Do Schools Suck? with Dr. Jack Schneider

Dr. Jack Schneider, Dwight W. Allen Distinguished Professor at UMass Amherst and and host of the Have You Heard podcast about education policy, joins us to break down the recent “schools are bad” media bonanza (links below). Dr. Schneider digs in to what’s flawed about the panic-inducing articles about the state of American public education, and shares tips on what to say to the person next to us at a dinner party who starts to s**t on our kids’ public school. Also, the questions to ask your kid if you really want to know if they’re school is good, and a thought-provoking take on Little Free Libraries. Links: * America’s Children Are Unwell. Are Schools Part of the Problem? From A.D.H.D. to anxiety, disorders have risen as the expectations of childhood have changed. By Jia Lynn Yang (New York Times) * The Big Fail Student achievement has fallen off a cliff. And neither Trump nor the pandemic is to blame. By Andrew Rice (New York Magazine) * Jack Schneider, educational historian and professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. * The Education Wars (Jack Schneider) * Beyond Test Scores (Jack Schneider)* Jack Schneider in The Nation* r/Teachers: “What does this generation of students do better than others?” (via Evil Witches Newsletter )* Scopes Monkey Trial* Arizona Education Debit Card * Teachers Have It Easy * California Healthy Kids Survey* The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich * The City & The City by China MiévilleIf you love the work we do on Mother Of It All, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Paid subscribers get access to everything behind the paywall, like subscriber-only episodes, book reviews and more. If you subscribe at the founding member level, we’ll send you one of our awesome tote bags. And it’s always free and helpful to follow, share, rate and review our show here and everywhere else you listen to podcasts you love. Thank you!Visit our Bookshop storefront to find all the books we’ve mentioned here and in previous episodes. When you shop there, we get a small affiliate fee (yay, thank you!).Visit motherofitall.com to send us ideas for a future episode or learn more about the show.Follow the podcast on Instagram (@themotherofitall) or Bluesky (@motherofitallpod.bsky.social) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit motherofitall.substack.com/subscribe