Our Children Can't Wait

In our final episode this season, we continue the shift from speaking with scholars across the country to speaking with young leaders who have decided not to wait for change to happen.Dr. Joe Bishop discusses the importance of diversifying college campuses with Kashish Bastola, a public education, racial and equity advocate and undergraduate student at Harvard University.Kashish sees school as a place for students to dream about their future. However, many students don’t have the privilege to dream about attending college or an Ivy League school like Harvard. His lived experiences in rural Texas ignited his passion for education justice and he has been actively advocating for change since his early high school years. The Supreme Court’s recent ruling on race-based admissions policies has fueled new conversations around college access and charged activists like Kashish with a new mission to ensure universities don’t further cement existing inequities.Special Guest: Kashish Bastola is a sophomore at Harvard University and is originally from Texas. This year, Time Magazine published his opinion essay, Harvard's Diversity Problem Goes Deeper than Race. He is an advocate for public education and climate justice in the Gulf South. His work has included marching 400 miles from New Orleans to Houston to call on the federal government to act on the climate crisis, as well as testifying before the Texas Senate Committee on Education in support of student voice in school board governance. He also worked to create the first ethnic studies courses in his school district in Frisco, Texas. Coming from generations of Nepali freedom fighters, Kashish is passionate about democracy and community. On campus, he is involved in CIVICS, the Radcliffe Institute, the Asian American Dance Troupe, the Affirmative Action Working Group, the Harvard Undergraduate Law Review, and many more campus organizations. Check out his Instagram and Twitter @kashishbastola and his LinkedIn. Our Children Can't Wait is a podcast by the Center for the Transformation of Schools in the School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA. Dr. Joe Bishop is the host. Elizabeth Windom is the Producer. Julia Windom is the Associate Producer. Geneva Sum is the Creative Director, and Senior Producer is Jay Woodward. Our Children Can't Wait is a companion to the book of the same name, Our Children Can't Wait. Available now from Teachers College Press and Amazon. Our Children Can't Wait is produced by Windhaven Productions and Bluejay Atlantic.Join the CTS mailing list: new research, events, tools & resources, straight to your inbox. Support the work of CTS with a financial gift here.Follow CTS on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn, and share your thoughts with us by emailing ctschools@ucla.edu.

In this episode, we continue the shift from speaking to scholars across the country to speaking to young leaders who have decided not to wait for change to happen.Dr. Joe Bishop explores restorative justice approaches with high school senior Alima Kassim and her experiences after a mass shooting close to home at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee.Nashville native Alima and her sisters have been working for years on a restorative justice model to address the root causes of school conflicts. Instead of suspending a student, a practice that excludes students from their peers, their proposed strategies focus on strengthening the relationships between and the social connections within communities.Is it possible to change “school safety” into a positive phrase? How would widespread student-led restorative justice committees impact students’ overall safety? Alima and Bishop answer these questions and discuss how a school safety agenda that centers on trust and belonging could radically change how we think about the topic. Special Guest: Alima Kassim is a student at the University School of Nashville in Tennessee, starting her senior year of high school. She enjoys running track and spending time with her friends. She’s been instrumental in getting a restorative justice project off the ground at her school, has served on with the Mayor’s Youth Council in Nashville and volunteered with Habitat for Humanity. She hopes to spread love and make sure everyone feels comfortable in their environment.Our Children Can't Wait is a podcast by the Center for the Transformation of Schools in the School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA. Dr. Joe Bishop is the host. Elizabeth Windom is the Producer. Julia Windom is the Associate Producer. Geneva Sum is the Creative Director, and Senior Producer is Jay Woodward. Our Children Can't Wait is a companion to the book of the same name, Our Children Can't Wait. Available now from Teachers College Press and Amazon. Our Children Can't Wait is produced by Windhaven Productions and Bluejay Atlantic.Join the CTS mailing list: new research, events, tools & resources, straight to your inbox. Support the work of CTS with a financial gift here.Follow CTS on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn, and share your thoughts with us by emailing ctschools@ucla.edu.

