A lot of schools have adopted the policy that there shouldn't be any penalties for turning homework in late or even not turning it in at all.

It's hard to imagine how that would have bad effects.

Gee, exactly.

This is really complicated.

Welcome to the Mona Charon Show.

So glad you could join me today. I'm delighted to welcome to the program today.

Idris Kaloon, who is a writer for The Atlantic, and has written a piece about education that is pretty alarming and gripping stuff.

So, Idris, thanks so much for joining me. Before we jump into the substance

of your piece and education policy in general, tell us a little bit about yourself. You used to be

at The Economist. So where did you grow up? What was your education? What got you into journalism?

Yeah.

Well, thank you for having me.

I really appreciate it.

Yeah, I grew up mostly in Kentucky.

I was born in Lexington, Kentucky.

We then moved to New York City for a few years.

My dad is a doctor.

He was doing his residency and fellowship up there.

So I was in New York City up until about age seven or eight. And then we moved back to Kentucky.

I finished my elementary school, middle school, high school, all there, got a fantastic education

at Paul Lawrence Dunbar High School in Lexington. Is that a public school? It was a public school.

It had a really good math and science magnet program.

...