The Report Card with Nat Malkus

AEI Podcasts
AEI Podcasts
  • 4.7 (18)
  • Education for Kids
  • Updated Monthly

The Report Card with Nat Malkus is the education podcast of the American Enterprise Institute. It is a hub for discussing innovative work to improve education – from early childhood to higher education – and the lives of America’s children. It evaluates research, policy, and practice efforts to improve the lives of families, schools and students. The Report Card seeks to engage with everyone who is interested in education in an accessible way. It brings guests that are doing compelling work across a spectrum from high level policy changes to innovations at the classroom level, work that will start conversations about improving education and the lives of children more broadly. Each episode lets listeners – policymakers, teachers, and parents –learn relevant information that they can use in their efforts to improve education.

  1. Sep 23

    Implementing AI (with Philip Oreopoulos)

    Proponents of education technology have often made big promises about its potential to transform schooling, but so far, ed tech has failed to live up to its promise. Will AI also fail to deliver, or will it finally be the education technology that breaks through? On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus and Philip Oreopoulos discuss this question and more. Nat and Philip discuss how to make sure ed tech actually gets used, whether schools need dedicated ed-tech staff, the educational benefits of using AI for language instruction, the logistical challenges of using AI for math instruction, how much upside there is for AI tutoring, how AI can affect the amount of time students spend on material, and what teachers should know about effective ed-tech implementation. Philip Oreopoulos is a professor of economics at the University of Toronto and the author of several recent papers on AI and education technology that examine the importance of implementation. This episode was produced by Elli Lucas. Show Notes: One Click Away: AI Tutoring with Khanmigo in a Two-Year School Experiment Making AI Tutoring Productive: Evidence from a Mastery-Based Math Practice Experiment How In-School Supervised Ed-Tech Support Produces Massive Learning Gains: A Khan Academy Field Experiment in India

  2. Sep 9

    Should We Close the US Department of Education?

    According to many in the Trump administration, closing the US Department of Education would increase efficiency, reduce bureaucracy, and give states more control over education. But according to opponents of the move, closing the Department would create a bureaucratic web that would be confusing for states to navigate, weaken civil rights enforcement, and do little to raise student achievement. Once abstract, these debates are now anything but. Since his second term began, President Trump has signed an executive order directing the Department to begin shutting itself down, the Department has cut about half of its staff, and the Department has announced several interagency agreements to shift certain federal programs to other agencies. Against this backdrop, on this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus and four experts discuss and debate whether we should close the US Department of Education. 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 September 2. A video recording of the debate can be found here. Jim Blew is a co-founder of the Defense of Freedom Institute. Previously, he served as US assistant secretary for policy and budget under Betsy DeVos. Lindsey Burke is the deputy chief of staff for policy and programs at the US Department of Education. Ted Mitchell is the president of the American Council on Education. Previously, he served in the Obama administration as US under secretary of education. Roberto J. Rodriguez is a Doris Duke Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. Previously, he served as assistant US secretary of education for policy and planning. This episode was produced by Elli Lucas.

  3. Aug 26

    How Schools Should Approach Mental Health (with Carolyn D. Gorman)

    Many schools today offer mental health programming, but according to Carolyn Gorman, a lot of school mental health programming is not only wasteful and ineffective but also directionally misguided: School mental health programming often targets students who don’t need help, pathologizes ordinary emotions, and fails to adequately help students with the most severe mental health problems. On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with Carolyn Gorman about school-based mental health. Nat and Carolyn discuss whether and why student mental health has gotten worse, what we do and don’t know about school-based mental health programming, what K–12 schools should do when it comes to mental health, whether the mental health landscape in higher education is similar to the mental health landscape in K–12 schools, and how schools can promote student mental health through ordinary routines and orderly school environments. Carolyn D. Gorman is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, where her research examines how policy changes in the U.S. impact individuals with mental illness. This episode was produced by Elli Lucas. Show Notes: School-Based Mental Health Initiatives Challenges and Considerations for Policymakers The Tradition and Limits of Campus Mental Health Congress Is Treating Schools like Mental-Health Clinics It’s Time For Schools To Get Out Of The Mental Health Business

  4. Aug 12

    How AI and Screens Are Changing Reading (with Naomi Baron)

    AI is transforming not only the way students work but also the way they read. AI summarizes readings for students, changing the way they engage with texts, form judgments, and—perhaps—develop cognitively. On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with Naomi Baron about these changes and more. Naomi Baron is Professor Emerita of Linguistics at American University and the author of Reader Bot: What Happens When AI Reads and Why It Matters. This episode was produced by Elli Lucas. Show Notes: Reader Bot: What Happens When AI Reads and Why It Matters Who Wrote This? How AI and the Lure of Efficiency Threaten Human Writing The End of Reading Is Here Is This What a Post-Literate Era Looks Like?

