Shows / Class Disrupted
Episodes
Class DisruptedSeason 4, Episode 6: How Do You Staff Innovation?
Arguably the scarcest resource in schools is people. And people are imperative for doing a pilot and innovating well. In this episode of Class Disrupted, Diane…
Class DisruptedSeason 4, Episode 5: Why Aren’t There More Innovative Schools?
Diane Tavenner shares with Michael Horn her excitement about a school visit she did recently in South Carolina to the Anderson Institute of Technology—which…
Class DisruptedSeason 4, Episode 4: Which Pilots Should My School Try?
Schools typically have long laundry lists of all the pilots and innovations they want to do—if only they had the time and resources. Or they have laundry lists…
Class DisruptedSeason 4, Episode 3: Is There a Teacher Shortage? It Depends
Whether there’s a teacher shortage depends on who you ask and the definition of “shortage” it seems. In this episode, Diane and Michael…
Class DisruptedSeason 4, Episode 2: What Does a Real Pilot Look Like in a School?
Diane and Michael reflect about how all too often educators tell them that they’re piloting something, but when they dig in, what they’re doing…
Class DisruptedSeason 4, Episode 1: The Disruptive Journey Ahead
Although classrooms are not disrupted as they were over the last three school years, Diane and Michael are back with the goal of finding a way to disrupt them…
Class DisruptedSeason 3, Episode 20: Does banning things actually keep children safe in schools?
In the final episode of season 3, Diane notes that many of the solutions to help make schools safer all focus around banning things: banning CRT, books…
Class DisruptedSeason 3, Episode 19: Are older students fixed in their abilities?
In this episode, Michael brings Diane a puzzle. A reader recently pushed back on an assertion in his upcoming book, From Reopen to Reinvent, that “fixed…
Class DisruptedSeason 3, Episode 18: Revisiting the promise and potential of charter schools 30 years later
As charter schools face challenges in the Beltway, Diane and Michael go back to first principles around the purpose of charter schools by revisiting the…
Class DisruptedSeason 3, Episode 17: Never Forget: Lessons America’s education debates can learn from Germany
Having returned from Germany, Diane shares what she learned about how Germany remembers the Holocaust and what it teaches its children about it so that it does…
Class DisruptedSeason 3, Episode 16: Rethinking college for all
In their final episode exploring the themes of meritocracy and education, Diane and Michael describe the rethinking that has gone on in education around the…
Class DisruptedSeason 3, Episode 15: Meritocracy and selective college admissions
Diane and Michael work to dispel the myths around selective college admissions, dissect whether they are in fact meritocratic, and architect what they see as a…
Class DisruptedSeason 3, Episode 14: Exam schools and meritocracy
Diane and Michael dive into the fierce debate around selective exam schools as a case study to not only identify the problems in implementation that…
Class DisruptedSeason 3, Episode 13: Meritocracy and education
In this episode, Diane details the discussion of the history, pluses, and minuses with meritocracy through the prism of three recent books on the topic…
Class DisruptedSeason 3, Episode 12: Is there a teacher exodus or not? Digging into the dispute
There are two dominant narratives in education right now about teachers. On the one hand, many media stories and educators say loudly that teachers are leaving…
Class DisruptedSeason 3, Episode 11: What is driving parent frustration with schools?
Michael and Diane explore what’s driving parent—and educator—frustration with schools, and how misalignment between different groups may actually create…
Class DisruptedSeason 3, Episode 10: The unworkable burden on schools
Michael asks Diane to explain what expectations are unrealistic for schools to fulfill. Diane discusses how the layering of requirements and regulations on…
Class DisruptedSeason 3, Episode 9: As 2022 dawns, the state of Covid and schools
John Bailey, education policy expert and writer of the nightly COVID-19 Policy Update on Substack, joins Diane and Michael to talk about the current state of…
Class DisruptedSeason 3, Episode 8: Three wishes for 2022
In this final episode of 2021, Diane and Michael share three wishes for schooling in the new year that focus on personalization, grace, and renewing ESSA…
Class DisruptedSeason 3, Episode 7: Why is there more physical violence than usual in schools this year?
Diane and Michael engage in a frank conversation about the challenges students and schools are experiencing this year. Headlines have noted an increase in…
Class DisruptedSeason 3, Episode 6: Who are America’s teachers?
With large numbers of teachers resigning from schools, Diane and Michael dive into what exactly is happening right now in schools, explore how it’s…
Class DisruptedSeason 3, Episode 5: Where are students learning this year?
