APM: American RadioWorks Podcast
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Segments from American RadioWorks, public radio's largest documentary unit.
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Podcast Website:
http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/
American RadioWorks - For-Profits
Fri, February 10, 2012
For-profit universities have come under fire in recent years because of questionable practices at some institutions. But today, schools like the University of Phoenix, DeVry and others are working hard to transform their images. Correspondent Emily Hanford interviewed Kaplan University's Peter Smith for an upcoming documentary that tracks the rise of the for-profit higher education industry.
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American RadioWorks - Getting Through College
Fri, February 3, 2012
Our correspondent Emily Hanford produced a documentary last fall called "Some College, No Degree" about the challenges people face getting back to college once they quit. Now she's working on a new documentary that looks at the college completion question from a different angle.
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American RadioWorks - Teaching Online
Fri, January 27, 2012
In some financially struggling districts, parents are opting for virtual classrooms as an alternative to troubled bricks-and-mortar schools. The quality of online schooling and online teaching varies, but there are standouts. We talk to Online Teacher of the Year Kristin Kipp about what it takes to thrive in a virtual school.
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American RadioWorks - King's Last March
Fri, January 20, 2012
As a belated tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, here is an encore presentation of our 2008 documentary, "King's Last March." Over 40 years after Dr. King's assassination, he remains one of the most vivid symbols of hope for racial unity in America. But that's not the way he was viewed in the last year of his life.
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American RadioWorks - The State of Online Education
Fri, January 13, 2012
Online coursework was once considered an experimental alternative to on-ground classes, but it's quickly becoming a part of the mainstream. Online courses make it possible for colleges and universities to stay within their shrinking budgets, and for busy working adults to go to school anywhere, anytime. As of last fall, about a third of all American college students were enrolled in at least one course online.
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American RadioWorks - Losing the Lecture
Fri, January 6, 2012
This week, we present a story that American RadioWorks correspondent Emily Hanford recently did for NPR news. It looks at what's wrong with the traditional lecture, and what some physicists are doing to get rid of it.
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American RadioWorks - The Year in Education News
Fri, December 30, 2011
What were the top education stories of 2011? The Wall Street Journal's Stephanie Banchero joins us to discuss the stories she thinks had the biggest impact this year.
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American RadioWorks - Excellent Community Colleges
Fri, December 23, 2011
In the coming decade, most new jobs will require a college education. Community colleges are expected to play a big role in helping Americans get those jobs. Nearly half of all college students go to community colleges but only a third of them graduate.
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American RadioWorks - White House and College Access
Fri, December 16, 2011
President Barack Obama recently called college leaders to the White House to talk about making college more accessible and affordable for all Americans. Jamie Merisotis was among the attendees. He is president of Lumina Foundation, one of the most influential foundations in the higher education sector.
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American RadioWorks - Organizing Schools to Help Students
Fri, December 9, 2011
When it comes to education reform, the most controversial ideas usually generate the most attention, but these flashy efforts are often hard to measure and expensive to do. The authors of a new report argue that there are less glamorous, more common-sense school reforms that benefit students by changing the way schools are organized.
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American RadioWorks - Saving Cooper Union
Fri, December 2, 2011
Going to college for free may sound like a fantasy, but Cooper Union in New York City has offered free tuition to its students since its founding in 1859. Now Cooper Union is facing a serious budget deficit and its trustees are considering charging tuition to keep the institution solvent.
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American RadioWorks - Kindergarten Tech
Fri, November 25, 2011
The kindergarten classroom is traditionally a place where youngsters get to experiment with hands-on learning tools like finger paints and building blocks. But with budget-cutting at public schools forcing teachers to take on larger class sizes, more schools are experimenting with adding computer-enhanced lessons for early learners.
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American RadioWorks - Importing Chinese Students
Fri, November 18, 2011
In contrast to the United States and Europe, China's economy is thriving. As the competition gets tougher for entrance into China's universities, more middle-class families are sending their children to college out of the country, which has led to a booming college placement industry in China. Recent investigations revealed a pattern of fraud and financial kickbacks at one such agency.
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American RadioWorks - Occupy Wall Street and Student Debt
Fri, November 11, 2011
The Occupy Wall Street movement is spreading to college campuses, where students are protesting rising tuition costs and poor job prospects in today's economy. One expert suggests cutting costs and streamlining college course offerings might produce graduates with more earning potential in the long term.
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American RadioWorks - Academic High Flyers
Fri, November 4, 2011
A recent study asked how efforts to bring up the bottom in public schools are affecting the nation's strongest students. It found that students at the top are not soaring as high as they could be.
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American RadioWorks - School Libraries
Fri, October 28, 2011
With the rise of Internet search engines and the increasing digitization of textbooks, you might think the physical space of a library doesn't have a place in the future of American schools. But a national group of school librarians met this week in Minneapolis and they argue that school libraries are essential to academic success.
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American RadioWorks - Efficiencies on Campus
Fri, October 14, 2011
Many corporations are demanding cheaper, faster and more efficient work from their employees. Now that bottom-line kind of thinking is coming to higher education. Marketplace reporter Amy Scott recently reported on two initiatives to reign in spending on college campuses and to make the cost of college more affordable.
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American RadioWorks - Achievement Gap Mania
Fri, October 7, 2011
Since the No Child Left Behind Act went into effect in 2002, public school reforms have focused almost exclusively on trying to close the "achievement gap" between children from poor and minority families and children from higher income families. But education scholar Rick Hess argues that targeting only the lowest-performing students is hurting higher-performing students while harming the entire education system.
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American RadioWorks - Leadership Prep
Fri, September 30, 2011
To get hired in an ultra-competitive job market, you need the right combination of education, skills and experience. Whether you're at the executive or entry level, figuring out that perfect combination can be a mystery. This week on the podcast, we turn to a human resources industry veteran who's an expert at identifying candidates with the potential to be great leaders.
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American RadioWorks - Failure Equals Success
Fri, September 23, 2011
To do well in school, and in life, students need more than book smarts. They need other key character traits, like grit, self-control, curiosity and optimism. But how do students learn these character traits? And can they - should they - be taught in school? New York Times Magazine contributing writer Paul Tough joins us to talk about his recent cover story, "What if the Secret to Success is Failure?"
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American RadioWorks - College Rankings
Fri, September 16, 2011
U.S. News & World Report's 2012 national college and university rankings came out this week. Annual lists like these are supposed to help people compare many schools at a glance. But one college president recently criticized these rankings, saying those who compile such lists ignore an important factor when calculating the merits of a given school: the socioeconomic diversity of its student body.
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American RadioWorks - Who Needs an English Major?
Fri, September 9, 2011
The most popular college major in America these days is business. Some students think it doesn't pay to study philosophy or history. But advocates of liberal arts programs say that a healthy democracy depends on citizens with a broad and deep education. In this third and final program in our Tomorrow's College Series, Stephen Smith examines how a form of higher learning unique to the United States is responding to the demands of the 21st century.
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American RadioWorks - Don't Lecture Me
Fri, September 2, 2011
The second documentary in our Tomorrow's College series: "Don't Lecture Me: Rethinking the Way College Students Learn." In an increasingly competitive global economy the best jobs go to highly skilled workers who can think well and learn fast. In this program, American RadioWorks producer Emily Hanford explores how traditional approaches to teaching are failing to provide many college students with the knowledge they need.
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American RadioWorks - Some College, No Degree
Fri, August 26, 2011
The first of three new documentaries in the Tomorrow's College series: "Some College, No Degree: Why So Many Americans Drop Out of College, and What to Do about It." In 1970, only 26 percent of middle-class workers had any education beyond high school. Today, nearly 60 percent of all jobs in the U.S. economy require higher education. Economists believe that those without a post-secondary degree are quickly falling out of the American middle class. This hour-long program examines that dilemma.
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American RadioWorks - Group Learning
Fri, August 19, 2011
By the time students get to college, they're expected to be proficient at learning independently, without the support of a group. But at the University of Minnesota-Rochester, group work is a core part of the curriculum. ARW producer Emily Hanford discusses how this emerging program is veering away from the traditional lecture format in an effort to better suit the needs of the modern college student.
