The Report Card with Nat Malkus

On the right, teachers’ unions are often treated as the bogeyman, and no one today is more synonymous with teachers’ unions than Randi Weingarten. Indeed, in 2022 former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called Weingarten “the most dangerous person in the world.”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.

Can students learn math much faster than they typically do? Can students who feel like they have hit a wall in math instruction make steady progress again? And can math instruction be successfully delivered online through a platform that doesn’t even use video?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 AcademyHow Math Academy Works

Sarah Mervosh, an education reporter at The New York Times, covers K-12 policy, while Eric Kelderman focuses on higher education for The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Jill Barshay reports for The Hechinger Report, emphasizing student learning. They delve into the Trump administration’s impact on education, alarming declines in reading, and rising absenteeism. They analyze cuts to education funding and discuss the looming challenges of graduation rates and FAFSA processing, highlighting crucial under-reported stories affecting schools.

In classrooms across the nation, students and teachers are using AI—but should they be?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.

One of the hottest names in education right now is Alpha School. A network of high-end private schools founded in Texas but with additional locations elsewhere, Alpha School uses AI to implement mastery learning principles and incentives to accelerate student learning.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.

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus, Rick Hess, and Andy Rotherham discuss what recent elections in Virginia, New Jersey, and New York City mean for education, the Trump administration’s Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, the latest in the Jim Ryan saga, and more. (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 LetterThe 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 PoliciesFinding Common Ground on Trump’s College CompactCampus Leaders Conveniently Find the Spines They Lost Years AgoHow Zohran Mamdani Could Kill New York’s SchoolsTexas A&M Tightens Rules on Talking About Race and Gender in ClassesHow to Really Know a Thing, Directed by Quentin Tarantino

For decades, there has been research showing that tutoring can be a highly effective mode of instruction, but before 2020, large, in-school tutoring programs were not widespread. Then the pandemic struck, and large tutoring programs cropped up in districts around the nation. In fact, according to the June 2025 School Pulse Panel, 85% of American public schools now offer tutoring, with 42% offering high-dosage tutoring.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.

In August 2023, right after he took over as superintendent of Houston ISD, Mike Miles came on The Report Card to talk about his plans for Texas’s largest school district. 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 ISDThe Last Hurrah

Dan Willingham, a psychology professor and education author, dives into how digital technology impacts students' attention. He examines why many believe phones disrupt focus, revealing research suggests this effect is minimal. Addressing the perception of declining attention spans, he challenges the narrative with stable measures of attention over decades. Willingham also highlights boredom’s role in engagement and suggests that proper phone policies might mitigate distractions. Ultimately, he emphasizes the need for structural changes in schools to better engage students.

Earlier this month, 2024 NAEP scores came out for 8th grade science and 12th grade reading and math, and the results were not good, with students losing ground in each subject. But these declines are not new and they are not only the result of the pandemic: Across a number of tests and subjects, scores have been declining for over a decade, especially for low-performing students. Indeed, while achievement for the top 10 percent of students has remained roughly flat, achievement for the bottom 10 percent of students has fallen precipitously—on many assessments, by well over a year.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 TrendsPuzzling Over Declining Academic AchievementInteractive: See How Student Achievement Gaps Are Growing in Your StateDon't Blame the SubgroupsStudent Achievement Is Down Overall—But Kids at the Bottom Are Sinking Faster