Public Education on the Precipice: Narratives, Inclusion, and What’s at Stake ~ 1314

Jennifer Berkshire
The thing that we’re most concerned about is that there’s simply not enough people who understand that we really are on a precipice.

The special education rights they need in order to write those stories are really hanging in the balance right now.

Jack Schneider
I think that for me, the most important question to ask is: what does any of us know about the 98,000 public schools that we have never set foot in? What do we know?

We need to be aware of the fact that there are narratives that are being told about our schools, and that those narratives don’t necessarily align with reality.

Tim Villegas
Hey friends, welcome back to Think Inclusive, real conversations about building schools where every learner belongs. I’m your host, Tim Villegas. Today’s episode is about the future of public education and why it matters for all of us. Our guests are Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider, writers, researchers, and co-hosts of the Have You Heard podcast.

We talk about why public education is on a precipice, how political narratives shape what we believe about schools, and what’s at stake for students with disabilities if we move toward privatization. Plus, we explore what you can do right now to push back against misinformation and advocate for a system that serves everyone. Before we meet our guests, I want to tell you about our sponsor.

This episode is brought to you by IXL. IXL is an all-in-one platform for K–12 that helps boost student achievement, empowers teachers, and tracks progress in one place. As students practice, IXL adapts to their individual needs so that every learner gets just-right support and challenge. And each student gets a personalized learning plan to close gaps. Check it out at IXL.com slash inclusive. Again, that’s IXL.com slash inclusive.

All right. After a quick break, it’s time to think inclusive with Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider. Catch you on the other side.

Tim Villegas
Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider, welcome to the Think Inclusive podcast.

Jennifer Berkshire
Thanks so much for having us.

Jack Schneider
Great to be here.

Tim Villegas
Real quick, before I jump into some questions, I just want to say thank you so much for all of your work on Have You Heard. It’s been one of my favorite podcasts, not just education-related, but podcasts in general. I do listen to a lot of podcasts, so I really appreciate all the time and effort that you put into it. Before getting on this call, I was catching up, because I don’t always get to listen as regularly as I want to. It really is a treat to have you on. Thank you so much.

Jack Schneider
That’s nice to hear. We’re up there with luminaries like Malcolm Gladwell and Joe Rogan, the heroes of the podcasting universe.

Tim Villegas
Malcolm Gladwell would probably be up there for me. Joe Rogan, probably not.

There’s a lot to talk about, so let’s start with a really big picture question, specifically around public education. I love the way that you frame this idea that public education is on the precipice. There are a lot of feelings about public education. What do you think right now is the thing that’s most misunderstood about the extra scrutiny that’s happening against public ed?

Jennifer Berkshire
Jack, I’ll start us off. This is a topic we both feel especially passionate about. The thing that we’re most concerned about is that there’s simply not enough people who understand that we really are on a precipice.

I’ll give you an example. I just attended the Education Writers Association conference, and they gave their top honors to a reporter at the Boston Globe who is terrific, but whose specialty is exposing the failure of districts to live up to the promise of special education. I thought it was great that she was getting an award for this expert reporting, but I wondered how many people at that conference realized that the special education rights they need in order to write those stories are really hanging in the balance right now.

It’s so easy to get lost in the headlines, the constant drip, drip, drip, or the sound of the chainsaw as we read about grants being cut, programs disappearing, states and school districts being sued. It’s really hard to remain focused on the big picture, especially when the big picture looks grim. Jack and I just wrote a piece together laying out why that big picture is so concerning, and I think about four people read it for precisely that reason. Telling people, “You know how bad things feel right now? Well, we’ve got news for you. It’s actually even worse.”

Tim Villegas
Inspiring.

Jennifer Berkshire
Listen.

Jack Schneider
It’s like the Leonard Cohen song. You want it darker?

For me, the most important question to ask is what does any of us know about the 98,000 public schools that we have never set foot in? How would we know? Why would there be a national story about those schools that we don’t understand in any firsthand way, and who would shape that story?

It’s really important to start with real schools, because schools are easy to talk about in the abstract. When we talk in abstractions, it’s easy to line up whatever we imagine with a narrative influenced by ideology or political motivation. We can imagine there’s a school out there doing exactly what it’s accused of doing, but are the other 98,000 schools doing that? Most likely not.

