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 work, citizenship, and even human flourishing rapidly evolve.

Then, on the Research Minute, David Griffith highlights a study linking the recent rise in child labor violations to declining school attendance—especially among Black youth and students living on farms.

Recommended content:

• A “Zero-Based Budgeting” Approach for High School Course Requirements in the Age of AI — Michael J. Petrilli for The Center on Reinventing Public Education
• The illusion of learning: The danger of artificial intelligence for education — Robert Pondiscio, Thomas B. Fordham Institute
• AI Will Transform The Workplace. Will Education Keep Up? — Matt Gandal, Forbes
• Contemporary Child Labor and Declining School Attendance in the U.S —Lucy C. Sorensen, Melissa Arnold Lyon, Ji Hyun Byeon, and Stephen B. Holt, EdWorkingPapers (2025)

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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 scaled back. Drawing on more than two decades of experience supporting families, including her own, as they navigate services, Elizabeth explains why strong oversight matters and what is at risk for students and districts when those safeguards erode.

Then, on the Research Minute, David Griffith shares a study from Sweden that tracks the long-term outcomes of students attending for-profit versus nonprofit charter high schools.

Recommended content:

• ‘Educational exile’: How Trump’s layoffs threaten students with disabilities — Susan Haas, Education Week
• CRPE on special education: Great diagnosis, wrong prescription — Chester E. Finn, Jr., Thomas B. Fordham Institute
• Schooling for Profit: Long-run Effects of Private Providers in Public Education —Petter Berg (2025)

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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 examines the experiences of Ohio’s high-achieving, low-income—or “HALO”—students and finds that access to advanced learning opportunities plays a major role in whether they make it to four-year colleges.

Then, on the Research Minute, David Griffith spotlights a decades-long British study that followed the same individuals from childhood to age fifty—revealing how early cognitive skills shape lifelong outcomes, from education and occupation to wages.

Recommended content:

• The Leaky Pipeline: Assessing the college outcomes of Ohio’s high-achieving low-income students —Stéphane Lavertu, Thomas B. Fordham Institute
• Excellence Gaps by Race and Socioeconomic Status —Meredith Coffey and Adam Tyner, Thomas B. Fordham Institute
• Building a Wider, More Diverse Pipeline of Advanced Learners —The National Working Group on Advanced Education
• Cognitive Skills Beyond Childhood —Uta Bolt, The Economic Journal (2025)

Feedback Welcome: Have ideas for improving our show? Send them to thegadfly@fordhaminstitute.org