On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Jon Valant —director of the Brown Center on Education Policy and a senior fellow in Governance Studies at Brookings—joins Mike to discuss his recent analysis of the federal tax credit scholarship initiative included in the Republican budget bill and its potential to open the door to waste, fraud, and discriminatory practices. Then, on the Research Minute, Adam shares a Belgian study comparing the cognitive and non-cognitive effects of work-based learning within different vocational education arrangements.

Recommended content: 

• “The Educational Choice for Children Act opens the door to waste, fraud, and abuse” —Jon Valant, Brookings Institution
• “Federal school choice skeptics are tilting at windmills” —Shaka Mitchell, for Thomas B. Fordham Institute
• “The impact of work-based versus school-based learning on cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes in vocational secondary education” —Ilse Tobback, Dieter Verhaest, and Kristof De Witte, Economics of Education Review (2025) 

Feedback Welcome: Have ideas for improving our podcast? Send them to Stephanie Distler at [email protected].