The movement of students and parents to end harsh discipline and dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline in their local schools made major gains. Then came the pandemic. Now, with calls for returning police to schools and “hardening” them in response to shooting threats, the movement’s success may be in jeopardy. Special guests: Mark Warren, author of Willful Defiance, and Jonathan Stith, the national director of the Alliance for Educational Justice.

Long before Moms for Liberty or Parents Defending Education, conservative mothers in the 1950's led a crusade to free the schools from communism. These activists waged fierce battles to resist the red menace, which they saw everywhere, including in the emerging field of mental health and in "progressive education"--any effort made to influence the way that children thought. Special guest: Michelle Nickerson, authors of Mothers of Conservatism: Women and the Postwar Right.

The attachment of rural communities to their local schools is intense. But that commitment may be fraying in a time of culture war, education populism and teacher shortages. Have You Heard visits western Kansas where rural school advocates are passionate about their local schools even as they fear for their future. Special guests: Matthew Clay, Krysten Clay, Stephanie Wick and Scott Gregory.

Jack and Jennifer are joined by sociologist Beth Popp Berman, author of the new book Thinking Like an Economist. Berman chronicles how economists and their style of reasoning (think ‘competition,’ ‘choice’ and efficiency’) took over one domain after another beginning in the 1960’s, constraining Democrats’ policy visions in the process.

Have You Heard heads to Croydon, New Hampshire to listen in on an epic battle playing out over the future of public education in the state. In March, members of the Free State Project, a libertarian movement that wields increasing influence in the state, voted to slash the local school budget by half. Under the plan, Croydon’s one-room schoolhouse would be converted into a for-profit ‘microschool,’ with students learning online under the supervision of an unlicensed guide, and parents would foot the bill for tuition at local schools that exceeded the new budget constraints. But a funny thing happened on the way to phasing out public education in this small NH town. The residents of Croydon revolted, restoring faith in local democracy in the process.

Jennifer and Jack are joined by journalist Kathryn Joyce to discuss the right’s newfound fondness for an old cause: classical education. Today’s version comes in a new form–publicly funded classical charter schools–and has a decidedly conservative cast. Joyce, an investigative reporter for Salon, argues that the growing push for schools that teach conservative values must be understood as part of the right’s new-found fondness for using state power to enforce religious morality.