EdSource’s “Education Beat” podcast highlights stories from our reporters with voices of teachers, parents, and students, bringing listeners the personal stories behind the headlines.
Here are a few of our favorite podcast episodes from 2023. Take a listen:
Family reunited after four years separated by immigration policy
A Central Valley dad was finally able to return to the U.S., after almost four years separated from his family by a Trump-era immigration policy. His return allows his children to pursue their college dreams.
Bachelor’s degrees in prison promise incarcerated students a second chance
Inside the first women’s program at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, incarcerated women are working to rebuild their lives by pursuing these higher degrees.
How to teach English learners to read? Here’s how one school does it
EdSource reporter and Education Beat host Zaidee Stavely visits a school that’s had an uncommonly high degree of success with teaching English learners to read: Frank Sparkes Elementary, in Winton, about 10 miles from Merced, in California’s Central Valley.
A teacher removed, a play censored, and the chilling effect that followed
A high school drama teacher was removed from the classroom in Temecula Valley Unified, after a parent complained students were reading the Pulitzer-prize-winning play, “Angels in America,” about the AIDS epidemic in New York during the 1980s. It’s the latest in a series of efforts by newly elected conservative school board members to change curriculum in the district.
Schools are counting – and helping – more homeless students
When Ana Franquis’ family was evicted, they had nowhere to turn. Their local school district helped them out, with food, diapers, even hotel vouchers.
How a California professor once coded secrets in music
Saxophonist Merryl Goldberg traveled to the Soviet Union in 1985 to meet up with another group of musicians, The Phantom Orchestra, and bring back information, including the names of people who wanted to escape the Soviet Union.
To do this, Merryl made up a secret code, hidden in sheet music.
Want to know what high schoolers really think? Tune in to this radio station
At El Cerrito High School, in West Contra Costa Unified, students produce and host their own radio shows. Some DJ their own music shows, while others host talk radio programs, with topics ranging from political affairs to chess to dating advice. There’s even an old-time radio drama, based on original scripts from the 1950s.
How a teachers’ passion for space takes learning to new heights
Have you ever thought about launching into space? One West Contra Costa Unified science teacher has done more than think about it. He’s preparing to become an astronaut.
How a school lunch lady sparked better trauma response for schools
A school lunch lady’s response after the Oklahoma City bombing sparked a new understanding of how teachers and school staff can help students recover from traumatic events, from wildfires and floods to school shootings.
How dogs help bring kids to therapy at this Central Valley school district
In Selma Unified School District in the Central Valley, two therapy dogs are helping destigmatize mental health services. Jeter and Scout help identify students who need help, and they give students a soft, cuddly entry to therapy.
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Anyone who has ever seen a drag show knows that they are performances. I remember seeing “Dame Edna” on Broadway, and she was hilarious. There was nothing sexual about her show. And by the way, Dame Edna was played by a straight man who created an original character. Last year, I went to play “Drag Bingo” at a local restaurant, and the performers were funny. Their goal was to entertain.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, America’s number one prude, decided that drag shows had to be banned because they “sexualized” children. In addition to drag shows performed in bistros, there are also Drag Queen Story Hours at local libraries, where drag queens read children’s books out loud. Parents bring their children to these events; the little ones do not come alone.
To heck with parental rights, DeSantis wanted to close down all the drag shows.
Hamburger Mary’s, one of the leading venues for drag queens, sued.
They won.
Scott Maxwell of the Orlando Sebtinel tells the story:
In recent years, Florida Republicans have been on a crusade to censor books, speech, theatrical performances and even thoughts expressed in private workplaces.
Their actions have been repeatedly ruled unconstitutional — often by conservative judges who have more respect for the Constitution than these petty politicians with their phony patriotism.
Still, it takes courage to stand up to political bullies willing to spend unlimited amounts of tax dollars, paying lawyers as much as $725 an hour, even when they know they’ll lose.
That’s why John Paonessa and Mike Rogier deserve credit.
The Clermont couple and Hamburger Mary’s franchise owners are the victors in the latest court fight against Gov. Ron DeSantis and GOP lawmakers’ attempts to silence speech they dislike.
This time it was Florida’s war on drag queens, which was pretty clearly unconstitutional from the day it debuted, mainly because it was so poorly written.
Authors of the so-called “Protection of Children” act claimed to want to protect kids from “shameful” and “lewd” performances, but couldn’t even explain what that meant.
When bill sponsor Randy Fine was asked on the House floor to define “shameful” — so that venue owners could know what kind of performances would be illegal — he responded:
“Um … um … [eight seconds of silence] … I think that it … again, that is things that are … I dunno … I mean, again, you can look these things up in the dictionary.”
Quite the legislative brain trust.
The reality is that Florida already has laws on the books that protect children from sexually explicit performances. Did you know that? A lot of these tinpot politicians sure hoped you didn’t. But two rounds of federal judges did. And they concluded that this law wasn’t written to target obscenity in general, but rather drag in particular. That’s selective censorship. And if you’re a fan of government doing it, you might prefer living in Russia.
Patriotic Americans don’t support government censorship of speech. Dictators in North Korea do.
