The Education Gadfly Show

This week, Mike Petrilli looks back at the highs and lows of education reform in 2025 as we wrap up our final episode of the year. Then, on the Research Minute, David Griffith closes things out with a...

17 Dec 202530min

This week, we’re joined by Matt Barnum, Chalkbeat’s Ideas editor, to unpack whether college enrollment is truly declining—or whether the national narrative has gotten ahead of the data. Then, on the ...

10 Dec 202529min

This week, we’re joined by Wonkathon winner Eric Tucker—CEO and president of The Study Group—to talk about his first-place entry on what it will take for the science of reading laws to succeed. Then, ...

3 Dec 202531min

This week, Mike Petrilli returns for a solo episode to dig into artificial intelligence—not classroom tools or teaching tips, but the big-picture implications of AI for what students need to learn as ...

19 Nov 202532min

This week, we’re joined by longtime special education advocate Elizabeth Yancy Bostic to discuss what could happen for students with disabilities if federal oversight and enforcement of IDEA are scale...

12 Nov 202529min

This week, we’re joined by Ohio State’s Stéphane Lavertu, author of Fordham’s new study, The Leaky Pipeline: Assessing the college outcomes of Ohio’s high-achieving low-income students. The report exa...

5 Nov 202528min

This week, Fordham’s President Emeritus Checker Finn joins the show to unpack a troubling trend—the collapse of graduation standards—and why it matters for every American student. Then, on David Griff...

29 Okt 202531min

This week, we’re joined by Bryan Hassel, co-president of Public Impact, to discuss how redesigning school staffing—through models like Opportunity Culture—can boost both teacher retention and student ...

22 Okt 202536min