WUNC Politics Podcast: The Morale of Public School Teachers

From news to arts and culture, The Broadside dives into issues that might not be on a front page, but deserve a closer look. Along the way, host Anisa Khalifa explores the nuances of our home—and how what happens here ripples across the country. Find The Broadside every Thursday wherever you listen to podcasts.

During a Sunday morning in Wilson, NC, Chris Breslin was standing on a pitcher’s mound at his son’s little league game when he heard three sounds close by he’d never heard before. Then everybody on the field hit the ground.

Teachers are leaving in large numbers in some North Carolina school districts. They say they’ve been working with low pay and high expectations for years. But when the pandemic put their routines on pause, they had time to think about their priorities. Host Liz Schlemmer heard stories from three teachers this summer.

This month marks 67 years since Emmett Till was brutally lynched for allegedly whistling at a white woman. Activists in North Carolina are joining the calls for authorities to serve a nearly 70-year-old arrest warrant against the woman who accused him.

In this rebroadcast from January 18, 2022, Howard Dudley and Joe Neff, former investigative reporter for the News & Observer, recount Dudley’s wrongful conviction.

In May, an explosive report on sexual abuse perpetrated by clergy in the Southern Baptist Convention made national headlines. Now, survivors of abuse and their advocates are continuing to question what this means for one of the country’s largest Christian denominations. Host Anisa Khalifa talks with Jules Woodson, a survivor of clergy sexual abuse, and Kate Shellnut, senior news editor at Christianity Today magazine.

In this rebroadcast from March 31, 2022, host Will Michaels speaks with Phoebe Zerwick, former reporter with the Winston-Salem Journal, about her new book chronicling Darryl Hunt's story of wrongful conviction, "Beyond Innocence."

A notable number of North Carolina public school teachers are leaving. In Durham, one in five educators is departing, and other local districts are experiencing higher than usual turnover. On this episode of Tested, we’re featuring the Politics Podcast from WUNC, which recently spoke with several teachers about their reasons for leaving the classroom, while others explain why they have stayed.

In this rebroadcast from February 15, 2022, host Leoneda Inge talks with Tara Roberts, explorer with National Geographic, about Roberts work diving and documenting the wreckage of slave ships. Special thanks to National Geographic for providing some of this episode’s audio.

On June 30, 2009, in Greenville, N.C., two men were shot and killed outside a nightclub. Murder charges against James Richardson relied heavily on a surveillance video. But evidence that has come to light since then casts doubt on his conviction. Host Will Michaels speaks with Pam Kelley, a freelance journalist who recently wrote about the case for The Assembly.