So after Paonessa and Rogier saw lawmakers repeatedly target drag performers — and even nonprofit organizations like the Orlando Philharmonic rented out their venues for such shows — Paonessa said the two men decided: “If we just let them do this, what is next?”
Both a federal judge in Orlando and appellate judges in Atlanta ruled they were right to do so.
The 81-page appellate ruling from the majority made several key points: One was that the state already has laws to protect minors and that out-of-court comments from guys like Fine and DeSantis made it clear that the politicians were trying to specifically — and unconstitutionally — target drag.
Another was that the state’s own inability to define the kind of behavior it was trying to outlaw proved it was overly broad. “The Constitution demands specificity when the state restricts speech” to shield citizens “from the whims of government censors,” the ruling stated.
The case also laid bare a lie: These chest-thumping politicians don’t actually believe in “parental rights” or “freedom.” Because this law attempted to make it illegal for teens to attend certain performances even when accompanied by their parents.
Keep in mind: These politicians are fine with parents taking their kids to see R-rated movies with hard-core sex and graphic violence. They kept that legal. It was only when drag queens got on stage that these politicians lost their minds.
Drag queens? Evil. Cinematic depictions of bestiality? That’s OK. Those are some strange family values.
I can’t recall ever taking my own kids to a drag performance. But that was my choice — not the government’s. And Paonessa said many of his restaurant’s offerings, including the Sunday drag brunch, were family-friendly affairs that some teens enjoyed so much, they would return with their own kids when they were older.
Of course some drag performances are vulgar — just like some movies are. But trying to use a snippet of one sexed-up drag show to represent all drag performances is about as honest and accurate as using a movie like “Eyes Wide Shut” or the “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” to represent all movies. It’s a tactic of misrepresentation known as “tyranny of the anecdote” that’s particularly effective with the intellectually incurious
For the record, a dissent was authored by a 95-year-old judge appointed by Gerald Ford who invoked states’-rights-themed arguments and said censorship laws needn’t be that specific.
While the judges who shot down the drag law last week were appointed by Democratic presidents, the judges who shot down DeSantis’ other unconstitutional attempts to silence speech have been hard-core, Federalist Society conservatives.
Like the ones who blocked the “Stop Woke Act” that tried to ban private businesses from holding employee-training sessions on topics like sexism and racism that GOP lawmakers found too “woke.”
And the Trump-appointed judge who invalidated the GOP law that called for arresting citizens who donated more than $3,000 to citizen-led campaigns for constitutional amendments.
If you think government should be able to imprison citizens for donating to campaigns that politicians dislike or silence private speech within the walls of private companies, don’t you dare call yourself a constitutionalist. Or even a patriot.
In response to the latest judicial smackdown, a DeSantis spokesman whined about judicial “overreach” and said: “No one has a constitutional right to perform sexual routines in front of little kids.”
Once again, he was banking on your ignorance, hoping you don’t know Florida already has laws that protect minors — just not ones created specifically to target drag.
The appellate judges referred the case back to Orlando Judge Gregory Presnell, who issued the original injunction in a ruling that was maybe even more damning in effectively detailing the law’s many flaws. But there’s certainly a chance the state will continue trying to litigate the case, since it has unlimited access to your money.
Frankly, Paonessa and Rogier, who shut down their Hamburger Mary’s location in downtown Orlando last year in the middle of this court battle and are currently looking for a new home, probably couldn’t have afforded to fight back in this two-year court battle if they hadn’t had pro bono help. It came from a Tennessee attorney, Melissa J. Stewart, who fought a similarly unconstitutional attack on drag in that state.
But Paonessa said they decided to fight for their rights — and yours — because they concluded: “If not us, then who?”
EdSource’s “Education Beat” podcast gets to the heart of California schools by highlighting stories from our reporters with voices of teachers, parents and students.
Here are 10 of our favorite podcast episodes from 2024. Take a listen:
50 years later: How Lau v. Nichols changed education for English learners
In the 1974case Lau v. Nichols, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that schools must take steps to make sure students who do not speak fluent English can understand what is being taught in their classrooms, whether through additional instruction in English as a second language or bilingual education. Here’s the story of how this case began and how it changed education, from the perspective of a teacher:
How can we get more Black teachers in the classroom?
A growing body of research shows that having a Black teacher increases students’ scores on math and reading tests and increases the chance that they will graduate from college. California has been trying to recruit and retain Black teachers for years, but they’re still under-represented. Hear from a Black teacher about what’s keeping her peers from getting to and staying in the classroom:
How can California teach more adults to read in English?
Almost one-third of adults in California can do little more than fill out a basic form or read a very simple piece of writing in English. Many of them are immigrants. Experts say programs aimed at addressing poor literacy reach only a fraction of adults who need help. One way to reach them is to bring classes directly to the workplace. This episode highlights the story of one janitor:
Student journalists on the front lines of protest coverage
As a wave of protests on university campuses called for a ceasefire in Gaza and for universities to divest from companies with military ties to Israel, student journalists emerged as crucial sources of information. Increasingly, student journalists are doing this work under the threat of arrest and violence.
