Education

Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Martha Woodall details her ongoing investigation into Philadelphia's charter school system, where 19 of the 74 charter schools operating in the city are under investigation for fraud, financial mismanagement and conflicts of interest.

Student-turned-drug dealer Jesse Pinkman was supposed to die in the first season of the AMC drama. But the writers decided the chemistry between high school teacher Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and Jesse (Aaron Paul) was too good to let go.

In Drake Doremus' drama Like Crazy, a young couple is forced to separate when one of them violates the terms of her student visa. Movie critic David Edelstein says the movie is painful and compelling -- and reminds him of Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise.

College is now four times more expensive than it was 3 decades ago, pushing student loan debt over $1 trillion. A key reason for this growth is the competition among schools for status and prestige, says Kevin Carey, education policy director at the New America Foundation.

Charles Rowan Beye has been married three times -- to two women and a man. Now, over age 80, he looks back on his life and asks, "What was that all about?" Critic Maureen Corrigan says Beye's memoir, subtitled "A Gay Man's Odyssey," is a complex, poignant addition to the sexual canon.

Critic David Edelstein reviews a film that may sound a lot like a campus-bound version of Glee, but has more to it than that label might suggest.

Many students prepare for the SAT by drilling themselves on esoteric, arcane and recondite words -- like esoteric, arcane and recondite. Linguist Geoff Nunberg doesn't discourage these efforts, but he does have a word of caution: memorizing a definition is hardly the same as learning a new word.

In the Teacher Wars, Dan Goldstein chronicles the history of the profession and current topics like tenure. She says the idea that teachers can help fight poverty has existed since the 19th century.

A lot of parents start worrying about paying for college education soon after their child is born. After that, there's the stressful process of applying to colleges, and then, for those lucky enough to get admitted into a good college, there's college debt.

Rick Famuyiwa's new film is about a black high-school student who's into 90s hip hop and Japanese comic books. He calls Dope a celebration of kids whose interests don't fit into pop-culture norms.

Teddy Wayne's new novel begins as a sharply observed novel of manners, but quickly mutates into a classic tale of obsession. Critic Maureen Corrigan calls Loner a powerful suspense story.

New Yorker staff writer Elif Batuman's new novel, The Idiot, follows a young woman's first year at Harvard University, and how she finds love through email.

For-profit colleges promise access to a better way of life for their students, but more often they exploit the people who need them most, says Tressie McMillan Cottom who once worked as an enrollment officer at two for profit colleges. She left after she became uncomfortable selling students an education they could'nt afford. She's now a sociologist and author of the new book Lower Ed.

It's a time-honored tradition for novelists to draw material from their own lives, and author Tom Perrotta is no exception. His 2004 book, Little Children, sprang from his experience as the parent of young kids. Three years later, he published The Abstinence Teacher, which was inspired, in part, by the junior-high and high-school sports his children played at the time.

Author David Mendelsohn says having his 81-year-old father in the college seminar he was teaching on Homer's Odyssey led to an unexpected bonding.

So Longhand: Has Cursive Reached The End Of The Line?

The women's history scholar, who died June 1, grew up on a remote Australian sheep farm and later went on to write three memoirs, including True North. Conway spoke to Fresh Air in 1989, '94 and '98.

McCauley's novel, My Ex-Life, is a comedy about a couple whose marriage ended years ago when the husband came out as gay. "All relationships evolve — even for people who stay together," he says.

The former YouTube star says he wanted his film, Eighth Grade, to take an "emotional inventory" of what today's adolescents are experiencing. Originally broadcast July 18, 2018.