The Report Card with Nat Malkus

Over the last couple years, a number of states have enacted new universal education savings account (ESA) programs. Republicans have led these efforts with near universal opposition from Democrats, but should more Democrats support ESAs, especially because ESAs would seem to more greatly benefit the urban areas that Democrats tend to represent than the rural areas that Republicans tend to represent?

On this episode of The Report Card, four Democrats—Marcus Brandon, Ravi Gupta, Bethany Little, and Graig Meyer—debate whether their fellow Democrats should support ESAs. Nat, Marcus, Ravi, Bethany, and Graig discuss whether ESAs are regressive, whether Democratic voters support ESAs, whether Democrats should focus on private school choice instead of public school choice, and more.

Marcus Brandon is the executive director of CarolinaCAN and was previously a state representative in the North Carolina House of Representatives.

Ravi Gupta is founder of The Branch and was previously the founder and CEO of RePublic Schools, a network of charter schools in the South. 

Bethany Little is a principal at EducationCounsel. She has spent twenty years working in government and non-profit organizations, including the White House and the U.S. Department of Education.

Graig Meyer is a state senator in North Carolina and previously served in the North Carolina House of Representatives.

Note: This episode is adapted from the most recent installment of the American Enterprise Institute’s Education Policy Debate Series, which was held at AEI on February 29. A video recording of the debate can be found here.

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with Rick Hess and Mike McShane about their new book, Getting Education Right: A Conservative Vision for Improving Early Childhood, K–12, and College. Nat, Rick, and Mike discuss what principles a conservative vision for education should be grounded in, whether No Child Left Behind was conservative, why family policy should be part of a conservative vision for education, why now is an opportune time for conservatives to take the lead on education, the pandemic’s effects on the politics of schooling, the culture wars, where conservatives have come up short on education in the past, the value of bipartisanship in education, where civics education has gone wrong, the state of education research, parental rights and parental responsibilities, and more.

Frederick M. Hess is a senior fellow and the director of education policy studies at AEI.

Michael McShane is the Director of National Research at EdChoice.

Show Notes:

Getting Education Right: A Conservative Vision for Improving Early Childhood, K–12, and College

Parents’ Rights, Yes. But Parent Responsibilities, Too

The Party of Education in 2024

Four States That Are Leading the Charge for Conservative Education

During the pandemic, homeschooling rates spiked, reaching unprecedented levels. And although they have fallen some since then, homeschooling rates remain far higher than anything we saw before the pandemic.

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with Angela Watson about what is driving this change, what we can expect from homeschooling in the coming years, and what we know about homeschooling more broadly.

Angela Watson is a senior research fellow at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy and an assistant research professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Education. She is also the creator of The Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy’s Homeschool Hub and the director of the Homeschool Research Lab.

Show Notes:

Homeschool Hub

Parent-Created "Schools" in the US

Investigating Declining Trends in Arts Field Trip Attendance

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with Tom Richards about the Florence Academy of Art, what serious art instruction looks like, how K–12 art education can be improved, the differences between music and art instruction, whether artistic talent is innate or can be taught, how art instruction has changed over the last 200 years, Velazquez, showing children art documentaries, why it's important to teach fundamentals before higher order skills, drawing with pencil and paper, the Zorn palette, the importance of coherence and consistency in an educational program, the management of Italian art museums, the proper age at which to start rigorous art training, and more.

Tom Richards is a painter and the director of the Florence Academy of Art.

Show Notes:

The Florence Academy of Art: Instagram, Website, Drawing and Painting Program, Student Gallery, Alumni Gallery

Tom Richards: Instagram, Website

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with Mike McShane about education savings account (ESA) programs. Nat and Mike discuss the sudden growth in ESA programs over the past year, how ESA programs work, the differences between ESAs and vouchers, the pandemic's effects on school choice, whether interest in ESAs solely comes from the right, the difficulty of starting charter schools, single-sex schools, the quality of education surveys, whether ESAs harm public schools in rural districts, the challenges of implementing ESAs, school choice and Catholic schools, how ESAs affect homeschooling, and more.

Mike McShane is the Director of National Research at EdChoice and the author and editor of a number of books on education policy.

Show Notes:

Implementing K–12 Education Savings Accounts

What is an Education Savings Account (ESA)?

