Episodios

  • #216 The Blue State Blues

    #216 The Blue State Blues
    Apr 3 2026
    It isn’t just red states where books are being pulled from schools. In blue states, books have given way to out-of-context passages in the name of test and career prep. Add in new literacy laws that seek to tightly control how teachers teach reading and we’ve got a serious case of the blue state blues on our hands. Four current and former teachers join us to discuss what blue states keep getting wrong about public education. Special guests: John Downes-Angus, Annie Abrams, Nora De La Cour and Jeff Austin. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Subscribe on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast
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    48 m
  • #215 The Fight Over Sex Education

    #215 The Fight Over Sex Education
    Mar 19 2026
    What should kids learn about sex? Who should teach them? And if they learn too much, will they become deviants? According to Margaret Myers, the author of The Fight for Sex Ed, we’ve been fighting over these exact same questions for more than a century, obscuring the essential purpose of sex education. And Nawal Umar of the sex ed advocacy group SIECUS joins us to talk about the present day push to mandate the teaching of the so-called success sequence in schools. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Subscribe on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast
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    34 m
  • #214 These Conservatives Are Furious About School Vouchers

    #214 These Conservatives Are Furious About School Vouchers
    Mar 5 2026
    Forget about ‘education freedom’ and ‘school choice.’ These conservative see the expansion of school vouchers as a government takeover of private and home schools. We head to Texas, where opposition to vouchers has emerged as a potent cause on the right, even as moderates are turned off by the GOP’s hostility to public schools. The result: an issue that could end up upending politics in the Lone Star State. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Subscribe on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast
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    44 m
  • #213 The Kids are Alright

    #213 The Kids are Alright
    Feb 19 2026
    Decades before high school students were walking out of school to protest ICE, they embraced political activism against the Vietnam War and in favor of school desegration and expanding civil rights. In a new book, scholar Aaron G. Fountain Jr. unearths the largely forgotten history of high school student activism, locating student groups, and underground newspapers, in every part of the country. And just like today, adults often reacted with suspicion, warning that ‘outside agitators’ were manipulating children, even calling upon the FBI to surveil their own children. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Subscribe on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast
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    45 m
  • #212 We’re at each other’s throats. Schools can help.

    #212 We’re at each other’s throats. Schools can help.
    Feb 5 2026
    Our ability to disagree has turned toxic, and frayed relationships are leaving Americans more isolated and lonely than ever. Can schools help? Educational psychologist Hunter Gehlbach is convinced that teachers hold the key by helping students learn how to disagree better. That is unless AI replaces all of the teachers first. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Subscribe on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast
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    44 m
  • #211 Silicon Valley’s Vision for Schools is Trapped in a Cold War Fantasy

    #211 Silicon Valley’s Vision for Schools is Trapped in a Cold War Fantasy
    Jan 22 2026
    In the schools of the (near) future, teachers will be replaced by robots and learning will be personalized, allowing each student to move at their own pace. AI refuser and self-described ‘ed tech Cassandra’ Audrey Watters says that the vision of education being peddled by Silicon Valley today is virtually indistinguishable from the Cold War fantasy of futuristic schools. Watters makes the case that seventy years after the Soviets launched Sputnik into space, the US and its schools remain trapped in a ‘Sputnik moment.’ The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Subscribe on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast
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    47 m
  • #210 The Curious Case of Kindergarten

    #210 The Curious Case of Kindergarten
    Jan 8 2026
    Every year more than 3 million kids march off to kindergarten, a mysterious world about which adults know very little. Research psychologist Susan Engel, who has spent a lifetime studying how children think, play and learn, set out to change that, shining a light on an experience that is nearly universal and yet little understood. Twenty-nine classrooms, thirteen states and countless tiny chairs later, Engel offers a glimpse into the reality that is American kindergarten. Surprising, concerning, funny and hopeful, Engel's depiction will forever change the way you think about the first year of school. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Subscribe on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast
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    46 m
  • #209 Make Education Great Again

    #209 Make Education Great Again
    Dec 4 2025
    The MAGA vision for public education isn’t just to dismantle it. Key parts of the coalition also want to reshape schools along religious and political lines. In this episode we hear from two experts about MAGA’s education project. Kevin Kumashiro tells us about the growing influence of Christian Nationalism, while Laura Fields, author of the new book Furious Minds, introduces us to the intellectuals of the ‘new right,’ for whom taking back America also entails taking back K-12 schools. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Subscribe on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast
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    42 m