Miseducation

For several years in a row, the number of students in New York City schools experiencing homelessness has exceeded 100,000. This year, city schools have the mounting challenge of welcoming a growing number of recent migrants who are entering a youth shelter system that doesn’t have enough beds.

To dig into the issue of youth homelessness, Miseducation producer Abe Levine and student reporter Fredlove Deshommes sat down with Wayne Harris, a regional manager in the NYC DOE’s Office of Students in Temporary Housing. They quickly learned that Wayne is not your average bureaucrat.

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Miseducation is a podcast of The Bell that equips New York City public high school students with the tools to report on inequities in the nation’s largest school system.

Earlier this year we collaborated with WNYC Studios on an in-depth series about a year of reporting from inside a divided Brooklyn school building trying to unite through sports. The series is called Keeping Score. If you missed it, definitely go back and check it out.

Today’s episode is an update from two of the Miseducation reporters-turned-characters in the series, Mariah Morgan and Lauren Valme.

Mariah and Lauren are members of the girls varsity volleyball team. The Keeping Score series followed Mariah, Lauren, their teammates and coaches over the course of the first season of the John Jay Jaguars. Prior to last season, there were actually two varsity girls volleyball teams in the same school building. The girls went to different schools on different floors, and were rivals. One of the teams had mostly Black and Latin players. The other – mostly white and Asian. But, in 2021 they decided — after a decade of playing on opposite sides of the net — to join forces, to merge, to integrate.

In this interview with fellow Keeping Score reporter Renika Jack, Mariah and Lauren dig into what happened in Year 2 of this experiment at the intersection of race, class, and public schools.

The volleyball season ended a few weeks ago. Did the Jaguars make progress toward integration and equity on the court? Did they reach their goal of a city championship?

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To join the conversation, send us a message and follow us on Twitter and Instagram.

Miseducation is a podcast of The Bell that equips New York City public high school students with the tools to report on inequities in the nation’s largest school system.

When the principal emails you about a story you wrote in the student newspaper, it’s usually a sign of trouble. In Denisse Merino’s case, the email she received led to something very different.

Denisse is a senior at Leadership and Public Service High School and writes for the school’s news site, Lead News. Her school is part of a small but growing cohort trying to reverse the trends in unequal school journalism access for students at predominantly Black and Hispanic high schools. Backed by training and support from the nonprofit organization Press Pass NYC, Denisse has taken on a leading role in the newspaper club.

Denisse also happens to be one of our Miseducation student reporters this school year. In this episode, she shares about her thoughts on the value of student journalism and about the story she wrote that convinced her principal to act.

Miseducation is a podcast of The Bell that equips New York City public high school students with the tools to report on inequities in the nation’s largest school system.

The New York State constitution promises “a system of free common schools, wherein all the children of this state may be educated." But what happens when that word — all — is tested?

Roughly one in five NYC public school students has a learning disability. Some have particularly severe behavioral or mental health challenges requiring accommodations that the average school isn’t equipped to provide. So what then? Where do those students go?

Well, according to new reporting from Abigail Kramer, it often depends on what their parents can pay.

Listen to my conversation with Abigail about what she uncovered in her story and what she thinks needs to change.

Miseducation is a podcast of The Bell that equips New York City public high school students with the tools to report on inequities in the nation’s largest school system.

In a recent episode of his podcast Revisionist History, Malcolm Gladwell revisited one of the key concepts from his hit book Outliers. It deals with privilege in education, just not in the ways you typically hear about it. The story got really got us thinking, and so we thought we’d share it with you.

This week, we’re airing parts of “Outliers, Revisited” from Revisionist History. Then, stick around for a Q&A between our student reporter Fredlove Deshommes and two of the shows producers, Eloise Lynton and Lee Mengistu.

Want exclusive content from Miseducation? Join us on Patreon.

To join the conversation, send us a message and follow us on Twitter and Instagram.

Miseducation is a podcast of The Bell that equips New York City public high school students with the tools to report on inequities in the nation’s largest school system.

Most of us have had a teacher or teachers who made a huge impact on our lives. They helped shape us, opened our minds to new things, and took time to help us understand the world. Sometimes, it can be hard to show or really say how much you appreciate them and what they’ve done for you. In spite of the difficulties they faced during the pandemic showed up and showed out. So, we at Miseducation came up with the idea to let students share stories about the teacher or teachers they appreciate the most.

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Want exclusive content from Miseducation? Join us on Patreon.

To join the conversation, send us a message and follow us on Twitter and Instagram.

Miseducation is a podcast of The Bell that equips New York City public high school students with the tools to report on inequities in the nation’s largest school system.