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American RadioWorks - Is a College Degree Worth It?
Fri, August 12, 2011
Getting a college degree is more expensive than ever. Each year, the sticker price goes up about six percent - about twice the rate of inflation. The cost of college is causing some to wonder if a college degree is even worth it. On this week's podcast, Marketplace economics correspondent Chris Farrell explains why a college education is actually more valuable than ever.
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American RadioWorks - The Seven Biggest Myths About Paying for College
Fri, August 5, 2011
For many parents, the prospect of paying for a child's college education is daunting. A college degree today costs ten times what it did fifty years ago. In this podcast, we clear up some of the biggest misconceptions about paying for college with Carol Stack, co-author of The Financial Aid Handbook: Getting the Education You Want for the Price You Can Afford.
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American RadioWorks - Public University Cuts
Fri, July 29, 2011
Higher education blogger Alex Friedrich examines how cuts in state funding to the nation's public colleges and universities are affecting students. He'll also describe the de facto privatization of the public education system.
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American RadioWorks - Scrutiny for Schools on Military Bases
Fri, July 22, 2011
A new investigation reveals that children at military bases worldwide often attend school in substandard and deteriorating buildings even as their parents serve their country. We speak with reporter Kristen Lombardi who wrote the report for iWatch News.
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American RadioWorks - Put to the Test
Fri, July 15, 2011
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan recently reignited the debate over the fate of the federal No Child Left Behind law, or NCLB. One of the much-maligned tools of NCLB is standardized testing. In 2007 American RadioWorks looked at the pressures standardized tests put on students and teachers at one North Carolina school. This week on the podcast: an encore presentation of "Put to the Test."
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American RadioWorks - Mathophobics
Fri, July 8, 2011
If figuring out the tip at a restaurant makes you break a sweat, you may suffer from math anxiety. Today on the podcast, we ask a psychologist why so many Americans think they're bad at math and how this anxiety might be prevented in schools.
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American RadioWorks - Challenging the Liberal Arts
Fri, July 1, 2011
Many schools that offer degrees in the liberal arts and sciences are adapting the ways they teach to meet the demands of the 21st century. In September, American RadioWorks will premier a documentary called "Who Needs and English Major?" This week on the podcast we'll preview one of the schools that will be featured in the documentary: Berea College in Eastern Kentucky.
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American RadioWorks - Skills to Pay the Bills
Fri, June 24, 2011
This week we continue with our series on the value of a college degree. ARW Producer Emily Hanford shares excerpts of her interview with Tony Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce.
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American RadioWorks - How College Degrees Pay
Fri, June 17, 2011
ARW producer Emily Hanford is working on a documentary called "Some College, No Degree: Why So Many Americans Drop out of College, and What to Do About It." She recently interviewed two economists who have done a lot of research on the value of college degrees. Over the next two weeks on the podcast, Emily Hanford will play some excerpts from those interviews.
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American RadioWorks - Turning Around a School from Within
Fri, June 10, 2011
When a charter school replaces a traditional public school, there's often a house cleaning of existing teachers, administrators and even students. But Green Dot, a non-profit charter-school management organization based in Los Angeles, works with existing teachers' unions when it tries to turn around failing schools. This week we speak with the author of a new book that documents a Green Dot turnaround in one of L.A.'s toughest neighborhoods.
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American RadioWorks - Arts Majors Talk About Their Careers
Fri, June 3, 2011
A new survey of college graduates indicates that the myth of the "starving artist" might be just that - a myth. The study shows that a majority of art majors end up being very satisfied with their careers, whether they work in the field they studied or not. American RadioWorks conducted its own informal survey of arts graduates and we share some of the responses on this week's podcast.
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American RadioWorks - Battling the Summer Slide
Fri, May 27, 2011
The countdown to summer vacation has begun in many schools across the country. Traditionally, summer break is a time for students and teachers to leave the classroom behind for three months. But research shows that being idle for an extended period of time can cause students to fall behind academically. This week we discuss how summer break can leave lower-income students at disadvantage during the school year.
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American RadioWorks - Preschool, Day Care, Both?
Fri, May 20, 2011
Research points to a strong correlation between high-quality preschool and success later in life. But not everyone agrees that childcare needs to have an educational component. A leader in the field discusses how standards for early education are changing the way we think about daycare.
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American RadioWorks - Academically Adrift?
Fri, May 13, 2011
Is a college degree enough? ARW Producer Emily Hanford interviews Richard Arum, one of the authors of a new book that argues college students today are not being challenged academically, and that they're not graduating with the skills necessary to make them civically engaged adults.
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American RadioWorks - Learning from Abroad
Fri, May 6, 2011
In the early part of the twentieth century, Americans were considered international leaders in education performance and innovation. Today, we consistently receive mediocre scores on the Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA - an international achievement test given to 15-year-olds. This week on the podcast: a PISA expert describes lessons the United States can learn from better-performing education systems.
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American RadioWorks - The Future of No Child Left Behind
Fri, April 29, 2011
The Obama administration wants big changes in the No Child Left Behind Act. This week on the podcast, we'll get one view of what can be done to make No Child Left Behind more effective. Joining us is Jack Jennings, President and CEO of the Center on Education Policy.
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American RadioWorks - College Costs Redux
Fri, April 22, 2011
We continue our discussion of why college tuitions keep going up. Host Stephen Smith interviewed the authors of "Why Does College Cost so Much?" recently on Minnesota Public Radio. Here are excerpts from their conversation.
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American RadioWorks - Understanding College Costs
Fri, April 15, 2011
College tuitions have been rising at well above the rate of inflation for decades now, and no one really seems to know why. But APM Economics Editor Chris Farrell reviews a new book that gets to the bottom of this question. It's called "Why Does College Cost So Much?"
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American RadioWorks - Can Tests Get Better?
Fri, April 8, 2011
Last week on the podcast, we talked to a USA Today reporter who looked into a national pattern of suspicious spikes in standardized test scores and accusations of falsified test data. This week, we ask: Is there a better way to evaluate students and teachers?
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American RadioWorks - Test Score Anomalies
Fri, April 1, 2011
When a poorly-performing classroom or school suddenly shows astronomical growth in standardized test scores, do we applaud or investigate? USA Today looked into test-score anomalies across the country and found a number of cases where K-12 test scores surged, then retreated in following years - an indicator that something fishy may have gone on with the tests.
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American RadioWorks - Some College
Fri, March 25, 2011
There are 37 million Americans who have some college credits but no degree - that's about 22 percent of the population. Experts say the only way to increase the number of college graduates in the United States is to get people who have dropped out of college to go back.
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American RadioWorks - The Bee Eater
Fri, March 18, 2011
Former Washington, D.C. school chancellor Michelle Rhee had a polarizing effect on educators and parents - she was either loved or hated for her tough-as-nails approach to hiring and firing teachers. Rhee's time as chancellor is captured in a new book by veteran education reporter Richard Whitmire, who says her controversial reforms are now being copied by urban districts across the nation.
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American RadioWorks - Liberal Arts
Fri, March 11, 2011
In a down economy, is it harder to prove the relevance of a liberal arts education? Macalester College President Brian Rosenberg says now, more than ever, employers are looking for college graduates with well-rounded backgrounds to be the leaders of tomorrow.
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American RadioWorks - Testing Teachers Wins EWA Award
Fri, March 4, 2011
We found out this week that our documentary 'Testing Teachers' won a first place award from the Education Writers Association. So to celebrate, this week's podcast is an encore presentation the documentary, which asks the question 'What makes a good teacher good?'
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American RadioWorks - Following the Stimulus Money
Fri, February 25, 2011
Two years ago, the federal government made the biggest, one-time investment in public schools in the nation's history. Nearly $100 billion dollars in education-stimulus money was doled out to the states as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Now a team of journalists is asking: How was the money spent and is it helping our schools?
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American RadioWorks - Back of the Bus
Fri, February 18, 2011
Equal access to transportation was once a central issue of the civil rights movement. But today, disparities still persist. In a collaboration with Transportation Nation and WNYC, ARW presents 'Back of the Bus: Mass Transit, Race and Inequality.'
