The Report Card with Nat Malkus

Note: This episode originally aired in June 2023.

What does a good school look like? How does a good school operate? What does a good school do differently?

There are probably many correct answers to these questions, but on this episode of The Report Card we want to narrow it down and focus on one particular school, Michaela, that has a very particular set of answers to these questions. Located near London’s Wembley Stadium, Michaela is a free school that opened its doors in 2014 and today has the highest GCSE value-added score in all of England. Michaela is known for its strict behavioral practices, its unique school culture, and its unabashed promotion of small-c conservative values.

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat speaks with Katharine Birbalsingh, the founder and head teacher of Michaela Community School. Nat and Katharine discuss school culture, the importance of values in education, school lunches, cell phones in schools, discipline and student behavior, teacher feedback and observation, and more.

Show Notes:

Michaela: The Power of Culture

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Teachers: The Michaela Way

Britain's Strictest Headmistress

During the pandemic, the federal government sent $190 billion in ESSER relief funding to America’s schools. Among other things, ESSER was intended to help students catch up from pandemic learning loss—but did it work? Did ESSER help kids catch up? Did it help some students more than others? And should the federal government spend more to address COVID learning loss? On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions, and more, with Dan Goldhaber.

Dan Goldhaber is the Director of the Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) at the American Institutes for Research and the Director of the Center for Education Data & Research (CEDR) at the University of Washington. Along with Grace Falken, he is also the co-author of a new paper: ESSER and Student Achievement: Assessing the Impacts of the Largest One-Time Federal Investment in K12 Schools.

Show Notes:

ESSER and Student Achievement: Assessing the Impacts of the Largest One-Time Federal Investment in K12 Schools

Impacts of Academic Recovery Interventions on Student Achievement in 2022-23

Over the past couple years, the education world has seen a renewed push for phonics instruction, often called “the science of reading.” But how science-based is the science of reading movement? Will the current push for phonics last? And what do kids need so that the reading gains they experience from phonics don’t fade away by the time they reach eighth grade?

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions, and more, with Timothy Shanahan. Nat and Tim discuss the differences between balanced literacy and phonics, how much of an improvement balanced literacy is over phonics, previous efforts to promote phonics and why they went by the wayside, whether the current science of reading movement will be durable, textbook reviews, the extent to which practices promoted by science of reading advocates are science-based, the gap between reading instruction research and reading instruction practice, why many students who can decode well nonetheless have poor reading comprehension, grade-level texts and the importance of giving students texts that aren’t too easy, the relationship between love of reading and reading ability, what skills students acquire as they become better readers, disciplinary literacy, the future of reading instruction, the extent to which reading achievement could improve with better instructional practices, and more.

Timothy Shanahan is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he was Founding Director of the UIC Center for Literacy. Previously, he was Director of Reading for the Chicago Public Schools and a member of the National Reading Panel and the advisory board of the National Institute for Literacy.

Show Notes:

What about the Textbook Reviews?

How Do You Know If It Really Is the Science of Reading?

More on Hanford: Phonics Reform and Literacy Levels

Limiting Children to Books They Can Already Read

What Is Disciplinary Literacy and Why Does It Matter?

In the spring, campuses saw a wave of protests erupt over the war in Gaza. These protests, along with the controversial ways in which universities handled them, raised important questions about free expression on campus, the role that university administrations play in maintaining and fostering a culture of free expression, and the role of university presidents.

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions, and more, with John W. Boyer. Nat and John discuss parallels and contrasts between recent campus protests and Vietnam War protests; the challenges university administrations face in dealing with protests; the Chicago Principles and the origins of the University of Chicago’s culture of free expression; what it takes to actually develop a robust culture of free expression on campus; the extent to which university administrations shape campus culture; the role of university presidents; the presidencies of William Rainey Harper, Robert Maynard Hutchins, and Robert Zimmer; why many university presidents today seem to lack a strong vision for what their universities should look like; why so few universities are started today; donor activism; the politicization of the university; the German research university; core curricula and the aims of liberal education; how the University of Chicago increased enrollments in and applications to the College over the last thirty years; balancing institutional history and institutional change; and more.

John W. Boyer is Senior Advisor to the President and the Martin A. Ryerson Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of History at the University of Chicago, where he served as Dean of the College from 1992 through 2023. He is also the author of The University of Chicago: A History, the second edition of which comes out in August.

Show Notes:

The University of Chicago: A History (Note: This is a link to the first edition. A link to the updated second edition will be provided when it becomes available.)

John W. Boyer, Dean of the College for 30 Years, in His Own and His Colleagues’ Words

In March of 2023, shortly after Khan Academy launched Khanmigo, its AI tutor and teaching assistant, Sal Khan came on the podcast to discuss Khanmigo and his hopes for AI in education more generally. On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with Sal Khan again to hear what he has learned since launching Khanmigo and how his thoughts on AI in education have changed over the last year.

