The Report Card with Nat Malkus

A lot has happened in education over the last few weeks. Among other things, Congress passed a national school choice program and reshaped the student loan system. The Justice Department pressured the University of Virginia’s president to step down. And the Trump administration began withholding nearly seven billion dollars in education funds that were set to go out by the beginning of July. On th...

About one month ago, the House passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a massive bill aimed at advancing President Trump’s domestic policy agenda. Now, the bill is with the Senate. Included in the bill are huge changes to student lending. In particular, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act would make drastic changes to loan limits, repayment plans, and the rules for which programs are eligible to partici...

When schools went remote during the pandemic, internet access became essential, but not all students had access to a high-quality connection. So, in the summer of 2020, Chicago launched Chicago Connected to provide free broadband for students in the city who needed it most. But, according to a recent paper, Chicago Connected did not help all students equally. In Heterogeneous Effects of Closing th...

A lot has happened over the past couple of weeks. The Trump administration announced that it would go after Harvard’s ability to enroll international students. A judge ordered the Department of Education to rehire the employees it had fired. And the Supreme Court split 4–4 on Oklahoma’s religious charter school. —And all of that was just on May 22. On this episode of The Report Card , Nat Malkus d...

Kids spend hours a day on their phones scrolling through social media. Many have debated whether all this social media use is bad for mental health, but there’s a more basic question that needs to be asked: Does all this social media use promote healthy development? Does it help kids develop into well-formed adults? Does it help kids become resilient to the challenges they will face in their lives...

On this episode of The Report Card , Nat Malkus , Andy Rotherham , and Rick Hess break down the latest on the education policy landscape. Nat, Andy, and Rick discuss budget reconciliation, what the creation of a national tax credit scholarship program would mean for school choice, how potential changes to student lending would affect borrowers and schools, why Republicans are interested in increas...

Five years ago, schools shut down for the COVID-19 pandemic. Schooling was remote for the rest of the year, and many schools would remain remote for much of the following year. Europe took a different approach. In many European countries, schools reopened that first pandemic spring, only weeks after closing. Schools, officials determined, were safe to reopen. So: Why did American schools stay clos...

It’s day 107 of the second Trump administration, and a lot has happened over the last two weeks. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases that sit at the intersection of schooling and religious liberty. Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a massive ESA bill into law. President Trump signed a raft of executive orders on education. And the Trump administration continued its fight with Harva...

On April 30, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummond , in which a virtual school in Oklahoma is attempting to become the nation’s first religious charter school. On this episode of The Report Card , Nat Malkus and four experts discuss and debate the case and the many questions it raises: Can religious charter schools be constitutiona...

It’s day 93 of the Trump administration, and the education landscape hasn’t yet calmed down. The Trump administration has gone after Harvard, and Harvard is fighting back. The Trump administration has revoked the visas of hundreds of international students. NAEP is being scaled back. Iowa requested a waiver from the Department of Education to exercise more flexibility in how it spends federal fund...

On this episode of The Report Card , Nat Malkus speaks with Eva Moskowitz , the founder and CEO of Success Academy. Nat and Eva discuss why COVID learning loss is a misnomer; whether chronically absent students should face consequences for their poor attendance; why, despite its strong academic performance, Success Academy decided to overhaul its curriculum; what Success Academy looks for when hir...

A lot has happened in the education world over the last few weeks. President Trump signed an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education. The Trump administration has taken aggressive actions targeting elite universities and has threatened to withhold funding from K–12 schools over DEI programming. And the Department of Education said that states would lose nearly $3 billion in COVID...

In the education world over the past few years, a lot of attention has been paid to phonics and balanced literacy and the ways in which reading instruction practices often don’t align with what we know about how students learn to read. Are there any obvious parallels in math instruction? Are there bad ideas about how students learn math that prevent students from learning more? Is there a disconne...

Last week, more than 1,300 individuals at the Department of Education were laid off, including over 300 at Federal Student Aid, nearly 250 at the Office for Civil Rights, and over 100 at the Institute of Education Sciences. All told, since Trump took office, the workforce at the Department of Education has been cut nearly in half. What is the operating strategy behind these cuts? What effect will...

Since the Supreme Court’s 2021 decision in NCAA v. Alston paved the way for universities to pay student-athletes, college sports have changed dramatically. Now, the NCAA is asking for an antitrust exemption to help navigate these changes. The NCAA is surely facing a complex set of challenges, but an antitrust exemption is a big ask. This raises the question: Is an antitrust exemption a reasonable...

Graduation rates have been rising for over a decade. Indeed, even during the pandemic, as students learned less and chronic absenteeism exploded, graduation rates continued to rise. One important part of this story might be the rise of credit recovery programs. Each year, credit recovery programs help students who have failed a course continue their schooling without repeating a year. But what exa...

On this episode of The Report Card , Nat Malkus speaks with Marty West and Mark Schneider about 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results in 4th and 8th grade reading and math. Nat, Marty, and Mark discuss why math scores went up or stayed flat while reading scores declined; potential bright spots in the 2024 results; whether recent score declines should be attributed to fact...

In 2022, Sold a Story debuted, bringing renewed attention—and scrutiny—to literacy instruction. Indeed, since Sold a Story came out, at least 25 states have passed reading laws. On this episode of The Report Card , Nat Malkus speaks with Emily Hanford , host of Sold a Story . Nat and Emily discuss why Sold a Story took off, the impact Sold a Story has had on the literacy landscape, the state of in...

This past spring, protests over the war in Gaza roiled college campuses across America. But what sort of effect has the war in Gaza had on college campuses in Israel? What is the mood like on campus when many students are called up to fight? Do courses in the liberal arts feel less relevant in the middle of a war? And how do the practicalities of war affect day-to-day academic operations? On this...

We are now coming to the end of another year. What were the biggest stories in education this year? What stories didn’t get as much attention as they should have? And what can we expect from the coming year? On this episode of The Report Card , Nat Malkus discusses these questions, and more, with three education journalists: Dana Goldstein of The New York Times , Linda Jacobson of The 74 , and Eri...

Exceptional students often become exceptional adults who help drive scientific progress and economic growth. But without mentors to identify and develop their talents, many of these exceptional students will not make good on their potential. So: How can we make sure that more exceptional students have access to the mentors they need? How exceptional do these mentors need to be? And how many except...

Many education researchers spend a lot of time studying how students learn, but if their findings don’t make their way into the classroom, they are only so useful. For example, researchers have known about the benefits of phonics for decades, but despite these benefits, many teachers were not using phonics in their classrooms. So: Why don’t research-based practices make their way into the classroo...

What will last Tuesday’s elections mean for education? Will President Trump actually eliminate the Department of Education? What does the future of school choice look like? Will Democrats and Republicans team up on workforce issues? And who will be the next secretary of education? On this episode of The Report Card , Nat Malkus discusses these questions and more with Derrell Bradford, Preston Coop...

On this episode of The Report Card , Nat Malkus speaks with David Figlio about school choice, accountability, and peer effects. Nat and David discuss how school choice programs affect students who remain in traditional public schools; what other choice mechanisms can tell us about universal ESAs; the effects of school accountability on life outcomes; holding students back; the teaching quality of...

The College Board is one of the most influential education organizations in America: The SAT plays a large role in determining what college many students attend, and the AP program shapes what many students study both in high school and in college. This is a lot of power for one company to have, and naturally raises some questions. How does the College Board understand its role in the college admi...