8: The Impact

Summary

Sold a Story: Episode 8 - The Impact

Released on May 18, 2023 by APM Reports

Emily Handford delves into the profound effects of the "Sold a Story" podcast in Episode 8, titled "The Impact." This episode explores how the podcast has influenced educators, policymakers, and parents nationwide, sparking legislative actions aimed at overhauling reading instruction based on scientifically-backed methods.

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1. Legislative Momentum: Indiana's Pioneering Bill

The episode begins with Emily introducing Aaron Freeman, a state senator from Indiana, who shares his personal struggles with reading in his early education years. Moved by the "Sold a Story" podcast, Freeman channelled his emotions into legislative action.

Freeman recounts, "[00:49] I had two competing emotional thoughts listening to your podcast. I literally had a tear in my eye, and I was heartbroken for what we've done as a society. And second, I wanted to do physical injury to somebody."

Determined to make a change, Freeman collaborated with Andrea Hundley, a freshman state senator and former educator, to draft a bipartisan bill focusing on the science of reading. Their legislation mandates the adoption of curricula grounded in scientific research and explicitly bans the three cueing method, which the podcast criticized.

Hundley explains, "[02:26] This just really draws the line in Indiana that says, this is how we teach reading, and we teach it in ways that are based on science."

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2. Nationwide Response: A Wave of Legislative Actions

Emily highlights a significant surge in legislative interest across 14 states, each introducing bills to reform reading instruction. From Ohio to Minnesota, states are moving away from local control over curricula to standardized, scientifically-backed reading programs.

Mark Seidenberg, a cognitive scientist featured in the podcast, emphasizes the scale of this movement: "[04:34] It's happening everywhere."

The episode details how states are not only mandates specific curricula but also creating approved lists that school districts must adhere to, sidelining the traditional autonomy of local educational boards.

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3. The Three Cueing Ban: Eliminating Outdated Practices

A central focus of the legislative changes is the ban on the three cueing method—a strategy previously popularized in reading instruction but now deemed ineffective by scientific standards.

Seidenberg asserts, "[02:52] You cannot require the science of reading and also leave in three cueing in. Order to do this correctly, you have to adopt the science of reading and you have to outlaw three Cueing."

As of the episode's recording, states including Indiana, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, West Virginia, and Minnesota have introduced such bans, with Arkansas, Louisiana, and Virginia already implementing them.

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4. Expert Insights: Navigating the Complexity of Educational Reform

Mark Seidenberg and Claude Goldenberg provide nuanced perspectives on the ongoing reforms. Seidenberg cautions against over-reliance on legislative mandates, suggesting that while banning ineffective practices is beneficial, the replacement strategies are equally crucial.

Seidenberg warns, "[16:00] I think they probably are. I think that we've tried so many times to change reading instruction... They've never uprooted that practice."

Goldenberg introduces the concept of a pre-mortem, a strategic approach to anticipate and prevent potential failures in implementing new reading programs.

Goldenberg explains, "[20:10] It's called a pre mortem as opposed to a postmortem. A pre mortem is something you do before you put a plan into place to try to prevent the plan from failing."

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5. Balancing Urgency with Realistic Goals

The episode addresses concerns about the ambitious reading proficiency goals set by some states. For instance, a district aiming to increase reading proficiency from 38% to 80% within a year is criticized for being unrealistic.

Christopher Peek reflects, "[19:49] Everyone's going to work really hard and get to that. And you think, well, what would it take to really do that?"

Both Seidenberg and Peek emphasize the importance of setting attainable objectives to avoid the perception of failure, which could undermine the science-based reforms.

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6. Political Implications and Listener Reactions

A poignant listener message from Andrew Carr, a children's book editor, underscores the political tensions arising from these educational reforms.

Carr shares, "[12:23] It was truly like glimpsing an alternate reality."

Emily voices her concerns about the partisan divide, noting that support for the science of reading spans across the political spectrum, despite attempts to politicize the issue.

Emily Handford remarks, "[13:47] I worry about the science of reading getting caught up in partisan politics."

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7. Strategies for Successful Implementation

To ensure the effectiveness of the new reading programs, experts suggest comprehensive strategies beyond merely changing curricula. These include:

• Pre-mortems to foresee potential challenges.
• Diverse Approaches to avoid over-reliance on a single method.
• Continuous Evaluation to assess the efficacy of implemented strategies.

Goldenberg advocates for collective foresight: "[20:08] This can actually be a way to get people to take off their blinders and stop kind of the group think and shared assumptions..."

