Top: University Cultural Centre, National University of Singapore (Wikimedia Commons/User: Sengkang). Bottom: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass. (Flickr/erinc salor)

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For many decades, through economic ups and downs, the United States has had one big consolation and wellspring of faith in the future: the second-to-none American system of higher education, with universities dominating the world in new research and new horizons.

American higher ed is still second to none. But it’s stalled out in recession and cutbacks. And Asian higher education is storming to the fore. Billions and billions are being poured into universities in China and beyond. Giant ambitions. Giant resources.

This hour, On Point: Rising Asia challenges the American university.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Washington is Jeff Selingo, editor of the Chronicle of Higher Education, which recently published a special report on higher education in the U.S and in Asia.

Also from Washington we’re joined by Charles Vest, former president of MIT and president of the National Academy of Engineering. He served on the National Academies panel which produced the 2006 report “Rising Above The Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future.”  It warned that the U.S. was in danger of falling behind in science and technology.

And from Toronto we’re joined by Qiang Zha, assistant professor of education at York University in Toronto, and an expert on Chinese higher education. He is a researcher for the “China’s Move to Mass Higher Education” project, an in-depth three-year study of Chinese universities and the public policy behind them.

A detail from the website University of Dreams (summerinternships.com).

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The economy’s still lousy. Unemployment’s high and higher. Starting a career is murder. And guess who’s getting the internships that so often put a foot on the ladder to success?

Well, people with money. A hot business has grown up around paying for hot internships. Unpaid internships. Mom and dad shelling out $5000, $8000, $9000 to buy a summer internship that may get junior started.

Nice, if you’ve got the money. But what about merit? What about opportunity for all?

This hour: When it’s pay-to-play in the American economy.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Gerry Shih, a paid summer intern at The New York Times and author of the article “Unpaid Work, but They Pay for Privilege.”

Sara Lipka, former staff reporter for the Chronicle of Higher Education, where she covered internships and career services, among many other topics. She currently works on a farm, and blogs for The Atlantic on farming and food.

Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute. He is the principle author of the EPI’s “The State of Working America,” an analysis of the US labor market released every two years.

Lev Bayer, president and CEO of the Washington Internship Program.

Alyssa Lanz poses for a snapshot in Egypt while studying at the American University in Cairo, taking classes in Arabic and political science, and working with New Women's Foundation, a research center in Cairo focusing on women's rights. (Photo: mayafrost.com)

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Everybody knows the straight and narrow, up-and-out formula for American success: good grades, good scores, good college, big debt … good luck.

My guests today, Maya and Tom Frost, say forget it. There’s a better way, they say. And the path leads abroad — early.

Stay home studying for SATs and taking on college debt, and you’re guaranteed nothing in this topsy-turvy economy. Go abroad — as early as high school, especially for college, they say — and you’ll find low tuitions, big adventures, and the future.

This hour, On Point: A new American way in the world. Going global, right from the start.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Maya Frost joins us in our studio. She’s the author of “The New Global Student: Skip the SAT, Save Thousands on Tuition and Get a Truly International Education.”

At Frost’s website, you can read about the students (such as Alyssa Lanz, seen in the photo above) who are featured in the book.

Also joining us in our studio is Tom Frost, husband of Maya and father of their four daughters.

Graduates at the University of Pennsylvania's commencement ceremonies in Philadelphia on Monday, May 18, 2009. (AP)

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It takes nerves of steel to be a member of the graduating class of 2009, walking away from school and into the world of work.

It‘s the toughest job market in years out there. Unemployment at 8.9 percent, 600,000 of your elders losing their jobs every month and scrambling for any job in sight — even the ones you’d normally be taking.

A third or more of new grads, by one estimate, are without jobs or even plans. Many more are going to Plan B. Survival mode. Whatever it takes. Maybe home again.

This hour, On Point: The class of 2009 steps into America’s economic crisis.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Washington is Sara Lipka, a reporter covering student life for the The Chronicle of Higher Education.

From New York we’re joined by Ashley Barton, a journalism major graduating Friday from Stony Brook University, where she will give the student commencement address. She is 22 years old and looking for a job in media.

