Texas and California often appear to be worlds apart when it comes to politics and culture, but the education students are getting – as far as their textbooks go, at least – may not be so different.

University of Chicago Assistant Professor Anjali Adukia investigated more than 260 textbooks used in both public and religiously affiliated schools in the two states, analyzing their portrayal of race, gender, religion, and historical events. “I think the part that was the most surprising to me is despite this narrative of political polarization, we actually don't necessarily see that in the books themselves that are given to kids on average,” Adukia says.

While there are differences, especially regarding religious content, textbooks used in both states tend to emphasize similar themes such as family, nature, and history, she says. Additionally, the textbooks also feature similar portrayals of females in passive and stereotypical roles, while males are more often linked to power, politics, and military.

She argues that textbooks play a crucial role in shaping students' identities and worldviews, transmitting cultural values and societal norms. Despite changing public attitudes, these textbooks remain largely unchanged, posing important questions about how educational content influences future generations and the values that schools are endorsing.

“The process of education and its associated books and curriculum materials necessarily, and by design, transmit the knowledge that we care about, the values that we care about. They transmit messages about who belongs in what spaces in society,” Adukia says. “Also, the presence and the absence of different identities can send messages to kids which can contribute to how they view their own potential and the potential of others.”

In this episode, we explore the similarities and differences across textbooks in public and religious schools, and the role textbooks play in shaping students’ identities and worldviews.

As a third-grade teacher, Lily Howard Scott noticed how she spoke to students impacted more than just their experience in the classroom. How teachers speak to their students and intentional shifts in language can nurture children’s inner lives, foster self-regulation and reduce perfectionism, she says, and become their inner voice.

“The thing about teachers, particularly elementary school teachers, is they have this superpower, which is that they catch kids at a moment where their capacity for neuroplasticity is more remarkable than it will ever be again. These kids are developing theories about themselves and their abilities, and they're bucketing themselves in all ways that may stay with them for the rest of their lives,” Scott says. “They're establishing thinking patterns that will stay with them, and elementary school teachers spend 1000 hours a year with their students in the same connected classroom… subtle shifts in language that help kids learn these basic things, that they have agency within, that they can choose which thoughts and feelings to amplify and which to quiet.”

Scott shares that young children are remarkably receptive to reflective conversations about language and often adapt the terms in creative, personal ways — such as a student renaming their “inner voice” the “President Decider.” She highlights the power of reframing mistakes as "brilliant mistakes," which invites curiosity rather than shame. This shift, supported by neuroscience and the work of researchers like Lisa Feldman Barrett and Carol Dweck, helps children interpret challenges with a mindset geared toward growth and resilience.

How to make these shifts is now the focus of Scott’s work and the central theme of her book, “The Words that Shape Us,” where she shares classroom-tested strategies and brain-changing teacher language.

Learning to speak differently as a teacher or even parent can be challenging, but Scott stresses the importance of modeling lifelong learning alongside children. For instance, by admitting their own struggles with perfectionism or learning from errors, teachers can foster trust and mutual growth. Scott explains that language like “feelings are visitors” (inspired by Rumi’s The Guest House) helps children understand emotional regulation and agency. She admits that young children are particularly receptive to language shifts. Perhaps even more importantly, the effort to tweak how we speak to children may also play a role with children’s mental health. 

“If your mind is better company when you're seven, you hold on to these language nuggets and you repeat them to yourself when you're 17, so I think elementary school, it's not the precursor to serious learning. It's the most serious learning, and we should tip our hats to elementary school teachers and understand the immense and enduring influence they can have,” she says.

In this episode, Scott shares insight into when children are taught empowering, compassionate language early, they carry it with them for life, enabling healthier thinking patterns and emotional well-being. She provides caution against well-meaning but common phrases like “try harder” which may inadvertently shame children.

To succeed in school, in life, and as contributors to a more equitable society, students must be able to recognize, analyze, and challenge systemic injustices, say Harvard Lecturer Aaliyah El-Amin and Boston College Professor Scott Seider. Through their research, they are examining what it truly means to pursue education for justice in K–12 schools.

