The Report Card with Nat Malkus

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

A lot has happened in education over the last couple of months. A new school year started for students across the country. State governors began announcing whether they would be opting in to the new federal tax credit scholarship program. Penny Schwinn, former Education Commissioner of Tennessee, withdrew her nomination to be Linda McMahon’s number two at the Department of Education. A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration’s shutdown of the Comprehensive Centers and Regional Educational Laboratories was unlawful. And the Trump administration continued waging its battles with elite universities.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 HypocriteRestoring Free Inquiry on CampusTear Down This Wall: The Case for a Radical Overhaul of Teacher CertificationBreaking Down The New Federal School Choice Program With Shaka MitchellCommentary: Virginia Students Deserve Better. Close the ‘Honesty Gap'PragerU Teacher Qualification TestIs Online Sports Betting a Risk to Public Health?

Many school choice proponents today focus on what choice does for the students who use it to leave traditional public schools. But one of the original arguments for choice was that, through competition, it would spur traditional public schools to improve.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 ContextsThe Effects of Charter Schools on Neighborhood and School Segregation: Evidence from New York CityIn Pursuit of the Common Good: The Spillover Effects of Charter Schools on Public School Students in New York City

Over the past decade, schools increasingly have become a battleground for political fights and culture wars that distract from student learning. But, according to a new book, these political fights and culture wars are just one aspect of a much larger and more longstanding problem: schooling is often shaped by the interests of adults. From school boards to partisan identity, from teacher employment to property values, in No Adult Left Behind, Vlad Kogan traces the many ways in which the concerns of adults get in the way of student outcomes. 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.

Some say AI is the future of education, but there are reasons for skepticism, especially if we limit the conversation to the US and other wealthy countries. 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.