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8. Conclusion: Hope Amidst Challenges

Despite the complexities and potential pitfalls, Emily expresses optimism rooted in the dedication of teachers committed to improving reading education.

Hundley shares her success, "[22:14] As I've implemented Science of Reading practices over the last two years, the reading abilities of my students has exponentially increased. I've got confident, happy little readers."

The episode concludes with a call to action for listeners to engage with the podcast, leave reviews, and stay informed through additional resources available on the show's website.

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Notable Quotes:

• Aaron Freeman [00:54]: "I had two competing emotional thoughts listening to your podcast. I literally had a tear in my eye, and I was heartbroken for what we've done as a society. And second, I wanted to do physical injury to somebody."

• Andrea Hundley [02:26]: "This just really draws the line in Indiana that says, this is how we teach reading, and we teach it in ways that are based on science."

• Mark Seidenberg [02:52]: "You cannot require the science of reading and also leave in three cueing in. Order to do this correctly, you have to adopt the science of reading and you have to outlaw three Cueing."

• Christopher Peek [19:49]: "We have to set realistic goals here. Not to say we shouldn't be really urgent and help the kids out there who are struggling with reading, but if we set unrealistic goals, there's just no way it won't fail."

• Claude Goldenberg [20:10]: "It's called a pre mortem as opposed to a postmortem. A pre mortem is something you do before you put a plan into place to try to prevent the plan from failing."

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This episode of "Sold a Story" underscores the ripple effect a single piece of investigative journalism can have, igniting a nationwide conversation and prompting significant legislative reforms aimed at improving reading education based on solid scientific foundations.

Transcript

[Aaron Freeman]

We flew to Vegas.

[Emily Handford]

Aaron Freeman was on a trip last fall with his wife and two sons.

[Aaron Freeman]

We took the boys to the Colts Raiders game out there, and we drove up to Zion. We did Zion and Bryce, and somewhere.

[Emily Handford]

Between Bryce Canyon and Zion national park, his wife said to him, there's a.

[Christopher Peek]

Podcast I want you to listen to.

[Aaron Freeman]

She's like, you're going to listen to this. Okay, I'm going to listen to this.

[Emily Handford]

His kids had already heard Solda's story. My mom started putting it on a lot during the car ride back and forth between tutoring. Erin Freeman is Cooper and Jack Freeman's dad. The boys you met in the last episode.

[Aaron Freeman]

I couldn't read in kindergarten, first grade, second grade.

[Emily Handford]

I didn't know what to do.

[Aaron Freeman]

I had two competing emotional thoughts listening to your podcast.

[Emily Handford]

This is Erin Freeman again.

[Aaron Freeman]

I literally had a tear in my eye, and I was heartbroken for what we've done as a society. And second, I wanted to do physical injury to somebody.

[Emily Handford]

Instead, he decided to write a piece of legislation because in addition to being a dad, Aaron Freeman is a state senator in Indiana. He went looking for co authors.

[Andrea Hundley]

My name is Andrea Hundley. I am a freshman state senator in Indiana.

[Emily Handford]

In January, she went to the state capitol to start her new job.

[Andrea Hundley]

I was meeting other legislators, mingling around, trying to figure out what we have in common, and I met Senator Aaron.

[Aaron Freeman]

Freeman, and we strike up a conversation about the science of reading.

[Emily Handford]

Andrea Hundley had been a teacher and a school principal before running for office, and she'd heard the podcast.

[Andrea Hundley]

And he said to me, you know, there's this piece of legislation I really want to work on around the science of reading, and I really like for this to be a bipartisan piece of legislation.

[Emily Handford]

Andrea Hundley is a Democrat. Aaron Freeman is not.

[Aaron Freeman]

I'm a proud Republican. And although she and I probably don't agree on whatever fiscal policy or whatever the court and criminal code policy is going to be, we agree wholeheartedly on this.

[Emily Handford]

So they wrote a bill.

[Aaron Freeman]

It would require our teachers to teach the science of reading.

[Andrea Hundley]

This just really draws the line in Indiana that says, this is how we teach reading, and we teach it in ways that are based on science.

[Mark Seidenberg]

Senator Freeman, the floor is yours.

[Aaron Freeman]

Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

[Emily Handford]

The bill requires schools to adopt curriculum based on the science of reading. It defines what the science of reading means. And the bill bans cueing. Cueing is the idea we focused on in Sold a Story.

[Aaron Freeman]

You cannot require the science of reading and also leave in three cueing in Order to do this correctly, you have to adopt the science of reading and you have to outlaw three Cueing.

