Chicago's Almost Above-Ground Audio Magazine
Mike Stephen visits the Hope Chicago 2026 Goal Getter Conference at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Hope Chicago is a scholarship-focused nonprofit designed to provide students and their parents/guardians with the support they need to graduate from college debt-free. To subscribe to the OTL podcast, please visit our Apple Podcasts Page, Spotify, or our RSS feed.
Mike Stephen explores the controversy of Chicago Public Schools using public money to take students to a protest with Nick Kryczka, assistant professor of secondary education for social studies at the College of Education at National Louis University, and then chats with Injustice Watch senior reporter Dan Hinkel about how difficult it is to clear a wrongful conviction in Cook County. To subscribe to the OTL podcast, please visit our Apple Podcasts Page, Spotify, or our RSS feed.
Mike Stephen learns about Borderless Magazine’s work of telling the immigrant story in Chicago from co-founder and executive director Nissa Rhee and then chats with Meril Antony, senior research analyst at the UChicago Consortium on School Research, about a new report looking at the link between school attendance and successful students. To subscribe to the OTL podcast, please visit our Apple Podcasts Page, Spotify, or our RSS feed.
Mike Stephen chats with Injustice Watch senior investigative reporter Maya Dukmasova about a local lab practicing faulty science that resulted in wrongful DUI convictions and then discusses the push to pay student teachers in Illinois with Percy Julian Middle School teacher Ashley Kannan. To subscribe to the OTL podcast, please visit our Apple Podcasts Page, Spotify, or our RSS feed.