The Education Gadfly Show

Steven Wilson, a senior fellow at the Pioneer Institute and author of "The Lost Decade," critiques the shift in No Excuses charter schools toward modern ideologies that often overlook effective teaching. He argues this shift has negatively impacted marginalized students by prioritizing discussions on structural racism over rigorous academic standards. They also dive into the challenges charter schools face after the pandemic, and examine a study on virtual tutoring that reveals how educators' attention varies among students, influenced by various demographics.

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Charles Barone, Senior Director of the Center for Innovation at the National Parents Union, joins Mike and David to discuss the future of federal assessment and accountability policies under the Trump Administration. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber examines a study on student loan forgiveness and its impact on work, earnings, and borrowing.Recommended content: Charles Barone, “The Future of Assessment and Accountability | Part 1 | Goodbye Federal Assessment Guardrails?,” National Parents Union  (2025).Dale Chu, “Are states ready to lead on education? Could Trump’s policies set them up to fail?,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (March 6, 2025).Victoria McDougald, “The case for standardized testing,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (August 1, 2025).Michael Dinerstein, Samuel Earnest, Dmitri K. Koustas and Constantine Yannelis, Student Loan Forgiveness, NBER (February 2025)Feedback Welcome: Have ideas for improving our podcast? Send them to Stephanie Distler at sdistler@fordhaminstitute.org.

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Jing Liu (University of Maryland) and Seth Gershenson (American University), authors of our latest report, Ready or Not? A New Way to Measure Elementary and Middle School Quality, join Mike and David to explore how tracking students’ future GPAs could offer a clearer measure of school quality. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber reviews a new study on young children’s evolving media consumption habits and their effects.Recommended content: Jing Liu, Ph.D. Seth Gershenson, Ph.D. and Max Anthenelli, Ready or Not? A New Way to Measure Elementary and Middle School Quality, Thomas B. Fordham Institute (February 20, 2025).David Griffith and Amber Northern, “Make room, test scores: Introducing “indicators of high school and middle school readiness,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (February 20, 2025). Supreet Mann, Angela Calvin, Amanda Lenhart, and  Michael Robb, The 2025 Common Sense Census: Media Use by Kids Zero to Eight, Common Sense Media (2025)Feedback Welcome: Have ideas for improving our podcast? Send them to Stephanie Distler at sdistler@fordhaminstitute.org.

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, John White, former Louisiana superintendent of education and current CEO of Great Minds PBC, joins David and Amber to discuss the reforms he led in Louisiana and their role in the state’s significant NAEP gains. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber highlights a study on the expansion of “transitional kindergarten” in Michigan and its impact on early learning access and socioeconomic gaps.Recommended content: Kevin Mahnken, “New NAEP Scores Dash Hope of Post-COVID Learning Recovery,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (January 29, 2025).Emily Freitag, “A bold state move to improve reading,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (February 20, 2025).Sara Schwartz, “Why Are Reading Scores Still Falling on the Nation’s Report Card?,” EducationWeek (January 29, 2025).Sonia Q. Cabell, James S. Kim, Thomas G. White, Charles J. Gale, Ashley A. Edwards, HyeJin Jordan Berne, Katia Córdoba García, Brian A. Jacob, Tareena Musaddiq, Samuel Owusu, Anna Shapiro, and Christina Weiland, Transitional Kindergarten: The New Kid on the Early Learning Block, SAGE Journals (2025)Feedback Welcome: Have ideas for improving our podcast? Send them to Stephanie Distler at sdistler@fordhaminstitute.org.

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Mike and David discuss what’s really going on with DOGE, including its cuts to IES research grants and the implications for education policy. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber highlights a study on whether the Core Knowledge curriculum helped strengthen kindergarteners’ vocabulary and knowledge.Recommended content: Chester E. Finn, Jr., “Easy, DOGE. IES matters.,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (February 11, 2025).Robert Pondiscio, “Culture war vs. competence: Why conservatives should support Penny Schwinn,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (February 6, 2025).Chester E. Finn, Jr., “Trump should stay out of what students learn in school,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (January 30, 2025).Sonia Q. Cabell, James S. Kim, Thomas G. White, Charles J. Gale, Ashley A. Edwards, HyeJin Hwang, Yaacov Petscher, and Rhonda M. Raines, Impact of a Content-Rich Literacy Curriculum on Kindergarteners’ Vocabulary, Listening Comprehension, and Content Knowledge, Journal of Educational Psychology (2024)Feedback Welcome: Have ideas for improving our podcast? Send them to Stephanie Distler at sdistler@fordhaminstitute.org. 

