Karen Vaites, founder of The Curriculum Insight Project, joins us to discuss the evolving debate over curriculum reviews and state adoption policies. As more states look to third-party evaluations to guide decisions—and some consider mandating state-approved lists—how can policymakers avoid making costly mistakes?

Then on the Research Minute, Amber Northern examines new evidence on whether teacher effectiveness truly transfers when high-performing educators move into lower-achieving schools.

Recommended content:

• Educators Were Sold a Story About Phonemic Awareness —Karen Vaites, The Curriculum Insight Project
• What American Education Reformers Can Learn from England — Helen Baxendale, Education Next
• Is Teacher Effectiveness Fully Portable? Evidence from the Random Assignment of Transfer Incentives —Matthew A. Kraft, John P. Papay, Jessalynn James and Manuel Monti-Nussbaum, EdWorkingPapers (2026)

Feedback Welcome: Have ideas for improving our show in 2026? We would love to hear them. Send them to thegadfly@fordhaminstitute.org

This week on The Education Gadfly Show, Mike Petrilli goes solo to talk about grade inflation—what it means, how it’s changed over time, and why tougher grading standards help students learn more. He argues that easier grades don’t serve students well—and explores what states can do about it.

Then, on the Research Minute, Amber Northern shares new evidence from Texas showing that distance from public colleges—especially community colleges—strongly shapes whether students enroll in and complete college, with particularly stark effects for lower-income and Hispanic students.

Recommended content:

• Grade Inflation in High Schools (2005–2016) —Seth Gershenson, Thomas B. Fordham Institute
• Great Expectations: The Impact of Rigorous Grading Practices on Student Achievement —Seth Gershenson, Thomas B. Fordham Institute
• “Equitable” Grading Through the Eyes of Teachers —David Griffith and Adam Tyner, Thomas B. Fordham Institute
• Easy A’s, lower pay: Grade inflation’s hidden damage —Jill Barshay, The Hechinger Report
• Distance to degrees: How college proximity shapes students’ enrollment choices and attainment across race-ethnicity and socioeconomic status —Riley Acton, Kalena E. Cortes, Lois Miller, and Camila Morales, Economics of Education Review (2025)

Feedback Welcome: Have ideas for improving our show in 2026? We would love to hear them. Send them to thegadfly@fordhaminstitute.org

This week on The Education Gadfly Show, we’re joined by Elliot Regenstein, partner at Foresight Law + Policy and author of Readiness: Preparing State Early Childhood Systems for a Brighter Future, to talk about early childhood education and care—and why state systems are so often fragmented and hard to navigate. We discuss who makes key decisions, why coordination is so difficult, and what it would take to build more coherent early childhood systems going forward.

Then, on the Research Minute, Amber Northern shares new evidence on achievement gaps across different types of schools, showing that inequality has grown fastest in traditional public schools, while charter schools show more positive trends over time.

Recommended content:

• Readiness: Preparing State Early Childhood Systems for a Brighter Future —Elliot Regenstein
• The Best American School System —Tim Daly, The Education Daly
• The Nation’s Achievement Inequality Report Card: An Assessment of Test Score and Equality Trends in Traditional Public, Charter, Catholic, and Department of Defense Schools —M. Danish Shakeel, Misty Gallo, and Patrick J. Wolf, EdWorkingPapers (2026)

Feedback Welcome: Have ideas for improving our show in 2026? We would love to hear them. Send them to thegadfly@fordhaminstitute.org