The Report Card with Nat Malkus

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat interviews Ian Rowe, senior fellow at AEI, cofounder of Vertex Partnership Academies, and the author of Agency: The Four Point Plan (F.R.E.E.) for ALL Children to Overcome the Victimhood Narrative and Discover Their Pathway to Power. Nat and Ian discuss what the "blame the victim" and the "blame the system" narratives get wrong, Teach for America, the importance of mediating institutions in developing agency within the individual, the state of music videos, why young people want to be taught the success sequence, charter schools, Ian's parents' education in Jamaica, what students can learn from investing in the stock market, MLK, why morality must be a part of agency, F.R.E.E., why family and entrepreneurship broadly understood are important for building agency, why it is harmful when teachers overemphasize systemic racism, and much more.Show Notes:Agency: The Four Point Plan (F.R.E.E.) for ALL Children to Overcome the Victimhood Narrative and Discover Their Pathway to PowerHere’s why all students need agency rather than ‘equity’Vertex Partnership AcademiesBuilding Successful High Schools

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat interviews Beth Akers, senior fellow at AEI and the coauthor of Game of Loans: The Rhetoric and Reality of Student Debt. Nat and Beth discuss student loans, student loan forgiveness, why student loan forgiveness might make college more expensive, whether student loan forgiveness would be a good way to address the racial wealth gap, whether it makes sense to forgive student loans in order to encourage entrepreneurship, the dangers of working during college, how to fix income-driven repayment, the benefits of income share agreements, whether for-profit colleges can be good, and what President Biden should do on student loans.Show Notes:Making College Pay: An Economist Explains How to Make a Smart Bet on Higher EducationGame of Loans: The Rhetoric and Reality of Student DebtFAQ: Student Loan Cancellation EditionStudent Loan Cancellation Will Backfire Without Additional ReformAnticipated Executive Order Cancelling Student Loans Unpopular on Right and LeftAnother Extension of the Student-loan-repayment Freeze Is Bad Policy

On the latest episode of The Report Card, Nat interviews Emily Morton and Dan Goldhaber about their new paper The Consequences of Remote and Hybrid Instruction During the Pandemic, which uses testing data from 2.1 million students in 10,000 schools in 49 states to investigate the role of remote and hybrid instruction in widening achievement gaps. Show Notes:The Consequences of Remote and Hybrid Instruction During the PandemicA Comprehensive Picture of Achievement Across the COVID-19 Pandemic Years: Examining Variation in Test Levels and Growth Across Districts, Schools, Grades, and StudentsEffects of Four-Day School Weeks on School Finance and Achievement: Evidence From OklahomaReturn 2 Learn Tracker‘Not Good for Learning’

On the latest episode of The Report Card, Nat interviews Ilana Horwitz, Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies and Sociology at Tulane, about her new book, God, Grades, and Graduation. Nat and Ilana discuss the impact of religion on student outcomes, why religion helps working class kids get better grades and graduate from college at higher rates, the educational benefits of summer camp, Palo Alto, whether the boys are alright, the academy's understanding of American religious life, why religion helps boys academically more than it helps girls, education in the Soviet Union, why atheists also do better in school, how religion combats despair in working class America, why religious kids might not learn more even though they get better grades, religious girls and undermatching, the trajectory of evangelical Christianity in America, the importance of social capital, the logic of religious restraint, and why Jewish girls do well academically.Also in this episode? The debut of Grade It. Show Notes:God, Grades, and GraduationI Followed the Lives of 3,290 Teenagers. This Is What I Learned About Religion and Education.The Future of Higher Education Needs to Embrace ReligionFrom Bat Mitzvah to the Bar: Religious Habitus, Self-Concept, and Women’s Educational Outcomes

It's a challenge for school systems to recruit and retain quality teachers, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. This challenge has spurred a number of creative solutions. One, announced earlier this year, is Tennessee's Teacher Occupation Apprenticeship program, also known as Grow Your Own. Tennessee's Grow Your Own program is based on 65 already existing Grow Your Own programs within the state.Here to discuss Grow Your Own with Nat are Penny Schwinn, Tennessee Education Commissioner, and Kate Walsh, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality.Show Notes:Grow Your OwnUptick but no exodus: Despite stress, most teachers stay put

Two upcoming court cases, one a Supreme Court case on affirmative action at Harvard and the other a federal court case on financial aid price-fixing schemes at many of the nation's top colleges, promise to rock American higher education.Josh Dunn, professor of political science at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, and Eric Hoover, senior writer at The Chronicle of Higher Education, join Nat Malkus to discuss these cases and their potential implications.Show Notes:Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College568 Presidents Group Lawsuit

Over the course of the pandemic, masking requirements—particularly school masking requirements—have been a flashpoint issue.So: what is going on in schools? Which school districts require masking and which don’t? And what demographic factors might help explain masking policies?Here to discuss is Nat Malkus, with John Bailey as guest host.Show notes:The Return to Learn Tracker: Mask Edition

We've talked a lot on the show about school choice. But it's not often we discuss intra-district choice - choice between schools in the same district. Starting in 2012, Los Angeles' Zones of Choice program creates small local markets with High Schools in neighborhoods throuhgout 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 is Christopher Campos and John Deasy.Shownotes:The Impact of Neighborhood School Choice: Evidence from Los Angeles' Zones of Choice Program.

American schooling has been on a bumpy road the past few years. COVID-19 is the obvious issues here, but it's not only that. Students have increasingly faced mental health issues and that preceded the pandemic. All the while, we've seen one polarizing issue after another shaking classrooms across the country. This bumpy road has been eloquently summarized in a new piece by Robert Pondiscio in the lead essay for the March issue of Commentary Magazine, titled: The unbearable bleakness in American schooling.

In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic put a halt to traditional schooling. In response to the, then, relatively unknown threat of COVID-19, Congress sent emergency relief funding to schools. They did so again, sending much more money. Then, they did so again, sending much much more money. These funds, known as the Elementary and Secondary Schooling Emergency Relief funds, or ESSER for short, totaled nearly $200 billion, making it the largest federal expenditure for public education in American history.So, where did these funds go, and for what? Here to discuss is the Director of Georgetown University's Edunomics Lab, Marguerite Roza. Show notes:Marguerite's latest Education Next article: Punishment for Making Hard Choices in a Crisis: Federal Prison