We know that most people sending kids to local public schools are pretty happy with the education their kids are getting. We know that despite all the hand-wringing about international exams or NAEP data, trends are generally up or stable over time, aside from a dip during the pandemic. And people who actually send their kids to schools seem pretty satisfied.

If you’ve ever been inside a school, you know there’s a lot you’d change, but I’m guessing it doesn’t align with what we’re hearing from the Republican Party right now, or even the Democratic Party’s reform rhetoric from the last 20 years. We need to be skeptical of the narratives being told, because they often serve a political end. Right now, that end is dismantling public education.

If your goal is to end taxpayer-supported, open-enrollment, democratically controlled public schools, the best way to get there is to convince people that this is a failed experiment, that it’s no longer worth tinkering with.

Tim Villegas
I’m going to take us off the rails a bit. I feel like there’s a real missed opportunity with our more mainstream education news outlets. I’m talking about Education Week in particular, but even very large and influential outlets like Edutopia.

Jennifer Berkshire
Okay.

Tim Villegas
This is not disparaging at all. I’m just saying there are no mainstream education podcasts that are telling the stories of what is actually happening in schools, whether they are inspiring stories or what people would consider “bad” stories.

We have some mainstream news outlets that are local, talking about a transgender student getting banned from being on a team, teachers getting fired, or discrimination. But there’s no education voice really sharing those stories in a way that helps people know what is going on in schools.

I’m going to take us even further off track. Before the comedy show Abbott Elementary became popular, I always thought, why isn’t there a comedy show or even a drama about schools that captures the zeitgeist? I’m sure you’re familiar with Abbott Elementary. It’s a fantastic show. Before that came on board, I just didn’t understand why public education wasn’t in the minds of a lot of people.

To your point, Jack, there are thousands of schools in the United States. If you ask somebody what goes on in schools, they say, “Well, Trump says this is going on—indoctrination, DEI,” which they see as a bad thing.

Jennifer Berkshire
Yeah.

Tim Villegas
That’s all I wanted to say.

Jack Schneider
Don’t forget the Marxist teachers, Tim.

Jennifer Berkshire
Yeah.

Tim Villegas
And the Marxist teachers.

Jack Schneider
Who do you think is doing the indoctrination?

Jennifer Berkshire
Yeah, the Marxist teacher.

I was just hanging out with my sister. She just retired after 30 years of teaching in a rural school in southern Illinois. She’s married into a very large family, and a number of her relatives are very conservative. There’s a direct plug from Fox News into their brains. She arrived at a party and overheard two of them talking about litter boxes. They’re still talking about litter boxes.

I’ve wondered about Abbott Elementary as well. Here’s this show and it’s wildly popular. It defies viewing trends. Think about the other portrayals of public education that tried to take off during the Obama era. There was Waiting for Superman. There was Won’t Back Down, set in Pennsylvania, with Viola Davis.

The idea was that angry parents were going to seize the means of education production and turn a school into a charter school. None of these tapped into the public imagination, as much as reformers wanted them to. Meanwhile, Abbott Elementary, with its very funny, very sympathetic, but also clear-eyed view of what schools are up against, really tapped into something.

I have thoughts about why there are so few outlets doing this kind of coverage. I’m just back from an education writers conference, so I’ve been thinking about how people understand their role. Jack and I talk a lot about how we’ve lost the thread about the purpose of public education. You can say the same thing about education journalism.

If you look back at journalism during the Obama era and before, the whole point was to focus on gaps, especially comparing a charter school and a traditional public school and pointing out which one was doing better. That was education journalism.

Now that that national project has receded, how do you cover whether a voucher program is successful when they’ve removed all accountability? There’s no public reporting requirement. The metric of success is just whether a parent likes it. That really upends the role of an education journalist.

We need to convince people who write and podcast about schools to back their lens up and get a bigger picture. If your goal is clicks and viewers, maybe think about telling this story in a way people can understand beyond “here’s a school where kids aren’t faring well on two metrics.”

Jack Schneider
I also want to say it’s important to understand how media works. What kinds of stories get clicks now? This is very different from old local journalism designed to keep people informed about local issues. That paradigm has shifted.

Stories about schools now fall into clickbait political stories or voyeuristic entertainment stories. Neither aligns well with what’s actually happening in most schools most of the day. What’s happening is stuff people don’t want to read 1,500 words about.

Where’s the story about everyone showing up, teachers coming prepared, kids learning, everyone going home safely? Nobody wants to read that story, in part because we think we’re experts about school because we went there. We have no idea what’s going on in schools.

