Mike Petrilli takes a solo turn to tackle teacher diversity, a topic at the center of today’s debates over DEI. Should schools recruit teachers whose backgrounds reflect those of their students? What does the research say about how shared life experiences shape student outcomes? And how can schools promote diversity while maintaining high standards for academic excellence?

Then on the Research Minute, Amber Northern examines new research on Arkansas’s LEARNS Act, which raised the state’s minimum teacher salary to $50,000, and what it reveals about teacher pay and retention.

Recommended content:

• The Right Way to Boost Teacher Diversity —Michael J. Petrilli for AEI
• Can left and right find middle ground on teacher diversity? —Michael J. Petrilli, SCHOOLED
• In defense of teacher diversity —Michael J. Petrilli, SCHOOLED
• Raising the Floor: Teacher Retention Effects of a Statewide Minimum Salary Increase —Gema Zamarro, Andrew M. Camp, Josh McGee, Taylor Wilson, and Miranda Vernon, CALDER (2026)

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

Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, joins the Education Gadfly Show to discuss the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence and what it could mean for schools. As AI tools grow more powerful, do schools need to fundamentally rethink how they prepare students for the future of work?

Then on the Research Minute, Amber Northern looks at evidence from New Jersey on whether raising teacher salaries improves student outcomes, highlighting research that links salary increases to gains in test scores, graduation rates, and college enrollment.

Recommended content:

• Agentic AI and the Future of Work —Robin Lake, Think Forward: Learning with AI, The Center on Reinventing Public Education
• AI-assisted learning stumbles on the evidence —Daniel Buck and Anna Low, Thomas B. Fordham Institute
• What Happens When We Pay Our Teachers More? Evidence from New Jersey Public Schools —Prasiddha Shakya, Institute of Education Sciences, EdWorking Papers (2024)
• Raising the Floor: Teacher Retention Effects of a Statewide Minimum Salary Increase —Gema Zamarro, Andrew M. Camp, Josh McGee, Taylor Wilson, and Miranda Vernon, CALDER (2026)

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

Drew Bailey, professor at the University of California, Irvine, joins The Education Gadfly Show to discuss the fadeout effect across education interventions. Why do early treatment effects shrink over time, and what does that mean for judging program success, especially when test score gains diminish but long-term outcomes like graduation rates and earnings persist? We also debate the role of test scores in accountability, the evidence linking school value-added to real-world success, and what this all means for the role of testing in school choice initiatives.

Then on the Research Minute, Amber Northern examines new data on how states define “proficiency” in reading and math and what NAEP reveals about rigor, transparency, and the debate over standards.

Recommended content:

• Why Do Most Education Interventions Fade Out Over Time? —Drew Bailey, Tyler Watts, and Emma Hart, Education Next
• School Choice, Test Scores and Long-Term Outcomes: The Evidence Is Ambiguous —Michael J Petrilli, Education Next
• Reducing Inequality through Dynamic Complementarity: Evidence from Head Start and Public School Spending —Rucker C. Johnson and C. Kirabo Johnson, American Economic Journal
• A future for IES? —Chester E. Finn, Jr., Thomas B. Fordham Institute
• Mapping State Proficiency Standards Onto the NAEP Scales Results From the 2022 NAEP Reading and Mathematics Assessments —Darrick Shen-Wei Yee and Brian Cramer, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics (2026)

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