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Education Gadfly Show #815: Paul Hill vs. Checker Finn: Does Denver prove that portfolio districts are doomed?

Michael J. Petrilli Paul T. Hill Chester E. Finn, Jr. Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.
4.13.2022
 

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast (listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify), Paul Hill, founder of the Center on Reinventing Public Education and emeritus professor at the University of Washington Bothell, joins Mike Petrilli and Checker Finn to debate recent reform setbacks in Denver, and whether they prove that portfolio districts are doomed. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber Northern shares good news from a study examining the intersection of gifted education and segregation.
 

Recommended content:

  • Checker’s case for why these types of reforms are not politically resilient: “Denver’s cautionary tale for the ‘charter-lite’ strategy.”
  • Paul’s response: “Denver doesn’t spell doom for portfolio-style reform.”
  • Paul’s book on innovation schools referenced during the podcast, Strife and Progress: Portfolio Strategies for Managing Urban Schools.
  • The study that Amber reviewed on the Research Minute: Owen Thompson, “Gifted & Talented Programs and Racial Segregation” NBER Working Paper #29546 (December 2021).

Feedback welcome!
Have ideas or feedback on our podcast? Send them to our podcast producer Pedro Enamorado at [email protected].

Policy Priority:
Quality Choices
Topics:
Governance

President, Thomas B. Fordham Institute

Michael J. Petrilli is president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, executive editor of Education Next, editor in chief of the Education Gadfly Weekly, host of the…

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Paul T. Hill is the founder of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, and Emeritus Professor at the University of Washington Bothell.

Chester E. Finn, Jr., scholar, educator and public servant, has devoted his career to improving education in the United States. At Fordham, he is now Distinguished Senior Fellow and President Emeritus. He’s also a Volker Senior Fellow at…

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Amber Northern is senior vice president for research at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, where she supervises the Institute’s robust research portfolio and…

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