APM Reports Documentaries

Introducing: Sold a Story

Emily Hanford introduces the first episode of her new podcast, Sold a Story. There's an idea about how children learn to read that's held sway in schools for more than a

No Excuses: Race and Reckoning at a Chicago Charter School

Producer DJ Cashmere spent seven years teaching Black and brown students at a Noble Street charter high school in Chicago. At the time, Noble followed a popular model cal

Standing in Two Worlds: Native American College Diaries

Native American students are just a tiny fraction of all the college students in the United States. They come with different histories, confronting an education system on

In Deep: One City's Year of Climate Chaos

Most scientists believe climate change is increasing the severity of the storms we experience, and how quickly they intensify. After suffering two hurricanes, a winter st

Under Pressure: The College Mental Health Crisis

Even before the pandemic, campus counselling services were reporting a marked uptick in the number of students with anxiety, clinical depression and other serious psychia

Who Wants to Be a Teacher?

Many schools around the country are struggling to find enough teachers. Large numbers of teachers quit after a short time on the job, so schools are constantly struggling

Fading Beacon: Why America is Losing International Students

Colleges and universities in the United States attract more than a million international students a year. Higher education is one of America’s top service exports, genera

The Jail Tapes in the Dumpster

Sixteen-year-old Myon Burrell was sent to prison for life after a stray bullet killed an 11-year-old girl in Minneapolis in 2002. Amy Klobuchar, who was Minneapolis’ top

The Bad Place

More than 40 states have sent their most vulnerable kids to facilities run by a for-profit company named Sequel. Many of those kids were abused there. 00:00:00 1. 'Youth

Black at Mizzou: Confronting race on campus

Lauren Brown says college was "culture shock." Most of the students at her high school were Black, but most of the students at the University of Missouri were white. And

What the Words Say

Everyone agrees that the goal of reading instruction is for children to understand what they read. The question is: how does a little kid get there? Emily Hanford explore

Covid on Campus

The coronavirus pandemic represents the greatest challenge to American higher education in decades. Some small regional colleges that were already struggling won’t surviv

Soldiers for Peace

During the Vietnam War, roughly one in five GIs actively opposed the conflict. Many servicemen and women came to believe they were not liberating the country from communi

Uprooted: The 1950s plan to erase Indian Country

In the 1950s, the United States came up with a plan to solve what it called the "Indian Problem." It would assimilate Native Americans by moving them to cities and elimin

Fading Minds: Why There's Still No Cure for Alzheimer's

In the 1970s, the founder of the National Institute on Aging convinced a nation that senility was really Alzheimer's and could be cured. Research money flowed to one theo

At a Loss for Words: What's wrong with how schools teach reading

For decades, schools have taught children the strategies of struggling readers, using a theory about reading that cognitive scientists have repeatedly debunked. And many

Students on the Move: Keeping uprooted kids in school

A growing body of research finds that repeatedly uprooted children are more likely to struggle in school and more likely to drop out. But there are ways to help them succ

Under a Watchful Eye: How colleges are tracking students to boost graduation

At Georgia State in Atlanta, more students are graduating, and the school credits its use of predictive analytics. But critics worry that the algorithms may be invading s

When Tasers Fail

Tasers have become an essential tool for police, but how effective are they? An APM Reports investigation finds that officers in some big cities rated Tasers as unreliabl

Hard Words: Why Aren't Our Kids Being Taught to Read?

Scientific research has shown how children learn to read and how they should be taught. But many educators don't know the science and, in some cases, actively resist it.