Shows
Democracy and EducationConfronting Extremism in FloridaFlorida is the birthplace of Moms for Liberty. It is also the state where the governor has spent millions of dollars to elect extremist members of school boards around the state who have banned books, fired superintendents, and in general wreaked havoc on local school systems.In the face of that, communities around the state have come together to elect pro-public education school board members.In this episode, Karin Chenoweth talks with three who won in 2024.· Stephanie Vanos, who defeated a Moms for Liberty candidate in Orange County...
2025-06-0949 minDemocracy and EducationEpisode 11: Extremism on the GroundIn this episode of Democracy and Education, Bobby Omari, who lost his bid for a school board seat in California’s Chino Valley United School District, shares the lessons he learned and the lessons he thinks others can learned from his campaign.Among other things, he thinks he underestimated the political sway a Christian Nationalist mega-church has in local politics, including in “harvesting” thousands of votes of its parishioners—that is, gathering mail-in votes and delivering them to the election board.Although Omari and his volunteers knocked thousands of doors, h...
2025-05-1932 minDemocracy and EducationEpisode 10: Extremism: The Big PictureWhen education researcher and parent Jamie Martin first heard NBC’s podcast about the Southlake Families, the group that had taken the majority of the school board in the Carroll School District in Texas proclaiming their allegiance to “parental rights,” she noticed that their web site looked remarkably like that of Francis Howell Families in her Missouri district. It had the same branding and the same language attacking critical race theory, transgender children, and teachers.That started her down the path of researching the influence of national organizations on local school board races.
2025-04-0756 min
Nerd Farmer PodcastThe Consequences of Abandoning School Integration – Karin Chenoweth, Author – 233One of the least discussed stories in US public education is our decision to walk away from what worked. School integration in the US peaked in 1987, coinciding with the achievement gap between Black and white students reaching its narrowest point.
What began with the Supreme Court’s Brown ruling in 1954 and was picked up with Title I legislation as a part of the Great Society by Lyndon Johnson, was abandoned by Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. In the aftermath schools have resegregated to the point that a typical white student in the US now attends a sch...
2025-01-2144 min
Have You Heard#183 Change of HeartWhen Courtney Gore ran for school board in a deep red Texas county, she pledged to root out indoctrination. But once she got into office, Gore could find no evidence of indoctrination happening in the local schools. She has since disavowed the far-right platform she ran on and now argues that the school culture wars are being ginned up in order to build support for private school vouchers–and a growing number of local Republicans agree with her. Education journalist Karin Chenoweth interviewed Gore on her podcast, Democracy and Education, and gave us permission to share their conversation on Have Yo...
2024-09-0556 minDemocracy and EducationEpisode 9: Rejecting ExtremismDemocracy and EducationEpisode 9Rejecting Extremism Alarmed by the allegations made by Libs for TikTok and Moms for Liberty, Courtney Gore ran for school board in her home town of Granbury Texas in 2021. Once on the board, she searched for the evidence of indoctrination and the sexualization of children she had been warned of. When she found none, she went back to her community to tell them the good news. But they didn’t want to hear it and cut ties with her.
2024-08-0742 minDemocracy and EducationEpisode 8: Running a Winning Campaign in OhioWhen Sara Bitter ran for school board in a suburban district in Cincinnati, it was after she had already run twice for the state legislature. She knew how to run a contested campaign.But she thought running for the non-partisan school board seat would be different—less contentious, less political. After all, she says, most people just want school board members who will be a good steward of tax dollars and ensure that the children of the community are educated.Then outside money flooded into her district, funding her opponents who used th...
2024-06-1843 minDemocracy and EducationWorking Statewide--Arkansas EditionSteve Grappe says Arkansans are trying to take back political power through “direct democracy.”Grappe, who lives in Rosebud Arkansas on Forevermost Farms, is the former head of the Rural Caucus, former head of the Citizens for Arkansas Public Education and Students (CAPES), and is the new head of Stand Up Arkansas.In a wide-ranging discussion, Grappe describes how he and others throughout the state are working to re-engage Arkansans in civic and political life. Far too many Arkansans, he says, say that their vote and their views don’t coun...
2024-05-0141 minDemocracy and EducationWorking Statewide--Minnesota Edition After dozens of extremists funded and trained by people outside her home state of Minnesota won school board races in 2022, long-time political campaign worker Kyrstin Schuette said, “Someone needs to do something.” She decided that extremists were able to win in part because school board candidates who support public education didn’t have access to the knowledge and expertise that other candidates have. So she started the School Board Integrity Project in order to provide school board candidates with the kind of practical help she had provided to statehouse, congressional, and presidential candidates: Help figuring out th...
2024-04-2348 minDemocracy and EducationDemocracy and Education, Episode 5: A Victory Against ExtremismIn 2021 Nicole Cole was elected to the Spotsylvania Virginia school board at the same time as two others who, together with existing members of the board, formed a majority that immediately tried to fire the superintendent and ban books. The board president even said he wanted to burn books that were in the school library. The new superintendent they hired banned 37 books, including Toni Morrisson’s The Bluest Eye.Together with a core group of community members, Cole formed a PAC—Support Spotsylvania Public Schools—and got to work to recruit and support candidates who wo...
2024-03-1038 minDemocracy and EducationIt's 2024. Let's Get Going!In this first episode of 2024, Democracy and Education is revamped to a new, shorter and more frequent interview format featuring Karin Chenoweth talking with school board candidates and people working on school board campaigns. Throughout the year we will talk about what strategies and tactics are successful and which are unsuccessful, as well as the political environment in which those campaigns operate.To kick the year off, Karin checks in with Kris Amundson. Kris is a former school board member, a former member of the Virginia General Assembly, and former head of the National Association of State...
