The Report Card with Nat Malkus

College is expensive. Despite this, every year, millions of students enroll in college. For many, this decision is primarily based on the expectation that they will receive a positive positive return on their investment. Given this logic, it’d be easy to think that the choice of whether to attend college is the most important predictor of ones’ financial future. But, what if that logic is flawed?...

School choice is one of the most controversial issues in education, and it has been for some time. Since the 1990s, support for private school choice has become increasingly politicized – with Republicans making it central to their campaign and Democrats largely in opposition. Despite this, Republicans have approached school choice legislation in a bipartisan fashion. But, does school choice legis...

Every year, there are a fair few awards and honors handed out in the ed policy space, but none carry the same prestige or repute as the Yidan Prize . On this episode of The Report Card with Nat Malkus , Rick Hanushek , winner of the 2021 Yidan Prize, discusses his past and future research and imparts some words of wisdom for young education researchers.

Americans have long viewed education as something that primarily happens in schools, and for good reason; since the introduction of the common school, most formal education has taken place in schools. But that all changed when the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered school buildings in March 2020, forcing the locus of education to switch from the classroom to the home. So, how has the COVID-19 pandemic im...

The school grounds have been the site of many of America’s most contentious debates, and, after the tumultuous year we've had, it’d be easy to think that Americans are more divided than ever on education issues. But are Americans as divided as they seem? On this episode of The Report Card with Nat Malkus , Dan Cox and Nat discuss their new report on American public opinion about COVID-19 mitigatio...

State assessments from this past spring are slowly coming out and, so far, they’ve all painted a similar picture: students are far behind where they should be in reading and math, and some student groups are further behind than others. On this episode of The Report Card with Nat Malkus , Dr. Vlad Kogan and Dr. Stéphane Lavertu discuss their recent report on Ohio student test scores. Read Dr. Kogan...

As students once again head back to school amid increasing Covid cases and hospilizations, can states and districts legally require eligible students and staff to receive the Covid-19 vaccine? Should they? Lawrence Gostin , the Linda D. & Timothy J. O’Neill Professor of Global Health Law at the Georgetown University Law Center and the director of the WHO Collaborating Center on National and Gl...

In March, state and local governments were given an unprecedented $350 billion in flexible funding to reduce hardships caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. How can these funds best be used to address the needs of America’s students? In particular, how might these funds be used to send direct payments to students and families for private school tuition, tutoring, learning pods, and other educational ex...

When the coronavirus pandemic hit late in the 2019-2020 school year, its impact on student learning didn’t take a summer vacation. One year later, with Covid retreating and vaccination efforts well underway, what does summer learning look like? And what effect might summer programing this year have on remediating Covid learning loss? Christine Pitts , a resident policy fellow at the Center on Rein...

Back-to-school 2020 didn’t go as smoothly as hoped. Many districts that were slated to offer in-person learning abruptly changed to their reopening plans only weeks before the start of the year, and many of those that did reopen for in-person learning were forced to close for weeks at a time as Covid rates increased. With back-to-school 2021 just around the corner, what should parents and students...

How did Critical Race Theory (CRT)—once relegated to graduate school seminars and academic journals—become one of the most hotly debated K-12 issues, seemingly overnight? What exactly is CRT? Should states be banning it from K-12 classrooms? AEI's Robert Pondiscio and Ian Rowe join Nat Malkus to discuss these questions and more on the latest episode of The Report Card.

As the Biden administration begins the process of rewriting Title IX regulations and undoing many of the changes to made under Secretary Betsy DeVos, host Nat Malkus dusts off a recording of a debate among leading law experts on the Trump-era changes to Title IX, which took place in front of a live audience at AEI in the summer of 2019.

In just three years, 45 states adopted the Common Core State Standards. By that metric alone, one might argue that the Common Core was a huge success. But on this episode of The Report Card with Nat Malkus , Tom Loveless and Morgan Polikoff argue that the Common Core has failed to move the needle on student learning and discuss the potential of standards-based reform going forward. Read Tom and Mo...