[Emily Handford]

I'm Emily Handford and this is sold a story, a podcast from APM Reports. As I said in the previous episode, a lot has been happening in response to the podcast. Parents are understanding how their kids are being taught to read and asking why. Teachers are saying, I knew there was a problem here. What do I need to learn? Principals and superintendents are asking themselves, what have we been paying for and what do we do now? And policymakers are saying, no more. We don't want to spend taxpayer money on things that aren't working. We want schools to teach kids to read in ways that line up with scientific evidence. I'm watching all this and I'm hopeful, but I'm also worried. I'm going to bring in my colleague, Christopher Peek.

[Christopher Peek]

Hi, Chris.

[Mark Seidenberg]

Hi, Emily.

[Christopher Peek]

You have been following what's been going on in state legislatures. Tell us a little bit about what's been happening.

[Mark Seidenberg]

In at least 14 states, legislators have introduced bills to overhaul reading instruction.

[Christopher Peek]

We need to improve reading in Wisconsin. We are all in agreement on that.

[Mark Seidenberg]

And a lot of them are saying they've listened to our podcast.

[Emily Handford]

Exhibit one is the result of a five year investigation by an education reporter into reading instruction.

[Mark Seidenberg]

It's happening everywhere.

[Emily Handford]

I'm calling for a renewed focus on literacy and on the way we teach.

[Aaron Freeman]

Reading in the state of Ohio, north.

[Mark Seidenberg]

And south, big states, small states.

[Emily Handford]

Our current statistic in Minnesota is that we have close to 500,000 students that aren't proficient in reading. That is enough to fill up the US bank stadium seven and a half times over.

[Mark Seidenberg]

And it's happening on a bipartisan basis, too.

[Christopher Peek]

All right, so tell us a little bit about what kinds of changes they are making. Like what are legislators doing? What's in these laws?

[Mark Seidenberg]

A big focus has been curriculum. There is this unquestioned idea, almost a sacred cow in America, this idea of local control. It's been up to school districts, their boards of education, their superintendent to choose their own curriculum. So you have 13,000 school districts across the country oftentimes going through the curricular materials out there and choosing for themselves. They don't generally have someone telling them what they can use and what they can't.

[Emily Handford]

But that is changing.

[Mark Seidenberg]

Legislators want to have more control, to tell school districts you have now a smaller set of curricula you should be choosing from. There's a lot of urgency from parents, from our reporting, from tons of other local media covering these issues. And they don't want to stick with the status quo anymore. And they're making very big moves in some of these states.

[Emily Handford]

Some states are compiling lists of approved programs and requiring districts to buy from the list.

[Christopher Peek]

So what are you hearing from people who think these bills aren't a good idea? What are they concerned about?

[Mark Seidenberg]

They often make the arguments that justify local control. They don't want someone in their state capitol who has never taught in a classroom before telling them what to do.

[Emily Handford]

We believe in local control here. So it's that balance between decision making and these are the really the best things to do. That was the governor of Oregon, and this is a hearing in Connecticut. We do not prescribe to mandated commercial programs which carry a heavy price tag.

[Andrea Hundley]

The Right to Read act isn't addressing.

[Emily Handford]

The unique needs of each school district. Instead, the options are a one size fits all canned program. There have been a lot of these kinds of hearings and meetings since the podcast. Christopher told me he's listened to more than 80 hours. There was a hearing in Wisconsin that he said was particularly interesting, so I listened to it too.

[Mark Seidenberg]

Representative Dietrich Wisconsin doesn't have any legislation in place yet, but the lawmakers got together and had this hearing.

[Claude Goldenberg]

Thank you. Thank you. I'm really glad to be here to.

[Mark Seidenberg]

Set the stage for the legislation they might introduce. To hear from a couple experts, I'm.

[Claude Goldenberg]

Going to talk to you about what the science of reading is.

[Emily Handford]

One of the people who testified was Mark Seidenberg, a cognitive scientist who was insult a story.

[Mark Seidenberg]

He had a really nuanced take on this question of local control and curriculum.

[Claude Goldenberg]

I personally view the legislation that's related to the science of reading. It's kind of the last resort, something that has been pursued after really kind of several decades of resistance from the educational establishment.

[Mark Seidenberg]

He said you don't want it to be this way. You wish that the education establishment would have changed this on their own, that you would have seen publishers and these experts catching up to the science of reading and putting that into the materials, spreading that knowledge. But that hasn't happened. And so he said that this is a last resort and it might be necessary, but it's not going to be easy.