2024-02-1836 minDemocracy and EducationStanding up for public education in Plano TexasIn the spring of 2023 in Plano Texas a slate of pro-public education, common-sense candidates won their races for school board. This, despite the fact that extremists had supported a competing slate with expert communications and strategy help.In this episode, we hear from Michael Cook, Tarrah Lantz, and Katherine Chan Goodwin, who joined together on a slate formed by a local non-partisan organization, Keep Plano #1.Keep Plano #1 had been formed to support the “best candidate,” not party labels, according to Steve Lavine, the president. And he urged the three to r...
2024-01-0546 minDemocracy and EducationStanding up to extremism in Carmel IndianaIn Carmel Clay School District in Indiana, the fairly new superintendent pledged he would do something to address the fact that many students and parents of color had experienced racist incidents or racist assumptions. He hired a diversity, equity, and inclusion coordinator. That prompted a backlash from a group of people, many of whom had no children in the schools and some of whom didn’t even live in the school district. People from neighboring towns flooded school board meetings, yelling and disrupting the meetings. They said Carmel had no problem with racism and complained not only ab...
2024-01-051h 09
NBN Book of the DayKarin Chenoweth, "Districts That Succeed: Breaking the Correlation Between Race, Poverty, and Achievement" (Harvard Education Press, 2021)In Districts That Succeed: Breaking the Correlation Between Race, Poverty, and Achievement (Harvard Education Press, 2021), long-time education writer Karin Chenoweth turns her attention from effective schools to effective districts. Leveraging new, cutting-edge national research on district performance as well as in-depth reporting, Chenoweth profiles five districts that have successfully broken the correlation between race, poverty, and achievement. Focusing on high performing or rapidly improving districts that serve children of color and children from low-income backgrounds, the book explores the common elements that have led to the districts' successes, including leadership, processes, and systems. Districts That Succeed reveals that...
2023-05-0947 min
New Books in EducationKarin Chenoweth, "Districts That Succeed: Breaking the Correlation Between Race, Poverty, and Achievement" (Harvard Education Press, 2021)In Districts That Succeed: Breaking the Correlation Between Race, Poverty, and Achievement (Harvard Education Press, 2021), long-time education writer Karin Chenoweth turns her attention from effective schools to effective districts. Leveraging new, cutting-edge national research on district performance as well as in-depth reporting, Chenoweth profiles five districts that have successfully broken the correlation between race, poverty, and achievement. Focusing on high performing or rapidly improving districts that serve children of color and children from low-income backgrounds, the book explores the common elements that have led to the districts' successes, including leadership, processes, and systems. Districts That Succeed reveals that...
2023-05-0947 min
New Books in Public PolicyKarin Chenoweth, "Districts That Succeed: Breaking the Correlation Between Race, Poverty, and Achievement" (Harvard Education Press, 2021)In Districts That Succeed: Breaking the Correlation Between Race, Poverty, and Achievement (Harvard Education Press, 2021), long-time education writer Karin Chenoweth turns her attention from effective schools to effective districts. Leveraging new, cutting-edge national research on district performance as well as in-depth reporting, Chenoweth profiles five districts that have successfully broken the correlation between race, poverty, and achievement. Focusing on high performing or rapidly improving districts that serve children of color and children from low-income backgrounds, the book explores the common elements that have led to the districts' successes, including leadership, processes, and systems. Districts That Succeed reveals that...
2023-05-0947 min
New Books in African American StudiesKarin Chenoweth, "Districts That Succeed: Breaking the Correlation Between Race, Poverty, and Achievement" (Harvard Education Press, 2021)In Districts That Succeed: Breaking the Correlation Between Race, Poverty, and Achievement (Harvard Education Press, 2021), long-time education writer Karin Chenoweth turns her attention from effective schools to effective districts. Leveraging new, cutting-edge national research on district performance as well as in-depth reporting, Chenoweth profiles five districts that have successfully broken the correlation between race, poverty, and achievement. Focusing on high performing or rapidly improving districts that serve children of color and children from low-income backgrounds, the book explores the common elements that have led to the districts' successes, including leadership, processes, and systems. Districts That Succeed reveals that...
2023-05-0947 minDemocracy and EducationStanding up to extremists in Conejo Valley CaliforniaIn the 2016 election for the Conejo Valley School Board, an extreme right-wing candidate narrowly beat an incumbent. She hadn’t campaigned on wanting to ban books or fanning resentments of teachers, so many in the community hadn’t recognized the danger. But once she took office, giving the extremists a three-person majority, it was as if “the costumes came off,” says Betsy Connelly, who was a school board member at the time. The school board majority encouraged parents to file complaints against teachers and did what they could to discourage teachers from assigning a wide variety of books. “We woke up. T...
2023-02-261h 05Democracy and EducationStanding up to extremists in Conejo Valley CaliforniaIn the 2016 election for the Conejo Valley School Board, an extreme right-wing candidate narrowly beat an incumbent. She hadn’t campaigned on wanting to ban books or fanning resentments of teachers, so many in the community hadn’t recognized the danger. But once she took office, giving the extremists a three-person majority, it was as if “the costumes came off,” says Betsy Connolly, who was a school board member at the time. The school board majority encouraged parents to file complaints against teachers and did what they could to discourage teachers from assigning a wide variety of books. “We woke up. T...
