Have You Heard

By Have you heard

What's Have You Heard about?

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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Have You Heard episodes:

04.09.2024
#175 Special Education is Under Threat
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...
03.19.2024
#174 Religious Charter Schools are Coming. Be Worried.
Last year Oklahoma approved the nation’s first tax-payer funded religious charter school. It won’t be the last, warns Rachel Laser of Americans United for Church and State. We’re joined by Laser and two plaintiffs in a legal effort to keep...
02.29.2024
#173 Did You Hear the One About the Skills Gap?
For decades we’ve been told that there is an urgent looming skills gap, and that unless our education system churns out more STEM grads, economic disaster looms. But what if it’s not true? In a provocative new book, Neil Kraus...
02.15.2024
#172 Off of the Sidelines
In her new book School Moms, education journalist Laura Pappano traces the rise of what she calls the “war moms,” making the case that their emergence has spurred a broad resistance movement in defense of public schools. And reluctant school...
02.01.2024
#171 The Damage Done
Public schools are in the throes of multiple slow-moving crises: a teacher exodus, spiking student absenteeism and plunging literacy rates. Yet education reforms implemented as part of the Obama-era ‘theory of change’ have received little blame. Special guest Nora De...
01.18.2024
#170 Can We Please Stop Talking About Harvard?
While the media focuses obsessively on Harvard, the state universities that the majority of American students actually attend are under attack. We’re joined by faculty at three universities, all reeling from a similar combination of austerity, vocationalizing and the growing...
12.21.2023
#169 Can the Democrats Win on Education?
The recent elections issued a stinging rebuke to conservative culture warring candidates. But the Democratic Party has been largely MIA when it comes to articulating its own vision for public education. So what should that vision look like? We invited...
11.30.2023
#168 Coming to America
We've been debating how schools should educate and "Americanize" immigrant students for more than a century. In her new book, Making Americans, history teacher Jessica Lander says that schools today are far more welcoming to immigrant-origin students than in the...
11.16.2023
#167 Public Education Needs More Democracy, Not Less
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...
11.02.2023
#166 The School Voucher Scam
We hand the mic to the brilliant podcasters behind the Voucher Scam, a limited series exposing the big money push to bring school vouchers to Texas and beyond. Claire Campos-O’Neal and Nicole Abshire of the Mothers for Democracy Institute visit...
10.19.2023
#165 The Politics of State Takeovers
Have You Heard heads to Houston, where the state now controls Texas’ largest school district. We’ll meet teachers and parents who say the takeover of the schools in this Democratic city is fundamentally about politics. And we’ll try to make...
10.05.2023
#164 Plutocratic Philanthropists are Bad for Schools–and Democracy
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...
09.21.2023
#163 How to Get Ahead in School Without Really Learning
Get the right credentials to get ahead in the world. For many students and their families that IS the purpose of K-12 education. Even students who don’t have their sights set on selective colleges often see learning as secondary to...
08.29.2023
#162 State of Emergency
North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper recently declared a state of emergency for public schools in that state, warning that the GOP-controlled legislature aims to “choke the life out of public education.” Our guests, a cast of thousands, argue that the...
08.08.2023
#161 AI Is Going to Upend Public Education. Or Maybe Not
AI is about to upend teaching and learning. So tell us the techno optimists who have made essentially the same claim about every technological innovation, dating back to the film strip. Our guest, historian Larry Cuban, predicts that AI will...
07.18.2023
#160 There’s No Way to Win the School Culture Wars
A wide segment of Americans now view public schools as partisan. That’s a major problem, argues historian Johann Neem, because the project of public education depends on ALL Americans seeing themselves and their interests represented there. Neem warns that the...
06.22.2023
#159 The John Birch Society was the Original Moms for Liberty
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...
06.08.2023
#158 If We Want to Save Public Education, We’ve Got to Talk About It Differently
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...
05.24.2023
#157 Stopping the Privatization Train
School privatization has been on a roll this year. But then the ‘fund students not systems’ express hit a wall in states like Kansas, Georgia and Idaho. So what happened? We talk to public education advocates in all three states...
05.04.2023
#156 Digging Deep into the Education Wars
Jack and Jennifer sit down with Daniel Denvir, host of the Dig podcast. And ‘dig’ is an accurate description. They go deep into origins of our current education wars, how bipartisan teacher bashing laid the groundwork for today’s attacks on...
04.20.2023
#155 Teachers Speak Out
We’re joined by four former teachers of the year who are using their ‘teacher voices’ to push back against the tidal wave of legislation limiting what kids can learn and teachers can talk about. They’re speaking truth about kids, public...
04.06.2023
#154 High Stakes
Just eight states still require high school students to pass an exit exam in order to graduate. So why did a policy that once commanded bipartisan support fall by the wayside? And what accounts for the seeming paradox that the...
03.23.2023
#153 The Assault on Public Education is Escalating
If it feels like the assault on public education is escalating, that’s because it is. Jennifer joins historian Thomas Zimmer, host of the ‘Is this Democracy?’ podcast, to dive deep into the question of why the right is so focused...
03.07.2023
#152 The Reading Wars Are Older Than You Think
Two decades ago, phonics fever swept the land as George W. Bush made “scientifically-based reading instruction” a centerpiece of his education agenda. But despite its scale and huge price tag, Bush’s Reading First initiative has largely been forgotten. Have You...
02.16.2023
#151 Divide, Scatter, Conquer
What does it feel like to be on the receiving end of a conservative plan to ‘take back the schools’? Have You Heard heads to Woodland Park, Colorado to talk to students, parents and teachers about how top-down culture war...
02.02.2023
#150 U-Turn: Charter Schools Go Private
Are charter schools public or private? A case speeding towards the Supreme Court is likely to settle this age-old dispute once and for all by declaring charters as “non-state actors.” Peltier vs. Charter Day School Inc. is nominally about dress...
01.19.2023
