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On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with Brian Jacob about the ways in which the pandemic changed the grammar of schooling. Nat and Brian discuss the pandemic’s effects on student technology use, parent-teacher communication, and individualized instruction; why pandemic-era changes seem more durable in high schools and middle schools than in elementary schools; whether charter schools changed as much during the pandemic as conventional public schools did; what the pandemic’s effects on schools can teach us about how schools will use AI; whether changes to schooling are driven by students’ needs or by other factors; whether teachers are optimistic about the state of schooling; hybrid education, ESSA, and the juvenile detention system; and more.
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
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On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with Carey Wright about her tenure as State Superintendent of Education in Mississippi and the work ahead of her as State Superintendent of Schools in Maryland. Nat and Carey discuss the Mississippi Miracle; how to get teachers to buy in to major interventions; professional development; the purpose of grade retention policies; math instruction; the importance of the education leadership environment in a state; why some state leaders may care less about student achievement than others; state-district relationships; the importance of education data; teacher coaches; the education press; Maryland’s recent NAEP declines; the Blueprint for Maryland's Future; accountability; the relationship between education spending and student achievement; overcoming learning loss; post-pandemic chronic absenteeism; and more.
Carey Wright is State Superintendent of Schools in Maryland. Previously, from 2013 to 2022, she served as State Superintendent of Education in Mississippi.
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Note: This episode originally aired in June 2023.
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
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During the pandemic, the federal government sent $190 billion in ESSER relief funding to America’s schools. Among other things, ESSER was intended to help students catch up from pandemic learning loss—but did it work? Did ESSER help kids catch up? Did it help some students more than others? And should the federal government spend more to address COVID learning loss? On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions, and more, with Dan Goldhaber.
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
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Over the past couple years, the education world has seen a renewed push for phonics instruction, often called “the science of reading.” But how science-based is the science of reading movement? Will the current push for phonics last? And what do kids need so that the reading gains they experience from phonics don’t fade away by the time they reach eighth grade?
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?
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In the spring, campuses saw a wave of protests erupt over the war in Gaza. These protests, along with the controversial ways in which universities handled them, raised important questions about free expression on campus, the role that university administrations play in maintaining and fostering a culture of free expression, and the role of university presidents.
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
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In March of 2023, shortly after Khan Academy launched Khanmigo, its AI tutor and teaching assistant, Sal Khan came on the podcast to discuss Khanmigo and his hopes for AI in education more generally. On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with Sal Khan again to hear what he has learned since launching Khanmigo and how his thoughts on AI in education have changed over the last year.
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
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On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with Mark Schneider, who recently finished up his six-year tenure as Director of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES). Nat and Mark discuss the past, present, and future of IES; what’s wrong with the What Works Clearinghouse; student privacy protections; NAEP; the state of special education research; why education research isn’t replicated; scalability; whether most education research is useful, usable, and used; why we need a DARPA for education; whether education research should be profitable; the incentive structures in education research; and more.
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.
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Are smartphones and social media bad for kids’ mental health? According to a number of recent books, articles, and op-eds, the answer is an emphatic yes: The rise of smartphones and social media corresponded not only to a rise in the incidence of mental health problems but to a decline in academic performance. Indeed, in popular media, there almost seems to be a consensus emerging: It’s the phones, stupid.
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
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Over the past couple weeks, as campus protests and crackdowns on campus protests have captured the nation’s attention, it has become increasingly clear that something is wrong with the civic culture at universities.
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
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During the pandemic, the federal government sent $190 billion in COVID relief funds to America’s schools. These funds, known as ESSER (or the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund), changed school budgets across the country. But this September, ESSER will come to an end, meaning that—on average—schools will have to reduce their budgets by over $1,000 per student.
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
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On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with David Steiner about coherence and fragmentation; why curricula, teacher training programs, and assessments should be aligned (and why they usually aren’t); SEL; where Common Core fell short; E.D. Hirsch and the importance of teaching content; why economics, music, and philosophy should be taken more seriously in secondary education than they usually are; AP exams and CTE; teachers unions, master’s pay premiums, and schools of education; whether school is boring; why American teachers tend to focus more on students and less on subject matter than teachers abroad; the state of the humanities in American education; teaching students Ancient Greek; how not to teach Shakespeare; and more.
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
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Over the last couple years, a number of states have enacted new universal education savings account (ESA) programs. Republicans have led these efforts with near universal opposition from Democrats, but should more Democrats support ESAs, especially because ESAs would seem to more greatly benefit the urban areas that Democrats tend to represent than the rural areas that Republicans tend to represent?
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.
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On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with Rick Hess and Mike McShane about their new book, Getting Education Right: A Conservative Vision for Improving Early Childhood, K–12, and College. Nat, Rick, and Mike discuss what principles a conservative vision for education should be grounded in, whether No Child Left Behind was conservative, why family policy should be part of a conservative vision for education, why now is an opportune time for conservatives to take the lead on education, the pandemic’s effects on the politics of schooling, the culture wars, where conservatives have come up short on education in the past, the value of bipartisanship in education, where civics education has gone wrong, the state of education research, parental rights and parental responsibilities, and more.
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
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During the pandemic, homeschooling rates spiked, reaching unprecedented levels. And although they have fallen some since then, homeschooling rates remain far higher than anything we saw before the pandemic.
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
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On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with Tom Richards about the Florence Academy of Art, what serious art instruction looks like, how K–12 art education can be improved, the differences between music and art instruction, whether artistic talent is innate or can be taught, how art instruction has changed over the last 200 years, Velazquez, showing children art documentaries, why it's important to teach fundamentals before higher order skills, drawing with pencil and paper, the Zorn palette, the importance of coherence and consistency in an educational program, the management of Italian art museums, the proper age at which to start rigorous art training, and more.
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
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On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with Mike McShane about education savings account (ESA) programs. Nat and Mike discuss the sudden growth in ESA programs over the past year, how ESA programs work, the differences between ESAs and vouchers, the pandemic's effects on school choice, whether interest in ESAs solely comes from the right, the difficulty of starting charter schools, single-sex schools, the quality of education surveys, whether ESAs harm public schools in rural districts, the challenges of implementing ESAs, school choice and Catholic schools, how ESAs affect homeschooling, and more.
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
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On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with Dylan Wiliam about the latest PISA results, education in the US vs. education in the UK, what tutors might learn that classroom teachers might not, where teacher improvement and professional development tend to go wrong, making learning responsive to students, formative assessment, learning English as a second language, charter schools, why educators should think more about de-implementation, AI in education, and more.
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
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On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus reviews the past year in education with Matt Barnum of The Wall Street Journal, Goldie Blumenstyk of The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Alyson Klein of Education Week. Nat, Matt, Goldie, and Alyson discuss AI in education; DEI in higher education; learning loss, chronic absenteeism, and the ESSER funding cliff; the end of race-based admissions; the state of education journalism; the science of reading; which education stories from the past year were over- and under-reported; the Biden administration's SAVE plan; culture clashes in Florida; the 2024 elections; what to expect from the coming year; and more.
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?
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On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with Brian Jacob and Vladimir Kogan about school board elections. Nat, Brian, and Vlad discuss how effective school board elections are at giving voters local democratic control, whether school board members are rewarded for good performance and punished for bad performance, the margin of victory in school board elections, who runs for school board, how incumbents perform in school board elections, the high rate of school board member turnover, paying school board members, state takeovers, how the pandemic affected school board elections, whether Moms for Liberty has been effective in winning school board elections, school governance, direct democracy, ESSER funding, NCLB, and more.
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
- Visa fler