Schools appear in the background of so many shows. In Saved by the Bell, nobody’s starting a charter school network. Nobody’s talking about Common Core brainwashing. Schools are just there, part of life.

Listeners should be thinking: what do we actually know? What don’t we know? And what are we being told that fills in those gaps, often appealing to our more salacious impulses?

Tim Villegas
I think you just described a Pulitzer Prize–winning project, Jack.

Tim Villegas
After the break, I want to share a story about the time I went to the Georgia State Capitol and shadowed a parent fighting for her child with Down syndrome to be fully included in general education. What happened in that meeting says a lot about how little people really know about what’s going on in our schools and why that matters.

From there, we dig into the bigger picture with Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider: the narratives shaping public education, the fight for inclusion, and what’s at stake for students with disabilities. Stick around until the end for the mystery question, straight from my 12-year-old, where we find out what’s on Jennifer and Jack’s bucket list.

This show is produced by the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education. MCIE partners with educators and school systems to promote authentic inclusion, foster change, and support the implementation of inclusive practices. Our work begins with a conversation. If you’re ready to create schools where every learner belongs, visit mcie.org and start that conversation today.

Tim Villegas
I kind of want to stay on this idea of narrative and storytelling in schools. I want to tell you a story about a time I went to the Georgia State Capitol and shadowed a parent who has a child with Down syndrome.

I think he was in first grade in a school district here in Georgia. I live in Georgia, by the way, even though I work for the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education.

I followed her down there. She’s a very active parent, and she was meeting with a local representative. She told the story of how she wanted her son to be included in regular classes, and the school district said no, that he had to go to another school where there were highly trained people who would teach him. She said, “Actually, you can’t do that.” There was a lot of back and forth.

The state representative had absolutely zero idea that this kind of thing was happening, not only to this family, but all around the country, dozens, hundreds, thousands of times. Parents are advocating for their children to be included in general education with the right supports, and school districts can just say no. They have to go somewhere else.

I was honestly surprised. This goes along with the idea that nobody knows what’s going on in schools. Not only do people not know what’s going on in schools, but the people making laws in our states have no idea that this kind of discrimination is happening, specifically related to inclusion and inclusive education for students with disabilities. That’s a separate conversation from racial equity and gender equity, though there’s intersectionality there.

I’m wondering, in your conversations and reporting, has that story come up for you?

Jennifer Berkshire
I’ll say a little bit, and then I don’t know what Jack thinks about this, because we haven’t really talked about it this way. This is a huge issue in Massachusetts. Absolutely huge. It’s a huge issue in the community where I live.

I often think about the Boston Globe reporter I mentioned earlier, who has carved out this role documenting the ways school districts deny a free and appropriate education to parents of kids with special needs. That’s been really eye-opening.

I don’t think there’s a lot of understanding at the community level or the state policy level about why this is so contentious. The money race to the bottom sets up an explosive battle between parents, who understandably fight as hard as they can to make sure their child gets everything they’re entitled to, and this larger ethical conversation about how you make decisions about who gets what.

As important as it is to shine a light on what’s happening, especially right now, when federal rights that protect parents of kids with disabilities feel more vulnerable than they have in a long time, it’s also crucial to keep that big-picture perspective.

I live by my wits. My life is basically a series of hustles. One of the things I’ve worked on for a long time is a newsletter for a school in Massachusetts for kids with special needs. We have special ed collaboratives, where a district that can’t meet the needs of a particular student can send kids to a regional school.

The one I’ve worked with for many years is absolutely fantastic. One of the frustrations I have about how students with special needs are covered is that it’s always a story of denial, disappointment, and failure—failure by administrators, failure by teachers.

I would love journalists to see this school and understand that it really can be done. It can be done in a way that produces the best possible outcomes for kids who arrive with a staggering array of challenges. Wouldn’t it be great if we had more positive examples to inform the broader conversation? Instead of only journalism that says, “Here’s another failure, another parent who wasn’t listened to. Maybe the answer is private school vouchers.”

Tim Villegas
Mm.

Jack Schneider
Not surprisingly, I come at this from a different angle. One of the reasons Jennifer and I work so well together is that she brings these very current stories, and I often come in with what the research says.

In this case, it’s helpful to think about what sociologists call street-level bureaucrats. District administrators and school administrators are in this position where they have to arbitrate policy and make decisions about how it gets enacted at the local level.