In this episode, we continue the shift from speaking to scholars across the country to speaking to young leaders who have decided not to wait for change to happen.Dr. Joe Bishop unpacks with Shiva Rajbhandari his decision to run for his district’s school board in Boise, Idaho and his passion for raising awareness about the climate crisis.Road trips after graduation are a rite of passage for many young people. However, Shiva and his friends give it new meaning by using it as an opportunity to educate others about climate change and the impact it has had on his home state of Idaho. He has decided that his age will not limit his ability to advocate for climate justice. He won’t sit idly by when there is work that needs to be done to make our country a better place. Why are we afraid to see young people as policy shapers? How can we actively make room for age-diverse leadership in policy spaces?Special Guest: Shiva Rajbhandari was elected to his district’s school board in September 2022 as a student at Boise High. He is currently an undergraduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Shiva has been a community organizer since 9th grade, working on climate change, gun violence, and voting rights issues. As the first student to ever serve on the Board, he is passionate about mental health, supporting teachers, and sustainability approaches in schools. Shiva is a member of the Idaho Climate Literacy Education Engagement and Research executive committee at Boise State University. He volunteers for BABE VOTE, Youth Salmon Protectors, Reclaim Idaho, and the Idaho Climate Justice League. Before his election to the Board, he served on the Boise Schools Sustainability Committee and on the Boise High Student Council. Shiva works as the Youth Engagement Coordinator at the Idaho Conservation League. In his spare time, Shiva loves to run, ski, and fish in wild Idaho.Check out his Instagram @shiva_rajbhandari and  Twitter @_Shiva_R.Our Children Can't Wait is a podcast by the Center for the Transformation of Schools in the School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA. Dr. Joe Bishop (Twitter @joepbishop) is the host. Elizabeth Windom is the Producer. Julia Windom is the Associate Producer. Geneva Sum is the Creative Director, and Senior Producer is Jay Woodward. Our Children Can't Wait is a companion to the book of the same name, Our Children Can't Wait. Available now from Teachers College Press and Amazon. Our Children Can't Wait is produced by Windhaven Productions and Bluejay Atlantic.Join the CTS mailing list: new research, events, tools & resources, straight to your inbox. Support the work of CTS with a financial gift here. Follow CTS on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn, and share your thoughts with us by emailing ctschools@ucla.edu.

In this episode, we make a shift from speaking to scholars across the country to speaking to young leaders who have decided not to wait for change to happen.Dr. Joe Bishop begins the conversation on how to support young leaders with social media strategist and organizer Annie Wu Henry. Annie explains how digital spaces allow people to connect to communities that would be otherwise inaccessible. And despite the impact of the digital age that often isolates people from one another, people remain hungry for authentic connection and for their stories to be heard. These connections forged around social issues have the power to unite us.How can we use the ever-changing digital media landscape as an effective tool for justice? How can we learn from the young leaders who are cultivating community through these online spaces?Special Guest: Annie Wu Henry is a social media and digital strategy expert for progressive organizations and campaigns. She believes that we need on-the-ground organizing, electoral work, and the online media to drive progress in society, and has taken a hand in contributing to all three. She was most recently the social media producer for John Fetterman's successful Senate campaign in Pennsylvania. As a strategist, creator, and political operative, Annie has been profiled by the New York Times, contributed to some of the largest online advocacy platforms like @feminist, @impact, @shityoushouldcareabout, @intersectionalenvironmentalist, @so.informed, @genzforchange and has had a myriad of content "go viral," being shared by the likes of Rachel Cargle, Viola Davis, Kerry Washington, Ariana Grande, Yara Shahidi, the Kardashians, Jenners, Olivia Rodrigo + more. Through her personal platform, she engages her own following to inform and activate them about the world and how they can get involved to push for change. She is passionate about progressive politics, press notifications, pop culture, pressed coffee, and people who do the right thing.Our Children Can't Wait is a podcast by the Center for the Transformation of Schools in the School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA. Dr. Joe Bishop is the host. Elizabeth Windom is the Producer. Julia Windom is the Associate Producer. Geneva Sum is the Creative Director, and Senior Producer is Jay Woodward. Our Children Can't Wait is a companion to the book of the same name, Our Children Can't Wait. Available now from Teachers College Press and Amazon. Our Children Can't Wait is produced by Windhaven Productions and Bluejay Atlantic.Join the CTS mailing list: new research, events, tools & resources, straight to your inbox. Support the work of CTS with a financial gift here.

