All Of The Above Podcast

This Week: As the school year begins across many parts of America, we welcome back our long time friend of the show and middle school literacy coach extraordinaire Genevieve DeBose. With some fascinating new survey data out from the Rand Corp. showing modest improvements in teachers' plans to remain in the profession, but persistent job related stress, we talk about how wily vets are staying motivated, engaged, and continuing to find joy in the work. Plus, with so much swirling around schools -- from fears of ICE and LAUSD making strong efforts to keep kids and families safe, livestreamed genocide on kids phones, and the constant authoritarian creep dominating the headlines -- we discuss how to talk about the world with students today. Manuel, Jeff, and Genevieve discuss!  MAXIMUM WOKENESS ALERT -- get your All of the Above swag, including your own “Teach the Truth” shirt! In this moment of relentless attacks on teaching truth in the classroom, we got you covered. https://all-of-the-above-store.creator-sp

This Week: Despite deep “blue” California being poised to implement the first-in-the-nation, state-wide ethnic studies graduation requirement, the insidious efforts from within to undermine, co-opt, and whitewash the curriculum are still afoot. Earlier this year a coalition of state legislators tried passing AB 1468 as a naked attempt to gut ethnic studies. Now, they’re back with AB 715, complete  with Trumpian style rhetoric around “preventing antisemitism” while it violates 1st amendment rights, destroys academic freedom, conflates critique of zionism and the state of Israel with antisemitism, and opens the flood gates to weaponize the official complaint process against all attempts at the teaching of truthful history, and everything labeled “DEI.” Thankfully the CA Teachers Association is leading the way to oppose this unnecessary, and harmful bill. And as the realities of genocide in Palestine are now being acknowledged in the mainstream media, the coalition of voices opposing this sort of dystopian legis

This Week: Sometimes research tells us something new, and sometimes it confirms what we thought we already knew. A new study from the Fordham Institute does both, showing that contrary to some popular lines of thinking, experienced teachers do in fact continue to improve their practice well into their 2nd decade of teaching. We also dive into a fascinating story about a teacher in Michigan who is teaching Adulting 101 and 102 to her students. The popular electives take on everything from personal budget and taxes, to tying a tie, to personal relationships and conflict. And this week we try to contain the updates on fascist policy violence coming out of DC to a Fascist Five: Trump withholds $6.2B in K-12 education funding, including more than $800M from CA, Trump moves to ban undocumented students from attending Head Start preschool programs, and Trump takes a temporary L as a federal judge puts a restraining order on the attempt to end birthright citizenship. Manuel and Jeff discuss. MAXIMUM WOKENESS ALERT --

This Week: Holy shit. Normally we don’t curse around these parts, but damn. It’s an abject mess of theocracy, authoritarianism, and outright attacks on rights, freedoms, and the nation’s public schools this week. On Friday the Court handed down the last of its rulings from the 2024 term, and there are several major implications for public education… all terrible. In Mahmoud v. Taylor they ruled that schools have to allow families to opt out of content about LGBTQ+ people for religious reasons, enshrining a chilling effect in the nation’s curricula and effectively empowering right wing religious folks to dictate what does, and doesn’t, get included. In Trump v. CASA they held that lower courts can no longer issue nationwide injunctions against Trump’s unconstitutional actions, effectively paving the way for continued terrorism over immigrant communities, and the undoing of birthright citizenship guaranteed in the 14th Amendment. Black and Brown folks, watch your 6. And in a case nobody’s talking about - FDA v.

Data from both the US and UK shows that reading for pleasure is on the decline for kids of all ages, and adults too. For the youngest children, time reading with a loving adult is also on the decline, at the same time as screen time is rising sharply. In a world where a generation who grew up on screens themselves is now having children, is this just the way of the future, or are we losing something fundamental that should concern us?  And, for this week in American fascism in education, we shed light on the happenings beyond just Donny and Linda. Here in LA many parents are forced to miss their child’s graduation out of fears of ICE raids and kidnapping. A fake news (really) organization “catches” Western Carolina University administrator claiming the school continues DEI efforts (watch what you say people!). Republicans in Tennessee decide to cut key summer meal funding for low income families, leaving hundreds of thousands of hungry kids with no food for the summer. And lastly, as student loan repayments r

