Should any human instructors be replaced with AI? Should universities change what and how they teach to strengthen their value proposition? And in the age of AI, how should universities prepare their students for an unpredictable job market?

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions and more with Hollis Robbins.

Hollis Robbins is a professor of English at the University of Utah, where she was formerly Dean of the College of Humanities. She writes about AI in higher education on her Substack, Anecdotal Value.

Show Notes:

It's Later Than You Think

Last Mile Education

Teaching Quality

The Two-Minute Mile Problem

What Should a University AI Czar Do?

My AI Thinks Civics Is Black Studies

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with Eva Moskowitz, the founder and CEO of Success Academy. Nat and Eva discuss why COVID learning loss is a misnomer; whether chronically absent students should face consequences for their poor attendance; why, despite its strong academic performance, Success Academy decided to overhaul its curriculum; what Success Academy looks for when hiring new teachers; Success Academy’s potential expansion into Florida and Texas; the challenges Success Academy faced in expanding into high school; whether charter schools have lived up to their original promise; and what’s next for Success Academy.

Eva Moskowitz is the founder and CEO of Success Academy Charter Schools, a network of 57 schools in New York City educating 22,000 students. Despite 72% of its students being economically disadvantaged, Success Academy ranked first on the 2024 New York State Grade 3–8 math exam.

What sort of effect does grade inflation have on student learning? Does grade inflation help or hurt college enrollment? And what impact, if any, does grade inflation have on lifetime earnings?

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions and more with Jeff Denning.

Jeffrey T. Denning is an associate professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, and—along with Rachel L. Nesbit, Nolan G. Pope, and Merrill Warnick—is the author of a new paper: Easy A’s, Less Pay: The Long-Term Effects of Grade Inflation.

Should math classes consist of students solving problem after problem, or should math classes also include opportunities for discussion and group work? Should students learn a topic and then move on to the next topic after they have achieved competency, or should teachers strive to teach each topic deeply, giving students many different strategies for solving problems? And if math education in America were dramatically improved, just how good could it be?

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions, and more, with Jon Star. Nat and Jon discuss conceptual understanding and procedural fluency, whether constructivism has a place in the classroom, the value of worked examples, online curricula and the importance of curricular coherence, what mathematical flexibility is and why it matters, whether students can understand problem-solving strategies more or less well, whether math makes students better problem-solvers more generally, Chinese math education, Jon’s experience teaching middle school math and how being a researcher informs his teaching, whether math education research is sufficiently accessible to teachers, how to improve American math education, and how good American math education could be.

Jon Star is the Carl H. Pforzheimer, Jr. Professor of Teaching and Learning at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a middle school math teacher.

How should universities respond to the Trump administration’s efforts? Have the Trump administration’s actions been legal? And how can universities better serve the American public?

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions and more with Lee Bollinger. Nat and Lee discuss the purpose of large university endowments, the meaning of the Ivy League today, university hiring, whether elite universities should double their undergraduate enrollments, the scholarly temperament, whether there is a tension between serving the public and the research missions of universities, the relationship between Washington and universities in the pre-Trump era, how universities can better convey their value to the American people, and the best evidence in favor of affirmative action.

Lee Bollinger is the Seth Low Professor at Columbia University and the author of University: A Reckoning. Previously, he was President of Columbia University and President of the University of Michigan.

On this episode, Nat Malkus and Johann Neem cover the period between the American Revolution and the Civil War. Nat and Johann discuss civics education in early America, why some educators cared so much about imagination and self-culture, Horace Mann, pushback against education reformers, the difficulties of schooling in the young republic, the spread of the common schools movement, and more.

Johann Neem is Professor of History at Western Washington University, editor of the Journal of the Early Republic, and the author of Democracy’s Schools: The Rise of Public Education in America.

But who is Randi Weingarten? What does she do on a day-to-day basis? How much power does she actually have? What are her views on topics such as pensions, curriculum, and teacher autonomy? And is she actually the most dangerous person in the world?

On this episode of The Report Card, Randi Weingarten joins Nat Malkus for a wide-ranging conversation on many of the biggest topics in American education.

Randi Weingarten is the president of the American Federation of Teachers and the author of Why Fascists Fear Teachers: Public Education and the Future of Democracy.

Math Academy, an online learning platform that is serious about math instruction, is built on the premise that the answer to all of these questions is yes: An adaptive learning platform that carefully determines what students already know and what they don’t know yet can radically improve math instruction for many students—and can do so without many of the bells and whistles that are typical of education technology.

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with Jason Roberts and Justin Skycak about how Math Academy works, why many of Math Academy’s users are adults, and whether middle school students can really learn calculus.

Jason Roberts is the co-founder of Math Academy.

Justin Skycak is the chief quant and director of analytics at Math Academy.

Show Notes:

Math Academy

How Math Academy Works

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions, and more, with three education journalists: Sarah Mervosh of The New York Times, Jill Barshay of The Hechinger Report, and Eric Kelderman of The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Show Notes:

The Improbable Warrior

Trump’s Attacks on DEI May Hurt Men in College Admission

The Big Fail

AI’s advocates argue that it can be used to individualize instruction and provide personalized feedback, but its critics contend that the adoption of AI in the classroom will get in the way of students acquiring critical thinking skills.

Who is right here? Can AI reverse a decade of falling test scores, or will it only exacerbate this trend? And even if AI in the classroom is the future, does that mean schools should adopt AI in the classroom today?

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus and four experts discuss and debate whether maximizing school improvement by 2035 means integrating AI into classrooms today.

Note: This episode is adapted from the most recent installment of the American Enterprise Institute’s Education Policy Debate Series, which was held at AEI on December 8. A video recording of the debate can be found here.

Shanika Hope is the director of Americas & Knowledge, Skills, and Learning at Google.

Alex Kotran is the CEO of the AI Education Project.

Dan Meyer is the vice president of User Growth at Amplify.

Jake Tawney is the chief academic officer at Great Hearts Academies.

How well the Alpha model works is an open question: Alpha School graduated its first seniors—a class of twelve—just last year, and most of Alpha’s students come from wealthier families. That said, for anyone who complains about a lack of experimentation in the education sector or wonders what it might look like if schools took some of the boldest ideas in education more seriously, Alpha is a welcome antidote.

To learn more about the Alpha model, on this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with MacKenzie Price, cofounder of Alpha School.

(Note: This episode was recorded on Monday, before the Trump administration announced further plans to dismantle the Department of Education.)

Andrew J. Rotherham is a co-founder and senior partner at Bellwether and the author of the Eduwonk blog.

Frederick M. Hess is a senior fellow and the director of education policy studies at AEI.

Show Notes:

Jim Ryan Letter

The Impoundment Wars, Begun They Have. Plus, Wait, What Just Happened at UVA?

"Patriotic Education" Isn't. Plus, The Vagueness of "No Kings."

What's The Forecast In Virginia? Plus Literacy, Des Moines, Cell Phone Bans, More...And Fish Pics.

VCU Changed Scholarship for Descendants of the Enslaved to Align with Anti-DEI Policies

Finding Common Ground on Trump’s College Compact

Campus Leaders Conveniently Find the Spines They Lost Years Ago

How Zohran Mamdani Could Kill New York’s Schools

Texas A&M Tightens Rules on Talking About Race and Gender in Classes

How to Really Know a Thing, Directed by Quentin Tarantino

Has this COVID-era experiment been successful? Should these tutoring programs stick around as the pandemic recedes further from view? And what might AI mean for the future of tutoring? On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions, and more, with Liz Cohen.

Liz Cohen is the vice president of policy at 50Can and the author of The Future of Tutoring: Lessons from 10,000 School District Tutoring Initiatives.

From changing teacher pay to overhauling curriculum, Miles’s plans for Houston were ambitious—and controversial—but would they work?

Two years later, Mike Miles comes back on The Report Card to speak with Nat Malkus about the progress Houston has made and whether Houston’s bold reform agenda has gone according to plan.

F. Mike Miles is the superintendent of Houston Independent School District. Previously, he was the founder and CEO of Third Future Schools, superintendent of Dallas Independent School District, and superintendent of the Harrison School District in Colorado Springs.

Show Notes:

Mike Miles on Houston ISD

The Last Hurrah

But what does the research say? Are students actually less able to pay attention as a result of their phones? On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions and more with Dan Willingham.

Daniel Willingham is a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia and the author of several books on education. His recent article Pay Attention, Kid! explored the link between technology use and students’ ability to focus.

Show Notes:

Pay Attention, Kid!

Are Purported Causes of NAEP Score Decline Actually Symptoms?

Daniel Willingham on Outsmarting Your Brain

What might be causing these declines? Is it the rise of phones? The fall of No Child Left Behind? The aftereffects of the Great Recession? A change in the culture of schooling? On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus explores these questions and more with James Wyckoff and Chad Aldeman.