[Claude Goldenberg]

You're asking a lot of teachers to learn something new, to change the way that they do things.

[Emily Handford]

And Seidenberg said he isn't that confident in some of the programs that now say they're aligned with the science of reading.

[Claude Goldenberg]

So you are seeing people who are interested in maintaining their market share who are modifying their materials. Good. Are they going to be good materials who knows?

[Mark Seidenberg]

What Seidenberg was saying is that there's no perfect program. A lot of these publishers just a couple years ago were saying, yeah, we believe in balanced literacy. We have everything that Lucy Calkins and Fountains and Pinel were telling school districts to use for the last couple decades. And some are making a very quick pivot to saying, oh, yeah, yeah, our programs are with the Science of Reading now. And I think there's some real skepticism that's merited about whether these programs are all that good, whether they really align with the science of reading, and whether buying one of them at the moment is going to get your students where they need to be.

[Christopher Peek]

Yeah, it's interesting. One of the things I was struck by in his testimony is that he talked about, as we did in Sold a story, that there are some curriculum that are a problem.

[Claude Goldenberg]

You can weed out bad materials.

[Christopher Peek]

There are ideas in the curriculum that aren't right, and getting rid of that is a good idea is what he essentially said.

[Claude Goldenberg]

So getting rid of the things that are really bad or forcing those authors and publishers to change those materials, legislation can do that.

[Christopher Peek]

But he also said this thing that I've been thinking about a lot, which is I don't see the curriculum as being the solution either.

[Claude Goldenberg]

If you think that legislation will allow you to focus on, these are the ones that work, these are the ones that don't. The problem is we need new materials. None of them are really great, so.

[Christopher Peek]

Curricula can be a problem. But just getting rid of a curriculum and then bringing in a new one, that doesn't solve it. Curriculum doesn't teach kids how to read. Right. Teachers do.

[Emily Handford]

Many of these Science of Reading bills do try to address things beyond changing curriculum by including money for teacher training, for example, or for new assessment systems. Seidenberg's big message to Wisconsin lawmakers was, be careful. Don't mandate anything you might later regret. Recognize that changing reading instruction is going to be complex and that telling schools what to buy may not be a good idea, but telling them what not to buy might be. It's something a number of states are trying to do.

[Christopher Peek]

Some states are also actually banning or trying to ban materials and training rooted in the cueing idea that we focused on in Sold a Story. So what's in these queuing bans, and who's trying to do that?

[Mark Seidenberg]

Legislators have really identified this is the problem.

[Claude Goldenberg]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[Emily Handford]

This is a House Committee hearing in Texas on a bill to ban queuing.

[Andrea Hundley]

Did I hear you say that banning.

[Emily Handford]

The use of one procedure of 3.3cuing. The 3 queuing method. Don't use that anymore. No, we're not going to use that anymore.

[Mark Seidenberg]

There's at least nine states that have introduced these queuing bans in their legislatures.

[Emily Handford]

And since Christopher and I recorded this, at least one more state has introduced a queuing ban. The states include Indiana, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, West Virginia, and Minnesota. And before the podcast, there were already queuing bands in place in Arkansas, Louisiana and Virginia. When we come back, Christopher and I are going to talk about whether we think these queuing bands are a good idea.

[Andrew Carr]

Hello, my name is Andrew Carr.

[Emily Handford]

This is a listener who left us a message.

[Andrew Carr]

I'm a children's book editor at a very large trade book publishing company.

[Emily Handford]

Andrew Carr told us that he doesn't publish instructional materials. He doesn't have any formal training or expertise in teaching reading, but he's really interested in the podcast.

[Andrew Carr]

I found the podcast series to be really thought provoking and quite informative. I truly learned a lot.

[Emily Handford]

But he called us because he says there was a moment in the final episode where the podcast turned into the Twilight Zone for him.

[Andrew Carr]

When you talked about a large Texas school district removing books by the literal truckload because they were used in a discredited reading methodology and not because they acknowledged the existence of LGBTQIA folks or America's history of racism. It was truly like glimpsing an alternate reality.

[Emily Handford]

Andrew Carr describes himself as left of center politically. It was shocking for him to hear about books being banned in the podcast, even if it felt like it was for the right reasons. He doesn't think book banning is a good idea. His message is a reminder that there are politics at play here, there always have been. And I worry about the science of reading getting caught up in partisan politics. That's what happened with reading first, the Bush era effort to get the science of reading into schools. And I see some people trying to do that now to dismiss the science of reading as right wing, but it's not. All I need to do is look at my social media feeds and I see people on the left and the right who are passionate about this issue because it's their kids, their students, their lives. I do worry about that phrase, though, the science of reading. I brought it up when I was talking with Christopher.

