EdNext Podcast

The 43rd Governor of the State of Florida and the President and Chairman of the Foundation for Excellence in Education, Jeb Bush, joins Education Next Editor-in-chief Marty West for the 200th episode of the EdNext Podcast. Gov. Bush discusses his experience managing crises, as well as some of the best practices to continue education during the Covid-19 pandemic shutdowns.

Gov. Bush recently wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post, "It’s time to embrace distance learning — and not just because of the coronavirus."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/03/jeb-bush-its-time-embrace-distance-learning-not-just-because-coronavirus/

A visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, John Bailey, joins Education Next Editor-in-chief Marty West to discuss Bailey's new study, which details how students and teachers can plan to return to physical school buildings in the 2020-21 academic year amid the Covid-19 pandemic. "It's going to be a lot of creative problem-solving to tackle this.," Bailey says.

The report was developed with the help of "an all-star group" of 19 former education officials.

"A Blueprint for Back to School," by Bailey and Frederick Hess, is available now:

https://www.educationnext.org/a-blueprint-for-back-to-school-what-will-it-take-get-schools-ready-coronavirus-covid-19/

The CEO of Chiefs for Change, Mike Magee, joins Education Next Editor-in-chief Marty West to discuss how schools are responding to challenges posed by the novel coronavirus.

"One of our members said to us on a call this past week that this is the earthquake and it's going to be followed by a tsunami when it comes to district budgets," Magee says. "Every district in America is going to have to significantly rethink the roles of adults in all of their school buildings."

The full report, "Schools and Covid-19: How Districts and State Education Systems are Responding to the Pandemic," is available now.

https://schoolsandcovid19.org

A former deputy director of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Lynn Olson, joins Education Next Editor-in-chief Marty West to discuss her new report from FutureEd. It details how standardized testing has come under bipartisan attack, and what will need for change for testing to survive.

Read "Statewide Standardized Assessments Were in Peril Even Before the Coronavirus. Now They’re Really in Trouble," by Olson, who is a senior fellow at FutureEd, and Craig Jerald.

https://www.educationnext.org/statewide-standardized-assessments-were-in-peril-before-coronavirus-bipartisan-backlash/

A senior fellow at Mathematica and director of REL Mid- Atlantic, Brian P. Gill, joins Education Next Editor-in-chief Marty West to discuss what schools can do to measure what is happening during distance learning.

Read Gill's blog post, "Using Transparency To Create Accountability When School Buildings Are Closed and Tests Are Canceled."

https://www.educationnext.org/using-transparency-create-accountability-school-buildings-are-closed-tests-canceled-coronavirus-covid-19/

An executive editor of Education Next and president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, Mike Petrilli, joins Editor-in-chief Marty West to discuss how median SAT scores show that colleges have raised their selectivity standards since 1985.

Read "Yes, It Really Is Harder to Get into Highly Selective Colleges Today," by Petrilli and Pedro Enamorado.

https://www.educationnext.org/yes-it-really-is-harder-to-get-into-highly-selective-colleges-today-comparison-sat-scores-over-time/

A Research Professor at Georgetown University and Director of the Edunomics Lab, Marguerite Roza, joins Education Next Editor-in-chief Marty West to discus what how recent financial instability could affect public education.

Roza recently delivered a webinar on this subject, and the slides from it are available here.

https://edunomicslab.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Financial-turmoil-Final.pdf

A visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, John Bailey, joins Education Next Editor-in-chief Marty West to discuss how closing schools is a crucial step to mitigating the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Read Bailey's blog post, "Closing Schools To Slow a Pandemic."

https://www.educationnext.org/closing-schools-to-slow-a-pandemic-coronavirus-covid-19-public-health/

A co-founder of and a distinguished fellow at the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, Michael Horn, joins Education Next Editor-in-chief Marty West. They discuss how the coronavirus-caused move to online learning could result in poor substitutes for face-to-face classes. That may wind up eventually slowing, rather than accelerating, the progress of online learning.

A senior researcher at Mathematica, Ira Nichols-Barrer, and the executive director of KIPP Massachusetts, Caleb Dolan, join Education Next Editor-in-chief Marty West to discuss a new study by Mathematica that shows charter middle schools can increase the likelihood of enrolling in college.

A blog post by Nichols-Barrer, Philip Gleason, and Thomas Coen on the study is available here: https://www.educationnext.org/new-research-kipp-charter-middle-schools-can-improve-early-college-outcomes/