“The kids who are in classrooms right now are our country's next generation of leaders,” says El-Amin. “They’re the people who are going to help determine whether we continue on our current path of deep injustice and human suffering, or whether we chart a new course toward a more just society — one where people across differences have equal access to well-being and thriving.”

El-Amin and Seider argue that equipping young people with the tools to understand and respond to injustice is not only critical to building a more just society but also key to supporting youth development—academically, emotionally, and civically.

“Young people who are more critically conscious of injustice are more civically engaged. They have higher self-esteem. They have better mental health…” says Seider. “The primary goal of nurturing young people's understanding of injustice is to prepare them to help build a better world. But we also have growing evidence that this critical consciousness contributes to positive youth outcomes.”

To explore how justice-oriented education is being implemented across different contexts, the researchers studied more than 100 schools, identifying four core strategies for embedding this work throughout K–12 education:

• Building adult capacity
• Centering justice in the curriculum
• Partnering with families and communities
• Engaging students in social action

While this work may look different depending on the local context, El-Amin and Seider believe it can be implemented in schools everywhere.

“Students are asking big questions about the world around them,” says El-Amin. “And when students are curious, engaged, and eager to participate in these conversations, educators have a powerful opportunity to bring them into critical consciousness and advocacy right in the classroom.”

This episode of the EdCast explores how schools can become places where students are not only academically prepared but also empowered to confront—and help transform—the world they inherit.

In today’s digital landscape, schools face growing cybersecurity threats that can disrupt learning, compromise sensitive data, and leave administrators scrambling to recover. With cybercriminals becoming more sophisticated, understanding these risks and being prepared is more critical than ever, says Lisa Plaggemier, the executive director of the National Cybersecurity Alliance.

“The vast majority of bad things that happen at institutions like schools and municipalities-- again, under-resourced organizations or organizations that have some technical debt. They haven't kept up with the latest and the greatest when it comes to technology. It's really, really, really basic things that get exploited by people that are up to no good,” she says.

The Center for Internet Security recently released a report revealing that 82 percent of schools suffered from a cyber incident over an 18-month period. From ransomware attacks to AI-powered phishing scams, cybercriminals are finding new ways to exploit vulnerabilities—especially in under-resourced institutions like schools and municipalities. Plaggemier shares practical steps schools can take to protect themselves, from implementing multi-factor authentication to training staff on phishing awareness. She says the biggest mistake is not being prepared for a cyberthreats. 

“[This] is not something that's fun to go through, to have to answer to the press, to have to handle the crisis communications, the questions you get from parents. It then becomes such a drain on all those other things… that are a higher priority, that you realize that you've risked all those good and noble things because of a lack of preparedness,” Plaggemier says. “It's not if, it's when. So, it's all about being prepared. It's about resilience. It's about business continuity, being able to still teach school if everything's offline, and then being able to recover from the attack and go back to business as usual.”

In this episode, we discuss why educational institutions are frequent targets, the role of human error in cyberattacks, and the importance of proactive security measures. 

How we see the world and interact with each other, especially whether we create welcoming environments of acceptance, does not always come naturally. Tim Shriver, chair of the Special Olympics, and Stephanie Jones, a Harvard professor whose research focuses on social emotional development, say that it’s something we can teach, and fostering an inclusive and accepting mindset in schools and communities matters. 

“This is not stuff that we're necessarily born with. It all grows and emerges through experiences and all kinds of things that happen in the world. So, they are malleable skills -- they can be taught,” Jones says. “And I would go further and say that the decades of work in schools focused on things like social, emotional, and behavioral development have given us some ideas about the essentials of teaching and supporting these kinds of skills.”

As a longtime advocate of students with intellectual and physical disabilities, Shriver admits he was intrigued by better understanding why some people are more open to inclusion and accepting someone who may be different from them. “From any number of points of view, difference is sometimes scary. But who are the people that know how to turn that fear or that lack of familiarity into an opening, rather than using it as a closed door?” Shriver says. “So, I started to ask myself, what is an inclusive mindset? … And the more I thought about this, the more I realized, and the more I searched around issues around it, it struck me that we didn't know.”

