Wide Ruled: The future of Kansas schools with education commissioner Randy Watson

Editor’s note: In partnership with the Wide Ruled podcast hosted by Brainroot Light and Sound, Startland News hopes to offer its audience more avenues to learn about innovators in Kansas City. Opinions expressed in this commentary are the author’s alone.

Wide Ruled is a Kansas City-based podcast focused on equality in education. Each episode showcases a struggle or triumph in working toward a better education system.

Nathaniel Bozarth

In this episode, host Nathaniel Bozarth talks with Kansas Commissioner of Education Randy Watson about the Kansas School redesign initiative — a push for Sunflower State educators to think more entrepreneurially about schools.

Home of the landmark 1954 Brown v. Topeka Board of Education decision, Kansas does not historically have the best track record as far as systemic inequality in education goes. Bozarth’s conversation with Watson looks to the future of Kansas education, discussing the Kansans Can vision as well as inequity in Kansas education.

Listen to the conversation in the podcast below.

Nathaniel Bozarth is a regional Emmy-award winning producer with Brainroot Light and Sound. Over the past three years he’s teamed up with Christopher Cook to create engaging documentary content on how race and immigration impact opportunity in America. Wide Ruled is Brainroot’s newest production on this trajectory. @bo_nathaniel