Beginning on September 16, 2008, Schools That Work, a podcast series commissioned by The Annie E. Casey Foundation, will be released in 13 weekly segments online. Schools That Work: Voices from the Inside features interviews with people on the ground in successful Casey-supported public schools that beat the odds to provide high quality education to low-income students. To view the free podcast, visit the project website.

For the series, director/producer Tory Read conducted interviews and shot footage in Atlanta, Georgia and Marion County, Indiana in April and May 2008. In addition to the podcasts, the website also offers bonus audio tracks of Read's in-depth interviews with the video subjects.

In Atlanta, filming focused on the people and partnerships who have made a difference at NPU-V's Parks Middle School. Parks was a chronically failing school for eight consecutive years before the principal and others, including the Annie E. Casey Foundation, worked together to turn it around. The school made AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) under the federal No Child Left Behind law for the past three years and has become one of the highest achieving schools in its district. Parks is a district school in an inner-city neighborhood where the Foundation has concurrent investments in economic development/neighborhood transformation, early childhood education/education achievement and building family economic success.

You can subscribe to the podcasts through iTunes and other podcast readers or by clicking this link.

Please note that in order to watch the podcast, you must click on the arrow on the far left hand side of the bar underneath the photo at the bottom of the Schools That Work page.