Sal Khan is the founder and CEO of Khan Academy, a nonprofit educational organization with over 165 million registered users in more than 190 countries, and the author of Brave New Words: How AI Will Revolutionize Education (and Why That's a Good Thing).

Show Notes:

GPT-4o Math Demo

Khanmigo Essay Tool

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with Mark Schneider, who recently finished up his six-year tenure as Director of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES). Nat and Mark discuss the past, present, and future of IES; what’s wrong with the What Works Clearinghouse; student privacy protections; NAEP; the state of special education research; why education research isn’t replicated; scalability; whether most education research is useful, usable, and used; why we need a DARPA for education; whether education research should be profitable; the incentive structures in education research; and more.

Mark Schneider is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Political Science at SUNY Stony Brook. He was previously Director of the Institute of Education Sciences, a visiting scholar at AEI, a vice president and Institute Fellow at the American Institutes for Research, and Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics.

Are smartphones and social media bad for kids’ mental health? According to a number of recent books, articles, and op-eds, the answer is an emphatic yes: The rise of smartphones and social media corresponded not only to a rise in the incidence of mental health problems but to a decline in academic performance. Indeed, in popular media, there almost seems to be a consensus emerging: It’s the phones, stupid.

But is the popular media consensus correct? What does the research say? And what is the state of the research? On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions and more with Pete Etchells.

Pete Etchells is Professor of Psychology and Science Communication at Bath Spa University in the UK and is the author of Unlocked: The Real Science of Screen Time (and how to spend it better).

Show Notes:

Unlocked: The Real Science of Screen Time (and how to spend it better) (Note: Unlocked is not yet available in US stores but can be purchased from UK booksellers and shipped to the US.)

Scroll On: Why Your Screen-Time Habits Aren’t as Bad as You Think They Are

Lost in a Good Game: Why We Play Video Games and What They Can Do for Us

Smartphone Bans, Student Outcomes and Mental Health

Over the past couple weeks, as campus protests and crackdowns on campus protests have captured the nation’s attention, it has become increasingly clear that something is wrong with the civic culture at universities.

But how do we change course? How do we create a healthier civic culture on campus? And how can we train the next generation of Americans both to respect freedom of speech and be respectful in disagreement?

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions, and more, with Paul Carrese. Nat and Paul discuss the proper content and aims of civic education, why civic education matters, whether civic education is too boring, how individuals benefit from civic education, whether civic education is conservative, why universities have turned away from civic education, whether civic education is indoctrination, Arizona State University's School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership, when it is appropriate for state governments to get involved in deciding what courses college students should take, why private universities should create schools of civic thought, and more.

Paul Carrese is a professor in the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University and served as its founding director from 2016–2023.

Show Notes:

How Civics Can Remedy Higher Education’s Decline

A New Birth of Freedom in Higher Education: Civic Institutes at Public Universities

Civic Thought and Leadership: A Higher Civics to Sustain American Constitutional Democracy

During the pandemic, the federal government sent $190 billion in COVID relief funds to America’s schools. These funds, known as ESSER (or the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund), changed school budgets across the country. But this September, ESSER will come to an end, meaning that—on average—schools will have to reduce their budgets by over $1,000 per student.

How will schools respond? What will get cut? And what should education leaders know to minimize the impacts of the funding cliff? On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions, and more, with Marguerite Roza.

Marguerite Roza is a research professor at Georgetown University and the director of the Edunomics Lab.

Show Notes:

School Boards Face Their Most Difficult Budget Season Ever. Many Are Unprepared

The ESSER Fiscal Cliff Will Have Serious Implications for Student Equity

National Education Resource Database on Schools (NERDS)

How Within-District Spending Inequities Help Some Schools to Fail

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with David Steiner about coherence and fragmentation; why curricula, teacher training programs, and assessments should be aligned (and why they usually aren’t); SEL; where Common Core fell short; E.D. Hirsch and the importance of teaching content; why economics, music, and philosophy should be taken more seriously in secondary education than they usually are; AP exams and CTE; teachers unions, master’s pay premiums, and schools of education; whether school is boring; why American teachers tend to focus more on students and less on subject matter than teachers abroad; the state of the humanities in American education; teaching students Ancient Greek; how not to teach Shakespeare; and more.

David Steiner is Executive Director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy, Professor of Education at Johns Hopkins University, and the author of A Nation at Thought: Restoring Wisdom in America's Schools. He was previously Dean at the Hunter College School of Education and the Commissioner of Education for New York State.

Show Notes:

A Nation at Thought: Restoring Wisdom in America's Schools

Arguing Identity: Session Three

Make Sense of the Research: A Primer for Educational Leaders

Don’t Give Up on Curriculum Reform Just Yet