Happy New Year! Co-hosts Cara and Bob talk with Lance Izumi, Senior Director of the Center for Education at the Pacific Research Institute. He discusses his new book, Choosing Diversity, and the wide range of both the student populations served, and the variety of learning models offered, by the charter schools that he visited. Some schools were geared toward students suffering from autism, or homelessness; others focused on technology and using online platforms, foreign language immersion, and classical learning. They also explore some of the challenges facing charters across the nation, including accountability, parental engagement, California politics, and the fallout from the Los Angeles teacher union strike.

Stories of the Week: A New York Times feature presents what students themselves think about how to improve education – with some surprising insights. In Kentucky, a local school board rejected the state’s first charter school application. Is this approval model a conflict of interest, and a bad sign for charter expansion? An upcoming Los Angeles school board election with four open seats raises important questions about the politicization of education.