From Wyckoff, N.J., we’re joined by Michael Madormo. He graduated Monday from Boston College, where he majored in international studies. He will be joining Teach for America as an English teacher in Hawaii next year. He is 22 years old.

And from Washington we’re joined by Mike Schaub, executive director of the Career Education Center at Georgetown University.

Former Senator Bob Graham of Florida testifies on Capitol Hill on Dec. 11, 2008. (AP)

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Here’s a paradox. We hear a lot these days about populism. But as former Senator and Florida Governor Bob Graham points out, real participation in politics — especially by young Americans, and especially in local politics — remains dismally low.

Graham cites a lot of reasons. Civics courses, if they’re taught at all, are boring. Our media and political parties aren’t doing enough. And the only way to learn how to participate, he says, is to try it out for yourself.

So he’s written a how-to guide. This hour, On Point: Senator Bob Graham and his “owner’s manual” for American democracy.

You can join the conversation. Are you involved in your town hall meetings, or did you throw your hands up long ago? How much do you know about how your local, state and federal governments work?

You can join the conversation. What’s your story of friendship through the years? Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Jane Clayson, guest host

Guests:

Joining us from Miami, Florida, is former Senator Bob Graham. He represented Florida as a Democrat in the U.S. Senate from 1987 to 2005 and was governor of Florida from 1979 to 1987. He’s now chairman of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism and also chairs the Graham Center for Public Service at the University of Florida. His new book is “America, The Owner’s Manual: Making Government Work For You.”

Joining us from Leesburg, Virginia, is Lori Waters, member of the Board of Supervisors for Loudoun County, VA, representing the Broad Run District. She is also former executive director of the Eagle Forum, a conservative interest group founded by Phyllis Schlafly in 1967.

Allonzo Trier, 13, a sixth grader in Federal Way, outside Seattle, is profiled by Michael Sokolove in the March 22 issue of The New York Times Magazine. (Photo: Lauren Greenfield for The New York Times. Courtesy of The New York Times Magazine.)

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Allonzo Trier is one hundred and ten pounds, five-foot-five, 13 years old, and — right behind March Madness and the NBA home stretch — the talk of the American basketball world.

He’s scouted, ranked — number one for his age in the country — is flown all over, has a famous nickname (“Zo”), has his own line of clothing, is spoken of as the next LeBron James or Allen Iverson.

And he is, to repeat, 13.

His story tells us a lot about what’s going on with “must-go-pro” fever at incredibly young ages in elite American basketball.

This hour, On Point: The story of Allonzo Trier.

You can join the conversation. How young is too young to be locked-in on dreams of the NBA? Or is it never too early for hoop dreams?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

From Washington we’re joined by Michael Sokolove, contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and a big voice on the sociology and culture of sports. His remarkable cover story in Sunday’s issue of the magazine is “Allonzo Trier Is in the Game.” He’s also the author of “Warrior Girls: Protecting Our Daughters Against the Injury Epidemic in Sports.”

From Philadelphia, we’re joined by Phil Martelli, head coach of the St. Joseph’s University men’s basketball team. He was NCAA Coach of the Year in 2004.

Joining us from Louisville, Kentucky, is Clark Francis, editor and publisher of Hoop Scoop Online, which ranks top young basketball prospects.

And later in the hour, we’ll be joined by Tim Layden, senior writer for Sports Illustrated, for an update on how this year’s NCAA tournament is shaping up.

Here’s a YouTube video of Allonzo Trier in action, from HoopsReport:

Last summer we talked with the Beastie Boys’ Adam Yauch about his basketball documentary “Gunnin’ for that #1 Spot.”

Today on our show, Secretary Duncan shared his views on No Child Left Behind. To begin with, it “has to be rebranded,” he said. “No Child Left Behind has become toxic.” He said the way it had labeled some schools as failures was “demoralizing,” especially for  schools that were actually improving. Here he expands:

What No Child Left Behind did right was it put a spotlight on the achievement gap…. So it gets great credit for that. It did other things very poorly. I think the idea of moving children around before you offer tutoring in school doesn’t make any sense….