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American RadioWorks - State of Siege
Fri, February 11, 2011
Mississippi occupies a dramatic place in the history of America's struggle for racial equality. No state in the South was more resistant to integration, and no state was more organized in its opposition to civil rights.
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American RadioWorks - Say it Loud
Fri, February 4, 2011
This month, we're taking a break from our education coverage to bring you a series of documentaries about race in America. This week: a look back at the last 50 years of black history through stirring, historically important speeches by African Americans from across the political spectrum. Get ready for 'Say it Loud: Great Speeches on Civil Rights and African American Identity.'
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American RadioWorks - An Imperfect Revolution
Fri, January 28, 2011
Over the past few months, we've brought you conversations about how children learn to read, the college debt crisis, the nature of creativity and more. Talking about education is still part of the plan. But this week, and throughout February, we'll be focusing on the history of race in America - starting with this 2007 documentary that looks back at the evolution of school desegregation.
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American RadioWorks - Reading
Fri, January 21, 2011
Learning to read is critical step in a child's elementary school education. But to actually understand what they read on the page requires more than just a basic ability to string letters and words together.
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American RadioWorks - Creativity
Fri, January 14, 2011
Some experts say it's time we started thinking of creativity as a necessary skill - not just a trait - in all fields. And that we start teaching it in school.
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American RadioWorks - College Debt Crisis
Fri, January 7, 2011
It's a new year, and the news from Wall Street suggests the recession is slowly loosening its grip on the American economy. Yet some fear student loan debt could be the next major jolt to our financial system.
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American RadioWorks - Education Roundup
Fri, December 31, 2010
As the year 2010 comes to a close we look back at the biggest stories in education with the Hechinger Report's Richard Lee Colvin.
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American RadioWorks - The Bilingual Brain
Fri, December 24, 2010
It was once believed that kids who learn two languages at once are somehow confused or slowed down by mastering more than one tongue. More recent research suggests that growing up bilingual actually boosts a child's cognitive capacity.
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American RadioWorks - The Battle Over Homework
Fri, December 17, 2010
Kids have always complained about homework. But a new film argues that homework and other academic pressures have reached a new level ... and America's schoolchildren are suffering. We take a look at some research that pinpoints exactly how much is too much when it comes to homework.
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American RadioWorks - Modern Classrooms
Fri, December 10, 2010
The physical layout of classrooms hasn't varied much since the days of the one-room schoolhouse. Yet so much about our schools has changed. What should modern classrooms look like in order to meet the needs of 21st century students?
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American RadioWorks - New Tests
Fri, December 3, 2010
Part two of our look at standardized testing. Critics of traditional school assessments argue that they were never meant to be the primary tool used in evaluating students and teachers. By the fall of 2014, the way America evaluates public schools could be radically different.
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American RadioWorks - Evaluating School Evaluations
Fri, November 26, 2010
Schools are widely criticized for limiting what and how they teach so that students score higher on standardized tests. Why does testing matter? Are traditional assessments still effective in measuring school performance?
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American RadioWorks - Challenging Charters
Fri, November 19, 2010
Charter schools have been touted as a way to help save America's struggling public education system. But recent studies and news reports raise questions about how charter schools handle students who don't keep up with the rigorous expectations at the schools.
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American RadioWorks - Republican Politics and Education
Fri, November 12, 2010
The 2010 election results have triggered fears in the education world. With more Republicans in power, budget cuts may be looming at both state and federal levels. Will belt-tightening be bad for schools?
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American RadioWorks - Stocks in the Future
Fri, November 5, 2010
Kids at a Baltimore school are learning about the stock market using real money - and they get to keep the profits. It's part of a program designed to teach financial literacy and entice inner-city children to stay in school. But experts disagree over whether it's effective - and ethical - to pay kids to learn.
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American RadioWorks - Poor Students Thrive in Rich Schools
Fri, October 29, 2010
A recent study by the Century Foundation found that poor children do better when they go to school with wealthier children. The study focused on one county in Maryland, but could influence national education reform.
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American RadioWorks - When Students Fail
Fri, October 22, 2010
Schools are developing new ways to judge teachers on how well their students learn. Time was when the responsibility for student achievement fell mostly on the students.
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American RadioWorks - How Teachers Learn
Fri, October 15, 2010
How do public school teachers learn to be good at what they do? American RadioWorks producer Emily Hanford explains.
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American RadioWorks - Great Teachers
Fri, October 8, 2010
Education reformers are calling for big changes in how teachers are trained and evaluated. In this discussion program, teachers, administrators, parents and students discuss what makes a good teacher.
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American RadioWorks - None of Us Were Like This Before
Fri, October 1, 2010
The suicide rate of U.S. troops returning home is rising. We talk with Joshua Phillips, author of None of Us Were Like This Before, about the psychological impact of torture on the American soldiers who committed it.
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American RadioWorks - Nobel Lecture by Toni Morrison
Fri, September 24, 2010
Say it Loud: Great Speeches on Civil Rights and African American Identity, is out in bookstores. This week we hear from one of the featured speakers, Nobel prize winner Toni Morrison.
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American RadioWorks - A Promise of Justice
Fri, September 17, 2010
Ten years ago, ARW investigated the massacre of 41 civilians in the Kosovo village of Cuska. This week, nine men were indicted for the killings.
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American RadioWorks - The Little Rock Nine
Fri, September 10, 2010
One of the Little Rock Nine, the group of black students that desegregated public high schools in Arkansas in 1957, died this week. Today we mark the passing of Jefferson Thomas by looking at that moment in America's Civil Rights history.
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American RadioWorks - Poor Saving
Fri, September 3, 2010
Americans are currently saving about 6 percent of their income. However, it's not just middle and upper-income Americans doing so. With the help of government funding, some of this nation's poorest citizens are saving too.
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American RadioWorks - Testing Teachers
Fri, August 27, 2010
Teachers matter. A lot. Studies show that students with the best teachers learn three times as much as students with the worst teachers. Researchers say the achievement gap between poor children and their higher-income peers could disappear if poor kids got better teachers.
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American RadioWorks - Summer Jobs
Fri, August 20, 2010
As the weak economy continues to make jobs scarce, younger, inexperienced workers are finding it difficult to land that mainstay of entry-level employment - the summer job.
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American RadioWorks - A New Foreclosure Crisis
Fri, August 13, 2010
Producer Laurie Stern describes the new wave of foreclosures - not caused by sub-prime loans, but as a result of unemployment due to the recession.
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American RadioWorks - The New Frugality
Fri, August 6, 2010
Economics Editor Chris Farrell argues that a coming economic recovery will not bring with it a return to unsustainable excesses in consumption.
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American RadioWorks - The Psychology of Saving Energy
Fri, July 30, 2010
Some scientists argue that behavioral science must play a substantial role in dealing with climate change. People are motivated by saving money, but financial incentives alone may not be enough to get people to change their behavior.
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American RadioWorks - Five Farms
Fri, July 23, 2010
John Biewen talks about his latest documentary on family farming in the United States.
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American RadioWorks - John Biewen
Fri, July 16, 2010
John Biewen, director of the audio program at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, recently edited Reality Radio: Telling True Stories in Sound, a book of essays by leading audio documentary makers.
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American RadioWorks - Introduction to State of Siege
Fri, July 9, 2010
ARW is working on a new documentary called State of Siege - Mississippi Whites and the Civil Rights Movement. The program is about the spectrum of white responses to the civil rights movement in Mississippi and how - for a time - extremists ran the state.
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American RadioWorks - Coal
Fri, July 2, 2010
Most climate scientists agree the earth's climate is changing and human activities are the cause. The biggest contributor to heat-trapping greenhouse gases is electricity production, and the fuel we're burning most to make electricity is coal.
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American RadioWorks - The Great Textbook War
Fri, June 25, 2010
What should children learn in school? It's a question that's stirred debate for decades, and in 1974 it led to violent protests in West Virginia. Schools were hit by dynamite, buses were riddled with bullets, and coal mines were shut down. The fight was over a new set of textbooks.
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American RadioWorks - War on Poverty
Fri, June 18, 2010
From the heady optimism of the Great Society to the trauma of the Great Recession, questions remain about what government should do to help the nearly 40 million Americans who are poor.