You have federal laws and guidance, like special education law, but that has to come to life in schools and districts. Why do these administrators deny services? It’s not because they’re malicious or incompetent. It’s because they’re triaging.

They’re working with inadequate resources, insufficient personnel, and limited time. They’re trying to serve the maximum number of students without overwhelming institutional or human capacity. There’s a large body of research in special education that explains why these decisions get made.

When you dig into it, you find structural and systemic issues that lawmakers could address. One of those is the cost of special education, which we haven’t adequately wrestled with.

For me, this is one of the reasons public education is indispensable. If we’re going to live in a democracy and make claims about equal opportunity, we need public education. Students with disabilities will never have their needs met in a catch-as-catch-can system.

Kids born into wealth will do fine. Occasionally, a family will navigate a charitable system with some success. But right now, we’re actually doing better than ever in human history at serving kids with disabilities, even though it’s still not where we want to be.

The way forward is gaining clarity about the roadblocks and barriers. We need to move away from simplistic stories about incompetence or self-interested educators and start telling stories about people working hard within flawed systems to improve them.

That’s how we win for kids with disabilities, for historically marginalized kids, and for our communities. We don’t fund public education because we want to give handouts. We do it because it makes communities safer, richer in meaningful ways, and more prosperous. We gain a lot by making sure all kids are served well, even if you wouldn’t hear that from the current president.

Tim Villegas
Jennifer, did you have something else to say? No? Okay. I just want to amplify what you said, Jack, about the reasons why a family might be denied services. Historically, in the districts that we’ve worked with and talked to, it’s not because they hate kids.

Jack Schneider
Yeah.

Tim Villegas
It’s because of the system they’re working within. There are a lot of barriers. Some of those barriers are policy. Some are mindset. Some are skills that teachers or administrators may or may not have.

Jennifer Berkshire
Thanks.

Tim Villegas
It’s very rarely because an educator wants kids to fail. That’s not the issue. The districts that are doing this well and including learners with disabilities, even those with more complex support needs like Down syndrome or autism, have rearranged their systems.

Inclusion doesn’t mean putting learners with and without disabilities in a regular class and keeping the status quo. Those districts have made inclusion a priority and changed how their systems work. I’d love to hear more success stories like that. They are out there.

That’s a lot of what we do on this podcast—highlighting those stories. Districts in Maryland, Washington state, and places like the Henderson School in Boston. Dan Habib has done filming there. He also has a film called The Ride Ahead, about his son Samuel telling his story of growing up with disabilities and being mostly included in general education. That’s another resource for listeners.

I want to shift to school choice and charter schools. This is a concern for our audience, especially given current political thinking. This move toward vouchers, school choice, and charters has been happening for a long time. For educators listening, what context can you give about how we got here?

Jack Schneider
I’ll take that one. We’ll go way back, before anything resembling a system of public education. What you effectively have is the vision voucher supporters hold today: a vision of the past.

In that world, you can’t count on your child receiving a free and appropriate education in the least restrictive environment. If you have means, you find a private academy or pay for a tutor. Maybe a neighbor with an education teaches kids in her house. That was the status quo in the early nineteenth century.

People found that intolerable. There were too many gaps and inequities. It was bad for democracy and society. So we built a system of public education involving government, taxation, and bureaucracy. Today, we serve about 50 million kids. You can’t do that without those structures.

By the mid-twentieth century, some people began objecting to what looked like big government. By the 1960s, there was federal aid to high-poverty schools. By the 1970s, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, later IDEA. State aid flowed to schools serving high-need kids. To conservative observers, this looked like socialism.

Milton Friedman and others argued for vouchers, breaking the democratic system and eventually privatizing education. That idea was deeply unpopular and remains so. Vouchers lose when put on the ballot. So instead, the idea stayed alive among libertarian conservatives.

By the 1980s, vouchers were mostly dead. That’s when charters emerged as a compromise. They were public schools, free and open, with lotteries instead of selective admissions. Early messaging emphasized social justice and opportunity.

There was a coalition of neoliberals and Republicans pushing charters. But charters were never the end goal for conservatives. They were a way station.

Some charter schools are fantastic. Others are not. What matters is the rhetoric: that bureaucracy, unions, and funding weren’t the problem—markets were the solution. That rhetoric eventually leads back to vouchers and full privatization.