By Jadelyn Camey

In late September, I attended a press conference at which schools Chancellor David Banks announced changes to the middle and high school admissions process. The headline was that students whose grades place them in the top 15% of their 7th grade class — or the top 15% citywide — will now receive priority access to about 100 “screened” public high schools. Questions have risen about how this new policy will impact student diversity in the city’s already segregated schools. To break down the news and make sense of the nation’s most complex public school admissions process, I spoke to Chalkbeat New York reporter Alex Zimmerman.

To learn more about this issue, check out Chalkbeat’s recent reporting.

NYC overhauls high school admissions, leaves middle school changes up in air Sept. 29, 2022

NYC schools chief criticized for saying some kids deserve top schools more than others Oct. 13, 2022

New NYC high school admissions rules could slow pandemic-era diversity gains Oct. 14, 2022

Applying to NYC high school? Here’s what you need to know. Oct. 20, 2022

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Miseducation is a podcast of The Bell that equips New York City public high school students with the tools to report on inequities in the nation’s largest school system.

By Sabrina DuQuesnay

In his ten months on the job as schools chancellor, David Banks has not been shy about naming the challenges he faces. Steep enrollment declines. Pandemic recovery. Budget cuts. He’s offered harsh critiques of the NYC school system and the bureaucracy that runs it.

On Tuesday, Nov. 1 he sat down with a roundtable of student journalists, including a few Miseducation reporters, to answer questions on topics ranging from school funding to censorship of student newspapers. Hear what he had to say in the first episode of P.S. Weekly.

(Chancellor Banks ran out of time for all of the questions but promised to follow up with written responses to the ones he missed. We’ll post those questions and answers here when we receive them.)

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Want exclusive content from Miseducation? Join us on Patreon.

To join the conversation, send us a message and follow us on Twitter and Instagram.

Never miss an episode! Subscribe on Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Play | Stitcher

Miseducation is a podcast of The Bell that equips New York City public high school students with the tools to report on inequities in the nation’s largest school system.

The series ends with a final test for the Jaguars at the city championship. After the last point has been scored, members of the team try to assess their success. And what about the success of the merger? Students and coaches look at how the integration played out across John Jay’s athletics program, and ask: was it all worth it?

For stats, photos, bonus audio and more, check out our Keeping Score page.

Want exclusive content from Miseducation? Join us on Patreon.

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“Keeping Score” is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The Bell. Connect with us at [email protected].

For WNYC: Alana Casanova-Burgess, Jessica Gould, Joe Plourde, Jenny Lawton, Karen Frillmann, Emily Botein, Wayne Schulmeister, and Andrew Dunn. 

For The Bell: Mariah Morgan, Lauren Valme, Renika Jack, Noor Muhsin, Thyan Nelson, Jacob Mestizo, Taylor McGraw, and Mira Gordon.

Fact-check by Natalie Meade. Music by Jared Paul – with additional tracks by Hannis Brown and Isaac Jones. Special thanks to Atiqa Chowdhury, Delsina Kolenovic, Giana Ospina, Adrian Uribarri, Mike Barry, Theodora Kuslan, Andrea Latimer, Kim Nowacki, Dalia Dagher, Jennifer Houlihan Roussel, Michelle Xu, Rachel Leiberman, Miriam Barnard, Andrew Golis, Christopher Werth, and the entire team at The United States of Anxiety.

Miseducation is a podcast of The Bell that equips New York City public high school students with the tools to report on inequities in the nation’s largest school system.

What does it mean to lead a team in an anti-racist way? After getting strong feedback from Mariah and other players, Coach Mike Salak decides to change his tactics. But as the girls volleyball practices lead into tournaments, it’s clear that who gets to play continues to be a divisive issue. 

For stats, photos, bonus audio and more, check out our Keeping Score page.

Want exclusive content from Miseducation? Join us on Patreon.

* * *

“Keeping Score” is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The Bell. Connect with us at [email protected].

For WNYC: Alana Casanova-Burgess, Jessica Gould, Joe Plourde, Jenny Lawton, Karen Frillmann, Emily Botein, Wayne Schulmeister, and Andrew Dunn. 

For The Bell: Mariah Morgan, Lauren Valme, Renika Jack, Noor Muhsin, Thyan Nelson, Jacob Mestizo, Taylor McGraw, and Mira Gordon.

Fact-check by Natalie Meade. Music by Jared Paul – with additional tracks by Hannis Brown and Isaac Jones.

Miseducation is a podcast of The Bell that equips New York City public high school students with the tools to report on inequities in the nation’s largest school system.