Educationism (with Diane Ravitch)

Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

Civic Ventures

Business, Government, News, Politics

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 6 August 2019

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Like many rich Americans, Nick used to think that focusing their philanthropic efforts in the country’s education system could heal many of our biggest problems. But in The Atlantic last month, he admitted he was wrong—better schools won’t fix America unless we fix inequality first. He’s joined this week by Diane Ravitch, a giant in the education policy world who also changed her mind about what works and what doesn’t. Can these two converts from the theory of educationism find a new way to expand educational opportunity in America while also combating runaway income inequality? Diane Ravitch is a Research Professor of Education at New York University and a historian of education. She is the Founder and President of the Network for Public Education. From 1991 to 1993, she was Assistant Secretary of Education under President George H.W. Bush, where she led the federal effort to promote the creation of voluntary state and national academic standards. In her book ‘The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education’, Ravitch examines her career in education reform and repudiates positions that she once staunchly advocated. Twitter: @DianeRavitch Further reading: Better Schools Won’t Fix America: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/education-isnt-enough/590611/

Transcript

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0:00.0	Somehow high functioning communities and affluent communities always end up having terrific schools because they don't have the kinds of problems that very poor communities do.
0:11.0	A better education system will not save our democracy. Higher wages will.
0:17.0	I had the sense when I read your Atlantic essay of, oh my God, this guy is woke. From the offices of Civic Ventures in downtown Seattle this is
0:30.8	Pitch Fork Economics with Nick Hanauer, where we explore everything you wished you'd
0:36.0	learn in Econ 101. I'm Nick Henauer, founder of Civic Ventures.
0:47.0	I'm David Goldstein, Senior Fellow at Civic Ventures.
0:54.0	Nick, you recently got tweeted by President Obama.
0:58.2	I know that was, and people's heads exploded.
1:02.2	Yeah, we wrote this, we wrote this piece called Better Schools Won't
1:05.9	Fix America that appeared as the lead essay in the Atlantic in the July
1:11.4	issue and it's an attack on what we call in the be healed if we somehow fix our public schools.
1:23.6	And it's a thing that I believe for most of my adult life and have recently come to terms with
1:27.8	that was just wrong.
1:29.2	Then in fact, if you want to heal America, it's not the education system that's failing it's the
1:33.0	economic system right and and what was significant about president
1:37.6	Obama's tweet was that president Obama was an educationist too, right?
1:43.7	He was kind of with me on that whole school reform thing
1:48.6	and race to the top, and all that stuff.
1:51.5	And none of it's worked really. I mean, you know, that's the problem is it just hasn't really worked. And so, when he retweeted the piece, which, and I think it's the first essay he's retweeted in like a year
2:06.5	and a half.
2:07.5	This is not something he does routinely.
2:10.3	People's heads exploded because both, because he was retreating a piece but also because it was at least it looked like an admission that maybe he was wrong which is
	...

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