We are putting dramatic money behind our children, which didn’t happen before, it was largely underfunded…. But in this [stimulus] package there are over $10 billion in additional money for children in poverty, Title 1 dollars, over $10 billion through IDEA [Individuals With Disabilities Education Act]. So dramatic funding that was never there before. We want to be much less punitive and reward excellence and really again spotlight those schools and those districts that are beating the odds every single day. So what we want to do is take what’s working and build upon it. Those things that aren’t working we want to fix.

And I think it ultimately has to be rebranded. No Child Left Behind has become toxic. And we need to come up with something that’s much more inspiring, something that appeals to the best of us rather than pulls us down.

Just the business of renaming No Child Left Behind has led to much speculation, as The New York Times points out.

On the question of standards, Duncan seemed to suggest a more aggressive federal role. The National Governors Association and the American Federation of Teachers have recently come out strongly for national standards of some sort. No Child Left Behind left individual states to formulate their own goals. Secretary Duncan disagrees with that approach. Here he is:

Whenever you’re managing something large, Tom, from an organizational standpoint, from a management standpoint, you have to think about what you do loose and what you do tight. And I think No Child Left Behind got this a little backwards, and let me explain why.

They were very, very loose about what the goals were, what the goalposts were, the benchmarks. Fifty states did their own thing. That didn’t make sense to me. But they were very tight about how you got there. Again, moving children around between schools before you improve the schools and offer tutoring.

I want to try and turn that on its head. I want to be much tighter about what the goal is. We want our students again competing – our students today, whether we like it or not, are competing not down the block or in the district or in the state, but they’re competing with children in India and China. And they need to know whether they’re going to be successful or not. So I want to be tighter on the goals, but be much looser and give states the ability to create and to innovate and figure out how they get there.

Does being “tight about what the goal is” mean national standards? Unclear. Duncan has indicated elsewhere that he’s interested in national standards. But how that would work remains to be seen.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in Chicago, where he was chief of public schools, on Nov. 13, 2008. (AP)

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The U.S. secretary of education always has a big bully pulpit. President Barack Obama’s brand new secretary of education, Chicago’s Arne Duncan, has a big bully pulpit plus a huge pile of stimulus money — one hundred billion dollars — to shake up American education.

That’s historic. Today we’ll talk with the Secretary Duncan about his plans for America’s schools. About testing and charter schools, teachers unions and No Child Left Behind. About how he hopes to make American education competitive again.

This hour, On Point: U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

You can join the conversation. What’s your question for Secretary Duncan, America’s education man of the hour?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Arne Duncan joins us from Washington. He was confirmed as Secretary of Education on Jan. 20, 2009. Prior to his appointment, he served for seven years as the chief executive of the Chicago Public Schools.

More links:

The New York Times has a good summary of the historic moment in which Secretary Duncan arrives. For a tough critique of President Obama and Secretary Duncan, see the Schools Matter blog. And The Wall Street Journal has an interesting piece on the D.C. voucher controversy and how it frames big choices for the new administration.

Jay Mathews, education columnist for The Washington Post, offers an up-close account of school reform in his new book, “Work hard. Be Nice: How Two Inspired Teachers Created the Most Promising Schools in America.” He joined us last year for our ‘08 campaign hour on the education issue.

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To look at the bright side of student loans, there’s no way an awful lot of young Americans would get through college without them these days. They pay the bills.

But look at the dark side of those loans, and it’s a scary picture out there. Skyrocketing college costs have pushed new graduates deeper into debt than ever. And the debt itself is often structured as the most unforgiving loans you’ll ever find.

My guest today, Alan Michael Collinge, says it’s a scam just shy of loan-sharking — and that colleges are in on the game.

This hour, On Point: Shining a bright light on the rough side of student loans.

You can join the conversation. Are you on top of your college loans? Or are they on top of you? Do you see a problem with the system?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Seattle is Alan Michael Collinge, founder of StudentLoanJustice.org and author of the new book “The Student Loan Scam: The Most Oppressive Debt in U.S. History – and How We Can Fight Back.”  Publisher’s Weekly calls it “whistle-blowing at its finest.” 