[Christopher Peek]

We've been using the term in this conversation today, the science of reading. And I think there's a lot of people who are starting to become like, sort of suspicious of that phrase, like it's getting used all the time. It's sort of the new phrase the science of reading. What is it? And I think there's a good answer. It's a big body of research that's been conducted over decades in labs and in classrooms all over the world about reading and how it works and how kids learn to do it and why kids struggle. That's really what the science of reading is. But it's become kind of a shorthand. And I hear people referring to it like it's a curriculum or an approach. You know, I think there's a lot of misunderstanding about that term. And I was just thinking about it the other day, like, why do I use that term? And I realized that one of the reasons I use the term the science of reading is because I don't want to use the word phonics. Because I think a lot of times this does get reduced down to just phonics. And we know that learning how to read is about much more than. Than phonics. So when I use the term science of reading, what I'm often trying to do, I think, is gesture towards something larger. But of course, people can mean all different kinds of things. And now it's just become the shorthand, and now becomes the stamp. It becomes the phrase you put on your book and in your materials. And that's supposed to be, oh, yep, science of reading. Check. We're doing that. And it's like, wait, hold on a second. What is that? But the insight I had is, well, the science of reading is a way to. To signal to people this isn't just phonics. It's a lot more than that.

[Mark Seidenberg]

In a lot of bills, I will say, legislators seem to get that there's a lot more than just phonics. You're seeing new legislation say we need to teach background knowledge. We need to really have an emphasis on oral language. These things that have been part of the research all along, but have not maybe been part of the conversation when it was just about, are we teaching phonics or not? So I think you're. You're so right that there is this much more inclusive body of evidence out there that we need all of it to inform what instruction looks like. And it's just now going to be a matter of whether that trickles down to schools, to the people enforcing these laws, if they really understand all the nuance that goes into the science of reading.

[Christopher Peek]

So what do you think about these queuing bans? Do you think they're a good idea?

[Mark Seidenberg]

I think they probably are. I think that we've tried so many times to change reading instruction. And a lot of times what happens is districts say, oh, I just need to add in a little bit of phonics. So they'll buy a new program but never change their fundamental practices.

[Emily Handford]

That's what sold a story was about that many school districts never took away those cueing strategies.

[Mark Seidenberg]

They might do a little phonics for 10, 15 minutes, and then they go back to teaching kids, okay, let's just look at the first letter. You know that and look at the picture and think something that makes sense. We've never uprooted that practice.

[Emily Handford]

And Christopher thinks these cueing bands are probably good because the goal is to finally get rid of the idea that kids don't need to learn how to sound out written words because they have.

[Christopher Peek]

Other strategies they can use instead.

[Mark Seidenberg]

Now, having someone up at the Capitol telling you that might not be the best way, but it, I think, is forcing districts to have these conversations. When a state bans an instructional practice, that's a big deal.

[Christopher Peek]

You're right. A lot of what our reporting is focusing on is that there's this idea at the root that has never been gotten rid of, that people have been trying to get rid of for a long time. But I have to say, these cubes give me pause because immediately the question is, once you take something away, what do you replace it with? And so I am worried about that rush to buy new stuff because a lot of this stuff is untested. And I have a fear that ineffective practices might get put into place, like actually put into law and policy. I think we're at risk of that. However, I think overall this was the point of our reporting. Schools were adding stuff without taking away the idea that was important. Big part of the problem. And now people are really looking at that problematic idea.

[Emily Handford]

But getting this right is going to be challenging. When Christopher and I were talking, I thought of a quote from Mark Seidenberg.

[Christopher Peek]

He wrote an essay recently, and it's about this complexity of education, basically that education is complex. Change is really complex. And I think he put it really well. He wrote, incorporating scientific findings and attitudes into education is a monumental challenge. The educational establishment is a very large, complex ecosystem that evolved over many decades without incorporating cognitive research. We are now observing in real time what happens when basic research is released into this environment.

[Mark Seidenberg]

Yeah.

[Emily Handford]

And Christopher and I are both concerned about the pressure that teachers and schools are now underneath, in part because of our reporting.

