The Education Gadfly Show

By Thomas B. Fordham Institute

Education

What's The Education Gadfly Show about?

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 research study. For questions or comments on the podcast, contact its producer, Pedro Enamorado, at [email protected]

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LAST EPISODE

#863: How charter schools a...

03.29.2023

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, David Griffith and Paul Bruno join Mike Petrilli to discuss David’s new Think Again brief on whether charter schools drain resources from traditional public schools. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber discusses how ...

The Education Gadfly Show episodes:

03.29.2023 #863: How charter schools affect district resources, with David Griffith and Paul Bruno On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, David Griffith and Paul Bruno join Mike Petrilli to discuss David’s new Think Again brief on whether charter schools drain resources from traditional public schools. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber discusses how ...
03.22.2023 #862: The education implications of Chicago’s mayoral election, with Natalie Neris and Hal Woods On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Natalie Neris and Hal Woods of Kids First Chicago join Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss what Chicago’s mayoral run-off election between Brandon Johnson and Paul Vallas means for the city’s schools. ...
03.15.2023 #861: The fight to lift the charter school cap in New York City, with Crystal McQueen-Taylor On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Crystal McQueen-Taylor of StudentsFirstNY joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss the battle royale to lift the charter cap in New York City. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber looks at the ...
03.08.2023 #860: Social media and kids’ declining mental health, with Michael Horn On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Michael Horn joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss what schools can do to protect kids’ mental health and whether social media is making it worse. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber ...
03.01.2023 #859: Eliminating honors classes won’t advance equity, with Scott Peters On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Scott Peters of NWEA joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss why eliminating honors classes and other advanced education opportunities in the name of equity is a mistake. Then, on the Research ...
02.22.2023 #858: The Trump and DeSantis culture war fixation, with Dale Chu On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Dale Chu joins Mike Petrilli to discuss whether Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis are focusing too much on divisive culture war issues in their education platforms. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber explains ...
02.15.2023 #857: The states leading the way in literacy, with Kymyona Burk and Tom Greene On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Kymyona Burk and Tom Greene of ExcelinEd join Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss how Ohio, Mississippi, and other states are implementing research-based literacy policies. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber examines ...
02.08.2023 #856: Why education savings accounts won’t bring educational pluralism, with Ashley Berner On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Ashley Berner of Johns Hopkins University tells us why education savings accounts are unlikely to lead to educational pluralism. Then, on the Research Minute, Adam Tyner discusses a study on remediation for middle ...
02.01.2023 #855: How states are fighting credential inflation, with Rick Hess On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute tells Mike Petrilli and David Griffith why we should be happy that an increasing number of states are eliminating college degree requirements for many jobs. Then, ...
01.25.2023 Education Gadfly Show #854: How districts should prepare for the coming school closures, with Tim Daly On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Tim Daly of EdNavigator tells Mike Petrilli and David Griffith how districts should prepare for looming school closures. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber explains the effect of worker displacement on college enrollment. ...
01.18.2023 Education Gadfly Show #853: The Supreme Court and religious charters schools, with Nicole Garnett On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Mike Petrilli and David Griffith talk with Nicole Garnett, a professor at the University of Notre Dame Law School, about the Supreme Court decisions that could legalize religious charter schools. Then, on the ...
01.11.2023 Education Gadfly Show #852: New Year’s resolutions for America’s schools, with Robert Pondiscio On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Mike Petrilli and David Griffith talk with Robert Pondiscio of the American Enterprise Institute about what schools should resolve to do better—and resolve to do less of—in 2023. Then, on the Research Minute, ...
01.04.2023 Education Gadfly Show #851: The case for teaching writing in the age of ChatGPT, with Checker Finn On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, David Griffith talks with Checker Finn about why we should still teach writing in the age of ChatGPT, a new AI-powered bot that can mimic human prose. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber ...
12.21.2022 Education Gadfly Show #850: 2022’s most important education stories, with Marc Porter Magee On this week’s special, year-end Education Gadfly Show podcast, Mike Petrilli looks back on 2022’s most important education stories with 50CAN founder and CEO Marc Porter Magee. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber counts down the year’s top academic studies ...
12.14.2022 Education Gadfly Show #849: The success of Denver’s “portfolio”-style school reform, with Parker Baxter 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, ...
12.07.2022 Education Gadfly Show #848: Talking about “Unbundling” with Bellwether’s Julie Squire 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 ...
11.30.2022 Education Gadfly Show #847: States, snake-oil, and the science of reading, with Kymyona Burk 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 ...
11.16.2022 Education Gadfly Show #846: What do the midterm elections mean for the parents’ rights movement? 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 ...
11.09.2022 Education Gadfly Show #845: Why schools are wasting millions of dollars on ineffective online tutoring 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 ...