How puppets can help kids learn to make believe
When teachers noticed that children in Oakland preschool and kindergarten classrooms were not engaging in imaginative play or interacting with each other as much after the pandemic, staff at Children’s Fairyland, a local theme park, turned to an old favorite — puppets.
School district is sued over broken windows, mold, overheating classrooms and missing teachers
The West Contra Costa Unified School District promised back in 2019 that Stege Elementary School would get a complete redesign and remodel, to attract more students and more experienced teachers and turn around low test scores, high suspension rates and chronic absenteeism. But now, a group of teachers, staff and parents are suing the district, alleging that it failed to address severely poor building conditions and teacher vacancies. What happened?
Should cellphones be banned from all California schools?
This year, state lawmakers passed a bill to require public schools to restrict student cellphone use. A parent shares how she’s seen cellphones affect student interaction and increase bullying, and what she thinks about the efforts to restrict them:
Music education sets up low-income youth for success
Rigoberto Sánchez-Mejía has been taking music lessons with Harmony Project, a nonprofit music education organization in Los Angeles, for 12 years, since he was 5 years old. He credits them with putting him on a path to college and giving him a tool to calm down when life is too stressful.
What is California doing — or not doing — about lead in school drinking water?
Oakland Unified School District began this school year with some unsettling news: The drinking water in the district’s schools had dangerously high levels of lead. But lead testing hasn’t been required in California schools for the last five years. That means Oakland Unified is unusual among California school districts in that it knows that there’s a lead problem at all.
16- and 17-year-olds make history by voting in school board elections in two California cities
This November, 16- and 17-year-olds in two California cities, Berkeley and Oakland, were able to vote in school board elections. A high school junior reflects on the significance of this moment and the importance of civic engagement for teenagers:
James Pindell of The Boston Globe predicts that Harvard University has a better hand than Trump in their epic confrontation. Harvard, like Trump, can employ the tactics of delay, delay, appeal, delay, appeal, which Trump used to avoid accountability for provoking an insurrection and trying to overturn the election that he lost. Despite plentiful evidence of the greatest crime against our in our history, Trump used delay-and-appeal to evade punishment.
Furthermore, Harvard has its pick of the best lawyers in the nation. And it has the funding to bear the burden of prolonged litigation.
He writes:
Harvard University is unrivaled when it comes to securing smart, high-powered legal advice, often from people who have the institution’s long-term interests at heart. Four of the nine current US Supreme Court justices are Harvard alumni. Retired Justice Stephen Breyer still maintains an office at the law school. And with a $53 billion endowment, Harvard can afford to hire virtually any white-shoe law firm it chooses.
But as Harvard formally resisted the Trump administration’s latest round of demands this week — unprecedented even by the administration’s own standards — it seemed, ironically, that the university might be borrowing a legal strategy from President Trump himself.
Step one: Deny any wrongdoing. Step two: Assemble a team of elite lawyers to challenge every question, motion, and investigation at length. Step three: Stall, delay, and wait it out.
This is a playbook Trump has used for decades. Most recently, it served as the foundation of his legal strategy in three criminal trials during his post-presidency. In each case, he managed to use procedural maneuvers and aggressive delay tactics to his advantage.
Sure, Trump’s ability to dodge accountability is often described as uniquely his own. But in this case, Harvard may actually hold the better cards, at least in terms of timing and institutional resilience.
In just 600 days, Democrats could reclaim the majority in the US House of Representatives. In four years, Trump will no longer be president. (Speculation about a third term is a separate column.) Harvard, by contrast, was founded 389 years ago. Those entrusted with its future are planning for it to exist at least another 400. From that perspective, Trump’s second term is a blip.
The Trump administration first went after Harvard two weeks ago, with what at the time was largely about antisemitism on campus following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. But on Friday night, the Trump administration sent Harvard a second letter, escalating its pressure campaign. Unlike the first letter, which focused on claims of rampant antisemitism on campus and threatened a loss of federal research funding, this second demand went much further. The administration insisted that Harvard overhaul its hiring and admissions practices, abandon academic independence in curricular matters, and adopt some vague form of ideological “balance” — as defined by the administration now and in the future.
And in another move right out of Trump’s own playbook, Harvard isn’t just preparing for court — it’s leveraging the standoff as a public relations opportunity.
Columbia University, facing immense internal and external pressure, saw two university presidents resign in two years and ultimately made concessions. Harvard, too, had a president resign under pressure from conservatives in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war. But this week, by contrast, the school is being praised within academic circles for standing its ground. It is positioning itself as a standard-bearer for academic freedom and likely sees this moment as one that could define its leadership and credibility among peers.
But in the long term, Harvard uniquely may have the resources and the legal muscle to delay without conceding a single point, at least until there is a new US president. It also has the financial cushion to cover essential programs it deems vital to its mission. This, for Harvard, is what a rainy day looks like — and it has a very large umbrella.
The Trump administration apparently realized belatedly that they went too far in the demands they made in threatening Harvard. The New York Times reported that the letter demanding control of the curriculum, of admissions, and of “ideological diversity” among the faculty and students was sent in error and did not have the appropriate vetting.