#149 The Rise and Fall of the Teaching Profession
The teaching profession is in the worst shape of the past 50 years. That’s according to researchers Melissa Arnold Lyon and Matthew Kraft, who crunched a half century’s worth of data on indicators like whether students want to go into...
01.05.2023
#148 Youth Power
Young people, including students who aren't even old enough to vote, had a major impact in the midterm elections. In this episode, we meet some high school activists who are making their power felt, both in and out of schools,...
12.08.2022
#147 The Big Reveal
Supposed exposes about schools-gone-bad are a staple of US education discourse. But the COVID era and the waning of school accountability have given the “rhetoric of reveal” new life and potency. Special guest Mark Hlavacik breaks down the politics of...
11.17.2022
#146 Another Border: How Immigrant Families Navigate Higher Education
The story of college success in the US often conflates distance with quality and separation from family and community as a rite of passage. But when Corinne Kentor, the runner up in our 2022 Grad Student Research Contest, began looking...
10.27.2022
#145 How the Critical Race Theory Narrative Took Hold
Accusations that schools were indoctrinating children via something called Critical Race Theory seemed to come out of nowhere. By the summer of 2021, legislators across the country were rushing to enact bans against something they could barely define. So how...
10.11.2022
#144 The Attack on Trans Kids and the Rollback of Rights
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...
09.22.2022
#143 Moving the Goalposts
What if data doesn’t matter? That’s the question that has been weighing on education researcher Josh Cowen. After spending two decades studying school vouchers, Cowen has concluded that the data is too stark to justify spending public dollars on private...
09.08.2022
#142: The Great Education Divide
Will Bunch joins us to talk about his impossibly timely new book: After the Ivory Tower Falls: How College Broke the American Dream and Blew Up Our Politics—and How to Fix It. Discussed in this episode: how college almost became...
08.18.2022
#141 How School Privatization Has Undermined Democracy in New Orleans
Have You Heard heads to New Orleans, home to the first all-charter-school system in the country. In a provocative new book, Tulane University political scientist Celeste Lay argues that New Orleans' charter school experiment has undermined democracy, disenfranchising the very...
07.28.2022
#140 The Movement to Dismantle the School-to-Prison Pipeline
The movement of students and parents to end harsh discipline and dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline in their local schools made major gains. Then came the pandemic. Now, with calls for returning police to schools and “hardening” them in response to...
07.07.2022
#139 The Original 'Moms for Liberty'
Long before Moms for Liberty or Parents Defending Education, conservative mothers in the 1950's led a crusade to free the schools from communism. These activists waged fierce battles to resist the red menace, which they saw everywhere, including in the...
06.16.2022
#138 A Reckoning for Rural Schools
The attachment of rural communities to their local schools is intense. But that commitment may be fraying in a time of culture war, education populism and teacher shortages. Have You Heard visits western Kansas where rural school advocates are passionate...
06.02.2022
#137 The Rise of the Economists
Jack and Jennifer are joined by sociologist Beth Popp Berman, author of the new book Thinking Like an Economist. Berman chronicles how economists and their style of reasoning (think ‘competition,’ ‘choice’ and efficiency’) took over one domain after another beginning...
05.19.2022
#136 State of Revolt
Have You Heard heads to Croydon, New Hampshire to listen in on an epic battle playing out over the future of public education in the state. In March, members of the Free State Project, a libertarian movement that wields increasing...
05.05.2022
#135 Everything Old is New Again
Jennifer and Jack are joined by journalist Kathryn Joyce to discuss the right’s newfound fondness for an old cause: classical education. Today’s version comes in a new form–publicly funded classical charter schools–and has a decidedly conservative cast. Joyce, an investigative...
04.21.2022
#134 Where the Democrats Went Wrong
We’re headed back to the Clinton-era to understand the origins of the Democrats’ fondness for market-based solutions to social and economic problems. We’re joined by historian Lily Geismer, author of the new book Left Behind: The Democrats' Failed Attempt to...
04.07.2022
#133 What Should Schools Do About Climate Change?
What should schools do about climate change? To get some perspective on this big, even existential, question, Have You Heard is joined summons an all-star cast. Oren Pizmony-Levy, the director of the Center for Sustainable Futures at Teachers College, Columbia...
03.24.2022
#132 The Enemy Within
When Jeff Sharlet reviewed Florida’s new “Don’t Say Gay” law, it felt a bit too familiar. That's because Sharlet spent years reporting on the anti-LGBTQ crusade in Putin's Russia. The Florida law, along with a wave of anti-trans legislation across...
03.10.2022
#131 School’s Choice
Thirty years into the great charter experiment, the question of just how public these schools are remains unresolved. We’re joined by Wagma Mommandi and Kevin Welner, author of a new book on how charter schools control access and shape enrollment....
02.23.2022
#130 Zombie Ideas in Education Reform
When a proposal to “reimagine” Charleston, South Carolina’s schools suddenly surfaced late last year, it prompted a furious backlash. Community groups and public education advocates warned that the plan, backed by a deep-pocketed foundation, was a fast-track to privatization disguised...
02.03.2022
#129 Friends and Enemies
Jennifer joins forces with the hosts of the popular podcast Know Your Enemy to discuss why almost every big culture-war battle of the moment—from "Critical Race Theory" to COVID mandates—is being fought in America's schools. Meanwhile, Democrats, anxious about a...
01.20.2022
#128 Confessions of a School Reformer
The impulse to reform American schools is as old as the nation itself. And so too is the impulse to "forget" all of the fixes we've tried before. Have You Heard is joined by the eminent emeritus education historian Larry...
01.07.2022
#127 Teachers Are Being Tested Like Never Before
Even before Omicron swamped schools, teachers were feeling beleaguered. In this episode we catch up with four teachers who appeared on Have You Heard last year to learn about how they’re surviving education gag orders and a culture that regards...
12.09.2021
#126 What Ever Happened to the Public Good?
The sudden passion for all things parents’ rights may seem like it came out of nowhere. But as education historian Jon Hale explains, it’s the latest in a steady erosion of the idea of public education as a public good....