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American RadioWorks - Sebastian Junger
Fri, June 11, 2010
Stephen Smith interviews journalist and best-selling author Sebastian Junger who spent fifteen months shadowing a platoon of American soldiers in eastern Afghanistan.
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American RadioWorks - Reauthorization of No Child Left Behind
Fri, June 4, 2010
Stephen Smith talks with education producer Emily Handford about how No Child Left Behind might change as Congress considers its reauthorizations.
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American RadioWorks - Put to the Test
Fri, May 28, 2010
This week, the U.S. Senate concluded hearings on reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, and everyone seems to agree the law needs big changes. What is No Child Left Behind, and how has it changed education?
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American RadioWorks - The Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Fri, May 21, 2010
Stephen Smith interviews Hampton Sides, author of Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr.
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American RadioWorks - James Forman, Jr.
Fri, May 14, 2010
James Forman, Jr. was born into the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. His parents were both members of the organization. His father, James Forman, Sr., was SNCC's executive secretary during the early years of the organization and was one of the freedom movement's most influential leaders.
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American RadioWorks - Taylor Branch
Fri, May 7, 2010
Journalist and historian Taylor Branch has written extensively about the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and civil rights in his trilogy of books that focus on Martin Luther King and his role in the movement. Branch won the Pulitzer prize for Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63. Taylor Branch spoke at the 50th anniversary conference on the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
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American RadioWorks - Clayborn Carson
Fri, April 30, 2010
Prominent Civil Rights historian Clayborn Carson spoke at the 50th anniversary conference of SNCC, the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, about pivotal moments in the struggle for equality.
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American RadioWorks - Bernice Johnson Reagon
Fri, April 23, 2010
Bernice Johnson Reagon - singer, scholar, composer, activist and oral historian - was a field secretary for SNCC, the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, and a member of the Freedom Singers, a group of SNCC musicians who raised money for civil rights work in the 1960. In today's podcast, Reagon speaks at the 50th anniversary reunion of SNCC at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina.
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American RadioWorks - Diane Ravitch on Education Reform
Fri, April 16, 2010
Education scholar Diane Ravitch argues that the major education reforms of the past ten years are killing the American public education system.
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American RadioWorks - Education Reform in D.C.
Fri, April 9, 2010
Michelle Rhee, chancellor of public schools in Washington D.C., made big education news this week by announcing a new contract proposal that D.C. has finally negotiated with the leaders of its teachers' union.
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American RadioWorks - Remembering Jim Crow
Fri, April 2, 2010
For much of the 20th century, African Americans in the South were barred from the voting booth, sent to the back of the bus, and walled off from many of the rights they deserved as American citizens. Until well into the 1960s, segregation was legal.
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American RadioWorks - Interview with Deborah Amos
Fri, March 26, 2010
Deborah Amos is a foreign correspondent for National Public Radio, and former host of American RadioWorks. She spent a decade working in television news and has won some of journalism's most prestigious awards. Amos is the author of four books. Her latest is titled, Eclipse of the Sunnis: Power, Exile and Upheaval in the Middle East.
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American RadioWorks - The Earned Income Tax Credit
Fri, March 19, 2010
Taxes are the fuel that keeps our government running, but the tax code is also a system of rewards and incentives - a way of trying to encourage behaviors that Congress wants the rest of us to adopt. For Americans at the bottom of the economic ladder, one of the primary incentives is something called the Earned Income Tax Credit.
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American RadioWorks - Generational Poverty
Fri, March 12, 2010
Russell Brockman grew up in Chicago, starting out life in a poor family, living in a low-income neighborhood with bad schools and few role models, stuck in poverty that perpetuates itself, generation after generation, just like some 40 million people today in the United States.
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American RadioWorks - Interview with Trey Kay
Fri, March 5, 2010
Host Stephen Smith speaks with independent producer Trey Kay about his documentary The Great Textbook War.
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American RadioWorks - The Great Textbook War
Fri, February 26, 2010
Violent protests erupted in 1974 in Kanawha County, W.Va., when the Kanawha County school board received recommendations for new textbooks to be used in elementary schools. The new books became a lightning rod for the war between liberal and conservative values in this country. It was a culture war not unlike those we still see today.
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American RadioWorks - Say it Loud - Part 2
Fri, February 19, 2010
Say it Loud, the upcoming ARW documentary, focuses on late-20th century African American speech. This week, we hear different arguments about race and equality in America.
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American RadioWorks - Say it Loud
Fri, February 12, 2010
ARW's upcoming documentary, Say it Loud, focuses on African American speech during the second half of the 20th century, when African Americans were debating the best ways to fight for equality.
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American RadioWorks - Obama's Plan for Education
Fri, February 5, 2010
President Obama's proposed budget contains big increases in education spending. Most of the new money would go to school districts that are willing to compete for funds by showing that they're trying out new and different ways to improve student performance. It's a big change from the No Child Left Behind law of the past decade.
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American RadioWorks - What Killed Sergeant Gray
Fri, January 28, 2010
Sergeant Adam Gray made it home from Iraq only to die in his barracks. Investigating his death, American RadioWorks pieces together a story of soldiers suffering psychological scars - because they abused Iraqi prisoners.
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American RadioWorks - A Good Teacher
Fri, January 22, 2010
We all probably had a favorite teacher or two growing up, but what was it about those teachers that made them great? And how do teachers improve their skills to most effectively help students learn?
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American RadioWorks - Evaluating Teachers
Fri, January 15, 2010
Research shows that when it comes to student achievement, teachers matter most. But what makes a good teacher? And how do we know who the great teachers are?
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American RadioWorks - The New Frugality
Fri, January 8, 2010
ARW Economics Correspondent Chris Farrell talks about his new book - The New Frugality: How to Consume Less, Save More and Live Better.
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American RadioWorks - Moses and the American Story
Fri, January 1, 2010
Author Bruce Feiler talks about a man whose influence on American history can be found everywhere.
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American RadioWorks - Roger's Christmas Story
Fri, December 23, 2009
Roger was put into foster care when he was eleven years old and spent four years in and out of foster homes, group homes and relatives' homes. Most teens in foster care never get adopted. Still, Roger never gave up faith that he would find a family.
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American RadioWorks - Community College Professors
Fri, December 18, 2009
Education producer Emily Hanford talks with community college professors about why they teach at community college.
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American RadioWorks - Day of Infamy on the Radio
Fri, December 11, 2009
Host Stephen Smith offers a sense of how the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor unfolded for most Americans on that day of infamy. Radio was mass medium of the day, and radio brought the news to presidents, taxi drivers, and dairy farmers alike.
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American RadioWorks - Mind the Gap: Why Good Schools Are Failing Black Students
Fri, December 4, 2009
Independent producer Nancy Solomon brings us Mind the Gap: Why Good Schools Are Failing Black Students.
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American RadioWorks - The Making of Divorced Kid
Fri, November 27, 2009
Stephen Smiths talks with Sasha Aslanian, producer of Divorced Kid, a documentary about the 1970s divorce revolution and what it can teach us about how to improve divorce for kids today.
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American RadioWorks - Divorced Kid
Fri, November 20, 2009
America's divorce rate soared in the 1970s. Thirty years later, kids who grew up in the divorce revolution look back at that experience, and describe how it shaped them as adults. The 1970s also offered some lessons on how to improve divorce for kids today.
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American RadioWorks - Workplace U (full documentary)
Fri, November 13, 2009
We know that a good education can be the ticket to a good job. But for many Americans, conventional school isn't working. They don't make it through high school or don't learn enough to prepare them for good jobs. A new movement turns conventional wisdom on its head, and makes a job the ticket to an education. The idea is to turn workplaces into classrooms and marginal students into productive workers.
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American RadioWorks - Rising by Degrees (full documentary)
Fri, November 6, 2009
The United States is facing a dramatic demographic challenge: Young Latinos are the fastest-growing segment of the population, and they are the least likely to graduate from college. Experts say the future of the American economy is at stake, because higher education is essential in the 21st century economy. Rising by Degrees tells the story of Latino students working toward a college degree - and why it's so hard for them to get what they want.
