Everyone Gets a Juice Box: For Parents of Neurodivergent Kids
Oct 15, 2026 · 24 min · 11 segments
In 1975, a federal law promised every child with a disability a free appropriate public education. Fifty years later, that promise is on shaky ground. Jessica talks with education reporter Anya…
Anya KamenetzGuestJessica ShawHost
I think the thing that I'm proudest of is the way that it uses the, the stories and the voices of real families and kids to illuminate this huge system that is sort of existing invisibly that we never really think about, which is how do we actually make sure that we meet the potential of every single kid in this country?
What is it about this time right now that we're living in that makes this podcast so relevant?
So the second Trump administration caused a lot of different changes to come at us very, very quickly across the whole federal government.
But the changes specifically to education and to students I don't feel like have gotten enough attention.
So what I really wanted to do was make a show that help people understand the downstream impacts on students.
And a lot of people don't understand what the Department of Education does and doesn't do, right? So education is locally controlled in the United States.
There are about fourteen thousand school districts in the country, and the federal government doesn't set curriculum, but what it does do is enforce federal laws.
And, uh, specifically with students with disabilities, they are entitled to a free, appropriate public education because of federal laws.
I mean, I think that even when people talk about education and the Department of Education, it's like, as parents, we all kind of have a sense of what that is, but the Office of Civil Rights within the Department of Education, I really did not know a ton about and learned a lot listening to the podcast.
And, um, it's something that even, you know, Beth, who is in the podcast, uh, who worked there, admitted the same thing.
When she applied for a job there, she had never heard of the Office for Civil Rights.
But the Office for Civil Rights in general, you know, it is the complaint office for, for civil rights violations.
And when we say civil rights violations within the context of education, um, that is everything from gender and sex discrimination, racial discrimination, and the majority of complaints, sixty to seventy percent, that come in have always been about students with disabilities.
I think the thing that I'm proudest of is the way that it uses the, the stories and the voices of real families and kids to illuminate this huge system that is sort of existing invisibly that we never really think about, which is how do we actually make sure that we meet the potential of every single kid in this country?
What is it about this time right now that we're living in that makes this podcast so relevant?
So the second Trump administration caused a lot of different changes to come at us very, very quickly across the whole federal government.
But the changes specifically to education and to students I don't feel like have gotten enough attention.
So what I really wanted to do was make a show that help people understand the downstream impacts on students.
And a lot of people don't understand what the Department of Education does and doesn't do, right? So education is locally controlled in the United States.
There are about fourteen thousand school districts in the country, and the federal government doesn't set curriculum, but what it does do is enforce federal laws.
And, uh, specifically with students with disabilities, they are entitled to a free, appropriate public education because of federal laws.
I mean, I think that even when people talk about education and the Department of Education, it's like, as parents, we all kind of have a sense of what that is, but the Office of Civil Rights within the Department of Education, I really did not know a ton about and learned a lot listening to the podcast.
And, um, it's something that even, you know, Beth, who is in the podcast, uh, who worked there, admitted the same thing.
When she applied for a job there, she had never heard of the Office for Civil Rights.
But the Office for Civil Rights in general, you know, it is the complaint office for, for civil rights violations.
And when we say civil rights violations within the context of education, um, that is everything from gender and sex discrimination, racial discrimination, and the majority of complaints, sixty to seventy percent, that come in have always been about students with disabilities.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.