2023-02-261h 05
ExtraOrdinary DistrictsA Dream Project, Staff Shortages, and Canceling the Ku Klux Klan—Wait, What?In Episode 4, we hear from Melinda Young, superintendent of Steubenville City Public Schools, Kayla Whitlatch, Steubenville’s treasurer, and Lynnett Gorman, the district’s federal grants administrator, about how ESSER funds are allowing Steubenville to construct a STEM building connected to the high school, which they view as a long-term investment in students’ dreams and post-pandemic economic growth. “This is the money to use for our dreams that we probably would never have had enough money to do any other way,” Young says. In Geary County, Kansas, Dr. Deb Gustafson, associate superintendent, and Jennie Black, director of curriculum and instructio...
2022-05-2342 minExtraOrdinary DistrictsLeading the WayIn Episode 3, leaders in two states explain how they are using ESSER funds to pursue statewide improvement efforts. In Delaware, recently retired state superintendent, Dr. Susan Bunting, along with Dr. Michael Saylor, education associate for school leadership initiatives, and Dr. Jackie Wilson, director of the Delaware Academy for School Leadership, note that their state has developed a leadership pipeline that includes teacher leaders, assistant principals, principals, and superintendents, in response to the fact that 40% of current principals and assistant principals will be eligible to retire in the next five years. In Maryland, we hear from State Superintendent of Schools...
2022-05-1628 minExtraOrdinary DistrictsAddressing Learning NeedsIn Episode 2, we sit down with Tricia McManus, superintendent of Winston-Salem Forsyth County Schools, who says that her district is making the most of its relief money by using it to address pressing needs and invest for the future. She’s spending on everything from COVID mitigation and new curricula to contracting with community “violence interrupters” to help mentor and engage students. She is also hiring an evaluator to ensure that the district will be able to see what works and needs to be extended and what doesn’t and needs to be stopped. “I don’t believe we’ll ever have t...
2022-05-0924 minExtraOrdinary DistrictsWhere Are All Those Dollars Going?In Episode 1, we talk about the big picture with Phyllis Jordan of FutureEd, a Washington think tank that has been tracking how districts are spending the money. She says that what is very clear is that what she calls “under-resourced districts” are using much of their money for immediate needs, such as repairs or to prevent illness. We also talk with Dr. Luvelle Brown, a superintendent in Ithaca, New York, and Dr. Corey Miklus, a superintendent in Seaford, Delaware, about how much of their Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds had to be spent to keep students and staf...
2022-05-0223 min
Cognia Leader ChatEpisode 24: Districts that Succeed with Karin Chenoweth (Part 2)In our last podcast with Karin Chenoweth discussing her new book, Districts That Succeed, Jeff simply was not able to squeeze his questions into just one sitting. Fortunately, she was gracious enough to come back for Part 2.
2022-04-2048 minCognia Leader ChatEpisode 23: Districts that Succeed with Karin Chenoweth (Part1)For schools to truly be successful, we learn in this conversation that the district does in fact matter. Jeff talks with the well-known educational author and researcher, Karin Chenowith. Karin is writer-in-residence at The Education Trust. Her latest book, Districts that Succeed: Breaking the Correlation Between Race, Poverty, and Achievement is what grabbed Jeff’s attention. In fact, this conversation is the first of a two-part Leader Chat. If you are an educational leader, responsible for supporting schools, these are must listens!
2022-04-1352 minExtraOrdinary DistrictsCOMING SOON: Season 5 of ExtraOrdinary DistrictsAre you wondering how school districts are spending the money the federal government sent them to get through the COVID crisis? Karin Chenoweth, a writer-in-residence at The Education Trust, has been talking with educators around the country for Season 5 of ExtraOrdinary Districts.
Karin explores how this once-in-a-generation investment in education is being used to meet the immediate needs of students during the pandemic and to set up long-term strategies to address inequities.
2022-04-1303 min
Urban Principal: Leadership LessonsSuccessful DistrictsThis episode looks at how districts can be more self-reflective and looks at questions answered by Karin Chenoweth through her book “Districts That Succeed: Breaking the Correlation Between Race, Poverty, and Achievement.”
2021-07-1316 min
I Hate Politics PodcastSchools: Leadership First, Then BudgetsIn this episode, Sunil Dasgupta talks with education author Karin Chenoweth about her new book, Districts that Succeed, where she looks at five successful school districts that beat severe challenges, and with Richard Montgomery High School (MCPS) history teacher Jerome Price about how schools need to practice what they preach on anti-racism. Very local news. Music from The Airport 77s.
2021-06-2556 min
Little Things FirstWhat's going on in Mississippi? The case for strong district leadership for systemic changeTracy and Jim re-interview Karin Chenoweth, one of our first podcast guests, to discuss her new book DISTRICTS THAT SUCCEED about the role that districts play in systemic change and sustainability. Karin talks about some of the flatlining that has occurred across the nation especially in reading, except for recent rising scores in Mississippi. She discusses some of the work Mississippi has specifically been doing with regard to the science of reading, a topic that Karin has explored on her podcast EXTRAORDINARY DISTRICTS.
https://edtrust.org/extraordinary-districts/
How Principals Affect Students and Schools: A Systematic Syn...
2021-05-0441 minExtraOrdinary DistrictsDistricts That SucceedIn the final episode of this season of ExtraOrdinary Districts, Tanji Reed Marshall interviews her co-host Karin Chenoweth about Chenoweth’s new book, Districts that Succeed: Breaking the Correlation Between Race, Poverty, and Achievement, which will be published May 25 by Harvard Education Press.
