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.

The culture wars found a new target in 2021: trans youth. More than 100 laws were proposed to restrict the rights of trans individuals, especially kids. In this episode of Have You Heard, we’re joined by teacher, trans activist and co-host of the Southern Queeries podcast Aubree Calvin. Aubree helps us understand the origins of the right’s war on trans youth, and why the restriction of their access to health care and education is an issue that should concern every public education advocate.

Black students who are taught by teachers who attended an Historically Black College or University or HBCU fare better than their peers. That’s what Lavar Edmonds found as he dug into a trove of data from North Carolina schools. More intriguing still: while students with Black teachers show the biggest gains, the effect also held with white teachers who graduated from HBCUs. Edmonds, the runner up in the Have You Heard Graduate Student Research Contest, explains what he thinks is the “secret sauce” at HBCUs, and why his findings challenge some of the central assumptions of so-called “role-model effects” in education.