James Wyckoff is the Memorial Professor of Education and Professor of Public Policy Emeritus at the University of Virginia.

Chad Aldeman is the founder of Read Not Guess, the author of Aldeman on Education, and a regular columnist for The 74.

Show Notes:

Testing Theories of Why: Four Keys to Interpreting US Student Achievement Trends

Puzzling Over Declining Academic Achievement

Interactive: See How Student Achievement Gaps Are Growing in Your State

Don't Blame the Subgroups

Student Achievement Is Down Overall—But Kids at the Bottom Are Sinking Faster

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these developments, and more, with Andy Rotherham and Rick Hess.

Andrew J. Rotherham is a co-founder and senior partner at Bellwether and the author of the Eduwonk blog.

Frederick M. Hess is a senior fellow and the director of education policy studies at AEI.

Show Notes:

Why Did Penny Schwinn Withdraw Her Bid to Be No. 2 in Trump’s Ed. Dept.?

The Greatest Trick Randi Weingarten Ever Pulled. Plus, What’s the Freezing Temperature in Trump World? A Penny for Your Thoughts. Dems in Voucher Disarray.

Everyone’s a Hypocrite

Restoring Free Inquiry on Campus

Tear Down This Wall: The Case for a Radical Overhaul of Teacher Certification

Breaking Down The New Federal School Choice Program With Shaka Mitchell

Commentary: Virginia Students Deserve Better. Close the ‘Honesty Gap'

PragerU Teacher Qualification Test

Is Online Sports Betting a Risk to Public Health?

So: Has it?

Do choice programs make traditional public schools better? Does the size of these competitive effects depend on the type of choice program? And what other factors might matter for the amount of competitive pressure that choice programs exert on traditional public schools?

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions, and more, with Sarah Cordes. Nat and Sarah discuss ESAs and the new federal tax credit scholarship program, why school transportation matters so much for competitive effects, whether choice programs can be too large, how competition affects school principals, and what effect declining public school enrollments might have on school choice in the coming years.

Sarah Cordes is an associate professor of policy, organizational, and leadership studies at Temple University.

Show Notes:

Competition in Education Markets: Impacts, Perceptions, and Policy Contexts

The Effects of Charter Schools on Neighborhood and School Segregation: Evidence from New York City

In Pursuit of the Common Good: The Spillover Effects of Charter Schools on Public School Students in New York City

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these problems, and what to do about them, with Vlad Kogan. Nat and Vlad discuss school boards and state takeovers, how political identity shapes education debates, what the public gets wrong about the Scopes trial and the early twentieth-century push against teaching evolution in schools, why parents seem to undervalue education quality, closing schools with falling enrollments, how racial equity concerns for adults can conflict with racial equity concerns for children, what charter schools can teach us about district governance, and more.

Vladimir Kogan is a professor of political science at The Ohio State University and the author of No Adult Left Behind: How Politics Hijacks Education Policy and Hurts Kids.

However, for many regions of the world—particularly for many low- and middle-income countries—there is strong reason to believe that AI has the potential to be transformative. At least in theory, AI can democratize access to higher-quality instruction in a wide range of subjects and provide individualized feedback in overly large classrooms.

But does this reasoning hold up in practice? How much of a difference can AI make right now? And how can we ensure that AI produces the outcomes we want? On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions, and more, with Martín De Simone.

Martín De Simone is an Education Specialist at the World Bank and, along with Federico Tiberti, Maria Barron Rodriguez, Federico Manolio, Wuraola Mosuro, and Eliot Jolomi Dikoru, is the author of From Chalkboards to Chatbots: Evaluating the Impact of Generative AI on Learning Outcomes in Nigeria.

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these developments, and more, with Andy Rotherham and Rick Hess.

Note: Since this episode was recorded, twenty-four states have sued the Trump administration for withholding education funds, and the Supreme Court blocked a May order ruling that the Department of Education must reinstate over one thousand employees who were fired earlier in the year.

Andrew J. Rotherham is a co-founder and senior partner at Bellwether and the author of the Eduwonk blog.

Frederick M. Hess is a senior fellow and the director of education policy studies at AEI.

Show Notes:

The Impoundment Wars, Begun They Have. Plus, Wait, What Just Happened at UVA?

Included in the bill are huge changes to student lending. In particular, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act would make drastic changes to loan limits, repayment plans, and the rules for which programs are eligible to participate in the student loan program.

What is the rationale behind these changes? How would these changes affect students and schools? And will the One Big Beautiful Bill Act become law?

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions, and more, with Preston Cooper.

Preston Cooper is a senior fellow at AEI, where he studies higher education policy. He also serves on the Board of Visitors for George Mason University.

Show Notes:

Senate Embraces “Do No Harm” for Higher Education

The Senate’s Higher Education Reforms Are Strong (But Could Be Stronger)

How The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” Would Hold Colleges Accountable For Outcomes

In Heterogeneous Effects of Closing the Digital Divide During COVID-19 on Student Engagement and Achievement, authors Jared N. Schachner, Nicole P. Marwell, Marisa de la Torre, Julia A. Gwynne, and Elaine Allensworth find that participation in Chicago Connected actually “reduced engagement and achievement for low-performing pupils.”

What might be going on here? Should this finding influence how schools approach technology more generally? And how can schools ensure that technology use doesn't increase inequality?

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions, and more, with one of the paper's authors, Jared N. Schachner.

Jared N. Schachner is a research scientist at the USC Price School of Public Policy and an affiliated researcher with the UChicago Consortium on School Research and the Los Angeles Education Research Institute.

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these developments, and more, with Andy Rotherham and Rick Hess. Nat, Andy, and Rick discuss the advantages and potential drawbacks of universities enrolling large numbers of international students; what the Trump administration stands to gain by going after Harvard; what we can expect at the Department of Education moving forward; whether religious charter schools will make their way back to the Supreme Court; TACO; pushback against equitable grading in San Francisco; and the Education Writers Association.

Andrew J. Rotherham is a co-founder and senior partner at Bellwether and the author of the Eduwonk blog.

Frederick M. Hess is a senior fellow and the director of education policy studies at AEI.

Show Notes:

A Bit of Context on Trump v. Harvard

“Equitable Grading” Deserves an F

Does it help kids develop into well-formed adults? Does it help kids become resilient to the challenges they will face in their lives? And does it help kids learn how to interact constructively with their peers?

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions and more with Jonathan Haidt. Nat and Jon discuss the importance of imaginative and unstructured play; why parents are so restrictive when it comes to what their children can do in the real world yet so permissive when it comes to what they can do online; what the ideal playground looks like; why a little danger in play is important; whether technology use can explain recent test score trends; whether the social feedback kids get online helps them mature; and what parents and schools can do to push back against the encroachment of technology into kids’ lives.

Jonathan Haidt is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University’s Stern School of Business and the author of The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.

Show Notes:

After Babel

Let Grow

Andrew J. Rotherham is a co-founder and senior partner at Bellwether and the author of the Eduwonk blog.

Frederick M. Hess is a senior fellow and the director of education policy studies at AEI.

Show Notes:

All the President’s Ivy League Presidents

And You Thought AERA Couldn’t Get Any More Vacuous?

Why Medicaid Matters for Schools

Massive Changes Are Coming for Student Loans

Europe took a different approach.

In many European countries, schools reopened that first pandemic spring, only weeks after closing. Schools, officials determined, were safe to reopen.

So: Why did American schools stay closed so long? Why did America not follow Europe’s lead? And why did Europe and the US respond so differently to the same evidence?

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions, and more, with David Zweig.

David Zweig is a journalist and the author of An Abundance of Caution: American Schools, the Virus, and a Story of Bad Decisions.

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these developments, and more, with Andy Rotherham and Rick Hess.

Andrew J. Rotherham is a co-founder and senior partner at Bellwether and the author of the Eduwonk blog.

Frederick M. Hess is a senior fellow and the director of education policy studies at AEI.

Show Notes:

Should Democrats Become Pro-Voucher/ESA? Plus Pro-(school) choice Fish.

Caffeine Headache

Trump’s 100 Days: The Good, the Bad, and the Confounding

My Uber Driver Doesn’t Get Trump’s Approach to Education

Drunken Sailors in Our Schools

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus and four experts discuss and debate the case and the many questions it raises: Can religious charter schools be constitutional? What would religious charter schooling mean for American education? Are religious charter schools good for school choice? And what might Oklahoma’s religious charter school mean for the future of religious education?

Derek Black is a professor of law and the Ernest F. Hollings Chair in Constitutional Law at the University of South Carolina School of Law.

Joshua Dunn is the Executive Director of the Institute of American Civics at the Howard H. Baker School of Public Policy and Public Affairs at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Kathleen Porter-Magee is an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the managing partner of the Leadership Roundtable, a Catholic nonprofit.

