Head Start needs reforming, not dismantling | Episode 1032 of The Education Gadfly Show

Programming note: The Education Gadfly Show is taking a short end-of-summer break next week. We’ll be back with a new episode after Labor Day on Wednesday, September 9.

Checker Finn, president emeritus of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to talk about the future of Head Start and why he thinks the troubled federal preschool program needs rebuilding, not destroying. They discuss the Trump administration’s approach to Head Start, the program’s longstanding weaknesses, and what meaningful reform could look like.

Then, on the Research Minute, Amber Northern reviews a new two-year experiment with Khan Academy’s AI tutor, Khanmigo. The study finds modest gains in math achievement, but students rarely engaged deeply with the AI tutor, raising questions about whether the improvement came from the AI itself or simply from structured practice on Khan Academy.

Recommended content:

• The Trump team gives Head Start the DOGE treatment —Chester E. Finn, Jr., Thomas B. Fordham Institute
• Reroute the Preschool Juggernaut —Chester E. Finn, Jr., Hoover Press (2009)
• Head Start Program Performance Standards —U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families
• Transformative for the motivated and mere meh for the unmotivated: How AI will and won’t affect learners —Sean Geraghty and Mike Goldstein, Thomas B. Fordham Institute
• One Click Away: AI Tutoring with Khanmigo in a Two-Year School Experiment —Philip Oreopoulos and Nina Low, EdWorkingPapers (2026)

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