College is expensive. How can students and parents make sure that it pays off? On this episode of The Report Card with Nat Malkus , Beth Akers , resident scholar in education policy at AEI, discusses her new book, Making College Pay: An Economist Explains How to Make a Smart Bet on Higher Education (Penguin Random House, 2021). You can purchase Making College Pay at Amazon , Barnes & Noble , o...

Why have fewer Black and Hispanic students returned to their classrooms for full-time in-person learning relative to white students? And what effect will this have on the nation’s stubborn racial achievement gaps? Vlad Kogan , associate professor of political science at Ohio State, and Chris Stewart , CEO of brightbeam, weigh in on this episode of The Report Card with Nat Malkus . Read Vlad Kogan'...

While hybrid education may appear to be an invention of necessity spurred by the pandemic, splitting instruction between traditional brick-and-mortar schooling and homeschooling has been practiced—albeit on a limited scale—for quite some time. On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus talks with Ed Choice's Mike McShane about his recent book on hybrid homeschooling, " Hybrid Homeschooling: A...

Enrollment in preschool and kindergarten programs has dropped significantly over the past year. What's behind Covid enrollment drops and how might they affect students, schools, and systems in the coming years? UVA post-doc Anna Shapiro and Virginia's Chief School Readiness Officer Jenna Conway discuss on this episode of The Report Card with Nat Malkus . To learn more about Covid enrollment drops,...

Students are months behind where they should be in their learning. Could a nation-wide tutoring program catch them up to speed? Moreover, what would it take to equalize access to high-quality tutoring over the long term? Matt Kraft of Brown University and Josh Goodman of Boston University discuss on this episode of "The Report Card with Nat Malkus." Read the working papers discussed on this episod...

It's been 12 months since the coronavirus pandemic sent the nation's students home. How many have returned to classrooms? That's a straightforward question, but one that's proven exceptionally difficult to answer. On this episode of "The Report Card," Nat Malkus discusses his newly launched Return to Learn Tracker (R2L) , which monitors the instructional status of over 8,500 school districts on a...

Over the past several decades, a considerable body of research has looked at whether charter schools benefit students who choose to enroll in them. More recently, researchers have turned their attention to a related question: Is the expansion of the charter school sector harming students who remain in traditional public schools? On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus asks two experts to we...

Over the course of a weekend last March, students saw their day-to-day routines completely upended. Now, eleven months into the pandemic, how are students holding up? On this episode of "The Report Card," Nat Malkus talks with two school counselors about their work supporting students during the pandemic: 2020 School Counselor of the Year Laura Ross , the lead school counselor at Five Forks Middle...

Just about any parent could attest that remote learning hasn’t exactly been a one-to-one substitute for in-person learning. But just how far behind have students fallen over the past ten months? On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus talks with two experts: Megan Kuhfeld , a senior research scientist at NWEA, and McKinsey and Company's global education practice manager Emma Dorn.

What does President-elect Joe Biden’s selection of Miguel Cardona suggest about what we might see in education in the next four years? And what are the chances Cardona will be able to accomplish Biden’s agenda? On this episode of the Report Card, Nat Malkus talks with two education mavens about the challenges and prospects facing Secretary-designate Cardona: AEI's own Rick Hess and Andy Rotherham...

In just a few short weeks, Joe Biden will take office amid some of the most trying circumstances faced by an incoming president in modern history. What does it take to lead successfully in a time of crisis? Governor Jeb Bush weighs in on this rebroadcasted episode of The Report Card with Nat Malkus .

What will President Biden do with respect to free college? Should college be free for all students or only some students? Would a free college program supplant our current system of financial aid and student loans, or merely supplement it? On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus talks about the ins and outs of free college with two higher education experts: Kevin Carey of New America and AE...