The Education Gadfly Show

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Anne Hyslop, Director of Policy Development at All4Ed, joins Mike and David to discuss the evolving federal role in K–12 education—particularly how the Secretary of Education’s waiver authority may—and may not--impact state flexibility on spending and testing under ESSA (the current iteration of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act). Then, on the Research Minute, Amber reviews a new study out of Massachusetts that examines whether students in departmentalized elementary schools perform better in middle school.

Recommended content: 

• Anne Hyslop and Dave Powell, ESEA Waivers 101: Explaining the Secretary of Education’s Waiver Authority, All4Ed and Education First (2025)
• Dale Chu, “Waiver and out: How red states plan to push the limits of federal ed policy,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (April 3, 2025).
• Andy Smarick, “Trump needs to call Lamar,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (March 20, 2025).
• Benjamin Backes, James Cowan, Dan Goldhaber, Building Bridges to Middle School? Elementary School Departmentalization and Academic Achievement in the Upper Grades, CALDER (2025)

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

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Scott Marion, Executive Director of the Center for Assessment, joins Mike and David to discuss why states should maintain annual assessments—even if the Trump Administration waives some federal testing requirements. Then, on the Research Minute, Adam reviews a study comparing surveys and test scores as measures of school quality and predictors of long-term student success.

Recommended content: 

• The Case for State Testing, The National Center for the Improvement of Education Assessment, Inc., (March 2025).
• The Case for Statewide School Accountability Systems, The National Center for the Improvement of Education Assessment, Inc., (March 2025).
• Victoria McDougald, “The case for standardized testing,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (August 1, 2024).
• Michael J. Petrilli, “The best colleges for political diversity,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (April 3, 2025).
• Joshua Angrist, Peter Hull, Russell Legate-Yang, Parag A. Pathak and Christopher R. Walters, Putting School Surveys to the Test, NBER (2025)

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

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Jim Blew, co-founder of the Defense of Freedom Institute, joins Mike and David to talk about his work on the Educational Choice for Children Act—a federal proposal that could expand educational options for families through school vouchers. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber examines a study on how expanding broadband access for Chicago families during the pandemic benefitted high achieving students but hurt their lower-performing peers.

Recommended content: 

• Children’s Tuition Fund,  Federal Tax Credit: What You Need to Know About the Educational Choice for Children Act (2025). 
• Michael J. Petrilli, “Education reform in red versus blue states,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (January 9, 2025).
• Dale Chu, “Education at an inflection point,” PPI (March 20, 2025).
• Jared N. Schachner, Julia A. Gwynne, Nicole P. Marwell, Elaine Allensworth, and Marisa de la Torre, Heterogeneous Effects of Closing the Digital Divide During COVID-19 on Student Engagement and Achievement, Annenberg Institute at Brown University (2025)

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

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Richard Kahlenberg, author of Class Matters: The Fight to Get Beyond Race Preferences, Reduce Inequality, and Build Real Diversity at America’s Colleges, joins Mike and David to discuss how Democrats can move beyond DEI and embrace “integration, equal opportunity, and belonging.” Then, on the Research Minute, Amber examines a study on the relationship between standardized test scores, high school GPA, and first-year college performance at Ivy-Plus universities.

Recommended content: 

• Richard Kahlenberg, “Time to Ditch DEI in Favor of Something Better,” The Liberal Patriot, (March 5, 2025).
• Richard Kahlenberg, A Way Out of the DEI Wars, PPI (February2025).
• Richard Kahlenberg, “Class Matters: The Fight to Get Beyond Race Preferences, Reduce Inequality, and Build Real Diversity at America’s Colleges,” (March 25, 2025).
• John N. Friedman, Bruce Sacerdote, Douglas O. Staiger, and Michele Tine, Standardized test scores and academic performance at Ivy-Plus colleges, NBER (March 2025)

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

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Steven Wilson, senior fellow at the Pioneer Institute, joins Mike to discuss his new book The Lost Decade: Returning to the Fight for Better Schools in America, which argues that the push for so-called Antiracist education derailed reform and harmed marginalized students. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber examines a study on how educators divide their attention during virtual tutoring—and how achievement, gender, race, and English learner status influence those interactions.

Recommended content: 

• Steven Wilson, “The Lost Decade: Returning to the Fight for Better Schools in America,” Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research, 2024.
• Wilson, Steven F. “The Promise of Intellectual Joy,” June 4, 2019. 
• Robert Pondiscio, “After a “lost decade,” let’s restore high expectations for students,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (December 12, 2024).
• Michael J. Petrilli, “11 thoughts about the massive layoffs at the U.S. Department of Education,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (March 11, 2025).
• Frederick M. Hess, “Defunding the teacher trainers,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (March 6, 2025).
• Qingyang Zhang, Rose E. Wang, Ana T. Ribeiro, Dorottya Demszky, and Susanna Loe, Educator Attention: How computational tools can systematically identify the distribution of a key resource for students, Annenberg Institute (March 2025)

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

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Charles Barone, Senior Director of the Center for Innovation at the National Parents Union, joins Mike and David to discuss the future of federal assessment and accountability policies under the Trump Administration. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber examines a study on student loan forgiveness and its impact on work, earnings, and borrowing.

