This blog post is part of AEI’s Best Podcasts of 2021 series. Click here to see other AEI podcast hosts’ favorite episodes of the year.

On “The Report Card,” AEI’s education policy podcast, I interview education experts who are tackling bold and innovative projects in schools, conducting important research, and sharing their takes on the most important challenges facing schools, teachers, families, and students. Suffice it to say, 2021 provided plenty of educational issues to cover. From assessing the academic impacts of COVID-19 and tackling the debate over vaccine mandates in schools, to discussing the history and strategy behind private school choice legislation and chatting with the winner of education’s “Nobel Prize,” we’ve certainly covered a lot of ground together over the past year.

Here are five of my favorite episodes from 2021. As always, thank you for listening to the show. If you have any thoughts, questions, or topic suggestions, you can reach me at ed.podcast@aei.org.

1. Estimating COVID Learning Loss (with Megan Kuhfeld and Emma Dorn) — January 28

Parents across the country can attest to the fact that remote learning has been a poor substitute for in-person learning. But just how far behind have students fallen during the pandemic? On this episode of “The Report Card” from early in 2021, I spoke with two experts who broke out early with estimates of the pandemics’ effects. Megan Kuhfeld, a senior research scientist at NWEA, and Emma Dorn, McKinsey and Company’s global education practice manager, discussed their early findings.

2. Are charter schools hurting traditional public schools? (with Mark Weber and Marcus Winters) — February 25

Over the past several decades, a considerable body of
research has examined the growth of charter schools and the kinds of benefits
they deliver (or in some cases fail to deliver) to students. More recently,
researchers have focused on a related question: Does the expansion of the charter
school sector harm students who remain in traditional public schools? On this
episode of “The Report Card,” two experts on this question — Mark Weber, a special analyst at the New Jersey Policy
Perspective and a charter skeptic, and Marcus
Winters, an associate professor at Boston University, a senior fellow at
the Manhattan Institute and a charter optimist — joined me for a civil and
productive discussion of this often charged topic.

3. Has the Common Core failed? (with Tom Loveless and Morgan S. Polikoff) — June 3

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,” Tom
Loveless and Morgan
Polikoff discussed why they believe the Common Core failed to move the
needle on student learning and discussed the potential of standards-based
reform going forward.

4. How divided are Americans on race, religion, and COVID-19 mitigation in public schools? (with Dan Cox and Matt Rice) — September 23

Public schools 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,” Dan Cox and I discussed our report on American public opinion about COVID-19 mitigation, race, and religion in the classroom.

5. Should states ban Critical Race Theory in K-12 schools? (with Ian Rowe and Robert Pondiscio) — July 1

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 joined me to discuss what the
furor over CRT is, what it isn’t, and why this issue that cannot be ignored.

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