The Education Gadfly Show
Kanalinformation
The Education Gadfly Show
For more than 15 years, the Fordham Institute has been hosting a weekly podcast, The Education Gadfly Show. Each week, you’ll get lively, entertaining discussions of recent education news, usually featuring Fordham’s Mike Petrilli and David Griffith. Then the wise Amber Northern will recap a recent...
Seneste episoder
547 episoder
What’s behind the backlash against i-Ready? | Episode 1027 of The Education Gadfly Show
Tyrone Holmes, chief impact officer at Curriculum Associates, joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss the growing parent backlash against ed...
Can schools escape the digital delusion? | Episode 1026 of The Education Gadfly Show
David Griffith talks with neuroscientist and educator Jared Cooney Horvath, author of The Digital Delusion, about whether schools have put too much fa...
The accountability vibe shift | Episode 1025 of The Education Gadfly Show
Mike Petrilli takes the mic to consider whether America’s schools need a renewed sense of urgency around raising achievement and closing gaps. He revi...
Beyond fireworks: America 250 and civic renewal | Episode 1024 of The Education Gadfly Show
Stefanie Sanford, president of Civic Ventures at Alithi Consulting and Humanitae Philanthropy Advisors and a trustee of the Thomas B. Fordham Institut...
Can Uncle Sam help kids read? | Episode 1023 of The Education Gadfly Show
Charles Barone of the National Parents Union joins Mike Petrilli to debate the Senate’s bipartisan READ Act. Would additional federal funding help sta...
Better NAEP news than you think | Episode 1022 of The Education Gadfly Show
Mike Petrilli flies solo to discuss the latest Long-Term Trend NAEP results and why the bounce-back among nine-year-olds deserves more attention. Whil...
Closures, mergers, and charter growth | Episode 1021 of The Education Gadfly Show
Patrick McAlister, principal of PM Strategies and former director of the Indianapolis Mayor’s Office of Education Innovation, and Shaina Cavazos, the...
Only pennies for advanced learners | Episode 1020 of The Education Gadfly Show
Jonathan Plucker, a research professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Education, and Fordham’s own Alicia Anderson, policy and editorial associate, jo...
The state of teacher union power | Episode 1019 of The Education Gadfly Show
Melissa Arnold Lyon joins The Education Gadfly Show to discuss Fordham’s new report, A Crowded Table: Teacher Union Strength in 2026, and what has cha...
Should blue states opt into Trump’s education tax credit? | Episode 1018 of The Education Gadfly Show
On this week’s solo episode of The Education Gadfly Show, Mike Petrilli discusses President Trump’s Education Freedom Tax Credit, including how it wor...
Can Arkansas make teaching great again? | Episode 1017 of The Education Gadfly Show
Arkansas Education Secretary Jacob Oliva joins The Education Gadfly Show to discuss the sweeping Arkansas LEARNS reforms, from early literacy and teac...
From schools to systems: Rethinking improvement | Episode 1016 of The Education Gadfly Show
Christy Wolfe, director of K–12 policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, joins the Education Gadfly Show to discuss a new report on the American workfo...
A Science of Reading reality check: Not there yet | Episode 1015 of The Education Gadfly Show
On this week’s episode, Mike Petrilli is joined by David Griffith and Brian Fitzpatrick to discuss Fordham’s latest report, From the Teacher’s Desk: A...
The “genome” of a great elementary school | Episode 1014 of The Education Gadfly Show
On this week’s solo episode, Mike Petrilli explores a big question: What would it look like to define an evidence-based model for American elementary...
College or career? The credential tradeoff | Episode 1013 of The Education Gadfly Show
Jay Plasman of The Ohio State University joins the Education Gadfly Show to discuss Fordham’s latest report on industry-recognized credentials—and whe...
AI in schools: Promise or pitfall? | Episode 1012 of The Education Gadfly Show
Jean-Claude Brizard, president and CEO of Digital Promise, joins the Education Gadfly Show to discuss the promise—and the pitfalls—of artificial intel...
Too many A’s, not enough honesty? | Episode 1011 of The Education Gadfly Show
Bibb Hubbard, founder and CEO of Learning Heroes, joins the Education Gadfly Show to discuss grade inflation and the disconnect between what parents t...
Can we agree on teacher diversity? | Episode 1010 of The Education Gadfly Show
Mike Petrilli takes a solo turn to tackle teacher diversity, a topic at the center of today’s debates over DEI. Should schools recruit teachers whose...
Can schools keep up with AI? | Episode 1009 of The Education Gadfly Show
Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, joins the Education Gadfly Show to discuss the rapid evolution of artificial intel...