Andy Smarick is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, where he focuses on education, civil society, and the principles of American conservatism.

Note: This episode is adapted from the most recent installment of the American Enterprise Institute’s Education Policy Debate Series, which was held at AEI on April 16. A video recording of the debate can be found here.

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these developments, and more, with Andy Rotherham and Rick Hess.

Andrew J. Rotherham is a co-founder and senior partner at Bellwether and the author of the Eduwonk blog.

Frederick M. Hess is a senior fellow and the director of education policy studies at AEI.

Show Notes:

The Department of Ed Meets Office Space

Trump’s Tariffs Complicate His Ambitious Education Agenda

These Things Happen In Threes, Plus SCOTUS Incoming For Schools.

Eva Moskowitz is the founder and CEO of Success Academy Charter Schools, a network of 57 schools in New York City educating 22,000 students. Despite 72% of its students being economically disadvantaged, Success Academy ranked first on the 2024 New York State Grade 3–8 math exam.

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these developments, and more, with Andy Rotherham and Rick Hess.

Andrew J. Rotherham is a co-founder and senior partner at Bellwether and the author of the Eduwonk blog.

Frederick M. Hess is a senior fellow and the director of education policy studies at AEI.

Show Notes:

These Things Happen In Threes, Plus SCOTUS Incoming For Schools.

What Did You Expect to Happen? How DEI Wound Up in Trump’s Crosshairs

Higher Ed Is the New Big Oil

A Memo to College Presidents

Are there any obvious parallels in math instruction?

Are there bad ideas about how students learn math that prevent students from learning more? Is there a disconnect between math education research and classroom practice? And what does the evidence say about what good math instruction looks like?

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions, and more, with Anna Stokke. Nat and Anna discuss common math myths, the quality of math textbooks, whether evidence-based practice is just common sense, mandatory times table tests, the concept of math anxiety, what math professors get wrong about teaching math, and why fads in math education catch on.

Anna Stokke is a mathematics professor at the University of Winnipeg and the host of Chalk & Talk, a podcast about math education.

What is the operating strategy behind these cuts? What effect will these cuts have on schools? And what do these cuts tell us about the Trump administration’s plans? On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions, and more, with Andy Rotherham and Rick Hess.

Andrew J. Rotherham is a co-founder and senior partner at Bellwether and the author of the Eduwonk blog.

Frederick M. Hess is a senior fellow and the director of education policy studies at AEI.

Show Notes:

Wednesday's Department Of Education Is Full Of Woe. SCOTUS Religious Charter Schools Action. It's OK To Say Diversity. Plus Frozen Fish Pics!

The Incredible Shrinking Department of Education

Running Down DOGE’s Department of Education Receipts

The NCAA is surely facing a complex set of challenges, but an antitrust exemption is a big ask. This raises the question: Is an antitrust exemption a reasonable response to the current challenges facing college sports, a uniquely American institution?

Val Ackerman is the commissioner of the Big East Conference. Previously, she was the founding president of the WNBA.

Jim Cavale is the founder of Athletes.org.

Ross Dellenger is a senior college football reporter at Yahoo Sports.

Matthew Mitten is the executive director of National Sports Law Institute at Marquette University.

Katherine Van Dyck is the founder of KVD Strategies.

Note: This episode is adapted from the most recent installment of the American Enterprise Institute’s Education Policy Debate Series, which was held at AEI on February 27. A video recording of the debate can be found here.

One important part of this story might be the rise of credit recovery programs. Each year, credit recovery programs help students who have failed a course continue their schooling without repeating a year. But what exactly are credit recovery programs? How do students who participate in online credit recovery programs fare later in life? Can credit recovery courses be improved? And if so, how?

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions, and more, with Carolyn J. Heinrich.

Carolyn J. Heinrich is a University Distinguished Professor of Leadership, Policy, and Organizations and Political Science and the Patricia and Rodes Hart Professor of Public Policy, Education and Economics at Vanderbilt University.

Show Notes:

Design Principles for Effective Online Credit Recovery

Failing to Learn from Failure: The Facade of Online Credit Recovery Assessments

Does Online Credit Recovery in High School Support or Stymie Later Labor Market Success?

Mapping the Inequity Implications of Help-Seeking in Online Credit-Recovery Classrooms

Martin West is the vice chair of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees NAEP. He is also the academic dean and Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the editor-in-chief of Education Next, and a member of the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Mark Schneider is a nonresident Senior Fellow at AEI. Previously, he was commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which administers NAEP, and was later the director of the Institute of Education Sciences, which houses NCES.

Show Notes:

NAEP Math Results

NAEP Reading Results

States’ Demographically Adjusted Performance on the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress

Make the National Assessment of Educational Progress Great Again

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with Emily Hanford, host of Sold a Story. Nat and Emily discuss why Sold a Story took off, the impact Sold a Story has had on the literacy landscape, the state of investigative journalism in 2025, the pros and cons of podcasting, common misunderstandings of Sold a Story, and more.

Emily Hanford is a senior correspondent and producer at APM Reports and the host of Sold a Story, which was the second most shared show on Apple Podcasts in 2023. New episodes of Sold a Story will be coming out in February.

Show Notes:

Sold a Story

'There's a thoughtfulness about reading in the country today'

New Reading Laws Sweep the Nation Following Sold a Story

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions—and more—with Russ Roberts, president of Shalem College in Jerusalem. Nat and Russ discuss how higher education in Israel is different than higher education in America; what makes Shalem College unique; how the war has affected academic life at Shalem College; whether older students are more receptive to a liberal arts education; what it’s like running a startup college; studying under Gary Becker; how campus protests in America appear from Israel; the effects of Israeli dynamism on campus life; the state of economics; educating leaders; and more.

Russ Roberts is the president of Shalem College, the John and Jean De Nault Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the author of several books, and the host of EconTalk: Conversations for the Curious.

Show Notes:

The New Normal

A Little Light Amid the Darkness

The Sirens of Israel

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions, and more, with three education journalists: Dana Goldstein of The New York Times, Linda Jacobson of The 74, and Eric Kelderman of The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Show Notes:

The Youngest Pandemic Children Are Now in School, and Struggling

The Death of School 10

Texas Has Big Goals for College Completion. In Places Like the Coastal Bend, How to Get There Is Still Murky.

The Distortions of Joan Donovan

When a Department Self-Destructs

In a State With School Vouchers for All, Low-Income Families Aren’t Choosing to Use Them

Ian Calaway is a PhD candidate in Economics at Stanford University and the author of the recent paper Early Mentors for Exceptional Students. He is currently on the academic job market.

Show Notes:

Early Mentors for Exceptional Students

So: Why don’t research-based practices make their way into the classroom? What research-based practices that aren’t currently well-known among teachers should teachers try to implement? And if a school wants to promote a research-backed approach among its teachers, how should it go about doing that?

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions, and more, with Greg Ashman. Nat and Greg discuss why many teachers in education programs learn about learning styles, but not phonics or behavior management; the many different meanings of explicit teaching and direct instruction; cognitive load theory and the importance of understanding the constraints of working memory; how schools can approach curriculum and teacher training more systematically; field trips, group work, and spaced repetition; the importance of creating a coherent school culture; and how to get interventions to stick.

Greg Ashman is the Deputy Principal at Ballarat Clarendon College in Ballarat, Australia, and the author of three books on instructional practice. His Substack is Filling the Pail.

Show Notes:

Filling The Pail

A Little Guide for Teachers: Cognitive Load Theory

The Power of Explicit Teaching and Direct Instruction

The Truth About Teaching: An Evidence-Informed Guide for New Teachers

Principles of Instruction: Research-Based Strategies That All Teachers Should Know

Putting Students on the Path to Learning: The Case for Fully Guided Instruction

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions and more with Derrell Bradford, Preston Cooper, Ginny Gentles, Heather Harding, and Rick Hess.

Derrell Bradford is the president of 50CAN: The 50-State Campaign for Achievement Now.

Preston Cooper is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he works on higher education ROI, student loans, and higher education reform.

Virginia Gentles is the director of the Education Freedom and Parental Rights Initiative at the Defense of Freedom Institute.

Heather Harding is the executive director of the Campaign for Our Shared Future.

Frederick M. Hess is the director of Education Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute and an affiliate of AEI’s James Q. Wilson Program in K–12 Education Studies, where he works on K–12 and higher education issues.

Note: This episode is adapted from an American Enterprise Institute event held on November 6. A video recording of the event can be found here.

David Figlio is the Gordon Fyfe Professor of Economics and Education at the University of Rochester. Previously, he was provost at the University of Rochester and dean of the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University.

