The Education Gadfly Show

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 education issues. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber Northern reviews a study on the impact of the Broad Superintendents Academy, a program that trains non-educators to lead urban school systems. 

Recommended content: 

·       David Houston’s co-authored Education Next article with Paul E. Peterson and Martin R. West: “Partisan Rifts Widen, Perceptions of School Quality Decline” (August 2022) 

·       The study that Amber reviewed on the Research Minute: Thomas S. Dee , Susanna Loeb, and Ying Shi., “Public-Sector Leadership and Philanthropy: The Case of Broad Superintendents,” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, (August 2022)

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·       Have ideas on our podcast? Send them to our podcast producers Nathaniel Grossman and Lilly Sibel at [email protected] and [email protected]

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 High School Shapes Education and Employment Outcomes. They discuss some takeaways of the first-of-its-kind study. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber Northern reviews a paper examining whether schools where students make rapid academic progress in grades 3–5 also help their students do so in grades K–2. 

Recommended content: 

·      Fordham’s new study: Matt Giani, “How Industry-Recognized Credentials in High School Shape Students’ Education and Employment Outcomes,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (August 2022). 

·      The study that Amber reviewed on the Research Minute: Walter Herring, “The Other Half of the Story: Does Excluding the Early Grades from School Ratings Matter?” Annenberg Institute at Brown University (August 2022).

·      Dale Chu on why states should start annual testing earlier: “The case for K–2 testing,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (October 28, 2021).

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Have ideas on our podcast? Send them to our podcast producers Nathaniel Grossman and Lilly Sibel at [email protected] and [email protected] 

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 Northern reviews a study on how politicized issues like Covid-19 safety measures and Critical Race Theory are affecting principals and teachers.

Recommended content: 

·      Chester E. Finn, Jr. and Frederick M. Hess’s article: “The End of School Reform?” National Affairs (Summer 2022).

·      Michael J. Petrilli’s article on education reform: “Education reform is alive and well, even if the Washington Consensus is dead for now,” August 11, 2022.

·      Daniel Buck’s article on the new education consensus: “The new education consensus is conservative, and that’s a good thing,” August 11, 2022.

·      The study that Amber reviewed on the Research Minute: Ashley Woo et al., “Walking a Fine Line—Educators’ Views on Politicized Topics in Schooling,” RAND Corporation (2022). 

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Have ideas on our podcast? Send them to our podcast producers Nathaniel Grossman and Lilly Sibel at [email protected] and [email protected] 

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 the classroom is a good idea. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber Northern reviews a study that examines demographic disparities in students identified for gifted services, and whether a school-wide curricular intervention for early elementary can help.

Recommended content: 

• Heather Peske’s opinion piece: “We wouldn’t lower standards for pilot licenses—so why teachers?” National Council on Teacher Quality (July 2022).
• The study that Amber reviewed on the Research Minute: Angel H. Harris, Darryl V. Hill, and Matthew A. Lenard, “Promises, Pitfalls, and Tradeoffs in Identifying Gifted Learners: Evidence from a Curricular Experiment,” Annenberg Institute at Brown University (July 2022).

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Have ideas on our podcast? Send them to our podcast producers Pedro Enamorado and Lilly Sibel at [email protected] and [email protected]

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. We'll be back to our regular schedule next week.

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Have any feedback on our podcast? Send them to our podcast producers Pedro Enamorado at [email protected] or Lilly Sibel at [email protected].

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 brief on student achievement following Covid-19. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber Northern reviews a survey of district administrators on teacher shortages, student and staff mental health, and pandemic-connected learning loss. 

Recommended content: 

• Meghan Kuhfeld and Karyn Lewis’s Collaborative for Student Growth brief, “Student achievement in 2021-22: Cause for hope and continued urgency,” July 2022.
• Mike Goldstein’s podcast feature on learning losses from Covid-19, “Education Gadfly Show #825: Learning loss may get worse before it gets better.”
•  Thomas Kane’s learning recovery tracker, “Equitable Recovery: Addressing Learning Challenges after COVID,” May 2022.
• Melissa Kay Diliberti and Heather L. Schwartz, “Districts Continue to Struggle with Staffing, Political Polarization, and Unfinished Instruction,” RAND Corporation (2022).

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Have ideas on our podcast? Send them to our podcast producers Pedro Enamorado and Lilly Sibel at [email protected] and [email protected]

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 and Dale Chu’s responses to it. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber Northern reviews a study on how different concentrations in high school career-technical programs affect participants’ college majors. 

Recommended Content: 

• Michael Cohen and Laura Slover’s FutureEd paper, “Unfinished Agenda: The Future of Standards-Based School Reform,” released June 2022. 
• Chester E. Finn, Jr.’s critique of Cohen and Slover’s article: “Can we revise standards-based reform?”
• Dale Chu’s review: “Relinquishment or instructional coherence: What’s the right goal for districts?”
• Zeyu Xu and Ben Backes, “Linkage Between Fields of Concentration in High School Career-Technical Education and College Majors,” CALDER (July 2022)

Feedback Welcome!

Have ideas on our podcast? Send them to our podcast producers Pedro Enamorado and Lilly Sibel at [email protected] and [email protected]  

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 private school—or any other educational expense. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber Northern reviews a study on whether a content-rich literacy intervention improves third graders’ reading comprehension. 

 Recommended Content: 

• Matt Beienburg, “In Arizona’s Historic ESA Expansion, a Blueprint for Educational Freedom,” The 74 (July 2022). 
• James S. Kim, Patrick Rich, and Ethan Scherer, “Long-Term Effects of a Sustained Content Literacy Intervention on Third Graders’ Reading Comprehension Outcomes,” EdWorkingPaper: 22-600, retrieved from Annenberg Institute at Brown University (July 2022).

Feedback Welcome!

Have ideas on our podcast? Send them to our podcast producers Pedro Enamorado and Lilly Sibel at [email protected] and [email protected] 

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 Minute, Amber Northern reviews a study on how high-stakes testing affects teacher turnover and the distribution of teachers across grades and schools.

Recommended content:
•Daniel Buck’s first Fordham post arguing against these policies, which launched a subsequent debate: “A ‘no zeroes’ grading policy is the worst of all worlds,” June 16, 2022. 
•Douglas Reeves’s response to Buck: “Revisiting ‘The Case Against the Zero’: A response to Daniel Buck,” June 23, 2022.
•And finally, Daniel Buck reply to Reeves: “Let’s not get reckless with grading: Replying to Douglass Reeves,” June 23, 2022. 
•The study Amber reviewed on the Research Minute: Dillon Fuchsman, Tim R. Sass, and Gema Zamarro, “Testing, Teacher Turnover and the Distribution of Teachers Across Grades and Schools,” Education Finance and Policy (April 2022).

Feedback Welcome!
Have ideas on our podcast? Send them to our podcast producers Pedro Enamorado at [email protected] or Lilly Sibel at [email protected] 

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 how gifted education has become a hot political topic, how to identify students who need gifted services, what those services should look like, the debate over tracking versus ability grouping, and the research on exam schools. Also check out our other deep dives on teacher effectiveness, school discipline, school closures, urban charters, and school voucher programs.

Recommended studies referred to in this episode are available on the site.

Feedback welcome: 

Have any feedback on our podcast? Send them to our podcast producers Pedro Enamorado at [email protected] or Lilly Sibel at [email protected]