From Washington, we’re joined by Kelly Field, reporter for The Chronicle of Higher Education covering Congress and education.

Joining us from Philadelphia is William Schilling, director of student financial services at the University of Pennsylvania.

Students walk on the campus at Wells College in Aurora, N.Y. in Sept. 2007. (AP)

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Suddenly, the numbers just aren’t adding up for American colleges and universities. After years of living large on the same bubbles that floated home prices and Wall Street, American campuses are in trouble.

Private endowments are plummeting. Public coffers are empty. The endless tuition increases that pushed the cost of an education up much faster than inflation — impossible when mom and dad and junior face the risk of unemployment and the reality of a credit crunch.

There’s an “end of an era” feeling out there.

This hour, On Point: The crunch comes to the American campus.

You can join the conversation. Can the American way – and cost – of college education go on? How do we protect and retool this great American asset?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Philadelphia is Joni Finney, professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education. She’s spearheaded the effort to create a nationwide report card on college costs, called “Measuring Up,” produced by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. Their headline-grabbing report came out last week, showing how college has become increasingly unaffordable for families. She’s author of the forthcoming book “Financing Higher Education in an Era of Global Challenge.”

From Charlottesville, Virginia, we’re joined by David Breneman, professor and economist at the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education. He’s one of the country’s leading experts on issues of financing in higher education.

From Washington, we’re joined by Paul Fain, a senior reporter at The Chronicle of Higher Education. He covers college administrations across the country, and he’s been writing a series called “Sticker Shock” about the cost issues closing in on colleges.

More links:

Today’s Boston Globe reports on the funding crunch hitting colleges around the country.

The New York Times reported on the new “Measuring Up” report card about declining college affordability.

And the Wall Street Journal’s Eric Gibson writes about colleges “pleading poverty.”

West Philly Hybrid X team at the Harley-Davidson Museum.

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Who’s going to design the car of the future? The one that’s affordable, that plugs in, charges up, goes from zero to sixty in under five seconds — and gets 100 miles per gallon? They’re working on it in Detroit, but who knows if the U.S. auto industry will die before the roll out.

So how about a plucky group of inner-city kids from West Philadelphia led by a visionary teacher?

They come from a world of crack houses and gang wars, but they’re winning awards for cutting-edge green auto design.

This hour, On Point: from Philly’s mean streets — inspiration, hope, and maybe, the cars of the future.

You can join the conversation. Have you heard of these smart-as-a-whip kids and their hybrids that are taking all the prizes? What’s your vision for the car of the future? And if this group of students can design the car of the future, why can’t Detroit?

-Anthony Brooks, guest host

Guests:

Simon Hauger, founder and team director of the West Philly Hybrid X Team, which is currently developing an entry in the Progressive Automotive X Prize called the EVX. For the last 14 years, he has taught math and science was an administrator at the Auto Academy at West Philadelphia High School.

Jacques Wells, an 11th grade student at West Philadelphia High School and member of the team. His focus is managing the website and doing design and marketing research for the project.

Marquia Baylor, a 12th grade student at West Philadelphia High School and member of the team. Her focus is marketing for the project.

Ryan Chin, member of MIT Media Lab’s Smart Cities Group. He and his colleagues are building what they call the “car of the future” — a stackable, electric, shared two-passenger city vehicle — in collaboration with General Motors.

More links:

The Hybrid X Team’s site features photos and descriptions of the award-winning cars they have already designed: the K1 Attack, the Electric Saturn SL2, and the Hybrid Jeep Wrangler. You can also watch videos of the cars and the team in action, like this one of the K1 Attack:

This Sept. 4, 2007 photo shows children unloading off the bus at Eugene Field Elementary School in Silverton, Ore. (AP Photo/Statesman Journal, Lori Cain)

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Crisis in the financial markets on a scale not seen since the Great Depression. And Americans awakening to challenges that go to the bedrock of the nation’s strength.

Nothing is ultimately more bedrock than the education of our children — the readiness of our citizens and coming generations to compete and lead in a global economy. To carry the responsibilities of democracy.