Recommended content: 

• Charles Barone, “The Future of Assessment and Accountability | Part 1 | Goodbye Federal Assessment Guardrails?,” National Parents Union  (2025).
• Dale Chu, “Are states ready to lead on education? Could Trump’s policies set them up to fail?,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (March 6, 2025).
• Victoria McDougald, “The case for standardized testing,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (August 1, 2025).
• Michael Dinerstein, Samuel Earnest, Dmitri K. Koustas and Constantine Yannelis, Student Loan Forgiveness, NBER (February 2025)

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

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Jing Liu (University of Maryland) and Seth Gershenson (American University), authors of our latest report, Ready or Not? A New Way to Measure Elementary and Middle School Quality, join Mike and David to explore how tracking students’ future GPAs could offer a clearer measure of school quality. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber reviews a new study on young children’s evolving media consumption habits and their effects.

Recommended content: 

• Jing Liu, Ph.D. Seth Gershenson, Ph.D. and Max Anthenelli, Ready or Not? A New Way to Measure Elementary and Middle School Quality, Thomas B. Fordham Institute (February 20, 2025).
• David Griffith and Amber Northern, “Make room, test scores: Introducing “indicators of high school and middle school readiness,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (February 20, 2025). 
• Supreet Mann, Angela Calvin, Amanda Lenhart, and  Michael Robb, The 2025 Common Sense Census: Media Use by Kids Zero to Eight, Common Sense Media (2025)

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

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, John White, former Louisiana superintendent of education and current CEO of Great Minds PBC, joins David and Amber to discuss the reforms he led in Louisiana and their role in the state’s significant NAEP gains. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber highlights a study on the expansion of “transitional kindergarten” in Michigan and its impact on early learning access and socioeconomic gaps.

Recommended content: 

• Kevin Mahnken, “New NAEP Scores Dash Hope of Post-COVID Learning Recovery,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (January 29, 2025).
• Emily Freitag, “A bold state move to improve reading,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (February 20, 2025).
• Sara Schwartz, “Why Are Reading Scores Still Falling on the Nation’s Report Card?,” EducationWeek (January 29, 2025).
• Sonia Q. Cabell, James S. Kim, Thomas G. White, Charles J. Gale, Ashley A. Edwards, HyeJin Jordan Berne, Katia Córdoba García, Brian A. Jacob, Tareena Musaddiq, Samuel Owusu, Anna Shapiro, and Christina Weiland, Transitional Kindergarten: The New Kid on the Early Learning Block, SAGE Journals (2025)

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

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Mike and David discuss what’s really going on with DOGE, including its cuts to IES research grants and the implications for education policy. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber highlights a study on whether the Core Knowledge curriculum helped strengthen kindergarteners’ vocabulary and knowledge.

Recommended content: 

• Chester E. Finn, Jr., “Easy, DOGE. IES matters.,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (February 11, 2025).
• Robert Pondiscio, “Culture war vs. competence: Why conservatives should support Penny Schwinn,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (February 6, 2025).
• Chester E. Finn, Jr., “Trump should stay out of what students learn in school,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (January 30, 2025).
• Sonia Q. Cabell, James S. Kim, Thomas G. White, Charles J. Gale, Ashley A. Edwards, HyeJin Hwang, Yaacov Petscher, and Rhonda M. Raines, Impact of a Content-Rich Literacy Curriculum on Kindergarteners’ Vocabulary, Listening Comprehension, and Content Knowledge, Journal of Educational Psychology (2024)

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

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Delia Pompa, Senior Fellow for Education Policy at MPI’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy, joins Mike and David to discuss how the potential threat of immigration agents at school doors is affecting students—and what can be done to keep them coming to class. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber examines a study on the impact of a Hawaii Public Schools policy that raised special education teacher salaries by $10,000.

Recommended content: 

• Alexander Russo, “Threat Assesment: Ice raids in schools,” The Grade (February 5, 2025).
• Ileana Najarro, “How Schools Can Navigate Trump’s Immigration Policies,” Education Week (January 23, 2025).
• Liz Willen, “In just one week, Trump created a new culture of anxiety in education,” The Hechinger Report (January 27, 2025).
• Roddy Theobald, Zeyu Xu, Allison Gilmour, Lisa Lachlan-Hache, Elizabeth Bettini and Nathan Jones, The Impact of a $10,000 Bonus on Special Education Teacher Shortages in Hawai‘i, Sage Journals (2025)

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