Have You Heard

Business journalist Andrea Gabor steps into the Have You Heard studio to make the case that education reform has learned all of the wrong lessons from the business world. She argues that the market-based measures and carrot-and-stick incentives that rule in schools today are wildly out of sync with the nurturing culture that the best schools foster.

A blockbuster book on the meteoric rise and implosion of the Silicon Valley blood-testing startup Theranos is chock full of lessons for education and those who would seek to disrupt it. Writer John Warner and host Jennifer Berkshire discuss Bad Blood, and what it tells us about "bad ed tech" and "bad ed reform."

Sociologist Carla Shedd steps into the Have You Heard studio to talk about the complicated interplay between school choice, segregation and gentrification in an unequal city.

Have You Heard talks to Audrey Watters, journalist and expert in all things #edtech, about "teaching machines," and the long (and almost completely ignored) history of efforts to automate the teaching profession.

Nearly a decade has passed since Scott Walker took on teachers and other public employees in Wisconsin, virtually eliminating their right to engage in collective bargaining. So what's the state of the state today? Public education and the question of how to fund it has emerged as a potent political issue and is driving what could be a big shift in the state's political makeup.

What does the ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868 have to do with the wave of teacher walkouts sweeping the country today? More than you might think! Law professor Derek Black steps into the Have You Heard studio to talk about a forgotten history and why it's more relevant today than ever.

Have You Heard looks at what's behind state takeovers of school districts. As guest Domingo Morel explains, laws authorizing states to take over urban districts appeared as a direct response to Black power at the municipal level. Today, while takeovers come shrouded in the discourse of "achievement," the conservative logic behind them is unchanged: improving schools requires weakening the political power of the communities they are in.

Have You Heard discusses the rise of the "data boyz," the quantitative methodologists who increasingly determine what counts--and what doesn't--in education research. Special guest: UC Berkeley economist Jesse Rothstein.

Have You Heard talks to teachers in West Virginia (lots of them!) about the strike that shuttered schools in the Mountain State for nine days - and what they think teachers in other states can learn from their powerful example.

Student walkouts, strikes and protests have a long history of forcing real political change. We talk to historian Jon Zimmerman about what today's student protesters can learn from previous generations. And we hear from current students who are leading the protests against gun violence.