Be sure to subscribe to ExtraOrdinary Districts to be notified of new episodes when they come out.
2021-04-2348 minExtraOrdinary DistrictsWhat Have We Heard? What Have We Learned?In this episode, ExtraOrdinary Districts co-hosts Karin Chenoweth and Tanji Reed Marshall chew over what they heard and what they learned from five previous episodes that explored different aspects of reading instruction. They connect the question of reading instruction to our historical moment in which we as a nation are deciding whether to be a democracy in which all citizens are equal or an autocracy in which some citizens are marked to be members of a lower caste. If we are to be a democracy, all our citizens must be educated. At the very least that means able to...
2021-04-1657 minExtraOrdinary DistrictsWhat Can States Do to Improve Reading Instruction?When Tennessee showed no progress on the last results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress and Massachusetts actually declined, both states were spurred to make some major changes to improve the reading instruction in their states.
In this episode, Dr. Lisa Coons, chief academic officer of the Tennessee State Department of Education, Dr. Heather Peske, senior associate commissioner, Massachusetts Department of Education, and Katherine Tarca, director of literacy and humanities in the Massachusetts Dept. of Education, discuss what those two states are doing.
Coons describes a statewide effort that is being driven by the...
2021-04-0951 minExtraOrdinary Districts“High-Quality Materials”Most elementary schools teach reading with either a basal reading program, a teacher-developed curriculum, or a balanced literacy program like Fountas & Pinnell or Teachers College Units of Study.
But the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), in calling for a national improvement in reading instruction, has called upon all state superintendents and commissioners to encourage schools and districts to adopt the high-quality materials that have been developed in the last few years to line up with both Common Core state standards and with the science of reading.
In this episode, experts Carol Jago and...
2021-04-021h 04ExtraOrdinary DistrictsThe "Science of Reading"The last results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress showed no progress and some indicators even declined, meaning few children are reading at an advanced or proficient level.
Partly because of those disappointing results and partly because of a series of podcasts by American Public Media’s Emily Hanford, a growing number of educators, parents, advocates, and policymakers have become interested in incorporating the “science of reading” into reading instruction in hopes of improving the reading ability of American children.
And the science of reading forms a large part of the call of the Counci...
2021-03-261h 10ExtraOrdinary DistrictsThe Right to ReadThe right to be taught how to read is a birthright of all Americans, argues attorney Mark Rosenbaum. And schools have a responsibility to teach them, says reading expert Nell Duke. They are allies in a series of legal cases to try to establish the “right to read,” and they join podcast co-hosts Karin Chenoweth and Tanji Reed Marshall in this second installment of a series of podcasts about reading instruction. (The first was a conversation with reading researcher Alfred Tatum.)
Among other things, they discussed the three legal cases Rosenbaum has brought:
Michigan: In 2019, a pane...
2021-03-1959 minExtraOrdinary DistrictsSchool Leaders REALLY MatterThe education field has long understood that improving class instruction was the key to improving student learning. But for the past two decades, the focus of national and state policy, as well as the efforts of education practitioners, has been almost exclusively on teachers and their practices. In 2004, however, an important study established that principals were important to student […]
2021-03-121h 00ExtraOrdinary DistrictsOpening a School Building in the Time of COVIDSchools have come under increasing pressure to reopen their buildings so that students can attend in person again. But those who insist that schools are safe don’t often acknowledge the work that must be done in order to make them safe. Jennifer Robbins, principal of Ladd Acres Elementary School in Hillsboro, Oregon, talks about the many things that have had […]
2021-03-0547 minExtraOrdinary DistrictsThe State of Reading in AmericaRecently the organization representing state education superintendents issued a statement urging their members to make reading instruction a core focus. During the rest of this season, we will have an ongoing discussion of why the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) took such an unusual step and the implications of its statement. To kick off this series of discussions, […]
2021-02-261h 04ExtraOrdinary DistrictsManaging COVID-19Junction City, Kansas (USD 475 Geary County) re-opened school buildings in September after a summer of planning and a myriad of mitigation measures, from closing down water fountains to ensuring that students face in the same direction whenever possible—as well as making sure every school has a nurse or nurse clerk and putting in equipment to change the air in […]
2021-02-121h 18ExtraOrdinary Districts“It’s amazing how much kids adapt and learn.”After a fall of flipping between opening and closing school buildings, Godwin Heights Public Schools in western Michigan responded to a huge spike in community spread of coronavirus by deciding to close before Thanksgiving until at least January 19. Part of the decision rested on the fact that it had become difficult to fully staff schools as bus drivers, janitorial […]
2020-12-1853 minExtraOrdinary Districts“Something that was already a yeoman’s job has become even greater.”“Something that was already a yeoman’s job has become even greater.”
