Please Speak Freely

When I met Dorothy Jungels, I knew immediately that I wanted to spend more time with her. As the co-founder and co-Artistic Director of Everett Company Stage School, Dorothy is part of an amazing “mom and pop” nonprofit community arts organization, along with many members of her family and extended family. This past year while my familyContinue Reading…

For a long time, I have been concerned about how young children are given drugs like Ritalin and Adderal. So when I saw Nancy Rappaport‘s recent Washington Post article, “We Are Overmedicating America’s Poorest Kids,” it caught my eye. In this episode, I talk to Dr. Rappaport about many issues including the oversimplication of the headlineContinue Reading…

One of the great things about doing this podcast is that I get to meet awesome new people. The other great thing is that I get to sit down with some of my favorite people and talk to them for an hour or so, and this is one of those episodes. Carla Sanger, the President andContinue Reading…

This is a very special episode of Please Speak Freely, a memorial to the great Richard Murphy. Murphy was a friend and a mentor to me and countless others, and he passed away on Valentine’s Day, 2013. He was a true lion in the field of youth development. Among many other accomplishments, he founded Rheedlen CentersContinue Reading…

Thanks to support from the National AfterSchool Association (NAA), I got a chance to interview Jaime Casap at the 2014 NAA National Convention where he was the keynote speaker. Jaime is the Global Education Evangelist at Google, a company you may have heard of. In his role, he is responsible for working with schools and organizations to bring technology intoContinue Reading…

Baratunde Thurston is the CEO and co-founder of Cultivated Wit, a design, media, and technology company. I came across Baratunde’s book, How to Be Black, in a used bookstore last summer. It caught my eye because the title is so funny, and because I recognized his name, probably from his days as Director of Digital at The Onion,Continue Reading…

If you’ve been following the national or international news about education policy over the past few years, you’ve probably heard that Finland is a big educational success story. What’s amazing about the Finnish story is that the Finnish have basically done everything the opposite of the current education reform agenda in the United States. They’ve focused onContinue Reading…

Selma James is a freedom fighter, fighting against racism, and fighting for human rights for all, especially women. She is best known for the International Wages for Housework Campaign, launched in 1972. She has continued her fierce activism all these years, and her most recent book, Sex, Race and Class, The Perspective of Winning, A Selection of WritingsContinue Reading…

Last year, people across the country were inspired by the solidarity of the faculty, students, and parents at Garfield High School in Seattle, Washington. The teachers there were tired of being forced to give a test they didn’t believe in, and they decided to do something about it. They boycotted the test, and become theContinue Reading…

If you love zombies, you’re going to love this episode! I talked with Aaron Regunberg, Executive Director of the Providence Student Union (PSU). PSU became well known nationally last year when they led a zombie marchthrough the downtown of Providence, RI to call attention to the “zombification” of students that results from high-stakes testing and the narrowing ofContinue Reading…

Just in time for this week’s 16th Annual Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Festival (held in Chicago this year), I spoke with the founder of Louder Than a Bomb: the Chicago Youth Poetry Festival, Kevin Coval, Artistic Director of Young Chicago Authors, as well as Jamila Woods, a poet, singer, playwright and founding member of YCA’s teaching artist corps. We talkedContinue Reading…

We are pleased to present this special episode of Please Speak Freely, sponsored by Project Liftoff and recorded live at the Midwest Afterschool Science Academy, on March 12-14, 2013 in Kansas City. This episode is hosted by my colleague Jennifer Brady, and features conversations with Jeff Buehler of Project Liftoff, Ron Ottinger of the Noyce Foundation,Tony Streit and Leslie Goodyear of Education Development Center, Maryann Stimmer of STEMEducators and more! Jennifer andContinue Reading…

On May 10, 2013, I read an Op-Ed in the New York Times that really struck a chord. The article was titled, “Pay People to Cook at Home,” and in the piece my guest Kristin Wartman argues that the government should provide compensation to parents of young children to support parents in providing healthy home cooked meals. Kristin basedContinue Reading…