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American RadioWorks - Early Lessons (full documentary)
Fri, October 30, 2009
The Perry Preschool Project is one of the most famous education experiments of the last 50 years. The study asked a question: Can preschool boost the IQ scores of poor African-American children and prevent them from failing in school? The surprising results are now challenging widely-held notions about what helps people succeed - in school, and in life.
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American RadioWorks - Latinos and College
Fri, October 23, 2009
Latinos are the fastest growing segment of the United States population, but they're the least likely to have college degrees.
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American RadioWorks - Financing the Real World
Fri, October 16, 2009
American RadioWorks goes to Holy Family Cristo Rey, a school that makes preparation for the work-world part of the curriculum.
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American RadioWorks - The GI Bill
Fri, October 9, 2009
Stephen Smith reports on the impact of the GI Bill on the military, education, and the economy.
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American RadioWorks - Climate Change
Fri, October 2, 2009
Stephen Smith talks with Ben Adair about whether climate change is worth the attention.
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American RadioWorks - GDP and Well-being
Fri, September 25, 2009
A new report from Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says measuring GDP is a poor way to track the recession. Stephen Smith talks with Chief Economics Correspondent Chris Farrell about why.
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American RadioWorks - Education and the G.I. Bill
Fri, September 18, 2009
American RadioWorks Producer Ellen Guettler asks Stephen Smith about the impact returning World War II vets had on our notions of education.
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American RadioWorks - Education and Motivation
Fri, September 11, 2009
American RadioWorks Executive Editor Stephen Smith talks with education reporter Emily Hanford on President Obama's recent address to the country's students.
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American RadioWorks - Recession and the Poor
Fri, September 4, 2009
Stephen Smith talks with Peggy Yusten, chief operating officer of Twin Cities Rise, an anti-poverty program.
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American RadioWorks - Tightwads and Spendthrifts
Fri, August 28, 2009
New research suggests those who spend too little and those who spend too much might be attracted to each other. Stephen Smith talks with researcher Scott Rick about why this might be.
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American RadioWorks - The Prison-Poverty Cycle
Fri, August 21, 2009
Stephen Smith talks with Chief Economics Correspondent Chris Farrell on how prisons affect the economic wellbeing of the larger community.
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American RadioWorks - Race and Mobility
Fri, August 14, 2009
Stephen Smith talks with Ianna Kachoris, a policy analyst with the Pew Charitable Trusts, on her most recent findings as part of the Economic Mobility Project.
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American RadioWorks - Poverty and Persistence
Fri, August 7, 2009
ARW Producer Laurie Stern talks with Stephen Smith about the educational and professional hurdles those in poverty face, and those working to address those challenges.
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American RadioWorks - The Breakdown of Unemployment
Fri, July 31, 2009
Stephen Smith speaks with Marketplace reporter Jeff Tyler about the stress placed on the unemployment system as the rate of unemployment continues to rise.
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American RadioWorks - Soft Skill Education
Fri, July 24, 2009
American RadioWorks education reporter Emily Hanford and Chief Economics Correspondent Chris Farrell speak with Catherine Winter about the educational and economic value of soft skills.
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American RadioWorks - National Education Priorities
Fri, July 17, 2009
American RadioWorks education reporter Emily Hanford and Chief Economics Correspondent Chris Farrell speak with Catherine Winter on the Obama administration's plans to get more young Americans into, and successfully through, college.
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American RadioWorks - The Upside of Debt
Fri, July 10, 2009
Believe it or not, there's an upside of debt. Stephen Smith tells us about it.
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American RadioWorks - The History of Debt
Fri, July 2, 2009
Stephen Smith takes us back to look at the history of debt.
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American RadioWorks - ARW Behind the Scenes: Episode 15, Hard Times in Middletown Debrief
Fri, June 26, 2009
Producer Laurie Stern talks with Stephen Smith about wrapping up their documentary Hard Times in Middletown.
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American RadioWorks - ARW Behind the Scenes: Episode 14, Bridge to Somewhere Debrief
Fri, June 19, 2009
Producer Catherine Winter talks with Stephen Smith about wrapping up the documentary Bridge to Somewhere.
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American RadioWorks - ARW Behind the Scenes: Episode 13, A Better Life Debrief
Fri, June 13, 2009
Producers Kate Ellis and Ellen Guettler talk with Stephen Smith about wrapping up their documentary A Better Life: Creating the American Dream.
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American RadioWorks - ARW Behind the Scenes: Episode 12, Foreclosure City Debrief
Fri, June 5, 2009
Producer Krissy Clark talks with Stephen Smith about life after the her documentary.
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American RadioWorks - Hard Times in Middletown
Fri, May 29, 2009
For almost a century, Muncie, Indiana has been known as 'Middletown,' the quintessential American community. But now, as the rust-belt city grapples with deepening recession, many residents are losing their hold on the middle class. Think of them as the brittle class, just one fragile rung above poverty on the economic ladder.
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American RadioWorks - Bridge to Somewhere
Fri, May 22, 2009
President Barack Obama wants to create jobs by building infrastructure. So did another president. Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried to put people to work by building roads, bridges, dams, sewers, schools, hospitals and even ski jumps. The structures that New Deal agencies built transformed America.
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American RadioWorks - A Better Life: Creating the American Dream
Fri, May 15, 2009
The "American dream" has powered the hopes and aspirations of Americans for generations. It began as a plain but revolutionary notion: each person has the right to pursue happiness, and the freedom to strive for a better life through hard work and fair ambition. But over time, this dream has come to represent a set of expectations about owning things and making money. So what exactly is the American dream? How did we come to define it? And is it changing?
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American RadioWorks - Foreclosure City
Fri, 8 , May
Until recently, Las Vegas was one of the few places where the American Dream still seemed widely possible. Each month, thousands of people flocked there, lured by the promise of good jobs and a chance to own a home. It was the fastest growing city in the country. But now, Las Vegas has a new distinction: the nation's highest foreclosure rate.
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American RadioWorks - ARW Behind the Scenes: Episode 11, Editing
Fri, May 1, 2009
ARW editor Peter Clowney talks with Stephen Smith about the processing of editing radio documentaries.
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American RadioWorks - ARW Behind the Scenes: Episode 10, A Better Life, Part 2
Fri, Apr 24, 2009
ARW producers Ellen Guettler and Kate Ellis discuss the "American dream." It began as a plain but revolutionary notion: each person has the right to pursue happiness, and the freedom to strive for a better life through hard work and fair ambition. But over time, this dream has come to represent a set of expectations about owning things and making money.
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American RadioWorks - ARW Behind the Scenes: Episode 9, The Great Depression
Fri, Apr 17, 2009
ARW Executive Editor Stephen Smith hosts a panel discussion on the political, financial, and cultural sides of America during the Great Depression.
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American RadioWorks - ARW Behind the Scenes: Episode 8, Foreclosure City, Part 2
Fri, Apr 10, 2009
Producer Krissy Clark is moving on to the editing phase for her documentary on the devastating foreclosure crisis happening in Las Vegas.
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American RadioWorks - ARW Behind the Scenes: Episode 7, Education and the Economy, Part 2
Fri, Apr 3, 2009
Last week, ARW producer Emily Hanford stopped by to talk about a trio of stories she's been working on about the economy and how it's affecting the choices people are making on getting a college education. This week, we'll listen to the finished versions and follow up with Emily.
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American RadioWorks - ARW Behind the Scenes: Episode 6, Education and the Economy
Fri, Mar 27, 2009
The effects of the economic downturn are far and wide. While slowdowns used to be a good time to return to education, people are having a tough time finding financial aid, and taking on student-loan debt is scarier than ever.
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American RadioWorks - ARW Behind the Scenes: Episode 5, Bridge to Somewhere
Fri, Mar 20, 2009
With the country's economy in a tailspin, many Americans are calling for a new New Deal: an infusion of federal money to rebuild our tattered infrastructure and put unemployed Americans back to work. But can spending on bridges and sewers stop the deepest recession in decades?
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American RadioWorks - ARW Behind the Scenes: Episode 4, Stock Crazy
Fri, Mar 13, 2009
To understand the American fascination with the stock market, you have to look at the American Dream and how it's changed from the time of the great depression to our current recession. Senior Economics Correspondent Chris Farrell helps us look into the previous decade and why investors first got themselves into the stock market.
