Interviews

How We Explain it Really Matters, with Liz Willen

When you want the box seat view of what’s happening across-the-board in American education, you ask Liz Willen, Editor-in-chief at the Hechinger Report.

The Enrollhand Team

Sep 4, 2019 • 2 min read

“An array of various discussions about what goes wrong (will result) when you try to do something that’s brand new and allegedly innovative, but if people don’t understand it or buy into it, change can be a very difficult and slow-moving process.” - Liz Willen

Audio version:

Summary

When you want the box seat view of what’s happening across-the-board in American education, you ask Liz Willen, Editor-in-chief at the Hechinger Report. She takes the gloves off for our Enrollhand interview and punches education “jargon” in the jaw, throws a strong right hook at funding cuts in the arts, and gives a head-butt to “innovative” rollouts that fail to garner support or create optimism.

Join us as we listen to Hechinger's Liz Willen for a bare-knuckled round of educational enlightenment.

Quotes:

02:00 “I can’t just blame educators because lawyers do this (use jargon) as well, and business people have a lingo that they use that also leaves others behind.”

05:45 “I’m very leery if anyone tells me that they can close the achievement gap.”

11:02 “Arts education should be an enormous priority for our country, and yet, it’s often the first thing that gets cut.”

14:00 “I think you see pockets of rebellion and a lot of second-guessing of the testing culture throughout the school system.”

25:05 “An array of various discussions about what goes wrong (will result) when you try to do something that’s brand new and allegedly innovative, but if people don’t understand it or buy into it, change can be a very difficult and slow-moving process.”

Here are some resources mentioned in our discussion:

On Writing Well - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0090RVGW0/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

iNACOL - https://www.inacol.org

Hechinger Report Articles - https://hechingerreport.org/anatomy-of-a-failure-how-an-xq-super-school-flopped/

https://hechingerreport.org/one-mississippi-community-copes-influx-hispanic-students/

https://hechingerreport.org/inside-maines-disastrous-roll-out-of-proficiency-based-learning/

https://hechingerreport.org/as-states-push-for-news-ways-of-learning-some-kids-and-parents-feel-left-behind/

The National Center for Fair and Open Testing - https://www.fairtest.org/
Grammy Music Education Coalition - https://grammymusiced.org/

Where to learn more about the guest:

Liz at Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/liz-willen-5671a38

Blog - hechingerreport.org/

Twitter - hechingerreport