Democracy and Education
Long-time education writer Karin Chenoweth talks with people around the country who are running for school board, serving on a school board, and working on school board campaigns about the issues they are facing and the problems they are solving. The first three episodes, produced in 2023, document the way three communities faced down extremism. In 2024, the podcast pivots to an interview format with some of the most inspiring folks around.
- Update frequency
- every 31 days
- Average duration
- 47 minutes
- Episodes
- 12
- Years Active
- 2023 - 2025
Confronting Extremism in Florida
Florida is the birthplace of Moms for Liberty. It is also the state where the governor has spent millions of dollars to elect extremist members of school boards around the state who have banned books…
Episode 11: Extremism on the Ground
In this episode of Democracy and Education, Bobby Omari, who lost his bid for a school board seat in California’s Chino Valley United School District, shares the lessons he learned and the lessons he…
Episode 10: Extremism: The Big Picture
When education researcher and parent Jamie Martin first heard NBC’s podcast about the Southlake Families, the group that had taken the majority of the school board in the Carroll School District in T…
Episode 9: Rejecting Extremism
Democracy and Education
Episode 9
Rejecting Extremism
Alarmed by the allegations made by Libs for TikTok and Moms for Liberty, Courtney Gore ran for school board in her home town of Granbury Texas in 2…
Episode 8: Running a Winning Campaign in Ohio
When Sara Bitter ran for school board in a suburban district in Cincinnati, it was after she had already run twice for the state legislature. She knew how to run a contested campaign.
But she thought …
Working Statewide--Arkansas Edition
Steve Grappe says Arkansans are trying to take back political power through “direct democracy.”
Grappe, who lives in Rosebud Arkansas on Forevermost Farms, is the former head of the Rural Caucus, form…
Working Statewide--Minnesota Edition
After dozens of extremists funded and trained by people outside her home state of Minnesota won school board races in 2022, long-time political campaign worker Kyrstin Schuette said, “Someone needs …
Democracy and Education, Episode 5: A Victory Against Extremism
In 2021 Nicole Cole was elected to the Spotsylvania Virginia school board at the same time as two others who, together with existing members of the board, formed a majority that immediately tried to …
It's 2024. Let's Get Going!
In this first episode of 2024, Democracy and Education is revamped to a new, shorter and more frequent interview format featuring Karin Chenoweth talking with school board candidates and people worki…
Standing up for public education in Plano Texas
In the spring of 2023 in Plano Texas a slate of pro-public education, common-sense candidates won their races for school board. This, despite the fact that extremists had supported a competing slate …
Standing up to extremism in Carmel Indiana
In Carmel Clay School District in Indiana, the fairly new superintendent pledged he would do something to address the fact that many students and parents of color had experienced racist incidents or …
Standing up to extremists in Conejo Valley California
In the 2016 election for the Conejo Valley School Board, an extreme right-wing candidate narrowly beat an incumbent. She hadn’t campaigned on wanting to ban books or fanning resentments of teachers, …