This Week: A fascinating piece in Chalkbeat breaks down some of the pros and cons of states adopting varied graduation pathways to a HS diploma. In a world where AI can do your homework, where it seems like we have no idea what the economic future will look like, and all but 6 states have dropped their HS exit exam requirements, what is - or should be - the purpose of a high school education? But first, this week in American fascism in education was a doozy. Yikes. We got the Labor Dept shutting down Job Corps, Donny and Linda bringing back racist indigenous HS mascots in NY State, Trump attempting to cut tribal college funding by 90%, child acute malnutrition in Gaza triples amid US taxpayer funded genocide, and ICE agents start arresting high school students across the country, like in Mass, NYC, and Detroit.  Manuel and Jeff discuss!MAXIMUM WOKENESS ALERT -- get your All of the Above swag, including your own “Teach the Truth” shirt! In this moment of relentless attacks on teaching truth in the classroom, w

This Week: The College Board casts its lot with the most regressive, racist actors in our society by stripping race from consideration in its National Recognition Program. The likely outcome of this decision will be a reduction in scholarship funds for Black, Latino, and Native American students, and a shifting of those funds to overrepresented Asian and white students. Here we go again. Plus, in “This Week in American Fascism in Education” the Supreme Court lets stand a lower court ruling upholding schools’ right to stop students from wearing  “only two genders” t-shirts, and Trump threatens to strip CA of billions in federal education funding over trans athletes. Manuel and Jeff discuss!MAXIMUM WOKENESS ALERT -- get your All of the Above swag, including your own “Teach the Truth” shirt! In this moment of relentless attacks on teaching truth in the classroom, we got you covered. https://all-of-the-above-store.creator-spring.com Watch, listen and subscribe to make sure you don't miss our latest content!Li

This Week: Coming out of the pandemic, schools across the country implemented versions of more equitable grading practices. Today, as the immediate effects of the pandemic are behind us, new questions are coming up about whether the pendulum swung too far, and we should return to more traditional, and punitive grading practices. A piece out of Chalkbeat Chicago this week sums up the debate nicely in their high schools. Also, we talk through “This Week in American Fascism in Education” where Donny, Linda, and Kristi took a couple Ls (for now) when they tried to kick all the international students out of Harvard, and pave the way for public funding of religious charter schools. Manuel and Jeff discuss!MAXIMUM WOKENESS ALERT -- get your All of the Above swag, including your own “Teach the Truth” shirt! In this moment of relentless attacks on teaching truth in the classroom, we got you covered. https://all-of-the-above-store.creator-spring.com Passing Period is an AOTA podcast extra that gives us a chance to chec

This Week: Whew, it’s been a doozy of a week in American education. Today we do a bit of a news round up with analysis of the stories that resonated most for us.  We’ve got Linda McMahon out here dropping the ball on student loan repayment plan applications, with 96% going unprocessed, sometimes for over a year! Class warfare and attempts to gut higher ed are in full swing. Gov. Gavin Newsom showing his conservative true colors as he blocks funding the CA’s ethnic studies HS graduation requirement. At the same time the CA ethnic legislative caucuses join forces to switch tactics in their attempt to crush ethnic studies. They push a truly Trumpian bill, ostensibly targeting antisemitism. A Harvard student asks, is it even worth it to go to class anymore? And, Louisiana confederates join forces with Trump admin and the courts to bring an official end to school desegregation in the south. Manuel and Jeff discuss!MAXIMUM WOKENESS ALERT -- get your All of the Above swag, including your own “Teach the Truth” shirt!

This Week: Everywhere you turn nowadays we are bombarded within AI.  From commercials to websites, to our smartphones, you can’t escape it. And neither can the nation’s college students. A bombshell piece in NY Magazine’s Intelligencer this week profiles the extent to which AI use to cheat is endemic in colleges, and the growing concerns around the ethics and potential harm to humans of AI use (also try here).  From students doing virtually no writing and relying entirely on AI, to those who use AI to outline their work and tell them how to construct their thinking, to those who actively use it to undermine efforts to prevent cheating, this is deeply concerning. Questions and concerns are being confirmed by early studies showing negative impacts on students’ ability to do critical thinking, solve problems, and perform tasks more complex than simply using tools like ChatGPT to complete tasks. Manuel and Jeff discuss!WAYS TO HELP WITH THE EATON FIRE IN ALTADENA/PASADENA -- Please consider giving what you can! H