[Mark Seidenberg]

This is not going to be a quick fix. I saw one school district that they currently only have 38% of their kids reading where they want them to be, and they're hoping that by 2024 next year they're going to be up to 80. That does not seem feasible to me. And I think that's the kind of as important as it is to get those kids reading. If they don't reach the 80, they might say the science of reading failed. And that's a real worry.

[Christopher Peek]

Definitely. These goals that we put in education, like by next year, 80% of kids will be reading on grade level. Just because our system. You're supposed to do that. Everyone's going to work really hard and get to that. And you think, well, what would it take to really do that? Do you know how you would do that? Because if you really knew how you would do that, that wouldn't be your goal. We have to set realistic goals here. Not to say we shouldn't be really urgent and help the kids out there who are struggling with reading, but if we set unrealistic goals, it's just there's no way it won't fail.

[Emily Handford]

I don't want it to fail.

[Christopher Peek]

Neither does Christopher.

[Emily Handford]

We want more kids to be good readers. Claude Goldenberg does, too. You met Claude in the last episode. And I'm going to bring him back.

[Christopher Peek]

Because when I was talking to him.

[Emily Handford]

He brought up an idea for how to proceed prevent failure.

[Claude Goldenberg]

It's a very provocative idea.

[Emily Handford]

It's called a pre mortem as opposed to a postmortem. A pre mortem is something you do before you put a plan into place to try to prevent the plan from failing.

[Claude Goldenberg]

You have this plan that you're thinking of putting into place and you bring all of the heads of departments or whoever's going to be charged with implementing this plan together and say, okay, here's the plan. I want you to imagine it is three years after the plan has been implemented and it has failed. Right?

[Christopher Peek]

Just.

[Claude Goldenberg]

It failed. This thing is just dead as a doornail. And I want you to think about all the reasons that tanked it. Why did it go wrong?

[Emily Handford]

He thinks educators should try this pre mortem idea before they put plans into place to change how reading is taught.

[Claude Goldenberg]

This can actually be a way to get people to take off their blinders and stop kind of the group think and shared assumptions that make it very difficult to really think seriously about what could go wrong before you implement something and, you know, and things go south.

[Emily Handford]

I like this pre mortem idea. Imagine all the ways the science of reading could go wrong. Prepare for failure to try to Prevent it. And something else I've been thinking about as a way to prevent failure. Don't put too much trust in any one person or any one program or any one idea. Keep asking questions. Stay curious, stay humble. There's a lot to learn. And I'm feeling hopeful because of teachers. So many teachers who want this. They want to teach kids how to read. I can tell you that I absolutely am changing the way I teach reading.

[Aaron Freeman]

It's going to be uncomfortable, it's going to be stressful. But if we want to help our students, we do need to make changes. Big changes.

[Andrea Hundley]

You have changed the way that I will teach and I'm very grateful for that. As I've implemented Science of Reading practices over the last two years, the reading abilities of my students has exponentially increased. I've got confident, happy little readers.

[Emily Handford]

Let's just go and let's just teach these kids to read. That's it. There's no controversy, no argument. That's it. We have more episodes available right now. The next one is about how the people and the company at the center of this story have reacted to the podcast. If you want to help more people find this podcast, leave a review wherever you are listening and be sure to follow the show so you'll always get our new episodes. You can find that that article by Mark Seidenberg that I mentioned and the one by Claude Goldenberg about that pre mortem idea by going to the show Notes. You can also find a link to our website there where we have lots more on this topic, including a map where you can find out if your state has passed new laws. The website is soldastory.org this episode of Sold a Story was produced by me with Christopher Peek and Eliza Billingham. Chris Julen was our editor. He also did mixing and sound design and made some of the music. Final mastering of this episode was by Alex Simpson. Our theme music was by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. The APM Report's digital editor is Andy Cruz. Our acting Deputy Managing editor is Tom Scheck. Jane Helenke is our Executive Edition editor. Special thanks to Katherine Winter, Chris Worthington and Stephen Smith and to everyone who wrote and who left us messages. Support for this podcast comes from the Hollyhock foundation, the Oak foundation, and Wendy and Stephen Gaul.

[Christopher Peek]

Okay, done.

[Emily Handford]

That's it.

[Aaron Freeman]

All right, well, great talking to you.

[Emily Handford]

Thanks, guys. You bet.

[Christopher Peek]

Bye. Thanks so much.

[Emily Handford]

Bye. Bye.

[Christopher Peek]

All right, take care. Thanks for your work. Bye.

[Emily Handford]

Okay, thanks.

[Mark Seidenberg]

Bye.

[Christopher Peek]

Okay, I'm going to turn this off now.