I am the father of two grown sons who are thankfully out of the K-12 education system. I say thanks to because I found education to be inherently anxiety-inducing. Getting your kids back to school after years is no easy feat and my own ambivalent memories as a student didn’t help.
I’m pretty sure it’s always been that way, but today it just seems to be in a fever of horror. There is increasing (and inefficient) spending per pupil; the lack of meaningful choice for many, if not most, parents and students; lack of transparency and accountability; the long-term effects of COVID-related quarantines; the rise of highly politicized curricula on everything from critical race theory (CRT) to gender and sexual orientation; and back to arguments over library books.
Today’s guest is Robert Pondiscio, an education expert at the American Enterprise Institute who wrote How the other half learns, a fantastic book about Success Academy, a controversial and highly effective charter school system based in New York (see my 2019 interview with him about it). Moreover, he is actually taught at a low-income public school in the South Bronx.
Pondiscio will add another concern to our list of concerns: Schools are not teaching children to read in any meaningful way. He’s a strong supporter of all forms of choice and school reform, but says choice alone is simply not enough to help lower-income kids who can benefit the most from a really good education.
We talk about all of that, plus vigilance and a bunch of other related topics. Lwe’ll call this episode “Everything You Wanted to Know About What’s Wrong with K-12 Education, But Were Too Afraid to Ask.” It was first performed as Reason livestream on YouTube (watch here), hosted by my colleague Zach Weissmueller.
Today’s sponsors:
- Lions of Liberty Podcast Network. Take the first step towards freedom by looking at one of the oldest libertarian/anarchist podcast networks in the world. Mondays, John Odermatt brings a powerful mix of inspiration, health and faith to set free mind, body and soul Finding freedom. On Wednesdays, Brian McWilliams will make you laugh at our broken world as providing the promise of a better future with Daydreaming of middle age. The offer on Fridays includes shows like The meme wars, Hate Guardand Libertarians in Living rooms Drinking alcoholic beverages. Listen today on the Lions of Liberty Network and wherever podcasts are found. Past episodes where Nick Gillespie talks about postmodernism and South Park and Rick and Morty are here and here.
- The Reason Speakeasy. The Reason Speakeasy is a live, monthly unscripted conversation with outspoken defenders of free thought and heterodoxy in an age of dismissal culture and thought police. The next one will take place in New York on Monday, February 6, with Nick Gillespie doing the interview Reason associate, unherd columnist, Female chaos podcaster and mystery writer Kat Rosenfield on celebrities who woke critics, cancellation culture and her new novel You must remember this. Doors open at 6 p.m. Tickets are $10 and include beer, wine, soft drinks and appetizers. For more details and to purchase tickets, go here.