Category: Radio

Listen to "The Long Game" tonight

Tonight at 9 p.m. on West Virginia Public Radio

For more than a half a century, citizens of the Lone Star State have had intense, emotional battles over what children should and shouldn’t be taught in public school classrooms.   While there have been fights over just about every academic subject, debates over history, evolution, God and country generate the most heat. In many ways, Texans are stuck.  Some believe teachers should lay out relevant facts before students and have them draw their own conclusions. Others believe there should be particular values —perhaps absolute values— added into the mix to help guide students.”

For “Long Game,” Trey Kay (producer of the Peabody, Murrow and DuPont honored “Great Textbook War”) spent nearly two years gathering interviews and acquiring archival audio in Texas.  During this process, he was present to capture a new controversy that erupted over a Texas-generated curriculum system known as CSCOPE. Tea Party parents were outraged when they discovered there were CSCOPE lessons that equated Boston Tea Party participants to terrorists and encouraged students to design a flag for a new communist country. These parents were also troubled by lessons that taught the fundamental principals of Islam.

When they asked to see more of their children’s lessons, they were told that CSCOPE material was protected by a non-disclosure agreement and that parents couldn’t have access.  The controversy reached critical mass after conservative talk show host Glenn Beck began speaking to his national audience about CSCOPE as a form of leftist indoctrination that was running rampant in Texas and could potentially appear in public schools in other states.  After about six months of intense media and political pressure, the lesson plan wing of CSCOPE –used in over 70% of Texas schools – was disbanded.

Kay’s report also examines Texas’ perennial battle over science standards and in particular, how the state chooses to teach all things related to the origins of the universe and theory of evolution.  This fall (2013), the Texas Board of Education is selecting biology textbooks for use by high school students over the next decade. The panel responsible for reviewing submissions from publishers has stirred controversy because a number of its members do not accept evolution and climate change as scientific truth.

Next Week: Listen to producer Trey Kay’s award-winning documentary The Great Text Book War on Thursday, Nov. 14 at 9 p.m. on West Virginia Public Radio.

Backstage and On Stage at Mountain Stage in Grand Marais

This weekend you can hear the second of the two episodes that Mountain Stage recorded on the road in Grand Marais, Minnesota this fall. Iconic folk singer Tom Paxton closes the show, and Lori McKenna shows why she’s one of the most respected and in-demand singer-songwriters working today. Matraca Berg plays a few of the hits she’s written for others, along with the songs only she sings best. Andrew Walesch recalls classic jazz and lounge vocals. Drew Kennedy makes his first Mountain Stage appearance, and you’ll hear from Grammy-winning songwriter Jon Vezner, along with cellist Jeff Gilkinson.

Listen Sunday at 2 pm on West Virginia Public Radio, or on one of 130 stations around America.

Lori McKenna – If I Could Buy This Town – Live on Mountain Stage

Lori McKenna has become one of Nashville’s most in-demand singer-songwriters, even though she didn’t begin making music of her own until she was in her mid-20’s. Here she performs “If I Could By This Town,” on an episode of Mountain Stage recorded on the north shore of Lake Superior in Grand Marais, Minnesota.

New radio documentary details curriculum battles in Texas

A new radio documentary from Trey Kay (producer of “The Great Textbook War”) delves into the culture war battles over public school curriculum content in Texas. Listen to The Long Game: Texas’ Ongoing Battle for the Direction of the Classroom on Thursday, Nov. 7 at 9 p.m. on West Virginia Public Radio.

Prior to the broadcast, the public is invited to a listening session and discussion at the University of Charleston on Monday, Nov. 4 at 6:30 p.m. Panelists will include Kay and Dr. Calandra Lockhart, chair of the Education Department at University of Charleston. The presentation will take place in the Erma Byrd Art Gallery located in Riggleman Hall. The public is invited to this free event.

“The story of the Kanawha textbook controversy was an example of where the nation was in the early 1970s regarding culture wars and education,” Kay said. “Texas is a great example of where those battles are today. For more than a half a century, citizens of the Lone Star State have had intense, emotional battles over what children should and should not be taught in public school classrooms. While there have been fights over just about every academic subject, debates over history, evolution, God and country generate the most heat.”

Credit Current.org
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Trey Kay accepting the duPont-Columbia Silver Baton award for his 2009 radio documentary “The Great Textbook War.” Kay grew up in Charleston, W.Va., and lived through the controversy as a student.

The hour-long Long Game begins with a focus on the recent controversy over an online set of lesson plans widely used in Texas schools. Tea Party parents believed these lessons to be pro-communist, anti-Christian and pro-Islam. Earlier this year, they successfully pushed to remove the lessons from Texas schools.  The program then discusses how an unlikely conservative, religious couple created an organization powerful enough to force textbook publishers to alter books.  The documentary closes by examining the battle over what science textbooks should teach about evolution in public school classrooms.

“The debate in Texas is something that plays out in communities throughout the nation, and highlights some of the controversy surrounding the new Common Core Curriculum standards,” Kay said. (Common Core Curriculum standards are to be fully implemented nationally by the 2014-15 school year.)

“These are fundamentally different mindsets pitted against one another in deciding how we are to educate the next generation,” Kay says.  “Is it possible for Americans to ever agree on ‘common’ essentials to teach the next generation?”

Kay’s documentary The Great Textbook War, a radio report about the 1974 Kanawha Textbook Controversy, was honored with Peabody, Murrow, and DuPont Awards. In addition Kay has contributed numerous reports to national programs, including This American Life, Marketplace, Morning Edition, American RadioWorks, Studio 360 and Frontline. In 2005, Kay shared a Peabody for his contribution to Studio 360’s “American Icons: Moby Dick” program.

Long Game is a project made possible by the Spencer Fellowship for Education Reporting at Columbia University’s School of Journalism with additional funding provided by the Fund for Investigative Journalism, Marist College, the CRC Foundation and Friends of West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

Contact Trey Kay at TreyKay@aol.com or follow on Twitter @LongGameTexas.

On This Week's Broadcast: BoDeans, Jill Sobule, Julia Sweeny & More

This week’s episode of Mountain Stage is our first of two recorded on the shores of Lake Superior at the North House Folk School in Grand Marais, Minnesota. Going strong for 30 years, you’ll hear alt-rock institution The BoDeans make their fifth appearance on the show. Comprised of members of Duluth’s Trampled By Turtles, Dead Man Winter make their Mountain Stage debut. The Pines bring their evocative and atmospheric brand of northern Midwest alt Americana. Minnesota-based singer-songwriter Jonathan Rundman opens the show, and you’ll also hear from the Jill and Julia show – our friend Jill Sobule, along with SNL alum Julia Sweeny.

Listen this Sunday at 2 on West Virginia Public Radio, or across America on one of more than 130 public radio stations.

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