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American RadioWorks - ARW Behind the Scenes: Episode 3, A Better Life: Creating the American Dream
Fri, Mar 6, 2009
Millions of Americans are slipping from the middle class, and it's no longer certain that savvy, hard-working parents can pave the way for their children's success. Producers Kate Ellis and Ellen Guettler share the process of chronicling the evolution of the American Dream from the Great Depression to the present day.
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American RadioWorks - ARW Behind the Scenes: Episode 2, Hard Times in Middletown
Fri, Feb 27, 2009
Muncie, Indiana, often thought of as the "typical American city," has become a rust-belt city grappling with de-industrialization and deepening recession. As they watch the plants close, many middle-class, middle-aged, Middle-American residents are left without choices. Producer Laurie Stern talks about how she finds characters that illuminate the economic crisis, and how the crisis is affecting the the American middle class.
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American RadioWorks - ARW Behind the Scenes: Episode 1, Foreclosure City
Fri, Feb 20, 2009
Producer Krissy Clark has been finding scenes, meeting characters, and gathering tape in Las Vegas for her upcoming documentary on home foreclosures.
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American RadioWorks - Campaign '68
Fri, Oct 24, 2008
The 1968 presidential election was a watershed in American politics. After dominating the political landscape for more than a generation, the Democratic Party crumbled. Richard M. Nixon was elected president and a new era of Republican conservatism was born. On the eve of another historic election, we look back 40 years to the dramatic story of Campaign '68.
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American RadioWorks - After the Projects
Fri, Oct 18, 2008
Chicago is demolishing the public housing projects and moving residents to mixed-income neighborhoods. But there won't be room for everyone, and a new home may not mean an escape from poverty.
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American RadioWorks - What Killed Sergeant Gray
Fri, Oct 10, 2008
Sergeant Adam Gray made it home from Iraq only to die in his barracks. Investigating his death, American RadioWorks pieces together a story of soldiers suffering psychological scars -- because they abused Iraqi prisoners.
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American RadioWorks - Pueblo, USA
Fri, Oct 3, 2008
Latino immigrants are changing the culture and economy of America, and not just in big coastal cities. We follow a small Southern town as it adjusts to its deepest cultural change since the Civil Rights movement, and in a Midwestern city, a neighborhood is reborn when immigrants move in. But the rebirth comes at a price.
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American RadioWorks - Business of the Bomb: The Modern Nuclear Marketplace
Wed, May 7, 2008
How the global expansion of nuclear know-how is challenging efforts to contain the spread of atomic weapons.
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American RadioWorks - Gangster Confidential
Wed, April 23, 2008
For 20 years, Rene Enriquez fought his way to the top of one of America's most ruthless gangs. He killed and ordered the deaths of gang rivals on Southern California streets and behind bars. Then he had a change of heart. Gangster Confidential follows Enriquez's quest for redemption and freedom inside America's most brutal prison system.
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American RadioWorks - Remembering King
Tue, April 22, 2008
To mark the 40th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s death, American RadioWorks hosted a special evening of discussion at the Riverside Church in New York City. The event was moderated by Clayborne Carson, a leading King historian and director of the King Research and Education Institute at Stanford University. King's close colleagues, Dorothy Cotton and Vincent Harding, discussed King's radical stance on poverty and the Vietnam War, and talked about King's legacy in the context of the 2008 election.
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American RadioWorks - King's Last March
Wed, April 9, 2008
Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968. Four decades later, King remains one of the most vivid symbols of hope for racial unity in America. But that's not the way he was viewed in the last year of his life.
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American RadioWorks - Design of Desire
Mon, November 19, 2007
New research is lending insight into why we want stuff that we don't need. It also explains why some people are what are called tightwads, while other people are spendthrifts. Why do we buy? How are designers and marketers influencing what we buy? And how are individuals using market ideas, tricks, and tools to market themselves?
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American RadioWorks - Wanted: Parents
Mon, November 5, 2007
Advocates for kids are trying to persuade more families to adopt teenagers. If teenagers in foster care don't find permanent families, they face a grim future. They "age out" of foster care, usually when they turn 18 years old, and many wind up on the streets. Every year, more than 24,000 American young people age out of foster care.
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American RadioWorks - An Imperfect Revolution: Voices from the Desegregation Era
Mon, October 22, 2007
In the 1970s, for the first time, large numbers of white children and black children began attending school together. It was an experience that shaped them for life.
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American RadioWorks - Battles of Belief
Mon, October 8, 2007
America seemed united in fighting "The Good War" but not everyone fought in the same way.
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American RadioWorks - Put to the Test
Mon, September 24, 2007
No Child Left Behind has had a dramatic effect on American schools. Producers spent two years in one high school documenting how high-stakes testing has reshaped teaching and learning.
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American RadioWorks - Routes to Recovery
Mon, September 10, 2007
To mark the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, American RadioWorks teams up with Nick Spitzer of American Routes to find out how culture might save New Orleans.
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American RadioWorks - Green Rush
Mon, August 27, 2007
From carbon offsets to biofuels, companies and investors are seeking riches in the fight against global warming. What happens when good deeds grapple with the realities of the free market?
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American RadioWorks - Red Runs the Vistula
Mon, August 13, 2007
Five years after the start of World War II, the people of Warsaw rose up against the German occupation of their city. The uprising was meant to last just 48 hours. Instead, it went on for two months. A quarter of a million people were killed and the Polish capital was razed to the ground. It was one of the great tragedies of World War II, and yet it is rarely talked about outside Poland.
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American RadioWorks - Radio Fights Jim Crow
Mon, July 30, 2007
During the World-War-II years a series of groundbreaking radio programs tried to mend the deep racial and ethnic divisions that threatened America.
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American RadioWorks - Massacre at Cuska
Mon, July 16, 2007
In 1999 Serb death squads attacked the ethnic Albanian village of Cuska and left 41 unarmed civilians dead.
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American RadioWorks - Las Vegas: An Unconventional History
Mon, July 2, 2007
Trace Las Vegas' evolution from a remote railroad town to a mobster metropolis, to its current incarnation as an adult-themed resort town that nearly two million people call home.
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American RadioWorks - A Burden to be Well: Sisters and Brothers of the Mentally Ill
Mon, June 18, 2007
The effects of mental illness are well documented. But until recently, there has been little said about the siblings of the mentally ill. Now researchers are starting to look at the "well-sibling" syndrome.
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American RadioWorks - Oh Freedom Over Me
Mon, June 4, 2007
In the summer of 1964, about a thousand young Americans, black and white, came together in Mississippi for a peaceful assault on racism. It came to be known as Freedom Summer, one of the most remarkable chapters in the Civil Rights Movement.
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American RadioWorks - Korea: The Unfinished War
Mon, May 21, 2007
To fully grasp the ongoing tensions between the United States and North Korea, it is important to understand the war that ended in 1954. John Biewen and Stephen Smith of American RadioWorks examine the often-overlooked war that helped define global politics and American life for the second half of the 20th century.
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American RadioWorks - The Few Who Stayed - Defying Genocide in Rwanda
Mon, May 7, 2007
In April 1994, the central African nation of Rwanda exploded into 100 days of violence, killing 800,000 people. Most turned their backs to the bloodshed. Here is the story of those who stayed.
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American RadioWorks - Corrections, Inc.
Mon, Apr 23, 2007
How corporations, prison guard unions, and police agencies help to shape who gets locked up and for how long.
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American RadioWorks - Unmasking Stalin: A Speech That Changed the World
Mon, Apr 9, 2007
On February 25, 1956, former Kremlin leader Nikita Khrushchev revealed and denounced, for the first time in the history of the Soviet Union, the crimes of his predecessor, Joseph Stalin, dramatically shifting Soviet Russia's course, stirring a human rights movement, and opening the door to the eventual collapse of the USSR.
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American RadioWorks - New York Works
Mon, Mar 26, 2007
New York Works is an audio portrait of a vanishing city. From a knife sharpener who still makes house calls to one of Brooklyn's last commercial fisherman, New York Works tells the stories of those who keep the city's past alive.
