The Report Card with Nat Malkus

We at the Report Card are on break this week, so we are re-upping a conversation from March 2022 that we think is interesting and important.We've talked a lot on the show about school choice. But it's not often we discuss choice between schools in the same district. Started in 2012, Los Angeles's Zones of Choice program creates small local markets with high schools in neighborhoods throughout LA, but leaves traditional attendance-zone boundaries in place. In application, this means that about 30-40% of LAUSD is a Zone of Choice.Here to discuss the success of LA's Zones of Choice program are Christopher Campos and John Deasy.Show Notes:The Impact of Neighborhood School Choice: Evidence from Los Angeles' Zones of Choice Program.

Teachers unions are undoubtedly a potent force in American education and politics. But questions about what teachers unions do, and why, are so politicized that the answers you get typically say more about who you ask than about teachers unions themselves.On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with Michael Hartney, whose new book, "How Policies Make Interest Groups: Governments, Unions, and American Education," explores these questions and others. Nat and Michael discuss how teachers unions impact students, affect education policy, and became the political powerhouses they are today.Michael Hartney is an assistant professor of political science at Boston College, a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, and an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute.  Show Notes:How Policies Make Interest Groups: Governments, Unions, and American EducationTeachers’ Unions and School Board Elections: A ReassessmentRevitalizing Local Democracy: The Case for On-Cycle Local ElectionsTeachers Unions in the Post-Janus World

Last Tuesday, OpenAI launched GPT 4, a more advanced version of the large language model GPT 3.5 that the original ChatGPT was built upon. To say the least, it’s impressive. For example, whereas GPT 3.5 scores in the 10th percentile on the Bar Exam, GPT 4 scores in the 90th percentile on the Bar Exam. It’s not hard to imagine that GPT 4 and future, even-more-powerful AIs will have a big impact on education. But what sort of effect will they have? On the same day that OpenAI launched GPT 4, Khan Academy launched an "experimental AI tool" called Khanmigo, which uses GPT 4 to help students and teachers by acting as either a personalized tutor or a personalized teaching assistant. On this episode of The Report Card, Nat speaks with Sal Khan about Khanmigo and AI in education more broadly. Nat and Sal discuss AI's potential benefits for students and teachers, whether AI will replace teachers, which students AI will help the most, how we can make sure that AI doesn't serve as a substitute for critical thinking skills, how Khan Academy developed Khanmigo, and more.Salman Khan is the founder and CEO of Khan Academy, an online learning platform serving over 150 million users across 190 countries. Sal is also the founder of Schoolhouse.world, Khan Lab School, and Khan World School.Show Notes:Khanmigo AnnouncementKhanmigo DemonstrationKhan Academy Course on AI for Education

Last week, the Supreme Court heard two cases—Biden v. Nebraska and Department of Education v. Brown—concerning the legality of the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness plan. In this episode, Nat speaks with Beth Akers and Adam White about these two lawsuits and their potential ramifications for our higher education system and American democracy.Beth Akers is a Senior Fellow at AEI, the author of Making College Pay, and the coauthor of Game of Loans: The Rhetoric and Reality of Student Debt. Adam White is a Senior Fellow at AEI, where he focuses on American constitutionalism, the Supreme Court, and the administrative state. He is also the co-director of the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University.Show Notes:Audio for Oral ArgumentsThe Biggest Legal Flaw in Biden’s Student Loan GambitGod Save This Honorable Court—and We Can, TooHigher-Value Higher EdStudent Loan Forgiveness Debacle Has Already Cost $255 Billion in Lost Federal RevenueBiden’s Changes to Student Loans Means the Vast Majority of Borrowers Will Never Repay Their DebtStudent Debt Forgiveness Tracker

