Have You Heard

Have You Heard heads to rural Wisconsin to investigate a puzzle. Communities in the "reddest" parts of the state keep voting to hike their own taxes to pay for schools, even as they elect and re-elect politicians who enact cuts to school funding. What gives? The answers are complicated and surprising. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Please donate at Patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast

It’s time to junk the international assessment of 15-year-olds known as the PISA test says scholar Oren Pizmony-Levy. And Have You Heard announces big plans for 2020. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Please donate at Patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast

For more than a decade, Denver has been a model for a brand of school reform centered on closing low-performing schools, opening charter schools and rewarding teachers for boosting student test scores. But a diverse coalition of opponents says it’s time to put the brakes on that approach and showed its strength at the polls in November by “flipping” the Denver School Board. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Please donate at Patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast

Why do progressive parents so often act to preserve their own privilege even as they say they're committed to challenging inequality? We talk to Margaret Hagerman, author of White Kids: Growing Up with Privilege in a Racially Divided America. Recommended reading: White Kids: Growing Up with Privilege in a Racially Divided America The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast alive. Please donate at Patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast

The Democratic Party seems to be backing away from its decades-long embrace of charter schools. While pundits cite the influence of teachers unions within the party, our guest Jon Valant says more complicated forces are at play, starting with the unraveling of the unlikely liberal/conservative coalition that brought charters into being. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast alive. Please donate at Patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast

Central Harlem in the late 1960's was home to a radical, and little known, experiment in alternative education. Historian Barry Goldenberg, runner up in the Have You Heard Graduate Student Research Contest, tells us the story of Harlem Prep and why it is so relevant today.

We talk with Christopher Leonard, author of the new bestseller Kochland, about the Koch family's vision for public education. (Hint: it doesn't involve the word 'public'...)

Theater teacher Quinn Strassel has seen first hand the impact that Betsy DeVos has had on Michigan’s public schools. And so he decided to fight back—by writing a musical.

School can be a tough, even traumatic place for students and teachers alike. Four teachers tell Have You Heard what they're doing to change that.

We delve into a charter school scam so enormous, so audacious that it requires charts and graphs to explain. Special guest: Voice of San Diego’s Will Huntsberry.