The Report Card with Nat Malkus

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 CollegeParents’ Rights, Yes. But Parent Responsibilities, TooThe Party of Education in 2024Four States That Are Leading the Charge for Conservative Education

Discover the surge in homeschooling rates during the pandemic and the factors driving this shift. Uncover the complexities of homeschooling data, debunk stereotypes, and explore diverse educational models like micro-schooling. Dive into the impact of ESAs on homeschooling trends and forecast the future of homeschooling over the next decade.

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 GalleryTom Richards: Instagram, Website

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 AccountsWhat is an Education Savings Account (ESA)?The School Choice Movement Needs To Get BoringAEI's 2024 Summer Honors Program

Nat Malkus and Dylan Wiliam discuss PISA results, differences in US and UK education, the importance of formative assessment, challenges in teacher improvement, making learning responsive, AI in education, and the need for de-implementation in education.

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 16Students 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 SuburbsThe ‘Science of Reading’ in 2023: 4 Important DevelopmentsWhat I Learned Covering National Education Issues for ChalkbeatReady or Not, AI Is HereAI Can Mimic Students’ Writing Styles. How Are Teachers Supposed to Catch Cheaters Now?

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

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with Brooks Bowden about her recent paper The Unintended Consequences of Academic Leniency, co-authored by Viviana Rodriguez and Zach Weingarten. Nat and Brooks discuss how grading policies influence student effort and engagement, whether academic leniency helps low ability students, why North Carolina's changes to its grading policies led to increased absenteeism, whether making grading policies stricter can ameliorate student achievement, whether increases in academic leniency in the wake of the pandemic are good for students, and more.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 LeniencyLenient Grading Won’t Help Struggling Students. Addressing Chronic Absenteeism Will.Designing Field Experiments to Integrate Research on Costs

Nat Malkus interviews Ethan Hutt and Jack Schneider about their book on grades and transcripts in education. They discuss the history of grading, the inaccurate perception of transcripts, the gamification of grades, and ways to improve grading practices for deeper learning.

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with Melissa Kearney about her new book, The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind. Nat and Melissa discuss the decline in marriage among non-college-educated parents, why having two parents in the home matters for student outcomes, the stock of marriageable men, whether studying family structure is taboo, what the fracking boom can teach us about the decline in marriage, how marriage became decoupled from raising children, universal basic income for parents, why Asian Americans seem immune from the broader decline in marriage, intergenerational households, the difficulty of parenting, the importance of culture, and more.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 BehindA Driver of Inequality That Not Enough People Are Talking AboutThe Puzzle of Falling US Birth Rates since the Great RecessionMale Earnings, Marriageable Men, and Non-Marital Fertility: Evidence from the Fracking BoomThe Economics of Non-Marital Childbearing and The “Marriage Premium for Children”Investigating Recent Trends in the U.S. Teen Birth RateMedia Influences on Social Outcomes: The Impact of MTV's 16 and Pregnant on Teen Childbearing