Josh Cowen: History of School Vouchers

Josh Cowen discusses his new book, The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers. Prof. Cowen traces voucher history startingvwith the ideological roots as a reaction to the Brown decision to how Christian nationalists use vouchers today to weaken the free exercise clause, As challenges to vouchers continue, the defense and advocacy moved into culture war rhetoric to distract from the dismal metrics about voucher success. Josh Cowen is a professor of education…

Donald Yacovone: Teaching White Supremacy

Donald Yacovone, lifetime associate at Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, discusses his book, “Teaching White Supremacy: America’s Democratic Ordeal and the Forging of Our National Identity.” He talks about the evidence of white supremacy’s deep-seeded roots in our nation’s educational system by looking at nearly 100 years of school textbooks. Yacovone finds that racism seeped in through Lost Cause narratives, exclusion of African Americans from the…

Christopher Span: Book Learning and Slave Education

Christopher Span, Professor of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, discusses his work, “Sam’s Cottonfield Blues” and “Quest for Book Learning: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom.” He discusses why literacy was so feared by white enslavers and crucial to slaves. Detailing how slaves subverted the rules to learn to read while enslavers punished those who did. Prof. Span’s own family provides a powerful example of the rhythm and style of…

Laura Meckler: Shaker Heights History of Integration

Journalist Laura Meckler of the Washington Post discusses her book, Dream Town: Shaker Heights and the Quest for Racial Equity. Beginning with a historical overview of the Cleveland suburb and its uncanny ability to propel itself into the national spotlight, Ms. Meckler discusses how the suburb fought segregation and racial covenants to become one of the first integrated communities in Northeast Ohio. The desegregation of Shaker schools has been one of success and challenge, but through the…

Cameron Fields & Hannah Drown: Cleveland's Promise

Hannah Drown has been with The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com since 2014. During her five years as the Facebook Live news reporter, she covered breaking news, crime, entertainment and a number of other topics through on-the-scene broadcast reporting. Prior, she worked on the Cleveland’s Best team and launched a gluten-free lifestyle column. Cameron Fields has written for cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer since 2020, when he started as a general assignment reporter covering COVID-19,…

Stephanie R. Logan: School Vouchers and Charters

Stephanie R. Logan is an associate professor of elementary and multicultural education. Prof. Logan discusses the history of public school vouchers and the rise of charter schools in the United States. The discussion begins in 1954 and continues through the 21st Century by looking at her 2018 article, "A Historical and Political Look at the Modern School Choice Movement."

Derek W. Black: History of Public Education

Derek Black is a Professor of Law at the University of South Carolina School of Law and the Ernest F. Hollings Chair in Constitutional Law. Professor Derek W. Black discusses his new book, Schoolhouse Burning: Public Education and the Assault on American Democracy. We begin with John Adams and Thomas Jefferson's personal interest in founding a national public education system

Jonathan Wells: Southern Manifesto

Jonathan Daniel Wells, Ph.D., is Professor of History in the Residential College, the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, and the Department of History at the University of Michigan.. His most recent books are Blind no More: African American Resistance, Free Soil Politics, and the Coming of the Civil War and The Kidnapping Club: Wall Street, Slavery, and Resistance on the Eve of the Civil War. Prof. Wells points to the Fugitive Slave Act and Northern resistance to the Federal Law as…

Nancy Heitzeg: School to Prison Pipeline

Dr. Nancy A. Heitzeg is a Professor of Sociology and Director of the interdisciplinary Critical Studies of Race/Ethnicity Program. Dr. Nancy Heitzeg discusses her research and book "The School to Prison Pipeline: Education, Discipline, and Racialized Double Standards." Dr. Heitzeg touches on police in schools, unfair suspensions, racialized biases, and the emergence of a system of medicalization that is different for white and black children.