climate change education and in June will release a report for the United Nations that reviews country progress on climate change education and education for sustainable development.

In our conversation, we talk about what countries are doing or not doing in terms of education and sustainability, and we reflect on some of the existential questions that climate change brings to the fore.

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Laws that mandate education for special needs students have not always existed. In the United States, courts only began referring to students with special needs in the early 1900s. At the time, such students were typically excluded from public school.

Things began to change after the Brown v. Board of Education supreme country ruling in 1954. Twenty years later in the 1970s, congress enacted various legislation mandating educational services and support for children with special needs.

My guest today is Charlie Russo. In our conversation, Charlie details the power of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and situates it in an international context.

Charlie Russo is the Joseph Panzer Chair in Education in the School of Education and Health Sciences and Research Professor of Law in the School of Law at the University of Dayton.

www.freshedpodcast.com/Charlierusso

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Today we talk about the history and recent rise of Islamophobia worldwide. My guest is Mariam Durrani, an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Hamilton College.

In our conversation, we discusses both the state policy infrastructure enabling Islamophobia while also the everyday discourses and actions that normalize the Othering of a particular group. Dr. Durrani also discusses her own life story of growing up in a military family and witnessing the rise of Islamophobia in the aftermath of September 11th.

Mariam Durrani recently published the book chapter “Communicating and Contesting Islamophobia.”

www.freshedpodcast.com/mariamdurrani

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Today we continue our Education and Law mini-series with a show on the legal and policy issues surrounding special education. My guest is Janet Decker, an Associate Professor in the Educational Leadership and Policy Studies Department at Indiana University. Dr. Decker became interested in special education policy when she taught students with autism.

In our conversation, Dr. Decker talks about the legal term FAPE, which stands for Free and Appropriate Public Education. FAPE is legally guaranteed to children under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. It is one of the most important legal issues in special education, but also one of the most problematic. What is the definition of 'Free' and 'Appropriate' 'Public' 'Education'?

Janet Decker’s latest co-written book with Martha McCarthy and Suzanne Eckes is Legal Rights of School Leaders, Teachers, and Students, published by Pearson.

This episode was put together in collaboration with the Education Law Association.

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Today we air the first ever FreshEd Live event, which was recorded last night in San Francisco. Gita Steiner-Khamsi joined me to discuss the ways in which the global education industry has altered the State and notions of free public education.

We touched on a range of topics, from Bridge International to the International Baccalaureate and from network governance to system theory. Gita theorized why the State has taken on the logic of business and how a quantum leap in privatization has radically altered education.

Gita Steiner-Khamsi is permanent faculty at Teachers College, Columbia University. In addition, she has been seconded by the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva as a faculty member and by NORRAG as the director.

This FreshEd Live event was sponsored by NORRAG.

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Today we kick off a mini-series on education and law. Intermittently, overly the next 8 months or so, we’ll be airing a collection of conversations with scholars affiliated with the Education Law Association. These shows will touch on timely legal and policy issues affecting education.

For our first show in the education and law mini-series, I speak with Julie Mead about her new co-written report with Suzanne Eckes for the National Education Policy Center entitled: How school privatization opens the door for discrimination.

In our conversation, we touch on a range of issues related to voucher programs and charter schools. Julie reminds listeners that the dictionary definition of discrimination is not the same as the legal definition.

Julie Mead is the Associate Dean for Education and Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She is a member of the Education Law Association.

Julie Mead is the Associate Dean for Education and Professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Her latest report is How school privatization opens the door for discrimination.

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Today we look at US imperialism in Venezuela. For the past 20 years, since Hugo Chavez was elected in 1998 in what is known as the Bolivarian revolution, the US has attempted to overthrow a democratically elected government. The US has wanted to install a leader who supported its political and business interests. In January, the US tried again, thus time putting its full support behind Juan Guaido, a little known politician who became the self-described interim-president. But who is Juan Guaido and why was his rise nearly as fast as his fall?

My guest today is Jorge Martin, the secretary of the Hands off Venezuela campaign and a leading member of the International Marxist Tendency. He has followed the Bolivarian revolution for nearly twenty years, visiting the country often where he has been involved in the revolutionary movement, particularly the workers' control and occupied factories experiences. In our conversation today, Jorge focuses on the many connections Juan Guaido has to various US institutions, from think tanks to philanthropic organizations, and to universities. Jorge makes clear that Juan Guaido was groomed through his education to take a leading role in the right-wing fight against the Bolivarian revolution. Guaido, in other words, is the latest figurehead in a class struggle supported by elite education in Venezuela and the USA.

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The UK is set to leave the EU on March 29, 2019. Will there be a delay? A hard exit? A people’s vote? With four days before the deadline, it is too unpredictable to tell with any certainty.

In an effort to reflect on the Brexit process, today we re-air Will’s conversation with Susan Robertson about Brexit, which took place mere days after the vote on June 23, 2016. As we await the conclusion of the chaotic exit process, it is valuable to remember just what the discussion sounded like immediately after the UK voted to leave the EU.

Susan Robertson is a Professor of Sociology of Education at the University of Cambridge. When I spoke with her in 2016, she worked for the University of Bristol.

http://www.freshedpodcast.com/susanrobertson-brexit/

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Today we dive into the nightmare that is the growing tide of fascism worldwide and the prospects and perils this nightmare holds for public education.

My guest today is the renowned scholar, Henry Giroux. He has a new book entitled American Nightmare: Facing the challenge of Fascism, which will be published in May.

Henry Giroux is the McMaster University Professor for Scholarship in the Public Interest and the Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy. He has written over 60 books and is considered one of the top educational thinkers today.