On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Marian Tupy, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the founder and editor of HumanProgress.org, joins Mike and David to discuss the incredible progress that humanity has made over millennia, and what schools might do to better teach kids that our past, present, and future is not all doom and gloom. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber examines a new study investigating if education savings accounts increase tuition costs at private schools.

Recommended content: 

• Ten global trends every smart person should know: And many others you will find interesting —Marian Tupy and Ronald Bailey
• “Progress, rediscovered” —Ronald Bailey, Reason Magazine
• “School choice need not mean an expensive windfall for the rich” —Michael Petrilli, Fordham Institute
• “Name Fordham’s boy band!” —Eduwonkette, Education Week
• Jason Fontana and Jennifer L. Jennings, “The effect of taxpayer-funded education savings accounts on private school tuition: Evidence from Iowa,” Annenberg Institute at Brown University (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, Adam Tyner, Fordham’s national research director, joins Mike and David to discuss his latest study on advanced education policies across the country. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber examines new research on how the decentralization of teacher accountability under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act affected student achievement.

Recommended content: 

• The broken pipeline: Advanced education policies at the local level —Adam Tyner, Fordham Institute
• Building a Wider, More Diverse Pipeline of Advanced Learners —The National Working Group on Advanced Education, Fordham Institute
• “Teacher evaluation reform was very successful—on paper” —Tim Daly, Fordham Institute
• “Jayden Daniels to Commanders with No. 2 pick in NFL draft” —ESPN
• Eric A. Hanushek, Patricia Saenz-Armstrong, and Alejandra Salazar, Balancing federalism: The impact of decentralizing school accountability, National Bureau of Economic Research (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, Joshua Dunn, Executive Director of the Institute of American Civics at the University of Tennessee, joins Mike and David to discuss how public schools will be affected by the end of the Chevron deference—the judicial doctrine in which courts defer to federal agencies’ reasonable interpretations of ambiguous statutes. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber examines a new paper criticizing the famous STAR class size study.

Recommended content: 

• “Fishing for rules” —Joshua Dunn, Education Next
• “The case for the supreme court to overturn Chevron Deference” —Wall Street Journal
• “The Chevron deference is desperately needed” —David Martin, Washington Post
• Karun Adusumilli, Francesco Agostinelli, and Emilio Borghesan, “Heterogeneity and endogenous compliance: Implications for scaling class size interventions,” National Bureau of Economic Research (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, Robert Pondiscio, a senior fellow at Fordham and the American Enterprise Institute, joins Mike and David to discuss the state of curricular reform. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber examines new data from the Institute of Education Sciences’ Condition of Education Report.

Recommended content: 

• “40 years after ‘A nation at risk,’ could curriculum reform finally move the needle on academic improvement?” —Robert Pondiscio, The 74
• “The ‘case for curriculum’ is about reducing teachers’ workload” —Robert Pondiscio, Fordham Institute
• Véronique Irwin et. al., “Report on the Condition of Education 2023,” National Center for Education Statistics (August 2023).

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

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].