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Welcome to Schooled, Slate’s new podcast about education. One of my frustrations as an education journalist is that there are so few opportunities to highlight interesting new research in a way that’s actually helpful to the consumers of K-12 education—parents and kids. That’s why producer Sally Herships and I have structured this podcast to do exactly that: To have a dialogue between a teacher of gifted kids and a researcher on giftedness; to interview one teacher who fled a high-poverty high school alongside another who stayed; and to talk to instructional experts about what parents should look for when they visit schools in which they’re considering enrolling their children. We’ll be tackling some of the thorniest debates in school reform, from whether middle-class kids suffer in classrooms with poor students to whether American schools are anti-intellectual. I hope you’ll listen regularly over the next six weeks!

Our first episode features Amanda Ripley, a fantastic reporter (and sometimes a fellow Slate contributor) whose book The Smartest Kids in the World is about what American parents and schools can learn from the best educational practices of high-achieving nations like Finland, Poland, and South Korea. Plus, find out which American states are on top educationally, and who’s smarter: The average Canadian kid or the average kid in Beverly Hills, Calif.

Podcast production by Sally Herships.