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S3E6 – What do you pledge?
We explore the history, development and challenges to the use of the pledge of allegiance in US schools.
Sources for this episode.
Next episode will post on Friday, Oct 30th
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S3E5 – Watch your language!
English classes are charged with teaching students “correct” language usage; linguists say there is no such thing. What are the social, racial and linguistic consequences of the way schools teach grammar and usage? This may well be the most exciting discussion of grammar you have ever heard!
Sources for this episode.
Next episode will post on Friday, October 16
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S3E4 – What’s so special about special education?
Special Education remains opaque to too many Americans. This episode aims to get past the stereotypes and explore the workings, history, and philosophy behind special education programs in US schools.
Sources for this episode.
Next episode will post on Friday, September 25th.
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Season 3, Episode 3 – Going the Distance: A history of remote learning
Remote learning is not a new development in education. In this episode, we review the history, practices, pitfalls and potential future of remote learning as we enter a school year where the majority of U.S. students will be engaged in some form of distance education.
Sources for this episode.
Next episode will post on Sept 18th
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Season 3, Episode 2 – How it all began, Part II – Common for whom?
We continue our quest to locate the origin(s) of public education in the United States, from Horace Mann’s Common Schools to the fight for racial equity in schooling.
Sources for this episode.
Next episode will post on September 18th, 2020
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:30 — 56.1MB) | Embed
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Season 3, Episode 1 – How it all began, Part I – Satan, Jefferson, and Dictionaries
How did we get here? We start off the third season of Ed Infinitum with a two-parter about the origin of public education in the United States…or…origins, plural? Things aren’t so simple, as we’ll soon see.
Sources for this episode.
Next episode will post on September 4th, 2020
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S3E0 – There are no best practices
Special Episode: How will in-person teaching and learning be conducted in a pandemic? What are the arguments for and against this practice, and where, if anywhere, is the roadmap for executing it?
Sources for this episode.
Next episode will post in mid-August as Season 3 begins.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:58 — 66.3MB) | Embed
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S2E14 – School for Scandal, Pt 3 – The Inevitable Corruption
We wrap up our three part series, as well as Season Two entirely, by looking at the sordid underbelly of the school accountability mania of the 2000s, the resulting scandals and even criminal prosecutions, and ask if any meaningful changes emerged in the way teachers and schools are assessed.
The podcast will be going on hiatus for a few weeks while I start planning and recording Season#3. Next episode should air some time in mid to late August, at which point we’ll resume our original biweekly release schedule.
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S2E13 – School for Scandal, Pt 2: Value-Added Messes
In part two of our series on the nationwide test cheating scandals of the late 2000s, we take a look at “Value Added Measurement” of a teacher’s impact on student learning, and how this deeply flawed construct lay at the heart of the malfeasance that followed.
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Next episode will post on Friday, July 10th.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:05 — 55.1MB) | Embed
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S2E12 – School for Scandal, Pt 1: The Bee-Eater
Public education suffered a cascading series of scandals at the end of the last decade, when teachers and principals in towns and cities across 40 states were discovered to have cheated state accountability measures by altering student test results. We begin a three-part series exploring this national catastrophe with this week’s episode, where we focus on Michelle Rhee, controversial Chancellor of the Washington DC public schools, whose famous take-no-prisoners approach to student testing outcomes may well have set this saga in motion.
Click here for the list of sources used.
Next episode will post on Friday, July 3rd.