Do We Have to Do It for Our Children?

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I think there's a lot of racism about what parents are capable of in poor neighborhoods. We have to top down, improve the school system through the whole district and not allow these competitive forces because they might work in other parts of the economy,. But they won't work in education because the consumer is uninformed. And so if we communicate with the communities and help them understand the set of choices and the consequences that come from those just like we would do any other community.

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.