  5. Jul 29

    Curriculum, Coherence, and Change (with John White)

    On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with John White about state education leadership, how the education landscape has changed over the last few decades, innovation in education and where it tends to go wrong, the importance of school choice, the Southern Surge, why coherent systems matter, what we know about curriculum, and more. John White is the CEO of Great Minds. Previously, he was the Louisiana State Superintendent of Education, Superintendent of the Louisiana Recovery School District, Deputy Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, and a Teach For America corps member. This episode was produced by Elli Lucas.

  6. Jul 15

    The Latest on Chronic Absenteeism (with Nat Malkus)

    During the pandemic, national chronic absenteeism rates surged across all demographics, but what has happened to chronic absenteeism rates since then? Are chronic absenteeism rates back to pre-pandemic levels? Is chronic absenteeism less of a problem for students who weren’t yet in school during the pandemic? And where might chronic absenteeism rates end up when all the dust settles? On this episode of The Report Card, Elli Lucas discusses these questions, and more, with Nat Malkus. Nat Malkus is a senior fellow and the deputy director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and an affiliate of AEI’s James Q. Wilson Program in K–12 Education Studies. He is the creator of AEI’s Return to Learn Tracker, which tracked pandemic school closures and masking policies and currently tracks post-pandemic chronic absenteeism, and the host of the podcast The Report Card with Nat Malkus. This episode was produced by Elli Lucas. Show Notes: From Attendance Crisis to Chronic Condition? Tracking Post-Pandemic Chronic Absenteeism into 2025 Please Excuse My Child: Unexcused Absences in Student Attendance and Achievement Catching Absenteeism Early and Often: Introducing the AEI Absence Forecast AEI Absence Forecast What Stories Does Daily Attendance Tell? Student Attendance Patterns Before and After the COVID-19 Pandemic AEI’s Chronic Absenteeism Research Working Group (CARWG) Teacher and Student Absences Before and After the Pandemic The 50% Challenge

  7. Jul 1

    The Semiquincentennial Edition (with Yuval Levin)

    In a few short days, we’ll be celebrating America’s 250th birthday, but rather than feeling uniformly triumphant and celebratory, America’s Semiquincentennial comes at a time when many worry about the state of our democracy and civic culture. Schools are central to this worry. Many are concerned that civic education in American schools is insufficient or misguided, and that schools are not doing enough to prepare the next generation of Americans for self-governance. But what would better civic education look like? What subject matter should it consist of? What should its aims be? And how much of it should happen in schools? On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions and more with Yuval Levin. Yuval Levin is a senior fellow at AEI, where he is the Beth and Ravenel Curry Chair in Public Policy; Director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies; and Editor in Chief of National Affairs. He is also the author of several books, including American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation—and Could Again.

  8. Jun 17

    Inside the Department of Education (with Kirsten Baesler)

    The Department of Education has said it is trying to return education to the states, but what does that mean for the federal role in education and for the states expected to take on more responsibility? What is the Department doing now to scale back the federal role in education? How does the Department think about its own education agenda as it tries to return education to the states? And are states ready to have education returned to them—whatever that might mean? On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions and more with Kirsten Baesler. Kirsten Baesler is the Assistant Secretary for the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education at the U.S. Department of Education. From 2013 until 2025, she served as the North Dakota Superintendent of Public Instruction.

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Ratings & Reviews

4.7
out of 5
18 Ratings

About

The Report Card with Nat Malkus is the education podcast of the American Enterprise Institute. It is a hub for discussing innovative work to improve education – from early childhood to higher education – and the lives of America’s children. It evaluates research, policy, and practice efforts to improve the lives of families, schools and students. The Report Card seeks to engage with everyone who is interested in education in an accessible way. It brings guests that are doing compelling work across a spectrum from high level policy changes to innovations at the classroom level, work that will start conversations about improving education and the lives of children more broadly. Each episode lets listeners – policymakers, teachers, and parents –learn relevant information that they can use in their efforts to improve education.

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