The Family Freedom Podcast

Stacie Thornton joins us to talk about a few of the miracles surrounding America's Founding, and the gratitude we can have for those who gave so much to secure freedom for each one of us. Happy Independence Day!

Do year end tests actually measure what your kids actually know? Alyson Williams served on the parent panel that reviewed questions appearing on Utah's year-end test. Wendy and Alyson discuss whether these tests fulfill the responsibility of measuring student learning.  How accurate and reliable are the state's year-end tests?

Barry Garelick joins us for a discussion about the process of learning mathematics. Are there lessons to be learned from previous methods. Are we repeating errors that are avoidable?

Local school board member, Julie King discusses a recent Harvard paper and proposed summit on homeschooling.  Harvard assumes that there is great harm that comes from homeschooling. Julie weighs in on why parents are the best people to make those educational choices, and how that benefits society overall. We also discuss the varied reasons why parents might choose to homeschool.  You may be surprised at the reasons why.

 

Update: Harvard has, apparently, cancelled the homeschool summit referenced in the podcast and the article (https://harvardmagazine.com/2020/05/right-now-risks-homeschooling)

Have you been frustrated trying to help your child learn "real" math?  How do you teach math in a way that makes sense?  J.R. Wilson, longtime teacher and math advocate, joins me to give you pointers on making sure your child can do math and be successful with it!

https://www.coreknowledge.org/our-approach/core-knowledge-sequence/k-8-sequence/

Everyone seems to agree that money is a big, and probably outsized, influencer in elections.  Most people think this is a problem.  Utah has a system for selecting candidates that limits the influence of money, and increases accountability to the average person in each neighborhood.  Casey Voeks, former chairman of the Utah County GOP, joins me to talk about why local neighborhoods can have a greater say than the corporate bosses and marketing execs under this system than any other. He also explains why having accountability to the local citizen makes for better government and better elected officials. 

Matt Throckmorton joins me to talk about how the social distancing with the Coronavirus gives us an opportunity to see what is really important in education.  In short, how do we make lemonade out of lemons in our current environment?  And what lessons can we learn going forward?

Amy Mullins, a speech language pathologist, joins me to discuss how the good intentions of helping kids with issues like speech in the schools has led to unintended consequences that make it harder to help a broad range of students than it otherwise should be.  How does helping kids with speech issues in the school mean that some kids don't get any services or maybe not the correct ones?  As we strive to legislate more services to be provided in the schools, we need to see what is working and what isn't.  Perhaps, we will still desire to provide the services in the schools, but we should do so with our eyes wide open.  

The biggest question in education is always "Who Decides?"  Who decides what your child should learn?  Who decides if your kid has learned it?  Should that decision be left to appointed staff or should We, the People, have a say?  Alisa Ellis, former Utah State School Board member, joins me to discuss this important issue.

Part two of my discussion with Dr. Sandra Stotsky.  How can parents know if standards are good? Dr. Stotsky helped oversee the Massachusetts standards that had a long track record of success.  Most standards are adopted based on the opinions of those in power, not with any evidence.  How can parents know if the opinions of experts hold water?