This Week: What would it look like if the people, who claim to care so much about the welfare of the nation’s schools and children, actually spent their (our) time, money, and resources on things that benefited the nation’s schools and children?  Well, it might look like talking about our first story today, a study from the Annenberg Institute about the surprising connections between HVAC systems and student learning. Of course, instead of talking about things like this, the powers that be are busy trying to gut the college accreditation system, promote intrusions of religion into education by using the Courts to enshrine opting out of LGBTQ content, and crippling the finances of millions of Americans with student loans. The cruelty is the point folks. Manuel and Jeff discuss!WAYS TO HELP WITH THE EATON FIRE IN ALTADENA/PASADENA -- Please consider giving what you can! Here are links to GoFundMe pages set up by Altadena families, links to GoFundMe pages supporting Black families devastated by the Eaton fire, a

This Week: DHS agents attempt to arrest kids from two Los Angeles elementary schools. The Trump admin unleashes demands that embody government overreach and 1st Amendment violations aimed at colleges, Harvard refuses to comply, costing at least $2.3B in funding for now. Faculty at the Big 10 schools lead an effort to create a NATO-like mutual defense compact to defend against the republican attacks. Then the Wisconsin governor uses an unusual level of veto power to extend additional school funding for the next 400 years. Lastly, a brilliant 10th grader in LA akes the case against the district’s cell phone ban. We respect it, and she’s totally wrong. Whew - busy week!  Manuel and Jeff discuss. WAYS TO HELP WITH THE EATON FIRE IN ALTADENA/PASADENA -- Please consider giving what you can! Here are links to GoFundMe pages set up by Altadena families, links to GoFundMe pages supporting Black families devastated by the Eaton fire, and the Pasadena Educational Foundation’s page set up to benefit Manuel’s school commu

This Week: Since Jeff is out there somewhere doing super-duper-dope-principal-leader-man things, we thought it’d be worthwhile to re-post this interview we did in 2019 on KPFK’s Flip the Script with Vida Starr. It’s a bit of a throwback about who we are and why we started All of the Above in the first place. The interviewer, Chavonne Taylor, is a Los Angeles community champion who first appeared on our show earlier that year.WAYS TO HELP WITH THE EATON FIRE IN ALTADENA/PASADENA -- Please consider giving what you can! Here are links to GoFundMe pages set up by Altadena families, links to GoFundMe pages supporting Black families devastated by the Eaton fire, and the Pasadena Educational Foundation’s page set up to benefit Manuel’s school community, which has been devastated by the fire. Thanks for your support!MAXIMUM WOKENESS ALERT -- get your All of the Above swag, including your own “Teach the Truth” shirt! In this moment of relentless attacks on teaching truth in the classroom, we got you covered. https://a

This Week: Tired of the wickedness coming from DC? Us too. And, we’re gonna keep you updated on the latest. Trump threatened states with stripping federal education funds if they don’t sign a letter within 10 days certifying they don’t do DEI. The Supreme Court, in all of its great wisdom, reversed a lower court’s injunction preventing the Trump admin from withholding hundreds of millions in funding for teacher preparation and training. And, as the move towards privatization of public education shifts into overdrive, we check in on one of the most fascinating, and disturbing examples of what can happen when school is in the wrong hands -- Kanye’s Donda Academy. It’s as messed up as you’d think, and worse. Manuel and Jeff discuss! WAYS TO HELP WITH THE EATON FIRE IN ALTADENA/PASADENA -- Please consider giving what you can! Here are links to GoFundMe pages set up by Altadena families, links to GoFundMe pages supporting Black families devastated by the Eaton fire, and the Pasadena Educational Foundation’s page s

This Week: In the latest chapter of weaponizing the civil rights arm of the US Dept of Ed against the very marginalized groups whose rights it was created to protect, the Trump admin announced an investigation into CA’s SAFETY Act, claiming that the state may be violating FERPA by preventing districts from requiring educators to out LGBTQ+ and curious students to their families. And, in a dastardly, trojan horse style move, a group of mostly democratic CA legislatures launches a disingenuous attack against ethnic studies, claiming to want to develop standards and oversight over the curriculum to address critiques of Israel as a settler colonial state, which is now also engaged in genocide. It’s bad enough we have to worry about attacks on humanizing education from the right. Now these folks are putting a polite, liberal face on that work as well. Manuel and Jeff discuss! WAYS TO HELP WITH THE EATON FIRE IN ALTADENA/PASADENA -- Please consider giving what you can! Here are links to GoFundMe pages set up by Alt

