Why Are You Threw Out of Public Schools?

5min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

"I was kicked out of the New York City public schools, three times," he says. "It didn't dawn on me that providing incentives for students to do behaviors that we thought were highly correlated with achievement later was somehow repulsive" The idea came from his grandmother who wanted him to be a good student and did not want her grandchild to struggle in school as she had done before. He believes it's important 'not crushing the love of learning but fostering it,' particularly in inner city schools where gangs and other things are given an edge.

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.