The School Choice Movement Needs To Get Boring

AEI's 2024 Summer Honors Program

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with Dylan Wiliam about the latest PISA results, education in the US vs. education in the UK, what tutors might learn that classroom teachers might not, where teacher improvement and professional development tend to go wrong, making learning responsive to students, formative assessment, learning English as a second language, charter schools, why educators should think more about de-implementation, AI in education, and more.

Dylan Wiliam is Emeritus Professor of Educational Assessment at University College London.

Show Notes:

Making Room for Impact: A De-implementation Guide for Educators

The Future of AI in Education: 13 Things We Can Do to Minimize the Damage

Creating the Schools Our Children Need

Inside the Black Box

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus reviews the past year in education with Matt Barnum of The Wall Street Journal, Goldie Blumenstyk of The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Alyson Klein of Education Week. Nat, Matt, Goldie, and Alyson discuss AI in education; DEI in higher education; learning loss, chronic absenteeism, and the ESSER funding cliff; the end of race-based admissions; the state of education journalism; the science of reading; which education stories from the past year were over- and under-reported; the Biden administration's SAVE plan; culture clashes in Florida; the 2024 elections; what to expect from the coming year; and more.

Show Notes:

The Daily Tar Heel; Volume 131, Issue 16

Students Hated ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ Their Teachers Tried to Dump It.

This Online Tutoring Company Says It Offers Expert One-on-One Help. Students Often Get Neither.

Disillusioned: Five Families and the Unraveling of America’s Suburbs

The ‘Science of Reading’ in 2023: 4 Important Developments

What I Learned Covering National Education Issues for Chalkbeat

Ready or Not, AI Is Here

AI Can Mimic Students’ Writing Styles. How Are Teachers Supposed to Catch Cheaters Now?

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with Brian Jacob and Vladimir Kogan about school board elections. Nat, Brian, and Vlad discuss how effective school board elections are at giving voters local democratic control, whether school board members are rewarded for good performance and punished for bad performance, the margin of victory in school board elections, who runs for school board, how incumbents perform in school board elections, the high rate of school board member turnover, paying school board members, state takeovers, how the pandemic affected school board elections, whether Moms for Liberty has been effective in winning school board elections, school governance, direct democracy, ESSER funding, NCLB, and more.

Brian Jacob is the Walter H. Annenberg Professor of Education Policy and professor of economics at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.

Vladimir Kogan is a professor in the department of Political Science at The Ohio State University.

Show Notes:

How Did the COVID-19 Pandemic Influence School Board Elections? (forthcoming) by Brian Jacob

Democratic Accountability or an Electoral Turnstile? Turnover and Competition in Local School Board Elections (forthcoming) by Vladimir Kogan, Stephane Lavertu, and Zachary Peskowitz

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with Brooks Bowden about her recent paper The Unintended Consequences of Academic Leniency, co-authored by Viviana Rodriguez and Zach Weingarten. Nat and Brooks discuss how grading policies influence student effort and engagement, whether academic leniency helps low ability students, why North Carolina's changes to its grading policies led to increased absenteeism, whether making grading policies stricter can ameliorate student achievement, whether increases in academic leniency in the wake of the pandemic are good for students, and more.

Brooks Bowden is an associate professor at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania and the Director of the Center for Benefit–Cost Studies of Education.

Show Notes:

The Unintended Consequences of Academic Leniency

Lenient Grading Won’t Help Struggling Students. Addressing Chronic Absenteeism Will.

Designing Field Experiments to Integrate Research on Costs

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with Ethan Hutt and Jack Schneider about their new book, Off the Mark: How Grades, Ratings, and Rankings Undermine Learning (but Don’t Have To). Nat, Ethan, and Jack discuss grades, tests, and transcripts; whether grades do a good job of motivating student learning; how our current grading system came into existence; grading abroad; short-haul and long-haul messages; AP exams; the difficulty of narrative grading; whether transcripts should be updated for the digital age; making grades overwritable; the GED; how teachers can improve their grading practices; and more.

Ethan Hutt is Associate Professor of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Jack Schneider is the Dwight W. Allen Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Show Notes:

Off the Mark: How Grades, Ratings, and Rankings Undermine Learning (but Don’t Have To)

The big problem(s) with grades

Making the grade: a history of the A–F marking scheme

A History of Achievement Testing in the United States, Or: Explaining the Persistence of Inadequacy

A Thin Line Between Love and Hate: Educational Assessment in the United States