Working together they began to identify key components of an inclusive mindset and how to foster this by acting on empathy, dignity, and courageous action. In this episode, we discuss using teachable moments where students can learn to become upstanders, and why it is important to nurture these skills in the classroom and community.

Post-pandemic schools are still feeling the aftershocks—socially, emotionally, and politically – say educators and co-authors Mathew Portell and Tyisha Noise. Educators, students, and administrators are navigating a landscape that feels more uncertain than ever, with growing political pressures, policy shifts, and the lingering impact of disrupted learning.

“In this hurrying time of, ‘we've got to get kids caught up,’ that intensity is there. And I think it's playing a major role in missing gaps that we need to support for students who didn't have those developmental experiences starting at a very, even young age, and building their capacity and their tools to manage all that's coming,” Portell says. 

Portell, an elementary school principal, and Noise, an educator and leadership consultant, believe a trauma-informed approach can help -- that is if schools truly undertake the work to make the systemic shifts necessary. They are co-authors of “Reducing Stress in Schools: Restoring Connection and Community,” a toolkit of actionable, evidence-based practices for educators that focuses on how to support students’ and adults’ nervous system regulation. One of the biggest shifts they advocate for is moving from reactive policies to a more human-centered approach aimed toward not just students but also adults.

“If we want what we say we want for children, we've got to bring healing and love and support and compassion to adults. We have to pour into the adults who serve children what we want them to pour into children,” Noise says. “Draining people of everything good inside of them, and then asking them to pour from empty cups every day is not only unfair, it's inhumane.”

In this episode, we discuss the tension between academic recovery and social-emotional learning as schools face increasing pressure to accelerate student progress while navigating political and logistical obstacles, and what it means to be a trauma-informed school. 

Eve L. Ewing wants people to talk, not just about how American schools started, but also how that can inform the future of schools, especially for Black and Native children. She argues that Black and Native children’s schooling experience is more than just a footnote, but a central narrative in history.

“From the very first classes that I taught, I always began by telling my students, you cannot understand the history of schools in this country if you don't understand schools for Black people and schools for Native people,” she says. “Those are foundational to understanding the history of American public schooling.”

Those historical foundations of American public schooling are the focus of her new book, “Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism.” Ewing explains that her book was born from a need to unify discussions on these histories, structured around three themes: discipline and punishment, intellectual inferiority, and economic subjugation. 

The University of Chicago Associate Professor highlights how the education system has been shaped by racist ideologies, many envisioned by Thomas Jefferson, and have only strengthened racial divisions. Those legacies continue today, with curriculums that downplay darker aspects of American history, and raise deep questions about what is the purpose of school. “There are a lot of unspoken assumptions, uninterrogated assumptions about what makes great education for Black and Native kids in particular, for low-income kids of all racial backgrounds, for kids of color of all income backgrounds, that sometimes isn't actually great for them,” she says.

She hopes that educators can find meaning by understanding history and possibly find ways to create a new future for schools. “These are long and old systems, but they were created by people, and we are also people, right? And it is also within our power to examine and critique those systems and create new ones,” she says.

In this episode, Ewing calls for honest conversations about history, a reevaluation of education’s purpose, and collective action to challenge systemic oppression in schools.

The U.S. Department of Education has been a subject of political debate since its creation in 1980. 

“It's the one whose status has been most tenuous from the inception. So the recent calls we've heard to eliminate the Department of Education have really been a constant feature of its history from the moment it was created,” says Marty West, a Harvard professor specializing in the politics of K-12 education. He explains that the DoEd, established in 1980 under President Jimmy Carter, was politically motivated but also aimed at consolidating federal education efforts. Despite its relatively small financial footprint—contributing less than 10% of K-12 funding—it plays a key role in distributing federal funds, enforcing civil rights laws, and conducting educational research.

