Editorial Staff

Valhalla Foundation’s Nancy Poon Lue on STEM Access & Equity

/in , , , , , , , /by Editorial Staff
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on
LinkedIn
+

This week on “The Learning Curve,” host Gerard Robinson talks with Nancy Poon Lue, incoming Senior Director at the Valhalla Foundation, where she will be leading their K-12 math funding initiatives. Nancy shares her recent work with the EF+Math Program, some of the challenges America has faced in ensuring students have a strong grounding in math and science, and the kinds of results she aims to achieve for kids in all ZIP codes. They discuss the realities of K-12 education before COVID-19, with declining NAEP scores and persistent achievement gaps, and what can be done to address COVID-19-related learning loss, especially in STEM. Nancy offers thoughts on America’s competitiveness with high-performing countries in the STEM fields that drive the global economy. Lastly, they delve into teacher preparation in STEM fields, and how education schools and state departments of education can help address the country’s ongoing STEM deficits.

Story of the Week: Schools in all but two states — New Hampshire and New Mexico — are experiencing a shortage of special education teachers to meet demand as students return to in-person learning for the 2021-2022 school year.

Programming note: Co-host Cara Candal is off this week.

The next episode will air on Wednesday, September 8th, 2021 at 12 pm ET with guest, Kate Clifford Larson, the New York Times best-selling biographer of Harriet Tubman and Fannie Lou Hamer.

Guest:

Nancy Poon Lue is an incoming Senior Director at the Valhalla Foundation where she will be leading their K12 math funding initiatives. She is also the co-founder of the Advanced Education Research & Development Fund and served as the Chief Operating Officer for its EF+Math Program. She previously served as executive director at the venture capital firm GSV and was a senior official in the Obama Administration where she led the U.S. Department of Education’s strategic planning and performance management initiatives, including the development of the federal agency’s five-year strategic plan.

 

Tweet of the Week:

Get new episodes of The Learning Curve in your inbox!

Recent Episodes:

Susan Wise Bauer on Classical Education & Homeschooling

0 Comments
/
This week on “The Learning Curve,” Bob Bowdon & guest co-host Kerry McDonald talk with Susan Wise Bauer, writer, historian, homeschool parent, and author of The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home, as well as numerous other books.

Dick Komer on Espinoza v. Montana & the Bigoted Legacy of Blaine Amendments

0 Comments
/
On this episode of “The Learning Curve,” Bob & Cara are joined by Dick Komer, Senior Attorney with the Institute for Justice. Komer led the oral argument this week before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the plaintiffs in the high-profile school choice case, Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue.

Derrell Bradford on the Future of Education Reform

0 Comments
/
This week on “The Learning Curve,” Bob Bowdon is joined by guest host Alisha Thomas Cromartie, personal growth coach, education leader, and former Georgia state legislator. They talk with Derrell Bradford, Executive Vice President of 50CAN, about the future of education reform.

Montse Alvarado on Protecting Religious Liberty in Schools & Society

0 Comments
/
Montse Alvarado of the Becket Fund joins The Learning Curve podcast this week to discuss Becket's work to protect religious liberty in K-12 education, the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court school choice case, and more.

Lance Izumi on How Charters Are Meeting Diverse Learning Needs

0 Comments
/
Happy New Year! This week on "The Learning Curve," Cara and Bob talk with Lance Izumi, Senior Director of the Center for Education at the Pacific Research Institute, about his new book, Choosing Diversity.

Will Fitzhugh on the Enduring Relevance of History Research & Writing

0 Comments
/
Will Fitzhugh, founder and editor of The Concord Review, an international journal that has published high school students’ history essays for 30 years, joins "The Learning Curve" this week.

Joy Pullmann on the Fallout from Common Core

Joy Pullmann, executive editor of The Federalist, talks with The Learning Curve about the mediocre NAEP and PISA results, after a decade of the Common Core national education standards and the failed experiment with federal involvement in standards, curricula, and tests. They also discuss social emotional learning, parental involvement, and the media’s coverage of K-12 education policy issues.

This Week on The Learning Curve: E.D. Hirsch, Jr. on Background Knowledge & Educational Equity

0 Comments
/
This week on "The Learning Curve," Professor E.D. Hirsch, Jr., founder and chairman of the Core Knowledge Foundation, professor emeritus at UVA, and acclaimed author, discusses a critical ingredient of academic achievement, the shared background knowledge needed for language proficiency and cultural literacy.

Steven Wilson on Anti-Intellectualism in K-12 Education

0 Comments
/
Co-host Bob Bowdon talks with Steven Wilson, Founder and former CEO of Ascend Learning, a charter school network in Brooklyn, New York. They discuss the emergence of anti-intellectualism in K-12 schooling.

Jason Bedrick on Religious Freedom & Private School Autonomy

0 Comments
/
Bob and Cara talk with Jason Bedrick, EdChoice’s director of policy, about New York’s controversial “substantial equivalency” proposal that would give the state Department of Education oversight of school curricula at yeshivas and other private and parochial academies.