The story of college success in the US often conflates distance with quality, and separation from family and community as a rite of passage. But when Corinne Kentor, the runner up in our 2022 Grad Student Research Contest, observed students who’ve grown up in families with mixed immigration status, she saw something very different: a view of college as a collective project. Her research raises big questions about how we view college and “success” in a time of deepening education polarization.

What should schools do about climate change? To get some perspective on this big, even existential, question, Have You Heard is joined summons an all-star cast. Oren Pizmony-Levy, the director of the Center for Sustainable Futures at Teachers College, Columbia University, breaks down the big debates regarding schools and climate change. Investigative journalist Katie Worth, author of Miseducation, reports from her deep dive into climate change education around the country. And Elissa Levy, who teaches physics and computer science at the High School for Climate Justice in East Harlem, NH, tells us about the first public school in the nation with “climate” in its name.

Thirty years after the start of the great charter experiment, the question of just how public these schools are remains unresolved. We’re joined by former DC public school teacher, Wagma Mommandi, and Kevin Welner, head of the National Education Policy Center at University Colorado Boulder, to talk about their new book, School’s Choice: How Charter Schools Control Access and Shape Enrollment. Mommandi and Welner argue that make the case that charter advocates and policy makers have consistently tilted the rules that govern charter schools towards privateness. That has major implications for equity as we move towards a system where schools choose students.

When a proposal to “reimagine” Charleston, South Carolina’s schools suddenly surfaced late last year, it prompted a furious backlash. Community groups and public education advocates warned that the plan, backed by a deep-pocketed foundation, was a fast-track to privatization disguised in the language of innovation. In other words, the vision being offered up for the city’s schools isn’t new at all but the same one embraced by business interests, civic leaders and philanthropists for decades now. Jennifer “travels” to Charleston to hear from parents, activists and educators about the complicated politics of school reform in a city that can’t or won’t grapple with its past. And Jack stays closer to home while traveling back in time to help us understand the enduring appeal of school takeovers and makeovers.

Jennifer joins forces with the hosts of the popular podcast Know Your Enemy to discuss why almost every big culture-war battle of the moment—from "Critical Race Theory" to COVID mandates—is being fought in America's schools. Meanwhile, Democrats, anxious about a midterm rout driven by angry Republican parents, too often are conceding these battles to the right, adopting their rhetoric and their terms of debate, and have been for a long time—despite supposedly being the party of teachers' unions. Does it have to be this way?

The impulse to reform American schools is as old as the nation itself. And so too is the impulse to "forget" all of the fixes we've tried before. Have You Heard is joined by the eminent emeritus education historian Larry Cuban to discuss his new book, Confessions of a School Reformer. Among the topics taken on in this episode: the remarkable constancy of American schooling, what's old about the new, and the education historian's dilemma.