2020-12-1155 min2020-12-0449 minExtraOrdinary Districts“We have a third of our kids in every day. But one hundred percent of our students are learning every single day”“We have a third of our kids in every day. But one hundred percent of our students are learning every single day” In this episode of Season Four of The Education Trust’s podcast, ExtraOrdinary Districts, Nicholas Stirling, superintendent of Valley Stream 30 in Nassau County New York, is joined by assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction Jennifer Lewner and three […]
2020-11-2749 minExtraOrdinary Districts“As soon as we’re back to normal, we’ll have to accelerate our kids.”In this inaugural episode of Season Four of The Education Trust’s podcast, ExtraOrdinary Districts, Sergio Garcia, principal of Artesia High School in ABC Unified District in Los Angeles County, is joined by two teachers: William Napier, chair of the special education department and Stephanie Palutzke, acting dean. Napier and Palutzke are also the school’s teacher union representatives, and they and […]
2020-11-1946 minExtraOrdinary DistrictsExtraOrdinary Districts - Season 4 is Coming!The Education Trust is about to launch Season 4 of ExtraOrdinary Districts. In our first two seasons we provided in-depth profiles of school districts that are breaking the correlation between race, poverty, and academic achievement. Before we could even choose the next districts to go to, the pandemic hit. So for season 3, Ed Trust’s Director of Practice Tanji Reed […]
2020-10-0602 minExtraOrdinary Districts“What Did We Hear? What Did We Learn?”In a lively conversation, Tanji Reed Marshall and Karin Chenoweth wrap up Season 3, ExtraOrdinary Districts in Extraordinary Times, by talking through what they have heard from school and district leaders from Alabama, California, Delaware, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon and Washington D.C. Over the course of 19 episodes, front-line educators have […]
2020-07-0147 minExtraOrdinary Districts“What Did We Hear? What Did We Learn?”In a lively conversation, Tanji Reed Marshall and Karin Chenoweth wrap up Season 1 of ExtraOrdinary Districts in Extraordinary Times by talking through what they have heard from school and district leaders from Alabama, California, Delaware, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon and Washington D.C. Over the course of 19 episodes, front-line educators […]
2020-07-0147 minExtraOrdinary Districts“We’ve been planning, planning, planning.”“If we’re face-to-face, we’ll be pretty good with that. If we’re remote, we’re 80% there,” says superintendent Corey Miklus in Seaford, Delaware, about the upcoming fall semester. “The real question is if we go to a hybrid format, because in that hybrid format there’s probably about 50 to 100 different scenarios you could work out.” Should they have A days […]
2020-06-2927 minExtraOrdinary Districts“We’ve been planning, planning, planning.”“If we’re face-to-face, we’ll be pretty good with that. If we’re remote, we’re 80% there,” says superintendent Corey Miklus in Seaford, Delaware, about the upcoming fall semester. “The real question is if we go to a hybrid format, because in that hybrid format there’s probably about 50 to 100 different scenarios you could work out.” Should they have A days […]
2020-06-2927 minExtraOrdinary Districts“Schools that already had cohesive cultures did the best”Dr. Sonja Santelises joins ExtraOrdinary Districts in Extraordinary Times to discusses the Black Lives Matter protests and the decisions she faces as superintendent of Baltimore in planning for the return of students in the fall — from what equipment she is having to buy to what changes in the curriculum she will have to make. Surveys to gather information and […]
2020-06-2451 minExtraOrdinary Districts“Schools that already had cohesive cultures did the best”Dr. Sonja Santelises joins ExtraOrdinary Districts in Extraordinary Times to discusses the Black Lives Matter protests and the decisions she faces as superintendent of Baltimore in planning for the return of students in the fall — from what equipment she is having to buy to what changes in the curriculum she will have to make. Surveys to gather information and […]
2020-06-2451 minExtraOrdinary Districts“Our hope is to come back as close to normal as we possibly can.”By using gyms and deploying every possible teacher, even if they don’t have all the proper certifications, Steubenville’s superintendent Melinda Young is hoping to “open up all day every day.” The only exception is that 4-year-olds will attend three days a week and 3-year-olds will go two times a week. “We just feel so strongly that we need those students […]
2020-06-1928 minExtraOrdinary Districts“Our hope is to come back as close to normal as we possibly can.”By using gyms and deploying every possible teacher, even if they don’t have all the proper certifications, Steubenville’s superintendent Melinda Young is hoping to “open up all day every day.” The only exception is that 4-year-olds will attend three days a week and 3-year-olds will go two times a week. “We just feel so strongly that we need those students […]
2020-06-1928 minExtraOrdinary Districts"Virtual learning on steroids."Increased costs in the face of massive budget cuts means that the already difficult task of re-opening school buildings becomes even more complicated. “It’s overwhelming,” says Vincent Romano, principal of Malverne High School in Nassau County, New York. In this episode of ExtraOrdinary Districts in Extraordinary Times, Romano and Sergio Garcia, principal of Artesia High School in Los Angeles County, […]
2020-06-1738 minExtraOrdinary Districts"Virtual learning on steroids."Increased costs in the face of massive budget cuts means that the already difficult task of re-opening school buildings becomes even more complicated. “It’s overwhelming,” says Vincent Romano, principal of Malverne High School in Nassau County, New York. In this episode of ExtraOrdinary Districts in Extraordinary Times, Romano and Sergio Garcia, principal of Artesia High School in Los Angeles County, […]
2020-06-1738 minExtraOrdinary Districts"We have the resources."“The money exists to ensure that all students are served,” says Tricia McManus, the brand-new deputy superintendent of Winston-Salem Public Schools in North Carolina. The question, she adds, is whether we as a nation are willing to spend it. When the pandemic closed schools, McManus said, it shone a light on the needs of all children. “We definitely saw that […]
2020-06-1135 minExtraOrdinary Districts"We have the resources."“The money exists to ensure that all students are served,” says Tricia McManus, the brand-new deputy superintendent of Winston-Salem Public Schools in North Carolina. The question, she adds, is whether we as a nation are willing to spend it. When the pandemic closed schools, McManus said, it shone a light on the needs of all children. “We definitely saw that […]