Recently, there have been a number of big developments on the choice front. Within the last few weeks alone, Iowa and Utah became the 3rd and 4th states, respectively, to adopt universal education savings accounts, or ESAs, and an Oklahoma charter school board met to consider certifying a Catholic school, which, if approved, would become the first religious charter school in the country. On this episode of The Report Card, Nat discusses these developments with Nicole Stelle Garnett, the John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School, the author of two books, and the co-editor of a new book, “The Case for Parental Choice: God, Family, and Educational Liberty,” coming out in March. Show Notes:The Future for Religious Charter SchoolsFrom School Choice to Parent ChoiceSupreme Court Opens a Path to Religious Charter Schools

The Biden administration's proposed changes to income-driven repayment (IDR) haven't received the same level of attention that student loan forgiveness has, but they are arguably no less significant. Changes to IDR will cost billions of dollars, affect millions of borrowers, and fundamentally change the student borrowing landscape for past, present, and future borrowers. On this episode of The Report Card, Nat speaks with Matt Chingos and Jason Delisle, both of the Urban Institute, about IDR and some of the eyebrow-raising effects the Biden administration's proposed changes might have on student borrowing.Show Notes:Few College Students Will Repay Student Loans under the Biden Administration’s ProposalHow Were Student Loan Borrowers Affected by the Pandemic?Who Should Pay? Designing a More Equitable Income-Driven Repayment Plan

In 2015, Liberia’s school system was in shambles. Years of civil war and a 2014 Ebola outbreak shut down schools nationwide; only radical action could correct course. Then-President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf charged then-Education Minister George Werner with doing just that.The following year, Werner implemented the Liberian Education Advancement Program (LEAP). This initiative brought in eight independent operators to run a handful of Liberian schools, the most successful of which was Kenya-based Bridge International Academies.On this episode, host Nat Malkus talks with Werner and Steve Cantrell, Bridge International’s vice president of measurement and evaluation. Join the discussion on the educational landscape of Liberia, Bridge International’s impressive outcomes, and the work yet to be done.

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat speaks with Daniel Willingham, Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia and the author of Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning is Hard and How You Can Make It Easy. Nat and Dan discuss the benefits and limitations of the science of learning, why we don't spend enough time teaching students how to learn, learning styles and education myths, the potential education benefits of chewing gum, why ed schools need to teach more than just Piaget, education R&D, why students develop bad study habits, how students are different and how they are the same, entrance exams, group assignments, the value of memorization and content knowledge, why students should learn subjects that they will later forget, and more.Show Notes:Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning is Hard and How You Can Make It EasyWhy Don't Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the ClassroomRaising Kids Who Read: What Parents and Teachers Can Do

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat reviews the past year in education with Laura Meckler of the Washington Post, Linda Jacobson of The 74, and Goldie Blumenstyk of the Chronicle of Higher Education. Nat, Laura, Linda, and Goldie discuss affirmative action, school masking, ChatGPT, the top pieces of education journalism from the past year, higher education labor strikes, enrollment shortages, book bans, how education journalists use Twitter, COVID recovery, learning loss, sports gambling on college campuses, what education stories audiences want, income driven repayment, technology in schools, student mental health, what we can expect from the coming year, and more.Show Notes:How Colleges and Sports-Betting Companies ‘Caesarized’ Campus LifeYoung and Homeless in Rural AmericaSold a StoryAs AI Writing Gets Better, Teachers Work to Stop the Inevitable CheatingVirtual Nightmare: One Student’s Journey Through the PandemicA 'Blanket Approach' Won't Win Adults Back

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat speaks with Jennifer Frey, associate professor of philosophy at the University of South Carolina and the host of Sacred and Profane Love. Nat and Jennifer discuss human happiness and education, what psychology doesn't understand about happiness, why we should care about teaching virtue, the Hillbilly Elegy, the proper ends of education, why it's not such a great idea to let children choose what they read, Catholic education, whether it is old fashioned to teach virtue, Social and Emotional Learning, the liberal arts, and more.Show Notes:The Universe and the UniversityLiberal Education and Human FlourishingThe Jubilee CentreVirtue and Classic Children's Literature