The Education Exchange

Do teens need a sense of purpose? William Damon of the Stanford Center on Adolescence says that developing a sense of purpose is one of the most important but overlooked aspects of adolescent development. He talks with Paul Peterson about his his work on how we develop a sense of purpose and what schools can do to help.

Boston Collegiate Charter School is the most diverse school in Boston. Paul E. Peterson talks with Richard Whitmire, whose article, "Why Boston’s Most Racially Diverse School Could Also Be the Country’s Most Interesting School Integration Story," looks at what makes the school so special and how the school has managed to attract such a diverse population. Read his full feature in The 74 here: http...

Ashley Jochim, a senior research analyst at the Center on Reinventing Public Conflict between school districts and charter schools is not inevitable, argues Ashley Jochim. Paul Peterson talks with Jochim about the factors that allow some school districts to collaborate with charter schools. This is the topic of her new paper, “Collision Course: Embracing Politics to Succeed in District-Charter Col...

State interventions to improve struggling local school districts have a mixed record, but in Lawrence, Massachusetts, a state takeover seems to be turning things around. Paul Peterson talks with Beth Schueler about her new report, “School District Turnaround: Learning from Leadership in Lawrence, Massachusetts." https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/rappaport/research-and-publications/policy-briefs/...

Morris Fiorina, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of “Unstable Majorities: Polarization, Party Sorting, and Political Stalemate,” joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss his new book, which aims to correct the widespread assumption that Americans today are more polarized than ever.

Gerard Robinson joins Paul Peterson to reflect on the life of Dr. Martin Luther King and the work of improving educational opportunities for disadvantaged children. Robinson, who has served as secretary of education in Virginia and Florida, is now executive director of the Center for Advancing Opportunity, which supports research-based solutions to the challenges faced by fragile communities throu...

Some recent studies of the impact of school choice have found only a limited impact on academic achievement but larger positive effects on long-term outcomes like attainment and earnings. What could account for this? In this episode of the podcast, Paul talks with Marty West about his new working paper on the impact of school choice on non-cognitive skills.

Albert Cheng of the Harvard Kennedy School sits down with Paul E. Peterson to discuss his research that looks into whether students with a career and technical education diploma do better than students with a traditional diploma.

The state of New Jersey is returning to the city of Newark the power to run its school system. Chris Cerf, who served as state superintendent of New Jersey and then district superintendent of Newark, joins Paul Peterson to talk about the changes that have taken place in the Newark school district and what lies ahead.

Daniel Hamlin of Harvard's Program on Education Policy and Governance sits down with Paul E. Peterson to discuss his paper, "Are Charter Schools Safer in Deindustrialized Cities With High Rates of Crime? Testing Hypotheses in Detroit," which investigates whether there's any difference in student perception of safety between district and charter schools in Detroit. Read his full paper here: http://...

Michael Podgursky, Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss the role of public sector unions in negotiating and sometimes even selling health care and other benefits to its members.

Josh Goodman of the Harvard Kennedy School sits down with Paul E. Peterson to discuss a new master's degree in computer science offered by Georgia Tech. The computer science department, one of the top 10 programs in the country, has set up a flexible, online program for working adults that charges only 1/6 of what an in-person master's degree costs. Read the full paper, co-written with Julia Melke...

Martin Lueken of EdChoice and Benjamin Scafidi of Kennesaw State University sit down with Paul E. Peterson to discuss their reasearch on the effect of the Indiana Choice Scholarship Program on school district resources.

Demand for seats in charter schools remains high among families but public enthusiasm for continued growth of the charter sector seems to be slipping. Jason Riley, Wall Street Journal columnist and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, sits down with Paul E. Peterson to discuss where the opposition to charter schools is coming from.

The U.S. Department of Education is urging states and school districts to expand their school voucher programs. In this episode of the podcast, Paul talks with Dennis Epple, an economics professor at Carnegie Mellon and one of the co-authors of a paper that reviews the literature on voucher programs and comes up with recommendations for practitioners.

Steve Klinsky, founder and CEO of ModernStates.org, joins Paul Peterson to discuss his new charity, which offers students up to 40 transferrable college credits for free. Modern States presents a set of high-quality online courses, taught by real college professors, that students would typically take in their freshman year of college. Students access the courses and textbooks for free online and e...

Margaret Raymond, director of CREDO at Stanford University, sits down with Paul Peterson to discuss CREDO's latest study on charter schools in New York City. Read the full report here: https://credo.stanford.edu/pdfs/nyc_report%202017%2010%2002%20FINAL.pdf

While serving as chancellor of D.C. Public Schools, Michelle Rhee developed an innovative system of teacher evaluation to incentivize high performance and teacher improvement. In this episode of the podcast, she talks with Paul Peterson about how the IMPACT system promotes teacher retention and performance through pay.

A new Fordham report finds that 28% of teachers in traditional district schools miss more than 10 school days a year for sick or personal leave while teachers in charter schools have lower rates absences. David Griffith of the Fordham Institute talks with Paul Peterson about the report and about where teacher absence rates are high and low. Read more about the study here: http://educationnext.org/...

Diane Tavenner, CEO of Summit Schools, sits down with Paul E. Peterson to discuss how Summit is changing how schools are run, and why they've had so much success in student achievement.

n many sectors of our economy, there are serious shortages of applicants with the right skills for the available jobs. Many of these jobs do not require a college degree. Are too many students choosing four-year universities rather than getting a useful credential from a two year college? What happens to people who get specific job training rather than academic training when the job market changes...

The 2017 Education Next poll asked the public, parents, and teachers what share of teachers at your local public school are excellent, good, satisfactory and unsatisfactory. Overall, people are quite pleased with the quality of teachers in their local school, but the public sees 15 percent of teachers as unsatisfactory, and even teachers believe 11 percent are ineffective. EdNext Editor-in-chief M...

Paul E. Peterson talks with Anna Egalite of N.C. State about her new study looking at why some private schools do and others don't participate in North Carolina's means-tested voucher program and also at how families make the decision about whether or not to use a school voucher. You can read the study at https://ced.ncsu.edu/elphd/research/the-impact-of-the-north-carolina-opportunity-scholarship-...

Paul is joined by EdNext editor-in-chief Marty West to discuss findings from the new EdNext poll on school reform, which measured public support for the rights of Muslim students and of evangelical students to form afterschool religious clubs. Read more on the 2017 EdNext poll here: http://educationnext.org/2017-ednext-poll-school-reform-public-opinion-school-choice-common-core-higher-ed/

Former New Mexico Secretary of Education Hanna Skandera joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss some of her accomplishments in the state.