2020-06-1135 minExtraOrdinary Districts“This is so much of a harder task to perform”Providing distance learning is much harder than providing an education in person, says Mary Haynes-Smith, principal of Mary McLeod Bethune Elementary School in New Orleans. Bethune is a school that runs on personal relationships and hugging, and building a culture of resiliency is much more difficult when done through computers, she said. “This is so much of a harder task […]
2020-06-0847 minExtraOrdinary Districts“This is so much of a harder task to perform”Providing distance learning is much harder than providing an education in person, says Mary Haynes-Smith, principal of Mary McLeod Bethune Elementary School in New Orleans. Bethune is a school that runs on personal relationships and hugging, and building a culture of resiliency is much more difficult when done through computers, she said. “This is so much of a harder task […]
2020-06-0847 minExtraOrdinary Districts“We’ve borrowed the phrase, provide grace”“The biggest bonus” of the remote learning that Godwyn Heights School District in Michigan has been doing is the strengthened ties between school and families, says Mary Lang, principal of West Elementary School. Another bonus, says Michelle Krynicki, director of curriculum and instruction for the district, is that bonds among teachers have also been strengthened. She has heard teachers say, […]
2020-06-0247 minExtraOrdinary Districts“We’ve borrowed the phrase, provide grace”“The biggest bonus” of the remote learning that Godwyn Heights School District in Michigan has been doing is the strengthened ties between school and families, says Mary Lang, principal of West Elementary School. Another bonus, says Michelle Krynicki, director of curriculum and instruction for the district, is that bonds among teachers have also been strengthened. She has heard teachers say, […]
2020-06-0247 minExtraOrdinary Districts“We have the opportunity and I hope we don’t waste it”Jennifer Robbins, principal of Ladd Acres Elementary School in Hillsboro, Oregon, has been collecting and studying data about which of her school’s students are showing up to distance learning classes and what they are learning. She wants to know, “What types of lessons are really working?” One sixth grade teacher, for example, says he is getting better results in math […]
2020-05-2840 minExtraOrdinary Districts“We have the opportunity and I hope we don’t waste it”Jennifer Robbins, principal of Ladd Acres Elementary School in Hillsboro, Oregon, has been collecting and studying data about which of her school’s students are showing up to distance learning classes and what they are learning. She wants to know, “What types of lessons are really working?” One sixth grade teacher, for example, says he is getting better results in math […]
2020-05-2840 minExtraOrdinary Districts“This is going to make our system better”After delivering 10,000 devices, thousands of Wi-Fi hot spots, and 300,000 meals per week, Mobile County Public Schools created a hybrid system of instructional packets, online instruction, and television instruction to provide children and families choices in how continue their education. Many systems around Mobile “just gave worksheets or busy work,” Superintendent Chresal Threadgill says, and he has faced backlash […]
2020-05-2531 minExtraOrdinary Districts“This is going to make our system better”After delivering 10,000 devices, thousands of Wi-Fi hot spots, and 300,000 meals per week, Mobile County Public Schools created a hybrid system of instructional packets, online instruction, and television instruction to provide children and families choices in how continue their education. Many systems around Mobile “just gave worksheets or busy work,” Superintendent Chresal Threadgill says, and he has faced backlash […]
2020-05-2531 minExtraOrdinary Districts“Our schools were not built for this.”That sounds like an obvious statement, says Daniel St. Louis, principal of University Park Campus School (UPCS) in Worcester, Massachusetts. But “a big part of how we see our identity has been taken away” by the school closures following the pandemic. “One of our great, great strengths is the relationships — the social learning, group work, learning together, being with […]
2020-05-1140 minExtraOrdinary Districts“We would be wrong to believe that education won’t be transformed forever”“It hurts my heart tremendously” to know that gaps in achievement will grow during the shutdown of school buildings, says Jennie Black, principal of Washington Elementary in Junction City, Kansas. She is most worried about the students who were already struggling in school before buildings closed and aren’t logging into school lessons during this time. She and her teachers have […]
2020-05-0737 minExtraOrdinary Districts"We're trying not to overwhelm them, because they are living through a pandemic."Before their school building closed, teachers and leaders at Garfield Prep Academy in Washington, D.C., learned as much as they could about COVID-19 and shared that with students and parents. The next step was to gather materials and lessons that students could take home. Once school closed, says principal Kennard Branch, “the first order of business was to make sure […]
2020-05-0440 minExtraOrdinary Districts“Why Did We Even Think That Could Work?”Educators in Steubenville, Ohio, have been scrambling ever since hearing that their schools might close. With no clear standards for how to operate schools remotely, they have been trying things, evaluating them, and revising. “It’s a learning process,” says Superintendent Melinda Young. Initially thinking schools would only be closed for two weeks, teachers put together packets with review materials that […]
2020-04-3041 minExtraOrdinary Districts“There Are So Many Unknowns.”Corey Miklus became superintendent of Seaford (Delaware) Public Schools in January. On March 13 he closed the buildings to students. “These are some challenging times, but we’re figuring it out just like everyone else is.” Since closing its doors, the district has distributed 600 computers to families and worked with local internet providers to provide Wi-Fi for low or no […]
2020-04-2741 minExtraOrdinary Districts“They are rising to the challenge”“This is different. This is hard for some of our parents. We have to show compassion and patience,” says Faith Belle-Lucy, principal of Dr. Robert W. Gilliard Elementary in Mobile, Alabama. Parents and students are facing a brand-new world of distance learning, she said, and not all are ready. Over the past few weeks a team of 10 volunteer teachers […]
2020-04-2330 minExtraOrdinary DistrictsCreating the New Normal Day by DayWe are “creating the new normal,” Superintendent Dr. Nicholas Stirling says. As his schools closed this spring, Valley Stream 30 in Nassau County, New York, phased in its response. The first two weeks, “phase one,” recognized that “everyone would be dealing with the fear and the anxiety, the emotional impact of what we’re being put through.” During that time the […]
2020-04-2031 minExtraOrdinary Districts“Let’s teach….But remember the context.”“Let’s teach….But remember the context.”