In a privatized system, it becomes hard to justify taxpayer support. Why should I pay for a school teaching a curriculum I don’t believe in? That’s very different from recognizing that I benefit when kids across the street learn to live together, respect one another, and grow into capable adults.

That’s how you get vouchers. An ideological idea people wouldn’t give up on, resuscitated through charters and advanced toward privatization.

Tim Villegas
All the reasons you gave, for or against charters, sound a lot like the same reasons for what the current administration is doing in government in general. The concept of privatizing the functions of government. I’m wondering if there are lessons there. It all seems connected.

Jennifer Berkshire
I think you’re absolutely right. You can go down the list of what they’re trying to do. It’s about socializing risk and privatizing profit. The theory at the heart of all these moves is that you should just do this on your own.

That argument doesn’t make sense for education in general, but imagine how terrifying it is as a parent of a child with special needs to hear, “You’re on your own now.” Or the idea that churches will step in to do it.

I was in Florida recently, and there’s a big scandal there that may or may not result in Governor DeSantis going to jail. A lot of it has to do with his wife, who has ambitions to run for governor.

What you’re seeing on the ground is what Jack described. Instead of rights, you get options. You get an education vendor marketplace where you take your education savings account dollars and buy things the way you buy products on Amazon. You’re at the mercy of reviews. Is the review real? Does the product actually work? How hard is it to return if it’s a dud?

That’s the vision shaping education. It should scare us. When we think about everything we expect schools to do, especially for kids who need it most, this kind of system is not going to work.

Tim Villegas
Can I get five more minutes?

Jack Schneider
Of course.

Jennifer Berkshire
I can’t believe how fast this went by.

Jack Schneider
We did get through two questions.

Tim Villegas
It’s mostly Jack. I’m kidding. I apologize.

Jennifer Berkshire
Half of our audience feels Jack is mistreated by me every episode, and the other half feels Jack undercuts me every episode.

Jack Schneider
We had a Patreon member who stopped subscribing because I encouraged people to listen to the free version of the show for the sake of democracy. She was angry that I was undermining Jennifer’s Patreon pitch.

Tim Villegas
Please listen to Have You Heard and buy both of your books, or check them out from the library: The Education Wars and A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door. Before I wrap up, where can people find your work?

Jack Schneider
If you Google the three big things Jennifer and I do together: the Have You Heard podcast, A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door, and The Education Wars, you’ll find everything. You can also request the books at your local library. Jennifer and I write frequently together in places like The Nation, The New York Times, and Slate.

Tim Villegas
Final thought from each of you for our audience of educators.

Jennifer Berkshire
I was recently in Florida with a heavy heart. Historically, doing events there has been depressing because schools have been hit with bad policy for a long time. This time was different. Things are so dire that ordinary people are waking up.

Parents are realizing programs they care about are at risk. Lawmakers are proposing deep cuts to AP classes, IB classes, career and technical education. Suddenly, there’s a broader coalition of parents, including parents of kids with special needs who realize Florida’s voucher system doesn’t protect them by design.

I came back feeling like maybe it’s not over. Maybe we haven’t lost.

Jack Schneider
My final thought is hopeful too. We’ve fallen prey to the idea that education is just about getting ahead. That’s not why we have schools.

We have public education so we can live together in a diverse democracy. One of the best ways we’ve learned to get along across difference and create opportunity has been through this collective project.

It starts with talking about it. When people say something disparaging about my daughter’s high school, I ask why. The conversation changes because most people don’t actually know anything about the school.

The same is true for special education. Talking about why it exists, who benefits, and what its purpose is helps people realize they need to learn more. Change happens through ordinary conversation.

If there are young people listening, especially young people with disabilities, tell your story. You matter, and people will listen to you in ways they won’t listen to me.

Tim Villegas
Fantastic. Thank you both.

Tim Villegas
So we’ve covered a lot: why public education is on a precipice, how political narratives shape what we believe about schools, and what’s at stake for students with disabilities if we move toward privatization. Jennifer and Jack have given us powerful insights into the history, the current challenges, and why telling the right stories matters now more than ever.

Before we wrap up, it’s time for one of my favorite parts of the show: the mystery question, written by my 12-year-old. You’re not going to want to miss this one.

Tim Villegas
All right. Mystery question time. This question is written by my 12-year-old. She’s written a number of them over the past few months. I have three right here that I’m going to randomly pick from, and then we’ll all answer the question. These are hot off the press. She handed them to me yesterday.

