Mission & Vision
Our podcast is forcefully inserting teachers’ voices into the national conversation about the crisis in K-12 education which is leading to the national teacher shortage crisis, and which threatens our ability to effectively self-govern. We propose radical reforms to save our democracy which re-imagine our current piecemeal and largely absent K-12 governance to allow teachers to be in the leadership of our own profession. We delve deeply into the evidence of all that is wrong in our world, by inviting fellow teachers from across the nation to speak on the podcast to make our case for this radical reform.
Core Values
Love
We begin with an unconditional love of all teachers, and recognize that we are a part of a system that seeks to oppress us, and devalues our expertise.
Community
We don't pretend to have all the answers, but believe teachers working together will create lasting solutions when given the space to lead. We know current and veteran teachers are a necessary yet missing component in leading our profession.
Disruption
We disrupt beliefs that disempower teachers from advocating for students and delivering quality education. We challenge the notion that non-teachers know better how to lead our profession and schools.
Advocacy
We believe in advocating for radical reforms in education, and for creating new systems which create equitable reforms for students across all county and state lines.
Our Team
“Teachers should not have to leave our profession to lead it.”
Trina English
We begin with an unconditional love of all teachers, and recognize that we are a part of a system which seeks to oppress us, and devalues our expertise.
Host, Producer
“Together we are better.”
I am deeply committed to fostering collaboration and unity among educators.
Host, PR Manager
Jess Martin
“Current, veteran teachers are the only ones who can fix this mess.”
Amenda
I am deeply passionate about fostering understanding and connection among children, parents, and teachers, serving as a bridge to strengthen their relationships and communication.
Host, Editor
FAQs
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The critical shortage of teachers nationwide and the lack of a platform for teacher voices and leadership in educational policy discussions led to the creation of our podcast. Cursory media coverage of the shortage, and a lack of knowledge of the missing and broken systems in our strange world, also emboldened us to create this. The central thesis of the podcast is that the lack of current veteran teachers in positions of leadership of our own profession coupled with the convoluted and piecemeal governance of K-12 schooling in the United States, has created a lack of accountability and consistency which has allowed for deep structural problems in K-12 schooling. These problems are so foundational that it is resulting in the US being in the bottom quartile of the world for literacy rates, and is unraveling our democracy.
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You can sign our petition, listen to and share our podcast with people inside and outside of K-12 education, participate in surveys to help us gather more data, and join in our community discussions on the podcast.
We cover the large thematic categories which intersect with the teacher shortage crisis. Each category includes an introduction from a K-12 teacher scholar perspective, and follow up candid conversations with various current teachers. Topics include; teacher pay and preparation requirements, teacher autonomy, special education, school climate and culture, reading instruction, canned curriculum and harmful influences of “big textbook.” We provide practical if not radical solutions for educational reform, all of which require that teachers be allowed to lead the big decisions in our profession. We aim to gather teacher input from various states because of the highly varied and wildly disparate experiences we are having across the nation, in an attempt to be able to characterize the issues on a national level.
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K-12 education in the United States started with the noble goal of a desire to provide free secular public schooling to ensure that our voting population could meaningfully engage in the democratic process. Championed by Horace Mann in the 1830s, congress at the time decided to intentionally and explicitly hire women at that time because they reasoned they could pay them a third of the salary of men. The problem is that due to the sexist ideas that our culture held about women at that time, structural sexism was baked into our profession from the very beginning, and has created deeply paternalistic practices that undermine our very ability to effectively teach our nation’s children. Our podcast unpacks this on many levels and delves deeply into why this isn’t being discussed even within social justice-focused K-12 scholarship.