What the fadeout effect means for testing, accountability, and school choice | Episode 1008 of The Education Gadfly Show
Drew Bailey, professor at the University of California, Irvine, joins The Education Gadfly Show to discuss the fadeout effect across education interve...
When state curriculum lists go bad | Episode 1007 of The Education Gadfly Show
Karen Vaites, founder of The Curriculum Insight Project, joins us to discuss the evolving debate over curriculum reviews and state adoption policies....
Mike gives easy A’s a big ole F | Episode 1006 of The Education Gadfly Show
This week on The Education Gadfly Show, Mike Petrilli goes solo to talk about grade inflation—what it means, how it’s changed over time, and why tough...
Can states build coherent early childhood systems? | Episode 1005 of The Education Gadfly Show
This week on The Education Gadfly Show, we’re joined by Elliot Regenstein, partner at Foresight Law + Policy and author of Readiness: Preparing State...
Success stories shouldn’t be a secret | Episode 1004 of The Education Gadfly Show
This week on The Education Gadfly Show, we’re joined by Karin Chenoweth, founder of Democracy and Education and author of Schools that Succeed, to tal...
National School Choice Week: Why “school choice” matters—and where ESAs fit | Episode 1003 of The Education Gadfly Show
This week on The Education Gadfly Show, we’re marking National School Choice Week with a conversation with Shelby Doyle of the National School Choice...
Education Savings Accounts: Boffo or bonkers? | Episode 1002 of The Education Gadfly Show
This week on The Education Gadfly Show, Mike Petrilli goes solo. After recently playing ESA skeptic at an international school choice conference, Mike...
Is tutoring the next big thing? | Episode 1001 of The Education Gadfly Show
This week, we’re joined by Liz Cohen, vice president of policy at 50CAN, to discuss her book, The Future of Tutoring. Mike and David ask her some toug...
An Education State of the Union | Episode 1000 of The Education Gadfly Show
This week, we’re marking a major milestone—Episode 1,000 of The Education Gadfly Show. Instead of focusing on a single topic, we’re branching out for...
The good, the bad, and the best research of 2025 | Episode 999 of The Education Gadfly Show
This week, Mike Petrilli looks back at the highs and lows of education reform in 2025 as we wrap up our final episode of the year.
Then, on the...
Is the “college enrollment crisis” a myth? | Episode 998 of The Education Gadfly Show
This week, we’re joined by Matt Barnum, Chalkbeat’s Ideas editor, to unpack whether college enrollment is truly declining—or whether the national narr...
Moving from science of reading laws to science of reading success | Episode 996 of The Education Gadfly Show
This week, we’re joined by Wonkathon winner Eric Tucker—CEO and president of The Study Group—to talk about his first-place entry on what it will take...
How AI is reshaping what kids need to learn | Episode 995 of The Education Gadfly Show
This week, Mike Petrilli returns for a solo episode to dig into artificial intelligence—not classroom tools or teaching tips, but the big-picture impl...
What’s at stake if federal oversight of IDEA weakens? | Episode 994 of The Education Gadfly Show
This week, we’re joined by longtime special education advocate Elizabeth Yancy Bostic to discuss what could happen for students with disabilities if f...
The leaky college pipeline for high-achieving, low-income students | Episode 993 of The Education Gadfly Show
This week, we’re joined by Ohio State’s Stéphane Lavertu, author of Fordham’s new study, The Leaky Pipeline: Assessing the college outcomes of Ohio’s...
The collapse of graduation standards | Episode 992 of The Education Gadfly Show
This week, Fordham’s President Emeritus Checker Finn joins the show to unpack a troubling trend—the collapse of graduation standards—and why it matter...
Redesigning school staffing for student success | Episode 991 of The Education Gadfly Show
This week, we’re joined by Bryan Hassel, co-president of Public Impact, to discuss how redesigning school staffing—through models like Opportunity Cul...
How the Left can learn to love gifted education | Episode 990 of The Education Gadfly Show
This week, Mike Petrilli flies solo to discuss New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s proposal to eliminate gifted education in the early gr...
TFA, Gen-Z, and AI | Episode 989 of The Education Gadfly Show
This week, Aneesh Sohoni, CEO of Teach for America, joins The Education Gadfly Show to discuss TFA’s impact in the classroom and beyond, why teaching...
Beyond test scores: Debating how to measure school quality | Episode 988 of The Education Gadfly Show
This week, Fordham’s president emeritus Checker Finn and Laura Hamilton of the Center for Assessment join us for a polite debate on whether school qua...
Joyful classrooms, but zero public transparency: Inside an ESA micro-school | Episode 987 of The Education Gadfly Show
This week, Chandler Fritz, author of Harper’s Magazine’s cover story The Homemade Scholar, shares what he discovered when teaching in an ESA-funded mi...