In this episode, Diane interviews Michael about exactly where students are learning formally this year, what’s driving the change in enrollment in public…
Class DisruptedSeason 3, Episode 4: Standards and curriculum aren’t the same – and that matters
In this episode Michael interviews Diane about the difference between standards and curriculum, and why she’s in favor of a common core set of standards…
Class DisruptedSeason 3, Episode 3: Who decides what gets taught
Diane and Michael break down who decides what gets taught and analyze the specific roles of everyone from the different arms of government to teachers…
Class DisruptedSeason 3, Episode 2: What schools should teach
With conversations around Critical Race Theory and learning loss rampant, what schools teach is hot right now. Rather than tackle those specific debates, in…
Class DisruptedSeason 3, Episode 1: What’s on a school leader’s back-to-school shopping list in the time of COVID?
As we enter a third year of schools being hugely impacted by COVID 19, Diane Tavenner and Michael Horn launch a third season of the Class Disrupted podcast…
Class DisruptedSeason 3 Preview: COVID’s still here, so class is still disrupted
Diane and Michael welcome listeners back for a third season of Class Disrupted and reflect on how urgent it is to rethink the fundamental structures…
Class DisruptedSeason 2, Episode 21: A plea for nuance
In the final episode of Season 2 of Class Disrupted, Diane and Michael talk through four recurrent themes on the podcast—and how each conversation would…
Class DisruptedSeason 2, Episode 20: Are you exhausted yet?
Students, parents and educators are all exhausted from the past year—and here comes summer! How should the time be used and how will it be used? Diane and…
Class DisruptedSeason 2, Episode 19: Shifting mindset to upend grade levels
Joel Rose, cofounder of Teach to One, joins Michael and Diane to talk about why now is the moment to lean into innovation—not back away from it—and how we need…
Class DisruptedSeason 2, Episode 18: Behind the federal dollars flowing to schools
With an unprecedented cash infusion going to public schools from the federal government, Michael and Diane interview noted school finance expert Marguerite…
Class DisruptedSeason 2, Episode 17: The politics of COVID and schools
Since very early in the pandemic, education policy expert John Bailey has been in front of collecting key data and research about COVID and its impact on…
Class DisruptedSeason 2, Episode 16: Transcending today’s schools through design
Diane and Michael dig deep into the importance of an inclusive design process to rethink schooling with the co-CEOs of Transcend Education, Aylon Samouha and…
Class DisruptedSeason 2, Episode 15: Who’s driving the narrative anyway?
As the CDC once again revised its guidance around school reopening and the Department of Education drums up conversation around summer school, Diane and…
Class DisruptedSeason 2, Episode 14: What schools must do before the fall
Diane and Michael plan with the end in mind and backward map the top 5 things schools must have in place before students start the school year in the fall…
Class DisruptedSeason 2, Episode 13: Testing, learning loss, and the CDC guidance on reopening schools
In this episode, Michael jumped in the interviewer chair to ask Diane as an educator about how she’s treating the Biden administration’s…
Class DisruptedSeason 2, Episode 12: Learning pods for low-income learners
The mainstream media seems to be noticing, at last, that learning pods are popping up to serve low-income learners. Diane and Michael discuss whether the…
Class DisruptedSeason 2, Episode 11: Reopening debate reprised
In Chicago, the district and union have sparred over the question of reopening. Michael and Diane explore a better approach to reopening and dive into how…
Class DisruptedSeason 2, Episode 10: The hybrid learning insanity
Diane and Michael delve into the challenges that attempting to teach students in-person and remotely at the same time poses—and ponder if design thinking can…
Class DisruptedSeason 2, Episode 9: Modeling grace and understanding
With the naming of Miguel Cardona as President-elect Biden’s nominee for Secretary of Education and the arrival of vaccines, Diane and Michael break down…
Class DisruptedSeason 2, Episode 8: Teachers’ unions and reopening schools
Diane and Michael wade into the hot-button topic of teachers’ unions for the first time in Class Disrupted. What role are they playing in school closures…
Class DisruptedSeason 2, Episode 7: Turn on your video cameras!
Diane and Michael dig into the debate among educators around requiring students to turn on their video cameras during live classes, and ask whether policies…
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Season 2, Episode 6: Who will replace Betsy DeVos?
Diane and Michael tackle the question of who the next secretary of education might be by starting with what the US Department of Education actually does. And…
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Season 2, Episode 5: The reopening question
Diane talks through the considerations and challenges in reopening schools – and what that term even means – to help all stakeholders think through…
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Season 2, Episode 4: Should there be in-person sports when schools are remote?
Michael and Diane tackle the thorny – and often emotional – question of sports and schools in this latest episode, as well as how to think about a…