Where do McCain and Obama stand? This hour, we’ll ask their top advisers where McCain and Obama would lead on a basic issue for America — education.

You can join the conversation. Can we dig out of the economic mess and win without better schools? Who do you want steering federal policy on education? McCain or Obama? And why?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Florissant, Missouri, is Jay Mathews, education columnist at The Washington Post and a guiding light among reporters on the education beat. His forthcoming book is, “Work Hard, Be Nice: How Two Inspired Teachers Created America’s Best Schools.”

Joining us from Washington is Linda Darling-Hammond, professor of education at Stanford University and a member of Barack Obama’s education advisory team. She was the founding executive director of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, the blue-ribbon panel which produced the 1996 report “What Matters Most: Teaching for America’s Future” (pdf).

Also from Washington, we’re joined by Lisa Graham Keegan. She is the senior policy advisor to the McCain 2008 campaign on education issues. At the National Republican Convention earlier this month, she was vice chair of the GOP political platform committee and was instrumental in developing the party’s education policy.

More links:

You can read Barack Obama’s and John McCain’s education policies, as spelled out on their official campaign sites.

The waiting list cases are wrapping up now. The acceptance and rejection letters are up on the fridge or in the trash. But the college admissions season of 2008 is one for the record books.

At 3.3 million, the high school class that just scrambled through admission hoops is the nation’s largest since 1977 — the “echo-boom” they call it.

These applicants faced fearsome competition from each other, and a head-spinning new set of challenges at the college starting line.

This hour, On Point: college admissions ‘08, and what they tell us about where this country’s headed.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Stacy Teicher Khadaroo, correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor covering education.

Chris Munoz, Vice President for Enrollment at Rice University, he’s worked as the chief admissions officer for Case Western Reserve, University of Dayton, and California Lutheran University.

Donna Virklan, College Counselor at Niles North High School in Skokie, Illinois.

Nancy St. Clair, Director of Guidance at Weston High School in Weston, Connecticut.

Here’s a headline you may have missed: a truce has been declared in the great American “Math War.”

For 20-odd years, mathematicians, parents, and teachers have been arguing over the best way to teach your children math. Well, a national panel formed by President Bush two years ago has just issued its findings, and is pushing schools to go back to the basics — memorization, multiplication tables, and less so-called “fuzzy math.”

This hour, On Point: we ask experts if it all adds up — and with their help, we do your kids’ math homework.

-Jane Clayson

Guests:

John Hechinger, education reporter for The Wall Street Journal.

Mary Eich, a former math teacher, she is the K-8 math coordinator for the Newton, Massachusetts, public schools.

Wilfried Schmid, professor of mathematics at Harvard University and a member of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel, which recently released its report.

Joseph Rosenstein, professor of mathematics at Rutgers University and director of the New Jersey Mathematics and Science Education Coalition.

It’s a globalized world, but that doesn’t mean we all live the same. Take high school students in the U.S., China and India. Different worlds.

A new documentary takes the two million minutes of high school life and compares them — in Indiana, Shanghai and Bangalore.

It’s a little shocking to see. Bright American kids on Xbox and after-school jobs, studying almost as an afterthought. Chinese and Indian kids at the books by 5 a.m., obsessed with science and math and exams and making it. This is up-close and amazing.

This hour, On Point: High school, three ways — India, China, and the USA.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Bob Compton, venture capitalist and executive producer of the documentary “Two Million Minutes.”

Shirley Ann Jackson, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Neil Ahrendt, a freshman at Purdue University studying computer graphics, he’s one of the students featured in the documentary.

Vivek Wadhwa, a technology entrepreneur who’s founded two technology companies, he’s a fellow at Harvard Law School and executive in residence at Duke University. He joins us from New Delhi, where he has been studying the education system.

The day-to-day news feed out of Iraq misses one of the country’s saddest, and most important, stories: the exodus of Iraq’s intellectual class.

While tens of thousands of Iraqi refugees are heading back, many professionals will never return. And they leave an enormous void — one that hurts the prospects for stability.