Show Notes:

Competitive Effects of Charter Schools

Effects of Maturing Private School Choice Programs on Public School Students

School Accountability, Long-Run Criminal Activity, and Self-Sufficiency

Boys Named Sue: Disruptive Children and their Peers

This is a lot of power for one company to have, and naturally raises some questions. How does the College Board understand its role in the college admissions process, and how does it think about the college admissions landscape? What is the purpose of the AP program, and who determines what gets made into an AP course?

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions, and more, with David Coleman. Nat and David discuss why many colleges are requiring the SAT once again; the effects of test optional policies on boys; how the rise of AI affects the college admissions process; why high school students are so bored; how to make college admissions less cutthroat; whether we should abolish grading and replace it with standardized testing; AP scoring recalibration; whether 6 and 7 should be added to the AP scoring scale; the redesigned SAT; how the AP program balances its goals of promoting access and encouraging excellence; and the extent to which the College Board determines what gets taught in American classrooms.

David Coleman is the CEO of the College Board.

Cass Sunstein is the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard, the author of many books on law and behavioral economics, and the most cited legal scholar in America. His most recent book, Campus Free Speech: A Pocket Guide, came out in September.

Show Notes:

Campus Free Speech: A Pocket Guide

Only the First Amendment Can Protect Students, Campuses and Speech

But is this narrative right? Are college costs going up? How do college costs in the US compare with college costs in other countries? What is the return on investment (ROI) like for students at different schools? How does ROI differ by major? And is there a student loan crisis?

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions, and more, with Preston Cooper.

Preston Cooper is a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he studies ROI in higher education, student lending, and higher education reform.

Show Notes:

ROI in Higher Education (Estimates ROI for 53,000 different degree and certificate programs.)

Brian Jacob is the Walter H. Annenberg Professor of Education Policy and Professor of Economics at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.

Show Notes:

Did COVID-19 Shift the “Grammar of Schooling”? (coauthored with Cristina Stanojevich)

The Lasting Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on K-12 Schooling: Evidence from a Nationally Representative Teacher Survey

Carey Wright is State Superintendent of Schools in Maryland. Previously, from 2013 to 2022, she served as State Superintendent of Education in Mississippi.

What does a good school look like? How does a good school operate? What does a good school do differently?

There are probably many correct answers to these questions, but on this episode of The Report Card we want to narrow it down and focus on one particular school, Michaela, that has a very particular set of answers to these questions. Located near London’s Wembley Stadium, Michaela is a free school that opened its doors in 2014 and today has the highest GCSE value-added score in all of England. Michaela is known for its strict behavioral practices, its unique school culture, and its unabashed promotion of small-c conservative values.

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat speaks with Katharine Birbalsingh, the founder and head teacher of Michaela Community School. Nat and Katharine discuss school culture, the importance of values in education, school lunches, cell phones in schools, discipline and student behavior, teacher feedback and observation, and more.

Show Notes:

Michaela: The Power of Culture

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Teachers: The Michaela Way

Britain's Strictest Headmistress

Dan Goldhaber is the Director of the Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) at the American Institutes for Research and the Director of the Center for Education Data & Research (CEDR) at the University of Washington. Along with Grace Falken, he is also the co-author of a new paper: ESSER and Student Achievement: Assessing the Impacts of the Largest One-Time Federal Investment in K12 Schools.

Show Notes:

ESSER and Student Achievement: Assessing the Impacts of the Largest One-Time Federal Investment in K12 Schools

Impacts of Academic Recovery Interventions on Student Achievement in 2022-23

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions, and more, with Timothy Shanahan. Nat and Tim discuss the differences between balanced literacy and phonics, how much of an improvement balanced literacy is over phonics, previous efforts to promote phonics and why they went by the wayside, whether the current science of reading movement will be durable, textbook reviews, the extent to which practices promoted by science of reading advocates are science-based, the gap between reading instruction research and reading instruction practice, why many students who can decode well nonetheless have poor reading comprehension, grade-level texts and the importance of giving students texts that aren’t too easy, the relationship between love of reading and reading ability, what skills students acquire as they become better readers, disciplinary literacy, the future of reading instruction, the extent to which reading achievement could improve with better instructional practices, and more.

Timothy Shanahan is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he was Founding Director of the UIC Center for Literacy. Previously, he was Director of Reading for the Chicago Public Schools and a member of the National Reading Panel and the advisory board of the National Institute for Literacy.

Show Notes:

What about the Textbook Reviews?

How Do You Know If It Really Is the Science of Reading?

More on Hanford: Phonics Reform and Literacy Levels

Limiting Children to Books They Can Already Read

What Is Disciplinary Literacy and Why Does It Matter?

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions, and more, with John W. Boyer. Nat and John discuss parallels and contrasts between recent campus protests and Vietnam War protests; the challenges university administrations face in dealing with protests; the Chicago Principles and the origins of the University of Chicago’s culture of free expression; what it takes to actually develop a robust culture of free expression on campus; the extent to which university administrations shape campus culture; the role of university presidents; the presidencies of William Rainey Harper, Robert Maynard Hutchins, and Robert Zimmer; why many university presidents today seem to lack a strong vision for what their universities should look like; why so few universities are started today; donor activism; the politicization of the university; the German research university; core curricula and the aims of liberal education; how the University of Chicago increased enrollments in and applications to the College over the last thirty years; balancing institutional history and institutional change; and more.

John W. Boyer is Senior Advisor to the President and the Martin A. Ryerson Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of History at the University of Chicago, where he served as Dean of the College from 1992 through 2023. He is also the author of The University of Chicago: A History, the second edition of which comes out in August.

Show Notes:

The University of Chicago: A History (Note: This is a link to the first edition. A link to the updated second edition will be provided when it becomes available.)

John W. Boyer, Dean of the College for 30 Years, in His Own and His Colleagues’ Words

Sal Khan is the founder and CEO of Khan Academy, a nonprofit educational organization with over 165 million registered users in more than 190 countries, and the author of Brave New Words: How AI Will Revolutionize Education (and Why That's a Good Thing).

Show Notes:

GPT-4o Math Demo

Khanmigo Essay Tool

Mark Schneider is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Political Science at SUNY Stony Brook. He was previously Director of the Institute of Education Sciences, a visiting scholar at AEI, a vice president and Institute Fellow at the American Institutes for Research, and Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics.

But is the popular media consensus correct? What does the research say? And what is the state of the research? On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions and more with Pete Etchells.

Pete Etchells is Professor of Psychology and Science Communication at Bath Spa University in the UK and is the author of Unlocked: The Real Science of Screen Time (and how to spend it better).

Show Notes:

Unlocked: The Real Science of Screen Time (and how to spend it better) (Note: Unlocked is not yet available in US stores but can be purchased from UK booksellers and shipped to the US.)

Scroll On: Why Your Screen-Time Habits Aren’t as Bad as You Think They Are

Lost in a Good Game: Why We Play Video Games and What They Can Do for Us

Smartphone Bans, Student Outcomes and Mental Health

But how do we change course? How do we create a healthier civic culture on campus? And how can we train the next generation of Americans both to respect freedom of speech and be respectful in disagreement?

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions, and more, with Paul Carrese. Nat and Paul discuss the proper content and aims of civic education, why civic education matters, whether civic education is too boring, how individuals benefit from civic education, whether civic education is conservative, why universities have turned away from civic education, whether civic education is indoctrination, Arizona State University's School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership, when it is appropriate for state governments to get involved in deciding what courses college students should take, why private universities should create schools of civic thought, and more.

Paul Carrese is a professor in the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University and served as its founding director from 2016–2023.

Show Notes:

How Civics Can Remedy Higher Education’s Decline

A New Birth of Freedom in Higher Education: Civic Institutes at Public Universities

Civic Thought and Leadership: A Higher Civics to Sustain American Constitutional Democracy

How will schools respond? What will get cut? And what should education leaders know to minimize the impacts of the funding cliff? On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions, and more, with Marguerite Roza.

Marguerite Roza is a research professor at Georgetown University and the director of the Edunomics Lab.

Show Notes:

School Boards Face Their Most Difficult Budget Season Ever. Many Are Unprepared

The ESSER Fiscal Cliff Will Have Serious Implications for Student Equity

National Education Resource Database on Schools (NERDS)

How Within-District Spending Inequities Help Some Schools to Fail

David Steiner is Executive Director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy, Professor of Education at Johns Hopkins University, and the author of A Nation at Thought: Restoring Wisdom in America's Schools. He was previously Dean at the Hunter College School of Education and the Commissioner of Education for New York State.

Show Notes:

A Nation at Thought: Restoring Wisdom in America's Schools

Arguing Identity: Session Three

Make Sense of the Research: A Primer for Educational Leaders

Don’t Give Up on Curriculum Reform Just Yet

On this episode of The Report Card, four Democrats—Marcus Brandon, Ravi Gupta, Bethany Little, and Graig Meyer—debate whether their fellow Democrats should support ESAs. Nat, Marcus, Ravi, Bethany, and Graig discuss whether ESAs are regressive, whether Democratic voters support ESAs, whether Democrats should focus on private school choice instead of public school choice, and more.

