APM Reports Documentaries
The documentary unit of APM Reports (formerly American RadioWorks) has produced more than 140 programs on topics such as health, history, education and justice.
- Update frequency
- every 27 days
- Average duration
- 43 minutes
- Episodes
- 188
- Years Active
- 2004 - 2022
Introducing: Sold a Story
Emily Hanford introduces the first episode of her new podcast, Sold a Story.
There's an idea about how children learn to read that's held sway in schools for more than a generation — even though it wa…
No Excuses: Race and Reckoning at a Chicago Charter School
Producer DJ Cashmere spent seven years teaching Black and brown students at a Noble Street charter high school in Chicago. At the time, Noble followed a popular model called "no excuses." Its schools…
Standing in Two Worlds: Native American College Diaries
Native American students are just a tiny fraction of all the college students in the United States. They come with different histories, confronting an education system once used to erase their langua…
In Deep: One City's Year of Climate Chaos
Most scientists believe climate change is increasing the severity of the storms we experience, and how quickly they intensify. After suffering two hurricanes, a winter storm, and devastating flooding…
Under Pressure: The College Mental Health Crisis
Even before the pandemic, campus counselling services were reporting a marked uptick in the number of students with anxiety, clinical depression and other serious psychiatric problems. What is a coll…
Who Wants to Be a Teacher?
Many schools around the country are struggling to find enough teachers. Large numbers of teachers quit after a short time on the job, so schools are constantly struggling to replace them. The problem…
Fading Beacon: Why America is Losing International Students
Colleges and universities in the United States attract more than a million international students a year. Higher education is one of America’s top service exports, generating $42 billion in revenue. …
The Jail Tapes in the Dumpster
Sixteen-year-old Myon Burrell was sent to prison for life after a stray bullet killed an 11-year-old girl in Minneapolis in 2002. Amy Klobuchar, who was Minneapolis’ top prosecutor, brought first-deg…
The Bad Place
More than 40 states have sent their most vulnerable kids to facilities run by a for-profit company named Sequel. Many of those kids were abused there. Read more.
Black at Mizzou: Confronting race on campus
Lauren Brown says college was "culture shock." Most of the students at her high school were Black, but most of the students at the University of Missouri were white. And she got to the university in …
What the Words Say
Everyone agrees that the goal of reading instruction is for children to understand what they read. The question is: how does a little kid get there? Emily Hanford explores what reading scientists hav…
Covid on Campus
The coronavirus pandemic represents the greatest challenge to American higher education in decades. Some small regional colleges that were already struggling won’t survive. Other schools, large and s…
Soldiers for Peace
During the Vietnam War, roughly one in five GIs actively opposed the conflict. Many servicemen and women came to believe they were not liberating the country from communism but acting as agents of ty…
Uprooted: The 1950s plan to erase Indian Country
In the 1950s, the United States came up with a plan to solve what it called the "Indian Problem." It would assimilate Native Americans by moving them to cities and eliminating reservations. The 20-ye…
Fading Minds: Why There's Still No Cure for Alzheimer's
In the 1970s, the founder of the National Institute on Aging convinced a nation that senility was really Alzheimer's and could be cured. Research money flowed to one theory, leaving alternatives unex…
At a Loss for Words: What's wrong with how schools teach reading
For decades, schools have taught children the strategies of struggling readers, using a theory about reading that cognitive scientists have repeatedly debunked. And many teachers and parents don't kn…
Students on the Move: Keeping uprooted kids in school
A growing body of research finds that repeatedly uprooted children are more likely to struggle in school and more likely to drop out. But there are ways to help them succeed.
Under a Watchful Eye: How colleges are tracking students to boost graduation
At Georgia State in Atlanta, more students are graduating, and the school credits its use of predictive analytics. But critics worry that the algorithms may be invading students' privacy and reinforc…
When Tasers Fail
Tasers have become an essential tool for police, but how effective are they? An APM Reports investigation finds that officers in some big cities rated Tasers as unreliable up to 40 percent of the tim…
Hard Words: Why Aren't Our Kids Being Taught to Read?
Scientific research has shown how children learn to read and how they should be taught. But many educators don't know the science and, in some cases, actively resist it. As a result, millions of kids…