Hi Friends,
This week we are proud to share with you Nora De La Cour’s appearance on the podcast Have You Heard, with hosts Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider. It’s an excellent show that thoughtfully and humorously covers the political economy of education and the current battles being fought in and around public schools.
That, of course, makes Nora the perfect guest, as she has been producing some vital work covering the war on public education for OnOne, Jacobin, More Perfect Union, and The Economic Hardship Reporting Project. Focusing on the illiberal push for right-wing “classical” education, the hosts use Nora’s teaching background to highlight the below-named themes.
Public schools are in the throes of multiple slow-moving crises: a teacher exodus, spiking student absenteeism and plunging literacy rates. Yet education reforms implemented as part of the Obama-era ‘theory of change’ have received little blame. Special guest Nora De La Cour, a former teacher who writes about education for Jacobin and other publications, says it’s long past time for an acknowledgment that test-centric reforms have drained the life from public schools. Such reforms have demoralized teachers and left students feeling like school has no purpose, argues De La Cour, and made public education much harder to defend against the right-wing push for private school vouchers and classical education.
Fire up your favorite podcast app or click here to listen!
Solidarity Forever.