Half the Answer #37: Education Wars

Caitlin M. Green, Trent R. Nelson, Jennifer C. Berkshire, Jack Schneider Oct 2, 2025

Trent and Caitlin speak with Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider about their recent book The Education Wars: A Citizen’s Guide and Defense Manual. They discuss the faulty beliefs and logics that lead us to think about education as a tool for achievement and competition rather than a service provided by communities to their members. They ask what rhetorical strategies have been employed to convince us to allow the public school system to be degraded and dismantled, and the methods that have been working to arrest this degradation today.

Half the Answer can be heard on Spotify, on Apple, on YouTube, on Amazon, and elsewhere via its RSS feed.

Resources:

https://www.educationwarsbook.com/

Jack and Jennifer's podcast: https://www.haveyouheardpodcast.com/

Jack and Jennifer’s previous book: https://thenewpress.org/books/a-wolf-at-the-schoolhouse-door/?v=eb65bcceaa5f

The Death of Public School: How Conservatives Won the War Over Education in America: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/cara-fitzpatrick/the-death-of-public-school/9781541646773/?lens=basic-books

Mahmoud v. Taylor: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24-297_4f14.pdf

Free-market logic for education: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3102/0013189X231216953

Published in: Half the Answer, Podcast

Authors

Caitlin Green is a linguist specializing in Discourse Studies and Pragmatics. She lives in California with her husband, two daughters, and a very small black cat.

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Trent R. Nelson is a poet, historian, and philosopher, as well as a political and socioeconomic analyst. He is the managing editor for MWF Springfield and a contributing editor with Liberal Currents.

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