Hi, this is Rob in Santa Cruz, California. I just finished my 30th year teaching high school English.

This podcast was recorded at 1.07 pm on Tuesday, June 6th.

Things may have changed by the time you hear it, but I'll still not be greeting essays for the summer.

Okay, here's the show.

My dad was a high school English teacher among other things, and

the summer's off were great. I don't know how you're how old you're supposed to sound after

two, two, 30 years, but he didn't sound old enough to have taught 30 years. That's awesome.

He started as a baby. Really? Hey there, it's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Tamer Keith. I

cover the White House. And I'm Dominican Montanera, a senior political editor and correspondent.

And Cory Turner of NPR's Education team is here as well. Hey, Cory. Hello, you too.

And we are talking about Americans views on education today. We have all seen the headlines

about bookbans, school board shoutfests, and new laws to limit how teachers can talk about gender

identity and racism. America is deeply divided, and these fissures are ripping through classrooms.

Teachers are really in the middle of it all. But our parents and teachers and the public

feeling as divided and as polarized as the headlines make it seem. That is what we are here to

figure out. NPR has new polling from Ipsos and some answers. Dominico, you're a former teacher,

so you get this better than most. And I'm just hoping that you can help set up this political moment

for us. Well, certainly education has been a thing that has suddenly become a flashpoint in

American politics. You know, started sort of started during the COVID pandemic with a lot of parents

who didn't want to have to really be teaching at home anymore with these kids at home.

We're involved in there. And Republicans really were able to use that and have sort of stuck with

education as a thing that they're going after sort of whether it's targeting books, whether it's

...