SCHOOLED is Michael J. Petrilli’s twice-weekly free Substack and email newsletter restarting the education-reform conversation. Click here to subscribe for: Sharp analysis of the week’s biggest K–12 debates
This week, Fordham’s President Emeritus Checker Finn joins the show to unpac
School boards—an elected group of community members that sets policy, approves the yearly budget, and establishes a vision for a school district—haven’t been around forever.
Discredited ideas don’t return to most professions.
Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2025 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to answer this question: “What needs to happen next—at the state, district, and school levels—for the science of reading revolution to fulfill its promise and ensure that far more
For the science of reading to succeed in elementary school classrooms, we need to prepare aspiring teachers in what it is, how to use it, how to measure it, and how to target it to meet the needs of individual learners. That means starting in teacher preparation programs.
Fordham’s latest study, "Who’s on Board? School Boards and Political Representation in an Age of Conflict," offers an unvarnished look at the nation’s school board members. The findings confirm that local school boards function less like independent oversight bodies and more like glorified parent-teacher associations.
For decades, high-achieving high school students have been told the surest way to impress selective colleges is to take calculus. In a recent national survey of 133 admissions officers, 74 percent said the College Board’s Advanced Placement calculus course is among the math classes that “carry the most weight” in admissions decisions.
During my second tour as a U.S. Navy officer, I served as a navigator aboard a test warship in San Diego. In port, navigators often have little to do other than prepare for the next deployment. But not every military job is created equal.
The types, amounts, and modes of testing done in our schools are subject to debate and analysis, with “too much,” “too often,” “too complex,” and “not helpful” among the many complaints.
Although teacher quality policies involving salaries, working conditions,
This week, we’re joined by Bryan Hassel, co-president of Public Impact, to discuss how r
Editor’s note: This was first published on the author’s Substack, The Bell Ringer. Last week, Eric Hirsch, the Chief Executive Officer of curriculum review nonprofit EdReports, announced he is stepping down in June of 2026.
Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2025 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to answer this question: “What needs to happen next—at the state, district, and school levels—for the science of reading revolution to fulfill its promise and ensure that far more
The headlines last month, as the newest results of the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) were released, painted a dire picture of a massive ship taking on water. Indeed, the results were awful.
Editor’s note: This was first published on Mike Petrilli’s Substack, SCHOOLED.
What’s missing in today’s conversations about American education is that the declines we’ve seen since 2013 or so came on the heels of two decades of remarkable progress. Perhaps my fellow ed-policy wonks understand that, but I doubt the general public does. And it wasn’t just test scores. Students graduated from high school and college in much greater numbers, too.
The new federal tax-credit scholarship is being hailed as a breakthrough for school choice: more options, more opportunity, more innovation. But history offers a warning. Even though these tax-credit funds never technically enter federal coffers, once Washington confers a benefit, its influence tends to follow.
Mark Twain famously said that there are three kinds of falsehoods: “lies, damned lies, and statistics.” We need to add a fourth to that list: state-issued report cards on schools. Drafted with good intentions, these accountability measures have been redrafted into glorified district propaganda and are in need of not just reformation, but a complete restructuring.
The science of reading (SOR) has been one of education’s hottest topics in recent years, with 40 states and the District of Columbia
This week, Mike Petrilli flies solo to discuss New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Ma
After our record-setting Wonkathon that brought in 48 submissions, the polls are now open to crown 2025's Wisest Wonk. Vote now using our survey! Everyone will have until 1:00 p.m. ET on Monday, November 24, to pick a favorite. We’ll then tally everything up and announce our first-, second-, and third-place winners in the Tuesday, November 25, edition of the Education Gadfly Weekly. In the meantime, read the entries.
Democratic Socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has proposed phasing out the successful and popular Gifted and Talented (G&T) progr
Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Party’s nominee for mayor of New York City, has announced his intention to end kindergarten entry into the city’s Gifted & Talented (G&T) programming by September 2027.
While local school board members’ partisanship and ideology largely mirror the American public’s, that’s not the case when it comes to their views on charter schools and teachers unions. And in terms of how they see their own districts’ schools, they might as well being wearing rose-colored glasses. Those are some of the findings in our latest study, which sheds light on the surprising ways that representation does and doesn’t work in one of the country’s most important democratic institutions.
Coming out of Covid and with an efflorescence of alternatives to traditional public schools, it’s been clear for a while that the relationship between families and s
From Silicon Valley to the World Economic Forum, boosters insist that artificial intelligence will transform education—closing learning gaps and personalizing instruction for every child. We’re betting it won’t.
Except for cancelled proms and mothballed graduation celebrations, the class of 2020 largely escaped the negative impacts of pandemic school closures that wreaked havo
In the 2020 presidential election, barely half of 18- to 24-year-olds voted, compared to 76 percent of those in the 65–74 age group.
This week, Aneesh Sohoni, CEO of Teach for America, joins The Education Gadfly Show to discuss TFA’s impact in the clas
