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 school oversight less democratic are coming from the right and education reformers, Collins makes an urgent case for using participatory local democracy to collectively solve our most pressing problems.

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#167 Public Education Needs More Democracy, Not Less

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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Private school vouchers flamed out in Idaho this legislative session. So how did Idahoans succeed in saying ‘no thanks’ to a controversial and expensive policy program that is now on the books in one state after another? We’re joined by activists and advocates who say that convincing lawmakers that vouchers aren’t conservative was key. And unlike most states, Idaho has an influential business group that is staunchly anti-voucher. Add in lots of organizing and a refusal to let lawmakers enact a sweeping new program behind closed doors and you get the ‘Idaho exception.’

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#176 The Idaho Exception

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 hear from parents and advocates in six states about their concerns. And we’re reminded that the nation’s commitment to educating kids with special needs has always been tenuous.

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#175 Special Education is Under Threat

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 the school from opening. As our guests explain, the school is part of a larger project to roll back the clock on civil rights, disability rights and labor protections. Now for the good news: tearing down the separation between church and state turns out to be really unpopular.

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#174 Religious Charter Schools are Coming. Be Worried.

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 argues that this story is at the heart of what he calls the fantasy economy, a wrongheaded view of the labor market that has fueled decades of education reform. And we hear from Tim Schwab, author of an explosive new book about Bill Gates, whose deep pockets have helped to spin the fantasy economy narrative.

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

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 mom Ashley Daly joins us from Oklahoma, where the state’s education chief has emerged as one of the nation’s leading culture warriors. The result is a feel good episode with a feel bad caveat.

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#167 Public Education Needs More Democracy, Not Less

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