ArchiveFM

The Daily

America’s Education Problem

For decades, the U.S. spent billions of dollars trying to close its education gap with the rest of the world. New data shows that all that money made little difference. Today, we investigate how that could be. Guest: Dana Goldstein, a national correspondent for The New York Times who covers education. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.  Background reading:The past three American presidents have tried to help the U.S. education system compete with other countries. Test scores haven’t improved.The “Nation’s Report Card” came out this fall. It indicated that two-thirds of children in the U.S. are not proficient readers.
Duration
26m
Broadcast on
05 Dec 2019
Audio Format
other

For decades, the U.S. spent billions of dollars trying to close its education gap with the rest of the world. New data shows that all that money made little difference. Today, we investigate how that could be. Guest: Dana Goldstein, a national correspondent for The New York Times who covers education. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

Background reading:

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Brought to you by the Capital One Saver Card. With Saver, you are an unlimited 3% cashback on dining, entertainment, and at grocery stores. That's unlimited cashback on ordering takeout from home. Or unlimited cashback on tickets to concerts and games. So grab a bite, grab a seat, and earn unlimited 3% cashback with the Saver Card. Capital One. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com for details. From the New York Times, I'm Michael Buevaro. This is The Daily. Today, for decades, the U.S. has spent billions of dollars trying to close its education gap with the rest of the world. New data shows that all that money made no difference. Dana Goldstein on How That Could Be. is Thursday, December 5th. Dana, when do the United States start to feel a sense of anxiety around the education levels of our children in relation to the rest of the world? Well, I think back to 1957. But the biggest news to come out of Russia was the story of the year, perhaps of our generation. And that was the year that the Russians beat us to space. Their radio beep signaling not merely a red scientific triumph, but the launching of mankind into a new era, the dawn of the age of space, Sputnik and Mutnik they were called. With their Sputnik satellite. And this triggered a sort of national conversation and anxiety in the United States among our political leaders and the public. We were the country that beat back tyranny and saved the world in World War One and World War Two. What did it mean that this other nation could outperform us in this new frontier of space? And that was the start of a conversation about our schools and if they were preparing kids to compete on the global stage. This continues in the 1980s with the rise of Japan and the rise of China and with the reduction of these good factory jobs that used to ensure Americans and middle-class life. So by the 1990s there's a consensus among education reformers and politicians who care about this that maybe it would be helpful to have Washington play a role and the federal government get involved. And a few governors whose names we've all heard of like Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are those that agree. I oftentimes we talk about our children having self-esteem. You can't teach self-esteem. But when we teach our children to read and write and add and subtract, they learn self-esteem. They earn it and that's the whole vision for America is that every child gets educated. When George W. Bush was running for president, this was the conversation that he was immersed in and in fact he makes education reform and the idea of a bigger role for Washington. Part of his pitch as a different kind of quote compassionate conservative. That's how he defines himself. He says he really does care about those that are getting left behind in this new globalized economy and he says he really does care about helping low income students and students of color do better academically so they can compete. That's good to meet you all.

Transcription truncated.

For decades, the U.S. spent billions of dollars trying to close its education gap with the rest of the world. New data shows that all that money made little difference. Today, we investigate how that could be. Guest: Dana Goldstein, a national correspondent for The New York Times who covers education. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.  Background reading:The past three American presidents have tried to help the U.S. education system compete with other countries. Test scores haven’t improved.The “Nation’s Report Card” came out this fall. It indicated that two-thirds of children in the U.S. are not proficient readers.