2020-04-1633 minExtraOrdinary DistrictsMaintaining Relationships in a Distance Learning WorldOn March 11, Malverne High School in Nassau County, New York, collected cell phones from their students in an attempt to help them become more mindful and focused in school. Within three days, as they prepared to shut down in the wake of Covid-19, “We were telling them, ‘connect, connect, connect,’” principal Dr. Vincent Romano says. All Malverne students were given iPads, and teachers have plunged into teaching their classes and are staying in touch with their students. But the school closure, Romano said, “is devastating,” particularly for seniors who were looking forward to the spring musical and athletic contests. “The prom is still...
2020-04-1335 minExtraOrdinary DistrictsNo Computer, No Wi-Fi, & No Cell Coverage While America Is Supposed to be Learning OnlineJohn Daniel, superintendent of Cottonwood Public Schools in rural Oklahoma, talks about the challenges of making sure students don’t fall behind when many of his students and teachers don’t have access to computers, Wi Fi, or even reliable cell phone service. The one good thing that might come out of this experience, Daniel said, is a public commitment to ensuring digital access to all of Oklahoma and the rest of the country.
2020-04-0733 minExtraOrdinary DistrictsPanel Discussion on “Systems to Build Knowledge”To talk about the lessons we can learn from Valley Stream 30 (episode #6), Ed Trust brought together Jeffrey Howard, founder of The Efficacy Institute, Natalie Wexler, author of The Knowledge Gap, and Josh Anisansel, a Long Island school administrator who wrote his doctoral dissertation on Valley Stream 30. In a wide-ranging conversation moderated by podcast creator Karin Chenoweth, Josh […]
2019-12-301h 10ExtraOrdinary DistrictsValley Stream 30: Systems to Build KnowledgeValley Stream 30 is just over the Nassau County line from Queens, New York, and has attracted a diverse population of African Americans, Hispanics, and relatively new immigrants from Africa, the Caribbean, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. It is in many ways a classic “white flight” district. Twenty years ago, 40 percent of the elementary school district was white. Today, only […]
2019-12-2356 minExtraOrdinary DistrictsPanel Discussion on “Fast Improvement in Delaware”To talk about the progress Seaford has made in the last few years (episode #4) Ed Trust brought together Sonja Santelises, CEO of Baltimore City Public Schools, author Richard Kahlenberg, and Sharon Brittingham, a Seaford native who is a former principal and today coaches principals throughout Delaware. Moderated by podcast creator Karin Chenoweth, they had a wide-ranging discussion about reading […]
2019-12-161h 14ExtraOrdinary DistrictsSeaford, Delaware: Fast Improvement in DelawareSeaford, Delaware, was the “Nylon Capital of the World” until DuPont closed its plant. Today it has twice the rate of poverty as the rest of the state. For years, three of its four elementary schools were among the lowest performing in the state. But Sean Reardon identified it as a district where African American students were learning at a […]
2019-12-0951 minExtraOrdinary DistrictsDiscussion of Lane, OklahomaPanel Discussion of “Exposing and Learning From Expertise” with reading researcher Timothy Shanahan, University of Illinois-Chicago’s Steve Tozer, and Todd Hughes of the Choctaw Nation.
2019-12-0252 minExtraOrdinary DistrictsLane, OK: Exposing and Learning from SuccessA small, kindergarten-through-8th-grade district in rural Oklahoma, Lane was identified by Sean Reardon, Professor of Poverty and Inequality at Stanford University, as one of the few districts in the country that “grow” its students almost six academic years in five calendar years (Chicago, profiled in Season 1, is another). Since he identified it, Lane has improved its absolute achievement considerably. […]
2019-11-2554 minExtraOrdinary DistrictsLive! With ExtraOrdinary Districts – A Discussion on District ImprovementTo kick off Season 2 of ExtraOrdinary Districts, we brought together an all-star panel to discuss school district improvement. Janice Jackson, CEO of Chicago Public Schools, Harvard University’s Ronald F. Ferguson, and University of Michigan’s Nell Duke. The panel, moderated by ExtraOrdinary District creator Karin Chenoweth, had a wide-ranging discussion that went from the need for carefully designed early reading […]
2019-11-181h 06ExtraOrdinary DistrictsExtraOrdinary Districts Season 2 is Coming!We’re excited to announce season 2 of ExtraOrdinary Districts is coming in November 2019! Take a listen to this quick preview and then subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Haven’t listened to Season 1 yet? That’s ok. Download the full season and get to bingeing!
2019-10-1803 minLittle Things FirstSchool Systems that Change ResultsToday, we interview reporter Karin Chenoweth about what she has discovered in successful schools across the country. Her findings have been assembled into four books, the latest focusing on systemic efforts at school reform. What are the little things that can happen at the school system level to change outcomes for young people? Ms. Chenoweth shares her wisdom in an extended episode.