Jennifer Berkshire
Okay.

Jack Schneider
Wow, awesome.

Tim Villegas
I was running out, so I told her she had to get me one. Today’s mystery question is: What is one thing on your bucket list, and why?

Jack Schneider
I don’t really have a bucket list, but there is one thing I’ve been chasing for years, and that’s the Northern Lights. Why? Because it’s an incredible way to feel your smallness in the universe. It reminds you there are mysteries out there that, even when we can explain them, are still beyond our ordinary comprehension.

That sense of wonder is something school can give us when it’s done well. It helps us realize there’s so much to explore, helps us figure out what we’re interested in and excited about. One of these days, I’ll be somewhere north and dark enough to see them.

Tim Villegas
All right. Thanks, Jack. Jennifer?

Jennifer Berkshire
I don’t have a great answer, so I’m wondering if I can request a speed-ahead to one of the other questions.

Tim Villegas
Only one mystery question per episode, but I’ll give you time to think.

I’ll go next. My bucket list item is visiting every Major League Baseball park. I grew up in Southern California, a Dodger fan since birth. We moved to Atlanta in 2008, so I’ve been to Dodger Stadium, Truist Park, Camden Yards, Angel Stadium, and others. I get to ballgames whenever I can, even minor league. I don’t know if I’ll ever make it to all of them, but I think about it constantly.

Jennifer Berkshire
First, I want to thank your daughter for the excellent mystery question. I also want to offer a life lesson. In the future, she may end up with someone who doesn’t share her idea of a delightful activity.

Sometimes, if you’re really excited about something, just do it. Don’t wait for someone else to come around to the fact that it’s a great idea.

Jack Schneider
I don’t like doing things. I don’t want to do anything.

Jennifer Berkshire
Jack’s better half is often having to convince him to go along with ideas she’s excited about.

Jack Schneider
Baseball got me, Tim. I grew up a Dodger fan. I’ll go to baseball games and I’ll get out into nature. But trying to get me to go to dinner with somebody? I’m going to take a pass.

Tim Villegas
Thank you both for participating in the mystery question. You’ve made me and my 12-year-old very happy.

Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider, thank you so much for being on the Think Inclusive podcast.

Jennifer Berkshire
Thanks so much for having us.

Jack Schneider
It was great to be here.

Tim Villegas
That was Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider. One of my big takeaways is that we need to keep telling stories about what’s happening in public schools—the good, the bad, and the ugly. When we don’t, others fill in the gaps with narratives that don’t match reality, and those narratives can shape policy in ways that harm students, especially those with disabilities.

Here’s one practical step for educators: start small. Share one authentic story from your classroom or school this week. Post it on social media, write a blog, or tell a colleague. The more real stories we share, the harder it becomes for misinformation to take root.

Share this episode with a colleague who’s building inclusive schools. Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and follow Think Inclusive wherever you get your podcasts.

Shout out to all the educators I spent time with on Long Island last week. I was invited to keynote an event at the LIU Post campus, and it reminded me that there’s no difference in children’s capability to be included, whether they’re in Long Island, Maryland, California, or Georgia. The difference lies in systems that segregate learners based on disability and in educators’ willingness and commitment to make inclusion happen.

If you’d like me to keynote an event you’re planning, you can email me at tvillegas@mcie.org.

Now let’s roll the credits.

Think Inclusive is brought to you by me, Tim Villegas. I write, edit, mix, and master the show. This podcast is a proud production of the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education, with scheduling and extra production help from Jill Wagoner. Our original music is by Miles Kredich, with extra vibes from Melod.ie.

Fun fact: Long Island is the largest and longest island in the contiguous United States. It stretches approximately 118 miles from Brooklyn and Queens to Montauk Point. It’s divided into Nassau County and Suffolk County. Thanks to Facts.net for that fun fact.

Have you ever spent time on Long Island? I’d love to know. Email me at tvillegas@mcie.org. I read every single message.

You’ve made it this far. You’re officially part of the Think Inclusive inclusion crew. Want to help us keep moving the needle for inclusion? Head to mcie.org and click the donate button. Give five, ten, or twenty dollars. It helps us keep partnering with schools and districts and supporting educators doing the work.

Find us on the socials almost everywhere at Think Inclusive. Thanks for hanging out, and remember: inclusion always works.