The Harvard EdCast

00:00The case for rethinking how we challenge advanced math students

00:49Why focus on high-performing students during a time of learning recovery

01:09The tradeoff: prioritizing struggling students vs. supporting advanced learners

02:51Inside the classroom: the real challenge of differentiation

03:17Why accelerating students can make teaching more difficult

05:21The downside of treating math like a race

06:37A better approach: dep...

00:00 Why families fixate on elite colleges—and the rise of the “panicking class”

01:15 How rankings shape decisions (and why they mislead)

03:10 The truth about differences between top-ranked schools

04:45 Why choosing a college feels so confusing

06:15 How test-optional, early decision, and the Common App changed everything

08:20 Inside the “black box” of holistic admissions

10:05 Who makes up the “panicking class”

11:40 Reality ...

0:25 — Why reading scores still struggle

2:15 — Rise of the science of reading

5:00 — Aligning leadership to drive reform

7:30 — Consistency and long-term commitment

10:00 — Implementation matters more than policy

12:30 — Where literacy efforts break down

14:30 — What teachers need to do

17:00 — From percentages to individual students

19:00 — Why some states lose momentum.

20:30 — “Mays vs. shalls” in policy

22:00 — How long it tak...

0:00 — Introduction

1:05 — The three types of sex education most people receive

3:20 — What comprehensive sexuality education actually means

5:10 — Why consent alone isn't enough

7:00 — Why sexuality education shouldn't be siloed in health class

9:20 — Why conversations about sexuality should start early

11:30 — Teaching body awareness and safety

13:30 — Why kids ask questions about where babies come from

15:20 — The biggest challe...

Harvard Graduate School of Education ProfessorKaren Brennan sees classrooms as magical spaces when we begin with curiosity, not just content.

“When I think about design process, from the initial moments of young people working on projects, all the way to the end where they've gone through the highs, the lows, the emotional vicissitudes of bringing their ideas into the world, the messy middle through to the end, there is a role for ...

When Doug Larkin and Suzanne Poole Patzelt set out to study the relationship between teacher pay and retention, what they found surprised them.

“Without fail, no matter what school we went to, what state we were in, that was always the number one response,” Poole Patzelt says. “We did nothing to put that at the top. That was far and beyond the number one reason why teachers stayed was because of who they were working with.”

She add...

Disagreement is a part of everyday life, yet most of us avoid it whenever possible. Harvard Kennedy School Professor Julia Minson knows where and why our conversations often go wrong and how we can learn to disagree better.

Minson, whose research focuses on how people engage with opposing viewpoints, says fear drives avoidance. “Most of these conversations are a pleasant surprise, but people don't expect that. And so they just conti...

As the United States approaches the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, how should schools teach this foundational document?

Harvard lecturer Eric Soto-Shed joins The Harvard EdCast to discuss how civics education is evolving from patriotic education and action civics to media literacy and reflective patriotism. He explains why students should engage not only with the Declaration’s democratic ideals, but also with ...

With about one in four children in the U.S. now living in immigrant families, Harvard Associate Professor Gabrielle Oliveira argues that supporting their wellbeing should be a national priority – not just for the children themselves, but for the strength of society as a whole.

Yet for many Americans, migration is often seen as risky or even reckless, especially when it involves bringing children across dangerous borders and leaving ...

Looking back at the early history of U.S. education, Harvard Professor Jarvis Givens says we’ve long told the story in fragments: Native education in one lane, Black education in another, and the rise of white common schools somewhere else. But in his latest research, he shows just how deeply interconnected these histories actually are, particularly how the development of public schools was entangled with Native land dispossession ...

Harvard Graduate School of Education Professor Jal Mehta knows that education research matters – it has the power to shape schools, classrooms, and policy. Yet, today, in increased political polarization, many may question whether education research can be neutral.

“As a researcher, you have a lot of choices about what topics you study. Those choices are driven by a whole variety of things. They're driven by what researchers would t...

In the wake of the pandemic, tutoring has become a central strategy for helping students recover academically but not all tutoring is created equal. Liz Cohen, vice president of policy at 50CAN, has been closely studying the rapid rise of tutoring programs across the country, especially the emergence of high-impact tutoring as the gold standard.

“There's a funny thing about tutoring is that there's a lot of flexibility in it,” Cohen...

In an era when many Americans believe the country is too divided to come back together, Tufts University political scientist Eitan Hersh believes higher education has a crucial role to play in bridging divides and he’s putting that belief into practice through a new university center devoted to viewpoint diversity.

“What do we want from students when they graduate high school or college,” Hersh says. “We want them to be able to enga...

Curiosity is one of our most powerful, yet often overlooked, human drives, especially in education. Elizabeth Bonawitz, associate professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, explains that while there’s no single definition of curiosity, it’s best understood as an internal desire to resolve gaps in our knowledge or a wondering about how the world works. That innate drive begins in infancy, fueling our rapid early learning...

Dreama Gentry grew up in Appalachian Kentucky, in a community often defined by outsiders for what it lacked. But what she saw was strength, connection, and possibility. Today, as the founder and CEO of Partners for Rural Impact, she’s working to make sure the 14 million young people growing up in rural America can see those same possibilities for themselves.

“What I see in Appalachia is that a lot of young folks have lost hope. And ...

When educators talk about artificial intelligence, the conversation often begins with excitement about its potential. But for Stephanie Smith Budhai and Marie Heath, that excitement must be matched with caution, context, and critical awareness. 

“AI is a piece of technology. It's not human, but it's also not a neutral thing either,” says Budhai, an associate professor in the educational technology program at the University of Delawa...

Congress has passed the nation’s first federal school voucher–style program, set to begin in 2027. Supporters call it a landmark expansion of parental choice, while critics fear it will divert billions from public schools. Harvard Professor Marty West says the program raises important questions about the future of American schooling and even how the program will operate.

The new program, part of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” is ...

Schools around the world are cracking down on student cell phones, with many turning to outright bans as a fix for distraction, bullying, or mental health struggles. But as University of Birmingham Professor Vicky Goodyear and Harvard’s Carrie James explain, the story is more complicated than a simple “phones are bad.”

“School phone policies alone are not enough to tackle some of the issues that we're seeing in adolescents,” Goodyea...

Strategic leadership may be one of the hardest — and most vital — skills for school leaders to master. Liz City, senior lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a long-time coach to school and system leaders across the country, says strategic leadership is not innate but a skill that can be learned and strengthened over time.

“We're in a context which, over the last five years, has been full of uncertainty and ambigu...