Please keep your eyes peeled for more new episodes from Our Children Can't Wait coming this summer. We're talking to some interesting people who are making an impact organizing for educational policy reforms.

Joe Bishop navigates student homelessness with researchers Dr. Matthew Morton and Dr. Earl J. Edwards, an issue that ties together many of the episodes’ previous topics.Both guests share their personal experiences with homelessness as students. They outline misconceptions and stigmas that we may have about the topic. Homelessness impacts one million young people in the US. How did this happen? Actually, by design. Homelessness is a result of series of interconnected systems that  we can reform by making homelessness a policy issue and not a job for charities to solve.  Why does homelessness exist in the richest country in the world? Where should we go from here?Special Guest: Matthew Morton, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Constellation Lab (CoLab) at the Constellation Fund, which propels, funds, and supports longitudinal research and evaluation of interventions to tackle poverty and the unequal opportunities that sustain it. .. Morton has expertise in youth development, youth homelessness, evaluation of complex interventions, and evidence-based practice. Earl J Edwards, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at the Boston College Lynch School of Education and Human Development. His research interests include racial equity and the impacts of structural racism across public institutions and education equity and access in urban schools. His current research focuses on how American public schools can better support youth experiencing homelessness. Our Children Can't Wait is a podcast by the Center for the Transformation of Schools in the School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA. Joe Bishop is the host. Elizabeth Windom is the Producer. Julia Windom is the Associate Producer. Geneva Sum is the Creative Director, and Senior Producer is Jay Woodward. Our Children Can't Wait is a companion to the book of the same name, Our Children Can't Wait. Available now from Teachers College Press and Amazon. Our Children Can't Wait is produced by Windhaven Productions and Bluejay Atlantic.Join the CTS mailing list: new research, events, tools & resources, straight to your inbox. Support the work of CTS with a financial gift here.Follow CTS on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn, and share your thoughts with us by emailing ctschools@ucla.edu.

Dr. Joe Bishop examines youth incarceration and education policy with scholar and researcher Dr. Angela James. We have all heard of the school-to-prison pipeline. Currently, the US spends $25 million a day to detain young people. Dr. Angela James brings a new framework to this conversation: one of transformation and hope. She outlines how incarcerated youth are educated and what their day-to-day experiences are like. She shares about a revolutionary approach to meaningful juvenile justice reform called the Missouri model, how it differs from the current approach of educating incarcerated youth, and how it can be transformative for the lives of youth.What are juvenile court schools like? How can we change education policy for youth in carceral settings to facilitate individual and social transformation?Special Guest: Angela James, Ph.D. is a sociologist and demographer dedicated to educational equity and improvement. She is currently the Research Director at the Center for the Transformation of Schools in the School of Education and Information Sciences at UCLA.  Our Children Can't Wait is a podcast by the Center for the Transformation of Schools in the School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA. Joe Bishop is the host. Elizabeth Windom is the Producer. Julia Windom is the Associate Producer. Geneva Sum is the Creative Director, and Senior Producer is Jay Woodward. Our Children Can't Wait is a companion to the book of the same name, Our Children Can't Wait. Available now from Teachers College Press and Amazon. Our Children Can't Wait is produced by Windhaven Productions and Bluejay Atlantic.Join the CTS mailing list: new research, events, tools & resources, straight to your inbox. Support the work of CTS with a financial gift here.Follow CTS on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn, and share your thoughts with us by emailing ctschools@ucla.edu.

