Fair Assessment

In the fourth installment of their new weekly education podcast, "Fair Assessment," hosts Ali Noland and Gwen Faulkenberry interview Arkansas state Sen. Linda Chesterfield about her 30-year career as a classroom teacher, the value of teacher's unions, her frustration with the legislative process used to pass the LEARNS Act and the real-world implications of repealing the Arkansas Teacher Fair Dismissal Act. Yes, unfortunately, we are still working on getting the podcast hosted on platfo...

In the third installment of "Fair Assessment," the new Arkansas education podcast, Little Rock School Board member Ali Noland and veteran classroom teacher Gwen Faulkenberry interview Steve Grappe, executive director of Citizens for Arkansas Public Education and Students (CAPES), which is the group working to repeal the LEARNS Act. They also discuss Ali’s recent announcement that she will not be seeking reelection at the end of her school-board term, and they hand out a few grades, including ...

In the second episode of their new Arkansas Education Podcast, Fair Assessment, hosts Gwen Faulkenberry and Ali Noland discuss several additional themes that have become prominent in education-related politics and culture in Arkansas. First, Gwen, a veteran classroom teacher who hails from a long line of proud public educators, discusses the recent movement to delegitimize and vilify the teaching profession. Ali, who is an attorney with an LL.M. degree in constitutional and civil-rights law, ...

In this first episode of Fair Assessment, co-hosts Ali Noland, an attorney and school-board member in Little Rock, and Gwen Faulkenberry, a veteran classroom teacher in rural Arkansas, introduce themselves to listeners, explain their motivation for creating an Arkansas education podcast, and start a discussion about some of the big themes that have emerged in public-education policy and politics recently. Today, we are bringing you the first part of that discussion, focusing on the coordinate...