The insane secret history of the SATs, Part I - The origins of the infamous SAT exam are worthy of epic movie treatment: Nazis! Communists! Hot dog vendors! Sharpen your number two pencil,

As health experts and city governments advise us all to minimize social contact to slow the spread of COVID-19, I want to encourage everyone to do what they can to help support your neighbors who are most at-risk (elderly, immunocompromised,

Season 1, Episode 7: Why tracking has to go, and what could take its place Grouping students by "ability level" remains the dominant practice in US schools despite over 30 years of research attesting to its negative effects on all students.

Season 1, Episode 8: The penguin vs. the red tailed hawk - Some schools just can't break out of traditional "factory" models no matter how hard they try, while others attempt to re-shape schooling by scrapping everything traditional,

Season 1, Episode 6: Should schools assess students, or grade them? American public education is at a crossroads where we need to decide, is it more important to measure student learning, or to rank it? We may not always be able to do both.

Season 1, Episode 5: Group work that doesn't stink Did you hate group projects in school? The ability to do cooperative work is vital in almost every job -- so why is it so often such a disaster when teachers try and have their students engage in it?

Do you want to learn, or do you want to score well on the test? - Learning is a more complex endeavor than just memorizing and reciting facts, yet our schools still privilege that sort of process. Let's explore why,

Didn't we solve this problem? Why American schools are still segregated by race. - As we celebrate the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and his dream that "former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at ...

Viva la outcomes based revolution...maybe? - An enormous and unprecedented change reshaped American public education in 2001, and schools have been trying to navigate this new landscape ever since. This episode chronicles what changed, why,

 Why is school so boring for so many students? What do educators mean when they talk about "student engagement," and why does there seem to be distressingly little of it in school classrooms across the nation?