Dr. Joe Bishop discusses youth voices and youth organizing with social justice education researcher and scholar Dr. Justin Coles of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. As a teen, Justin saw his community change from racially diverse to predominantly Black. He questioned why the reputation of his high school was negatively affected by the change in its racial composition. This led him to pursue racial justice work centering on youth. In this episode, he outlines to Joe the importance of learning accurate American history in order to answer the question: What are the realities of race and policy that affect us today? He also shares the importance of respecting youths’ agency instead of trying to control them.Why are our current standards, systems, and policies disconnected from youth?Special Guest: Justin A. Coles is an Assistant Professor of Social Justice Education at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in the Department of Student Development. At UMass Amherst, Justin also serves as the Director of Arts, Culture, and Political Engagement at the Center of Racial Justice and Youth Engaged Research (CRJ). At the CRJ, he is also the director of the Black Healing, Joy, and Justice Collective. Justin serves as Co-Editor of the academic journal Equity & Excellence and Education.  Our Children Can't Wait is a podcast by the Center for the Transformation of Schools in the School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA. Joe Bishop is the host. Elizabeth Windom is the Producer. Julia Windom is the Associate Producer. Geneva Sum is the Creative Director, and Senior Producer is Jay Woodward. Our Children Can't Wait is a companion to the book of the same name, Our Children Can't Wait. Available now from Teachers College Press and Amazon. Our Children Can't Wait is produced by Windhaven Productions and Bluejay Atlantic.Join the CTS mailing list: new research, events, tools & resources, straight to your inbox. Support the work of CTS with a financial gift here.Follow CTS on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn, and share your thoughts with us by emailing ctschools@ucla.edu.

Dr. Joe Bishop explores how schools are financed with researchers and scholars Drs. Oscar Jimenez-Castellanos and Danielle Farrie. Historically, school funding relies on local taxes, with each state having its own funding guidelines. The problem is that local communities’ taxes vary drastically, leaving many schools underfunded. Oscar’s family came to the United States looking for better opportunities, but they found themselves confronted with segregation and racism in a rural California agriculture community. Danielle attended school in New Jersey and later realized how privileged she was after an experience she had in a high school sociology class. Both have worked hard to research school funding, with the goal of making education a constitutional right through funding policy reform. How do local, state, and federal taxes move in and out of our schools? How is school funding connected to the constitutional right to education?Special Guests: Oscar Jimenez Castellanos, Ph.D. is the Director of P-12 Research at The Education Trust. Dr. Jimenez-Castellanos has spent over 20 years in education — most recently, as a Visiting Scholar at USC Rossier School of Education. He has published extensively in education finance equity policy, among other education equity issues.  Danielle Farrie, Ph.D. is the research director at Education Law Center (ELC), a non-profit law firm that specializes in enforcing the rights of public school students. Her research focuses on school finance and other equity-focused educational issues to support litigation and public policy for ELC and partner organizations.Follow Education Law Center on Twitter @edlawcenter and check out their website. Our Children Can't Wait is a podcast by the Center for the Transformation of Schools in the School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA. Joe Bishop is the host. Elizabeth Windom is the Producer. Julia Windom is the Associate Producer. Geneva Sum is the Creative Director, and Senior Producer is Jay Woodward. Our Children Can't Wait is a companion to the book of the same name, Our Children Can't Wait. Available now from Teachers College Press and Amazon. Our Children Can't Wait is produced by Windhaven Productions and Bluejay Atlantic.Join the CTS mailing list: new research, events, tools & resources, straight to your inbox. Support the work of CTS with a financial gift here.