In speaking with West, before news reports that the Trump Administration was drafting an executive order to eliminate the department, he noted that some view the DoEd as essential for ensuring equal access to education and enforcing federal education laws, while others see it as an unnecessary bureaucracy that interferes with state and local control.

“I think debates over the status of the department and speculation over the department status are largely a distraction from the real debates over the scope and substance of federal education policy,” West says. “The status of the department is largely a question of bureaucratic organization and is not particularly substantive. The real question is whether the federal government has a useful and valid role to play in K-12 education.”

In this episode, we discuss the Department of Education’s responsibilities, the misconceptions surrounding its influence, and the historical and political forces that have shaped its existence. We also explore the feasibility of eliminating the department and what such a move would mean for schools, educators, and students across the country.

When it comes to making an impact on school outcomes, Harvard Professor Ebony Bridwell-Mitchell says we often overlook the power of relationships within the school. 

“I think the complexity of how relationships work is one of the reasons why the first place we often go when we're trying to improve schools is to something like policies and procedures,” she says. “It seems very concrete. Put the policy in place. Something's going to happen. Have a new procedure. People are going to follow it. Cross your fingers.”

But the real lever of change is in people. Bridwell-Mitchell studies the intricate dynamics of relationships within schools and how they shape outcomes for students, teachers, and institutions. 

“So all the time in organizations, we are shaping the interactions, the relationships people develop. And so from my perspective, we need to be much more intentional about what those efforts are accomplishing in terms of relationships and what impact they might be having on the outcomes that we desire,” she says, pointing out how seemingly innocuous decisions like where to put an office and what time to schedule a class can impact the social dynamic of an organization.

Relationships in schools are nested, where connections among individuals can ripple through classrooms, schools, and the educational system. However, figuring out how to more intentionally develop relationships can be challenging amid time constraints and policy demands. 

Still, Bridwell-Mitchell attests it is well worth the investment if schools want to transform for the long run. “Whatever great idea you think you have to make things better in your context, in your classroom, in your school, in your district-- how much you're going to get out of that -- the bang for the buck you invest,” she says. “What you get out of it will be so much greater if you can leverage relationships in the right way.”

In this episode, Bridwell-Mitchell shares how leveraging social networks can spark meaningful change, and why schools must embrace both the complexity and the power of human connection to achieve lasting success.

Andrew Tucker says the growing adoption of Portraits of a Graduate in K-12 education is a way to address gaps in education and prepare students to thrive in an evolving workforce. Portraits of a Graduate (POG) are frameworks, adopted by a state or district, that defines the skills and competencies students should have upon graduation, extending beyond academic benchmarks.

“For a long time-- maybe generations really-- in our K-12 system, we've really focused on a single metric for success, and that's been a four-year college degree,” says Tucker, director of policy at the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL). “We're beginning to recognize that there are other opportunities and other options for students and that we actually need to prepare students beyond just those minimum academic requirements that exist for enrollment into a four-year college.”

As part of a CASEL report this year, Tucker highlights how states and districts are adopting POGs to equip students with essential "durable skills" like critical thinking, collaboration, and emotional intelligence. About 20 states have created these frameworks. He explains that these portraits are developed with input from diverse stakeholders—educators, parents, employers, and community members—and aim to address the disconnect between what schools teach and the skills employers and society demand. Some states like Nevada, North Carolina, and Utah are implementing these frameworks and aligning them with career and social-emotional learning goals.

Tucker emphasizes a portraits potential to enhance student readiness for college, careers, and life, particularly as "human skills" become increasingly critical in an era shaped by AI and automation.

“We're in the era of AI. And artificial intelligence is going to be taking the place of a lot of the technical skills that people need. And what's going to be left? What's going to be left are these human skills,” Tucker says. “So we have to, as a society, and as an education system, and as a broader workforce system, we have to define these things in ways that there's a common language.”

In this episode, Tucker calls on educators and policymakers to embrace Portraits of a Graduate as a means to foster an equitable, relevant, and future-focused education.