The Education Gadfly Show

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Derrell Bradford, the president of 50CAN, joins Mike and David to discuss a new coalition called No More Lines that seeks to end residency requirements for public schools. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber reports on a new study examining whether ESSER funding influenced spending on school personnel.

Recommended content: 

• “Coalition Challenges Residency Requirements for Public Schools” —Jo Napolitano, The 74
• “America’s private public schools” —Michael Petrilli and Janie Scull, Fordham Institute
• Dan Goldhaber, Grace Falken, and Roddy Theobald, “ESSER funding and school system jobs: Evidence from job posting data,” CALDER (April 2024). 

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

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 his new book, Getting Education Right. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber reports on a new study examining how civics educators taught about and framed the 2020 election.

Recommended content: 

• "Getting education right: A conservative vision for improving early childhood, K–12, and college” —Frederick Hess and Michael McShane
• “Four states are leading the charge for conservative education reform” —Frederick Hess and Michael McShane, Fordham Institute
• Paul Fitchett, Brett Levy, & Jeremy Stoddard, “How and Why Teachers Taught About the 2020 U.S. Election: An Analysis of Survey Responses From Twelve States,” American Educational Research Association (March 2024).

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

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Lorén Cox, the policy director for the Education and Society program at the Aspen Institute, and Karen Nussle, the founder and CEO of Ripple Communications, join Mike and David to discuss how cross-partisanship—both sides agreeing on the same conclusion for disparate reasons—benefits education. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber reports on a new study examining how college achievement and retention is affected by “corequisite” remedial classes—meaning those taken at the same time as, not before, the course requiring the remediation.

Recommended content: 

• “Crossing the partisan divide in education policy” — Lorén Cox and Karen Nussle, Aspen Institute
• “A bridge back to bipartisan education reform” —Michael Petrilli, Fordham Institute
• Florence Xiaotao Ran and Hojung Lee, “Does corequisite remediation work for everyone? An exploration of heterogeneous effects and mechanisms,” Annenberg Institute at Brown University (March 2024).

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

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Adam Kho, an assistant professor at the Rossier School of Education, and Alex Quigley, the executive director of the Durham Charter School, join Mike and David to discuss whether charter authorizers can determine the quality of prospective charter schools. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber reports on a new study examining the effects of including parental preferences in algorithms that assign students to schools in New York City.

Recommended content: 

• “Do authorizer evaluations predict the success of new charter schools?” —Adam Kho, Shelby Leigh Smith, and Douglas Lee Lauen, Fordham Institute
• “Three signs that a proposed charter school is at risk of failing” —Anna Nicotera & David Stuit, Fordham Institute
• Rebecca J. Shmoys, Sierra G. McCormick, and Douglas D. Ready, “Constrained Agency and the Architecture of Educational Choice: Evidence from New York City,” Annenberg Institute at Brown University (March 2024).

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

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Rebecca Sibilia, the executive director of EdFund, joins Mike and David to debate whether we’ve fixed school funding in America. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber reports on a new study examining the effects of school shootings on survivors’ test scores, attendance, and long-term health.

Recommended content: 

• "School finance data 'sucks.' Rebecca Sibilia's new org is offering $ to fix it" —Greg Toppo, The 74
• “Think Again: Is education funding in America still unequal?” —Adam Tyner, Fordham Institute
• “The policies promoting school shootings” —Max Eden, Fordham Institute
• EdFund Website
• Phillip Levine and Robin McKnight, “The consequences of high-fatality shootings for surviving students,” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management (February, 2024).

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

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Mike Miles, the superintendent of Houston ISD, joins Mike and David to discuss the reforms he’s implementing in the Lone Star State’s largest district. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber examines a new study of how increased learning time affects reading and math achievement.

Recommended content: 

• “Back to the future: Houston takes a page from ed reform’s recent past” —Dale Chu, Fordham Institute
• “Texas’s controversial takeover of Houston’s schools” —Daniel Buck, Fordham Institute
• Matthew Kraft and Sarah Novicoff, “Time in School: A Conceptual Framework, Synthesis of the Causal Research, and Empirical Exploration,” Annenberg Institute at Brown University (February 2024).

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

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Adam Tyner and Meredith Coffey, the national research director and a senior research associate at the Fordham Institute, join Mike and David to discuss their new Think Again report on whether “equitable” grading benefits students. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber examines a new study investigating how extreme temperatures affect student performance on standardized tests.

Recommended content: 

• “Think Again: Does ‘equitable’ grading benefit students?” —Adam Tyner and Meredith Coffey, Fordham Institute
• “Traditional grading may not be as straightforward as it seems” —Rick Hess and Joe Feldman, Education Week
• "A ‘no zeroes’ grading policy is the worst of all worlds” —Daniel Buck, Fordham Institute
• Deven Carlson and Adam Shepardson, “Under the Weather? The Effects of Temperature on Student Test Performance,” Annenberg Institute at Brown University (February 2024).

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

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Chad Aldis, Fordham’s Vice President of Ohio Policy, joins Mike and David to discuss the impending cessation of federal ESSER funds. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber reports on a new study investigating the competitive effects of charter schools on traditional public schools in Florida.

Recommended content: 

• “ESSER’s sunset: Not a cut, but a return to normalcy” —Chad Aldis, Fordham Institute
• “The fiscal cliff and teacher layoffs” —Chad Aldeman, Fordham Institute
• “Federal pandemic funds should not disappear just when we need them most” —Hamlet Michael Hernandez, Hechinger Report
• David Figlio, Cassandra Hart, and Krzysztof Karbownik, “Competitive Effects of Charter Schools,” Annenberg Institute at Brown University (February 2024).

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

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Alan Safran, the CEO and co-founder of Saga Education, joins Mike and David to discuss best practices for high-impact tutoring. Then, on the Research Minute, Adam reports on a new study investigating the impacts of computer science education on early career outcomes.

Recommended content: 

• “Could tutoring be the best tool for fighting learning loss?” —Anna Nordberg, The New York Times
• “White house calls for focus on tutoring, summer school, absenteeism as pandemic aid winds down” —Chalkbeat
• Liu, Jing, Cameron Conrad, and David Blazar, “Computer Science for All? The Impact of High School Computer Science Courses on College Majors and Earnings,” Annenberg Institute at Brown University (January 2024).

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

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Chad Aldeman, the founder of Read Not Guess and a columnist for The 74, joins Mike and David to discuss whether the pandemic-era waiving of teacher licensure rules affected student outcomes. Then, on the Research Minute, Adam Tyner reports on a new paper investigating if school choice can meet the conditions necessary for efficient market functioning.

Recommended content:

• “Emergency-hired teachers do just as well as those who go through normal training” —Chad Aldeman, The 74
• “The pandemic’s lesson on teacher licensure” —Matthew Yglesias, Slow Boring
• Douglas Harris, “How free market logic fails in schooling—And what it means for the role of government,” Educational Researcher (December 2023).

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