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American RadioWorks - The Hospice Experiment
Mon, Mar 12, 2007
The '60s were a time of social movements and big changes, but a quieter revolution was underway too - one led by a few middle-aged women who wanted to change our way of death. They were the founders of the hospice movement.
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American RadioWorks - A Mind of Their Own
Mon, Feb 26, 2007
Most children can be volatile at some point in their development, with no particular cause for worry. But at what point do irritability, mood swings, and tantrums constitute a mental illness? Up to half a million children are believed to have bipolar illness. This is the story of three of those children, their families, and the professionals who work with them.
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American RadioWorks - Mandela: An Audio History
Mon, Feb 12, 2007
A decade ago, Nelson Mandela became president in South Africa's first multi-racial democratic election. Mandela's journey, from freedom fighter to president, capped a dramatic half-century long struggle against white rule and the institution of apartheid.
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American RadioWorks - Thurgood Marshall Before the Court
Mon, Jan 29, 2007
In 1967, Thurgood Marshall became the first African American appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. But Marshall had already earned a place in history - as the leader of the legal campaign against racial segregation, which culminated in the landmark Brown v. Board decision.
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American RadioWorks - Imperial Washington
Mon, Jan 15, 2007
Members of Congress face many temptations, such as special interests who want to take them on free trips golfing or fishing, to Bermuda or Wimbledon. But voters are demanding reform. In this podcast, we look at how the perks lawmakers enjoy make it tough to clean up government. And what happens when newcomers try to play the lobbying game.
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American RadioWorks - The President Calling
Mon, Jan 1, 2007
Three of America's most compelling presidents - Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon - bugged their White House offices and tapped their telephones. They left behind thousands of secretly recorded conversations, from momentous to mundane. In this documentary project, American RadioWorks eavesdrops on presidential telephone calls to hear how each man used one-on-one politics to shape history.
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American RadioWorks - Urban Shakespeare
Mon, Dec 25, 2006
Los Angeles is perhaps the nation's capital of "wannabe" artists, filled with aspiring actors, directors and screenwriters who are waiting tables, parking cars and brewing coffee. All have hopes of someday escaping the drudgery of these day jobs for the golden opportunity when their art might become their full-time work. But a few teens in Los Angeles have been earning their first pay as working artists: studying Shakespeare and writing their own poetry and music, all while earning minimum wage.
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American RadioWorks - Vietnam and the Presidency
Mon, Dec 4, 2006
For historians of war and the American presidency, the Vietnam War is a special case. With troves of audio recordings, declassified documents and other materials, historians know more about how and why the White House waged war in Vietnam than in any other conflict. At a time when the United States debates what to do in Iraq, the lessons of Vietnam are more relevant than ever.
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American RadioWorks - Reports From a Warming Planet
Mon, Nov 20, 2006
The early signs of climate change are showing up across vastly differing landscapes: from melting outposts near the Arctic Circle to disappearing glaciers high in the Andes; from the rising water in the deltas of Bangladesh to the "sinking" atolls of the Pacific. Reports from a Warming Planet takes you to parts of the planet where global warming is already making changes to life and landscape, and demonstrates how climate change is no longer restricted to scientific modeling about the future. It's happening now.
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American RadioWorks - No Place for a Woman
Mon, Nov 6, 2006
In 1970, nearly half the women in the United States had paying jobs, but most women worked for low pay. Women were waitresses, clerks, and cleaning ladies. Less than five percent of lawyers were women. About three percent of police officers were women. In the iron mines of northern Minnesota, zero percent of the steelworkers were women. But in the mid-70s, women there began taking jobs running shovels, driving trucks, and operating enormous machines in the ore processing plants. Some of the men tried to force the women miners out. Women were harassed, threatened, and even assaulted. But they needed the jobs. They wanted their rights. And they wanted to change the world for their daughters and granddaughters. So the women miners of northern Minnesota fought back, and made legal history.
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American RadioWorks - Rewiring the Brain: Early Deprivation and Child Development
Mon, Oct 30, 2006
After the fall of communism in Romania, the world was shocked to discover a vast system of orphanages where unwanted children languished in cribs with little attention from caregivers. Sixteen years later, much has changed in Romania; the old orphanages are emptying, although progress is much more evident in Bucharest than in the poorer provinces. As this grim chapter comes to a close, scientists are measuring how children recover from early neglect and discovering what early damage might be irreversible.
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American RadioWorks - Say It Plain: A Century of African American Oratory
Mon, Oct 23, 2006
Martin Luther King, Jr. was the most famous black orator in history. But he was hardly alone. For generations, African Americans have been demanding justice and equality, reminding America to make good on its founding principles of democracy. These orators, and the very act of speaking out, played a crucial role in the long struggle for equal rights. Hear some of those seminal speeches at Say It Plain.
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American RadioWorks - Japan's Pop Power
Mon, Oct 9, 2006
To many people, global youth culture means rock and roll and other Western fashions. But for more and more young people across to world, the capital of pop culture is Tokyo. Over the past decade, Japanese video games, animation and comic books have caught fire in much of the world, including the United States.
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American RadioWorks - The Sonic Memorial Project
Mon, Sep 25, 2006
To mark the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, we bring you a special re-broadcast of a Peabody-award winning documentary that chronicles the sounds and voices of the World Trade Center and its surrounding neighborhood. The program was produced for NPR on the first anniversary by The Kitchen Sisters and a nationwide collaboration. We offer it to you again, a sonic memorial that is just as moving and relevant five years later.
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American RadioWorks - One Year After Katrina
Mon, Sep 11, 2006
Biloxi, Mississippi is poised to recover faster than any other place on the Gulf Coast hit by Hurricane Katrina. Casinos are fueling a building boom, but some residents are still mired in misfortune. American RadioWorks presents an intimate portrait of several families struggling to rebuild their lives in Biloxi, and a city trying to reclaim itself.
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American RadioWorks - Vietnam and the Presidency
Mon, Aug 14, 2006
For historians of war and the American presidency, the Vietnam War is a special case. With troves of audio recordings, declassified documents and other materials, historians know more about how and why the White House waged war in Vietnam than in any other conflict. At a time when the United States debates what to do in Iraq, the lessons of Vietnam are more relevant than ever.
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American RadioWorks - Life After Prison
Mon, July 31, 2006
Studies indicate that two thirds of the women in prison and half of the men have children under the age of 18. That means some 1.5 million children have a parent behind bars. When prisoners are released, one of the many challenges they face is rebuilding family life. Marsha was released from a North Carolina prison after serving a 7-year sentence as an accessory to two drug-related murders. She has two children, Michael and Khire. In 2003, correspondent John Biewen followed Marsha as she and her sons worked to put their family back together.
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American RadioWorks - Ending Welfare in Wyoming
Mon, July 17, 2006
In 1996 President Bill Clinton signed the landmark Welfare Reform Bill, killing the 60-year-old welfare program known as Aid to Families with Dependent Children, or AFDC. The new law gave grants to states to run their own anti-poverty programs and required them to move many welfare recipients into the workforce. Wyoming, more than any other state, ended welfare after 1996 by cutting its cash assistance roles by more than 90 percent. But Wyoming's leaders are now having a different debate: how to better support poor people who've gone to work.
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American RadioWorks - Power Trips: Congressional Staffers Share the Road
Mon, July 3, 2006
Public documents show that from 2000 through mid-2005, members of Congress and their staff took nearly 23,000 privately sponsored trips, at a cost of almost $50 million. A majority of those trips were taken by staff. Many of these staffer trips clearly violate ethics rules designed to limit the abuse of power.
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American RadioWorks - An Adoptee in Exile
Mon, June 19, 2006
Since 1955, more than 100,000 Korean children have been adopted abroad. A trickle of them have moved back to South Korea, including 33-year-old writer Jane Jeong Trenka. Trenka was adopted by a family in rural Minnesota when she was six months old in 1972, along with her four-year-old sister. When Trenka was a young adult, she traveled back to Korea, and was reunited with her Korean mother and older siblings. In 2005, Trenka returned to Korea, this time permanently. She agreed to keep an audio diary about building her new life in her birth country.