2019-09-0334 minExtraOrdinary DistrictsSpecial Edition: Segregation, Integration and the Milford 11Delaware’s first African American attorney went before the state’s first Catholic judge in 1952 to ask that Delaware’s schools be desegregated. The judge agreed that segregation should be dismantled but that only the U.S. Supreme Court had the power to do so. It did so on May 17, 1954, in Brown v. Board of Education. That September, 11 African American […]
2019-05-1754 minExtraOrdinary DistrictsSpecial Edition: ExtraOrdinary Districts Need Extraordinary School Leaders. How Do We Get Them?Education Trust’s podcast, “ExtraOrdinary Districts,” illustrated that: school leaders who believe in the capacity of all children, no matter what their background, are critical to improving schools; and school leadership is a potential lever for chang...
2018-04-1258 minExtraOrdinary DistrictsExtraOrdinary Districts: Chicago Part 3 – On the GroundChicago Chief Education Officer Janice Jackson states that Chicago’s principal-development strategy is directly correlated to its improving graduation rates and test scores. Here, we visit the high school that she opened as principal, George Westinghouse Academy on the west side of Chicago, and meet principal Patrick McGill, who says, “The landscape of school leaders has completely changed in CPS over […]
2017-11-1327 minExtraOrdinary DistrictsExtraOrdinary Districts: Chicago Part 2 – Stumbling Toward Some AnswersHow would Chicago school district know what worked and what didn’t? With foundation help, the University of Chicago launched the Consortium on School Research, where research superstars spent years studying what was going on in Chicago schools. At the same time, Chicago foundations, nonprofits organizations, and educators focused enormous attention on improving the teaching force. Little by little, they all […]
2017-11-1321 minExtraOrdinary DistrictsExtraOrdinary Districts: Chicago Part 1 – Nowhere to Go But UpIn 1987, U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett flew into Chicago, declared it the “worst” school district in the country, and flew home, leaving Chicago residents stunned and angry. They had known things were bad, but being declared the worst helped galvanize support for the 1988 Chicago School Reform Act, which launched a generation’s worth of work to improve the […]
2017-11-1325 minExtraOrdinary DistrictsSteubenville Part 3: Tackling the Secondary Drop-offAlthough Steubenville’s third and fourth graders perform toward the top of the country, achievement tails off in fifth grade heading into middle school. We hear from Steubenville’s educators what they’re doing to change that.
2017-11-0624 minExtraOrdinary DistrictsSteubenville Part 2: A Program in Service of a VisionBack in the late 1990s, Ohio adopted a law that said that fourth graders who couldn’t pass a reading test would have to be retained. Steubenville educators realized that some of their students would get caught up in that law and were determined not to let that happen. They researched some possible programs that might help and settled on Success […]
2017-11-0627 minExtraOrdinary DistrictsSteubenville Part 1: Changing the Path of PovertySuperintendent Melinda Young has seen preschoolers who enter the Steubenville school district graduate from high school ready for college. This shows the power of schools to, in her words, change the path of poverty. Steubenville has long prized education as a path out of poverty, and long-time residents and students describe what that looks and feels like.
2017-11-0619 minExtraOrdinary DistrictsExtraOrdinary Districts: Lexington Part 3 – Building a Learning CommunitySuperintendent Ash refocused Lexington school district on helping not the bussed-in Boston students but any student who needed extra help. He brought in nationally known trainers who helped teachers learn to collaborate and make better instructional de...
2017-11-0124 minExtraOrdinary DistrictsExtraOrdinary Districts: Lexington Part 2 – Where Do You Start? Everywhere!Once the educators in Lexington got a handle on how badly some of their students were doing, they threw themselves into fixing the problem. But some parents were surprised that there had never before been a system to identify students who needed help a...
2017-11-0122 minExtraOrdinary DistrictsExtraOrdinary Districts: Lexington Part 1 – Secrets of a High-Performing School DistrictMost wealthy, high-performing school districts have huge achievement gaps. And 10 years ago, Lexington, Massachusetts, did too. The students doing the worst? Mostly African American and Hispanic students who were traveling for hours — part of a long-ru...
2017-11-0119 minExtraOrdinary DistrictsExtraOrdinary Districts: Episode 1 – How Do We Know Which School Districts are ExtraOrdinary?Anyone who wants to identify “extraordinary districts” has a daunting challenge: The United States has more than 14,000 school districts and they vary widely. Some have hundreds of students; some have hundreds of thousands.
2017-11-0119 minExtraOrdinary DistrictsExtraOrdinary Districts: Ordinary school districts that get extraordinary resultsAcross the nation, many school districts are asking themselves, “What can we do to better serve our students of color and those from low-income communities?” In Ed Trust’s new podcast, ExtraOrdinary Districts, writer-in-residence Karin Chenoweth explores that question by visiting ordinary school districts that are getting extraordinary results for historically underserved youth. Whether you’re a principal or parent, a superintendent or […]
2017-10-3006 min
Harvard EdCast | Harvard Graduate School of EducationSchools that SucceedAuthor Karin Chenoweth talks about her latest book, "Schools that Succeed," and how educators can break down the link between academic achievement and socioeconomic status.
2017-05-1618 min
The Harvard EdCastSchools that SucceedAuthor Karin Chenoweth talks about her latest book, "Schools that Succeed," and how educators can break down the link between academic achievement and socioeconomic status.
2017-05-1018 min
Educviii With Dr. JeffersonImproving Schools-Educviii: Author Karin ChenowethKarin Chenoweth is author of How It's Being Done: Urgent Lessons from Unexpected Schools , which examines in detail how eight high-poverty and high-minority schools have achieved academic success. It also examines how Massachusetts has become the highest achieving state in the nation. Chenoweth's earlier work includes It's Being Done: Academic Success in Unexpected Schools
2015-02-1800 min