11.01.2022 Education Gadfly Show #844: An ode to overly-optimistic teachers, with Seth Gershenson 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 ...
10.25.2022 Education Gadfly Show #843: Halloween a week early with NAEP results in 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 ...
10.18.2022 #842: Industry-recognized credentials aren’t living up to their potential 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, ...
10.12.2022 Education Gadfly Show #841: Good news for a change: Most states appear to be spending their ESSER dollars wisely 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 ...
10.05.2022 Education Gadfly Show #840: The state of state education reform 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 ...
09.28.2022 #839: Do “for-profit” charter schools deserve their bad reputation? 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 ...
09.21.2022 #838: Was the charter sector too slow to reopen schools for in-person learning? 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 ...
09.14.2022 #837: Re-stating education: Not as modest as it sounds! 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 ...
09.07.2022 #836: How should schools handle any Covid waves this school year? 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, ...
08.31.2022 #835: The expanding partisan gap on K-12 education 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 ...
08.24.2022 #834: Whether industry-recognized credentials benefit high schoolers 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 ...
08.17.2022 #833: Are we witnessing the end of education reform? 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 ...
08.10.2022 #832: Removing barriers to the classroom in the face of a (possible) teacher shortage: Yes or no? 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 ...
08.03.2022 #831 Resurfaced: Research Deep Dive: The impact of urban charter schools 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. ...
07.27.2022 Education Gadfly Show #830: When it comes to Covid learning loss, the bleeding has stopped- 7/26/22 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 ...
07.20.2022 #829: Is there a future for standards-based reform? - 7/20/22 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 ...
07.13.2022 #828: Arizona’s expanded ESA: The big enchilada of school choice - 7/13/22 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 ...
07.06.2022 #827: The debate over “no zeroes” grading policies 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 ...
06.30.2022 #826: Research Deep Dive: What we know about gifted education - 6/30/22 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 ...
06.22.2022 #825: Learning loss may get worse before it gets better - 6/23/22 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 ...
06.15.2022 #824: Dana Suskind on supporting low-income parents in their children’s early years - 6/15/2022 On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Dr. Dana Suskind, a pediatric surgeon and founder of the TMW Center for Early Learning + Public Health at the University of Chicago, discusses how social supports for low-income and working-class parents equalize ...
06.08.2022 #823: How detrimental was remote learning? - 6/8/22 On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Tom Kane, Harvard economist and director of its Center for Education Policy Research, explains the latest research on the disastrous—and inequitable—impact of remote learning on America’s students. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber ...
06.01.2022 #822: Checker Finn: Why we need—and need to improve—NAEP - 6/1/22 On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Checker Finn, the Fordham Institute’s president emeritus and a distinguished senior fellow, discusses recommendations for the National Assessment of Educational Progress from his new book, Assessing the Nation’s Report Card. Then, on the ...
05.24.2022 #821: Sec. Aimee Rogstad Guidera on the state of education in Virginia - 5/24/22 On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Virginia Secretary of Education Aimee Rogstad Guidera discusses Governor Glenn Youngkin’s and her vision for education outlined in a state report titled Our Commitment to Virginians: High Expectations and Excellence for All Students. ...
05.18.2022 #820: Social-emotional learning doesn’t have a hidden agenda - 5/18/22 On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Robert Pondiscio, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and senior visiting fellow here at Fordham, discusses his wariness about social-emotional learning but rebuts the claim that it’s a “Trojan horse” for ...
05.11.2022 #819: The pod on (pandemic) pods 5/11/22 On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Ashley Jochim, a principal at the Center on Reinventing Public Education, joins Mike Petrilli to discuss her research on pandemic learning pods, what parents and educators liked about them, and whether they might ...
05.04.2022 #818: Kate Walsh on the state of teacher quality in America - 5/4/22 On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Kate Walsh, who just finished a twenty-year run leading the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), joins Mike Petrilli to discuss America’s progress (and the lack thereof) on the teacher effectiveness front over ...
04.27.2022 #817: Doug Lemov on rebuilding school culture amid a mental health epidemic - 4/27/22 On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Doug Lemov, author of Teach Like a Champion, and co-managing director of the organization of the same name, joins Mike Petrilli to discuss his forthcoming book, Reconnect: Building School Culture for Meaning, Purpose, ...
04.20.2022 #816: Want kids back in school? Make sure they feel safe. - 04/20/22 On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Jing Liu, Assistant Professor in Education Policy at the University of Maryland College Park and author of our latest study, Imperfect Attendance: Toward a fairer measure of student absenteeism, joins Mike Petrilli to ...
04.13.2022 #815: Paul Hill vs. Checker Finn: Does Denver prove that portfolio districts are doomed? - 4/13/22 On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Paul Hill, founder of the Center on Reinventing Public Education and emeritus professor at the University of Washington Bothell, joins Mike Petrilli and Checker Finn to debate recent reform setbacks in Denver, and ...
04.06.2022 #814: How Biden’s proposed regulations would hurt charter schools - 4/6/22 On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast (listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify), Christy Wolfe, vice president for policy and planning at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, joins Mike Petrilli to discuss how new regulations proposed by the ...

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