Almost fifty years go, the Institute for Educational Leadership was formed to bring together leaders from diverse sectors to focus on building partnerships for educational success. Around that same time, Marty Blank was a VISTA volunteer in the Missouri Bootheel, and began his lifelong mission for social justice and equity. I talked with Marty about his journey, the work of the twoContinue Reading…

First, let me apologize for the extra long delay between episodes of Please Speak Freely! While I have intentionally ignored the good advice I get to put the podcast on a set schedule in order to keep it from becoming a chore with an arbitrary deadline, I do intend to release a new episode at leastContinue Reading…

I sat down with Tony Smith, Superintendent of the Oakland Unified School District at the School’s Out Washington Bridge Conference in Seattle, WA on October 9, 2012. Before we talked, Dr. Smith copresented a keynote for the conference with Jakada Imani, Executive Director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights (and past Please Speak Freely guest). TheContinue Reading…

This episode was recorded live at the School’s Out Washington Bridge Conference in Seattle, WA on October 9, 2012. It features a panel discussion I moderated on the challenges and complex realities of shifting from a teacher-student paradigm to a youth-adult partnership. I was so happy to share the stage with youth and youth practitioners representing programsContinue Reading…

Children’s Troubadour Raffi is famous worldwide for his beautiful songs, including, “Baby Beluga,” “Bananaphone,” “Willoughby Wallaby Woo” and so many more. While I only really got to know his music when I became a father, millions of people who grew up with his music now have children of their own. They are known as BelugaContinue Reading…

You may know Lenore Skenazy as the woman who let her nine-year old son ride the subway alone, and was then the subject of much controversy, including this episode of the Today Show. She is now the host of the TV show, World’s Worst Mom and author of the book Free-Range Kids, where she advocatesContinue Reading…

Many years ago when I was Director of Staff Development at LA’s BEST After School Enrichment Program in Los Angeles, we were very excited to receive a visit from the office of the U.S. Secretary of Education. That visitor was to become known by many as the Godfather of Afterschool, Dr. Terry Peterson. Terry isContinue Reading…

One of my favorite youth programs in the country is New Urban Arts, based in Providence, RI. This community-based program is located in a storefront, and it is one of those rare places where the practice matches the rhetoric. For this episode I interviewed Jason Yoon, Executive Director and Sarah Meyer, Program Director, and weContinue Reading…

It was a pleasure to sit down with Holly Delany Cole, Co-Director of Community Resource Exchange, a New York nonprofit consulting firm that provides strategic advice and technical services every year to more than 300 community-based nonprofit organizations confronting social issues such as poverty and HIV/AIDS in low and moderate income neighborhoods. Holly has uniqueContinue Reading…

“I grew up as one of those kids who came from an ‘at risk’ background. And what made a difference for me was that I had a youth program that wasn’t just about providing me services, but that was about investing in me as a leader.” – Jakada Imani I’m happy to announce that thisContinue Reading…

“A lot of times you come into a place and you’re going to have an influence on that school and on that institution and better the community, but your child may or may not see the fruits of that.”    – Will Power This episode features a free-ranging conversation with Will Power, award-winning performer, playwright and educator (soon toContinue Reading…

“We know from lots of research and from lots of experience that the work of helping young people get to productive adulthood is bigger than any one institution can take on.” – Jane Quinn This episode features Jane Quinn, Vice President and Director of National Center for Community Schools for Children’s Aid Society. Jane discussesContinue Reading…

This special episode was recorded live from the Afterschool Alliance’s Afterschool for All Challenge, held May 8-9, 2012 in Washington DC. This episode features an interview with Afterschool Alliance Executive Director Jodi Grant, along with highlights from the opening panel entitled “Afterschool Works: Understanding the Evidence and Transforming Research Into Action,” and the 11th annualContinue Reading…

“We are trying to teach the kids that there is a way that KIPPsters act. There is a curiosity that they bring to the classroom; there is a respect that they bring to their interactions with their peers and with their teachers. We are going to be pragmatic about that approach, and we’re going toContinue Reading…

