Roland Martin: I just want to say it's one of the most important lessons of economics. Implementing them is not a simple thing because announcing it is not sufficient, he says. Martin said his grandmother was a sixth grade English teacher who integrated schools in 1969 in Florida. "I wanted a little differentiation so I could understand whether it was worth it in the return of the best"
The good news about educational reform, says Harvard economist Roland Fryer, is that we know what it takes to turn a school around. The bad news is that it's hard work--and implementing it won't win you any popularity contests. Listen as the MacArthur Genius Award Winner and John Bates Clark medalist speaks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about how pizza parties revealed the potential of incentives to improve students' test scores, and why he's far more concerned about closing the racial achievement gap than keeping the love of learning pure. He also discusses the five best practices of successful schools, and why it's his failures far more than his successes that keep him in this fight.