On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Mike and David discuss what’s really going on with DOGE, including its cuts to IES research grants and the implications for education policy. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber highlights a study on whether the Core Knowledge curriculum helped strengthen kindergarteners’ vocabulary and knowledge.

Recommended content:

• Chester E. Finn, Jr., “Easy, DOGE. IES matters.,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (February 11, 2025).
• Robert Pondiscio, “Culture war vs. competence: Why conservatives should support Penny Schwinn,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (February 6, 2025).
• Chester E. Finn, Jr., “Trump should stay out of what students learn in school,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute (January 30, 2025).
• Sonia Q. Cabell, James S. Kim, Thomas G. White, Charles J. Gale, Ashley A. Edwards, HyeJin Hwang, Yaacov Petscher, and Rhonda M. Raines, Impact of a Content-Rich Literacy Curriculum on Kindergarteners’ Vocabulary, Listening Comprehension, and Content Knowledge, Journal of Educational Psychology (2024)

Feedback Welcome: Have ideas for improving our podcast? Send them to Stephanie Distler at sdistler@fordhaminstitute.org.

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Delia Pompa, Senior Fellow for Education Policy at MPI’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy, joins Mike and David to discuss how the potential threat of immigration agents at school doors is affecting students—and what can be done to keep them coming to class. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber examines a study on the impact of a Hawaii Public Schools policy that raised special education teacher salaries by $10,000.

Recommended content:

• Alexander Russo, “Threat Assesment: Ice raids in schools,” The Grade (February 5, 2025).
• Ileana Najarro, “How Schools Can Navigate Trump’s Immigration Policies,” Education Week (January 23, 2025).
• Liz Willen, “In just one week, Trump created a new culture of anxiety in education,” The Hechinger Report (January 27, 2025).
• Roddy Theobald, Zeyu Xu, Allison Gilmour, Lisa Lachlan-Hache, Elizabeth Bettini and Nathan Jones, The Impact of a $10,000 Bonus on Special Education Teacher Shortages in Hawai‘i, Sage Journals (2025)

Feedback Welcome: Have ideas for improving our podcast? Send them to Stephanie Distler at sdistler@fordhaminstitute.org.

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Brian Kisida, Associate Professor at the Truman School of Government & Public Affairs at the University of Missouri, joins Mike and David to discuss his recent Education Next article, which reports on what high school students are hearing from their teachers about racism in America. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber shares a study about how test-optional policies at elite universities hurt high-achieving, disadvantaged students.

Recommended content:

• Brian Kisida, Gary Ritter, Jennifer Gontram, J. Cameron Anglum, Heidi H. Erickson, Darnell Leatherwood, and Matthew H. Lee., “Bridging the Divide over Critical Race Theory in America’s Classrooms,” Education Next (November 1, 2024).
• Frederick Hess, “It’s a Crisis! It’s Nonsense! How Political Are K–12 Classrooms?,” Education Next (Winter 2025).
• Bruce Sacerdote, Douglas O. Staiger & Michele Tine, How Test Optional Policies in College Admissions Disproportionately Harm High Achieving Applicants from Disadvantaged Backgrounds, NBER (2025)

Feedback Welcome: Have ideas for improving our podcast? Send them to Stephanie Distler at sdistler@fordhaminstitute.org.