Marcus Brandon is the executive director of CarolinaCAN and was previously a state representative in the North Carolina House of Representatives.

Ravi Gupta is founder of The Branch and was previously the founder and CEO of RePublic Schools, a network of charter schools in the South. 

Bethany Little is a principal at EducationCounsel. She has spent twenty years working in government and non-profit organizations, including the White House and the U.S. Department of Education.

Graig Meyer is a state senator in North Carolina and previously served in the North Carolina House of Representatives.

Note: This episode is adapted from the most recent installment of the American Enterprise Institute’s Education Policy Debate Series, which was held at AEI on February 29. A video recording of the debate can be found here.

Frederick M. Hess is a senior fellow and the director of education policy studies at AEI.

Michael McShane is the Director of National Research at EdChoice.

Show Notes:

Getting Education Right: A Conservative Vision for Improving Early Childhood, K–12, and College

Parents’ Rights, Yes. But Parent Responsibilities, Too

The Party of Education in 2024

Four States That Are Leading the Charge for Conservative Education

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with Angela Watson about what is driving this change, what we can expect from homeschooling in the coming years, and what we know about homeschooling more broadly.

Angela Watson is a senior research fellow at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy and an assistant research professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Education. She is also the creator of The Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy’s Homeschool Hub and the director of the Homeschool Research Lab.

Show Notes:

Homeschool Hub

Parent-Created "Schools" in the US

Investigating Declining Trends in Arts Field Trip Attendance

Tom Richards is a painter and the director of the Florence Academy of Art.

Show Notes:

The Florence Academy of Art: Instagram, Website, Drawing and Painting Program, Student Gallery, Alumni Gallery

Tom Richards: Instagram, Website

Mike McShane is the Director of National Research at EdChoice and the author and editor of a number of books on education policy.

Show Notes:

Implementing K–12 Education Savings Accounts

What is an Education Savings Account (ESA)?

The School Choice Movement Needs To Get Boring

AEI's 2024 Summer Honors Program

Dylan Wiliam is Emeritus Professor of Educational Assessment at University College London.

Show Notes:

Making Room for Impact: A De-implementation Guide for Educators

The Future of AI in Education: 13 Things We Can Do to Minimize the Damage

Creating the Schools Our Children Need

Inside the Black Box

Show Notes:

The Daily Tar Heel; Volume 131, Issue 16

Students Hated ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ Their Teachers Tried to Dump It.

This Online Tutoring Company Says It Offers Expert One-on-One Help. Students Often Get Neither.

Disillusioned: Five Families and the Unraveling of America’s Suburbs

The ‘Science of Reading’ in 2023: 4 Important Developments

What I Learned Covering National Education Issues for Chalkbeat

Ready or Not, AI Is Here

AI Can Mimic Students’ Writing Styles. How Are Teachers Supposed to Catch Cheaters Now?

Brian Jacob is the Walter H. Annenberg Professor of Education Policy and professor of economics at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.

Vladimir Kogan is a professor in the department of Political Science at The Ohio State University.

Show Notes:

How Did the COVID-19 Pandemic Influence School Board Elections? (forthcoming) by Brian Jacob

Democratic Accountability or an Electoral Turnstile? Turnover and Competition in Local School Board Elections (forthcoming) by Vladimir Kogan, Stephane Lavertu, and Zachary Peskowitz

Brooks Bowden is an associate professor at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania and the Director of the Center for Benefit–Cost Studies of Education.

Show Notes:

The Unintended Consequences of Academic Leniency

Lenient Grading Won’t Help Struggling Students. Addressing Chronic Absenteeism Will.

Designing Field Experiments to Integrate Research on Costs

Ethan Hutt is Associate Professor of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Jack Schneider is the Dwight W. Allen Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Show Notes:

Off the Mark: How Grades, Ratings, and Rankings Undermine Learning (but Don’t Have To)

The big problem(s) with grades

Making the grade: a history of the A–F marking scheme

A History of Achievement Testing in the United States, Or: Explaining the Persistence of Inadequacy

A Thin Line Between Love and Hate: Educational Assessment in the United States

Melissa Kearney is the Neil Moskowitz Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland and the Director of the Aspen Economic Strategy Group.

Show Notes:

The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind

A Driver of Inequality That Not Enough People Are Talking About

The Puzzle of Falling US Birth Rates since the Great Recession

Male Earnings, Marriageable Men, and Non-Marital Fertility: Evidence from the Fracking Boom

The Economics of Non-Marital Childbearing and The “Marriage Premium for Children”

Investigating Recent Trends in the U.S. Teen Birth Rate

Media Influences on Social Outcomes: The Impact of MTV's 16 and Pregnant on Teen Childbearing

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat speaks with Doug Lemov about how cellphones and social media harm the academic and social development of students and make schools less inclusive.

Nat and Doug also discuss online learning, school choice, the difficulty of creating schools with a coherent operating philosophy, the state of public schooling, The Scarlet Letter, the pandemic's effects on students, teacher professional development, the relationship between parenting and schooling, the idea that schooling sometimes has to be hard for students, and the role that schools play in shaping students' habits of attention.

Doug Lemov is the author of Reconnect: Building School Culture for Meaning, Purpose, and Belonging and Teach Like a Champion.

Show Notes:

Take Away Their Cellphones

Reconnect: Building School Culture for Meaning, Purpose, and Belonging

Teach Like A Champion 3.0

Teach Like A Champion

iGen: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy--and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood--and What That Means for the Rest of Us

It Was a Mistake to Let Kids Onto Social Media Sites. Here’s What to Do Now.

Roland Fryer is a Professor of Economics at Harvard University. He was a MacArthur Fellow and is a winner of the John Bates Clark Medal.

Show Notes:

How to Make Up the COVID Learning Loss

Affirmative Action in College Admissions Doesn’t Work—But It Could

Build Feeder Schools (And Make Yale and Harvard Fund Them)

Enhancing the Efficacy of Teacher Incentives through Framing: A Field Experiment

Parental Incentives and Early Childhood Achievement: A Field Experiment in Chicago Heights

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with two of the framework’s critics, Jelani Nelson and Tom Loveless, about the framework, its intellectual origins, what they think it gets wrong, whether it is equitable, and what it will mean for California's students.

Jelani Nelson is a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at UC Berkeley.

Tom Loveless is an education researcher and former senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Show Notes:

California Math Framework

California Adopts Controversial New Math Framework. Here’s What’s in It

California’s New Math Framework Doesn’t Add Up

Analysis and Critique of California Math Frameworks Revisions (CMF)

UC Berkeley, Stanford Professors Face Controversy, Debate State Math Curriculum

California Students Are Struggling in Math. Will Reforms Make the Problem Worse?

The Divider: Jo Boaler of Stanford Is Leading the Math-Instruction Revolution. Critics Say Her Claims Don’t Always Add Up.

Laura Meckler is a national education writer for The Washington Post.

Show Notes:

Dream Town: Shaker Heights and the Quest for Racial Equity

What happened when an Ohio school district rushed to integrate classrooms

The man who implemented these reforms, Mike Miles, was superintendent of Dallas ISD from 2012 through 2015, and, in May, was serving as the CEO of Third Future Schools.

However, on June 1st, following a state intervention, Miles was named the next superintendent of Houston ISD. Since then, he has made quite the splash.

On this episode of The Report Card, Mike Miles joins Nat Malkus to discuss the reforms he is implementing in Houston ISD and his views on district leadership and school reform more broadly.

Does going to a highly selective college affect long-term outcomes? How much preference are legacy applicants given? To what extent does socioeconomic background influence chances of admission? And how can highly selective colleges improve social mobility and diversify the American elite?

In a new paper, Diversifying Society’s Leaders? The Determinants and Causal Effects of Admission to Highly Selective Private Colleges, Raj Chetty, David Deming, and John Friedman consider these questions and many others.

The paper is full of interesting findings, so on this episode of The Report Card, two of the paper's authors, David Deming and John Friedman, join Nat to break it down.

David Deming is the Academic Dean and Isabelle and Scott Black Professor of Political Economy at the Harvard Kennedy School.

John Friedman is the Briger Family Distinguished Professor of Economics and International and Public Affairs and the Economics Department Chair at Brown University. He is also a founding co-director of Opportunity Insights at Harvard University

Show Notes:

Diversifying Society’s Leaders? The Determinants and Causal Effects of Admission to Highly Selective Private Colleges

Study of Elite College Admissions Data Suggests Being Very Rich Is Its Own Qualification

The Future of Highly Selective College Admissions

Forked Lightning

Optimal Gerrymandering in a Competitive Environment

The Lengthening of Childhood

In the Salary Race, Engineers Sprint but English Majors Endure

Getting In

But what do these new assessments look like? What are they capable of that the old ones weren’t? And what can we look forward to next on the assessment front? On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions and more with Arthur VanderVeen.

