The Report Card with Nat Malkus
AEI Podcasts
The Report Card with Nat Malkus is the education podcast of the American Enterprise Institute. It is a hub for discussing innovative work to improve education – from early childhood to higher education – and the lives of America’s children. It evaluates research, policy, and practice efforts to improve the lives of families, schools and students. The Report Card seeks to engage with everyone who is interested in education in an accessible way. It brings guests that are doing compelling work across a spectrum from high level policy changes to innovations at the classroom level, work that will start conversations about improving education and the lives of children more broadly. Each episode lets listeners – policymakers, teachers, and parents –learn relevant information that they can use in their efforts to improve education.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Sep 9, 2021 • 37min
How behind are students? Ohio offers some answers.
State assessments from this past spring are slowly coming out and, so far, they’ve all painted a similar picture: students are far behind where they should be in reading and math, and some student groups are further behind than others. 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.
Aug 26, 2021 • 28min
Should the Covid-19 vaccine be required for teachers and students?
As students once again head back to school amid increasing Covid cases and hospilizations, can states and districts legally require eligible students and staff to receive the Covid-19 vaccine? Should they? 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.
Aug 12, 2021 • 29min
Should state and local leaders send Covid cash to kids?
In March, state and local governments were given an unprecedented $350 billion in flexible funding to reduce hardships caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. How can these funds best be used to address the needs of America’s students? In particular, how might these funds be used to send direct payments to students and families for private school tuition, tutoring, learning pods, and other educational expenses?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.
Jul 29, 2021 • 32min
Will summer learning help mitigate Covid learning loss?
When the coronavirus pandemic hit late in the 2019-2020 school year, its impact on student learning didn’t take a summer vacation. One year later, with Covid retreating and vaccination efforts well underway, what does summer learning look like? And what effect might summer programing this year have on remediating Covid learning loss? 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. ShownotesRead 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.
Jul 15, 2021 • 40min
What should Covid mitigation in K-12 schools look like this fall?
Back-to-school 2020 didn’t go as smoothly as hoped. Many districts that were slated to offer in-person learning abruptly changed to their reopening plans only weeks before the start of the year, and many of those that did reopen for in-person learning were forced to close for weeks at a time as Covid rates increased. With back-to-school 2021 just around the corner, what should parents and students expect schooling to look like this fall? 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.
Jul 1, 2021 • 39min
Should states ban Critical Race Theory in K-12 schools?
How did Critical Race Theory (CRT)—once relegated to graduate school seminars and academic journals—become one of the most hotly debated K-12 issues, seemingly overnight? What exactly is CRT? Should states be banning it from K-12 classrooms? AEI's Robert Pondiscio and Ian Rowe join Nat Malkus to discuss these questions and more on the latest episode of The Report Card.
Jun 17, 2021 • 1h 22min
The right direction on Title IX (rebroadcast)
As the Biden administration begins the process of rewriting Title IX regulations and undoing many of the changes to made under Secretary Betsy DeVos, host Nat Malkus dusts off a recording of a debate among leading law experts on the Trump-era changes to Title IX, which took place in front of a live audience at AEI in the summer of 2019.
Jun 3, 2021 • 42min
Has the Common Core failed?
In just three years, 45 states adopted the Common Core State Standards. By that metric alone, one might argue that the Common Core was a huge success. But on this episode of The Report Card with Nat Malkus, Tom Loveless and Morgan Polikoff argue that the Common Core has failed to move the needle on student learning and discuss the potential of standards-based reform going forward. 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)
May 20, 2021 • 31min
How to Make College Worth the Expense
College is expensive. How can students and parents make sure that it pays off? On this episode of The Report Card with Nat Malkus, Beth Akers, resident scholar in education policy at AEI, discusses her new book, Making College Pay: An Economist Explains How to Make a Smart Bet on Higher Education (Penguin Random House, 2021). You can purchase Making College Pay at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or your local bookstore.
May 6, 2021 • 44min
Racial Achievement Gaps and Covid
Why have fewer Black and Hispanic students returned to their classrooms for full-time in-person learning relative to white students? And what effect will this have on the nation’s stubborn racial achievement gaps? Vlad Kogan, associate professor of political science at Ohio State, and Chris Stewart, CEO of brightbeam, weigh in on this episode of The Report Card with Nat Malkus. Read Vlad Kogan's AEI report, "What’s behind racial differences in attitudes toward school reopening (and what to do about them)."