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American RadioWorks - Logging On and Losing Out
Mon, June 5, 2006
Americans spent an estimated $6 billion on Internet gambling in 2005. The poker craze is sweeping across the nation. Thanks to its glitzy presentation on TV, and the millions in prize money, it's the pastime of choice for high school and college kids. But adolescents are twice as likely as adults to become addicted to gambling. The BBC's James Silver reveals the heavy social cost that comes with America's poker obsession.
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American RadioWorks - After Welfare
Mon, May 22, 2006
The landmark 1996 welfare reform law had an explicit social goal: to help save the nuclear family. Many Americans believed the old welfare system, AFDC, damaged marriages by giving mothers an incentive to stay single. The 1996 law was aimed at removing that incentive, and the law encouraged states to promote marriage in order to lift single-parent families out of poverty. More than any other state, Oklahoma took up the challenge. It's not clear that the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative can make a difference, but some liberals as well as social conservatives are now saying it's worth a try to keep more low-income mothers and fathers together.
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American RadioWorks - Bankrupt: Maxed Out in America
Mon, May 8, 2006
A record two million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy last year. The reason? Bankruptcies have soared over the past two decades, so Congress passed a tough new law designed to crack down on filings. The new law went into effect last October, and many raced to beat the deadline. Filings plunged after October, but in recent months the number of bankruptcies has crept back up. Many Congressional legislators assumed that eroding morality, a decline in traditional stigma, made it easy for Americans to walk away from their debts. In the following report, correspondent Chris Farrell explores how much stigma has really declined.
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American RadioWorks - Gang Members Break Free - Part 2
Mon, Apr 24, 2006
Some of this nation's most dangerous convicts are housed in what are called "supermax" prisons. At Pelican Bay Prison in California, the men in the supermax are isolated in windowless cells for 23 hours a day with almost no direct contact with other inmates or staff. Officials allege most of the inmates here are members of prison gangs. Despite the isolation, gangs remain active at Pelican Bay and once a prisoner is in a gang it can be tough - even deadly - to try to get out.
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American RadioWorks - Locked Down: Gangs in the Supermax - Part 1
Mon, Apr 10, 2006
The "supermax" prison is designed to incapacitate dangerous convicts by locking them down in stark isolation, sometimes for years on end. But some supermaxes have become headquarters to America's biggest and most violent prison gangs. American RadioWorks correspondent Michael Montgomery spent six months following inmates and staff at one of the nation's biggest supermaxes, California's Pelican Bay State Prison. Experts say some gang leaders inside Pelican Bay control crime far outside prison walls.
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American RadioWorks - Prosecuting Charles Taylor for War Crimes
Mon, Apr 3, 2006
Charles Taylor is only the second head of state indicted for international war crimes while in office. Prosecutors allege that as president of Liberia, Taylor was a central figure in a criminal network that controlled rebels fighting a decade-long civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone. The rebels are accused of murder, enslavement, rape and forcing children into combat. In 2003, American RadioWorks correspondent Michael Montgomery and producer Deborah George were given unique access to war crimes investigators as they built their case against Charles Taylor.
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American RadioWorks - Rebuilding in Biloxi
Mon, Mar 20, 2006
Since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, families in Biloxi, Mississippi have struggled to rebuild their homes, businesses and their lives. In this podcast, we meet Ethel Curry, who survived Katrina's flood waters by floating in her refrigerator, and Vin Tai, a Vietnamese shrimp boat owner. The storm left his livelihood in ruins. But first, as casino jobs and federal assistance trickle back to the Gulf Coast, one question remains: how long will it be before Biloxi residents can finally rebuild?
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American RadioWorks - Preying on Parents
Mon, Mar 6, 2006
In the past decade, the number of foreign children adopted by Americans has nearly tripled. Americans adopted nearly 23,000 children from abroad last year. The U.S. State department reports most international adoptions happen without major complications, but it warns the growing demand for adoptable children is leading to some dangerous outcomes; both for children and parents. Some cases of abuse are linked to adoption groups operating in the United States and overseas without a license.
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American RadioWorks - Sparking the Brain Out of Depression
Mon, Feb 20, 2006
For many people with depression, there are modern medications that have made the illness manageable. But at least ten percent of those who take anti-depressants don't get better. Psychiatrists say that for them, electro-shock therapy remains the most effective treatment. Electro-convulsive therapy, as it's now called, is more than 70 years old and is more widely used than ever. Researchers are experimenting with other ways to use electricity to spark the brain out of depression.
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American RadioWorks - Ghosts of the Orphanage
Mon, Feb 6, 2006
Last year, more than 7,000 Chinese children were adopted by families in the United States. China is a popular country for adoptive parents because of the availability of infants, almost always baby girls. But some children are adopted when they are a little older, and time spent in an orphanage can delay a child's development. As the years go by in an adoptive family, the child and the parents discover what early experiences can be undone, relearned or accepted.
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American RadioWorks - Whites Remember Jim Crow
Mon, Jan 23, 2006
American race relations are deeply marked by an era called Jim Crow, a system of legal segregation in the South that lasted from 1890 well into the 1960s. Named after a minstrel character, Jim Crow meant blacks attended separate schools, sat in colored-only train cars and were intimidated out of voting. But Jim Crow is remembered quite differently by whites who lived through the period. Anthropologist Kate Ellis spent a year interviewing whites in southwestern Louisiana about segregation.
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American RadioWorks - Blacks Remember Jim Crow
Mon, Jan 9, 2006
For much of the 20th century, blacks in the South were barred from the voting booths, sent to the back of the bus and denied many of the rights enjoyed by other American citizens. It was called Jim Crow, named for a minstrel character that became shorthand for a system of segregation. In this segment, producer Stephen Smith used oral histories and interviews with scholars to show what life was like for blacks behind the veil of segregation.
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American RadioWorks - Finding Home in Two Worlds
Mon, Dec 26, 2005
Twenty thousand children are adopted from abroad into U.S. families each year. It's a number that has tripled in the past decade. These children come from places like China, Russia and Guatemala, and research shows that they do better when they have a connection to their birth culture. Many adoptive families go to culture camp and ethnic restaurants, but Laurie Stern and her husband Dan Luke feel their son Diego needs more.
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American RadioWorks - The Army Wife
Mon, Dec 12, 2005
The United States is making huge demands on its military people - the toughest since the Vietnam War. But most soldiers during Vietnam were young, single men. Today, in the all-volunteer military, about half of all service people are married with children, so the burdens of fighting these wars are shared back home.
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American RadioWorks - Outsourcing Compassion
Mon, Nov 28, 2005
In recent decades, violent and traumatic events in the United States have given rise to a new industry: trauma counseling. In the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, thousands of workplaces brought in these counseling teams in to help employees talk about their experiences. It turns out many of these "debriefing" sessions were based on limited science.
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American RadioWorks - The Last Days of Kitty Shenay
Mon, Nov 14, 2005
Each year, about 2.5 million people die in the United States. Three in ten get hospice care in their last days. Hospice is specialized care for terminally ill patients with less than six months to live. This report follows one hospice patient through her last two months of life.
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American RadioWorks - Pombo in the Gray
Mon, Oct 31, 2005
Tax law prohibits members of Congress from taking international trips paid for by private foundations. But American RadioWorks reporter Steve Henn and Bob Williams from the Center for Public Integrity have learned California Republican Richard Pombo may have done just that.
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American RadioWorks - Trauma and the Brain
Mon, Oct 17, 2005
In the wake of hurricane Katrina, the Red Cross reported more than half a million survivors have used its mental health services. After the attacks on the World Trade Towers, mental health and neuroscience researchers in New York quickly organized efforts to help, and study the city's trauma victims. They are learning how trauma affects the brain and what can be done to heal it.
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American RadioWorks - No Place for a Woman
Mon, Oct 3, 2005
In the 1970s, women untied their aprons and joined the work force as never before. They took jobs as truck drivers, lawyers, and steelworkers. Some women found the workplace was hostile territory. In the iron mines of Minnesota, women were groped, threatened, and assaulted. A handful of women fought back. They filed the first class-action sexual harassment suit in the country, paving the way for big judgments against companies across the country.
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