The Education Gadfly Show

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. Feedback welcome: Have any feedback on our podcast? Send them to our podcast producers Pedro Enamorado at penamorado@fordhaminstitute.org or Lilly Sibel at lsibel@fordhaminstitute.org.

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).Feedback Welcome!Have ideas on our podcast? Send them to our podcast producers Pedro Enamorado and Lilly Sibel at penamorado@fordhaminstitute.org and lsibel@fordhaminstitute.org

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 penamorado@fordhaminstitute.org and lsibel@fordhaminstitute.org  

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 penamorado@fordhaminstitute.org and lsibel@fordhaminstitute.org 

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 penamorado@fordhaminstitute.org or Lilly Sibel at lsibel@fordhaminstitute.org 

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 penamorado@fordhaminstitute.org or Lilly Sibel at lsibel@fordhaminstitute.org 

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 reengage students, teachers, and parents, and address misbehavior. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber Northern reviews a study on how developmental outcomes are affected by gender differences in how children spend their time.Recommended content:Mike Goldstein’s Fordham op-ed: “The coming ‘second wave’ of learning loss in 2023 and 2024.”Our episode with Doug Lemov on the related issue of rebuilding school culture: “Education Gadfly Show #817: Doug Lemov on rebuilding school culture amid a mental health epidemic.”The study that Amber reviewed on the Research Minute: Ha Trong Nyogen et al., “Gender differences in time allocation contribute to differences in developmental outcomes in children and adolescents,” Economics of Education Review (May 2022).Feedback welcome!Have ideas or feedback on our podcast? Send them to our podcast producer Pedro Enamorado at penamorado@fordhaminstitute.org. 

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 opportunities for their young children later in life. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber Northern reviews two studies on whether there’s bias in ability grouping within kindergarten classrooms.Recommended content:Dr. Suskind’s new book, Parent Nation: Unlocking Every Child’s Potential, Fulfilling Society’s Promise. The studies that Amber reviewed on the Research Minute: Paul T. von Hippel and Ana P. Cañedo, “Is Kindergarten Ability Group Placement Biased? New Data, New Methods, New Answers,” American Educational Research Journal (2021); Ana P. Cañedo and Paul T. von Hippel, “Bias in Kindergarten ability group placement: Does parental lobbying make it worse? Do formal assessments make it better?” retrieved from Annenberg Institute at Brown University (May 2022).Feedback welcome!Have ideas or feedback on our podcast? Send them to our podcast producer Pedro Enamorado at penamorado@fordhaminstitute.org.

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 Northern reviews a study on whether Black and Hispanic children with disabilities are placed in special education classrooms at greater rates than their peers.Recommended content:Kane’s op-ed in The Atlantic: “Kids Are Far, Far Behind in School.”Kane’s report, coauthored with scholars from AIR, Dartmouth, Harvard, and NWEA: “The Consequences of Remote and Hybrid Instruction During the Pandemic.”The study that Amber reviewed on the Research Minute: Paul L. Morgan et al., “Which Students With Disabilities are Placed Primarily Outside of U.S. Elementary School General Education Classrooms?” Journal of Learning Disabilities (2022).Feedback welcome!Have ideas or feedback on our podcast? Send them to our podcast producer Pedro Enamorado at penamorado@fordhaminstitute.org.

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 Research Minute, Amber Northern reviews a study on how a performance-based teacher pay policy in the U.K. impacted personnel decisions and student outcomes.Recommended content:Checker’s new book, Assessing the Nation’s Report Card: Challenges and Choices for NAEP.The study that Amber reviewed on the Research Minute: Simon Burgess, Ellen Greaves, and Richard Murphy, “Deregulating Teacher Labor Markets,” Economics of Education Review (March 2022).Feedback welcome!Have ideas or feedback on our podcast? Send them to our podcast producer Pedro Enamorado at penamorado@fordhaminstitute.org.