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 was proven wrong by cognitive scientists decades ago. Teaching methods based on this idea can make it harder for children to learn how to read. In this podcast, Hanford investigates the influential authors who promote this idea and the company that sells their work. It's an exposé of how educators came to believe in something that isn't true and are now reckoning with the consequences — children harmed, money wasted, an education system upended.

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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 required strict discipline but promised low-income students a better shot at college. After DJ left the classroom to become a journalist, Noble disavowed its own policies — calling them "assimilationist, patriarchal, white supremacist, and anti-black." In this hour, DJ, who is white, revisits his old school as it tries to reinvent itself as an anti-racist institution. And he seeks out his former students to ask them how they felt about being on the receiving end of all that education reform, and what they think now about the time they spent in his classroom.

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 the fall of 2015, when Black students led protests in response to a string of racist incidents. The protests put Mizzou in the national news.

But the news stories didn't match what Lauren saw. They made it seem like racism on campus was an aberration. And they made it seem like Black student organizing was new at Mizzou. What Lauren saw was "Black Mizzou," a thriving campus-within-a-campus that Black students have built over decades to make the university a more welcoming place.

An immigration law scholar says colleges have no business declaring their campuses "sanctuaries" for undocumented students.

Why African American teachers are leaving the profession faster than they're entering it.

Since 2012, many undocumented young people have been protected from the threat of deportation. With a new president, that may change.

Donald Trump's win was a surprise to many in the college-educated elite. Should it have been?

The next president could end temporary protections for undocumented college students.

Education has hardly been mentioned in the presidential debates. We look at where the candidates stand.

A new study finds that black and Latino students who experience racism have higher levels of cortisol, a hormone linked to stress, and one that is known to impact focus and learning.

Can children as young as 4 learn to have meaningful dialogues about race?

Some in education think providing travel opportunities can reduce the gap in how well some groups of students perform in school.

In a flipped classroom, students watch or listen to lectures on their own, then spend class time working on projects.

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 have figured out about how reading comprehension works and why poverty and race can affect a child’s reading development. Read the full story.

What does it look like to be ready for school?

Strap on your cowboy boots: A new investigation by the Houston Chronicle finds that Texas has denied special education services to thousands of kids in the state.

After an abrupt reversal 20 years ago, some prisons and colleges try to maintain college education for prisoners.

The nation's high school graduation rate is at an all-time high, but high-poverty schools face a stubborn challenge. Schools in Miami and Pasadena are trying to do things differently.

A get-tough attitude prevailed among educators in the 1980s and 1990s, but research shows that zero-tolerance policies don't make schools safer and lead to disproportionate discipline for students of color.

A system meant to give college students a better shot at succeeding is actually getting in the way of many, costing them time and money and taking a particular toll on students of color.

When was the last time you ate? In one survey, 7 percent of college students said they went an entire day without eating.

Students of color are twice as likely to be suspended as white kids. So schools are turning to an alternative called restorative justice.

We follow a homeless student as she fights to graduate from high school.

A student debt crisis in America? We break down the myths and realities of student debt.

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 small, are rethinking how to offer an education while keeping people safe.

This program explores how institutions are handling the crisis, and how students are trying to navigate a major disruption in their college years.

The long tradition of students attending small, residential liberal arts colleges around the country was already shaky before the pandemic. Students are choosing less expensive options and more practical degrees. Experts warn that 10 percent of American colleges — about 200 or more institutions — are on the verge of going under. The pandemic is accelerating that trend.

The pandemic is making getting through college harder for students on the wrong side of the digital divide. In rural Arizona, when campuses closed, some students couldn’t log on from home, because they had no access to the internet. A local sheriff flew laptops and hotspots to community college students on the Navajo Nation.

Colleges and universities are under pressure to reopen, but bringing students back on campus safely means dealing with dizzying logistics. As the virus surges in Miami, a large commuter campus gets ready.

The suburbs are no longer just white picket fences and green manicured lawns. They're diversifying. So what does that mean for suburban schools?

A prison education advocate shares his experience in prison and talks about his work spreading college to others.

The South is famous for its bayous, BBQ, and bourbon. It's less well known for its rural education. Our guest tells us why.

Small, rural schools around the country are closing. Our guest says that could actually be a good thing.

What's the role of a school in a rural town? We begin our series on rural schools by looking at a state where the fight has been particularly fierce: Vermont.

Do you understand facts better online or in print? New research has massive implications for teaching in the 21st century.

Theological schools are straining for cash as they suffer from drops in enrollment over the past few years. Our guest tells us how they are dealing with it.

Our guest says the so-called 'invisible tax' on teachers of color leads to burnout at a time when teachers of color are already leaving the profession more quickly than their white colleagues.

Should colleges have men's studies majors or men's resource centers? Our guest this week tells us that male college students would get better grades if they rejected stereotypes of hyper-masculinity.

"Welcome to our world." Educators take an entire school day to shadow a student and walk in their shoes. We find out how it went for one teacher.

The coronavirus pandemic has left West Virginia schools particularly hard hit. The Us & Them podcast from West Virginia Public Radio brings us stories of teachers grappling with virtual classes for students who don't have access to the internet and how schools are trying, still, to keep kids fed.

Want a job? So does every student ever! Maybe career and technical education classes are the way to go. Shaun Dougherty says you could be more likely to graduate and earn more if you do.

Private tutoring is no longer just for the rich kids. Our guest tells us how the individual attention improves student learning and graduation rates.

In our last episode, Andrew Hacker argued that math courses like algebra are unnecessary for most high schoolers. This week's guest couldn't disagree more.

Politicians and economists say people need advanced math skills to be successful in the highly technical jobs of the 21st century. But the author of a new book says that's just not true.

We're working on a documentary that explores the backlash against harsh school discipline practices across the country. This week we talk about state laws that seek to push back against the "zero tolerance" policies of the past.

A new study shows that what a child knows about science in kindergarten can strongly predict how he or she scores on an eighth-grade science test.

Minnesota has a reputation for having great public education. But if you're Hispanic, black, Asian-American or Native American, your chances of completing high school are worse in Minnesota than in almost any other state.

Research shows suspensions aren't effective at changing kids' behavior. And kids of color are more likely to get kicked out than white kids. This week, we examine the history of harsh discipline in school.

The college application process has come under scrutiny in a new report by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. It recommends that schools ask students to demonstrate they're making a civic contribution to their local communities, even if that means taking fewer AP courses.

Nearly two-thirds of all students who enroll in community college are not "college-ready" in math and/or English. This week we hear from a remedial writing teacher who says many of his students have been traumatized by past K-12 educational experiences.

Editor-in-chief of The Hechinger Report, Liz Willen, shares what she's heard from high school seniors who are feeling anxious and overwhelmed as they face pandemic-fueled challenges.

If you want to really learn something before a big test, put your books down. Research shows that the traditional method of "cramming" for an exam by reading the same thing over and over again, doesn't work. (Rerun from Oct. 2014)

School voucher programs are controversial because they allow students to use public funds to pay for private school. A new paper is one of the first to show a school voucher program actually lowering student test scores.

Most teenagers are not learning about personal finance in school, according to an annual survey on financial literacy. Our guest this week says that needs to change.