This Week: Well, they did it. Sort of. After telling us what the plan was like evil Bond villains, the White House released the latest in its abuses of executive power this week to, ostensibly, “Improve Educational Outcomes” by doing all it can to close the US Dept of Ed without technically closing it. It’s a textbook case of policy violence, with only a thin veil covering the efforts at privatization, weakening of the institutions that educate the nation, and outright attack on what’s left of our civil rights infrastructure. Oh, and in case you didn’t also see, apparently your favorite vaccine denier will be in charge of school lunch and special ed now, and at least 5 states are now laying the groundwork to eliminate access to free public education for all children in America. Sigh, just another day in dystopia. Manuel and Jeff discuss!WAYS TO HELP WITH THE EATON FIRE IN ALTADENA/PASADENA -- Please consider giving what you can! Here are links to GoFundMe pages set up by Altadena families, links to GoFundMe p

This Week: It’s only been a week since we last spoke, and in that time the US Dept of Education is effectively ½ the size it was, and what’s left is being weaponized to target colleges and universities. Plus, an Idaho teacher makes headlines for resisting her district’s message to take down signs that say “everyone is welcome here.” The district says the signs “don’t allow people to express differing opinions, that it is controversial in today’s political environment.” The era of using school and district policy to explicitly make room for people who believe that we all are, in fact, not welcome here, has begun. Manuel and Jeff discuss!WAYS TO HELP WITH THE EATON FIRE IN ALTADENA/PASADENA -- Please consider giving what you can! Here are links to GoFundMe pages set up by Altadena families, links to GoFundMe pages supporting Black families devastated by the Eaton fire, and the Pasadena Educational Foundation’s page set up to benefit Manuel’s school community, which has been devastated by the fire. Thanks for yo

REPOST - It was all good just a few summers ago! Folks of all backgrounds were marching, corporations were pledging, and America was, well…reckoning. Since the flurry of movement in support of racial justice in the summer of 2020, we have witnessed a severe backlash and regression that most recently has included the federal government attempting to make it illegal to even use the most basic vocabulary of equity and justice in schools. How did we get here, and how can educators survive, resist, and move forward? To help us explore these questions, we’re joined by educator and racial equity coach Joe Truss!! Joe is the founder of Truss Leadership and first appeared on AOTA on the eve of the summer of 2020 to discuss dismantling white supremacy culture in schools. But first, Jeff and Manuel take a look at recent headlines in education including new data detailing students’ use of AI for schoolwork and polling that claims students are exposed to “woke” messages from their teachers on a near-daily basis. → Get you

This Week: The right wing onslaught continues. Since we last recorded, the federal government cut $400M in funding from Columbia University for allegedly failing to respond to “relentless antisemitism,” and the USDOE released its “End DEI” website, with the hopes of getting the public to report schools/educators doing DEI stuff and engaging in the mythology of reverse racism. Thankfully, there are good folks out there helping us understand the landscape of these attacks, and strategize on how to resist. Plus, we dig into a fascinating story about the effort to have AI fill in for the shortage of college counselors in the nation’s high schools. What could possibly go wrong? Manuel and Jeff discuss!Also, some good news to share -- actor Steve Carell announces funding of prom tickets for students in Altadena affected by the Eaton Fire.   WAYS TO HELP WITH THE EATON FIRE IN ALTADENA/PASADENA -- Please consider giving what you can! Here are links to GoFundMe pages set up by Altadena families, links to GoFundMe pag

This Week: California got rid of affirmative action in higher ed back in the 90s with the notorious prop 209. But that isn’t stopping a newcollection of bigots and Uncle Toms from suing the University of California in federal court for allegedly practicing affirmative action voodoo and still admitting “too many” Black and Brown students. Sigh. The entitlement, the hubris, the white supremacy, the arrogance, the violent impulses these folks have for us is astounding. And we aint going anywhere. Manuel and Jeff discuss!Learn more about Manuel’s good work with theCalifornia Educator Diversity Action Network here. WAYS TO HELP WITH THE EATON FIRE IN ALTADENA/PASADENA-- Please consider giving what you can! Here arelinks to GoFundMe pages set up by Altadena families, links to GoFundMe pages supportingBlack families devastated by the Eaton fire, and thePasadena Educational Foundation’s page set up to benefit Manuel’s school community, which has been devastated by the fire. Thanks for your support!MAXIMUM WOKENESS AL