The Education Exchange

Evan Stone, the co-founder and CEO of Educators for Excellence, joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss his organization’s new survey, "Voices from the Classroom: A Survey of America’s Educators." https://e4e.org/sites/default/files/2018_voices_from_the_classroom_teacher_survey.pdf

Before schools in the southern U.S. were racially integrated, schools for African American students were staffed almost exclusively by African American teachers. After the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, southern schools began to be desegregated, and this had a big effect on black teacher employment. Economist Owen Thompsont talks with Paul E. Peterson about his paper, “School Desegregation and Black Teacher Employment," in which he estimates the percentage decline in black teacher employment in the south after desegregation. https://www.sugarsync.com/pf/D1811793_87119961_1702858

Michael McConnell, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a former Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Students in Washington, D.C. have been making large gains on NAEP, and many credit the transformation of the teaching profession that has taken place in DCPS over the past decade. Thomas Toch of FutureEd joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss his report, A Policymaker’s Playbook: Transforming Public School Teaching in the Nation’s Capital, which takes a close look those changes. Read the full report here: https://www.future-ed.org/a-policymakers-playbook-for-transforming-teaching/

The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) faces a debt of between $11-15 billion. How did the school district get itself into such a financial hole and what might it do to get out of it? Lisa Snell of the Reason Foundation joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss the challenges faced by the district and its options. Snell is a co-author of A 2018 Evaluation of LAUSD’s Fiscal Outlook: Revisiting the Findings of the 2015 Independent Financial Review Panel. https://reason.org/policy-study/2018-evaluation-of-lausd-fiscal-outlook/

On the last day of its 2017-2018 term, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Janus vs. AFSCME that public employee unions can no longer collect agency fees from non-members. Clint Bolick, an associate justice of the Arizona Supreme Court, joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss why the U.S. Supreme Court felt it was necessary to overrule a decision from the 1970s allowing agency fees.

Charter schools have been in the news lately, as supporters and opponents have debated whether they are expanding opportunities for students most in need or whether they are increasing segregation. Earlier this month, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce held a hearing on charter schools and EdNext's Marty West was invited to testify. Today, Marty West joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss his testimony and these debates over charter schools Watch the full hearing here. http://educationnext.org/watching-hearing-power-charter-schools/

In San Diego, one in ten students attends a magnet school, and because admission is sometimes determined by lottery, researchers have been able to study the impact of attending a magnet school on long-term outcomes. In this episode, Julian Betts of the University of California, San Diego joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss his research on magnet schools in San Diego. Betts is the co-author of "The Long-Term Effects of Public School Choice: Lottery Evidence from San Diego," with Sam M. Young, Andrew C. Zau and Karen Volz Bachofer, available at https://sites.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/conferences/learning-from-longterm-effects-2018/papers/panel-i-betts-et-al.pdf

Are graduates of private schools as active in the public sphere as graduates of public schools? David Sikkink, an associate professor of sociology at Notre Dame, finds that when it comes to volunteering and charitable giving, graduates of private religious schools are more likely to be engaged. He joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss his research. Read the full paper, co-written with Jonathan Schwartz, here: https://sites.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/conferences/learning-from-longterm-effects-2018/papers/panel-iii-sikkink.pdf

A new analysis by Education Next finds that the state that has raised its proficiency standards the most over the past 10 years is Tennessee. In this episode, Tennessee Commissioner of Education Candice McQueen joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss how her state has raised its standards and made other changes to advance student learning. Read the full report here: http://educationnext.org/have-states-maintained-high-expectations-student-performance-analysis-2017-proficiency-standards/