What's Have You Heard about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Have You Heard episodes:

#175 Special Education is Under Threat

#174 Religious Charter Schools are Coming. Be Worried.

#173 Did You Hear the One About the Skills Gap?

#172 Off of the Sidelines

#171 The Damage Done

#170 Can We Please Stop Talking About Harvard?

#169 Can the Democrats Win on Education?

#168 Coming to America

#167 Public Education Needs More Democracy, Not Less

#166 The School Voucher Scam

#165 The Politics of State Takeovers

#164 Plutocratic Philanthropists are Bad for Schools–and Democracy

#163 How to Get Ahead in School Without Really Learning

#162 State of Emergency

#161 AI Is Going to Upend Public Education. Or Maybe Not

#160 There’s No Way to Win the School Culture Wars

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

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

#157 Stopping the Privatization Train

#156 Digging Deep into the Education Wars

#155 Teachers Speak Out

#154 High Stakes

#153 The Assault on Public Education is Escalating

#152 The Reading Wars Are Older Than You Think

#151 Divide, Scatter, Conquer

#150 U-Turn: Charter Schools Go Private

#149 The Rise and Fall of the Teaching Profession

#148 Youth Power

#147 The Big Reveal

#146 Another Border: How Immigrant Families Navigate Higher Education

#145 How the Critical Race Theory Narrative Took Hold

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

#143 Moving the Goalposts

#142: The Great Education Divide

#141 How School Privatization Has Undermined Democracy in New Orleans

#140 The Movement to Dismantle the School-to-Prison Pipeline

#139 The Original 'Moms for Liberty'

#138 A Reckoning for Rural Schools

#137 The Rise of the Economists

#136 State of Revolt

#135 Everything Old is New Again

#134 Where the Democrats Went Wrong

#133 What Should Schools Do About Climate Change?

#132 The Enemy Within

#131 School’s Choice

#130 Zombie Ideas in Education Reform

#129 Friends and Enemies

#128 Confessions of a School Reformer

#127 Teachers Are Being Tested Like Never Before

#126 What Ever Happened to the Public Good?