The Education Exchange

David Zweig joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss new book, An Abundance of Caution: American Schools, the Virus, and a Story of Bad Decisions, and how the U.S. response to Covid-19 became shaped by politics.

Bhash Mazumder, a Professor of Economics at the University of California, Irvine, joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss Mazumder's recent paper, which looks into the history of the Rosenwald Schools in the segregated South and their connection to political activism. "Schooling and Political Activism in the Early Civil Rights Era," co-written with Daniel Aaronson, Mark Borgschulte, and Sunny Liu, is available now. https://www.chicagofed.org/publications/working-papers/2024/2024-06

Ben Scafidi, Professor and Director of the Education Economics Center at Kennesaw State University, joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss the 2025 Kansas Open Enrollment Report and its implications on enrollment policies nationwide.

Michael Hartney, a fellow at the Hoover Institution and assistant professor of political science at Boston College, joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss their new joint research, which finds that states that voted for Kamala Harris in the last presidential election saw more learning loss following the Covid-19 pandemic than those that voted for Donald Trump, according to the most recent results from the 2014 National Assessment of Education Progress. "Red States Have Seen Less Learning Loss," co-written by Hartney and Peterson, is available now. https://www.educationnext.org/red-states-have-seen-less-learning-loss-post-pandemic-scores-nations-report-card-naep/

Thomas Kane, the Walter H. Gale Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss how school districts have been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, and how districts need to pivot from short-term recovery to long-term strategies to improve student outcomes. The latest edition of the Education Recovery Scorecard is available now. https://educationrecoveryscorecard.org/

Stephen Macedo, the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Politics at the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University, joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss Macedo's new book, "In Covid's Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us."

Steven Wilson, a Senior Fellow at Center on Reinventing Public Education, joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss Wilson's new book, The Lost Decade: Returning to the Fight for Better Schools in America.

Jennifer Hochschild, the Henry LaBarre Jayne Professor of Government at Harvard University, joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss Hochschild's latest book, "Race/Class Conflict and Urban Financial Threat."

Adam Gamoran, the president of the William T. Grant Foundation, joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss how the Trump Administration's contract cancellations will effect the Institute of Education Sciences.

Nick Melvoin, member of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education, joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss how LAUSD have responded to the Palisades wildfires, and reactions to the latest NAEP results in the district.