The State of Public Schools with Laura Pappano and Kathy Lester

Award-winning journalist and author Laura Pappano will be promoting her new book, School Moms: Parent Activism, Partisan Politics and the Battle for Public Education. School Moms is an investigative study of the far-right’s attack on education and an on-the-ground look at the parent activist battle, on either side of the debate, to control the future of public schools. Joining Laura in conversation is Immediate Past President of the American Association for School Librarians (AASL) and retired school librarian Kathy Lester.

Copies of School Moms will be available for sale from Detroit's own Source Booksellers.

About Laura Pappano: Laura is founder of The New Haven Student Journalism Project, operated through Yale University’s Office of New Haven Affairs. Through the program, New Haven Public School students in grades 3-8 work with Yale mentors to cover the most pressing issues of the day and produce The East Rock Record, which is published in print and online at eastrockrecord.org.

Laura is a moderator, speaker and media guest. She has lead keynotes, including at SXSW.edu, and speaks frequently about education and gender issues. She has been a TV and radio guest, including on NPR.

She is a former education columnist for The Boston Globe and contributor to the Harvard Education Letter. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Christian Science Monitor, The Washington Post, USA Today, The Boston Globe Magazine and elsewhere. Her story, “How Big Time Sports Ate College Life,” published in The New York Times, is included in The Norton Sampler: Short Essays for Composition (8th and 9th editions, 2013; 9th edition, 2017). She is author or co-author of Inside School Turnarounds (2010), Playing With the Boys (2008) and The Connection Gap (2001).

Her new book, School Moms: Parent Activism, Partisan Politics and the Battle for Public Education was published by Beacon Press in January 2024.

A 1984 Yale grad, Laura was goalkeeper for the 1980 Ivy League Championship Field Hockey team. She serves on the board of the Yale Field Hockey Association, is a past board chair of Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, CT and of the West Suburban YMCA in Newton, MA. She bikes, plays USTA tennis, is a passionate theatre-goer, reader and cook. Laura is the mom to three mostly grown children. She lives in Seattle, WA and New Haven, CT.

About Kathy Lester: Kathy Lester is the Immediate Past President of the American Association for School Librarians (AASL), an adjunct instructor at Wayne State University, and a recently retired school librarian with 23 years of experience. She is also a Councilor-At-Large for the American Library Association (ALA) and has served on several ALA Committees including the ALA Committee on Library Advocacy (COLA), the COLA Ecosystem Subcommittee, and the ALA Committee on Legislation (COL). She is active in her state association, the Michigan Association of School Librarians (MASL) where she is Past President and currently serves as the MASL Advocacy Committee Co-Chair.

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