Arthur VanderVeen is the CEO and founder of New Meridian, an assessment design and development company that serves over 2,500 school districts. Arthur was previously the executive director of college readiness at the College Board, and the executive director of assessment and chief of innovation for the New York City Department of Education.

Show Notes:

New Meridian

A Right Turn on Assessments: State-Directed Assessments Using an Interstate Test-Item Bank Cooperative

Can State Tests Be Useful for Instruction and Accountability?

Often, though, discussions of these questions can feel very abstract and distant, as if AI in education is some problem off in the future. Today’s guest, however, argues that it is anything but.

Ethan Mollick argues that teachers should already be using AI to better their teaching, that we should already be using AI to accelerate student learning, and that we should already be thinking about the threat AI poses to traditional forms of schoolwork such as the essay and the problem set.

Ethan Mollick is an Associate Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He writes about AI on his Substack, One Useful Thing, and on Twitter. Over the past year, he has co-written three papers with Lilach Mollick on AI in education: Assigning AI: Seven Approaches for Students, with Prompts; Using AI to Implement Effective Teaching Strategies in Classrooms: Five Strategies, Including Prompts; and New Modes of Learning Enabled by AI Chatbots: Three Methods and Assignments.

Show Notes

One Useful Thing

The Homework Apocalypse

Democratizing the Future of Education

Assigning AI: Seven Approaches for Students, with Prompts

Using AI to Implement Effective Teaching Strategies in Classrooms: Five Strategies, Including Prompts

New Modes of Learning Enabled by AI Chatbots: Three Methods and Assignments

Larry Berger is the CEO and co-founder of Amplify, an education company that creates K–12 assessments, intervention programs, and core curricula. In 2022, Amplify’s materials were used in over 4,000 US school districts and by over 15 million students worldwide.

There are probably many correct answers to these questions, but on this episode of The Report Card we want to narrow it down and focus on one particular school, Michaela, that has a very particular set of answers to these questions. Located near London’s Wembley Stadium, Michaela is a free school that opened its doors in 2014 and today has the highest GCSE value-added score in all of England. Michaela is known for its strict behavioral practices, its unique school culture, and its unabashed promotion of small-c conservative values.

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat speaks with Katharine Birbalsingh, the founder and head teacher of Michaela Community School. Nat and Katharine discuss school culture, the importance of values in education, school lunches, cell phones in schools, discipline and student behavior, teacher feedback and observation, and more.

Show Notes:

Michaela: The Power of Culture

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Teachers: The Michaela Way

Britain's Strictest Headmistress

In his new book, The Great School Rethink, Rick argues that now is the time for educators, school leaders, and policymakers to become more thoughtful and intentional in the way they approach schooling and potential changes to it. Rick isn’t interested in arguing for any particular reform—indeed, he is generally pretty skeptical of big top-down reform. Rather, Rick is interested in freeing students and teachers from established routines and structures that have worn out their welcome so that schools can offer students richer educational experiences.

Frederick M. Hess is a senior fellow and the director of education policy studies at AEI, an executive editor of Education Next, the author of the Education Week blog “Rick Hess Straight Up,” the founder and chairman of AEI’s Conservative Education Reform Network, and the author of numerous books.

Show Notes:

The Great School Rethink

Spinning Wheels: The Politics of Urban School Reform

Letters to a Young Education Reformer

The Cage-Busting Teacher

Cage-Busting Leadership

The End of School Reform?

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these topics, and others, with Adam Mastroianni. Adam Mastroianni is an experimental psychologist and the author of the biweekly newsletter Experimental History.

Show Notes:

The Rise and Fall of Peer Review

Science Is a Strong-Link Problem

You’re Probably Wrong about How Things Have Changed

Things Could Be Better

When Should You End a Conversation? Probably Sooner than You Think

Pop Culture Has Become an Oligopoly

Ideas Aren’t Getting Harder to Find and Anyone Who Tells You Otherwise Is a Coward and I Will Fight Them

The first, The Effects of Comprehensive Educator Evaluation and Pay Reform on Achievement, by Eric A. Hanushek, Jin Luo, Andrew J. Morgan, Minh Nguyen, Ben Ost, Steven G. Rivkin, and Ayman Shakeel, looks at Dallas’s Principal Excellence and Teacher Excellence initiatives. And the second, Attracting and Retaining Highly Effective Educators in Hard-To-Staff Schools, by Andrew J. Morgan, Minh Nguyen, Eric A. Hanushek, Ben Ost, and Steven G. Rivkin, looks at Dallas’s Accelerating Campus Excellence Program.

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus is joined by two of the papers’ authors, Eric Hanushek and Steven Rivkin, to discuss these programs. Eric Hanushek is the Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and the winner of the 2021 Yidan Prize for Education Research. Steven Rivkin is the Department Head of Economics at the University of Illinois Chicago.

Show Notes:

The Effects of Comprehensive Educator Evaluation and Pay Reform on Achievement

Attracting and Retaining Highly Effective Educators in Hard-To-Staff Schools

Does Regulating Entry Requirements Lead to More Effective Principals?

Performance Information and Personnel Decisions in the Public Sector: The Case of School Principals

Dynamic Effects of Teacher Turnover on the Quality of Instruction

Global Universal Basic Skills: Current Deficits and Implications for World Development

We've talked a lot on the show about school choice. But it's not often we discuss choice between schools in the same district.

Started in 2012, Los Angeles's Zones of Choice program creates small local markets with high schools in neighborhoods throughout LA, but leaves traditional attendance-zone boundaries in place. In application, this means that about 30-40% of LAUSD is a Zone of Choice.

Here to discuss the success of LA's Zones of Choice program are Christopher Campos and John Deasy.

Show Notes:

The Impact of Neighborhood School Choice: Evidence from Los Angeles' Zones of Choice Program.

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with Michael Hartney, whose new book, "How Policies Make Interest Groups: Governments, Unions, and American Education," explores these questions and others. Nat and Michael discuss how teachers unions impact students, affect education policy, and became the political powerhouses they are today.

Michael Hartney is an assistant professor of political science at Boston College, a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, and an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute.  

Show Notes:

How Policies Make Interest Groups: Governments, Unions, and American Education

Teachers’ Unions and School Board Elections: A Reassessment

Revitalizing Local Democracy: The Case for On-Cycle Local Elections

Teachers Unions in the Post-Janus World

On the same day that OpenAI launched GPT 4, Khan Academy launched an "experimental AI tool" called Khanmigo, which uses GPT 4 to help students and teachers by acting as either a personalized tutor or a personalized teaching assistant. On this episode of The Report Card, Nat speaks with Sal Khan about Khanmigo and AI in education more broadly. Nat and Sal discuss AI's potential benefits for students and teachers, whether AI will replace teachers, which students AI will help the most, how we can make sure that AI doesn't serve as a substitute for critical thinking skills, how Khan Academy developed Khanmigo, and more.

Salman Khan is the founder and CEO of Khan Academy, an online learning platform serving over 150 million users across 190 countries. Sal is also the founder of Schoolhouse.world, Khan Lab School, and Khan World School.

Show Notes:

Khanmigo Announcement

Khanmigo Demonstration

Khan Academy Course on AI for Education

Beth Akers is a Senior Fellow at AEI, the author of Making College Pay, and the coauthor of Game of Loans: The Rhetoric and Reality of Student Debt.

Adam White is a Senior Fellow at AEI, where he focuses on American constitutionalism, the Supreme Court, and the administrative state. He is also the co-director of the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University.

Show Notes:

Audio for Oral Arguments

The Biggest Legal Flaw in Biden’s Student Loan Gambit

God Save This Honorable Court—and We Can, Too

Higher-Value Higher Ed

Student Loan Forgiveness Debacle Has Already Cost $255 Billion in Lost Federal Revenue

Biden’s Changes to Student Loans Means the Vast Majority of Borrowers Will Never Repay Their Debt

Student Debt Forgiveness Tracker

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat discusses these developments with Nicole Stelle Garnett, the John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School, the author of two books, and the co-editor of a new book, “The Case for Parental Choice: God, Family, and Educational Liberty,” coming out in March.

Show Notes:

The Future for Religious Charter Schools

From School Choice to Parent Choice

Supreme Court Opens a Path to Religious Charter Schools

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat speaks with Matt Chingos and Jason Delisle, both of the Urban Institute, about IDR and some of the eyebrow-raising effects the Biden administration's proposed changes might have on student borrowing.

Show Notes:

Few College Students Will Repay Student Loans under the Biden Administration’s Proposal

How Were Student Loan Borrowers Affected by the Pandemic?

