The Educate Podcast

The Educate podcast is all about education. We care about equity and opportunity and how people learn. We dig deep into education research. We're curious about how research translates into policy — or not. We think good teaching is hard. We think history has a lot to tell us about why things are the way they are. We believe in vivid storytelling.

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October 27, 2014

How to help students hope

A polling expert finds students less engaged with school as they get older. Brandon Busteed from Gallup Education says if schools taught to strengths instead of weaknesses, more students would be successful in school and in life.

October 14, 2014

What teachers need

Education correspondent Emily Hanford talks with author Elizabeth Green about her new book, Building a Better Teacher: How Teaching Works (and How to Teach It to Everyone).

October 7, 2014

Intelligence is achievable and other lessons from The Teacher Wars

Education correspondent Emily Hanford continues her conversation with Dana Goldstein, author of The Teacher Wars.

October 1, 2014

Teaching: The most embattled profession

Education correspondent Emily Hanford talks with bestselling author Dana Goldstein about her new book, The Teacher Wars.

September 24, 2014

Video games: New literacy for a complex world

Author James Paul Gee says video games are problems to solve that come with their own tools. He says they're like "an external mind," and teachers should use them in classrooms.

September 18, 2014

Ed researchers: Colleges can do more for students, especially in a bad economy

College is worth the investment. College graduates can't find good jobs. Student loan debt keeps rising, and now tops a trillion dollars. What can be done?

September 11, 2014

Ready to Work: Reviving Vocational Ed

Vocational education was once a staple of American schooling, preparing some kids for blue-collar futures while others were put on a path to college. Many experts say it's time to bring back career and technical education.

September 4, 2014

The New Face of College

Just 20 percent of college-goers fit the stereotype of being young, single, full-time students who finish a degree in four years. College students today are more likely to be older, part-time, working, and low-income than they were three decades ago.

August 28, 2014

Greater Expectations: The Challenge of the Common Core

The United States is in the midst of a huge education reform. The Common Core State Standards are a new set of expectations for what students should learn each year in school.

August 21, 2014

The Science of Smart

Researchers have long been searching for better ways to learn. In recent decades, experts working in cognitive science, psychology, and neuroscience have opened new windows into how the brain works, and how we can learn to learn better.

August 4, 2014

Reinventing college for a new kind of student

Long-predicted demographic changes mean a new kind of student is figuring out where to go to college, and how to pay for it.

July 29, 2014

Is school funding fair?

A new report looks at why some schools have a lot of money to spend per pupil, while others don't, and what to do about it.

July 22, 2014

Who Needs College?

In May Stephen Smith was invited to be on a panel in Minneapolis that focused on the value of higher education. The panel answered questions such as: Who needs college?

July 15, 2014

Unionizing Adjuncts

A growing number of adjunct faculty at colleges and universities across the country are voting to unionize. Data from the Department of Education show a tremendous move toward using these so-called contingent teachers in all types of post-secondary institutions over the last 40 years.

July 8, 2014

Kids and Data Mining

The government wants to collect data on America's children. And that has parents across the country more than a little nervous.

July 1, 2014

Inside the Common Core: Math

The second of a series on what's inside the Common Core State Standards. Last week we heard about the English Language Arts and Literacy portion; this week we talk to one of the lead authors of the standards for mathematics.

June 24, 2014

Inside the Common Core: ELA

What do children need to know in school to be prepared for the future? That's the question that drives a new set of national learning standards called the Common Core.This week: inside the standards for English Language Arts/Literacy.

June 17, 2014

Military-Friendly Campuses

Members of the military and their spouses face more challenges than traditional students when it comes to getting a college degree. Their studies are often interrupted by deployments, transfer among bases, or because they can't attend college full-time. A new network aims to help.

June 10, 2014

Is Coding Fundamental?

Next fall, dozens of school districts nationwide will offer new computer coding classes. Advocates say computer programming is a fundamental kind of literacy, but critics argue the movement is a power play by tech companies who want schools to invest in their products.

June 3, 2014

Sexual Assault on Campus

This spring, the Obama administration announced it was joining the effort to hold colleges and universities more accountable for sexual assaults on campus. We talk to a survivor and activist who filed a complaint against Yale when she was an undergraduate there in 2011.

May 27, 2014

The Education Gender Gap

A new report says middle-schoolers who get Bs and Cs are less likely to finish college than their peers who get As. And because more girls get As, girls are more likely than boys not only to go to college, but to graduate.

May 20, 2014

College Bang for the Buck

For decades young people have been told that college is the path to prosperity. And research bears that out. But with the high cost of college tuition and fees, is a degree still worth it?

May 13, 2014

The Kalamazoo Promise

In 2005, a group of philanthropists decided to fund a scholarship program for public high school graduates in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The idea is that more college graduates would strengthen the economy and the community of this small Midwestern city. Nine years later, is the Kalamazoo Promise working?

May 6, 2014

Degrees of Inequality

Higher education has long been an engine of social mobility in this country. But today's college choices may actually be widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots.

April 29, 2014

Navigating the Financial Aid System

Spring is the time of year when college acceptance letters start landing in the mailboxes - and inboxes - of high school seniors across the country. It's also the time of year when many students will have to figure out how they will be able to pay for college, and as WGBH's Kirk Carapezza reports, that can be a daunting prospect.

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