Jennifer Davis, Co-Founder and President of the National Center on Time and Learning, leads a campaign to get educators and others to re-think how time is used in schools. In this episode, she describes the Expanded Learning Time (ELT) movement and responds to some of the concerns raised by people in the after school/youth developmentContinue Reading…

Hanaa Arafat spearheaded an appeal effort that had a big statewide impact in New York, by gently but rigorously insisting that the State maintain standards of fairness in how they dole out grants for afterschool programs “The self-reporting mechanism to document poverty [is] discriminatory, because teenagers do not want to self-report on this.” – HanaaContinue Reading…

Brad Lupien, Co-Founder and Co-President of ARC (formerly Champions) has a million ideas for how to improve education and the lives of young people, and in this episode we got to discuss a few. “You’ve got to try lots and lots of different things and think about lots of crazy ideas and you have to be comfortable that mostContinue Reading…

“I’m very worried that the move towards the business is best approach, right throughout society, is eroding older traditions of solidarity and working together, and cooperation and community in the public spirit, which are the things we are going to need to get us out of the mess that we’re in.” – Michael Edwards IContinue Reading…

This episode of Please Speak Freely is all about food. I sat down with Crystal FitzSimons of the Food Research Action Center at the Bridge Conference in Seattle last October, and learned a lot about how school lunches, snacks and suppers are funded and provided, and the efforts being made to ensure high-quality nutrition. Because I am recording the podcasts fasterContinue Reading…

Alfie Kohn is a busy man, and I had to be pretty pushy to get him to agree to be a guest on Please Speak Freely. As the author of bestselling books Punished By Rewards, The Schools Our Children Deserve, Beyond Discipline and more, Mr. Kohn pretty much embodies the title of the podcast, and his work has been incrediblyContinue Reading…

By Rhys Powell, Founder & President, RedRabbit When I listen to these types of interviews, I cannot help but think how this is mostly a community issue and that we all need to work together to create a systemic change. I believe we can have an impact on the issues facing our society in this area if weContinue Reading…

As a youth development organization, Rich Berlin and his team did an audacious thing – they started their own school. What began as a notion to revive baseball in the inner city grew, until Harlem RBI was a major resource to the East Harlem community, and then they founded DREAM Charter School. I had a frank and interesting conversation withContinue Reading…

I’ve known Dr. Paul Heckman, Associate Dean at the University of California School of Education for a long time – thirteen years ago, when I was Director of Staff Development for LA’s BEST Afterschool Enrichment Program, Paul was a consultant for LA’s BEST, and a mentor for me. I’ve learned so much from him over the years, and IContinue Reading…

This is a special episode of Please Speak Freely, recorded live at the Bridge from School to Afterschool and Back Conference in Seattle, WA! While I have recently recorded a few more interviews that still need to be edited and put online, I wanted to get this episode up while the conference is still fresh in theContinue Reading…

I got to sit down with Karen Pittman, President and CEO of the Forum for Youth Investment and a national leader and advocate for positive youth development. Ms. Pittman has received many awards and has advised the top levels of government, foundations and nonprofits on how to create programs and policies that promote the values of youth developmentContinue Reading…

I was pleased to speak with Dr. Pedro Noguera of New York University, who has been a leader and advocate for holistic and equitable education. Pedro Noguera has been a consistent and strong advocate for the role of community organizations and the importance of afterschool and summer learning opportunities. Pedro Noguera and I had a good conversation about theContinue Reading…

In this episode, I had a chance to talk with Earl Martin Phalen, who founded BELL andSummer Advantage and is the President and CEO of Reach Out and Read. BELL, which Earl founded when he was a law student, has grown to become one of the leading afterschool providers in the country, and Summer Advantage has received a lot ofContinue Reading…

In our premier episode, I had a very interesting conversation with Alexis Menten, Assistant Director for Education of Asia Society. Asia Society has been leading the way in the out-of-school time field in the area of global learning and global competence. Alexis and I discussed what those terms mean, what the ideas mean for afterschool, andContinue Reading…