We’ll talk to three prominent Iraqi intellectuals who fled — about why they left, about starting over, about what they think it will take to repair Iraq, and how their country’s war looks from the outside.

This hour, On Point: Iraq’s brain drain, and Iraq’s future.

-James Hattori

Guests:

Donny George Youkhana, former director general of the Iraqi National Museum and former president of the Iraq Antiquities Board, he now teaches at Stony Brook University in New York.

Abdul Sattar Jawad, former editor of the Baghdad Mirror and former chair of the English department at Baghdad University, he is currently a visiting professor of English at Harvard University.

Saad Jawad, a longtime political science professor at Baghdad University, he is now a researcher at the University of Exeter in England.

John Akker, professor of refugee studies at London South Bank University and executive secretary of the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics (CARA).

After World War II, some 8 million veterans came home and went to college on the GI Bill, helping create the American middle class. Now, the latest generation of vets — battle-tried in Iraq and Afghanistan — is coming home, and many are going to college.

They’ve got less help from Uncle Sam, but they are hitting campuses across the country, confronting term papers, parties, campus politics, and culture shock.

This hour, On Point: we hear from three Iraq vets, now all undergrads, about reentering civilian life on campus.

-Sheilah Kast

Guests:

Matt Stiner, a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq. He’s now a senior at Oklahoma State University at Tulsa.

Talya Havice, an active duty Marine who served in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Far East. She is now a sophomore at Harvard University.

David Hassan, a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq. He is now in his first year at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

By host Tom Ashbrook:

At 8 am, do you know where your three-year-old is? Your four-year-old? A big new movement wants to put them — all the nation’s tiny tots — in school. Universal pre-kindergarten, it’s called. And it’s catching on fast, in red states and blue. Oklahoma, Tennessee, Georgia, West Virginia — all leaders.

Now, the ‘08 presidential campaign has grabbed on to “universal pre-K.” Critics say it pulls tots out of homes and can “drill and kill” creative minds. Supporters say American kids, especially the poor, need more than day care.

This hour, On Point: No toddler left behind. The push for universal pre-K education.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

David Kirp, professor of public policy at the University of California-Berkeley and author of “The Sandbox Investment: The Preschool Movement and Kids-First Politics.”

Richard Lee Colvin, former education reporter for the Los Angeles Times, he’s now director of the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media at the Columbia University Teachers College.

Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, professor of child development, co-director of the National Center for Children and Families, and professor of pediatrics at Columbia University.

Douglas Besharov, social welfare policy scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy.

Sometimes a novel’s plot is unlikely. Sometimes it’s ripped straight from life — or life we can easily imagine. Novelist Tom Perrotta’s latest book, “The Abstinence Teacher,” is the second type.

Ruth is a broad-minded sex-ed teacher at the local high school — in a suburb where evangelical Christians are taking charge of the local culture. She makes a casual remark about the joy of sex, and the roof comes off.

Sex-ed becomes abstinence ed. A “virginity consultant” is sent in. And all-American cultural mayhem ensues. This is our life and times.

Up next, On Point: Tom Perrotta and “The Abstinence Teacher.”

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Tom Perrotta, novelist and screenwriter, his new novel is “The Abstinence Teacher.”

School shootings and the shadow of youth violence around them are very much in the news these days. In the last decade — from Columbine, to Amish country, to last week’s deadly shooting in a Cleveland school and images of an angry Philadelphia teen’s shocking arsenal — the headlines have become almost routine.

Gun. School. Mayhem. It’s hard for adults to read. But what is it like for kids to see it on the news and fear its possibility in their own school hallways? We’ve asked them.

This hour, in a special co-production of On Point and Youth Radio: what American kids think about American school violence.

Guests:

Drew Koncz, clinical social worker and safety coordinator at the Humanities Preparatory Academy, a 180-student progressive high school serving at-risk students.

Jennifer Freed, co-founder of the Academy of Healing Arts, which runs teen after-school and in-school programs that help build self-esteem through dance, writing and leadership training.

Ronald Durkin, Director of safety and security at Parma City School District, which borders Cleveland.