This week on “The Learning Curve,” co-hosts Cara Candal and Gerard Robinson talk with Dr. Eric Hanushek, the Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. Dr. Hanushek shares how he first became interested in the economics of education, his plans for the nearly $4 million in funding from the prestigious Yidan Prize, which he received in 2021, and where he sees the greatest need for additional research in education. He shares findings from a recent Hoover Education Summit panel, focusing on educational performance among high- and low-performing countries, and how the U.S. compares on global measures. They explore why U.S. reading and math results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) have remained flat, despite $800 billion spent annually, and the impact of persistent achievement gaps on individual social mobility and global competitiveness. They discuss his February study on some of the ways parents influence the “intergenerational transmission of cognitive skills,” and how this impacts the lifetime outcomes of children and K-12 education policymaking.

Stories of the Week: In Tennessee, Gov. Bill Lee signed into law a sweeping change designed to standardize and streamline the funding formula for the state’s K-12 education system. National polling from NPR and Ipsos finds high rates of parent satisfaction with their children’s schooling, despite contentious K-12 culture wars.