The Education Gadfly Show
For more than 15 years, the Fordham Institute has been hosting a weekly podcast, The Education Gadfly Show. Each week, you’ll get lively, entertaining discussions of recent education news, usually featuring Fordham’s Mike Petrilli and David Griffith. Then the wise Amber Northern will recap a recent research study. For questions or comments on the podcast, contact its producer, Stephanie Distler, at sdistler@fordhaminstitute.org.
The Education Gadfly Show
Moving from science of reading laws to science of reading success | Episode 996 of The Education Gadfly Show
This week, we’re joined by Wonkathon winner Eric Tucker—CEO and president of The Study Group—to talk about his first-place entry on what it will take for the science of reading laws to succeed.
Then, on the Research Minute, David Griffith highlights a study showing how much valuable information is lost when individual test questions are collapsed into a single score—and why states could produce better value-added measures by using the rich data they already collect.
Recommended content:
- Science of reading 2.0: Assessment in the service of learning as the backbone of science-powered reading improvement — Edmund W. Gordon and Eric Tucker for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute
- Wonkathon 2025: What will make science of reading laws succeed? —Thomas B. Fordham Institute
- Do Test Scores Misrepresent Test Results? An Item-by-Item Analysis —Jesse Bruhn, Michael Gilraine, Jens Ludwig, and Sendhil Mullainathan, EdWorkingPapers (2025)
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Don’t miss our December 4 webinar, Implementation Is Where It’s At: What’s Next for the Science of Reading?, happening at 3:00 p.m. ET.
Feedback Welcome: Have ideas for improving our show? Send them to thegadfly@fordhaminstitute.org