The sudden passion for all things parents’ rights may seem like it came out of nowhere. But as education historian Jon Hale explains, it’s the latest in a steady erosion of the idea of public education as a public good. From white parents pulling away from ‘that public’ in the aftermath of the Brown. Vs Board of Education decision in 1954, to the hardening of school district boundaries post Milliken vs. Bradley, we’ve been whittling away at the public good for decades.

Even before the pandemic, schools were struggling to meet the needs of students in special education programs. Now, a long-standing special education staffing shortage threatens to become something more dire. Special guest: Nate Jones, associate professor of special education at Boston University.

Students in Southlake, Texas pushed school district officials to do something about racism in the schools. Then came the backlash. We hear what’s really at stake in the battles over Southlake’s schools from current and former students—and why they remain hopeful about the future. And Jack climbs into the time machine to tour some of the not-so-great education backlashes of yore.

Vocational education has been rebranded and retooled as career and technical education. But beneath CTE's 21st century veneer lurks an age-old problem: tailoring students' education too closely to the demands of employers may end up limiting their future options, not expanding them.

In this special episode, Have You Heard remembers the extraordinary Mike Rose. Special guests Erika Kitzmiller, Janelle Scott, Chris Buttimer, Michael Moses and Rema Reynolds help us recall Mike as a scholar, mentor and builder of worlds.

The claim that standardized testing has racist - even eugenicist - roots is oft repeated these days. But is it true? In an episode guaranteed to please no one, friend of the show Ethan Hutt walks us through the multiple and tangled histories of testing. And special guest Akil Bello does a dramatic reading of headlines foretelling doom and disaster should testing wither away.