Who Should Pay? Designing a More Equitable Income-Driven Repayment Plan

The following year, Werner implemented the Liberian Education Advancement Program (LEAP). This initiative brought in eight independent operators to run a handful of Liberian schools, the most successful of which was Kenya-based Bridge International Academies.

On this episode, host Nat Malkus talks with Werner and Steve Cantrell, Bridge International’s vice president of measurement and evaluation. Join the discussion on the educational landscape of Liberia, Bridge International’s impressive outcomes, and the work yet to be done.

Show Notes:

Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning is Hard and How You Can Make It Easy

Why Don't Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom

Raising Kids Who Read: What Parents and Teachers Can Do

Show Notes:

How Colleges and Sports-Betting Companies ‘Caesarized’ Campus Life

Young and Homeless in Rural America

Sold a Story

As AI Writing Gets Better, Teachers Work to Stop the Inevitable Cheating

Virtual Nightmare: One Student’s Journey Through the Pandemic

A 'Blanket Approach' Won't Win Adults Back

Show Notes:

The Universe and the University

Liberal Education and Human Flourishing

The Jubilee Centre

Virtue and Classic Children's Literature

Show Notes:

The Rise and Fall of the Teaching Profession: Prestige, Interest, Preparation, and Satisfaction over the Last Half Century

Sustaining a Sense of Success: The Protective Role of Teacher Working Conditions During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Elevating Education in Politics: How Teacher Strikes Shape Congressional Election Campaigns

Can We Tutor Our Way out of Covid Learning Loss?

Show Notes:

The REAL Reforms Act

Press Release for the REAL Reforms Act

Dr. Foxx Bio

A collaboration of the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University, the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard, and Stanford CEPA, the Education Recovery Scorecard links NAEP scores with state assessment results, giving us the first chance to really compare learning loss at the district level across the country.

Show Notes:

The Education Recovery Scorecard

Tom Kane

NAEP

Show Notes:

Po's Personal Website

Po's Academic Website

International Mathematical Olympiad

Live.PoShenLoh

Po on Quadratic Equations

NOVID

Po's Speaking Tour

Show Notes:

Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It

Redshirt the Boys

Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class Is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That Is a Problem, and What to Do About It

Ilana Horwitz on the Impact of Religion on Student Outcomes

Truth and Truthfulness

Freeman Hrabowski served as president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) from 1992 until earlier this year. Under his leadership, UMBC became the nation’s number one college in terms of the number of Black students it graduates who later earn a Ph.D. in the natural sciences and engineering—an especially impressive feat when you consider that UMBC’s undergraduate enrollment is only about 11,000 and that Black students make up slightly less than 20% of that number. During Hrabowski's tenure, UMBC also more than doubled graduation rates, earned the #1 ranking in US News's list of up and coming universities for six consecutive years, and won the biggest upset in the history of March Madness.

Show Notes:

Meyerhoff Scholars Program

Replicating Meyerhoff for Inclusive Excellence in STEM

Meyerhoff at Berkeley and UCSD

Freeman Hrabowski on 60 Minutes

The Empowered University

Holding Fast to Dreams

Overcoming the Odds

Beating the Odds

UMBC Upsets UVA

Doug Lemov is the author of Teach Like a Champion and the founder of the Teach Like a Champion organization. He was previously the managing director and one of the founders of Uncommon Schools. His new book, Reconnect: Building School Culture for Meaning, Purpose, and Belonging, hits shelves next month.

Show Notes:

Take Away Their Cellphones

Reconnect: Building School Culture for Meaning, Purpose, and Belonging

Teach Like A Champion 3.0

Teach Like A Champion

iGen: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy--and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood--and What That Means for the Rest of Us

It Was a Mistake to Let Kids Onto Social Media Sites. Here’s What to Do Now.

What should we be keeping our eyes on as another year rolls around? Evolving safety protocols? School spending? Student behavior? Potential teacher shortages? New vaccines?

To discuss these questions and more, Nat invited John Bailey onto the podcast for a conversation. At AEI, John studies technology and education, and since the start of the pandemic he has written over 550 COVID-19 Policy Updates on his Substack.

Show Notes:

John's COVID-19 Policy Updates

Nat's Return to Learn Tracker

Reset Strategies Now, Prepare for the Future

A Failure to Respond: Public School Mask Mandates in the 2021–22 School Year

Pandemic Enrollment Fallout: School District Enrollment Changes Across COVID-19 Response

Bush Pandemic Preparedness Plan

2022 School Pulse Panel: Student Behavior

Student achievement in 2021-22: Cause for hope and continued urgency

Over the past few years, American schooling has been on a bumpy road. COVID-19 is the most obvious issue here, but it's not only that. As Robert Pondiscio argued in the March edition of Commentary, American schools have become overcome by bleakness.

"We want children to grapple with 'honest history' starting in elementary school and to discover the power of their voices by writing authentic essays about their personal problems. Small wonder, then, that children are more depressed and medicated than ever before. A half-century of psychological research indicates that our beliefs about the world shape behavior and our sense of well-being. Whether one views the world as good or bad, safe or dangerous, enticing or dull, is correlated with outcomes such as life satisfaction or depression. We may think that we are doing children a good service by being 'real' with them, refusing to spare them from the unpleasant facts of the tired world they will soon inherit, thus inspiring them to seize the day and set the world right. But strong evidence is emerging that we are mostly succeeding in creating a generation of overwhelmed young people paralyzed into learned helplessness."

In this episode, Nat and Robert discuss this bleakness—its sources, its effects, and how we might overcome it.

Show Notes:

The Unbearable Bleakness of American Schooling

How The Other Half Learns: Equality, Excellence, and the Battle Over School Choice

The Changing Face of Social Breakdown

Christina Brown is a development economist who will be joining the University of Chicago’s Economics Department as an Assistant Professor in 2023, and Heather Schofield is an economist at the University of Pennsylvania, where she is currently an Assistant Professor in the Perelman School of Medicine and The Wharton School. Their coauthors on Cognitive Endurance as Human Capital are Supreet Kaur and Geeta Kingdon.

Show Notes:

Cognitive Endurance as Human Capital

Inducing Positive Sorting through Performance Pay: Experimental Evidence from Pakistani Schools

The Economic Consequences of Increasing Sleep Among the Urban Poor

Ramadan Fasting and Agricultural Output

Nat and Nate discuss why disparities in life outcomes are not mainly attributable to disparities in schools, why relying too heavily on parents to develop skills in children will perpetuate inequalities, big data in education, the lessons of Perry Preschool and Abecedarian, skill transmission in Asian American communities, why we need to spend more on education R&D, Cora Hillis, what a study about the management practices of businesses in India can teach us about parenting, the IRS databank, Childcare with a capital 'C', the decision to have five or more kids, universal pre-k, and more.

Show Notes:

The Parent Trap: How to Stop Overloading Parents and Fix Our Inequality Crisis

Why do we provide so much more support to the old than the young?

The 100-year legacy of America’s first big national investment in families

How Does Your Kindergarten Classroom Affect Your Earnings? Evidence from Project Star

Parental Job Loss and Children's Long-Term Outcomes: Evidence from 7 Million Fathers' Layoffs

Show Notes:

In the Fight Over How to Teach Reading, This Guru Makes a Major Retreat

Hard Words: Why aren't kids being taught to read?

Comprehensive How-To Guide: Approaches to Implementing Early Literacy Policies

New research shows controversial Reading Recovery program eventually had a negative impact on children

Struggling readers need standards and structure based on the science of reading

Influential authors Fountas and Pinnell stand behind disproven reading theory

What the Words Say: Many kids struggle with reading – and children of color are far less likely to get the help they need

Show Notes:

Agency: The Four Point Plan (F.R.E.E.) for ALL Children to Overcome the Victimhood Narrative and Discover Their Pathway to Power

Here’s why all students need agency rather than ‘equity’

Vertex Partnership Academies

Building Successful High Schools

Show Notes:

Making College Pay: An Economist Explains How to Make a Smart Bet on Higher Education

Game of Loans: The Rhetoric and Reality of Student Debt

FAQ: Student Loan Cancellation Edition

Student Loan Cancellation Will Backfire Without Additional Reform

Anticipated Executive Order Cancelling Student Loans Unpopular on Right and Left

Another Extension of the Student-loan-repayment Freeze Is Bad Policy

Show Notes:

The Consequences of Remote and Hybrid Instruction During the Pandemic

A Comprehensive Picture of Achievement Across the COVID-19 Pandemic Years: Examining Variation in Test Levels and Growth Across Districts, Schools, Grades, and Students

Effects of Four-Day School Weeks on School Finance and Achievement: Evidence From Oklahoma

Return 2 Learn Tracker

‘Not Good for Learning’

Also in this episode? The debut of Grade It.

Show Notes:

God, Grades, and Graduation

I Followed the Lives of 3,290 Teenagers. This Is What I Learned About Religion and Education.