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Delia Pompa, Senior Fellow for Education Policy at MPI’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy, joins Mike and David to discuss how the potential threat of immigration agents at school doors is affecting students—and what can be done to keep them coming to class. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber examines a study on the impact of a Hawaii Public Schools policy that raised special education teacher salaries by $10,000.Recommended content: Alexander Russo, “Threat Assesment: Ice raids in schools,” The Grade (February 5, 2025).Ileana Najarro, “How Schools Can Navigate Trump’s Immigration Policies,” Education Week (January 23, 2025).Liz Willen, “In just one week, Trump created a new culture of anxiety in education,” The Hechinger Report (January 27, 2025).Roddy Theobald, Zeyu Xu, Allison Gilmour, Lisa Lachlan-Hache, Elizabeth Bettini and Nathan Jones, The Impact of a $10,000 Bonus on Special Education Teacher Shortages in Hawai‘i, Sage Journals (2025)Feedback Welcome: Have ideas for improving our podcast? Send them to Stephanie Distler at sdistler@fordhaminstitute.org.

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Brian Kisida, Associate Professor at the Truman School of Government & Public Affairs at the University of Missouri, joins Mike and David to discuss his recent Education Next article, which reports on what high school students are hearing from their teachers about racism in America. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber shares a study about how test-optional policies at elite universities hurt high-achieving, disadvantaged students.Recommended content: Brian Kisida, Gary Ritter, Jennifer Gontram, J. Cameron Anglum, Heidi H. Erickson, Darnell Leatherwood, and Matthew H. Lee., “Bridging the Divide over Critical Race Theory in America’s Classrooms,” Education Next (November 1, 2024).Frederick Hess, “It’s a Crisis! It’s Nonsense! How Political Are K–12 Classrooms?,” Education Next (Winter 2025).Bruce Sacerdote, Douglas O. Staiger & Michele Tine, How Test Optional Policies in College Admissions Disproportionately Harm High Achieving Applicants from Disadvantaged Backgrounds, NBER (2025) Feedback Welcome: Have ideas for improving our podcast? Send them to Stephanie Distler at sdistler@fordhaminstitute.org.

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Tim Daly, CEO of EdNavigator, joins Mike and David to discuss whether America should refocus its efforts on helping our lowest-performing students and explore the best ways to address this challenge. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber shares a study on how students prepare for tests and the effectiveness of their strategies.Recommended content: Tim Daly, “We’re living through an education depression,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (November 1, 2024).Michael J. Petrilli, “Get ready for more bad news from NAEP 2024” Thomas B. Fordham Institute  (January 16, 2025)Robert Pondiscio, “After a “lost decade,” let’s restore high expectations for students,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (December 12, 2024).Fatema Sultana, Richard C. Watkins, Tarek Al Baghal and John Carl Hughes, An Evaluation of Secondary School Students’ Use and Understanding of Learning Strategies to Study and Revise for Science Examinations, Education Sciences (2025)Feedback Welcome: Have ideas for improving our podcast? Send them to Stephanie Distler at sdistler@fordhaminstitute.org.

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Rick Hess, the director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, joins Mike and David to discuss education reform (or the lack thereof) during former President Biden’s term and what we might expect from President Trump. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber reviews a study on the implementation of college- and career-readiness policies, focusing on the alignment between career and technical education courses and industry-based certifications.Recommended content:  Rick Hess, “Miguel Cardona Is America’s Worst Education Secretary,” American Enterprise Institute (October 25, 2024)Dale Chu, “Fault lines in the MAGA coalition and what they mean for education,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (January 16, 2025).Matt S. Giani, Madison E. Andrews, Tasneem Sultana, Fortunato Medrano, Curricular-Credential Decoupling: How Schools Respond to Career and Technical Education Policy, Annenberg Institute at Brown University (2025)Feedback Welcome: Have ideas for improving our podcast? Send them to Stephanie Distler at sdistler@fordhaminstitute.org.

Barbara Biasi, an assistant professor at the Yale School of Management, dives deep into Wisconsin's Act 10 and its dramatic impact on teacher pay and labor dynamics. The discussion reveals how Act 10 reshaped collective bargaining for teachers, leading to significant drops in union membership. Biasi also addresses the flexible pay structures that emerged, highlighting issues of gender pay equity in teacher salaries. Additionally, the episode touches on the underrepresentation of racial and socioeconomic groups in gifted education, signaling a pressing need for equitable educational access.