The Education Gadfly Show

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Mike Petrilli and David Griffith talk with the University of Colorado’s Parker Baxter on how Denver’s comprehensive school reform effort led to higher student achievement and graduation rates. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber brings us good news about a third grade retention policy in Indiana. Recommended content: “The system-level effects of Denver...

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Mike Petrilli and David Griffith talk with Juliet Squire , Senior Partner at Bellwether , about a new initiative called Assembly, which is a deep dive into the idea of unbundling education services for all students. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber discusses a Teach For America study that examines how teacher-turnover rates affect student achievemen...

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Kymyona Burk, Senior Policy Fellow at ExcelinEd , joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss what states are doing to promote the science of reading and crack down on the snake oil salespeople still peddling bogus reading programs. Then on the Research Minute, Amber Northern examines how playing video games affects children’s cognitive performan...

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Virginia Gentles, the director of the Education Freedom Center at the Independent Women’s Forum, joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss the results of the 2022 midterm elections and what they mean for the parents’ rights movement. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber Northern reviews a study that finds that students from under-resourced schoo...

Education Gadfly Show #845: Why schools are wasting millions of dollars on ineffective online tutoring   On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Bart Epstein, the president and CEO of EdTech Evidence Exchange, joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss the challenges that schools and districts face when implementing online “on-demand” tutoring programs for students. Then, on the Resea...

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Mike Petrilli and David Griffith are joined by Seth Gershenson—professor at the Department of Public Administration and Policy at American University and the author of Fordham’s new report, High Expectations in District and Charter Schools —to discuss its findings and why high teacher expectations translate into better outcomes for kids. Then, on the R...

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Checker Finn joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss the 2022 NAEP results . Then on the Research Minute, Amber Northern reviews a study that examines how instructional time differs between countries and offers suggestions on how U.S. schools can recover learning time lost to the pandemic.    Recommended content [BW1] :  ·      The 2022 NAEP...

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Quentin Suffren, Senior Advisor of Innovation Policy for ExcelinEd, joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss industry-recognized credentials and why their impact has been muted so far. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber Northern reviews a study that examines how college graduates’ earnings are influenced by the performance of their schools’ f...

On This week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Carissa Miller, CEO of the Council of Chief State School Officers, joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss how state education agencies are spending the 10 percent of ESSER funds set aside for them. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber Northern reviews a study on how providing information about the likely financial outcomes of college and care...

On this week’s Education Show podcast, Jennifer Alexander, Executive Director of the Policy Innovators in Education (PIE) Network, joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss recent state-level education reform victories, including Tennessee’s school funding overhaul and Illinois’s new charter facilities financing law . Then, on the Research Minute, Amber Northern discusses a study that exam...

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Mike Petrilli and David Griffith are joined by Stéphane Lavertu and Long Tran, both professors at the John Glenn College of Public Affairs at the Ohio State University and the authors of Fordham’s new report, For-Profit Charter ­­Schools: An evaluation of their spending and outcomes . They discuss findings from their new study and broader issues of so-...

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Karega Rausch, President and CEO of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss what—if anything—charter schools could have done to reopen sooner during the 2020-21 school year. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber Northern discusses the long-term impacts of requiring high school seniors to p...

 On this week’s Education Gadfly Show Podcast, Elliot Regenstein joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss his new book, which calls for changes in three areas of education policy: accountability, teacher pay, and school choice. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber Northern discusses a paper that identifies common transportation challenges for cities with lots of charter schools and other f...

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show Podcast, John Bailey, nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, joins Mike Petrilli to discuss what schools are likely to do—and what they should do—if hit by more Covid waves this year. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber Northern reviews a study that examines whether private schools that participate in voucher programs “cream skim” high...

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, David Houston, assistant professor at George Mason University and survey director of the Education Next Poll, joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss the relationship between political partisanship and public opinion on education issues. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber Northern reviews a study on the impact of the Broad Superintendents Ac...

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Mike Petrilli and David Griffith are joined by Matt Giani, a professor and researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, and the author of Fordham’s new report, How Attaining Industry-Recognized Credentials in High School Shapes Education and Employment Outcomes. They discuss some takeaways of the first-of-its-kind study. Then, on the Research Minut...

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Checker Finn joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss his article (co-authored with Rick Hess) in National Affairs about the bipartisan history—and uncertain future—of school reform. Then on the Research Minute, Amber Northern reviews a study on how politicized issues like Covid-19 safety measures and Critical Race Theory are affecting princip...

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show Podcast, Heather Peske, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, joins Mike Petrilli to discuss whether the “teacher shortage” is real, what might be causing it, and whether lowering barriers to entry to the classroom is a good idea. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber Northern reviews a study that examines demographic disparities in students ident...

Our host Mike Petrilli is on vacation this week, so we're republishing our most popular podcast episode for three years running. With over one thousand downloads, “The impact of urban charter schools,” will be our topic of discussion for today. We'll be back to our regular schedule next week.   Feedback welcome:  Have any feedback on our podcast? Send them to our podcast producers Pedro...

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show Podcast, Lindsay Dworkin and Karyn Lewis, senior vice president of policy and advocacy and director of the center for school and student progress at NWEA, respectively, join Mike Petrilli to discuss Karyn’s co-authored research brief on student achievement following Covid-19. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber Northern reviews a survey of district administrato...

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Mike Cohen, former president of Achieve, and Laura Slover, CEO of CenterPoint Education Solutions, join Mike Petrilli to discuss their paper on the future of standards-based school reform, as well as Chester Finn’s and Dale Chu’s responses to it. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber Northern reviews a study on how different concentrations in high school...

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Matt Beienburg, Director of Education Policy at the Goldwater Institute, joins Mike Petrilli to discuss a new Arizona law that allows any school-aged child to use a taxpayer-funded savings account to pay for private school—or any other educational expense. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber Northern reviews a study on whether a content-rich literacy i...

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Daniel Buck, a teacher and a Fordham senior visiting fellow, joins Mike Petrilli to discuss “no zeroes” grading policies and why he thinks they’re the worst of all worlds. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber Northern reviews a study on how high-stakes testing affects teacher turnover and the distribution of teachers across grades and schools. Recommend...

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, we present the sixth edition of our Research Deep Dive series. Jonathan Plucker, professor at Johns Hopkins University and past president of the National Association for Gifted Children, joins Mike Petrilli to discuss how gifted education has become a hot political topic, how to identify students who need gifted services, what those services should loo...

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Mike Goldstein, founder of Match Education in Boston, a college prep charter school with an embedded Graduate School of Education, discusses his prediction that learning losses will continue without a bold plan to reengage students, teachers, and parents, and address misbehavior. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber Northern reviews a study on how devel...