The Future of Higher Education Needs to Embrace Religion

From Bat Mitzvah to the Bar: Religious Habitus, Self-Concept, and Women’s Educational Outcomes

Here to discuss Grow Your Own with Nat are Penny Schwinn, Tennessee Education Commissioner, and Kate Walsh, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality.

Show Notes:

Grow Your Own

Uptick but no exodus: Despite stress, most teachers stay put

Josh Dunn, professor of political science at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, and Eric Hoover, senior writer at The Chronicle of Higher Education, join Nat Malkus to discuss these cases and their potential implications.

Show Notes:

Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College

568 Presidents Group Lawsuit

So: what is going on in schools? Which school districts require masking and which don’t? And what demographic factors might help explain masking policies?

Here to discuss is Nat Malkus, with John Bailey as guest host.

Show notes:

The Return to Learn Tracker: Mask Edition

Starting in 2012, Los Angeles' Zones of Choice program creates small local markets with High Schools in neighborhoods throuhgout LA, but leaves traditional attendance-zone boundaries in place. In application, this means that about 30-40% of LAUSD is a Zone of Choice.

Here to discuss the success of LA's Zones of Choice program is Christopher Campos and John Deasy.

Shownotes:

The Impact of Neighborhood School Choice: Evidence from Los Angeles' Zones of Choice Program.

This bumpy road has been eloquently summarized in a new piece by Robert Pondiscio in the lead essay for the March issue of Commentary Magazine, titled: The unbearable bleakness in American schooling.

These funds, known as the Elementary and Secondary Schooling Emergency Relief funds, or ESSER for short, totaled nearly $200 billion, making it the largest federal expenditure for public education in American history.

So, where did these funds go, and for what? Here to discuss is the Director of Georgetown University's Edunomics Lab, Marguerite Roza.

Show notes:

Marguerite's latest Education Next article: Punishment for Making Hard Choices in a Crisis: Federal Prison

The growing enrollment and expansion of these programs over the past year has led some to refer to 2021 as “The Year of School Choice.” So, why was school choice so popular in 2021, and what did its rise look like?

Here to discuss is Nina Rees and Patrick Wolf.

Nina is the President and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Previously, Nina served as the first Deputy Under Secretary for Innovation and Improvement at the Department of Education.

Patrick Wolf is a Distinguished Professor of Education Policy and the 21^st Century Endowed Chair in School Choice at the University of Arkansas’ Dept. of Education Reform.

There's certainty a lot to like about CTE, but we still have much to learn about it in terms of its impact on post-K-12 outcomes and, especially, how those outcomes vary among different career clusters that fall under the CTE umbrella. Here to discuss these issues with Nat are Walt Ecton and Shaun Dougherty.

Show notes:

Link to Walt and Shaun's report, titled: Heterogeneity in High School Career and Technical Education Outcomes.

For The Report Card with Nat Malkus' last episode of 2021, Nat looked back at these highlights and discussed 2021's biggest stories in education, what stories didn't get that much attention, and what 2022 has in store for us.

Of course, who better to discuss education’s biggest stories in 2021 than those who wrote about them? On this episode, we are joined by three talented reporters, Erica Green, Laura Meckler, and Eesha Pendharkar.

After nearly two years of COVID-19, and with the labor markets currently in flux, could it be that reports around the teacher shortage this year are different than before? Here to discuss is Dan Goldhaber and Gema Zamarro.

Gema is a Professor in Education Reform and Economics at the University of Arkansas and the author of a recent report, titled: Understanding how COVID-19 has Changed Teachers’ Chances of Remaining in the Classroom.

Dan is the Director of the Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data (CALDER) in Education Research at the American Institutes for Research and the author of a new report on school district staffing, titled: School District Staffing Challenges in a Rapidly Recovering Economy.

On this episode of The Report Card with Nat Malkus, Pano Kanelos , a founding trustee of the University of Austin, joins the podcast to discuss.

Given this logic, it’d be easy to think that the choice of whether to attend college is the most important predictor of ones’ financial future. But, what if that logic is flawed? What if, instead, which college, and which degree in that college, is actually more important to financial success than the decision to attend college at all?

On this episode of The Report Card with Nat Malkus, Preston Cooper and Carlo Salerno to join Nat to answer this question and more.

But, does school choice legislation need to be bipartisan, and should it?

On this episode of The Report Card with Nat Malkus, Jay Greene discusses the legislative record of school choice legislation, its meaning, and how legislators can and should approach school choice legislation.

On this episode of The Report Card with Nat Malkus, Rick Hanushek, winner of the 2021 Yidan Prize, discusses his past and future research and imparts some words of wisdom for young education researchers.

So, how has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted homeschooling?

On this episode of The Report Card with Nat Malkus, Kerry McDonald discusses the homeschooling movement, its rise during the COVID-19 pandemic, and her book, Unschooling: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom.

On this episode of The Report Card with Nat Malkus, Dan Cox and Nat discuss their new report on American public opinion about COVID-19 mitigation, race, and religion in the classroom.

Read Nat and Dan’s report: Controversy and consensus: Perspectives on race, religion, and COVID-19 in public schools.

On this episode of The Report Card with Nat Malkus, Dr. Vlad Kogan and Dr. Stéphane Lavertu discuss their recent report on Ohio student test scores.

Read Dr. Kogan and Dr. Lavertu's report, How the COVID-19 Pandemic Affected Student Learning In Ohio: Analysis of Spring 2021 Ohio State Tests.

Lawrence Gostin, the Linda D. & Timothy J. O’Neill Professor of Global Health Law at the Georgetown University Law Center and the director of the WHO Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law, weighs in on this episode of The Report Card with Nat Malkus.

John Bailey, a nonresident senior fellow at AEI, weighs in on this episode of “The Report Card with Nat Malkus.”

Read John's recent CERN report: Education recovery benefits: Using coronavirus state and local fiscal recovery funds to address children’s academic, social, emotional, and mental health needs.

Christine Pitts, a resident policy fellow at the Center on Reinventing Public Education, discusses these questions and more on this episode of The Report Card with Nat Malkus.

Shownotes

Read Christine's analysis of summer learning programs at The 74.

Read CRPE's report on summer learning programs.

Visit CPRE's school district response tracker.

Dr. Joseph Allen, an associate professor of exposure assessment science at Harvard University, discusses the CDC's recently updated reopening guidance for schools, the importance of ventilation as a Covid mitigation strategy, and solutions for America's "sick" school buildings on this episode of The Report Card with Nat Malkus.

Read Tom and Morgan's recently released books on the Common Core and content standards:

Between the State and the Schoolhouse: Understanding the Failure of Common Core (Loveless, Harvard Education Press, 2021)

Beyond Standards: The Fragmentation of Education Governance and the Promise of Curriculum Reform (Polikoff, Harvard Education Press, 2021)

You can purchase Making College Pay at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or your local bookstore.

Read Vlad Kogan's AEI report, "What’s behind racial differences in attitudes toward school reopening (and what to do about them)."

Nat and Mike are also joined by Kathaleena Edward Monds (Center for Educational Opportunity), Allison L. Morgan (Classical Christian Conservatory of Alexandria), and Antonio Parés (Walnut Hill Workshop).

To learn more about Covid enrollment drops, read Daphna Bassok and Anna Shapiro's recent Brookings Institute analysis, "Understanding COVID-19-era enrollment drops among early-grade public school students."

Read the working papers discussed on this episode:

"A Blueprint for Scaling Tutoring Across Public Schools" by Matt Kraft and Grace Falken.

"Kumon In: The Recent, Rapid Rise of Private Tutoring Centers" by Edward Kim, Josh Goodman, and Martin West.

On this episode of "The Report Card," Nat Malkus discusses his newly launched Return to Learn Tracker (R2L), which monitors the instructional status of over 8,500 school districts on a weekly basis. Chris Marsicano, an assistant professor at Davidson College and the founding director of the College Crisis Initiative (C2i), also joins to share his work tracking colleges and universities' responses to Covid.

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus asks two experts to weigh in: Mark Weber, a special analyst at the New Jersey Policy Perspective and a public school music teacher, and Marcus Winters, an associate professor at Boston University and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

Read Mark Weber's recent Fordham Institute report, "Robbers or Victims? Charter Schools and District Finances"

Read Marcus Winter's recent Manhatten Institute report, "Do Charter Schools Harm Traditional Public Schools? Years of Test-Score Data Suggest They Don’t"

On this episode of "The Report Card," Nat Malkus talks with two school counselors about their work supporting students during the pandemic: 2020 School Counselor of the Year Laura Ross, the lead school counselor at Five Forks Middle School in Lawrenceville, Georgia, and 2016 School Counselor of the Year Kat Pastor-Lorents, a school counselor at Flagstaff High School in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Have a comment, question, or topic suggestion? Contact us at ed.podcast@aei.org.

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