#219 Shutting Down

Have You Heard explores the forgotten history of Direct Instruction, the controversial curriculum program devised by Zig Englemann more than a half century ago. Instead of a conspiracy to keep ‘what works’ out of the hands of teachers and students, we find a more complicated story in which DI is taken up by schools and districts over and over again, only to be abandoned. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Subscribe on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast

We meet a group of Massachusetts parents who’ve been taking on big tech in their children’s schools and in their own lives. When these parents learned that the school district was considering integrating AI tools into the classroom, they got to work. Over the past year, Reconnect Malden has pushed the district to adopt strict limits on AI as well as the edtech platforms that increasingly dominate learning. At a time of growing parent backlash against big tech, these parents offer an inspiring roadmap for how to challenge the bots. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Subscribe on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast

Have You Heard heads to West Virginia, where public schools face a precarious future. As the state’s voucher program expands, the small schools that are the lifeblood of many rural communities are increasingly on the chopping block. We talk to West Virginians across the state about some of the challenges facing public schools, and why a political backlash to the GOP’s complete control of the state may be brewing. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Subscribe on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast

Traditional student discipline is broken. That’s the premise of an exciting experiment in student-run restorative justice taking place at Attleboro High School in southeastern Massachusetts. Students who’ve committed minor disciplinary infractions can now go before a jury of their literal peers in an effort to repair the harm they’ve done. Far from letting offenders off easy, Youth Court holds students accountable in a way that detention or in-school suspension doesn’t. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Subscribe on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast

In this special episode, we’re showcasing a brand new education podcast: Budget Committee! School finance is complicated, but it doesn’t have to be that way. In their new show, school finance whisperers Derek Gottlieb and David Backer dig into the data, demystifying the jargon and the lingo to help listeners not just understand the numbers but push for change. We’re big fans and we think you will be too. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Subscribe on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast

Despite working considerably more hours than their colleagues in other countries, teachers here say they don’t have enough time to do their jobs, leading to high rates of stress, burnout and teacher turnover. We hear from researchers and current and former teachers about the ‘time scarcity’ toll, and why any effort to ‘fix’ our schools must start by reckoning with the demands on teacher time. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Subscribe on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast

Civic centers are all the rage on red state campuses. Designed to reclaim and “save” the humanities, reinstate ideological diversity in higher ed, and bring back the Great Books, these centers are growing rapidly, even as the old school humanities wither away. But when writer Ann Manov visited a new center at her alma mater, the University of Florida, the reality fell far short of the sales pitch. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Subscribe on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast

Waste, fraud and abuse. That’s how education policy expert Jon Valant characterizes the new federal voucher program that was tucked into Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill last year. Valant walks us through the nuts and bolts of the program and explains how it undoes the federal commitment to civil rights and progressive education funding. Valant’s ultimate conclusion: Trump’s voucher program will be the greatest source of waste, fraud, and abuse that we have seen in our lifetimes in K-12 education. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Subscribe on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast

A steep decline in the birthrate means fewer students, and for a growing number of communities that means closing schools. We head to New Orleans where the ‘demographic cliff’ poses a unique problem for a market-based school system in which schools are constantly opening and closing. A recent decision by KIPP to close a school without consulting parents or students has set off an uproar and called new attention to the democracy deficit in New Orleans’ all-charter-school model. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Subscribe on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast

Sarasota Florida was supposed to be the new capital of Magamerica. But a funny thing happened on the way to making this coastal community and its school board the epicenter of right wing activism. A whole lot of Sarasotans woke up to the reality that their schools, vulnerable students and indeed local democracy hung in the balance. Call it the backlash to the backlash or the revenge of the normies, the resistance is alive and well in southwest Florida. Description The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Subscribe on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast